Episode 1： Celina Caesar-Chavannes
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Summary
In 2019, Selina Cesar Chavan had a falling out with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and quit his Liberal caucus in a very public way. She s now an author with a recently released book out titled, Can You Hear Me Now? and a senior advisor at Queen s University.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Anthony Fury, and welcome to the first episode of Full Comment, Postmedia's newest
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podcast. We're going to be bringing you new shows every week where we talk to fascinating guests
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and ask tough questions about politics, news, culture, the pandemic, and so much more.
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Like today's episode, where we have a great discussion with Selina Cesar Chavan. In 2019,
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she had a falling out with Justin Trudeau and quit his liberal caucus in a very public way.
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So remember to keep watching for new episodes, and if you like us, tell your friends to subscribe.
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Okay, let's get started. I'm really excited about our first guest because of the breadth of scope of
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her story, a story, well that is her personal story, it's very unique to her, but I think it
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also touches upon a number of issues that society, that Canada, that we've been discussing
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the past couple of years. Some of them are hot-button issues, sometimes uncomfortable conversations
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about gender, about race, about honesty in politics, and well so much more. And now for those of you
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listening in Canada, when you hear me sort of list off those phrases, you might think that Prime
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Minister Justin Trudeau is the rightful champion of those issues, or perhaps you think he is a bit
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of a hypocrite. Well, I'm curious to hear what our guest Selina Cesar Chavan has to say about that.
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Selina is a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, and was a liberal MP from 2015 to 2019. She's also now an
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author with a recently released book out titled Can You Hear Me Now? Hey Selina, thanks for joining us.
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Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the conversation, and I think to get us started, the first kind of thing
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that came to mind. You've got this new book out, and congratulations on it. And I was really
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wondering about the title, Can You Hear Me Now? And I wanted to ask you what's behind that title.
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Like, who is the you in that title, Can You Hear Me Now? And I guess also, you know, is it saying that
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people weren't listening to you before, and they should have been? Was it that your voice was not,
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you know, as loud as it should have been? Unpack the title for me, and what went into that?
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Yeah, so I'll unpack the title in reverse order of the book, because I think people most recognize
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me for my role in politics. So when I say, Can You Hear Me Now? That is really directed to,
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you know, the prime minister, the, I think, politics in general. I mean, I was talking about
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race and racism in 2018. You know, you fast forward to 2020, and everybody's talking about it. I think
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that the capacity for our government during that time to show their mettle, to stand up for their
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budget, to actually speak about racism in a way that wasn't performative, to speak about equity in
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a way that wasn't performative, they could have done it then. And now, you know, the book is released,
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it is serendipitous that it's released, you know, post 2020. And the question is, Can You Hear Me Now?
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Now, the whole world is talking about something that you should have been able to be to take some
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leadership on. But I think broader than just the political lens, this book is about everyone who
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has been silenced, who speaks up in whispers, and is afraid that people are not going to receive their
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message in a way that's impactful. And for people that are often marginalized and pushed aside,
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you know, that that universal you is a nod to them to say, I feel your pain, I see your hurts,
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I've experienced them. And now I'm putting them on the pages of the book. Can you hear? Can you hear
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me now? So you say it's universal. I mean, I know you're particularly interested. You talk about issues
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related to race, women's issues. But I think I could take what you said there about, you know, people
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feeling that their voice isn't being heard, and so forth. And there's probably a whole lot of people
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who for a whole variety of different reasons say, No, that's me. That's me.
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Yes, yes. Yeah, for sure. You know, right now, I am I'm a senior advisor of equity, diversity and
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inclusion at Queen's University. And to understand, you know, the scope within an institution like
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Queen's, you hear students that are struggling, you hear, you know, staff members, faculty, parents,
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students, especially during a pandemic, you get a whole scope of individuals across the age
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continuum, all kinds of backgrounds that are just, they just want to be heard. And I think when you're
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when we're looking at a government or our democracy to actually hear people to bring that equity to bear,
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in fact, all of our institutions, it's important that we start listening and listening from a perspective
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of empathy, and understanding and respect. I'm really happy to speak with you in particular,
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Selena, because you and I, I'm much more conservative minded. You're obviously you were a liberal MP. And I
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don't know if you consider yourself more a bit on the left end of the liberal spectrum. I won't,
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of course, speak for you on that. But you know, and here we are talking, and I'm looking forward to
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talking through some issues as well. But when when you say people coming to you and talking about,
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you know, being heard and their voices and so forth, I mean, are, are, are people hearing each
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other more right now? Are people talking to each other more right now? Are they talking to each
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other less now? You know, those those opinion polls we heard from a couple years ago, I would
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never have a Hillary supporter over for dinner, I would never have a Trump supporter over for dinner,
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you know, that that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's a very good question. I, you know, I,
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I'm hoping that the pandemic has given people a perspective of not taking that ability to have
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people over for dinner for granted. Right? So so we're living in a global pandemic, we're now cut
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up for cut off from everybody, we are now forced to put down those fences that we had up before
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against our neighbors, and talk to them, because they might be the only people we're going to be
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talking to for a while, right? You know, the little the backyard over the fence conversations
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where you have to know people. So I'm hoping I'm, I'm, by nature, a very pessimistic person.
