Juno News - Going Prorogue

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.660 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.940 Coming up, the politics of prorogation and Justin Trudeau's double standard.

00:00:17.960 Also, Morneau's departure and Finance Minister Christia Freeland.

00:00:24.140 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 To prorogue or not to prorogue, that is the question.

00:00:35.020 And the answer seems to depend more on partisanship than integrity.

00:00:39.960 Justin Trudeau has prorogued Parliament, effectively killing the investigation into WE,

00:00:45.920 killing a number of government bills, killing the parliamentary process until September.

00:00:51.080 Just a little over a one-month reset, which really serves no other purpose

00:00:56.240 than to hope Canadians forget about everything that's been happening in Canadian politics

00:01:00.700 and specifically in Parliament for the last few months.

00:01:04.300 But what I find baffling about this, and maybe not baffling, that's probably not the right word,

00:01:09.040 what I find audacious about this is that the Liberals have been the ones that,

00:01:14.460 going back as far as 2008, were jumping up and down,

00:01:17.340 saying that prorogation is not at all business as usual,

00:01:20.540 and prorogation is not at all a good thing.

00:01:23.200 And now that Justin Trudeau is doing it, it's supposedly just dandy.

00:01:29.040 Now, prorogue is a word that most people don't know.

00:01:32.940 And in the sense that we're talking about it now, let me be frank,

00:01:35.940 normal people don't talk like this.

00:01:37.720 Normal people don't use words like prorogue or prorogation.

00:01:41.220 It's specifically a parliamentary term in this context.

00:01:45.280 And in 2008, most people learned of it for the first time when Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament

00:01:51.360 to avoid what looked like it was going to be this unholy alliance of the Liberals,

00:01:56.220 the NDP, and the Bloc Québécois.

00:01:58.120 You remember that famous handshake and photo between the leaders of the three parties,

00:02:03.080 Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe after the 2008 election.

00:02:09.080 And Stephen Harper didn't want to go and have a coalition government.

00:02:12.940 He prorogued and then came back a couple of months later and let cooler heads prevail.

00:02:18.160 Now, this was seen by the left as being just a brazen assault on democracy.

00:02:24.180 How dare the prime minister avoid a vote that would trigger the downfall of the government

00:02:29.220 by proroguing?

00:02:30.740 And now you fast forward to it.

00:02:32.740 And Justin Trudeau, who has, by the way, one party calling for his resignation in the

00:02:38.300 Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives, for whom a couple of the leadership candidates,

00:02:42.940 have said they want to push for an election at the earliest opportunity, meaning the NDP

00:02:47.600 could, if it joins with these other parties, support that downfall of government.

00:02:53.100 So Justin Trudeau, I don't think, is going to be losing his job as prime minister.

00:02:58.240 I don't think he was going to be this summer.

00:03:00.320 But it was a possibility that the downfall of the Liberal government could have happened.

00:03:05.240 So now he's prorogued in the midst of scandal.

00:03:08.680 And yes, in the midst of investigating scandal, the committee czar, and investigating Liberal

00:03:14.800 scandal specifically, because, you know, what other kind is there right now in Canada?

00:03:19.040 He's saying, you know what, we're going to walk things back and, you know, going to come

00:03:23.240 back.

00:03:23.780 And when we come back, we're going to have a throne speech and a budget.

00:03:27.480 Now, this is assuming the Governor General has hung around until then, although that's

00:03:33.320 a different discussion altogether.

00:03:35.440 But the thing that I, like, it is truly disgusting, the pretzel twist that people will put themselves 0.78

00:03:45.040 into to try to defend what they're doing as not being hypocritical.

00:03:50.120 Justin Trudeau has had some very strong words about prorogation in the past.

00:03:55.200 Two prorogations in two years, the first to avoid a vote of non-confidence that would

00:04:03.820 have surely brought this government down, the second to avoid difficult questions.

00:04:12.460 Anyone who disagrees with this government gets pushed aside.

