The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Good Talk - The Emergencies Act - The Investigation

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

Chantal and Bruce with their thoughts on the new commission in Ottawa town, and what day one told us about how this investigation will unfold.  Also by comparison, the final committee hearing into the January 6th insurrection in Washington.  And is federalism in Canada dead? And what's Chrystia Freeland up to?  It's a full slate with something for everyone.

Are you ready for good talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Banff, Alberta, and what a gorgeous day it is here today. It is spectacular. It's spectacular in Banff almost any day, but they've been on a run of great weather here for the last week or so. No rain. No rain in sight for the next, I don't know, eight or ten days. Temperatures in the high teens, low twenties. They've got the view. They've got everything here. It is really quite special.

I'm here to give a speech. You don't want to hear about that. But what you do want to hear is that this place appears as pure, both in its view and the air and everything, as it was the day in 1887 when Cornelius Van Horn stood here and said, I'm going to build a world-class hotel right here. And you know what? He did. And I'm in it. So I'm happy. All right. Yesterday was day one of the commission hearings into the use of the Emergencies Act by the federal government last year. Was it last year or this year? This year. This year. Oh, time flies when you're having fun. Anyway, it got started yesterday, and the start was really kind of what was expected.

All the participants with their lawyers made their opening statements, laid out the ground as they saw it in terms of Ottawa's use of the Emergencies Act, whether it was right or wrong, whether it accomplished anything or not. When you listened to what you listened to yesterday, did anything surprise you? Chantal, you start. Things I didn't hear yesterday, and I have not been following this as closely as a journalist or assigned to report on it on a daily basis, but the fact that the Ontario government and Premier Doug Ford did not seek standing and are not there. It kind of strikes me and as much as last time I checked Toronto and Windsor, the convoy elements are both represented, both of them to say, by the way, that this was not a useful exercise for them and that they felt that they hadn't been properly consulted. They were no one actually listened or was interested in their opinion one way or the other.

This was more of a this is the way we're going to go. So I found that interesting. I also found the difference between what the Ontario Provincial Police seemed to be suggesting at the Parliamentary Committee about saying these were useful tools. So it's a question of angle to, we didn't really need this. When yesterday was an interesting shift in tone, I added both of those up and I figured not only does Premier Ford not want to play in this movie, but he is not going to be helping out

his sometimes pal, the Prime Minister on this. Bruce, anything surprise you? No, I don't. Look, I'm going to declare, because I know we're going to talk about this a few times, probably over the course of the coming weeks, that I could end up being completely wrong about this. But if I think about it from the standpoint of what I know about public opinion, here's what I think. Canadians are generally pretty disinterested in what happened a while ago. They're especially likely to be disinterested if they don't think anything really bad was done or harmful was done. I think the people who are happiest about the fact of this commission somehow imagine that a discussion about a choice that was made that most people supported at the time and didn't cause lasting damage to our democracy are going to all of a sudden find themselves immersed in it and come away with a completely different impression. I find that naive. I don't think that's the way this is going to work. The last time Canadians got pretty interested in a scandal, it seemed to me was the sponsorship scandal some several years

ago. And that was a real scandal. In my view, I don't think this is a real scandal. Again, I couldn't be wrong about that. I want to see the evidence before I form a final judgment about it. But ad scam happened or the sponsorship scandal happened. It consumed a lot of political energy and time for months on end. And at the end of it, Paul Martin still won an election for the Liberals after that, not saying it didn't damage the Liberal Party brand. But at the bottom line for me is the fact that there is an inquiry shows how well, relatively speaking, our system of checks works. And I think those who didn't like the decision think it's going to prove

the opposite, but I don't see it that way. Chantal? I'm somewhere else altogether. For one, I don't think there are parallels between AdScam and the GoMori commission, and what started yesterday in the sense that AdScam, yes, I agree with Bruce, was a scandal. But this isn't mandated by some controversy that the government is trying to get off the hook on by calling an inquiry. It's mandated by legislation. And I totally agree with Bruce on one point. I believe that the people who approved this last spring are not about to change their minds, no matter what the findings at the end of the exercise will be. But I want this exercise to

be done in a professional fashion. Why? Because someone somewhere that is not a politician needs to set the bar on the basis of this happening in real time for future events and to the many who approve of justin trudeau on this and who said he was totally in the right to do what he had to do would they feel the same way about a conservative government using the same law to get rid of indigenous blockades and using the same arguments? And on that basis, while I don't see this as a revelation after revelation exercise or, you know, gotcha moments like we saw at the Gomery Commission. I believe it's extremely important. I would say more important than the scandal that was at the center of the sponsorship inquiry.

