Full Comment - Alberta finally builds its ‘firewall’ to keep Ottawa out

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00:01:12.740 If you were involved in conservative politics in the early 2000s, one name that kept coming

00:01:27.240 up again and again at both the federal and provincial level in Alberta is Ted Morton.

00:01:32.240 Hello, my name's Brian Lilly, and this is the Full Comment Podcast.

00:01:36.000 And today we're going to talk to Ted Morton about his new book, Strong and Free, My Journey

00:01:40.340 in Alberta Politics.

00:01:41.540 It's just come out.

00:01:43.120 But Ted, first off, thanks for the book.

00:01:45.940 Thanks for coming on.

00:01:47.580 But I actually want to start somewhere else.

00:01:49.960 And that is with something else that you helped write a long time ago.

00:01:54.000 It's part of what you talk about in the book.

00:01:56.300 But you're famous as one of the authors for the firewall letter, something that you wrote

00:02:03.740 with Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan, something that is now looks like it might be coming to

00:02:10.100 fruition.

00:02:11.300 So how does that feel so many years later, hearing some of the things that you advocated

00:02:16.220 for being looked at a serious policy in the Alberta government?

00:02:22.120 I mean, you were in government for a long time and some of that couldn't happen.

00:02:25.000 But your idea is now coming to fruition.

00:02:27.340 That must feel good.

00:02:29.480 It feels very good, very gratified.

00:02:32.380 Yes, Stephen Harper, I and several others in 2001 wrote the Alberta Agenda, aka Firewall

00:02:39.000 Letter.

00:02:40.520 We were, it looked like the Senate reform thing was going to go flat.

00:02:44.180 So if we couldn't get more Alberta in Ottawa, which was the purpose of Senate reform, we wanted

00:02:49.800 less Ottawa in Alberta.

00:02:52.540 And those were the firewall agendas.

00:02:55.580 I spent about a decade and a half fighting for that in provincial politics unsuccessfully,

00:03:02.540 led to the division of the two conservative parties and election of an NDP government in

00:03:07.600 2015.

00:03:08.420 But Jason Kenney was able to achieve what I failed to achieve in 2018.

00:03:13.780 Jason got the Wild Rose Party and the PCs to come together, won a majority government.

00:03:20.680 And now Danielle has done that again. 1.00

00:03:22.600 And both of those, both Premier Kenney and now Premier Smith have taken those firewall policies

00:03:30.160 and put them into practice or are moving them towards practice as government policy.

00:03:35.840 Well, even the way that you described it and the way that I described it, you called it

00:03:40.440 by its proper name, the Alberta Agenda. 0.99

00:03:42.800 And I'm one of those Eastern bastards. 0.99

00:03:46.120 Is that what you call it? 0.99

00:03:47.200 I think I've got a book around here called that.

00:03:50.300 So I called it the firewall letter.

00:03:53.060 Talk to me a little bit about what the main thrust of the Alberta Agenda was, because it

00:04:01.260 gets vilified in much of Canada. 0.79

00:04:04.400 And even though I am an Eastern bastard, I've always looked at the Alberta agenda and the 0.94

00:04:10.720 firewall letter and said, why are people outraged that Alberta wants what Quebec has or what 0.97

00:04:17.640 most of Ontario has?

00:04:18.900 That has never made sense to me.

00:04:21.220 So what was in it and why were you pushing for those things?

00:04:25.640 Well, again, to have more control of what happens policy-wise and policy implementation-wise

00:04:32.620 inside of Alberta.

00:04:34.500 And as you've correctly pointed out, the firewall, well, let's backtrack.

00:04:39.000 What is a firewall?

00:04:40.080 A firewall is an internet software firm.

00:04:42.700 It keeps out unwanted interference in your IT base.

00:04:51.940 And so there's nothing particularly controversial about a firewall.

00:04:54.720 And the things that we proposed, policing, the provincial police force, rather than the

00:05:00.100 RCMP, collecting our own taxes, having an Alberta pension plan, withdrawing from the

00:05:06.400 Canada pension plan.

00:05:07.760 Quebec does all of those.

00:05:09.200 Ontario does several of those.

00:05:11.200 So it's not a...

00:05:12.840 We have the Ontario Provincial Police.

00:05:15.600 I passed by officers with the OPP coming into the Ontario legislature today for this interview.

