The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Season 2, Episode 7

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

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 Members podcast focuses on two big stories in the news. First, Canada declares its very Canadian equivalent of martial law to try and bring the so-called “truckers” protests to an end in the nation's capital. Is the Emergencies Act an appropriate response to the protests? What does its invocation say about our institutions, politics and the state of Canadian democracy? Second, how should we interpret Putin and Biden's “war of words” over whether Russia is in fact going to invade Ukraine? What in fact are competing strategies playing out behind the screaming headlines? 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.Munkdebates.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. Rudyard Griffiths here. You're a host and moderator.

Welcome to this, our regular Friday, Monk members-only podcast. This is the program where we dig into the big issues and ideas in the news, hopefully leaving you with some new analysis and insights on this program. We're exceedingly fortunate to have each week, Janice Gross Stein. She's a founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned author and scholar, and she's all ours for the next half hour. Janice, great to be in dialogue with you this week.

And great to be here with you, Rudd and Mug members. This is clearly being a historic week in Canada and continues to be. Well, let's start there because I know, Janice, you have been doing interviews around the world with Deutsche and these outlets in France and elsewhere. It's interesting on this show. We do have a bias towards focusing on geopolitics and international events. It usually means we're not talking about Canada, but this time the world is talking about Canada and talking about these protests, primarily in Ottawa, that now look to be approaching

a kind of endgame as the Ottawa police withdraw and our federal police, the RCMP, combined with the provincial police here in Ontario, the OPP, gathered together to create basically a cordon sanitaire around the protest and what's your sense, Janice? Is this the final days? How do you think this is going to play out? There's no question, Richard, that we are seeing the final days of this. We have now an integrated police command of the three police forces, as you have just said. And they are following classic tactics.

What they're doing now is actually predictable. It was surprising that they did not do it before. So they have, in fact, fenced off the protesters in the downtown area of the city, and you can't get into that area unless you live there or have business there. So the swelling crowds and the partying that we saw for the last two weekends clearly will not happen this coming weekend. And this was an obvious move for the, the police to make. There's really a tragic story here, which I think is interesting for Canadians.

The chief of police in Ottawa who resigned Peter Slowly was a progressive thinker, a leading reformer of police forces, believed very strongly in community policing, negotiation, mediation, and he is, I think, a tragic casualty of what we've seen over the last three weeks. He clearly resigned under enormous pressure, Rudyard, because this has been allowed to go on for so long. He was the subject of withering criticism by federal officials for the length of time it has taken to do this. These classic police tactics are a version of military tactics.

They're well known. Fundamentally, here's the game plan. You fence off the critical area. You do not allow crowds to swell. And then you peel off, literally like an onion. You peel off those people who are worried about the consequences. Some of them will leave so that by the time you finally make the move, You're down to a group of hardcore committed protesters, and you're prepared for violence among those.

And I think as shocking as this is going to be to Canadians, this is what we will likely see. And against the backdrop of these kind of tactics is the introduction in Canada this week of the Emergencies Act, what used to be known as the War Measures Act. you know in some cases Janice to many a kind of an equally shocking development the extent to which we seemingly our institutions not just police but our political institutions too were unable to resolve this protest short of declaring something and I kind of like the original name the war measures act because if you actually look at the reasons you have this act and why traditionally would be deployed it. It truly is in moments of national crises that, at least in

the acts originators, rose to a level of standard of war, of true national crisis. And I think many people feel, I am among them, that it's unfortunate that we've had to reach for this very blunt, somewhat ugly instrument that, you know, frankly, they, You can say it doesn't suspend charter rights, but people's charter rights are being violated here. And the courts may well end up litigating a lot of this in the months and years to come. But it's an ugly moment and a moment where I hope there is some accountability. You know, why have our politicians and our political leaders led us, frankly, to this moment? why wasn't this resolved through better policing, through better rhetoric, through better leadership?

To me, it's a sad comment on Canada's democracy, on our democratic institutions, on the quality and tenor of our civic spaces and public debate. And I hope we reflect on that. I hope we pause for a moment and really reflect that we, We failed this test. We had to go to the Emergencies Act, the War Measures Act, to find a resolution to a problem that if you read the act and the preamble, it's pretty clear. This does not rise to the standard envisioned by the act's authors.

We're fudging here, and we're fudging here because we've failed. So I think there's three big issues, Richard, in what you just said. and let me just tease them out for all our listeners. The first is I agree with you that in the preceding two weeks, we saw yet again federal provincial municipal dysfunction. It was almost impossible to navigate our way across these jurisdictional boundaries. Why did it take three weeks to get an integrated? police command center.

We did not need legislation to pull together the RCMP, the OPP, the Ontario Police Force, and the Ottawa Police. That we are not doing well enough, and we've seen this through the whole pandemic. We are not doing well enough at dealing with novel challenges, because this is, let's be fair, nobody imagined that trucks would be used as a vehicle of prolonged protest until it happens. Then you imagine it. But our institutions cannot respond in a nimble and flexible way, just like we struggled through so much of the pandemic with these jurisdictional boundaries which fracture our politics. And for me, that is the biggest takeaway from these last two years.