The thing I think, there's a couple of things that everybody's got to keep in mind. This is not a, you know, it's not a criminal case. Nobody's going to get charged with anything at the end of all this. The commissioner went to pains to explain. He's just trying to find out what happened, right, and just lay out the situation as he determines it from the testimony that's given. The one thing I'm still not clear of, which could be interesting as this thing carries on. I know a couple of people weighed in on this yesterday, but it's still not clear to me. Do the different lawyers who are representing the different sides, and there are many sides to this, as we clearly found out yesterday, whether

it's police or provincial governments, federal governments, citizens of Ottawa, those who were involved in the protests, etc., etc. What is not clear to me is if when certain people get up and testify, give their side, can the lawyers from the different places challenge them, ask them questions, including the Prime Minister? And if they can, that's going to be, that would be quite something. That's my understanding, that they have a right to ask witnesses questions, and that is why they have representation. So, yes, that is totally possible.

Now, I believe we're going to see a lot of politics as part of this process. What a surprise. But the fundamental question is, was this an emergency that justified the use of this law? And if so, was it the only possible way to resolve the issue? Or were there other ways to do it? And what I think a lot of people who are looking at this find or hope to find interesting is what the security services and other agencies have told cabinet about this. Remember, this law replaces the War Measures Act. When the federal cabinet in 1970 during the October crisis was told that there was an

apprehended insurrection looming in Quebec if the government didn't act. There was no apprehended insurrection, but that is what they were told by police forces and security forces. So this part of the exercise will be really interesting. Did the government cave under political pressure to do something, or did the government have actual information that justified what it did? And I couldn't tell you one way or the other what the answer is to that question. I think that's the purpose of the commission. Right. Well, they certainly indicated at the time in some of their statements that there was more to the story that they weren't able to talk about at the time. So, if they're going to be able to talk about it, this is the

potentially the opportunity for it. Although, as we've said before, I've said before that, you know, for them to have information of what was going on inside the protest groups, they must have had somebody inside the protest groups. And if they did, they're probably not willing to say who that was or how they got the information from him or her. Bruce, you wanted to weigh in? Yeah, a couple of things. I was reading John Iveson's column this morning, and he was sort of making the case, as others have, that the burden of proof is on the government that you're going to come out of it having made your points well and gaining some measure of public confidence or support as a result,

a shield issue being one where all you're really trying to do is keep yourself from getting hurt too badly. I'm reading a lot of pieces that suggest that this is a shield situation for the government. I don't see it that way. I think that there are two separate issues, one of which is the substantive and thoughtful issue that Chantal has raised about the use of this kind of tool and needing to have deterrence and checks and balances and a conversation after the fact that's thorough and professional and everything else. I agree with that. I don't happen to think that that's going to be transfixing for the public, but I don't think it matters.

I think we do need to have a law that works that way and that has that kind of stress test built into it. But the other conversation is really going to be one that's going to feature people who are anti-vax and law-breaking, making cases that sound incendiary, that sound offside broad public opinion, and the government saying it was unlawful, and we were trying to do the combination of things that we thought would protect people the most. And if I'm on the political side of the government, I'm thinking that's a sword issue all the way, and it's going to attract most of the attention that comes out of these hearings. Worst case scenario for the government. Justice Rouleau, in very legal words, doesn't find that the grounds were, or that the government took a shortcut by using the law, or it didn't have sufficient grounds. I can't see how it could be in the conservative interest

and Pierre Poilievre's interest to pursue this for weeks on end because it will only remind people of where he stood. It doesn't validate the convoy to say that. It doesn't make it right in the minds of a majority in public opinion. It just means that this could or should have been resolved some other way but at bottom line if you're the conservatives you don't want to be spending weeks on end reminding people that you were you're on these guys side uh just you know especially with danielle smith in the background saying things like there was no in her lifetime, there's been no group more discriminated against than people who chose not to get vaccinated.

