The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Moore Butts -- Is It Time For New Floor Crosser Rules?

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

There have been four floor crossers in four months. One poll shows about 75 % of Canadians want floor crossers to seek re-election, sit as independents, or quit after abandoning the party they ran for during the election. James Moore and Gerald Butts have their thoughts on that and more during their latest "conversation." Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready for the Moore Butts conversation? It's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Welcome to the latest of the Moore-Buts conversations. Gerald Butts, James Moore, both former's in a way, and we'll talk about that coming up. But I want to start on this issue of floor crossings because, you know what, it keeps coming back. We've had four floor crossings to the Liberal Party in the last four months, one a month. Now, that sounds like a lot.

It is a lot. It's not a record, but it's still a lot of people moving across the floor, the House of Commons from the spots that they had been elected to by the people of Canada not that long ago. And that's got some people very interested in this discussion. Polsters are having a field day with it. Polsters are always looking for something to poll on,

and this one is kind of a natural. And the numbers they seem to be gathering suggest that the majority of Canadians, don't like what they're witnessing. They feel that I think there's only a quarter of them suggests that the floor crossing should go ahead with no questions asked. Quite a few of the others say there should be an election, they should be sitting as independence,

or they should simply vacate their seats. So I want to talk to the two of you about, I got some specific questions on it, but let me start by just asking your general thought on the floor crossing issue. James, why don't you start us this week? I was kind of taken aback a little bit this week when Prime Minister Carney welcomed his newest recruit

into the Liberal Caucus and she came in and he came down the stairs and there was sort of this triumphal strut about it, right? And they go into the Liberal Caucus room and they're chanting her name and chanting her name. And I get why, because there is sort of a team sort of rallying moment that happens, you know, that we embarrass the other.

guys. We got one more. We're closer to a majority. They were gaining momentum. Canadians are with us. We're convincing, you know, the red team and the orange team. We're cleaving away members and they're joining us and this is good. And, you know, rah, raw. I think that's a big mistake. And I don't, because I think part of the poll numbers that you referenced there as well is that Canadians already think that politicians are up for themselves. They don't think that politicians, for the most part, act with great sort of sincerity. And they have a pretty, very cynical view of politicians. and there are a lot of really good reasons why.

And I think it's really toxic that that gets, you know, amplified and weaponized and multiplied. And but it happens because of acts like this. There are 343 members of parliament. The vast majority of them will probably stay in the caucus in which they were elected and they will leave public office that way. And I think this really sours people's views of things. Because most people, when they go and vote, and the data shows us, it's not opinion. Most people on election day, when they go in and vote, they're choosing a government.

they're choosing a prime minister and they're choosing a group of people to form government. And they're reflecting their values broadly. Very, very few people in the literally the low single digits are electing their local member of parliament. Because the truth is, your local member of parliament, whether it's James Moore or Gerald Butts or if it was, you know, my predecessors or successors in the writing that I represented for 15 years, in the terms of your local member of parliament and the services they provide, they can all help you with your passport. They can all help you with your CPP, you know, questions to the government. They can all help you with your Veterans Affairs queries. And like, it's same same. But the broad reflection, when you choose your prime minister and you choose your government, that's

really mad. And that's a matter of the heart. And so when an individual member of parliament crosses a floor without any really articulate or defensible argument, I think it makes people really sour and cynical about things. And so to be triumphal about something that public sees as cynical, I think is a mistake for the prime minister. And I'm more to say, but I'll leave it. So my first impression is what happened this week with Ms. Edelout crossing the floor is the prime minister's handling it wrong.

His more appropriate, I think the more appropriate move would be in retrospect. I think he would, on reflection would think. I've been clear about what my agenda is. I was clear in the campaign. I was clear in my throne speech. I've put forward my economic agenda in our recent budget. I was clear about global affairs where I think we should go in my speech in Davos. And anybody, whatever your past is, I don't care if you were on the,

blue team, the orange team, no team, green team, doesn't matter. I don't care what region you're from. If you agree with where I'm going now and where we're going for the next couple of years under my leadership, I don't care about the past. I hope that we align in the future. And if we align in the future, you're welcome to join my team. And leave it at that and just keep walking. But to make it a triumphal thing about something that's pretty cynical, I think is a mistake. Jerry. Well, I don't know about the circumstances. I think that James has a point there. I think that part of the prime minister's appeal is that he's not seen to be a particularly partisan person, right? And so I can see why James would draw that conclusion from what happened this week.

