Full Comment - It’s too late now for Liberals to replace Trudeau

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00:00:51.300 Canada lost an original recently.

00:00:54.280 Rex Murphy passed away at the age of 77.

00:00:56.360 Robert Rex Raphael Murphy.

00:00:59.120 Really part of the national conversation on this country, across this country, for so

00:01:03.320 many years.

00:01:03.960 Hello.

00:01:04.200 Welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:01:06.080 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:01:07.780 And the conversation we're going to have today isn't about Rex, although he will factor in.

00:01:13.200 Uh, but given that he was, among many other things, a occasional host of the Full Comment Podcast,

00:01:21.500 I wanted to open up, uh, for the first episode since, uh, that we've recorded since his passing,

00:01:27.540 paying a bit of tribute to him.

00:01:29.200 He, of course, was a long-time, uh, columnist for the National Post, before that the Globe and Mail.

00:01:34.240 He was the host of CBC's Cross Country Checkup when the show was, uh, still vibrant and relevant.

00:01:41.360 And he's passing actually will leave a hole in the national conversation, in my view.

00:01:47.180 Chris Selle is joining me today to talk about all things political in Canada, the state of the country.

00:01:52.260 And, um, Chris, I know that you, at one point, uh, had the, the joy, the pleasure of editing

00:01:59.300 Rex Murphy's columns.

00:02:01.400 What, what was that like, given that this is a man, great prestige, held in high regard by

00:02:07.540 readers of the National Post, and had such a distinctive voice.

00:02:11.340 What was it like editing this guy?

00:02:13.900 It was, it was, uh, daunting, I think, at first, because what you got from Rex, um, when

00:02:20.500 he would file a column, looked to me a lot like a monologue, uh, transcribed, right?

00:02:27.820 So it, it, it, it was great writing, but it was also said, it needed a little bit of, of work.

00:02:33.240 Sometimes it needed a little bit more than a little bit of work.

00:02:35.780 And, and, um, you know, and it was so fun, uh, you know, the, the idea was fun.

00:02:42.740 Editing someone like that is, is, is fun to try and make their columns that people are going to love,

00:02:46.860 you know, they're going to love anyway, to try and make it even better.

00:02:49.800 But with some columnists, they're very averse to edits.

00:02:53.660 Um, they can be very prickly about it.

00:02:55.500 And you, if you're just thrown in, you never know who those people are going to be.

00:02:59.900 Um, I won't name any names, but I'll say that Rex was the absolute opposite of that.

00:03:04.580 Uh, I would sometimes make edits that I thought, oh man, like this is, this is pretty, uh, aggressive.

00:03:11.840 You know, just because I thought it, it, it made it better.

00:03:14.000 It made it tighter.

00:03:15.420 Um, you know, readers will read any length of, of Rex Murphy.

00:03:20.080 I know that, but you, we only have so much room in the paper, but he would always send

00:03:23.760 it back no matter how aggressive the edit was or how much I was worried about it.

00:03:26.480 He would just say, great at it, Chris.

00:03:28.000 Thanks.

00:03:30.720 Yeah.

00:03:31.220 And yeah, without naming names, we, you know, you and I being in the business know that there

00:03:35.000 are people, if you move a single comma, things will be thrown.

00:03:39.140 Um, now I'm not like that, but, uh, that's because I like a good editor and I don't think

00:03:44.880 I'm a good writer.

00:03:45.500 So anything that's going to make it better, I'm all for, uh, but it is great to hear that

00:03:51.220 Rex was like that.

00:03:52.060 My experience with him was a, a warm, uh, man, a generous man, and, um, and just the guy

00:03:59.220 who liked to, to enjoy a good yarn.

00:04:03.160 Yeah, absolutely.

00:04:04.260 He, well, I mean, cross country checkups is such an interesting legacy, right?

00:04:08.820 Because he's so opinionated, but that, but he, he kind of turned that off on, on cross

00:04:14.800 country checkup.

00:04:15.380 It was like, it was like his sort of, it was like his reporting for his columns in a way,

00:04:20.740 you know, this, this is the, the, the, the view of the country.

00:04:24.200 And not only would he get the view of the country, he would get to see the views of the country

00:04:26.980 that didn't even make it onto the show.

00:04:28.400 Right.

00:04:29.520 So I, I, I think he, he was, uh, that to me was him at, I mean, not that I didn't enjoy

00:04:35.600 his columns, but to me, that was him at his best was just listening to him.

00:04:38.800 Him interact with people all across the country, because he's so unique and so much of Newfoundland.

00:04:45.960 Um, but here he is talking to everyone from, you know, she couldn't meet a Vancouver Island.

00:04:50.660 Uh, I, I, I thought that was, I thought that was really cool.

00:04:54.420 Uh, I think him, him at his best, I think.

00:04:56.640 Um, his last column was, uh, published by National Post on May 7th, just days before he died.

00:05:03.780 Um, and what a way to go out, um, headline, Trudeau faced an essential moral test after

00:05:10.600 October 7th.

00:05:11.600 He failed it.

00:05:12.840 Our loudly, proudly self-proclaimed male feminist prime minister was silent on the horrid tortures 1.00

00:05:18.200 and rapes of Israeli women.

00:05:19.400 And then Rex shows up with receipts, uh, hundreds of words of brilliant writing. 0.90

00:05:25.980 And it's, um, it, it was, uh, people were sending, I was on vacation.

00:05:32.020 I was out of the country and people are sending me his column before he died saying, you've got

00:05:37.340 to read this.