This is not a good scenario for conservatives federally, as far as I can tell. I agree with Chantal about that. She's tried to walk that back a bit, but it stands as a statement she made and she's getting hammered for it from all sides. She didn't say it was wrong. Right. OK, we're going to take our first break. statement she made and she's getting hammered for it from uh didn't say it was wrong right okay we're going to take our first break when we come back we'll talk about a different kind of protests that uh that caused all kinds of problems in another country and that of course is the january 6th in the u.s we'll talk about that right after this and welcome back you're listening to the bridge on sirius xm channel 167 canada

talks and or on your favorite podcast platform i'm peter mansbridge with chantantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. Extraordinary stuff yesterday in Washington as the committee, the January 6th committee, looking into what happened, the events there, and that will get the year right on that one. That was 2021, last year. And they're still trying to determine just how involved Donald Trump was in organizing that and making it happen on the day. There's little doubt, certainly in my mind, after witnessing all the stuff yesterday. Especially the video that came out, which for some reason has not been seen the lot or by anyone in the public for the last more than a year and a half, which clearly indicates with members of the U.S. Congress, senators and House of Representative, congressmen, in a locked room a couple of miles from the

Capitol, hidden away from the public, protected by whatever number of, you know, armed guards. They'd been rushed out of the Capitol building. And they were there together, Republicans and Democrats, and they were outraged and they were demanding answers from all these recently appointed Trump officials in the Defense Department, in the Attorney General's Department, and others, about why the president wasn't saying something. And these guys who were trying to answer the questions clearly had no knowledge of what the president was thinking because they couldn't reach him. And these pathetic attempts to try and help Vice President Pence, who was trapped in a basement somewhere, equally

unable to get through to Trump to bring help to the Capitol building. It was quite the scene yesterday. It was their last hearing, supposedly, and I'm not sure what happens from here on in. They've subpoenaed Trump. I'm sure you what happens from here on in. They've subpoenaed Trump. I'm sure you'll ignore it. But it was quite something to watch. And when our situation, different, obviously, but in some ways, there are some similarities.

But what the Americans are dealing with, they've got this incredible volume of evidence that they keep putting out. Every one of these hearings has had new stuff to ponder and look at, and they built their case over time. Bruce, what do you want to say about this? Well, if the things that Trump did in the run up to and on the day of January 6th and even after that, if all of them, if the cumulative effect is that they don't matter, then the conclusion I think we have to come is that nothing ever will matter. And U.S. democracy is kind of severely broken. I mean, Trump once said a few years ago that he thought he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and it wouldn't matter, his voters would support him. And everybody thought, what a ridiculous thing to say. And everybody since then who's watched this closely enough is starting to wonder whether or not there's not just a kind of a rhetorical flourish, an exaggeration of the truth, but it might actually be the truth that people who are, I don't want to say just the Republicans feel this way about Democrats, but MAGA Republicans

in particular, Make America Great Again Republicans, seem to have such a hatred for all things democratic, that they're willing to overlook an awful lot of things. And the last point I would make is, Peter, you went through some of the facts. I mean, the ones that were revealed yesterday were more of the same, more damning in some respects, the fact that the Secret Service was very well aware of the armed threat, and that the President absolutely was aware of it, and that his decision at every point where he had an opportunity to protect people and the institution was to go in the opposite direction. Nobody on his side is disputing the basic facts that he knew that he lost and that he chose to use every means at his disposal to avoid leaving office.