I think the challenge from having been, you know, involved in these things in the past is that once you, excuse me, once you set a precedent for how you're going to handle them, then you end up doing that for each successive one. And they've had four in the last four months, as you say, Peter. So when they set the mold for Chris D'Entremant from my home province in Nova Scotia back before Christmas, I think they just ran the playbook for each of them afterward. And that's why you saw what you saw with Laurier. I think, you know, I did a bit of research on this, Peter, only a little. And I think it's important to note that this is a super common thing, right?

More than 300 people have cross parties in the history of our parliament, which averages out to a little more than two a year for the history of the country. So I think it's one of those things. The pollsters can, it doesn't surprise me that the general public would have the reaction that the pollsters are the sounding that they're getting. But that's true of a lot of rules when it comes to politics, and certainly when it comes to Parliament, that people aren't 100% conscious of them.

But if you ask them about them, they'll think it's a bad idea. And if you take that question in isolation and a context from the rest of what's happening in national politics, then people won't like it. But I also don't think it's a normally a huge deal. Of course, it's a huge deal in this context because it brings the government one seat closer to a majority government, and that gives them a certain amount of control over the proceedings of Parliament, and more importantly, from a practical perspective, the proceedings of the committees of Parliament. So this kind of inexorable march toward a majority is of course worth commenting on,

and therefore all of the people who contribute to it are going to see more scrutiny than they otherwise would. Nobody really cared how Leonna Alislev was welcomed by Andrew Shear into the caucus of the Conservative Party, whereas when Belinda Stranax crossed the floor in whatever year that was, I'm sure James remembers it vividly, that was a huge deal. It was big news. We saw Peter McKay in his gumboots,

you know, sat on the front page of the global mail. Like, it was a big deal. And some of most of these things happen and they go on remarked upon. My own view is that I think it's good for Parliament if people think that their team is not guaranteed to be there if they don't behave in a way that is in keeping with the values of the team members. I think it's a good thing that people can cross the floor if they feel their party is doing something that they don't like or the other party is doing something that they do like.

Okay, let me play devil's out good for a moment because, you know, I don't really care if there have been 300 in the history of the country. I get it. I understand there have been a lot. But, you know, times change and people's opinions change and the public's opinions changes on some of these things. Sometimes more often at a moment of, you know, particular interest like this right now as they march towards a majority. but I want to get back to the fundamental issue, which is these people are elected by the people in their writing. I totally understand what James' argument is about her,

his position is, about why they vote particular ways, and not necessarily because of the local candidate. But nevertheless, that's why they voted. They voted for this particular party to represent them in the house. So you come up to a situation like, this and the the suggestions that angus reed put forward in his poll i'd dispute that by the way peter but which one that well the part that people are voted for because of their parties i think it depends on the circumstance if you look at two of the four people here christ-auntremont and lori it out

they were both elected because of who they are not what party they represented in nova scotia the liberals we won ten of the eleven writings in nova scotia and the um okay okay but overall i think what James was suggesting was that overall, if you looked at all 300 or whatever number there are, the majority of them end up going, being elected because of who their leader was or their party was or what have you.

But I accept what you're saying about the current four. The question becomes, as Angus Reed seemed to suggest in the results he got, is that most people think, okay, fine, you've crossed the floor, but you need to get a new mandate from the writing you represented, that there should be a by-election. What's the problem with that?

They're expensive. They cost a couple million dollars per, and it is a disruption. And in minority parliament, you have a little bit more doubt about the fluency of parliament and all that. I don't agree with Jerry, though, that they were elected. Chris Don'tramal has been around for a while, but the conservatives have won that riding before.

you know, without Christauntramal being there in very recent history, number one. Two, Matt Jennery's writing has never gone liberal, like ever. I don't think in Confederation. So there's that. But the three, in this, I would agree maybe a little bit with Jerry, is that among the reason why I think there was comfort for all four of these fuller crossers to the liberals, one from the New Democrats, Thieves and Conservatives, is that all of them are actually relatively, in the current polling context, are all pretty close riders. It's conceivable that the liberals today could win all four of those writings in spite of whatever votes,

may be lost because of cynicism about floor crossing or whatever. All four of those rodings are competitive. And that's actually typical. You don't often see people, you know, Otto Lang or others, but you don't often see people who win their riding 70-30 for the other party cross over on kind of a suicide mission on a temporary basis. David Emerson was an example of that, where he did cross the floor under Prime Minister Harbor in a riding that is,

Don Davies is riding now. So like that was not a conservative riding. Even though when we won a majority, we still did well in the ride and we got like close to a third of the vote but a third at a high watermark for the conservatives that was as best as we were going to do there um sorry i've lost my train of thought why sorry why don't why don't we have by elections um because the cost it's a minority parliament you might run into it all of that and i think because it's a minority parliament right now the day of reckoning will come it'll come soon enough and and if and if the cynicism that i described is true then they'll be held accountable there's a i remember keith martin There's one example of a floor crosser. Keith Martin was a reform MP, elected reform 93, reform 97, stockwell day. He runs for the Canadian Alliance leadership, runs for the Canadian Alliance in 2000, didn't like Stephen Harper. And he bought into high, you know, the high watermark of the Paul Martin movement.