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But I'm hoping that through these challenges of 2020 2021, that we start to have those more genuine
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conversations, we now have the former president of the United States out of government, he was driving
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a lot of that conversation, I think. And I'm not just putting the blame on him. But you know,
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when you have someone in the highest power seat of power, and kind of feeds or fans the flame of
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that polarization, people tend to follow suit. And I'm certainly hoping that a number of different
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factors play into the fact that people start to, you know, just be a little bit kinder to each other,
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it might sound simple, but I really think that that is the first step in creating equity in our world.
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All right, let's go back a bit and talk a bit more about your story here, and some of the stuff
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going on in the book. As you said, your experiences as a liberal MP, those four years are sort of the
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the time you're most kind of publicly known for. Before that, you were accomplished as a business
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woman, entrepreneur, you'd won some awards and so forth. And then you decided, I'm going to enter
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politics. What was behind that decision? Because it seemed like you had some good things going on as
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well. But you said, I'm going to make a change, I'm going to go in this direction now.
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Yeah, so at the time that I entered into politics, I was actually running Canada's first national
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epidemiology study on neurological conditions. And we were looking at the scope impact health
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services and risk factors for 14 priority conditions, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, epilepsy,
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you name it across the age continuum. And what we were finding, there was hundreds of researchers
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across the country. But we also married into that research, the lived experience, people who had
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neurological conditions and their caregivers. And what we were finding was that people had to leave
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their home province, actually move out of their province, because one drug wasn't covered under one
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formulary or another, or they had to get a divorce, because their income was just just high enough that
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certain services weren't covered. And I thought, you know, if I get into politics, I could perhaps
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create the equity that is required for people to be able to live lives without having to make such
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painful decisions. And that was, I think, that impetus to get involved, you know, taking my background
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in business and research and putting it together with a political lens, with a policy perspective to help
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people. Okay, so you get into office 2015 majority victory for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, you're
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part of this very, a lot of people celebrating that and the, you know, the because it's 2015 line
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that Justin Trudeau said when we all remember him standing in front of Rideau Hall after the cabinet
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being sworn in and so forth. And that that seemed like a very optimistic time. At that point, shortly
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after the victory, were you optimistic that the things that you've just said now that you were going
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to be able to play a major role in bringing apart, bringing about those goals?
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You know, Anthony, I might sound really jaded, but right from the beginning, I started to see sort
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of flaws in what I envisioned or what I was sold as a new government, government doing things
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differently, bold, transformative, sunny ways. You know, they add women change politics and diversity
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is our strength was our, was our, was our mantras. And even in that moment, when, you know, the because
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2015, there was an opportunity to talk about things differently, even during that moment to say,
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you know, it's not just because it's 2015, it's because we have really great candidates. And the second
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thing was, at that moment, the Liberal Party put out a message that said that this cabinet is the face of
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Canada. And I looked at it, and I thought, well, there's a lot of races, people's backgrounds that
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are missing from those, you know, 30 something people that were from cabinet. So it can't possibly
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just be the face of Canada. And, and most importantly, there was no black representation.
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So how is that the face of Canada? And it might seem like it's something small. But for me,
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standing there and watching that, you know, it's 2015, and this is the face of Canada, I thought,
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no, I need to say something. And I, I, I said something publicly about it at the time.
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And I realized at that moment, or somebody told me later on that that was the first strike that I
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had against me. I wasn't supposed to be speaking out, I wasn't supposed to talk about these things.
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But I started to see that right from the beginning.
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And did somebody come back to you, like from the PMO, or somewhere in the party apparatus saying,
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Selena, we heard you say this thing, can we have a word?
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Yes, yes. Yeah. So, so, you know, the more I started speaking up about things, the more
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it was brought to my attention, that I needed to figure out what kind of liberal I wanted to be.
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The one thing, the one thing I'd credit the Prime Minister for in 2015, is there were a lot
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of impressive people who who quit their day jobs or pause their day jobs to go and run for politics.
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And, and, you know, you can be cynical. And there's a lot of staffers who say, okay, this is just a
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gateway to get into office and so forth. But no, 2015, there was a slate of, of, of, of all of you
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who were very credentialed people who ran for office. And as you said, you were doing some really
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impressive research at the time. And I remember reading about all the different profiles of
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people. And to your point about there being no black cabinet ministers, one liberal MP in the
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Montreal area, Emmanuel de Bourg, I read his resume, and I'm like, this guy is like, super hyper
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accomplished. And I think most Canadians still have not. In fact, I must confess, I'm not even
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sure. I assume he ran for re-election in 2019. I don't even know the answer to that question.
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And I remember saying, this is kind of an amazing resume. Maybe he doesn't do retail politics or
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whatever. But I thought this guy's like, this guy's like Bill Morneau level in terms of his field and
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so forth. I think most Canadians have never heard of him before. And I always thought that was kind of
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odd. Like there were people who were just not a part of the decision making table.
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Yes. And you know what, Emmanuel de Bourg, who was reelected, was really part of the infrastructure
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that helped solidify some of the policy perspectives in that campaign. And so, you know, not seeing him
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named in cabinet, he was one of the first calls I made after that, this is the face of Canada. And I
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didn't really know him, but I read his resume as well. And I, I apologize. I just said, I'm so sorry
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that this has happened to you. You should be there. And, and, and again, from a perspective of this is a
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highly qualified, if it's just based on merit, it's a highly qualified individual who should have been
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there. Granted, he wasn't. And, and I think the point is, is that if you have that self-awareness
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enough to know that as a party and the people that are around you should be able to say, no,
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we probably shouldn't say that this is the face of Canada because it's not. And we should, we should
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try therefore to understand and to make things a little bit more equitable.