00:04:17.500 The challenge becomes that he gets to use every tribune he can use, all the media, all the

00:04:28.400 voices, all the attention, and gets to further marginalize people who disagree with him.

00:04:34.900 That's why we're talking about prorogation today.

00:04:38.340 That's why we want Canadians to go into this summer remembering that this is not a government

00:04:45.740 who values their voices.

00:04:47.960 Not a government who accepts easily the legitimacy that exists in every member sitting in this

00:04:57.680 House who is duly elected by the people they strive to represent.

00:05:02.580 But now he says it's all good.

00:05:04.800 Now he says it's different than what Harper did in 2008 because Harper did it to avoid

00:05:09.820 a confidence vote, whereas Justin Trudeau is expecting that there will be a confidence

00:05:14.120 vote when the House resumes in the fall.

00:05:16.400 This is legitimately his defense that, oh, well, I'm doing it for different reasons, so

00:05:21.100 it's all fine.

00:05:22.420 Stephen Harper and the Conservatives prorogued Parliament in order to shut it down and avoid

00:05:29.660 a confidence vote. We are proroguing Parliament to bring it back on exactly the same week it

00:05:36.720 was supposed to come back anyway and force a confidence vote.

00:05:42.180 We are taking a moment to recognize that the throne speech we delivered eight months ago had

00:05:48.040 no mention of COVID-19, had no conception of the reality we find ourselves in right now.

00:05:56.420 We need to reset the approach of this government for a recovery, to build back better, and those

00:06:02.200 are big, important decisions, and we need to present that to Parliament and gain the confidence

00:06:08.360 of Parliament to move forward on this ambitious plan.

00:06:12.020 The prorogation we are doing right now is about gaining or testing the confidence of the

00:06:17.720 House, which is the opposite of what the Conservatives did that we rightly railed against back in 2015.

00:06:23.420 And incidentally, there's this little nugget, as Brian Lilly called it when he posted it

00:06:29.560 on Twitter, from the Liberals' 2015 platform under a section called Prorogation and Omnibus

00:06:35.640 Bills, and it says, quote, we will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny.

00:06:41.400 Stephen Harper has used prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances.

00:06:46.020 We will not.

00:06:47.620 So, again, not as advertised is a pretty good way of describing Justin Trudeau, but again,

00:06:53.900 it goes back to his whole narrative and that of all of the Liberal defenders that it's different

00:06:58.100 when we do it.

00:06:59.300 That is Justin Trudeau's guiding principle.

00:07:01.880 It's different when we do it.

00:07:02.980 Everything Stephen Harper did was wrong, but everything we did was for pure, moral, justifiable

00:07:08.240 reasons, even if it's pretty much the same thing.

00:07:10.420 And, you know, listen, you could make an argument against Stephen Harper's coalition on the grounds

00:07:15.240 that, yes, he was trying to avoid a vote, but there was also going to be a vote that would

00:07:21.540 have circumvented an election that had just happened.

00:07:25.440 In Justin Trudeau's case, it's not just the confidence vote that we should be concerned

00:07:30.080 about that is being avoided because, yes, that will happen when Parliament goes back in

00:07:34.900 the fall.

00:07:35.700 The bigger issue here is that we're looking at an ongoing investigation, a finance probe.

00:07:41.940 Now, Trudeau is insisting that parts of it are still going to continue, that documents

00:07:45.480 have been handed over, and that may be so, but it doesn't change the fact that any ability

00:07:51.760 for Parliament to deal with this, and more importantly, any ability for the new leader of

00:07:57.160 the Conservative Party of Canada to have a role in Parliament more quickly, more imminently,

00:08:02.700 is gone, is gone.

00:08:04.440 So Trudeau is actually taking the opposition out of play, and I don't just mean the Conservatives,

00:08:09.980 but all of the mechanisms of the opposition, the Conservatives, the Bloc, and even, yeah,

00:08:14.440 the NDP, he's taking them out of play, doing exactly what he wanted to do at the very beginning

00:08:19.700 of this pandemic, which was to basically say, you know what, we're going to do things extra

00:08:24.820 parliamentar, extra parliamentarily, that's the term I'll make up right now.