00:05:37.920 This is fantastic.

00:05:38.680 So, um, it was a pleasure to, uh, to know him, however, briefly, but, uh, he will be

00:05:44.840 missed and the national conversation will be poor because of his passing.

00:05:49.160 He would have had some interesting things to say about, um, some of the reactions of the

00:05:54.920 Justin Trudeau government of late.

00:05:56.300 And we're going to get to a couple of them.

00:05:57.820 Christy Freeland saying it's not very Canadian to bring up the fact that someone who is, you

00:06:02.480 know, killed a baby and two grandparents, that it's not Canadian to bring up that he's 0.99

00:06:06.700 on bail.

00:06:07.140 But first I want to play a clip here, Chris, of Justin Trudeau being quizzed at a recent

00:06:14.020 news conference.

00:06:14.720 And it's Laura Stone from the Globe and Mail, a colleague of ours from the Queens Park Press

00:06:18.680 Gallery with what I think is a very fair question.

00:06:22.040 We've all seen the polls.

00:06:23.460 The polls are horrific for the Trudeau government.

00:06:25.980 The prime minister's personal popularity is down and she just asked him, why are you sticking

00:06:32.580 around?

00:06:33.140 Here's her question and the start of his answer.

00:06:35.380 Hi, Laura Stone, Globe and Mail.

00:06:37.800 Prime minister, I want to ask you about leadership.

00:06:42.420 Polls have put you 20 points behind the Conservatives and it doesn't seem to be getting better despite

00:06:47.280 your recent communications push from your budget.

00:06:50.200 The public appears to have an overwhelmingly negative view of you personally and you seem

00:06:56.460 to have lost control of the conversation on some of the key issues that Canadians care

00:07:00.360 about.

00:07:00.840 I think the public might be looking at you and your position right now and thinking for the

00:07:06.000 good of the Liberal Party, why is he staying on?

00:07:08.800 Thank you for your concern, Laura.

00:07:12.080 So, you know, you had that smarmy reply off the top, Chris, but then went on a tirade that

00:07:16.500 we're not going to play here about the oil and gas industry.

00:07:19.560 Nothing to do with what was put before him.

00:07:22.480 No.

00:07:22.840 But kind of indicative of where this guy's head is at right now.

00:07:26.500 Yeah, the polls are bad, but I don't care because I'm here to save Canada.

00:07:29.800 It's funny, you use the word smarmy and I mean, I know, you know, I, I know when I think

00:07:38.340 Justin Trudeau and the word smarmy, I know of the things that I'm thinking about.

00:07:42.360 I'm thinking about, thank you for your contribution, was it?

00:07:47.140 Thank you for your donation.

00:07:48.800 Yeah.

00:07:49.120 Thank you for your donation.

00:07:50.060 And I have to say, actually, this one, I kind of laughed.

00:07:52.780 Like, he made me laugh in a good way.

00:07:55.520 Like, he had, his body language was sort of like, because it was a long question, right?

00:08:00.260 Yeah.

00:08:00.420 And it was pretty, um, uh, kind of relentless.

00:08:04.380 Like, it was fair.

00:08:05.900 But when she, and she's saying like, for the good of Canadians, why won't you step down?

00:08:10.820 I thought it was kind of funny the way he kind of stepped and he's like, well, thank you

00:08:13.920 for your concern, Laura.

00:08:14.860 Like, I don't know.

00:08:15.780 That actually made me laugh in a, in a genuine way that Trudeau doesn't.

00:08:19.500 But then, as you say, I mean, I don't know.

00:08:23.020 I don't know how many, I don't know how many politicians would actually answer that question

00:08:26.720 in earnest, but like, say something for 15 words, 20 words, 50 words, and then move

00:08:34.120 on.

00:08:34.440 Don't use that as an opportunity to lay out your manifesto for the country, but that's

00:08:37.920 what he does.

00:08:38.560 I mean, everyone talks about, uh, Pierre Polyev and conservatives disdaining journalists. 0.98

00:08:45.260 To me, Trudeau disdains journalists most, not with little quips, but by sucking up all

00:08:52.120 the press conference time, talking about just, just running his gub, like just enough already.

00:08:59.580 There's people lined up to ask me questions.

00:09:01.660 It was a little while ago.

00:09:02.420 I think he gave a six or seven minute answer.

00:09:04.540 Yeah.

00:09:05.380 Not, not related to the question that was put to him.

00:09:09.460 No, no.

00:09:10.400 Why?

00:09:10.620 Why?

00:09:10.820 I suppose he would say that, that everything I just said is, is about why I wouldn't step

00:09:14.520 down for the good of the country because who else could possibly spend 40 quadrillion

00:09:18.880 dollars on, on electric bat, uh, electric vehicle battery plants.

00:09:23.240 I mean, if anyone, anyone could do that.

00:09:26.180 Um, yeah, it, it, it, it was, it was, it was weird.

00:09:30.020 It was like him kind of making a chuckle genuinely in a way that doesn't often happen.

00:09:33.520 And then the same old dreary seven minute answer with, have you ever been taken on by Trudeau

00:09:41.060 in a news conference for a question that he didn't like?

00:09:44.880 No, I don't recall him ever, uh, reacting badly to a question I asked.

00:09:50.100 I don't, I don't tend to ask questions quite that aggressively.

00:09:55.200 Um, but I, I just asked because, you know, you say that, um, he's going on about how Pierre

00:10:02.200 Polly have doesn't treat journalists. 1.00

00:10:04.020 Well, I look, I've, I've been on the receiving end from politicians across the spectrum.