He told people that he knew that he lost. He told people not to check for weapons because they that Trump was doing nothing to help protect them. In fact, he was doing the opposite. He was egging on the mob. Right. He was doing nothing because he'd arranged it. He'd set it up. And that's what the committee has proven, that over weeks, if not months, he'd set it up and that's what the committee has proven that over over weeks if not

months he'd set this whole thing up you know and it always runs against the argument you know trump's a dummy trump's not a dummy he knew exactly what he was doing he's a lot of things he's not stupid um but he's if he's stupid it's because the tracks have been have have been now witnessed they've seen the tracks in the snow as to where how he arranged all this over the weeks and in some cases months leading up to january 6th i want to hear chantal but i also think that he's a little bit stupid right i mean he was bankrupted six times and he did kind of usher himself out of office on some level. But anyway, sorry. Yeah, but so why isn't he in jail?

Why does he still have billions of dollars or some huge amount of money? Anyway, let me bring this back to us because I suspect that no one is having a revelation as to each of your opinions of Donald Trump and I wish I share by full disclosure but that being said this happens against the backdrop of what we were just talking about this inquiry about the convoy and and in this country we've taken to quite lightly, I believe, from one side of the spectrum, calling conservative politicians in the country Trumpian, or they're like Donald Trump. I'm thinking this should pause some of those comparisons.

And I'll give you a few differences. For one, the convoy, some of its elements did come to Ottawa and they published it with the intent of replacing the current government with some structure of their own and forcing the governor general to tell Justin Trudeau to leave. As far as I can tell, not a single elected politician played in that movie on Parliament Hill. No one freelanced by saying the government has become illegitimate and that's why this is happening. There was no interest in playing for that. In this country, twice, not once in the last two elections, the party that won the most vote did not form government. It became the official opposition. I did not hear Andrew Scheer or Erin O'Toole or Pierre Poilievre say that the election was stolen from the conservatives in 2019 or 2021. And

finally, about this video that we saw yesterday, I'm sure that if Justice Rouleau, who was presiding the inquiry into the Emergencies Act, was watching, he will possibly have noticed that while the convoy was on, RMPs went to question period, went to their offices, and circulated safely enough to distribute donuts in the case of the current leader of the official opposition to the demonstrator. So, it's tempting to see parallels. It's important to see the differences. And on this one, our political class at this juncture is in a better place in all kinds of ways.

One thing we should make clear about the video that was shown yesterday because it was remarkable because it was inside that locked room and they you know picked up all the conversations and and and the other end of phone calls it was shot by a documentary crew and that documentary crew was headed by a producer who was nancy pelosi's daughter now if it had just been Democrats in that room, the punch of that video would have been lost. And people, the Republicans would have said, oh, you know, that's just partisan crap and we can ignore it. They can't ignore it.

Because the stars of that video weren't just Nancy Pelosi and Schumer. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer. They were Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the two leading Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were as mad, if not madder, than Pelosi and Schumer about Trump. They were raging. So this video was like the whole team, everybody on Capitol Hill,

who later, you know, within hours, 24, 48 hours, were suddenly back to kissing Trump's ass. Excuse me, but that's the term they use. So that's the remarkable thing about it. That video could have cut both ways, depending on who was in it. Peter, maybe I'm going to regret saying this. But when I was watching that video, I had two different reactions. On the one hand, I was struck by the in-the-moment reality of it. And in the other moment, I felt like maybe i was watching somebody film politicians making comments for the record that were political in nature and i actually think that some of the clips were the former and some of the clips were the latter. And so I had a little bit of a, if that was the only evidence,

I would have been a little bit, not skeptical, but I would have been hesitant to embrace it fully. But obviously it isn't the only piece of evidence. It fits within the whole package of everything that we saw, which makes the revelations in it especially those that seem more kind of real and in the moment and less schumer and pelosi saying things to a phone in front of the camera and i don't mean to sound cynical about that but but but you do but you but i do i do sound cynical about it well we're talking we're talking about an event. I'm trying to think of who would have time to think of how they're going to frame their filming sequence for posterity while people are shooting people on Capitol Hill or on Parliament Hill.

And something tells me that you are being a bit cynical. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take that. And I'll apologize in advance for my, I mean, basically I'm in the same place as you both are on the issues. But I didn't know about the documentary film producer crew. And maybe I was a little bit cynical about it.

Uncharacteristically. That's all right. We always know. We always know you find a way to, you know, find some kind of sliver to defend Trump on. And I guess this is. Yeah. Very regularly.