00:08:29.100 We're going to do things outside of the parliamentary process, and this is where, again, the Prime

00:08:33.900 Minister tries to become a king.

00:08:35.560 So we are, as Canadians now, looking at something that is not insignificant, and I don't want

00:08:42.220 people to get buried down in the weeds about the importance of, you know, parliamentary procedure 0.94

00:08:48.440 and all of this stuff, because, yeah, if you're a dork like me and you want to pay attention 0.98

00:08:52.120 to that, you can. 0.91

00:08:52.980 But even if you never use the word prorogue again, understand that in this context, what

00:08:59.080 Justin Trudeau is doing is trying to immunize himself from all of the things that are happening

00:09:04.460 right now, and from the House of Cards that, in many respects, seems like it is falling down

00:09:09.960 upon his head at this very moment.

00:09:13.320 And if you don't believe that's happening, just look at what preceded the prorogation, which

00:09:18.780 is the departure of his finance minister, who's been his finance minister since the very beginning

00:09:23.980 of the Trudeau government back in 2015, Bill Morneau.

00:09:27.720 And on Monday, I started in a very facetious way.

00:09:31.420 I said, you know, Minister Morneau, blink twice if you need help, blink three times if you're

00:09:35.460 okay.

00:09:36.140 And it's amazing how true that ended up being.

00:09:38.800 I was concerned because I pre-recorded the show.

00:09:41.540 We don't do it live always.

00:09:42.700 But I was concerned, is the show that I do going to be dated by the time it comes out?

00:09:49.040 Because I knew that as I was recording, Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau were having their,

00:09:53.280 you know, secret meeting on Parliament Hill.

00:09:55.760 And I was a bit worried.

00:09:57.200 And thankfully, he didn't.

00:09:58.040 I mean, the show came out and still we didn't have any insight about what was going to happen.

00:10:02.180 And then it was a couple of hours later that Bill Morneau gets up and says he's resigning,

00:10:06.760 not just as finance minister, but also as a member of Parliament.

00:10:10.960 So he's tapping out.

00:10:12.420 Bill Morneau is gone.

00:10:13.820 And the thing that we should see about this as being particularly insidious is that the

00:10:19.220 Liberals pretend that this was always planned, that there was, you know, no issue, no time

00:10:24.380 sensitive nature.

00:10:25.300 Morneau himself, when he was speaking, it said, oh, you know, I was always going to, you

00:10:29.140 know, not serve more than two terms, even though I'm not convinced he's ever said that

00:10:33.160 publicly before.

00:10:34.220 It may be true that he was never going to be elected more than twice, but I've never heard

00:10:38.400 him say that.

00:10:39.120 And he then comes out and says, oh, you know, it's just this was the time.

00:10:43.160 And, you know, we need a finance minister that has the longer term interests of Canada

00:10:47.460 in mind as we look forward to a long term recovery for coronavirus.

00:10:52.400 So his departure, if you listen to it, is basically something that we're supposed to think is just

00:10:59.260 entirely insignificant.

00:11:00.660 Take a listen.

00:11:01.720 I met with the prime minister today to inform him that I did not intend to run again in

00:11:07.280 the next federal election.

00:11:09.260 It's never been my plan to run for more than two federal election cycles.

00:11:13.940 As we move to the next phase of our fight against the pandemic and pave the road towards economic

00:11:21.960 recovery, we must recognize that this process will take many years.

00:11:26.960 It's the right time for a new finance minister to deliver on that plan for the long and challenging

00:11:33.060 road ahead.

00:11:33.660 That's why I'll be stepping down as finance minister and as member of parliament for Toronto

00:11:39.000 Centre.

00:11:39.320 But this is coming after days of leaks from presumably the prime minister's office and

00:11:45.680 the former finance minister's office about all the reasons that Justin Trudeau and Bill

00:11:50.260 Morneau aren't getting along, all the things that they're arguing on, whether it was green

00:11:54.460 energy programs, coronavirus recovery, deficits, all of these other things.