00:10:11.060 You asked them a question they don't like, they will take shots at you.

00:10:14.480 It's part of the game, but Trudeau has this aura that, oh, he's all about journalists.

00:10:18.620 He's all about, you know, um, uh, free and fair media.

00:10:23.000 He was announcing, um, was before he had come up with details on the, um, uh, what he calls

00:10:30.740 the military style assault weapons ban.

00:10:32.840 And I remember being up North of Toronto, I believe it was Richmond Hill at a school or

00:10:37.520 something.

00:10:38.400 And I said, why are you targeting these guns that in Canada have no history of criminal

00:10:46.140 use?

00:10:46.520 And this is before Porta Peak.

00:10:48.780 Um, and, and I think there was one case of criminal use that I could find in the archives.

00:10:53.780 Uh, and it was an illegal purchase, you know, part of a mafia attempted hit and, and Trudeau

00:11:00.760 just went off aggressively, basically scolding me of how dare you ask these questions.

00:11:07.640 I mean, that's, you know, politicians of all stripes can do that, but he seems to, uh, to

00:11:12.840 believe that he, he is above that.

00:11:14.700 He's definitely not above the Canadian public right now.

00:11:17.340 They, they appear to be done with him.

00:11:19.940 How are you reading, uh, what's going on with the polling, the Canadian public, and then,

00:11:25.700 you know, these internal liberal attempts to decide who will replace him Freeland, Dominic

00:11:33.340 LeBlanc, Mark, Mark Carney.

00:11:36.260 I mean, to me, it's, it's too late, surely to, to replace him with someone else and a terrible

00:11:43.260 idea, uh, I would think at this point, I can see why people would want to, but I can all,

00:11:49.100 but my next question is who would, who would really want, uh, to pick up the baton at this

00:11:55.340 point, um, knowing that it's almost certain defeat one way or the other.

00:12:00.940 I mean, you never know, but Dominic LeBlanc, Mark Carney, I mean, these are not natural.

00:12:07.180 These are not the sort of people you would expect to, to, to fly into a situation that's

00:12:13.760 this dire and somehow turn things around.

00:12:16.740 Um, certainly not Christian Freeland, although polls suggest, I mean, that's my opinion, but

00:12:20.580 polls suggest she's the, she's the most, uh, I think that's name recognition. 0.82

00:12:26.200 I think people go, Oh yeah, I've heard her name.

00:12:29.160 You know, I believe polling on things like who would you vote for?

00:12:33.820 And the rest of it, sometimes I think it's just what, you know, people react to what they

00:12:38.780 think or what they heard.

00:12:39.800 There was one poll about the, the recent true to liberal federal budget.

00:12:45.380 And it said, what did you not like about it?

00:12:48.220 And 20% said they spent too much time on deficit reduction.

00:12:52.760 And I had, well, there's no deficit reduction.

00:12:55.040 So I don't think you read the budget and you just click something to make yourself feel better.

00:13:00.400 Yeah.

00:13:00.840 And I think, I think they do that with names that they're like, uh, I don't know, but I've

00:13:06.340 heard of that person.

00:13:07.460 Yeah, exactly.

00:13:08.400 And I think that people's, I think Christian Freeland's popularity, uh, would go down the

00:13:13.580 more people listen to her, frankly.

00:13:15.840 Um, she seems to share with Trudeau just some really terrible instincts.

00:13:20.020 Like talking to adults, like their children. 0.66

00:13:22.780 Yeah.

00:13:23.220 Uh, and just tonally, um, like you said about Trudeau, where we just went off at you.

00:13:30.340 Like he, he, I think he does, when he does that to me, it always looks very calculated.

00:13:35.960 Um, but the calculations are wonky.

00:13:38.320 Like it, it just doesn't, he doesn't get angry at the right time.

00:13:41.720 And he's not sort of, uh, relaxed at the right time.

00:13:46.480 So I, to me, that just indicates that he, he is completely out of touch and, and that's

00:13:50.680 what, that's what everything basically comes out of the PMO's office suggests is, is that

00:13:55.560 they're just flailing and they don't know what to do except more of the same attack,

00:13:59.680 attack, attack, harder, harder, harder.

00:14:02.820 Well, I mean, look, it, Trudeau is the only one that can save the country from Diagalon. 0.68

00:14:07.480 Diagalon is that the group?

00:14:09.880 Yeah.

00:14:10.420 Well, Pierre, Pierre Polyevin, all his sub, all his horrible alleged, uh, hangers on who 0.98

00:14:17.180 in this case, he absolutely despises and is called dirtbags and losers. 0.98

00:14:20.700 I mean, it's one of the most ridiculous narratives I've seen take, take shape in Canadian politics 0.99

00:14:27.420 recently. 0.81

00:14:28.120 It's all based on like a three by three, three inch by three inch drawing of a flag on the

00:14:32.040 inside of an RV that he probably didn't even see.

00:14:34.360 Of a group that people don't know about.

00:14:36.260 Uh, yeah.

00:14:36.700 But, uh, I, I agree.

00:14:38.500 The, um, the, like most people don't know who Diagalon is.

00:14:42.900 I don't really know who they are.

00:14:44.340 Why?

00:14:45.500 You know?

00:14:45.860 Yeah.

00:14:46.100 They've been in the news.

00:14:47.080 I don't care because they are not relevant.

00:14:50.140 They have no power.

00:14:52.000 They hold no sway except within their group.