00:05:21.100 Quebec has the SQ, the Certe de Quebec, provincial police force.

00:05:27.340 And Alberta did in the 30s.

00:05:29.440 And at one point, Alberta had its own police force and then opted to rent the RCMP starting,

00:05:35.460 I think, in the 40s.

00:05:36.800 Yeah.

00:05:37.040 I mean, what benefit does it to say, well, the RCMP has to do highway patrol outside of

00:05:42.500 Tabor?

00:05:42.860 Well, again, to kind of bridge to another issue that's problematic in Alberta, of course,

00:05:58.880 if you want to go forward in the RCMP, you better be bilingual, right?

00:06:02.500 Any federal bureaucracy, to move up the hierarchy, you have to...

00:06:07.220 The higher you go, the more bilingual you have to become.

00:06:10.720 I think 6% of Albertans are bilingual.

00:06:14.920 And if you want to move up the RCMP ladder, you also have to be willing to move around in

00:06:19.960 different provinces.

00:06:20.900 And there are a lot of young men and women in Alberta who are not bilingual and who want

00:06:25.480 to stay in Alberta.

00:06:26.360 And therefore, but don't pursue policing opportunities, at least with the RCMP.

00:06:32.020 If we had a provincial police force, I think you'd see a lot more capable young Alberta men

00:06:39.140 and women thinking about joining. 1.00

00:06:42.900 The Quebec pension plan is often used in a very political way.

00:06:51.000 And your mileage may vary on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

00:06:56.780 Quebecers will often take pride that their pension money is used for propping up Quebec

00:07:03.120 companies' favorite industries.

00:07:05.180 If you had your way and Alberta had their pension plan tomorrow, what would you be doing?

00:07:10.080 Would it be just like the Quebec model where politically they decide we need to invest in

00:07:16.660 this sector and therefore we'll put money in whether it's a good return or not?

00:07:21.780 Or should it be more like the Canada pension plan?

00:07:25.340 Very hands-off.

00:07:26.860 Sometimes too hands-off.

00:07:28.040 Right now they're spending a huge amount of money building a beautiful office in downtown

00:07:32.700 Toronto that is mind-boggling, the money they're paying for that.

00:07:38.520 What would you do?

00:07:39.520 What would your vision be?

00:07:40.560 On a high level, I'm in favor of fences around whether it's a provincial pension plan or in

00:07:48.680 the case of the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

00:07:51.300 As I document repeatedly in the book that comes out today, not just the conservative government,

00:07:59.580 the NDP government, all governments in Alberta can't resist the temptation, and not just in

00:08:05.660 Alberta, everywhere, to do short-term spending for short-term political objectives rather than

00:08:11.600 long-term, economically sensible and well-advised types of investments.

00:08:17.740 Certainly at a high level, I would favor the fence around to keep political influence to

00:08:24.080 a minimum.

00:08:25.380 Yeah.

00:08:26.900 That's the model I favor.

00:08:28.680 Just right now, as I say, perhaps a bit too independent when you're going to, I believe

00:08:34.800 it's tens of millions of dollars on their new offices with features that you would get

00:08:40.560 from a Wall Street hedge fund.

00:08:42.220 And by the way, the Canada pension plan is not outperforming the markets in any significant

00:08:48.720 way.

00:08:49.360 We're just paying a lot for our pension plan.

00:08:52.660 So do you think that, I know that there's been some polling that shows it's not a super

00:08:59.640 popular idea.

00:09:01.640 Do you think that Premier Smith will move forward with this?

00:09:06.060 There's a study underway, an independent arm's length study, about the nature and size of

00:09:14.000 Alberta's contribution to the CPP.

00:09:16.880 When that comes back, obviously, there'll be more discussion.

00:09:19.860 People are understandably nervous about, there are a lot of people, including me, who get a

00:09:26.380 Canada pension plan check every month.

00:09:28.780 And so they're nervous.

00:09:30.200 And I understand, and obviously you understand too, why people are nervous about politicians

00:09:35.400 putting their hands on things like your pension checks.

00:09:39.260 But I think properly explained and with, as I said, the political fences around it to keep,

00:09:45.140 to prevent short term, to let governments, not just the Smith government, but governments

00:09:50.420 down the road using a Alberta pension plan for their own short term political purposes rather

00:09:57.740 than longer term sound investment purposes, I think people can be persuaded.

