The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 25

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's Munk Debate members-only podcast focuses on three topics in the news: Canada's fight over the powers of its legislature to compel the Justin Trudeau's government to hand over sensitive documents is headed to the courts - What is at stake in this tug of war over the constitution and powers of Parliament? And, could it trigger a summer federal election?; Cases of highly infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 are continuing to surge globally – How big a threat is the variant to global reopening plans? Is Africa at risk of experiencing an Indian style third wave?; And Hong Kong authorities push Apple Daily, one of the territories iconic newspapers to shutter its doors – Is this the official death knell of democracy in Hong Kong? What does it mean for the world to lose Hong Kong as a non-Western democracy committed to individual freedom and self expression? To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munk Debates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Roger Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this. weekly monk members only podcast. This is the program. We're in half an hour or less, sometimes a little bit more. We dig into the big issues and ideas in the news. And as our guide, we are joined every week by Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, a renowned author, commentator,

and scholar. Janice, great to be in dialogue again with you this week. Just great to be here with you, Richard. Three topics, as always. Number one, Janice, let's pick up on an interesting conversation we began last week on last week's show about this continuing struggle, a kind of battle royale between Parliament and the Prime Minister over the release of documents with the public health agency as they relate to this Winnipeg Virology Lab, a series of actions this week at the admonishment of this respected. public service, a servant at the bar of parliament, but maybe more importantly, a development later in the week where the government has decided to take the Speaker of the House of Commons to court, to have a judge seal these documents to prevent their release. So I'd like your take on where we're at in this fight and whether you think it's important or not to how Canadians should be thinking about their institutions, about how Parliament should

work vis-a-vis the courts, vis-a-vis our prime minister and the bureaucracy, the machinery of government itself. What's your take? This, to me, Rudyard, is a hugely important story. On the surface, it looks so boring that it will glaze the eyes of most Canadians, but it is a hugely important story because it speaks directly to the issue how sovereign is parliament. So it's easy, and we've been hearing a lot of this this week in our newspapers to argue, parliament is supreme, parliament is sovereign. That's the trope that you hear again and again.

But of course, that's an absolute statement, which is devoid entirely of context. There are limits to sovereignty of Parliament, just like there are limits to everything else. So Parliament does not get to see detailed information that our intelligence agencies produce. It doesn't get to see it. And the reason it doesn't get to see it, there's really two. One, a lot of that information, if you see it, blows a source. smart people by seeing that information can figure out how that information got to Canada. And when you do that, you compromise your future capability to get that kind of information.

That's why stuff get classified. The second reason Parliament doesn't get to see it is there to worry about leaks. I don't think there's anybody in this country who doesn't think that a leak is a real prospect. from our parliament. That's just a fact of life. So let's reframe this issue. How do we allow parliament to hold the government to account while at the same time protecting secret information that comes to this country, which is important for our national security? And it's not framed that way right now. Let's go to solutions. But before we do, let me just provide one rebuttal just for fun. Because we kicked this can around last week, so we don't need to do it too much again.

But you make some very good process arguments, and I don't want to discount them. They are important. As you say, we can burn sources. We can burn, more importantly, relationships within our, you know, five-eyes privileges that Canada gets vis-a-vis the United States, Great Britain, and these other powerful intelligence agencies. We don't have spying capabilities beyond our borders, so we really do rely on them for an important part of our national. security. So I get those process arguments, but behind those process arguments are arguments of principle and arguments of fact, which is that parliament in our system of government is the final decider. We do not have an American system of a balance of powers, of checks and balances

between executive, legislative, and the judicial branch. Yet we're behaving that way right now. It seems as if this government, the governor of Justice Trudeau, believes that we are in fact in much more a Republican model where you have a very powerful executive that resides separately from parliament and that uses the courts as a tool to push its agenda vis-a-vis the legislature. And it just doesn't work that way in Canada. The prime minister is an MP. He is arguably the first among equal. but he is a member of parliament.

The executive in Canada exists as a construction of authority within parliament. I mean, this is the most basic, like Civics 101. No, it's... The governing party is the party that commands the majority in the House. They do not exist separate from Parliament. So I agree. These process issues are important, but we can't, in these important constitutional moments, We cannot simply take process and use that to trump principle,

to Trump the Constitution. I am going to take you on on every piece of that argument you just put on the table. Parliament is sovereign, but it's bound by its own legislation. So to take this one to the absurd, should, and I can give you two examples, should Parliament pass a law that people with brown hair wearing a green t-shirt, as you are this morning, are prohibited from walking in the streets? They could. No, because that would violate the Charter of Rights and Freams. The courts would rule against that.