And so when the conservative unity happened, PC's Canadian Alliance performers came together for the new conservative party. Keith Martin didn't come along for the journey and he went liberal. And I remember he and I talked about this at the time, just like just being. because and and he and we kind of actually agreed on a battle plan just sort of hypothetically before he actioned it I didn't know he was actually going to do it but we were just kind of on a boring day in the apartment like what would you do if if and and I knew that he didn't like Stephen Harper so fine so his move was I was elected I was elected to this caucus I was elected to this party I can't just go liberal after I ran for the leadership of the party a couple years ago

this doesn't make sense so I'm going to sit as an independent for six months consult my constituents do town hall, halls. And so I've half crossed the floor already. And I can articulate why I cross the floor, why I don't like Stephen Harper, why I don't like the new conservative party, feel some comfort, let the public know that that's a door that's closed for me.

And then as we get closer to the next election, I'm going to go and I'm going to win the liberal nomination in my riding. And then once I win the liberal nomination, then I will join the caucus. And then he ran for liberals and won, and he won a couple times. So that was his move of sort of validating and getting sort of what you're looking for, Peter,

is some Democratic credentialing behind it. I'm telling you why I don't like my old team and I don't like the new leader, so I'm going to walk away from that because I just can't do it. I was elected under a different leader, but that leader is gone and the new leader I don't like. And the new party, I don't like. So I'm not going to go that way next time. So I'm going to sit as an independent and honor the fact

that I'm the member of Parliament for a squimal. Going forward, now that Paul Martin's the leader, I think I like that team. So I'm going to run for the nomination and be the liberal candidate. And once I get that, now I'm going to be the liberal candidate. Now I'm going to join the liberal caucus. To me, that structurally and linearly has credentials and credibility to it. And that's what Keith Martin did.

And I think that is an interesting model. Because you can still vote for Mark Carney. You don't have to join the caucus and inflame everybody. Matthew Ma, you go to the conservative Christmas party one night, take your picture with Pierre Paulyev. And literally the next day, you're at the liberal Christmas party taking your picture with Mark Carney, you're a new leader. I don't know what that Instagram profile looks like.

It's kind of an awkward move from one screen to the next. But that's Matthew Ma. All right. Well, it's pretty cynical, right? But if he did what Keith Martin described, I think you take probably half the energy away from the assinicism. Jerry, by elections? Well, I just say I think there are lots of things that MPs do that their constituents may or may not agree with between the time they're elected and the time they stand for re-election. And James is right that we have these elections very regularly.

And those are the opportunities people have to pass judgment on the people that they've elected or the people. they want to elect. I'm one who believes that every step we take toward the kind of California proposition system where you can recall people and you can put anything on a referendum ballot. I believe in representative parliamentary democracy and the person is put there for a period of time and once they're put there, they have to account for their actions the next time they're standing for election or not. And I really believe in that system. So anything that warps it is I'm going to be predisposed to be negative toward. Okay, let me be blunt.

When this is happening, is the system not saying, you know, the public is irrelevant in this, really? We're in, you know, we're cutting up the cash in the back room, and this is the way that we want it to happen. This is the way that makes the most sense for us right now. This is just months after the public voted. Yeah, I don't think that's, true, Peter. I think that

what this is reflecting, especially in the Conservative Party, is real discontent with Pierre Pauliav's leadership. And you had a bunch of people who ran in the last campaign under the assumption that they were going to be part of a government caucus. And the fact that they're not

has allowed all of their discontent to flourish in a way that it didn't before the election. And you could argue that that change in circumstances is equally stark. So I don't see it that way. I think that we nominate, we elect people to serve us in Parliament and then we get a chance to fulsomely judge them based on their four years of

activity or their two years of activity if it's a minority parliament on average. I think it's 18 months. So I think we're asking for trouble if we're getting into the referendum recall situation that they have in the United States. And I would say as well in the current context, I think you're, I mean, I gave the, I gave the Senate argument and you can understand why. But I think for a lot of people, if you look at Chris Dantremal and who he is as a person historically,

there's a provincial MLA, federal member of parliament, sort of, for lack of a better phrase, sort of red Tory, more moderate, Matt Jenneroo, Matthew, I guess Matthew Ma, I'd less read on him. But I think for a lot of people, and certainly in the voting switches that you see, is that it would be quite something to be an acolyte of Stockwell Day