00:10:02.380 You took a long and interesting route to be someone who spent 30 years in Alberta politics.

00:10:09.500 First off, you're originally from LA, and then you end up in Alberta.

00:10:14.280 Did you lose a bet?

00:10:16.860 You're kind of the opposite of Gretzky.

00:10:20.620 I left LA when I was three years old.

00:10:24.200 I grew up in Wyoming, which again, if you've traveled a little bit, you know, Wyoming,

00:10:29.020 Montana, Alberta have a share a lot in common.

00:10:32.880 Wyoming, and certainly Casper, Wyoming, where I grew up was an oil and gas town.

00:10:37.320 And in the old days, before big jets, when you still had DC3s, whatever they were called,

00:10:42.940 the flights from Houston, Dallas, Denver, Casper, Billings, right up to Calgary.

00:10:49.080 So I had friends, we knew people and I went to school with kids that were coming and going

00:10:54.140 to Calgary already.

00:10:55.240 So for me to end up in Calgary and in Alberta was not that much of a stretch.

00:11:00.480 And plus, as you and I've already mentioned, I spent four and a half years in Toronto where

00:11:05.840 I did my PhD at the University of Toronto.

00:11:08.040 So I was, I knew Canada and I knew enough about Alberta to be comfortable there.

00:11:13.360 I once interviewed one of the more famous people to come out of Wyoming, Dick Cheney.

00:11:22.200 And there's a man who also knew Canada very well.

00:11:25.120 And what was fascinating about him was finding out that he'd fished in every part of this

00:11:30.280 country and had gone coast to coast and knew parts of Canada better than a lot of Canadians

00:11:36.740 do, had explored it more.

00:11:38.020 So, um, yeah, I haven't just, uh, you know, driven through all of that area.

00:11:43.860 It's absolutely gorgeous.

00:11:44.900 And you're right.

00:11:45.420 A lot of, of connections back and forth, but when you, uh, ended up moving to Canada, did

00:11:52.080 you think that you would be so deeply involved in provincial and national politics?

00:11:58.860 Absolutely not.

00:11:59.720 I, the reason I went to the University of Toronto is because there was a, uh, a person, uh, in

00:12:05.620 the U of T philosophy department, Emil Fackenheim, who was the leading Hegel scholar in North

00:12:11.360 America.

00:12:11.780 And I wanted to do a PhD on, uh, on Hegel, the German philosopher.

00:12:16.760 So that's why I came to Toronto.

00:12:18.620 And, uh, like most graduate students, what I hoped is that I'd finish in, in three or four

00:12:24.280 years.

00:12:24.580 And I did, and then I'd get a job, but given the academic job market, you had to be willing

00:12:29.100 to go where, where the jobs have opened.

00:12:31.220 So going to Toronto was very intentional.

00:12:34.680 Uh, what was going to be next?

00:12:36.060 I had no idea.

00:12:37.160 And, and so you went from U of T to where?

00:12:42.580 I had, I left U of T in 78 and I taught at a small Catholic college in Boston for three

00:12:48.020 years.

00:12:48.380 The year I left U of T, one of my best friends from graduate school days, Reiner Knoth, uh,

00:12:54.160 who's from, uh, from, from Ontario and who was in the same programs I was in at U of T.

00:12:58.820 He, I went to Boston.

00:13:00.420 He went, he went to, uh, Calgary and three years later, 1981, he phoned me up and he

00:13:05.600 said, Ted, uh, you, Alberta is growing.

00:13:09.260 You have University of Calgary is growing.

00:13:11.140 Our department's growing.

00:13:12.340 We need somebody to come here and teach American politics and Canadian constitutional law.

00:13:17.320 And I'd done part of my PhD was on Canadian constitutional law.

00:13:21.160 So, uh, I flew out, got the interview, was offered the job and, uh, had to spend a little

00:13:27.860 bit of time persuading my wife that she'd like, uh, the Western, Western, Western Canada.

00:13:34.720 From Boston to Calgary.

00:13:35.880 Yeah.

00:13:36.360 Uh, and Calgary has grown tremendously since then.

00:13:40.060 Very much.

00:13:41.020 Yeah.