Okay. We're going to, we're going to, I mean, the thing about that is quite apart from everything else we've said. Here's where I'm with Chantel. This happened literally minutes after these people were rushed out of their offices. You know, and it was clear you saw the pictures of them, the fear and the fright on their faces um as they were being taken to uh you know a secure you know undisclosed place to to basically to hide um and you know they're politicians they you know i don't think they ever lose especially the big the big players ever lose sight of uh

knowing that their their words uh can carry on for some time. But I thought that was real in so many ways watching that. All right, you guys win. Let's move on. Boy, that was easy. Okay, we will move on because we do have other things to talk about. And so here's a real, like a total shift. There were a number of things said at the provincial level this week, especially in Manitoba, or sorry, in Alberta, here in Alberta, and next door in Saskatchewan, that have left me, I don't want to get into the constitutional weeds here, because it's a no-win.

We all know that. But it seems to me the question becomes, after hearing the different things, whether it's the Sovereignty Act or other things that have been said by those two provinces in particular of late, that federalism, you know, is federalism in crisis? Is federalism the future of federalism at stake? Or is this just the same old story that keeps coming back from different regions of the country at different times in our history, where it's kind of, you know, I think you've used the term before,

Chantal, saber rattling. Is that all this is? Is this something that, you know, a couple of months down the road will, you know, it'll just be part of the history books? Or is something happening here that's more serious than that? Chantal? I think you have to separate issues. And there are a number of issues in play between the provinces and Ottawa. The easy one, and I'm not saying because there's an easy answer, but the easy one that no one seems to talk about the past few weeks is health care system, as far as I can tell, is in huge crisis. And suddenly everyone is talking about the Constitution. Really, it's a lot easier to talk about the Constitution, by the way, than to resolve health care issues or to have a serious adult conversation about where we go with our health care system. I suspect, though, that the distraction will not keep people focused on constitutional debates for very long. There is a legitimate and interesting debate going on about the notwithstanding clause

and how governments can just ignore the charter and draft legislation that they know goes against some charter rights. That's because of Quebec's Bill 21 and Bill 96. Let's agree that this will get resolved in the Supreme Court. About, for those who care about this, we're about two years from the resolution of that file. So, set it aside. The rest of the noise coming mostly, but not exclusively exclusively and i think over the next few months you will hear more of it from alberta saskatchewan eventually quebec it takes different forms uh the sovereignty act we're going to protect saskatchewan from the federal government to me resolves revolves around the issue that we the federal government and the provinces have been fighting over for the past five, six, seven years, and that's climate change and the environment.

Now, those provinces that are saying that Ottawa's policies are an infringement or that they're threatening their economies have been in this fight for a while and so far have won no round. All that they have achieved, because those issues eventually get resolved in court, all that they have achieved, remember the challenge on the carbon tax and the federal imposition of a floor price on carbon? The provinces went to court on that and they endured a stinging defeat. They actually managed to have the Supreme Court reaffirm the federal government's capacity to see the provinces line up behind its objectives on climate change. I don't think we're going to have a constitutional negotiation about any of these things. What I

really think is we're gearing up for the next federal election. And in that federal election, the Conservatives and Pierre Poilievre will not only say we're going to get rid of the carbon tax. That's the easy part. Basically, the Conservative offer will be that the provinces run their own environmental file in autonomy from the federal government. You want to build a big new dam in Quebec, Premier Legault, you assess it and you deal with it. You want to pursue more pipelines in Saskatchewan or Alberta or LNG developments, you assess it.

You make the rules to decide whether it's good enough. Now, what I find interesting about that approach, and I think it is in line with conservative tradition of letting the provinces have as much autonomy as the Constitution allows them to, is that I'm not sure the same conservative government will offer to let the provinces say, you don't want a pipeline to come onto your territory. You don't want an NLG development. Fine. Have it your way. And I'm curious to see how this gets reconciled. But like you, I've covered constitutional wars. And I don't, despite the word being constantly heard, I don't see this as a constitutional battle. And I certainly don't see this as the end of federalism.