and cross over to the caucus of Justin Trudeau. People would say, that's something. That's pretty dramatic. It's quite another to say, you know, like when Pierre Pauliev, who says that Mark Carney is correct in his speech, in his assessment of Donald Trump at Davos in his speech there,

that the prime minister is correct to spend more time exploiting global markets and diversification. We hope that the prime minister is actioning his rhetoric on moving forward with a pipeline and energy exports to the West Coast, and we hope that that is successful. The prime minister, he got rid of the carbon tax. He got rid, like, he did things that conservative astro. He stepped away from the tax on capital gains that Christia freedom. Like, he did things that in very recent contemporary conservative history, these were the

top four or five things that conservatives said had to happen, that we need to have progress on pipelines and move forward, whether or not you think Carney is actually going to get there, or there's full sincerity or buying. But these things have happened. He got rid of the carbon tax. And so, you know, conservatives and liberals agree in the contemporary arena. They agree on 80% of the issues. The 20% are big differences. The gun buyback program, maybe official language things, CBC, like there are some big cultural signal things there that where the parties have big differences. But in a lot of things, and if you're if you're Matt Jenneroo and you don't really care about the gun buyback program and you don't really care about the CDC and whether it exists or doesn't

exist, but on things that matter to you as an Edmonton member of parliament like energy exports, and you think that there might be an opportunity here for Mark Carney and the progressive wing of Canadian politics to tamp down the typical voices against energy exports as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get a pipeline built to the West Coast. That's a pretty appealing moment. in history to grasp onto and to drive for the benefit of Alberta. You may never get the political credit for it, but if you want to have a historic moment that's good for your province that you can be a part of, that's pretty appealing.

I'd add to that, Peter, in summary, in each of those four writings, what the MP is essentially saying to their constituents is I think Mark Carney should be Prime Minister and not Pierre Pualiev. And I would bet that in each of those four writings, most of the citizens of that writing agree with them. You know, there was a minute there about two minutes ago where I thought James was going to come out and publicly declare that he was now supporting Mark Carney.

And even though he doesn't have a seat in the house, he was crossing the floor. He was in his mind. One can agree with elements of others' agendas without wholesale flipping over. But I think that's why. Because if you're looking down the barrel of a minority parliament and you're not particularly comfortable to Jerry's point with the current direction and leadership of the Conservative Party.

It's understandable why. Like if you're, again, Chris Don Traumae, and you've spent 20 years of your public life being a conservative and you see, you don't see any prospects that you're going to form government the next little while, but you have an opportunity to contribute. You know, one can say it's opportunism, cynicism, whatever. It's his right to do it. And at the end of the day, voters, either liberals in the nomination process or the general public will say, you're wrong, get the hell out of here, or they can say,

fair enough, all things considered, keep it going. We'll see. And Peter, let's not, as you folks say in your business, bury the lead. The challenge here is, I mean, Pierre Pauley, the dude's in deep, deep trouble. And that's why all of this stuff is happening. There's a flip side to the coin, though, for the prime minister as well. And I talked about the Paul Martin era.

At peak Paul Martin, and maybe we're at peak Prime Minister Carney, I don't know, but there is a semi-parallel there. at Pink Paul Martin, Keith Martin, a former Reform and Reform MP joined the caucus. Scott Bryson, a former progressive conservative leadership candidate, crossed the floor. David Emerson was also part of the caucus from the business community. Ujoldosange, NDP Premier from British Columbia,

so there's one of my favorite quotes in politics is John Quincy Adams, he said, being all things to all people means being nothing to know what. And there is a concept where if you have enough egos, enough personality, and enough diversity in your front bench, it makes it kind of hard to maneuver without really pissing somebody off or disappointing somebody. And eventually those disappointments pile up

and then you'll have people break away from you when times get tough. So getting a broad diversity of Canadians in the current parliament, whether it's Matt Jenneroo in one side, you know, Ms. Idloud on the other or whatever, to all agree that Donald Trump is a bad actor who's irresponsible and detrimental to the country.

Yeah, yeah, you can have a very broad coalition around that. But when it comes to other items that are a little bit more tickey, whether it's supply management or taxes or guns or crime or mandatory minimums or name the issue, it could be harder in the out years to hold the coalition together. Maybe that's tomorrow's problem, and the prime minister don't really care about that, fine.