00:13:41.240 When we, when we moved to Calgary, it was 600,000 people today.

00:13:44.760 I think it's 1.2, 1.3 million.

00:13:47.700 So it's more than double.

00:13:48.640 Uh, so looking back, uh, from when you first got involved to now, um, and I, and I know

00:13:58.000 you, you know, go over various, uh, policies in your book, where have you changed your mind?

00:14:06.960 Were, were there things that you were steadfast in 30 years ago that now you say, hmm, I'd

00:14:12.780 take a different approach or I wouldn't be as, as strident.

00:14:16.300 Um, good question.

00:14:19.240 Uh, but one that I've never thought of before trying to think, um, the only thing that comes

00:14:26.100 immediately to mind was I was very much opposed to the decriminalization of marijuana, uh, because

00:14:35.640 like a lot of kids who were in college and university in the sixties, I smoked a lot of

00:14:40.080 marijuana.

00:14:40.480 Uh, I stopped, uh, once I got to Toronto and once I had kids and then especially once

00:14:47.080 I had a job, I wasn't going to do something that was illegal.

00:14:50.360 And, uh, but I have friends that kept smoking, uh, and they still, they smoked through their

00:14:55.480 twenties, thirties, forties.

00:14:56.600 And I think they've lived much smaller lives than they were capable of.

00:14:59.880 So I was against decriminalizing marijuana, but I, over time in Calgary, I developed friends

00:15:06.060 with a policeman, uh, several who said, Ted, uh, it's so widespread.

00:15:11.760 It's, uh, we're wasting our time chasing people over marijuana.

00:15:15.300 We need to get marijuana off, off the, the crime list and move on to the much, to the more

00:15:21.160 serious drugs.

00:15:21.880 So I was persuaded there based on advice and, uh, conversations with friends who are actual

00:15:28.880 policemen to change my mind on that. 0.95

00:15:31.520 We need to take a quick break for, uh, for some commercials to pay the bills.

00:15:35.540 But when we come back, I do want to ask you about, um, the triple E Senate, uh, that dream

00:15:43.340 seems to be dead, but there's also been some recent, uh, Senate appointments that kind of

00:15:50.040 annoying more than a few Albertans, more when we come back.

00:15:54.860 Ted, one of the issues that you, uh, pushed for in your early days or not early days, but,

00:16:01.860 uh, 25 or so years ago was triple E Senate.

00:16:05.380 I think that ship is, um, if it hasn't passed, it's definitely, uh, parked it's mooring.

00:16:11.720 Uh, it's not really going anywhere.

00:16:14.180 Recently, prime minister, Justin Trudeau, uh, appointed two senators from Alberta.

00:16:19.320 Now you've got three senators in waiting who've been elected by the people of Alberta and yet

00:16:25.140 he did not appoint any of them and instead appointed Daryl, uh, Fridhandler.

00:16:30.120 He's a lawyer who has a very long track record of donating to the liberal party and organizing

00:16:35.960 and being on communities.

00:16:37.760 Very long.

00:16:38.380 And then academic activist, Christopher Wells, that must've been a slap in the face.

00:16:44.940 Uh, absolutely.

00:16:47.360 And, uh, but Senate reform in theory makes good sense.

00:16:50.120 It's how in other federal states, not just the U S but Australia, Germany, uh, the less

00:16:56.720 populated, uh, regions and states can articulate and defend their interest in a national legislative

00:17:03.520 policymaking arena where most of the other power is based on represent representation by

00:17:08.500 population.

00:17:09.080 Right.

00:17:09.400 And, uh, case in point, uh, my, I arrived in Alberta just when Trudeau, number one, Pierre

00:17:18.200 Trudeau brought in the national energy program, which devastated, uh, devastated Alberta economically,

00:17:25.400 chased, uh, billions of dollars of, uh, oil and gas investment South of the border.

00:17:30.900 Uh, and he did that because it was very popular in, uh, in Eastern Canada, it kept gas prices

00:17:37.680 and heating prices lower in the U S the, uh, representatives and the house of representatives

00:17:42.980 brought in identical legislation bills in the house of representatives and it passed.

00:17:47.200 But when it went to the Senate in the Senate, the bill goes to a committee, natural resource

00:17:52.180 committee goes to a subcommittee who sits on those committees.