00:14:55.160 Okay.

00:14:55.500 But it's a small group of people in an online community.

00:14:59.080 Uh, I don't get involved in the internal workings and arguments of Pinterest fan clubs.

00:15:04.460 So I'm not going to get involved in this.

00:15:07.860 There's some ugly stuff that goes on in the Diagonal universe.

00:15:10.880 Really, really ugly stuff. 0.98

00:15:12.260 Threatening to rape journalists. 1.00

00:15:14.060 Threatening to rape. 0.99

00:15:14.840 Well, I shouldn't say threatening. 0.99

00:15:16.120 Talking about, uh, raping journalists. 0.99

00:15:18.380 Talking about raping Pierre Polyev's wife. 1.00

00:15:20.200 Which is why he called them dirtbags and losers. 1.00

00:15:23.660 Global Jewish conspiracies. 0.97

00:15:25.460 I mean, but, and there's always the possibility that someone could fly off the handle, uh, who, who's, who's in this universe.

00:15:32.380 But that doesn't mean that, that doesn't mean that there are any kind of mortal threat.

00:15:37.420 Um, anyone could fly off the handle based on anything they find online.

00:15:40.980 So, no, it's, it's a completely silly thing.

00:15:43.460 And I think it's just, it's just evidence that, I mean, they supposedly brought in all this new blood at the PMO, right? 0.60

00:15:50.260 It's exactly the same dreck that comes out of it.

00:15:54.080 If anything, just harder.

00:15:55.940 Good, good word.

00:15:56.660 Dreck.

00:15:57.080 I like it.

00:15:58.260 It's bizarre.

00:16:00.460 The, so, I mean, we've seen the overall polling, right?

00:16:03.440 Of conservatives leading in every part of the country, except Quebec.

00:16:08.440 They lead in every age, income demographic, um, every educational demographic.

00:16:16.200 And, and now Angus Reid did something interesting.

00:16:19.460 Angus Reid Institute did a poll, 3000 people.

00:16:23.100 Shows a 20 point lead for the conservatives nationally.

00:16:25.560 So very in keeping with what we've seen already.

00:16:28.020 But then they did something nobody else has done.

00:16:31.140 They broke it down by religious faith or identity.

00:16:35.960 You know, which, which religious group are you practicing or do you identify with?

00:16:41.340 And 54% of Catholics say that they are going to vote for Pierre Pauliev and the conservatives.

00:16:50.840 I, the Catholic vote used to be, I remember one campaign manager years ago telling me, you know, in Ontario, we've got Catholic schools.

00:16:59.280 And they said, get me a copy of the Catholic school board, uh, voters registry.

00:17:05.060 And I'll tell you where to put all my signs.

00:17:07.080 And, you know, I, I, I know that over the years that has been broken a bit, but it's still one of the most reliable groups, uh, over 50% of Sikhs, 50% of Hindus, 50% of other Christians, uh, the plurality of Jews in Canada, all say that they're voting conservative.

00:17:26.560 Uh, the only group that they're not leading with are Muslims and they've gone to the NDP. 0.99

00:17:31.140 They've abandoned Justin Trudeau as well.

00:17:34.040 Like, you know, back to Laura Stone's point for the good of your party, for the good of the country.

00:17:39.300 Why don't you step down?

00:17:41.840 Yeah.

00:17:42.420 Well, and what's the answer?

00:17:43.520 What, what, what, what, what would be the honest answer?

00:17:45.540 No, one's going to do any better.

00:17:46.640 Like, uh, I'm going to go down with the ship.

00:17:50.040 That's not the sort of thing that, that, uh, politicians generally say.

00:17:52.920 I mean, the, the Muslim vote is, is a fascinating one because to me, it wasn't so long ago that we were seeing some really interesting convergence on conservative issues between conservative Christians and conservative Muslims, like in terms of the parental rights discussion, um, all kinds of, well, broadly, very broadly speaking, socially conservative issues.

00:18:15.600 And now until the war happened and then, yeah, and then October 7th, uh, and that's amazing.

00:18:23.340 Like from, from what I've seen, that really did splinter whatever coalition was, um, was building there.

00:18:29.360 And I guess if that's your number one issue or one of your major issues and you're not going to vote and, you know, there's lots of reasons not to vote, um, liberal, no matter who, no matter which religion you're from, you're just sitting tired of the guys.

00:18:43.180 Because you're probably not going to go for the guy who's, who's the, the, the heaviest, um, in support of Israel. 0.70

00:18:51.200 So I, it's, it's a, a, a fascinating, fascinating dynamic.

00:18:56.820 Do you think that, you know, there's been a lot of commentary on, uh, Pierre Polyev's peak too soon, but some of that is from the same people that said Pierre Polyev was done last December.

00:19:07.200 And then his, his numbers only went up.

00:19:10.000 Oh, he had a really bad week.

00:19:11.040 Steve McKinnon, the liberal house leader told me had a really bad week.

00:19:14.200 It's over for the liberals or for the conservatives.

00:19:17.320 Um, but I mean, how do you sustain this?

00:19:20.460 Cause I don't see us going to an election before October, 2025.

00:19:24.940 Now, you know, you've got, you've got all those MPs, not just Jagmeet Singh, but there's what 80 saw some odd MPs, 30 odd of them are, I believe, uh, block liberal or NDP who are awaiting their pension.

00:19:40.540 They've extended the voting day, you know, a week later so that they can all qualify for their pensions, which there's no way these guys are voting against their pensions.