00:11:59.560 And this is apparently completely insignificant.

00:12:02.420 No one cares about that.

00:12:03.400 It's not about the WE scandal.

00:12:04.580 It's not about the $41,000 in travel that Morneau took from WE and only three years later

00:12:10.160 decided, hmm, maybe I should pay that back here, you know, just have some pocket change.

00:12:14.180 It's nothing to do with that.

00:12:15.340 That was all just coincidence.

00:12:16.800 This is just because Bill Morneau wants to run for the OECD.

00:12:20.440 No, no, no, not the OECD, the OECD.

00:12:23.660 You have to listen really carefully in these days.

00:12:26.180 Although, who knows?

00:12:27.220 Maybe like everything else Bill Morneau touches, it will turn into a WE enterprise before long.

00:12:33.620 But at this point, it's not the OECD, it's just the OECD.

00:12:37.980 But Bill Morneau saying he wants the Secretary General job, Justin Trudeau saying he'll throw

00:12:42.800 the full support of the Canadian government behind that.

00:12:45.440 We are supposed to take that as a sign that, oh, see, everything is fine.

00:12:51.260 You don't tap out of a financial crisis as finance minister in a country the size of Canada

00:12:58.640 unless you have to.

00:13:01.800 He claims that he was not asked to leave by Justin Trudeau.

00:13:05.940 He claims he was not asked to leave.

00:13:07.680 But here's what was interesting.

00:13:09.120 Justin Trudeau was asked at a press conference, I think it was the next day, if he asked him

00:13:13.200 to stay on and he didn't give an answer.

00:13:15.800 So it doesn't sound like there was much of a choice here.

00:13:20.500 It doesn't sound like there was much of an alternative to Morneau leaving.

00:13:24.640 And this has happened in a long string.

00:13:27.020 I know we focus on Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott, but there have been a long string

00:13:32.420 of ministers that have not been able to stick around working for Justin Trudeau.

00:13:37.160 Going back to, I think, his very first year in office, John McCallum and Stephane Dion.

00:13:41.940 You've had Scott Bryson leave.

00:13:43.440 You've had numerous, numerous ministers that have left, all under varying degrees of circumstances

00:13:50.120 and severity of those circumstances, but still we're not talking about as cohesive a cabinet

00:13:55.500 as Justin Trudeau is trying to make everyone believe.

00:13:59.540 So when Morneau leaves, tries to say that everything's fine, I am as a Canadian, I am as

00:14:06.000 a journalist looking at this and saying this does not happen unless it has to.

00:14:10.960 And, you know, for them to try to say that the leaks of all of these fights don't matter

00:14:15.880 is actually pretty brazen.

00:14:18.660 And Bill Morneau himself just said, this was, I'll roll the clip, but he just said, oh,

00:14:22.420 no, no, no, this was nothing.

00:14:23.440 This was just, you know, the vigorous debate that we need to stand up for Canadians.

00:14:27.780 I had a constructive conversation with the prime minister this morning.

00:14:32.440 We have always worked together over the course of the last five years in a way that recognized

00:14:38.020 the importance of vigorous discussion and debate to get to the best policies for Canadians.

00:14:43.200 I'm proud of what we've done over the last five years, working to make sure that we have

00:14:47.580 a more inclusive economy, that we have a greener economy.

00:14:50.260 And I know that work will continue.

00:14:52.240 So, I mean, yes, vigorous debate's important.

00:14:54.460 And obviously you want ministers that are prepared to push back.

00:14:57.940 And once they reach a decision, everyone has to be a united front.

00:15:01.200 I don't think anyone disagrees in principle with that.

00:15:04.220 But there is a difference between what he is saying as far as, oh, you know, we didn't

00:15:09.980 really have any disagreements that were substantive and all of the media coverage of that growing

00:15:17.360 rift and that growing schism between the two of them, none of which has actually been denied.

00:15:23.360 This is the thing, none of which has actually been denied.