But when you have too broad of a coalition of people who are completely aligned on one thing that they hate Donald Trump, there's a limitation to that. It's still a thousand days left in that administration. So it's a pretty good, that's a pretty broad limit. but you get my point. I feel compelled Peter to say that there's, before we just sort of brush over and put Mark Carney and Paul Martin

at both their peaks in the same breath, I feel compelled to say that there's about, depending on the poll, you look at a 35 to 40 point difference between the situation that Paul Martin inherited from Jean-Cretchen and the one that Mark Carney inherited from Justin Trudeau. Yeah, but still. No, but honestly, Jerry, but I can tell you, I mean, having, when I was, when we were in the official opposition and Paul Martin was coming and Susan Delacourt wrote the book, Juggernaut,

the whole bit, like the way people are right now talking about Mark Carney, right, at least 10 points up or whatever thereabouts on Pierre Pauliev, you know, the inevitable, the floor crossings, momentum momentum, people like him, you know, Scott Moe, like all this thing, like all this moment, how it feels right now around Mark Carney in the sense of, uh, involuntary. invulnerability and inevitability about, you know, a majority now and maybe a majority in the campaign in the next year or two. This is how it felt with Paul Martin right now. Right now is how it felt Paul Martin. This was peak Paul Martin.

And it fell apart in part because of what we're talking about. Too many floor crossers, too many opportunists on the boat. And by the way, they all broke away. They all broke away. They all walked away. Yeah. Keith Martin is he walked away from Keith. They all walked away from Paul Martin.

But at peak Paul Martin, they were all there and enthusiastic. Assumptions in politics. don't prove out over the years. I can remember this long before either of your times. But Richard Gwynne, who was the writer in Ottawa on political affairs, the summer of 1979, writing a cover piece for something I can't, Saturday night or one of those places, that Joe Clark, who had just been elected in May of that year, 79,

had the opportunity and likelihood in Richard's view to be prime minister for the, the next 10, 15, maybe even 20 years. It lasted a couple more months, and he was down and Pierre Trudeau was back. So these things, you know, we've all been proven wrong on assumptions made in political analysis over the time. This has been a great conversation, and we're not finished yet, but we've got to take a break. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to this Tuesday episode of the Moore-Buts Conversations. Jerry Butts, James Moore, both formers, as we like to call ourselves. I'm a former too. And the issue of formers comes up every once in a while. How much sway do formers have in the business of the currents, if you want to call them that? We witnessed the liberals go through a former stuff just in the last week or two weeks with Lloyd Axworthy, the former Foreign Affairs Minister and some others, saying the Prime Minister is wrong on Iran and has to change his position,

and it led to all kinds of discussions within the Liberal Caucus and in the public as well about Canada's position. Formers play a role in the conservative story of today, too, as Stephen Harper gave a pretty good speech a couple of weeks ago that seemed to be signaling to Pierre Paulyev. You should be listening to what. I'm saying here in terms of the way you should conduct yourself in the future. Now, my experience with formers goes back to when I was, you know, a young reporter,

young journalist. And some of us used to think, okay, our day is coming and we don't need to listen to all these people from the past with their old ideas about the golden days of journalism in that case. And so, you know, we kind of ignore. what they were saying, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad. But the formers and the role they play in politics, forget about journalism, in politics. I mean, listen, obviously there's some good in some of the lessons one gets from those who've been in these positions in the past, but generally, in an overall situation,

the formers present a problem when they're speaking from the sidelines. Jerry, you start this time. Well, they can. I think that I'll tell folks a story that I think will interest our viewership here, Peter, that I think ultimately formers are a test of people's, the expansiveness of people's idea of what the parties should be, right? That you should be, if you're comfortable in your leadership and you're comfortable with the direction,

you're taking the country or the party's policy, if you don't happen to have the privilege of serving in government at the time this incident incidents like this occur, then in some ways I think you should welcome that kind of debate in public. And when you try too hard to stamp it down, you're sending a signal to the public that you're a bit brittle and you need to be careful about having that become part of your leadership style because I don't think that we appreciate that

as Canadians in our public life or in our personal lives. But I'll tell you this funny story, because it really comes down to how emotional internecine disagreements can become within parties. I remember it was just after, I think, the 2015 election. I had breakfast with a senior conservative, and one of the press gallery saw us having breakfast and came over and said, I don't get this. Like you guys are at each other's throats for eight weeks or whatever it was.

And maybe it felt like 800 weeks in 2015. If you remember it well, I don't get it. You're, you know, your enemies for all this time. And then I see you here laughing having breakfast together. And I won't out the person I was having breakfast with because you will know them immediately. And so will most of your, our viewers. but this person said, listen, you don't understand politics. Let me tell you something about politics.