I think it's part and parcel of federalism that we have those periods of tension on issues that in a country that is economically diverse, pit one region or one government against the other. All right, Bruce, go for it. I started working on Parliament Hill in 1978, Peter, and these kinds of frictions between provinces and the federal government were happening then. They were prominent then. They've been more or less prominent for all of the years intervening different subjects sometimes health care often constitutional accommodation for different kind of cultural or linguistic differences obviously part of it a triple e senate you know it's one thing after

another and in a way i could look at that and say that's there's a healthy tension there is a division of responsibilities there are elected people at the provincial level who have their own ambition and aspiration for the jurisdictions that they that they run and and there are people elected at the federal level who want to build what they see as a stronger Canada so I I think that's kind of normal and it's actually kind of productive but if you ask, is it really changing? I don't think I have the data to prove this. But if you ask me, what do I think the level of separatism was in Alberta in 1978, 79, 80, 81, it might have been within three or four or five percentage points of what we see right now. Notwithstanding people saying, well, there's the Maverick Party and all of that. The level of hard demand for separation in Quebec is probably softer than it was back then. And so at the same time, we don't see a burgeoning Canadian nationalism. If anything,

there's kind of a softer, less connected sense of who we are as a country. I don't know what we can do about that, if anything, or whether we need to. So less kind of Canadian nationalism, but not more separatism as I see it, or that kind of hard edge. And I think that with respect to Alberta and Saskatchewan advocacy, I think that's quite different in some respects. There are legitimate policy issues, no question. Chantal talked about some of them, but some of it is just people playing the greatest hits that have worked in their political jurisdiction, to some degree telling the people who voted for them fairy tales. Daniel Smith tells people fairy tales about what she could do,

wouldn't do. And she gets called out on it. And she sort of meanders around the truth, but it's not very truthful what she's saying. And it's not very wise. And I think the whole question of development of our resources, Chantal mentioned, if we let every province decide for themselves on these kinds of major projects, there's a better chance that nothing will ever get built than is even the case now. Because so many of these projects involve undertakings that cross provincial borders. And so I'm looking at the race for the NDP leadership and therefore the premiership in the province of British Columbia. There's a real chance that there'll be the most environmentally activist premier that we've ever seen anywhere ends up in the premier's chair. I don't know that that's likely, but it's definitely, there's a lot of that sound coming

out of that leadership race. There's very little chance from my standpoint that Danielle Smith's version of developing and moving Alberta resources is going to be easy for her to negotiate with the B.C. government. The last point on that is that if every province decides for itself, then Canada will not have an ambitious climate plan. There's no way in the world that that can happen if every province decides for itself. And so that might be an important issue in the next election campaign. But I rather think it'll kind of lean a little bit more in favor of those who believe that there needs to be an ambitious climate plan for the country and the world. You know, you sound a little bit like Pierre Trudeau used to sound when he was arguing in different cases

for different issues at different times for a strong central government and talked about, you know, if that doesn't happen, we're going to end up with this checkerboard Canada, you know, with different jurisdictions in different provinces and nothing's ever going to get accomplished. That's what he used to say.

I know Chantal wants in, and I'll let her back in just one second but chantal you mentioned you know about 10 minutes ago you mentioned the notwithstanding clause you know and i i i i was there when when that happened one that i have got hammered out so was i yeah without go back uh you know at the the table on the decision making around in 81, 82. And one of the things that was said at the time is this is hardly ever going to be used. It'll only rarely be used. The ability for the provinces to use the normal standing clause. However, in fact, it's been used quite a bit lately, right? What is it, three or four times in the last couple of years?

So whether that's setting a new era of, you know, provinces flexing their muscles, using constitutional powers that they were given or not, I't know but anyway okay let's let's uh since we were both there but not everyone was let's just remind people that the notwithstanding clause is not the get out of jail card of the monopoly game in the sense that it only allows you to shelter your laws from some sections, not even all of them, of the Charter of Rights and Freedom. You can't wake up one morning and say, I'm going to use the notwithstanding clause to not have the carbon tax apply in my province.