00:19:50.940 It's like, you know, Turkey's voting for Christmas dinner, not going to happen.

00:19:55.560 So how hard do you see it being for Polyev to sustain a, a significant lead over that?

00:20:04.360 I, I mean, it's an interesting question is interesting strategic question because he, he, he really has one gear, right?

00:20:11.880 He just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, um, is there a possibility that going for months after month, after month, after month, after month might, you know, people don't like politicians in their face too much, right?

00:20:26.660 No matter who, no matter how much they might like the politician.

00:20:30.780 Um, and I'm not suggesting he sort of take his foot off the gas or anything, but you know, it might be worth showing us some other people in the party a little bit, um, just calming down a little bit.

00:20:44.960 I don't know, but these are just personal preferences, right?

00:20:47.020 John Kretchen famously was all about not being in your face because his view was that, um, voters don't want to see their elected leaders all the time.

00:20:59.500 So Kretchen view, Kretchen's view was the less he was on TV, the better.

00:21:04.220 And you know who adopted that from Kretchen?

00:21:07.060 Stephen Harper.

00:21:08.100 No, yeah, absolutely.

00:21:09.600 The ultimate not to be, yeah, it's true, right?

00:21:12.420 People always compare Polyev to, to Harper, but in that sense, they're very different.

00:21:17.020 Uh, so, so I was a local radio reporter in Ottawa when Pierre Polyev was first elected and he used to call the radio station trying to get into every story there was.

00:21:27.120 And I remember answering the phone one day and I said, oh, look, we can't have you commenting on everything.

00:21:33.720 Thanks for the call.

00:21:35.180 And, and, and he has learned to temper some of that, but you know, your, your comments there reminded me that he is a go, go, go guy.

00:21:42.780 And he may need to just be quiet for a little while.

00:21:47.740 I mean, it's not like Trudeau's doing himself any favors.

00:21:51.220 He doesn't need to be out there.

00:21:53.400 He sealed the deal with, I mean, he might not have sealed the deal with 43% of the population or whatever it's saying now, but he's, it looks to me like he sealed the deal with enough people to win for sure.

00:22:03.920 So maybe you don't want to, it's tough.

00:22:08.920 You've done that way in advance, um, of, of the election date, as you say.

00:22:14.260 So I, I don't know.

00:22:15.980 Um, I think people are sick enough of Trudeau right now that they would vote for any conservative leader.

00:22:23.060 No, no offense to Polyaev.

00:22:25.180 Um, it's, so yeah, I, I don't know.

00:22:28.820 It's, it's, it's, I could see people advising him to, um, take it down a year, but then he doesn't seem to have surrounded himself with people who would say things like that from my, uh, observation.

00:22:40.720 The, uh, the old, uh, world war one, uh, propaganda poster attack on all fronts that, that comes to mind.

00:22:48.180 Uh, the, the Toronto star has a piece out from, uh, Susan Delacorte, um, attacking Polyev saying he's going to take away some of your rights.

00:23:01.200 And I find this an interesting thing that, you know, there's not a big surprise that what Delacorte's writing mirrors what is coming out of the PMO,

00:23:08.100 but their push is he's going to take away your rights.

00:23:14.100 And this is because Polyev has said that he would be, uh, open to using the notwithstanding clause.

00:23:21.360 If judges strike down any of his tough on crime legislation so far, he said, he's only going to use it for, um, serious, violent criminals.

00:23:30.900 Uh, do, do you, do you think that the general public cares about the government overruling judges that constantly are, are, are saying, no, you, you, you've got to give this consideration and that consideration and let the criminal out sooner.

00:23:46.260 I, I, I think that there would be a cross party consensus among everyday voters to say, yeah, lock, lock the SOBs up. 0.97

00:23:55.880 Um, yeah, I, I think on that issue, and I think that's the, like, when he talks about, uh, uh, uh, Alexander Bissonnets, who was the, the Quebec city, um, mosque assassin, uh, and the fact that, that the court overturned, uh, his, um, sentences as, as, as being longer than his natural life could be.

00:24:21.660 And therefore it was, you know, cruel and unusual punishment and Canadians would, Canadians would be appalled.

00:24:26.580 You know, I can't read the exact language, but it literally said this would offend the Canadian conscience or something like that.

00:24:30.880 No, it wouldn't.

00:24:32.000 You're 100, 180 degrees wrong.

00:24:36.600 Yeah.

00:24:37.500 Um, so I think that's a great example of where the notwithstanding clause should be on the table and should be, and should just be slapped down, um, without apology.

00:24:49.220 Um, I do think, and I don't know what I'm basing this on, I, I, I'm thinking of polls that I've seen sort of out of Quebec on, uh, sort of cultural issues that it does seem to me that, that people have some trepidation about the idea of politicians just overruling the courts.

00:25:07.540 And, and when I hear, when I hear, um, Paul, you have talked about it as sort of, um, almost like an, I will do this, you know, not, I will do this if necessary, but more like,

00:25:19.920 he was talking to the police, I think, you know, I, I, you know, all my laws would be constitutional because I'm going to make them constitutional using the constitution.

00:25:27.260 And I think, you know what I'm talking about.

00:25:29.240 I, I, I don't want the notwithstanding clause used on principle.

00:25:32.500 I want it used, I'm sorry, I don't want it used just for the sake of using it.

00:25:36.920 I want to know what's going to be used when it's, when it makes sense.

00:25:39.580 And I don't understand why, I don't understand why Paul Yeb would rule it out, um, except in cases of criminal law.