Jerry's not my enemy. He's my opponent. All of my enemies are in my own party. And there really is something to that. So whenever you hear a former speaking out against a current, whether it's in the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party or whatever party, you always have to ask yourself the question, what is motivating this person? And more often than I think most people in politics would like to admit, it's some sort of personal grievance. Now, with Mr. Axworthy, I don't think that

is what's happening at all. I think Mr. Axworthy has a very firm view on what Canada's role in the world should be. And he is articulating and defending that role over and against the direction he believes the prime minister is taking the country. I think that's fair ball. I'm more on the prime minister's side than former minister Axworthy side, as I'm sure wouldn't surprise you, Peter, and wouldn't surprise most people hearing it. But I think it's healthy in any party that you can have that kind of airing, to quote Seinfeld and Data. So it is a kind of airing of the grievances. You just need to be careful that it's a, it's a policy grievance and not a personal one. Okay. James?

Yeah, I think the observation of, is the, is the former speaking out because they're trying to sort of sustain past glory of, you know, what they were. And is the criticism or their observations, is it sincere? And so a test of sincerity, and Lloyd Axworthy, he's been consistent in his views. but if there's if there's sincerity to it then one of the questions I would have like if I was a reporter and Lloyd Axler was going into the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce and he was giving a speech on global affairs and in this speech he criticized Prime Minister Carney for his his one version 1.0 response to the conflict in Iran he decided to go take a shot of Mark Karin.

The question I'm asked is the reporter is you know you're a member of the Privy Council you're a longstanding member of the party a senior state's person in the long lineage of the party. Have you contacted Minister Anand? Have you reached out to Prime Minister Carni and expressed your views privately about how they might do things differently and how I know you didn't like the headline that you saw today, but there'll be headlines tomorrow and next day and next week and next month and how to craft and shift the government's perspective to your thinking? Have you have those conversations to try to get them to get it right? Because you do have a perspective and you do have a sincerity and you do have an understanding of these things. these things that is kind of rare. So if you're genuinely trying to make sure that the country is going in the right direction, are you trying to inform them of your views, or you're just, you're trying to be

self-righteous, or you're trying to be seen as a, as, you know, the wise man, and you're trying to sort of build yourself up as the thoughtful person who got it right a few weeks before the rest of the world got it right and came to your opinion, and so you can feel smarter than the rest of the room. Like, what's your plan here? And if your plan is to actually make the country better by making the government stronger, then I want to hear what you have to say. But I also want to know whether or not you're sincere about it in terms of trying to inform the government and get them to get your perspective as you see it. And if you've done that, and maybe they heard you and disagreed with you and now you're

giving your speech. That's one thing. But if you didn't do the first thing, then I kind of wonder why you're doing what you're doing. And I think that's fair. The second thing as well, as like as a former minister, like I know, you know, because I do commentary for CTV now and stuff, like I know half the reason why anybody, maybe more, why, you know, if I were to say something critical of Pierre Paulyev or their approach to, say, the public broadcast or something about a portfolio that I held, half the reason why what I say is of

any value or more is former Harper Cabinet Minister says, former conservative heritage minister says. And so there's a liability that comes with that, that I have an obligation to the, to the prime minister and the team and the party with which I was elected to be mindful of that. that there are people who will want to take what I say, which I might put out there as constructive criticism, and use it as a bat to hit the successor to Stephen Harper and to be partisan and just try to say, well, James Moore said that you're wrong about this issue.

And I owe it to Pierre as the leader. I never ran for a leader. He earned a mandate. Stephen Harper ran for a leader and got a mandate and entrusted me with the opportunity to be Heritage Minister. And if I'm going to use that platform, which has been offered to me, and to say something critical, and they're going to use it as a weapon against my team now, that's not fair. That's not appropriate.

And if I genuinely want the Conservative Party to have my view on an issue, I should work within the system within the party to offer that. And if I still want to speak critically publicly, that I should do that. But there's a liability that I owe, rather, to my party and to Stephen Harper and to Pierre-Pol-Av to recognize that what I say could be used as a weapon against them. And that's not fair. and I need to be responsible with that. And some people aren't.

Performers just sort of speak out and talk about things and try to box in Pierre. I said, well, Peter McKay said this and Chris Alexander said that and Ron Ambrose said this. Well, that's not helpful and that's not okay. Yeah, and I think I'd be super interested in your perspective on this, Peter, because as James was talking, I was thinking two things. One is there's a clear distinction between former public officials elected members of the party, especially members of the government, i.e., former cabinet ministers and staffers. Like, I remember when I left Prime Minister Trudeau's office in 2019,

I said to Katie Telford at the time, I said, I'm never, it used to drive me crazy to see people who used to have my job, especially from my party, but frankly also from other parties, go on TV every day and tell me how to do that impossible job. And I committed to my colleagues when I left that I would never do that. And I think almost without exception I did for the five years, I think I gave an interview that annoyed people the day that Justin resigned. But other than that, I was pretty silent about the government's direction.