Not happening. That's not what it's for. As for the notion that it would not be used very often, my memory of it was that that was what the people who had accepted that concession, just Pierre Trudeau and his government were saying, it would not have been, and I hate to speak for the dead, necessarily the take of former Manitoba Premier Sterling Lyons, who advocated passionately for a clause that allowed elected officials to have the final say over the courts on issues that mattered. But that entire conversation about where we are going on this will be resolved up to a point when the Supreme Court does talk about whether it's okay for Quebec

to have used that preemptively, not to fix something they didn't imagine, but to have a law that goes against the Charter and still go ahead with it, and to have used it not to maintain a status quo, but to withdraw existing rights, because that is what Bill 21 did. You could go to work and teach with a hijab and you can't anymore. You lost a right. And that is what is also different on the resources and what carbon tax battle, because the Supreme Court clearly spelled out that in the climate change and environmental issue, the federal government is within its right to do what it is doing. I was asked this week, talking about resource development, and it goes back to Bruce's point, which is right. It's not just a strong climate change plan we won't have if everyone goes their own way it's also resource development someone

asked me so if capoleo becomes prime minister resource development lng projects will get off the ground i would argue that the government that is serious about climate change is more likely to secure a social license for projects like that than one that is seen as not serious about climate change but that's just me okay um i hate to break it off at that point but i if we're going to have a chance to talk about christia freeland and i think we need to talk about her and some remarks she made in the past week because there's some potential for some real fallout from those. We're going to have to take our final break, and then we'll come right back and deal with that.

And we're back. Final segment of Good Talk for this week. Chantelle Hebert, Bruce Anderson, and Peter Mansbridge. All right. Chrystia Freeland, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance. She's always been somebody who kind of cut her own path to a point. And that's caused some upset at times by her colleagues

and some of her cabinet colleagues. This week may be a new, reached a new point in some of those divisions. Who wants to give us the background on this? Bruce, and keep in mind we have, we we have six or seven minutes to have this discussion. Let's let Chantal go first on this. Okay. So Krista Freeland was in Washington talking to the Brookings Institute. That's a think tank.

She was there for the International Monetary Fund meeting and other minister of finance activities. She delivered a speech I can't do justice to in the time we have because it was quite an astounding speech. It was also the kind of speech that does not have those talking points that this government so loves. It was an intellectually solid argument the core of it being that in this new geopolitical environment caused in part by ukraine and russia but also china we need to rethink the way we who we trade with and how we trade uh to and and reorient this globalization towards friends with friends who share values.

I'm not doing justice to the argument. But in there, she also said a number of things that would make the ears of the environment minister back in Ottawa perk up. And one of those was, and I'm quoting here, Canada must and will show generosity, talking about how the European Union helped Canada with vaccines. She says, we will show similar generosity in fast tracking the energy and mining projects our allies need to heat their homes and to manufacture electric vehicles. Well, that may be news to a lot of people in this country. But what I found striking over listening to the overall speech, and I did go to listen to it, was that if you

take away a few compulsory references to climate change and green transition, you have a speech that Stephen Harper or even Pierre Poiliev would have been comfortable delivering to this audience. Actually, that speech, I felt, was more in line with Stephen Harper's view of the world when he left office, including his suspicions of China and Russia, than reflective of Justin Trudeau's outlook when he took office. Now, is there a rift? Possibly.

Is she freelancing and pleading her case from afar? Possibly. But I do note that Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie at the same time was in Japan and South Korea touting more LNG developments and more LNG exports to those countries who are also allies. And I'm thinking that there could also be a significant shift caused by recent events in the government's narrative on those issues. All right, Bruce, you're in. I agree with about 85% of what Chantal said. The part that I don't really agree with is the,