00:25:46.380 There's lots of, I mean, some of the, some of the most unimpeachable uses of the notwithstanding clause have been outside of the realm of criminal law.

00:25:52.920 So that was a weird one.

00:25:53.640 You know, people, uh, were asking me why Doug Ford used the notwithstanding clause on back to work legislation for education workers a little while ago.

00:26:03.140 And, you know, I've also received a ton of emails saying, oh, these guys should be made essential workers.

00:26:07.760 They shouldn't be allowed to strike.

00:26:08.920 Like the reason that he had to use the notwithstanding clause is that a couple of years ago, Rosalia Bella on the Supreme court said the time has come to recognize this as a right.

00:26:19.440 Well, she didn't use a legal argument. 1.00

00:26:22.780 Yeah.

00:26:23.060 Uh, she actually overturned decades of precedent, uh, established by courts that were at times liberal at times conservative and just said the time has come.

00:26:33.740 Well, why?

00:26:35.600 Uh, and so she overturned decades of precedent. 0.99

00:26:38.760 And she made a major imbalance in the system. 1.00

00:26:43.760 That's where you would use the notwithstanding clause, uh, you know, as an example of outside of, uh, criminal justice.

00:26:50.280 Uh, Chris, we should take a quick break here cause I'm over time, but when we come back, I want to talk about other crazy court, uh, uh, rulings, including on the encampments.

00:27:01.060 Apparently McGill university cannot remove campers from their own property more when we come back.

00:27:07.800 We've seen the encampments pop up across North America.

00:27:12.160 They started in the United States.

00:27:13.860 And then of course we had copycat encampments on university campuses across Canada.

00:27:19.480 What's fascinating to me, Chris, is that people who were all about cracking down on the freedom convoy in 2022, who said, you can't just set up a place to live.

00:27:30.720 You can't camp there or suddenly defending this.

00:27:34.420 And we now have a court in Montreal.

00:27:37.480 McGill university went to the courts and said, we want injunction to remove these people from our property.

00:27:42.600 And the court said, no, you don't have the ability to do that.

00:27:45.740 Maybe they shouldn't have asked.

00:27:49.040 I think they should have just called the police from Calgary to do the job.

00:27:52.900 Can we fly you in?

00:27:54.380 Yeah.

00:27:54.680 Well, Quebec police are generally among the most willing to, uh, bust heads when, when it comes up to this.

00:28:02.380 Not that I'm suggesting heads should be busted, but.

00:28:04.460 Oh, let, let's not stereotype just based on past experience, Chris.

00:28:08.260 Um, it's a fast, it's like the way you put it is, is, is, is good because there are so few people who are consistent about this.

00:28:20.320 Like, this is what makes it so difficult to have this discussion when you have literally every, you know, you take the number of people who have strong opinions about the convoy and about the, uh, the encampments.

00:28:32.460 And as you say, they're, they'll literally, they'll talk your ear off for an hour about how different they are, that the one thing has nothing to do with the other.

00:28:40.500 Of course, it's the exact same thing.

00:28:42.920 I mean, they're not, they're not in the middle of downtown to be fair.

00:28:46.180 One thing I find funny about the U of T encampment is that it's essentially invisible to anyone who doesn't go looking for it or doesn't work on campus or doesn't go to school on campus.

00:28:55.900 Or walk their dog through there like I do.

00:28:58.120 Yeah.

00:28:58.300 Or there you go.

00:28:59.080 Or walk your, walk your dog through there.

00:29:00.520 But it's not like, it's not.

00:29:02.460 The full-blown crisis that Ottawa was.

00:29:05.540 Look, I, I was a long time Ottawa resident.

00:29:07.880 That was not the crisis that it was made to be, except that in my view, part of the reason that it was amplified the way it was, was it inconvenienced the National Press Gallery.

00:29:19.480 Who worked down there?

00:29:21.540 I mean, I, I think I, I know you're, you're, you're laughing.

00:29:25.600 Well, no, most of them live in Westboro, quite a, quite a good distance away, better, better restaurants in Westboro.

00:29:30.780 And, but they would, or the Glebe.

00:29:34.360 But it inconvenienced them, their work.

00:29:38.160 And that's why it became a thing.

00:29:39.700 And now we've got CBC, which went out of their way to show that the convoy was horrible.

00:29:46.320 And by the way, I'm on the record.

00:29:47.940 The convoy should have been removed from the first weekend they were there.

00:29:50.740 You can't camp on Wellington Street.

00:29:52.760 No, exactly.

00:29:53.200 Just like you can't camp on U of T.

00:29:54.900 So, so you and I are two of the people who are consistent on this, but they, you know, the National Press Gallery was just outraged that these dirty people were in their way.

00:30:07.340 And how dare they?

00:30:08.820 And I think that informed a lot of the coverage of it.

00:30:11.460 And now, as you say, well, this is just on campuses.

00:30:13.860 So unless you're going through, you're not seeing it.

00:30:16.020 But in downtown Montreal, it's, it's tough to go by McGill and not see it.

00:30:21.940 Yeah, for sure.

00:30:22.860 It's, and, and, and, you know, these are publicly, I mean, there's some gray area about how much a university is public property and how much of it is private property.

00:30:30.120 But the fact is that these are publicly funded institutions.

00:30:36.040 People, you know, students, faculty are there.

00:30:40.800 We want them to be there.

00:30:42.240 We, we subsidize these universities for them to be there.

00:30:45.820 Why are we letting this rabble, um, take over? 1.00

00:30:51.520 However, however righteous their cause, this, this, this, you know, it can't, it's untenable.