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But it also, from a sort of political strategy perspective, whether it was true or not,
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didn't it work? I mean, isn't that the narrative across the world that Justin Trudeau is, is sort of
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the inclusion, the diversity prime minister, and all those conservatives, they're just all against
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that and so forth. He gets reelected. As we speak right now, the polls suggest that he would probably
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be reelected, not just with a minority, but with a majority government. So, you know, maybe not
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entirely accurate, but as, as narrative, as sell, it's, it's, it's working out for them.
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Yeah. And that, I think that's the challenge though, that the challenge isn't just to sell
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rhetoric. That is not the job of our democracy of a G7 country. It's not just to sell rhetoric. It
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should be to create policy that is going to help people. And at the end of the day, you know, like
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you said, a lot of really good people quit their jobs to, to get there and to be a part of that
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infrastructure. And not only were they, they selling a rhetoric around feminism and diversity,
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they also had a majority government. There were things that, that were promised in that campaign
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that could have been done and weren't. And we, we cannot continue to just sell rhetoric and call it
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democracy. That's, that's not what this should be about. It should be about saying, look, we want to
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change the way that we vote. We promise that we have a majority government. Let's make it happen.
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We know that mandatory minimums are unconstitutional. They don't make Canadians any more or less safe,
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but they disproportionately impact negatively black and indigenous people. Let's repeal them.
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The rhetoric is not leadership. And let's unpack some of that. You're referencing electoral reform
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there. I mean, personally, in my writing, my views, I did not support that campaign promise,
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but I appreciate that Trudeau made it quite emphatically and many times. And then he got
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the majority mandate. And I think that was probably for a lot of people, a lot of people are very
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passionate about that. And on the left, I know Jack Layton was talking about that for years. So
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people wanted to see it happen. Why did it not happen? Why did Trudeau abandon something that I
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think he's done things that he did not have a mandate for? This is a thing as much as I don't support
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that policy. He had a mandate for that. Right. And I don't really support it either. Right. Let's just be
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clear. But when we talk about electoral reform, and when we talk about something that I really did
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support, which is the repeal of mandatory minimums, that decision, in my opinion, and I really don't
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say things that I don't have a lot of evidence on, was made because it was politically expedient.
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You know, can I get reelected? Can we hold the majority? Can we still retain the power that we
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have if we don't do some of these things? And I think instead of doing what they had a mandate to
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do, what they promised Canadians to do, what was right by many Canadians, or what would have been
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right, they thought, well, how will this poll? How will I get reelected? Is this going to work out
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in my favor? And if the answer was no, then it wasn't done. And that's unfortunate.
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I mean, is some of it just that while there were some highly credentialed people at the cabinet table,
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the prime minister himself, and the people around him, I know they had experience, I guess,
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working in Ontario government with Dalton McGinty. But these were people who perhaps just,
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just, you know, made some grandiose promises and claims, and government doesn't always work that
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way. So they had a problem on that. What's that term that Dominic Barton did the press conference,
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did the sort of conferences on the deliverology, they had a problem with the deliverology of it.
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Well, you know what, I, again, we could give the, the government of the day, especially in the 42nd
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parliament, as much sort of pass as we want. But again, if these things were fundamental to the
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government and fundamental to the prime minister, they would have been done. I think the buck stops
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with him, he is the elected official, irrespective of who is around him, in terms of PMO, the buck
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stops with him, in terms of making those decisions. And quite frankly, I don't think he had or has the
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What is fundamental to Justin Trudeau? I've noticed that he used to say, women's issues when he did his
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statements about any sort of debate or press conference, he'd bring women's issues to the
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four. And he talked about that quite a lot for quite a few years. Now the phrase green usually
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comes first, we're going to make a Canada that is greener, and then he goes on fair and whatever
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the phrases are, but greener is usually the first one. What are those the things that is core to him?
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I don't even know if it's core, if you're able to flip flop on, you know, the issue of the day.
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You know, if, if, if the issue of if the issue is, you know, feminism, one minute green in the next,
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all of those are related to a foundational principle of equity. We know that people are who are
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disproportionately impacted by, by, you know, a pandemic by climate change by inequality,
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are often women, children, racialized individuals, people with disabilities,
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different sexual orientation. If his baseline principles are about equity, he would be
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speaking to that all the time, he wouldn't just jump back and forth related to what is the flavor
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of the day. And again, I'm going to use the word performative. That is what happens when somebody
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does not have the leadership capacity to be grounded in something that will carry them forward, no matter
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what. One thing that I always remember Jason Kenney saying a year or two ago, and he got in big trouble
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for it, is he said that Justin Trudeau was never considered the brightest bulb in parliament when
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he was an MP said something along those lines, you know, and it's true before he became liberal
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leader, he never actually introduced any private members bills. He never gave any of those, you know,
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great speeches, one gives it a security conference or a think tank or, or what have you. And he didn't
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serve, I think he was the critic for sport or something under, I guess, Bob Ray's brief leadership.
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Other than that, he didn't really serve in any sort of weighty critic positions. And I guess,
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you know, that drives me to think, well, it drives me to think, how did he become, you know,
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prime minister in the first place, but I guess, you know, what are those core issues that were
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driving him in advance of that? What was the kind of, whatever term you want to use, political
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perspective, foundational principles, ideology, what was brought to the table? What did you feel was,
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was, was the thing that brought all the candidates together in 2015?