00:17:54.980 The senators from Texas, Louisiana, Colorado, Wyoming, the oil and gas producing states had

00:18:00.980 never made it out of committee.

00:18:02.220 So there's a very graphic example of how, um, a Tripoli Senate could and would articulate

00:18:10.640 and allow Western Canada and the Maritimes to articulate and defend regional interests that

00:18:16.320 are not shared by Ontario and Quebec, but it's not going to happen.

00:18:20.640 And I, as far as I'm concerned, I'm on complete, completely on the abolition ticket now for

00:18:25.240 the Senate, which would also be incredibly, um, problematic because as you mentioned, the

00:18:30.640 Supreme court decision in 2014, I don't think people realize the impact of that decision.

00:18:37.240 I mean, Stephen Harper just abandoned, um, any attempt to alter or change the Senate.

00:18:43.080 He abandoned appointing senators.

00:18:44.720 I think that's probably something that if we were having a frank conversation with the former

00:18:49.100 prime minister today, he would say was probably a mistake leaving all those appointments open.

00:18:54.600 Uh, Danielle Smith had an interesting, uh, musing the other day and created some controversy

00:19:01.980 in Alberta.

00:19:02.620 She was talking about increasing the population, doubling the population of the province dramatically

00:19:09.000 in order to make sure that Alberta does have more clout, um, more population, more clout

00:19:15.840 like Ontario and Quebec.

00:19:17.680 Um, some people are supportive. 0.90

00:19:20.060 Others were saying, are you crazy?

00:19:21.840 Immigration strangely under Justin Trudeau has become a, a hot button issue and is not

00:19:27.280 quite, uh, looked on quite as fondly as it was.

00:19:29.720 What did you make of, of her position on that?

00:19:33.600 Well, again, she, she's right in theory, but in practice, I don't think, uh, none of that's

00:19:38.860 going to happen too quickly.

00:19:40.460 Uh, immigration, uh, population grows through immigration, both, uh, immigration from the

00:19:46.140 rest of Canada and immigration from, from outside.

00:19:48.740 Uh, it's, this year, uh, Canada or Alberta, I think has already taken on an additional 200,000

00:19:55.520 new people in just this year, but still in terms of Quebec and Ontario have, uh, 199 MPs,

00:20:04.140 199 MPs in the house of commons.

00:20:06.560 The majority is, uh, 170, uh, it'll be a long time before the population of Alberta or Saskatchewan

00:20:13.240 are anywhere even close to that, uh, in terms of, uh, representation in the, in the, uh, house

00:20:20.980 of commons.

00:20:21.660 So long-term maybe, but it's short-term and it doesn't address much more pressing issues.

00:20:26.620 And that's why she's on the, on the Sovereignty Act, which addresses short-term, immediate and

00:20:34.500 short-term issues of, of importance to Alberta.

00:20:37.380 Do you think the Sovereignty Act would survive a court challenge?

00:20:42.560 Uh, the Act and the Abstract does.

00:20:45.020 Again, like a lot of policy, it depends on the specifics of how it's used in specific instances,

00:20:50.480 but they've been, uh, very clear that, uh, under the Sovereignty Act, no individual and

00:20:57.880 no private company, no corporation is going to be asked to, uh, violate any law, provincial

00:21:04.440 or federal.

00:21:05.160 Uh, so, uh, they've blocked off that liability, uh, that risk.

00:21:13.940 Uh, and then again, depend, it depends on how they use it.

00:21:16.680 I think what the Sovereignty Act does instead of Alberta challenging federal laws under the

00:21:21.200 Sovereignty Act, suddenly, uh, Alberta is going to play offense and, uh, and it's going

00:21:25.980 to be Ottawa that has to challenge, which is a lot.

00:21:28.620 Well, and frankly, the model for that is Quebec playing offense rather than defense.

00:21:34.840 As someone who, um, was there at the beginning with Preston Manning building the reform movement,

00:21:41.300 like your sense on how you think, uh, federal conservative politics is going now, uh, you

00:21:48.960 get some people who, you know, pine for, uh, uh, you know, a vision of the old progressive

00:21:56.700 conservative party that I don't think is attached to reality.

00:21:59.500 You know, Brian Mulroney, uh, if we ran, he ran on his platform today, uh, would be, you

00:22:07.080 know, that would be described as far right and horrible and, uh, regressive.