00:15:25.760 So for the Morneau-Trudeau team to just put on the happy face and say, no, everything's

00:15:30.640 good and, you know, Morneau's seeking a promotion, he's going to be the secretary general, and

00:15:34.900 gave that just abysmal line that just makes me cringe and want to like shove a hammer through

00:15:39.420 my eye.

00:15:40.180 I don't even know what that would look like, but it wouldn't be good to say, oh, we need

00:15:43.640 more Canada in the world, not less. 0.97

00:15:45.600 I'm like, can you do anything without resorting to the most useless and ridiculous of platitudes? 0.97

00:15:50.860 The answer is clearly no. 0.95

00:15:52.140 So I don't know why I ask.

00:15:54.240 But in any case, so Morneau's gone.

00:15:56.920 And who do we get?

00:15:57.880 Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. 0.68

00:16:01.480 Chrystia Freeland coming.

00:16:02.840 Yes, that's the circus music, because this is exactly what's happening.

00:16:06.760 So she is just juggling as many different roles and portfolios as possible.

00:16:11.480 Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister still, and now also finance minister, which is absolutely

00:16:17.820 fantastic.

00:16:18.520 We have the first female finance minister. 1.00

00:16:21.020 The downside is we also have the first Chrystia Freeland finance minister, which is the bigger 0.98

00:16:25.920 problem.

00:16:26.840 So here's a woman who has no experience in finance at all. 1.00

00:16:32.760 She has no real business experience either.

00:16:35.900 She was a reporter.

00:16:37.600 I mean, she wasn't even a business reporter.

00:16:39.220 She was, you know, a reporter interviewing Russian oligarchs, which I suppose maybe you

00:16:43.960 pick up some business acumen there.

00:16:45.800 And then she was responsible for a business project at Reuters that was absolutely driven

00:16:51.280 into the ground.

00:16:51.900 And after she left, they said, yeah, let's let's get rid of this.

00:16:55.160 And then she's been a minister and she was a foreign minister.

00:16:58.120 She was the deputy prime minister.

00:16:59.940 Nowhere was she connected to the finance portfolio.

00:17:03.400 As far as I can tell, or any of the things that you would want to see as assets to a finance

00:17:11.200 minister, such as, you know, business experience, management experience, finance.

00:17:15.780 I mean, say what you will about Bill Morneau and a lot of his policies and directives.

00:17:19.920 But but he was a rich guy who ran a business.

00:17:22.120 So, I mean, as far as finance ministers go, that's probably a pretty good, maybe not the

00:17:27.860 guy part, but someone who's rich and has run a business, I think, is generally speaking

00:17:31.660 going to have a leg up on someone who's not run a business.

00:17:34.640 And it's not to say that wealth is a prerequisite.

00:17:37.320 But if you're talking about managing the country's money, having some experience managing

00:17:41.960 money seems to be a pretty good priority to have there.

00:17:45.280 So when I look at Chrystia Freeland being appointed to this role and the fact that her acceptance

00:17:52.400 speech, if you will, was all about breaking the glass ceiling and stuff like that, it has

00:17:56.980 me thinking that this is another one of these displays of virtue signaling, like when the

00:18:01.520 Trudeau government talks about having the gender lens in the budget and talking about

00:18:05.700 having gender equality at the forefront of the NAFTA renegotiations, where it's like there's

00:18:10.780 something very important that's being taken off the table to be replaced by something

00:18:15.860 that is purely theatrical.

00:18:18.440 Because men and women are both affected by Canada's finances.

00:18:21.480 The idea of putting a gender lens in there because, oh, we have to make sure that we're 1.00

00:18:25.640 having a feminist budget. 1.00

00:18:27.600 This is the type of thing that we're getting.

00:18:29.880 And for Chrystia Freeland, who in many cases has been the chief virtue signaler on a lot of

00:18:35.280 things, certainly NAFTA negotiations, to put her at the helm of finance is not going to be

00:18:40.760 I think a decision that will reflect well in the long run, but she has proven one thing

00:18:47.900 which makes her valuable.