00:30:58.760 And I feel like it's building, right?

00:31:00.720 Like it's, it's building from, you know, I don't think that the, the encampment people have taken any notes necessarily from the, uh, Ottawa convoy people.

00:31:10.760 But the fact is that this keeps happening, right?

00:31:14.300 And, and, and, and the more we don't do about it, the more we accept that you can just park yourself wherever you want.

00:31:20.200 If, if your cause is righteous, the worst it's going to get.

00:31:23.120 Like someone has to draw a line and apparently it's not judges.

00:31:25.500 I was actually quite surprised by the, the judge's ruling on this.

00:31:30.260 And, and I think it's a horrible precedent.

00:31:32.460 Um, but then again, I, I think that about an awful lot of judicial rulings, we, we have this mistaken belief in Canada that our courts are not political.

00:31:42.720 And anyone that spends any time reading court rulings can see the politics at play.

00:31:47.960 Look, look, we all come to how we view things with a particular mindset, a worldview, and that informs how we would rule on something.

00:31:57.180 If we were in that position, um, how you can tell a university that you don't have the right to remove people from living on your property is beyond me.

00:32:06.580 But I was down at U of T the other day and a group called the, uh, council of Muslims against antisemitism was trying to bring in a truck.

00:32:17.160 They wanted their truck to be on the U of T campus.

00:32:20.200 And U of T was saying, no way, Jose, you're not getting on there.

00:32:23.580 Uh, the truck was one of these ones with a video billboard on the side.

00:32:28.080 And it was playing a clip on loop of a Palestinian man from Gaza who wrote a piece in use week saying, stop glorifying Hamas.

00:32:39.940 Hamas is horrible for the Palestinian people.

00:32:42.980 I can't believe how many people in the West don't know this.

00:32:46.020 U of T would not allow that on there, but they allowed trucks onto campus to drop off porta potties for the campers.

00:32:53.980 So they now have professional port-a-potty facilities for them that are obviously emptied at some point.

00:33:01.920 So trucks can get in for that. 0.98

00:33:04.160 Uh, but you know, don't dare bring a divergent point of view.

00:33:08.400 You know, McGill waited too long and they mistakenly went to the courts.

00:33:14.500 University of Calgary did it right.

00:33:16.300 They just cleared them at the first day.

00:33:18.000 Uh, yeah, you're not camping here, but U of T is negotiating with these guys.

00:33:22.180 And trying to make it seem like this is the right way to do it.

00:33:27.600 We don't want to be like Calgary.

00:33:28.900 We don't want to use the police.

00:33:30.380 And if we just appease these guys long enough, everything will be fine.

00:33:34.860 Yeah, that's right.

00:33:35.820 I mean, you know, you could argue, uh, well, one, one could argue that, that, so the, the, the, the, the protesters at U of T, like they have this, their, their narrow point.

00:33:49.820 Some of them will tell you is we, we just want the university to disclose its investments and divest from anything in Israel.

00:33:56.940 Now, of course, their, their, their demands go on from there to include, you know, no association with Israeli universities.

00:34:03.560 Well, hang on, what, what, like, what does that have to do with, with anything?

00:34:09.360 But, um, it, it's turned into this huge thing.

00:34:13.520 Like if, if they can't claim that it's grassroots, I think that's one of their credibility problems.

00:34:18.960 That doesn't impact their rights necessarily, or the lack of the rights to occupy a public space.

00:34:24.080 But this is clearly, you know, not just a student movement, not just looking to, to divest, um, for the university to, to divest itself.

00:34:36.220 It's, it's a, it's the organized anti-Israel mashup.

00:34:42.240 There are more Palestinian flags in that one little area of U of T than there are Canadian flags across the campus.

00:34:50.080 And it's not like they don't fly the Canadian flag at U of T. They absolutely do.

00:34:54.360 I'm not criticizing them for that, but those flags, there were dozens and dozens of flags brought in and they, they weren't brought in by students.

00:35:03.040 The video was posted online by the groups doing it.

00:35:06.380 I think they said that we're going to bring a hundred.

00:35:08.500 I don't think there's a hundred up there right now.

00:35:11.340 Um, maybe I have to go back and count, but these were professional organizers, protesters who have been at the McGill encampment.

00:35:20.080 At the U of O encampment, at the U of T encampment, these aren't students at any of these schools.

00:35:26.340 Yep.

00:35:26.920 And, but don't worry, we've got CBC telling us everything's fine.

00:35:31.380 And it's just a, a trope of the right wing to say that, uh, there, there are outside agitators involved.

00:35:39.860 I mean, I'm not saying there is outside agitators involved.

00:35:42.980 The outside agitators are posting it on Instagram.

00:35:46.540 Yeah.

00:35:47.100 What's, what's QP doing there?

00:35:48.660 What does that have to do with anything?

00:35:51.880 I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's really frustrating and it makes it.

00:35:55.600 And when even the media can't, I say even the media, but I mean, when even media can't even try, it looks to me to be consistent about these things.

00:36:05.300 And that just makes it, that just makes it all the worse because it reinforces this, this, this instinct that we have to excuse things, uh, from people we like and causes we like.

00:36:18.560 And, and there's no way that that's, that's never going to resolve itself unless someone puts it, draws a line in the sand and says, this is, you know, what you can do.

00:36:29.200 And this is what you can't do.

00:36:30.720 If you're consistent with the rule of law, then you're going to be fine.