This is kind of the obvious tipping point where people can see it, but this is the one I think that should cause the greatest reflection. Second of all, you put on the table the biggest issue that is being debated now, was this legislation necessary? That's the first issue. And secondly, is it charter compliant? Well, this is not the War Measures Act. Let's make that absolutely clear.

It's not the War Measures Act because that was so blunt when it was used by Pierre Trudeau in the October crisis, that under the Mulroney government, there was a prolonged look at the legislation. And there are some things in this legislation. I think it's really important listeners understand. First of all, Parliament has to debate it. And if it does not approve it,

and the vote was scheduled for Monday night, may be delayed a day. The legislation is revoked. Secondly, there is review, by Parliament, which there never was under the Board Measures Act, that really matters. So if you think about parliamentary democracy, here Parliament both has an authorizing function. Governments just can't do it. And secondly, they are going to review the implementation of it all along the way. That is a much better world than what we had under the War Measure Act. So let's

acknowledge progress when we see it. Was it necessary? You saying no. It is interesting, Richard, that police, especially former chiefs in Ottawa, have said they could not cordon off the city.

They could not put 100 checkpoints in. They couldn't stop people without having this kind of authority. I'm not fully persuaded, honestly. We do this for big sporting events.

We put police checkpoints in place. And they did it to clear the Windsor Bridge without the emergency legislation. So is this a scale problem that we're talking about? This is just such a resistant group that have encamped for three weeks in Ottawa and that there are fears of violence. Nobody knows what's inside those rigs, that they felt. so vulnerable on a scale issue that they had to do this. The third big one, and wow, this is a going forward issue.

Freezing bank accounts, that's relatively speaking, the easy piece, but you and I've talked about this before, crypto exchanges. We are in uncharted territory here where, and the threshold, here's the worry, The threshold for doing that is not clear. So rumors are flying about who's on that donor list that was hacked. And there may be some people that you and I know on that list. Let me put it that way, Roger. What's the threshold if you've given $50 to this protest or $100?

Is your bank account frozen? Now, that's not what the government has done up to now. The list is small, 20, 30 people. But there's no protection here against a longer list. And frankly, it's difficult to see how seizure and freezing of assets, even if it's temporary, is charter compliant. Yeah, you know, I'll let sharper illegal minds, you know, debate this, the implementations act.

But I think, you know, to what I've read and seen, I think people make it a compelling case that, you know, nowhere in the act is the suppression of lawful and peaceful protests, you know, elucidated as a reason for lawful. No, well, the government seems to be, appears to be explicitly citing a terrorist threat to national security jazz. They have had to very purposely use language that stretches much further than the actual behavior to date of these protests, which we should give some credit. You want to give credit to what credits do in terms of the transition from the War Measures Act to the Emergency Act. Well, let's give some credit to these protesters that overwhelmingly their protests have been peaceful. Yeah. They have been nonviolent. But here's the first.

The first provision in the act record is a threat to public order. So there is a right to democratic protest. But when you blockade the downtown core of a city for three weeks, Parliament is not meeting today because there is, you know, fear that tried to remove people from, There is unlawful, persistent occupation. There are places to demonstrate, as you know, in the parliamentary precinct. There's a big hill in front of parliament.

Which is now blocked off with wired fences. Yes. But, I mean, again, we're not lawyers, but just to make a point here. I mean, the act does clearly enumerate that the threat facing the state has to be beyond the powers of the provinces or constitute a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Canada.

And let's just be honest with each other. These protests don't rise to that level of threat. We are using this act as a blunt instrument, as a tool to cover up, as you've rightly pointed out,

and others have to, a series of failures to this point. That's my point, Janice. It's this thing that annoys me about the last two years. It's the failure of accountability and responsibility of institutions and leaders acknowledging that they've got it wrong and that they've had to reach in the end to things in their toolkits like shutdowns and school closures and now the Emergency Act. And all this seems to happen in this.

this typically Canadian fashion of blame this, you know, Alfred C. Newman, what me worry type attitude, where nobody acknowledges that we're getting to actions like school closures and the emergencies act that are themselves acknowledgments of the failures of everything that went before. That's where my frustration lies. We skate in this country.

People aren't held to account. And how do you learn? How do you avoid it next time? If you don't have the kind of intestinal fortitude, the intellectual honesty, the political courage to acknowledge your mistakes. Well, let's talk about exactly the points that you're making, Richard. Let's talk about the progress that has been made. the chief of police in Ottawa resigned.

How many resignations have we had over the last two years when institutions did not deliver? The chair of the Ottawa Police Board resigned. So your demand for accountability, when people resign in the middle of a crisis, there is actually some accountability here. Now, there was huge disagreement inside that. Police Services Board, but there was accountability. Secondly, and here is the interesting thing. So I think there's ground for optimism. There will be a public inquiry.

It is mandated by the legislation that once these emergency provisions are over, they only last for 30 days. Parliament has to renew them otherwise. Once they're over and I assume they'll be gone by then, there will be an independent public inquiry into what went wrong with our institutions. I would love to see an independent public inquiry about what went wrong in our pandemic management. So in a curious way, we have better protections, better opportunity for learning as a result of this. It's a much harder to skate.