00:22:10.980 And that's how they described him back in the day.

00:22:13.600 But some people think, oh no, it was a much more genteel party.

00:22:16.520 It's different.

00:22:17.140 And so, uh, they view Pierre Polyev's conservatives as, well, that's just reform and they're so

00:22:24.000 far, right.

00:22:24.800 Others will say he's not a real conservative.

00:22:27.360 He's not being hard enough.

00:22:29.520 What's your sense of where Polyev is, where the, the conservative movement is federally compared

00:22:34.640 to what you were, were fighting for with, with Manning?

00:22:38.300 Well, uh, the tensions are obviously there.

00:22:42.100 They were there then, uh, Manning versus the federal conservatives and they're there today,

00:22:46.600 as you just described.

00:22:47.700 But what are the, what are the polls say about Pierre Polyevra and the, uh, conservative party

00:22:54.300 of, uh, of Canada that they, they're ahead in the polls by close to 20% and they, if there's

00:23:00.380 an election, if things don't change before the next election, they could win, uh, as many

00:23:04.720 as 200 seats, uh, in the house of commons.

00:23:07.440 So, uh, I would say at that level, uh, the conservative party today is, uh, quite successful.

00:23:16.880 And again, I think, you know, but your, your listeners may not, uh, I've known, uh, Pierre

00:23:23.160 probably ever since he was a student at UFC in the, in the 1990s.

00:23:27.180 And, uh, I liked him then.

00:23:28.740 I like him now.

00:23:29.400 Uh, and I think Canadians now given the choice, prefer him to, uh, Justin Trudeau.

00:23:36.000 Uh, so, so you're saying that his, uh, uh, political formation took place at the Calgary

00:23:41.860 school as you and several of your colleagues have been dubbed over the years.

00:23:46.400 Yeah.

00:23:47.280 And, but not just him, uh, Danielle Smith, uh, the, the list is, is actually pretty long.

00:23:54.260 You, you know, a lot there, there are people who've actually held political office like,

00:23:58.920 uh, Dan, well, Stephen Harper, Danielle, uh, Pierre, but for every one of those, there's

00:24:05.040 another dozen or more people who have followed, uh, them to Ottawa, uh, or to Edmonton and become

00:24:14.000 senior staffers either in ministry, in the, in, in the, in minister's offices or in, uh, in

00:24:21.280 the civil service.

00:24:22.020 So, uh, the Calgary school has had a lot of influence and I'm happy about that.

00:24:26.780 Well, it's been good to know, uh, many of, uh, your colleagues from that school over the

00:24:31.160 years.

00:24:31.420 And, uh, of course you, you, uh, co-opted Ian Brody, uh, into the school after he left

00:24:37.220 politics.

00:24:37.660 He's, uh, you know, was an Ontario academic before he, he went and tried his hand at being

00:24:42.160 chief of staff to Stephen Harper.

00:24:43.800 And then I guess you guys, you offered him a filthy oil lucre or something and got him out

00:24:48.980 there.

00:24:49.200 Well, Ian's, Ian's in, uh, again, a classic example of, uh, I think some of the quality

00:24:55.980 of people we've had in the conservative party in the last couple of decades, he grew up in,

00:25:00.200 he grew up in Metro Toronto.

00:25:02.260 He did his undergrad at McGill.

00:25:04.180 He went out to the university of Calgary.

00:25:06.060 You may not know, he did his PhD with me at the university.

00:25:08.460 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:25:09.920 Yeah.

00:25:10.420 And that's, that's where he met, uh, Stephen Harper and Tom Flanagan.

00:25:13.700 And then when, when Tom went to, uh, Ottawa with Stephen, uh, excuse me, uh, Ian first

00:25:20.480 then after he left UFC, he went and taught at a Western for four or five years.

00:25:24.700 Uh, but when Flanagan and Harper went off to Ottawa, he went, he went with them and he was

00:25:30.440 there for a decade.

00:25:31.300 I think he served, uh, four or five years then as Canada's representative in Washington,

00:25:37.780 the council of the Americas.

00:25:39.620 And then, uh, Jack Mintz brought him out to Calgary for the school of public policy.