00:18:49.300 She is blindly loyal to Justin Trudeau.

00:18:52.740 And I shouldn't say blindly loyal.

00:18:54.960 She's made a choice.

00:18:55.780 She's made a decision.

00:18:56.920 She is fiercely loyal to Justin Trudeau.

00:18:59.060 That's a better way of putting it.

00:19:00.520 Because Freeland, despite all the rifts that have happened between Trudeau and Dion, Trudeau

00:19:05.820 and McCallum, Trudeau and Bryson, Trudeau and Morneau, all of these, Freeland has been

00:19:10.000 on Team Trudeau.

00:19:11.940 And there's a reason that she is his lieutenant.

00:19:14.820 There's a reason that she is his deputy and remains that role because she has proven and

00:19:20.080 she has made that determination that she's not going to be the one that is ever going

00:19:25.100 to go against him.

00:19:26.540 So she sets herself up as the heir apparent if and when Trudeau does resign.

00:19:30.740 Although Trudeau did say this week that he is planning on running again in the next election.

00:19:35.120 He actually laughed or more like cackled when, I don't know if we have that clip, but he

00:19:39.560 like actually cackled when he was asked about it.

00:19:42.600 We do have it.

00:19:43.260 Here we go.

00:19:43.940 Will you be on the ballot the next time there's an election?

00:19:46.780 Absolutely.

00:19:47.980 There are a lot of challenges Canada is facing right now.

00:19:51.120 And I'm actually excited about the opportunity and the responsibility.

00:19:56.100 So take from that what you will.

00:19:57.840 I don't know if it was like the cackling is the tell that he's lying or I don't know if

00:20:01.280 the cackle is just proof of the indignation because he can't believe that there would

00:20:05.820 be any circumstance in which he wouldn't run.

00:20:07.880 But but either way, we we market here on August 19th, 2020.

00:20:12.540 But all of this is going to be, I think, a big problem for Canadians.

00:20:18.140 And we're already at that point.

00:20:20.220 I think Pierre Polyev summed up a lot of the frustration and angst about this when he

00:20:24.620 spoke after Morneau stepped down as finance minister.

00:20:28.560 We have a government of elites and self-serving snobs who look down on ordinary working class 0.90

00:20:40.120 Canadians.

00:20:40.980 I'm not sure if that's true of the governor general, but it's certainly true of the people

00:20:45.380 around the prime minister.

00:20:47.440 They think they're better than everyday Canadians. 0.93

00:20:50.220 They think they can turn their nose up at the people.

00:20:53.200 And they believe that they have a God-given entitlement to rule over the country and use

00:21:01.760 the Treasury as their personal piggy bank.

00:21:04.760 That is the attitude of entitlement that we have come to expect from Trudeau and everyone

00:21:10.860 he has put in positions of power.

00:21:12.800 Hey, tell us how you really feel, Pierre.

00:21:14.480 Don't don't hold back like you've been doing.

00:21:16.680 I kid.

00:21:17.160 Pierre has never once held back in his life.

00:21:19.460 I don't think when it comes to political barbs and we as Canadians are all the better

00:21:23.880 for it, I think, or certainly all the more entertained by it.

00:21:27.140 So this is where we have to take stock of what it is that we want moving forward, because

00:21:33.760 the liberals are cleaning house.

00:21:35.700 They want to claim that we had nothing to do with Bill Morneau stepping down, that all

00:21:40.780 of the disagreements, that Trudeau wanting to rack up monumental deficits and Morneau not

00:21:45.720 wanting to that that all is a window dressing.

00:21:48.000 It's all about the OECD and all about Morneau just jumping to this better opportunity because

00:21:53.380 he, for some reason, didn't want to have a life in politics, but he wants to now go for

00:21:59.780 this international organization, which is, you know, just basically supranational politics.

00:22:05.060 So that is a bit odd.