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Well, I mean, we were sold a really good bag of goods around, you know, doing politics differently.
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And I really think for me, anyhow, that was a really strong message. Can't Canadians were tired
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of Harper, whether that's true or not, it clearly was with a majority mandate, we wanted to do politics
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differently, we were going to be bold and transformative. It seemed like something where I could use my skill
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set to be able to influence and transform government and to transform the outcomes of government. And
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when you think about this, Anthony, I want you to think about when we introduced those small business
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tax credits, those tax changes, and the absolute fiasco that was, you know, Bill Monroe ended up having
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to backpedal on some of it, he had to change it around, you have 180 plus bright individuals around
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the in your caucus, and you introduce those kinds of tax changes. I want I want you to really think,
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do you think that those tax changes actually went through caucus with all of those business
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entrepreneurs, all of those people in a way that was deliberate and intentional? I don't think so.
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And I could tell you that it wasn't. So when when we talk about, you know, Kenny saying that he's not
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the brightest bulb, I'm not sure if it's the brightest bulb, because I do think he's see smart.
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I don't think that he has the capacity, the leadership capacity to be able to say I am not
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the smartest guy in the room. And therefore, I'm going to leverage other people that are with that
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are with me. So that's, that's a leadership skill. That's a emotional intelligence skill. That is the
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capacity to have self awareness. And in my opinion, that is lacking. And you know, people might listen to
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this and say, Oh, my God, she spent so much time criticizing him. He is the leader of a g seven
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country. He is not the barista at the coffee shop. He is the leader of a g seven country. So you better
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believe I'm going to push him to have some self awareness to create some policy that is going to
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actually help people. Speaking about using your skill set, then you were after getting in after
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winning in 2015, you became a parliamentary secretary on on two different portfolios. What, what did you
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think that experience would be going into it? And what did it prove to be?
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So the first one was the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, I went in, and the first
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meeting I had with the prime minister was in December 2015. And I said to him, let me be clear
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on a couple of things. I don't want to be appointed to your to tap this appointment to fill any racial or
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gender gaps. I am, I have business background, I research background, I'm smart. And therefore,
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I would like to be leveraged for that capacity. That was not the case. I developed a framework,
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I developed milestones, initiatives that I wanted to complete, objectives that were in line with the
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principles of the government. And none of those were taken into account. And in fact, the three times
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that I was tagged to represent the prime minister at an international and international events, they
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were all black focused, I was told I was not to speak in the House of Commons to answer questions
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during question period that were directed to the prime minister or any questions related to that
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portfolio in general. There was, there was a lot of tape over my mouth and handcuffs on my wrist.
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And so that position was one that I was more than willing to, to let go of.
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So he only wanted you or the prime minister's office only wanted you to go to events and speak
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at things that were directly sort of black community occasions and activities.
00:23:45.020
Focus. Yes. And it wasn't, I wasn't speaking at anything. I was just showing up. I did not have,
00:23:51.980
aside from the trip that I took to Ghana, which was in 2016, at the beginning of 2016,
00:23:59.020
which I believe because they knew that were switching me to international development,
00:24:02.860
I was sent there. But the other two events, there were no meetings. There were no outside
00:24:08.700
meetings other than attending the state visit to Washington, in which I was not invited to the
00:24:14.200
state dinner or any other meetings, just the meeting with the president on the South Lawn
00:24:18.580
and the opening of the African American museum in Washington. Again, no other meetings are tied to
00:24:25.460
that itinerary. It was a fly down, sit in the seat, get up, fly home.
00:24:30.680
So you said to him in December, 2015, I don't want to be a token basically. And they said,
00:24:35.260
okay, we still want you in this role. And then they proceeded to do just that.
00:24:40.000
And then they proceeded to do just that. Exactly.
00:24:42.940
And I understand you called him on it. I called him on it a few times. Yes. It is the most
00:24:51.120
embarrassingly hurtful feeling to know that you are as skilled, you're smart, you're able to think
00:25:00.360
strategically, and to then be diminished to a sitting bobblehead and at taxpayer's expense.
00:25:08.580
And so the message I sent was, this job isn't worth the $16,000 extra that you're paying me,
00:25:15.540
get rid of it. And in fact, after I left the position, it wasn't filled until, I mean,
00:25:21.080
a couple of weeks ago, when Greg Fergus was appointed as his parliamentary secretary.
00:25:28.180
Now, let's move forward a good few months here. The thing that, you know, is kind of the main
00:25:33.020
meat and potatoes, the main drama of your book, and of course, your story,
00:25:36.080
that very, very vibrant confrontation that you and the prime minister had, where you finally,
00:25:41.840
well, you called him out on all of this, but you explained it had gotten to a point where you had to
00:25:45.000
say, sorry, I'm gonna have to sit as an independent, and I'm not going to run again as a liberal.
00:25:50.200
Right. Yeah, you know, in as much as I had many examples, so 2016 was the year I was tokenized.
00:26:00.580
I could sum them up. 2017, I was excluded from every single conversation related to domestic
00:26:10.180
investments in Black communities. I was not invited to a single meeting related to the 2018 budget or
00:26:17.780
to the recognition of the UN decade for people of African descent. Of course, in 2018, everybody knows
00:26:24.300
I was gaslit for talking about racism. Again, my party did not step in to offer any assistance.