A cascading series of mistakes that lead to this regrettable. you know, a smear on on Canadian democracy. This is not what healthy democracies do. Healthy democracies do not declare emergency acts. This is something that happens generally in states and nations and democracies that are, you know, systemically off balance, off culture. I mean, my final point on this is the irony of these protests is that they've now gone on long enough that the very things that they're asking to happen, the end of that.

vaccine mandates, the lifting of the variety of social controls is now happening in Western countries across the world in Europe and North America. So it's not just the big battle the United States now that has largely responded to these protesters' demands, you know, the Texas and the Florida's of this world. It's the Ireland's and the Denmark's. The list is growing day by day, the United Kingdom, where effectively all restrictions are gone. Vaccine mandates are being lifted. So the perversity of this is that we're going through all this almost as a kind of demonstration by the emperor,

who kind of looks like they're a few socks and a hat and a shirt full of a full wardrobe to prove that, no, these restrictions will remain in effect because we've said they'll remain in effect. And we're going to, you know, hammer on this protest with the sledgehammer of the Emergency Act. It all just seems like a debate which history and events and the virus has already moved on from. And yet here is Canada trapped as we have been through this entire pandemic fighting the last battle. Yeah.

The previous set of arguments. Well, let me say. You know, it just can't make this stuff up. Well, let's, for a moment, leave the streets, leave Wellington right now, and just say this protest was about more than vaccine mandates. Yes, it responded to pandemic fatigue, which everybody has. Yes, it reflects how short all our few. uses are every one of this after these last two years, everybody is fed up.

But it's about more than that. I mean, no coincidence, Roger, that one of the chief spokesman who was arrested last night is a spokesperson for Western alienation and is sympathetic to a movement to have three Western provinces separate from Canada. No coincidence that we've had. Just like hundreds of thousands of people in Quebec still believes. fervently in the idea of Quebec separation. Yeah, but that...

A legitimate view. Quebec separation is a legitimate view. It's regrettable. It sure is. Western separation is a legitimate view, Janice. It's regrettable, but it is. It's not something that is unlawful. No, I'm not saying it's unlawful, Richard,

but I'm saying what motivated these people to come and stay in the street for three weeks in the middle of a bitterly cold winter is more than vaccine mandates. It's not only the pandemic. There are other legitimate political issues wrapped up in this, which I think gave these protesters the oxygen to continue to stay. So let's not write it all off to a pandemic that for now is abating

and say we're behind the curve. There are other issues wrapped up in here. They're lawful issues, but there are issues. Yeah, I mean, the irony is we're at 100% restaurant gym capacity. right now in Ontario. Yeah. So we're, you know, we're not giving an inch to these protesters, yet in effect. Well, we're not.

The virus has moved on in the public policy responses, almost moved on in Canada. It's basically moved on and the rest of our peer nations. Yet, yeah, we're going to pound this point home that these people. No, no, no. You know, dragged out of their cabs, arrested, you know, their bank accounts seized, their civil liberties violated because they believe in a set of things that are the de facto de rigure right now

in the United Kingdom or Denmark or Ireland. They are not. I don't think that's a wholly accurate characterization. The policies have moved on in the period that we're talking about. And boy, remarkably quickly, and let's be forthright here. That schedule,

was accelerated by these protesters. I mean, they... It was also accelerated by the rest of the world moving on. Well, yes and no, but the street put pressure here on political leaders and three premiers led and our own premier wanted to go there anyway and took every opportunity to go there. But what the police action we're going to see imminently is not about those, that set of policy issues.

That's about people blockading Parliament and the precinct in front of Parliament for three weeks. There's no way lawful to park your truck in the middle of a street and say I'm staying there. And we have

highway traffic laws and municipal bylaws and all kinds of things that could get those trucks out of there short of implementing the Emergencies Act. But hey, I guess in Canada, when everything else screws up, you reach for the, you know, the five alarm siren and, you know, press the crisis button and, you know, go, go, go. You know, on a note of humor before we leave this subject, who would think that towing truck capacity would become a strategic asset?

The Ottawa police asked repeatedly that private tow truck companies work with them to tow some of these big reeks. Now, of course, they said no. And why wouldn't they say no? These trucking companies are big clients and they were not going to kill their own businesses. So here we are a state of the yard country that needed legislation to compel total. truckers to work with authorities to remove these vehicles. Right. And let's just understand that those companies' property rights will now be violated.

They will be forced to use their tow trucks for purposes that they as the owners, the people that have worked hard to create the capital, to buy those trucks, to ostensibly make their own decisions about how those trucks should be used as their owners, all those rights, those basic property rights out the window. That's you're right about that. That's what the emergency legislation does. It's suspense. It's ugly.

It's really ugly. It is really ugly. We have to acknowledge that. Anyway, Janice, I'm conscious of our time. After the short break, we're going to come back. We've got to talk about this dance between Putin and Biden. It's just getting more bizarre by the day. Hopefully you're going to enlighten me as to some methodology to this madness that we're seeing between the Kremlin and the White House.

back right after this break. 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.