00:22:07.520 So it's not even like he's returning to the private sector, which would justify the narrative

00:22:12.040 if he's put forward that, oh, no, no, no, I just wanted to, you know, do a couple of

00:22:15.220 years in politics and then, you know, get back to my real life.

00:22:18.600 So take from that what you will.

00:22:21.120 But we are going to look at this going towards the fall where there may or may not be an election.

00:22:28.840 I mean, what that election would look like with, you know, public health restrictions,

00:22:32.120 I have no idea.

00:22:33.360 But we have a possible election opportunity in the fall, which means Trudeau has the next

00:22:39.620 couple of months to try to make sure that the NDP does not leave his side.

00:22:47.580 And if you want Canada to be in good hands, let's just take a moment to realize that right

00:22:55.380 now the balance of power is being held by Jagmeet Singh because the bloc is saying, yeah,

00:23:01.280 we're done.

00:23:02.160 The conservatives, you know, will not vote to have confidence when push comes to shove,

00:23:06.980 especially since they'll have their new leader effective Sunday of this week, assuming all

00:23:11.180 goes to plan.

00:23:12.240 You've got a few independent MPs, but I don't see them as triggering the downfall of government.

00:23:17.380 Someone asked me about this the other day, actually.

00:23:19.580 They said, do I think Jody Wilson-Raybould, who's sitting as an independent, will vote to

00:23:25.240 defeat the government?

00:23:26.460 And I really don't see it for a couple of reasons.

00:23:30.000 Number one, she is to her heart, to her core, a liberal.

00:23:33.760 Jody Wilson-Raybould, maybe not a capital L liberal, but she is a progressive still. 0.50

00:23:39.200 And her departure from the liberal party, the capital L liberals, had more to do with

00:23:45.220 her discontent about the management of it and Justin Trudeau personally than the aims.

00:23:51.380 And she's been very clear about this.

00:23:52.820 She still supports the fundamental liberal vision for Canada.

00:23:56.940 So I don't think she's going to vote against that in favor of what would almost assuredly

00:24:02.900 be a conservative vision for Canada.

00:24:06.380 So that's part of the problem.

00:24:08.580 And the other part is that I don't think Jody Wilson-Raybould wants an election.

00:24:12.640 She won as an independent, which is a very difficult thing to do in Canadian politics and

00:24:17.380 a very rare thing to do in Canadian politics.

00:24:19.820 So for Jody Wilson-Raybould to have a seat right now was the stars aligning, everything

00:24:25.800 happening in the way that was right, everything that needed to happen.

00:24:29.860 And more importantly, she had a lot more momentum going into the 2019 election than she would

00:24:35.240 now.

00:24:35.760 If she were to run again, there's no guarantee she keeps her seat. 0.98

00:24:40.740 There just isn't.

00:24:41.660 I mean, there's no guarantee for any member of parliament to keep their seat, certainly not

00:24:46.360 an independent, and you take away what was national fundraising.

00:24:49.980 If you look at her fundraising, a lot of the money that she took in came not from her Vancouver

00:24:54.020 Granville riding, but from people across the country that were supportive of what she did.

00:24:58.340 She won't have that as easily now.

00:25:00.360 And also she won't have the media that's really invested in what she's doing. 1.00

00:25:04.580 So for JWR, as she's known more colloquially to people, it would be a big gamble for her to

00:25:11.520 support anything that would put Canadians back to the polls.

00:25:15.120 So for those two reasons, which I think are pretty significant ones, I think she would

00:25:19.760 vote alongside the government.

00:25:21.160 So all of a sudden, no, you don't have enough independent votes to topple the government,

00:25:25.920 to vote a lack of confidence.

00:25:27.740 So right now, Trudeau is going to be wheeling, dealing, negotiating, doing everything possible

00:25:33.560 to ensure that when that budget and throne speech come out in the fall, that they pass.

00:25:38.760 And all of a sudden, Trudeau will say, we have a renewed mandate.

00:25:41.600 We have a renewed focus.

00:25:43.360 We've done all of this.