00:26:32.100
And so by 2019, I, you know, you would think that I wasn't naive about the ways of the prime minister,
00:26:38.800
the PMO. And I called as a courtesy call to let them know that I wasn't going to be running again.
00:26:45.100
Clearly, I wasn't fitting into a liberal framework. So I thought, you know, let me just leave kind of
00:26:51.740
quietly. I got on the phone. And, you know, he starts off by saying that I can't make an announcement
00:27:00.660
that I'm leaving, because he cannot have two powerful women of color leave on the same day,
00:27:06.900
Jodi Wilson-Rainbolt resigned that same day. And I thought, is he kidding? And then he went on to say
00:27:14.220
that, you know, I didn't appreciate him. I didn't, I keep, you know, people keep talking to him about
00:27:20.860
his privilege, which I never did in that phone call, literally just said, I'm going to announce
00:27:26.420
that I'm not running again. And then this, this, you know, outpouring of, of his resentment to that
00:27:34.540
came out. And yeah, I actually thought that Anthony, during that call, he was going to say,
00:27:41.880
Selena, thank you for the work that you've done. I wish I could convince you to make a different
00:27:46.040
decision. I wish that you would stay. None of that. No gratitude. I was, it was the most,
00:27:52.280
it was one of the most hurtful things. And I say that because, you know, people should, you know,
00:27:56.820
I'm sure most people would say, Selena, you know, just get over it. But it was, it was hurtful. You
00:28:02.040
work for years, you're talking about issues that normally are not spoken up about. I'm speaking up
00:28:08.680
about issues. Clearly the liberals are getting a following in, you know, the conversations that I'm
00:28:14.920
having, cause I'm gaining a following. You're thinking, I'm thinking that this is beneficial.
00:28:19.480
They're still not, they're helping me. And then I get, you should be grateful to me as if I didn't
00:28:27.700
work for four years. And that was, I think the worst part of the, the four years that I was there.
00:28:38.280
What happened then with you and your colleagues in caucus and the other cabinet members? Did they,
00:28:42.980
how many people reached out to you and, and, and said, you know, we acknowledge your work and we're
00:28:47.480
sorry to see you go. How many sort of, okay, the PMO is not crazy about it right now. Let's kind of
00:28:52.080
give her the cold shoulder, that sort of thing. How did that equation balance out?
00:28:56.020
So, you know what, I actually kept that really quiet. Nobody knew anything about the phone call.
00:29:01.540
Nobody knew about my decision to leave. The first, the first call was made to the whip and to the,
00:29:07.260
to the prime minister. So I kept that quiet. And most of my colleagues didn't know anything.
00:29:12.980
And I was very clear to say that my issues for leaving were not the same as Jody Wilson-Raybould's.
00:29:19.620
The, the, the tipping point for me, Anthony, was when, when it did get mixed up with Jody Wilson-Raybould
00:29:29.100
was when, you know, there were these anonymous messages and reports that said, you know,
00:29:35.980
Jody wasn't a team player. She was, you know, whatever. I found it very interesting that our,
00:29:42.220
our party had spent so much time being feminist, so much time talking about, believe her. We had
00:29:50.480
just come through a Me Too movement, right? Believe her, believe women when they say they're bullied
00:29:54.760
and harassed. And I found it interesting that, you know, they could believe her when it was convenient
00:29:59.940
and leave her when it was not. And I speak about, you know, my, you know, principles and values that
00:30:07.760
drives me. My values of the things that I stand for, when I say that I'm a, I'm a feminist, I, I believe
00:30:15.280
in intersectional feminism. It is a foundational principle of mine. And when I saw that I was part
00:30:21.480
of a party that claimed to be feminist, but didn't actually practice it, that is when, when things
00:30:29.100
were exposed. That's when I spoke up about what was happening. And that's when I chose to then sit
00:30:36.360
My guest today is Selena Cesar Chavan, author of the newly released book, Can You Hear Me Now?
00:30:41.040
Selena, you know, really interesting stuff that brings us here to, I guess, March 2019, when you
00:30:46.400
made that decision to run as an independent and then, sorry, not to run, but to stay as an independent
00:30:51.440
up until the next election. There's about six months from March until that election. And a lot
00:30:57.720
of things happening that time, including during that election, suddenly news drops one night,
00:31:02.580
Justin Trudeau, look at this picture. Here he is in blackface, not as a 14 year old when people do
00:31:08.720
really stupid things or an 18 year old or 28 year old, one picture, two picture, three pictures. How many
00:31:13.600
prime minister? I don't know, not exactly sure, maybe three rounding up, who knows? What did you
00:31:18.460
think about during that whole affair as really the world was weighing in on that?
00:31:24.700
Yeah, you know, what I thought, I shouldn't have been surprised. I still was, I still was surprised.
00:31:34.040
Again, he was an adult, and he's also the leader of a G7 country. However, my thoughts weren't
00:31:41.300
directly to Justin Trudeau. As I said, I don't think he has a self awareness to actually figure
00:31:46.900
that out and the impact of that. So I actually was thinking about my community, the black community
00:31:55.080
in particular, and to individuals who are allies who are going to be completely devastated by this,
00:32:03.360
this news. And so, Anthony, you know, I sent a letter to PMO. And I said, that I said, you cannot
00:32:13.780
just, you cannot have the prime minister just apologize for this. That would be that that is
00:32:20.800
not the way to go. What he needs to do is not only apologize, but do what you do with children.