So I'm super suspicious of staffers. And I'm in particular super suspicious of staffers in this era. because as we've talked about before, you can monetize your audience, right? So if you take the audience that you have built by virtue of and from the benefit of being a public office holder and then you use that audience to kick the crap out of your former colleagues and make money from it,

that is a special kind of infraction in my view. That's like a 10-minute misconduct. And I think that those people who do that, and there are very many of them, and I'm not going to name names, but I think we can all three of us think of many examples. I think that they're just in it for self-aggrandizement. They're not in it for any greater public purpose, and they're certainly not trying to change the direction of the party for the better. What I wanted to ask you about Peter, and we'll flip the tables for once. I used to get calls to Guan shows all the time, right? Especially, still do, but especially when soon after I left my old job.

And it never struck me that the journalist was looking for me to come on the show and agree with the government. Right. So if you're in a position like the one I held or the one that James held and a reporter calls you, The reporter is not looking to report peace and harmony. They're looking to whack a hornet's nest. At least that's always been my perspective. Is that true? That's a very cynical way of looking at things.

Let me put it this way. I'm, you know, like I'm not, you know, I'm not in daily journalism. Like I used to be a decade ago, as I've had to remind a few people of in the last week or so. You know, I'm a podcaster now. I just sit around and ramble in my late 70s about whatever I want to talk about, and that's fun. But on your particular point, you know, why would the journalist go to you in your post-chief of staff or principal secretary role or to James in his post-cabinet minister role? Partly because the currents aren't talking, aren't explaining what they're doing, right? and there may be some particular issue that has bubbled up

and they're closing off. They're not talking to anybody. So it's not unnatural to go, well, let's go to somebody who used to hold that job and see whether they can explain to us what's going on. And then you've got like Lloyd's acts with his situation. And I covered Lloyd since he first entered politics in the 70s

when I was in Manitoba. And he has earned that position of, going to talk to, you know, you may not agree with him, you may think his ideas are too skewed one way or another, but he's been there, he's seen it. He knows the ropes for what he's talking about. So it's not, you know, I think it's a little cynical to say we only go after formers to kind of skewer the currents.

It's often because the currents won't talk. and so instead of pretending you know what they're going through you try to find someone who knows what they're going through who understands that position so that's the uncynical way I'd answer that I mean that was any minister would be obvious of that argument that answer Peter okay let me switch topics before you trap me on this

And I got to be careful on this one. Of course. It's the Don Cherry story, which has blown up in Quebec. You know, Chantelle first warned us of this last week on Good Talk saying, this is going to cause a problem. So what's the issue? Very simply put, he's been nominated as hundreds, if not thousands of Canadians, are nominated every year for an order of Canada.

It goes through a process. It can take a couple of years at times. there's no immediate decision on these things and there's a lot of discussion that takes place inside that's kind of a bureaucracy that surrounds the Order of Canada. Now, I'm not going to say much more than that because I'm a member of the Order of Canada. I'm not on any committees.

I don't do any of that, but it feels a little awkward for me to say anything about this. However, you two may have a view on it because it is an issue in Quebec and therefore it's an issue for, some politicians outside of Quebec because there's a strong movement in Quebec against Don Cherry getting any kind of award like this

given his past comments on francophones whether they be hockey players or not so I'll let you to I'm just going to sit back and listen you who would like to start this go ahead James or frame the question what's my opinion of the

snowstorm? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, the order of Canada is a special thing, and it's supposed to be nonpartisan, non-political. Should Don Cherry get the order of Canada? Well, if you circumscribe, you know, his contributions to the game of hockey, which is one of our two national sports and a passion and religion for, you know, many of us, then you can argue that, yeah, like, should Pete Rose be in the baseball Hall of Fame? Well, you leave out the bad stuff and you only talk about the good stuff. You'd say, yeah, I mean, is, you know, his, you know, one of the great hitters of all time in baseball and all that, you know, he bet on baseball and he was thrown out of the game, you can mention

that in there. But, but like, Don Cherry, if you circumscribe his contributions to the game of hockey, he won coach of the year, he won the Stanley Cup, you know, and then he switched into broadcasting and he brought a generation or two of young men into the sport with rock and sock and videos and his regular Saturday commentaries after the first intermission that everybody watched and, you know, the iconic music and, you know, he made people feel a certain way about a game of hockey and a passion. And therefore, he should get the order of Canada. Then okay, then I can understand that's your perspective. One of the challenges I think that we have as a country and as a society is the failure that we have in order to appreciate other people's perspective.