00:25:44.300 And I mean, Trudeau has, there's a little bit of truth to what he said, which is that,

00:25:49.440 you know, the previous budget and throne speech are kind of meaningless now because the world's

00:25:53.440 changed a fair bit since then.

00:25:54.760 And I would agree with that.

00:25:56.420 But I would also say that the next one is similarly going to be meaningless just for different

00:26:01.260 reasons, because this is now the one when the liberals are going to be an electioneering

00:26:05.140 their next throne speech, their next budget.

00:26:07.780 These are going to be political platforms.

00:26:10.740 They are not going to be government documents or public policies.

00:26:14.480 They are going to be political platforms because they know that these visions are going

00:26:18.060 to be the ones that carry the liberals into the next election, whether that's in the fall,

00:26:21.880 whether it's in the spring or whether it's a year or two years from now, because this is

00:26:26.180 now the game.

00:26:27.180 This is now the game.

00:26:29.300 It's that Trudeau has to convince Canadians that he's the only one that knows what he's

00:26:33.480 doing, that can continue along.

00:26:36.000 He's the steady hand.

00:26:36.980 He's all of that.

00:26:37.940 And it's very difficult to sell that when Bill Morneau, who is one of the more or was

00:26:43.180 one of the more capable and competent members, albeit disagreeable in terms of his conduct,

00:26:49.620 but one of the more capable and competent, just in terms of qualifications, members of

00:26:54.040 the team.

00:26:54.900 And now without that, who do you have?

00:26:57.160 Where's the bench strength?

00:26:58.660 I mean, whether you like Chrystia Freeland or not, she is there to stay.

00:27:02.060 She's around for the long haul and she is someone who tends to pull very well.

00:27:06.660 You've got Justin Trudeau.

00:27:07.840 You've got Chrystia Freeland.

00:27:09.700 Those are really now the only remaining really high profile ministers that are really, I think,

00:27:18.060 the diehard loyalists.

00:27:19.260 I mean, you've got other people that are there, clearly.

00:27:21.660 I mean, David Lamedi is the attorney general.

00:27:24.160 Patty Hajdu is the health minister.

00:27:25.720 You've got Mona Fortier.

00:27:27.220 I mean, you've got people in cabinet, but none of these people do as much to, you know,

00:27:32.180 trumpet the Justin Trudeau team as Freeland and Trudeau. 0.78

00:27:39.040 And, you know, it's amazing how far we've fallen from that, you know, ridiculous billboard

00:27:43.560 in Toronto of, you know, Justin Trudeau's and Bill Morneau's bromance with the hearts.

00:27:48.880 I was funny.

00:27:49.780 An American friend of mine saw me tweet out a version of this the other day and she thought

00:27:54.940 it was a Photoshop.

00:27:55.840 She didn't realize that anyone would actually, any serious people like the finance minister

00:28:00.640 and prime minister of a G7 country would actually put forward some photo that looks like it's

00:28:05.900 from like some buddy comedy Hallmark movie.

00:28:08.260 She didn't believe it was real.

00:28:09.320 And I, as a Canadian, it actually pained me to have to share that it was real, but that's

00:28:15.480 where we are, folks.

00:28:16.680 In any case, we have to wrap things up for today.

00:28:20.660 We will keep tabs on what's happening.

00:28:22.700 And next week we'll have a new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and we'll try

00:28:27.440 to get them on the show for a bit of a victory speech after those results come in.

00:28:32.060 Also, we are going to be doing a live show on Sunday night as the results come in.

00:28:38.160 I think we're starting at 5 p.m.

00:28:39.940 Eastern time, but if you check tnc.news for details, you'll have all of the information

00:28:44.740 you need there, but you can watch a little bit of a pre-show, watch as the results come

00:28:48.340 in with us and then a post-show analysis of what happened.

00:28:51.900 So that's all coming up this weekend.

00:28:53.660 We'll talk to you then.

00:28:54.620 Thank you.

00:28:55.220 God bless and good day, Canada.

00:28:56.580 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:28:59.200 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - August 19, 2020

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