00:32:25.660
Say, what did you learn? And how are you going to make this better? So he was in Manitoba at the
00:32:31.120
Museum of Human Rights at the time, I said in the in the email, what you can do is have the prime
00:32:38.020
minister say what he's learned, meaning talk about the fact that minstrel shows were rampant in the
00:32:44.760
prairies in Canada. And start that learning moment that everybody was like, this is a learning moment
00:32:51.220
for everybody. No, start that learning moment for Canadians who don't know, including the prime
00:32:56.420
minister. Start there. Talk to Canadians about how how prominent they were. Talk to Canadians about
00:33:02.960
how they dehumanize black bodies by doing that. And then say what you are going to do to fix it.
00:33:09.380
Hold yourself accountable for your actions. He did neither of those. And again, naively enough,
00:33:17.780
thought that maybe this was the turning point. Maybe this was the moment where he would show his
00:33:22.100
medal. And it did not happen. This is one of those issues. I think it frustrated so many people
00:33:30.160
who yes, thought it was a bad thing to do. But also, it frustrated them that they knew if it had
00:33:36.900
been them, they would be out of a job for it. They would be toast. Now, Justin Trudeau doesn't answer
00:33:42.960
to anyone except the voters who chose to reelect him. And there was a major frustration around that.
00:33:48.320
And I guess that brings us into and in your book and things you've advocated for issues around,
00:33:54.040
you know, gender issues and race issues and so forth. There's a lot of, I guess I'll just say
00:33:58.880
cancel culture around the periphery in terms of, you know, if people say the wrong things,
00:34:02.720
if they misstep in that, I mean, those are landmines, they're walking on eggshells and so forth.
00:34:07.220
What does it mean that that other people certainly would have been persona non grata
00:34:11.980
after that had happened? Is it right for that? Was it if Justin Trudeau had just said,
00:34:16.500
I did something really bad? And we will, he did say that part, but then also went on to say the
00:34:20.320
teachable stuff, as you said, does that it doesn't make the original thing? Okay, of course, but
00:34:24.540
is that how society should be heading? Should people be be losing everything because of these
00:34:30.980
really dumb juvenile things they do? Well, he didn't lose everything.
00:34:35.720
But but but but other people as well. I mean, taking us from the Trudeau conversation
00:34:39.060
to I know these broader issues that that I know you also speak about.
00:34:42.320
Right. So yeah, so I actually had a Instagram conversation about this within the last 24 hours
00:34:48.180
and said, No, I certainly don't believe that that people should lose everything for the mistakes that
00:34:55.040
they made. I mean, read my book, I give a whole lifetime of mistakes in my books, things I feel
00:35:00.460
guilty about shameful hurt about, I should have been canceled a long time ago. I but I think we should
00:35:06.920
enter these things with a degree of grace and empathy. And I always operate from that space.
00:35:12.980
And hence the reason sending that note to PMO, irrespective of all the stuff I'd been through
00:35:19.360
the years before, still saying, Look, your community needs you to understand how this works.
00:35:24.440
I want to take a moment, though, to talk about the other side of cancel culture, when we talk about,
00:35:29.740
you know, black history or indigenous history, you know,
00:35:34.700
when we think about how certain cultures have been canceled, we do need to talk residential schools,
00:35:44.960
erasing, you know, indigenous culture from from indigenous communities, the fact that our textbooks
00:35:51.260
have very little about the contribution of black communities to this country. I think when we when
00:35:56.940
we if we're not having a comprehensive conversation about cancel culture in a way that's empathetic in
00:36:04.860
a way that we could say, how do we correct this? How do we do this? Right? How do we hold people to
00:36:11.700
account without destroying them completely? I think that's a different conversation to be having.
00:36:17.560
Um, I've never really heard the term used that way before. So so you're saying cancel culture is a
00:36:23.420
bigger thing than usually it's lamented that sort of conservatives or politically incorrect people,
00:36:27.880
you know, say something, okay, you said the homophobic joke, you know, you probably shouldn't say that.
00:36:31.880
But you know, guy doesn't need to lose everything for it kind of thing. But more that there's there's
00:36:35.560
a much broader spectrum of cancel culture going on.
00:36:38.360
There's a much broader spectrum. And we're we're focusing in on these,
00:36:43.040
these issues that I'm sure if everybody were to record their actions on a daily basis,
00:36:49.760
we would all be canceled. Like that's the that's the common denominator, there is there is broader
00:36:55.820
issues here. And I don't really get into these debates about cancel culture, because clearly it
00:37:02.260
works for some and it doesn't work for others. And some people are protected. And some it's it's it's
00:37:07.420
a nonsense game. It's a you can't win in this game. Let's have a more broader a adult conversation
00:37:14.680
about this and and not do we really need to demolish people's careers?