I don't know that I would see Stephen Harper as in the same headspace. I think that part of the issues that Freeland was raising, and I think it was an extraordinary, useful, positive speech, whether people agree with her ideas or not, it's good to have a speech of that substance and that depth in the public space. But part of what she was doing was sort of recognizing that around the world, democracies are under some real pressures. Autocracies and authoritarian governments are gaining some momentum. And I don't know that I see Stephen Harper having played, you know,

the same kind of role on that issue as I saw Ms. Freeland trying to do. Back when he was prime minister. Fair enough. I'm not talking about the Stephen Harper now who seems to like people like that. Yes. Okay, fair enough. And so I withhold judgment on whether Pierre-Paul Lievre could have given this speech because inherent in her comments, I think, was an understanding that the world needs products. It does believe in social license and the environmental criteria that are much in discussion around the world, but it also needs pragmatism and it needs a pragmatic approach to two things. One is the creation of new and maybe newly formed and more enduring or stable alliances. I think that you don't have to read too much into her

speech to realize that she's describing a world where a lot of what we took for granted in terms of our alliances is no longer, we can't take for granted anymore. I think that's right. I think it's important that she said it. I hope the government overall keeps saying it and says, here's what we can do about it. And part of what we can do about it is recognize that everybody needs to look at what they can do to help each other who want to be in those alliances. And if that means us being very pragmatic about things like a pace to help solve resource-based issues, energy-related issues, then the question is not do we abandon our climate ambition or our environmental or Indigenous reconciliation undertakings,

but how do we marry those objectives together? And I think chantal's right that it would have piqued the interest of the environment minister but also the natural resources minister and the prime minister and and the foreign affairs minister and i think it was a good intervention by her all right does it expose a rift though within that cabinet beyond I think there's always been a divide in cabinet between and I will put on one side ministers Wilkinson and Gilbo environment and natural resources but also Wilkinson being the predecessor in environment and others who are strong advocates on the climate change file. And there were times in that speech where she just hinted that, you know, the necessary steps to ensure the economic well-being of people,

even as we transition to a greener economy. So a faction that is more in the let's be real here and make sure that we're not going too fast for some regions of the country. And that faction, as been described to me, is led by Christian Freeland. So whether that is becoming a rift, I can't tell, but I would argue that events on the global stage have given new cards to the freelance side of the argument. She also had a really interesting sentence in there that I'm not sure what to make of, but she says, we must be prepared to spend some domestic political capital in the name of economic security for our democratic partners. What does that actually mean? On what front are we going to be spending domestic political capital if we're only selling stuff hits all good?

So one presumes maybe we need to spend some domestic political capital to explain why we're going to be doing more resource development than we had foreseen two years ago. All right, I've only got a minute and a half left. On the RIFT question, where's the Prime Minister on this? Or perhaps a better phrase, would Chrystia Freeland have run those remarks by the PMO before she gave them? What would we think on that?

The ambassador was on hand, as were a number of big economic players from this country. So far, in many of those discussions, Justin Trudeau has tended to side with the Wilkinson-Gilbeau side of the equation, but that may be changing. I think there's always a question of political math that, you know, in the last couple of elections, I think the liberals have been very worried about losing votes on the left side of the spectrum. I think that more recently they're properly preoccupied with how many votes they've lost on the center of the spectrum. I don't think they're fishing for right of center votes. But I also feel like in the natural resources minister has said that it takes us too long to permit some things in this country. And so I think that there is a natural tension or a productive tension, I would say, within government.

I think it's healthy that there is. I think it suggests that people in those offices are kind of doing the right things, stress testing ideas before they decide, not just looking at the politics, but looking at a variety of considerations. And so, yeah, I think there's probably a bit of tension and it's probably a healthy thing. Okay, we're going to leave it at that for this week. Good discussion on a variety of different issues, as always. So I thank you both, Bruce and Chantel. A couple of reminders about next week on Monday. It's been a while since we did one of our Monday COVID runs, but there have been a number of requests that we do something. We bring back one of our doctor experts, and we will.

Dr. Lisa Barrett from Halifax will be with us on Monday to sort of walk us through everything from boosters to the vaccine program as we see it, kids. I'm hearing a lot from parents of young kids that they are battling stuff at school, viruses, not COVID, but all kinds of other stuff. And, you know, it's made life difficult for them and for schools and for teachers, you name it. So we'll deal with that with Dr. Barrett on Monday. And the rest of the week is as it always is. Brian Stewart on Tuesday, Bruce Anderson on Wednesday, the random ranter on Thursday,

and Chantel and Bruce agreeing on just about everything. Sort of. Okay, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. I'm Peter Ransford. Take care. Have a great weekend. Have a great weekend.