For a lot of Canadians, what I just described about Don Cherry is they see a guy who, who, you know, he had, I think, a great eight or grade nine education. His whole life was hockey. His whole life was talking about hockey, coaching hockey, building up hockey. playing hockey, inspiring people to love the game of hockey, putting out videos about hockey. And he did that for a lot of people. And they feel really passionately that he's their guy and that he should be rewarded for that. And he had some political views that are, you know, aggressive and rough and ill-articulated in the contemporary or maybe any era. So if you're going to negate people's contributions on the one thing because of their political views, I don't think that's

fair. And I think it's fair for people to have that perspective. Like there are other people who have the order of Canada, artists and others, who have really strident hard political views that are, you know, maybe they're anti-American or anti-Israel or like they're pretty strident or anti-Western Canada or anti-energy sector. But we look past that because they sold a lot of albums. They have a beautiful voice and they're really impressive and they're really impressive and accomplished artists. And we will look past their political views because of what they did in the arts.

Well, if we're going to tolerate one for one, we should tolerate one for the other. With regard to the current scandal, though, so Andrew Lawton, member of parliament, you know, signing a petition to get him into the order of Canada. That's not how you do this. That's not how you fix this. Politicizing this in the other direction and creating kind of a culture war moment and getting to people, you don't get into the order of Canada because you sign a petition. You don't do that.

And so I appreciate what he's trying to do in defense of the first cohort of people who are sympathetic to Don Cherry and what he did for hockey. But I think it's fair to also say that if you love Don Cherry because of what he did for hockey, understandable. But if you love Don Cherry because he is anti-left and he annoys people and that's why you're rallying around him, that's not helpful. Support Don Cherry because what he did for hockey and inspiring kids and putting out videos and being, you know, all that and inspirator around the game of hockey. And if you think that's why he should be in the order of Canada, talk about that. But there are a lot of people who want Don Cherry to be in the order of Canada because he did

say some things that were politically incorrect, because he did say some things that inflamed the left and to be anti-left isn't a reason to be in the order of Canada because of what he did for hockey is a reason to be in the order of Canada. Articulate that. Jerry. Well, I don't know about the Order of Canada, Peter,

but as a Montreal Canadiens fan born in the early 1970s, he's in my personal Hall of Fame for the too many men on the ice penalty in 1970. I believe it was that that guaranteed that allowed the Canadians to

their fourth straight standard or third of four straight stomach cups. So I'm all in favor of it. But all joking aside, I think I'd like to pick up on where James left off. And that's the use of this term culture war, right? What Andrew Lawton and Pierre Paulyev are doing with this, how old is Don Cherry now? Nine. He's got to be in his 90s now. And I'm sure he's, you know, still very active and spry. but they're using the guy, right?

They're just using him to make a point. And the point that they're trying to make is the point that they're always trying to make, that we're on the side of you who feel like you've been left out or downtrodden or looked down upon by the Canadian establishment. And the Canadian establishment values you so little that they will not recognize somebody. We both agree should be a hero. And I think that that's the argument they're making.

And I don't think they care about Don Cherry, and I don't think they care about the Order of Canada. And that's what bothers me so much about it, that we have so few things in this country, although we have more than they have in the United States. And that's part of why it's such a more pleasant and kind country to live in than the United States. We have so few things that are above and beyond politics that we can all agree, should be a good country. should not be just sullied by a daily to and fro argument between a, as the kids would say, shit posting between politicians and just used to try and get some support or build your audience or make a point to own the libs, etc., etc., etc. So what makes me kind of roll my eyes about this whole thing is that it's just so predictable.

and the Order of Canada, and yes, someone like Don Cherry, should be kept separate and apart from this. James is absolutely right. If you are looking at Don Cherry's long career as a hockey coach player, broadcaster, etc., then you can make a really compelling case that he should be invested in the Order of Canada. If you look at his, frankly, bigoted comments he's made about Frank, phones and lots of other minorities in the country, you can make a super compelling case that

he shouldn't be invested in the order of Canada. I think the people who are trying to make this an issue don't give a flying fig about either one of those things. They're just looking for another artifact of the culture wars to which they can use to rally their side around. And my perspective on it is, you know, to quote another great athlete John McEnroe, like you you must be kidding me with everything going on in the world right now with oil at a hundred bucks with the united states losing its mind with war in the middle east with you know this is what you're focusing on if you're an elected member of canadian parliament and you're taking time into your busy day and travel schedule if you're the leader of the opposition um to rally support for this it just shows me they're just not serious people Okay. You both had your say. And I listened as our audience listened. And I'm sure they'll pick sides on this one as they do on so many different things. Gentlemen, it's a really good conversation today about everything. And I appreciate your time on it and your wisdom on these things. James Moore, Jerry Butts, we'll talk to you again in two weeks' time. Thanks for this.

Thank you.