00:37:20.460
That was the whole that was the whole blackface photos, though. It was obviously that somebody had
00:37:24.800
dug all this up, got it to media. And I guess what was it Time magazine or whatnot was the one who
00:37:28.400
first posted it and so forth. And it's the same thing, whether it's Prime Minister or whoever,
00:37:33.140
you know, I'm sure when you ran for office, the local conservative campaigns,
00:37:36.620
oh, we're gonna go back on her Facebook and see if she said this rude word or that rude
00:37:39.580
word I run for office, they're gonna do the same for me, I go back on all your columns
00:37:42.640
and so forth. I mean, that's just kind of the game. And it kind of it gets like, I feel
00:37:46.480
like it gets weaker sauce more and more. It's now like things people because you know, now
00:37:50.160
we're at the age where people had Facebook and Twitter when they were like 14 and so
00:37:54.380
forth, because it's been around for 10 years. So we can get those things they said there
00:37:57.620
and people now we have the young lady. She's the editor of what was it Teen Vogue? She was a
00:38:02.020
young black lady. And she made some inappropriate remarks when she was a teenager. I guess
00:38:05.560
she'd already apologized for them. And I just look at this, I go, good grief. Like, you
00:38:09.860
know, everybody's dropping like flies over this stuff.
00:38:12.640
Yeah, yeah. And is that what we want, though? And it goes back to that conversation about
00:38:18.180
empathy. Like, do we do we can we not see ourselves in making these mistakes? Can we not
00:38:24.200
see ourselves in possibly doing something that was dumb? You know, and again, I guess I think
00:38:31.760
I'm pretty sure that this is why I sent that note to the prime minister. Look, I'm not going
00:38:36.880
to further indict you, nor do I need to accept your apology. I mean, I don't have to do either
00:38:41.900
of those. But what needs to happen is that you need to hold yourself accountable. That is it's not
00:38:48.460
should he be canceled? Should he be the next prime minister? Should he not? That's not the question.
00:38:53.560
The question is, again, you are the leader of a G7 country. Can you use this moment to do something
00:39:00.420
bigger than just say, I'm sorry? And and for for him not to do that, it says to me that you lack
00:39:10.040
the self awareness, you lack the leadership capacity to be able to do something. And that
00:39:15.860
doesn't sit well with me. The bigger question on that front is, should you still lead? And my answer
00:39:23.720
to that is, is no. I want to go back, I want to go back to last summer. And I know you've written
00:39:30.740
about this a lot. You've talked about it a lot, where there were obviously a lot of conversations
00:39:34.140
about race going on the killing of George Floyd, which obviously became much bigger than just that
00:39:39.360
one, one incident became a flashpoint for so much more. And there were many things going on, I guess
00:39:45.220
my way into this, although let's talk about, you know, all different angles of it. But when we talk
00:39:49.200
about having empathy and so forth, well, there was a lot of, you know, there's a lot of cancel going
00:39:53.240
on. There's a lot of eggshells. I still remember Stockwell Day going on CBC. And there is a panel
00:39:59.060
conversation, I guess he was regularly on this panel. And they said, is the RCMP systemically
00:40:02.800
racist? And I guess most panelists said yes. Stockwell Day said no. And then he's off CBC
00:40:07.680
permanently, I guess. And then he lost a board of directorship or something like that. I'm sure he's,
00:40:12.320
you know, got a lot of money. I'm not feeling sorry for the guy in that regard. But still,
00:40:15.500
as someone who's who's out and about in, you know, the public airwaves, I go radio and television,
00:40:19.200
and that whole thing, it made me kind of like, what? What, you know, what is going on here?
00:40:23.620
We're not allowed to talk about, you know, this or that. I mean, he didn't do something
00:40:27.380
outrageously offensive, or maybe, you know, you think he did. What are your thoughts on,
00:40:31.660
I guess, specifically that incident, but how that relates to the macro, how that relates to
00:40:36.160
us actually being able to honestly have these conversations?
00:40:39.780
Well, that's the key word, honestly have these conversations. So, I mean, I think there's a
00:40:45.480
certain degree of responsibility that goes when you have a certain degree of privilege and power.
00:40:50.940
And if you're going to use that privilege and power to further create inequity within a system,
00:41:00.100
then do you really need it? Like, you know, it's an interesting conversation.
00:41:07.240
You have the capacity to be on the airwaves to use your power and your privilege to create something
00:41:15.580
that is right, that is meaningful, and you're dismissing it.
00:41:19.720
Well, they asked him a yes or no question. Are CMP systemically racist? And he went for the no
00:41:24.460
kind of thing. It's like, well, don't ask him the question if you're going to can the guy based on,
00:41:28.420
you know, giving one or two of the answers kind of thing.
00:41:32.120
Right. Well, I mean, I, my answer to that would, based on a number of different testimony,
00:41:40.260
a number of different incidents that have come forward is, is yes, sexism and racism exist
00:41:46.720
in that institution. I cannot speak to, to, to Stockwell Day and, you know, him believing the,
00:41:55.900
the opposite to that. And again, I, I believe that when you have that power and that privilege to,
00:42:03.920
to investigate something and look into it to make it right, or to hopefully change the tide that you
00:42:11.500
would do that. How do we then approach those conversations without people being, having so
00:42:20.760
many kinds of filters and, and again, walking on eggshells that they go, you know what? I don't want
00:42:25.500
to, I just don't want to, I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to let, I just want to
00:42:28.860
ghost away from it. Cause I don't know what's going to happen to me kind of thing.
00:42:31.920
Yeah. Well, we need to realize that people are going to in this work. So I do this, as I said,
00:42:37.020
I do this work with Queens. And one of the things that I say is we are going to make mistakes in
00:42:41.660
this work. It is a thankless job. When we're talking about pushing for equity, we're going to make
00:42:46.660
mistakes. I may, may have made, you know, 10 to 15 in the last 45 minutes that somebody will call me
00:42:52.600
out on, you know, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. And so I, again, I,
00:42:58.900
I think it boils down to just having that understanding that we're going, if we are
00:43:04.540
striving towards this, if we have the intention is to strive towards equity and we're acting on
00:43:10.860
that in good faith, there are chances that we're going to make some mistakes. Again, does that mean
00:43:16.100
that people need to be crucified at the stake? I don't think so. I actually, I really don't.