But Janice, if Parliament wanted to, it could invoke the notwithstanding clause and say people wearing green shirts with brown hair cannot walk on the streets. That is indicative of Parliament's ultimate power. It is the final decider. Could not do it by passing a motion, which is what the House did. It passed a motion. The way Parliament changes prior law that Parliament enacted is to go through the legislative process, right? So this is not, this whole argument is misplaced. It is not an argument about the sovereignty of Parliament.

The issue is by simply passing a motion, does Parliament have an unfettered right to receive any documents regardless of their security classification because parliament only passed a motion. It did not enact law. I think we're being, I think that's semantics. Peter Hogg, some of our best constitutional experts have said that in this instance, the government is in contempt. They have been ruled in contempt. No, by the speaker.

But okay, let's take that apart for a minute. It was ruled in contempt. by the Speaker who received advice from the law clerk. The senior civil servant, in this case, he ensured the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, received legal advice from Justice Department officials, not from his own folks in his own department, and not from the Prime Minister's office,

that he would be, in fact, be committing a criminal act. So you have here, and this is no big surprise, competing advice from lawyers. ever had to deal with any of them? You can just look long enough you're going to find the lawyer who's going to give you a competing opinion. This is going exactly where it should be going

to the court. And the purpose of going to court is not to take the speaker to court. Nothing's going to happen to the speaker. The purpose of going to court is to get a ruling. Does the parliament have any, does it unfettered rights? And Jan is, you know,

maybe unfortunately to you and others that aren't with the power of the executive, you may be a little disappointed in a judge that rules, in fact, that there is no standing for the government in front of it vis-a-vis a request for a ruling, because guess what? Parliament gets to decide. It's not a perfect system. No system is perfect, but we have to live our principles. Yes, we do. We do. And right now, follow the rule of law. Parliament has no capacity to, get access to classified material. We did set up a committee and it took two years of negotiation

because the principals compete here, Roger, took two years of painful negotiation to get a committee of parliamentarian. No, it's not of parliament. Let's be clear on that point. This is not a body of parliament. It reports the prime minister. It exists on the government of Canada website. It is an institution of the government of Canada, not of parliament. That's right. Because they couldn't not come to consensus when and it took two years of discussion about how classified information would be handled by a committee of parliament that's the question we're debating right so let's talk solutions because we're we're running up on time in the second so where do we go from here and I think one of the easy things to do which you know could bridge what the speaker has suggested as a solution

the law clerk, which is the documents be provided and redacted by the law clerk, that the law clerk then have a consultation with the members of the China, China, Canada committee to review the pieces that were redacted. Why don't we just swear in all the members of the China Committee, China, Canada Committee to a National Securities Act, give them all security clearance. I mean, this is not impossible. Takes a year. You've had security clearance in the past. I did when I worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs. We could get all these MPs sworn in, verified, vetted, and allow Parliament to do Parliament's work.

What's the problem with that? So are you willing to wait a year for these parliamentary members, the MPs to get security clearance? Because that's what it takes. It takes a year to get security. I don't think it takes that long. Yes, it does. It didn't when I was cleared. you know, a couple decades ago.

I think it took a matter of months. And surely we could prioritize this and the system could perform those vets and checks. And maybe it does take a couple of months. But so what? At least we're working within the system, not outside of it. So we tried this thought experiment. And you know what the MP said? No way, buddy.

We don't want security clearance. You know why? They turned it down when we were setting up the other committee, which reports the prime minister not to parol. parliamentarians turned it down and here's why they said oh my god i'm going to see classified information i can't talk about that in public i don't want to see it and they turned you know they turned your idea down flat yeah but i think we're weeks and possibly months away from any resolution of this because parliament will adjourn for the summer and likely there will be an election call that means all the

motions that were made during this parliament die on the order paper along with all the legislation so you know, we're back into La La Land. But it will come back. This issue will come back. This issue actually is not the first time we're going around the block on this. As you remember, Roger, this came up with detainees. Could Parliament see classified information with respect to the Afghan detainees? That's what the, you know, my final point is that the legislatures in the United States and the United

Kingdom have figured out a way to do this. No, no, no. The UK legislature has a committee of parliamentarian. Yes, it's different. it's not a committee of government, which is what we have in Canada. That's my point. Yeah. There's room to move here, but we need a consensus in parliament that MPs will step up, accept

security clearance, and agree not to talk about it in public and not to leak it. Or they will be faced with criminal charges if they leak the information because that's what happens when you violate. So they should be. So they should be. The rule of law is the rule of law. It applies to everyone. in Parliament, the Prime Minister, MPs, us.

That's how the system should work. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.w monk debates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.