00:36:34.640 And yeah, well, except that, well, everyone will still claim you're not being consistent, but, but at least you can, at least you can claim righteously to have been consistent.

00:36:43.800 Uh, uh, speaking of excusing things that you don't like, Chrystia Freeland, um, Trudeau's deputy prime minister, finance minister was asked recently.

00:36:55.480 This is a news conference where Trudeau showed up, did the whole announcement and then walked out without asking, answering a single question.

00:37:03.660 And, uh, bizarrely, there was no, you know, protest from the media to walk out as, you know, as would happen with other politicians.

00:37:10.380 But Freeland took the questions and she was asked about the, the man, I'm forgetting his first name, Mr. Singh, who is the guy who was trying to avoid arrest by police in Durham region, just east of Toronto.

00:37:27.560 He's in a rental van after I I'm, it's not clear if he actually did rob the LCBO or attempted to rob the LCBO, but he gets in a van evades police for a while and ends up going through, uh, the wrong way on the 401, uh, a baby and two grandparents were killed.

00:37:46.520 Turns out this guy was out on bail, not once, but twice.

00:37:51.120 So Chrystia Freeland's asked about it and she says, it's not very Canadian to bring that up.

00:37:56.420 That was jaw dropping to me.

00:37:59.000 What's your reaction?

00:38:00.780 I would say it would be jaw dropping, would have been jaw dropping nine years ago.

00:38:06.500 Um, but this is, this is who this government is.

00:38:09.420 I mean, I, I recall the incident where, um, uh, because rivers were complaining about Terri Lynn McClintock being trans, uh, the murderer of eight year old Terry Stafford being transferred to an indigenous healing lodge that had no security.

00:38:26.440 And I believe it was at that point that Justin Trudeau sprinted out of the commons, uh, towards waiting reporters to say that they were an ambulance chasing politics.

00:38:35.140 Uh, he saw an advantage there in standing up for a, uh, a killer.

00:38:42.200 Um, there is, it's, it's an example of just absolutely terrible instincts and just pure arrogance on, on, in terms of, like, Oh, we mustn't talk about that.

00:38:54.920 And that's just so Canadian, um, in so many ways.

00:38:59.660 Yeah.

00:39:00.140 I wasn't sure if she was trying to avoid talking about this guy's past because Singh was in Canada as a, an international student from India.

00:39:09.140 And I was, you know, I thought, well, is she trying to, to, to imply that to ask about this is somehow racist?

00:39:16.060 Well, the, the two grandparents that he killed were visiting from India.

00:39:20.260 They had come from India to see their grandchild, just three months old.

00:39:24.740 They're driving along with them in the car, probably proud as punch.

00:39:27.840 And this guy kills them.

00:39:29.960 So like, there's no race factor in here. 0.99

00:39:32.400 There's no bigotry.

00:39:33.920 Like, so why are you standing up for a guy who just killed three people?

00:39:38.060 It's interesting.

00:39:38.800 My mind didn't even go there when I heard it, but that now that you say it, I can see that, that instinct, uh, sort of creeping into a liberal mind.

00:39:48.560 Like, Ooh, this sounds a bit dodgy.

00:39:50.020 You know, um, he was, he wasn't white.

00:39:53.020 This is probably racist.

00:39:54.000 I, I don't know.

00:39:55.320 It's, um, well, we, we get, we get the idea of Christian Freeland replacing Justin Trudeau.

00:40:00.980 I mean, does that sound like a viable, um, replacement?

00:40:06.580 Someone who would stand up there and say that we mustn't talk about bail conditions for, you know, I mean, the fact is that guy probably would have been out on bail anyways.

00:40:16.340 Well, I mean, they're saying that they've done bail reform.

00:40:19.480 They have, and they haven't, they've done it for repeat convicted offenders, but this guy was out on bail for a series of robberies, including violent one.

00:40:29.120 And then he breaches his bail conditions by doing exactly what he was out on bail for.

00:40:34.620 And they give him bail again.

00:40:36.820 Why?

00:40:37.260 Because, because the law still says that for guys like that, even after their bail reform, you are supposed to release them as soon as possible under the least onerous conditions.

00:40:46.620 And meanwhile, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases get thrown out because the justice system can't process the trials quickly enough.

00:40:54.080 I mean, to me, this, the whole justice system needs a top to bottom examination, um, and revamp.

00:41:02.540 Um, you know, this, this, this, that incident brings up so many contemporary issues in Canada.

00:41:11.780 Like, you know, do we just, we shouldn't try to stop shoplifters.

00:41:15.580 We shouldn't try to stop theft.

00:41:17.360 It's not worth it.

00:41:18.100 And like, at a certain point, um, people get sick of that stuff because that's what, that's what cities look like now.

00:41:26.980 It's a bunch of people not bothering, not sweating the small stuff, except the small stuff keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

00:41:32.700 Which brings us full circle to the polls.

00:41:35.040 And, um, we have not solved all the problems of the world, but it's been a fun conversation while we've been doing it, Chris.

00:41:40.640 Thanks so much for the time today.

00:41:42.380 Thank you, Brian.

00:41:43.100 A full comment is a post-media podcast.

00:41:46.180 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:41:47.780 This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:41:51.840 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:41:53.960 Remember, you can subscribe to full comment on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, wherever you get your podcasts and help us out by giving us a rating or leaving a review and tell your friends about us.

00:42:07.300 Thanks for listening.

00:42:08.140 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:42:13.100 Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - May 20, 2024

It’s too late now for Liberals to replace Trudeau

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