00:25:43.780 And so he's, he's lived and worked in all parts of Canada and in the U S he's a pretty

00:25:50.960 exceptional smart guy.

00:25:52.740 And I'm, I'm glad he's at the university of Calgary now teaching.

00:25:55.580 You've taught some impressive people, uh, Ted, let me ask you this then regarding Pierre

00:26:00.120 Polly, you say you've known him a long time, you taught him, um, people that don't know

00:26:07.820 him, at least this is my experience, but maybe I'm, you know, I've known him since he was

00:26:12.680 first elected.

00:26:13.460 So that's 20 years this past spring.

00:26:16.360 Um, and I've always known him to be an affable guy.

00:26:19.840 You know, someone who cracks a good joke is willing to laugh, including it himself.

00:26:24.620 But I'm sure you've heard the complaint as well.

00:26:27.100 Oh, he's mean.

00:26:28.160 Oh, he's angry.

00:26:29.960 Um, what's the guy that, you know, like, and does he have an image problem that he needs

00:26:36.900 to, to fix so that people don't think he's just an angry guy yelling off in the corner?

00:26:42.680 Well, again, I go back to the polling that you're aware of and all, uh, your listeners

00:26:47.260 are aware of.

00:26:47.900 He's, he's polling way, way ahead of, uh, Trudeau and the liberals right now.

00:26:51.960 So a lot of people seem to have changed their mind.

00:26:54.280 Something you just said, which I consider critical, uh, in my judgment of people, whether

00:27:00.340 they're conservatives or liberals or Indy, whatever, can they laugh at themselves?

00:27:05.300 People who can't laugh at themselves make me nervous, uh, uh, and particularly political

00:27:11.680 leaders who can't laugh at themselves.

00:27:13.720 And, uh, um, Pierre is, uh, laughs at himself all the time.

00:27:19.980 And if you listen to his speeches, uh, he can, he gets people laughing pretty quickly and

00:27:25.440 his wife's even better.

00:27:26.700 I think as a pair, they're going to be tough to beat.

00:27:29.760 And, uh, and, um, I think that's reflected that their normal, ordinary Canadian, she's 0.99

00:27:36.740 an immigrant, second generation immigrant, uh, loves Canada.

00:27:40.720 Um, you know, Pierre was adopted, uh, grew up in a bi-unilingual, by, by French parents,

00:27:49.060 French family in the West, but he grew up in Calgary.

00:27:51.360 So he's been bilingual, fluently bilingual since he was a kid and, uh, grew up in Calgary.

00:27:57.420 We knew him in the nineties as a college university student, but he's been in, uh, you know, Ottawa

00:28:02.120 MP for almost, almost 20 years.

00:28:05.020 Right.

00:28:05.500 So he's, he, but he's everything Pierre has, he earned for himself.

00:28:10.960 Everything Justin had was, was handed to him on a platter.

00:28:13.860 And I think, I think Canadians see that.

00:28:15.740 And that's one of the reasons they like him.

00:28:17.300 Well, I, I also know that he's a policy wonk, so he may be one of the people reading your

00:28:22.300 book.

00:28:23.100 Um, although he did tell me recently, we were doing an interview and he told me that he's

00:28:27.460 now reading books while listening to the audio book version at double or triple speed.

00:28:33.480 So he gets through it faster.

00:28:34.740 So you might have to do an audio book, uh, for, for him to finish everything.

00:28:38.700 I don't think that's in the cards for me.

00:28:42.440 Ted Morton's new book is called strong and free.

00:28:45.180 If you're a policy wonk, you will like it.

00:28:46.940 It is out now available wherever fine books are sold.

00:28:50.200 Ted, thanks so much for the time.

00:28:51.680 Thank you, Brian.

00:28:52.500 I enjoyed our, our talk.

00:28:53.920 Full comment is a post-media podcast.

00:28:56.100 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:28:57.500 This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:29:01.440 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:29:03.200 Remember you can subscribe on Apple podcast and you YouTube podcast, Spotify, or wherever

00:29:08.000 you listen, help us out by giving us a rating, leaving a review and tell your friends about

00:29:12.440 us.

00:29:12.740 Thanks for listening until next time.

00:29:14.540 I'm Brian Lilly.

Full Comment - October 07, 2024

Alberta finally builds its ‘firewall’ to keep Ottawa out

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