00:43:23.300
Otherwise I would have said, burn them at the stake, leave the prime minister. Like I would
00:43:28.100
have come out swinging. I didn't really say anything publicly during that time because I knew the
00:43:35.120
influence that that could have. I really wanted the prime minister to make that, that moment,
00:43:40.120
something real for communities. And I know you're talking about Stockwell Day here. I don't really
00:43:44.460
have an opinion one way or another. I just don't think that people should, should have to lose their
00:43:50.760
everything because of a comment that they made. Again, if people read my book, they would say Selina
00:43:59.020
should have been canceled a long time ago. She should have never been in politics, let alone the
00:44:03.180
parliamentary secretary to the prime minister. You know, people make mistakes, good grief, get over it.
00:44:09.320
And speaking of the book, you can find Selina Cesar Chavan's new book, Can You Hear Me Now? It's
00:44:14.200
available now and online everywhere and in, in bookstores. Selina, before we go here, well, where
00:44:19.780
do we go now in terms of these conversations, in terms of the prime minister getting, getting more
00:44:25.340
honest about these things that you've critiqued him for maybe being a little bit of a phony on? How do,
00:44:29.640
how do we have these conversations where, where people are walking on eggshells over some people,
00:44:34.680
you know, I don't know about that. I'm nervous about it. Other people, you know,
00:44:37.720
very passionate in their activism for it. How do people sort of come together? And how do you get
00:44:42.160
that, that, that productive path forward? Because there's obviously a lot of people sometimes quite
00:44:45.940
literally out in the streets at loggerheads with each other these days. Yeah, you know what,
00:44:50.600
Robert Livingston, who's a professor at Harvard Kennedy School, put out a report in September of
00:44:56.460
2020. And I hate to make this academic, but it really boils down to something quite simple.
00:45:01.200
That's, that looked at how to create racial equity and just racial equity in the workplace,
00:45:07.320
right? And he said, you know, we have to understand, he uses a program called the press
00:45:12.180
model, P-R-E-S-S. The P is understanding the problem. The R is understanding the root of the
00:45:18.340
problem. I'll skip the E for a second. The first S is putting together a strategy. And the second S is
00:45:24.760
saying, you know, put some sacrifice into it. Of course, there's going to be resources.
00:45:27.800
The middle of that, the E on that is empathy. And again, it seems really simple and really
00:45:34.240
intuitive. But we cannot expect to come together on an issue as divisive as racial inequity is,
00:45:45.200
if we continue to say, well, it's them and us, what, you know, it's, it's us and them. Well,
00:45:51.120
I don't see anything that they have that I have. What the thing that is common to all of us is our
00:45:56.440
capacity to be empathetic. So I'm actually, Anthony, looking to, to, to change my, my,
00:46:03.980
to study my, my PhD thesis on equity and, and empathy, because I think it is so fundamentally
00:46:12.940
critical to how we move forward, how we think about equity in a different way. And it is common
00:46:20.460
to everybody. And it's, again, it's quite simple. But if we really think about putting ourselves in
00:46:25.940
each other's shoes, just even for a moment, I think we could do a lot, a lot of good.
00:46:31.420
To what degree is there an agree to disagree kind of component, but still forging ahead? For instance,
00:46:36.720
you know, when I see people protesting in the streets about their very earnestly felt experiences
00:46:41.160
and emotions about injustice and so forth, I'm, I have no problem with that. I support them. I,
00:46:45.400
you know, I want, I want good things for them, but I also knowing the sort of specific requests of
00:46:50.940
Black Lives Matter as a formal organization and around, you know, defunding the police and so
00:46:55.260
forth, those requests they've made, I do not support those requests. So I support a lot of the, you know,
00:47:00.380
a lot of the broader sort of issues and passions behind it, but there's also some of the more
00:47:04.260
organized stuff that, that, that I don't support, but I don't want that to mean then, you know,
00:47:08.900
baby out with the bathwater, let's just not talk about these things.
00:47:11.660
Right. And that, that's the challenge, right? So how do you say I support, but I don't support
00:47:16.840
this. And because there isn't that capacity to say, look, we're going to agree to disagree.
00:47:22.640
And if we get to a point where we cannot say that Anthony, we are doomed because we need to have all
00:47:30.500
of those conversations at the table to put forward good policy, to put forward good legislation, or to
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have critically thinking people in conversations. So we should be able to do that. And again,
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we've come through an era of, of, of hyper-polarization in our political world that I
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think has spilled over into our everyday practices. And we need to realign that back that needs to come
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back. And it needs to come back in a way that everybody sees themselves as part of a solution,
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Selina Cesar-Chavan, businesswoman, entrepreneur, liberal MP from 2015, 2019, author of the new book,
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Can You Hear Me Now? Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it, Selina.
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Thank you, Anthony. And thank you to your listeners as well.
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Full Comment with Anthony Fury is a post-media podcast. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with
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theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. Thanks to our guests,
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author and former MP, Selina Cesar-Chavan. The host is Anthony Fury. Thanks for listening.