Juno News - May 29, 2024


How did things get so bad for Justin Trudeau？


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

169.56958

Word Count

6,432

Sentence Count

323

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:05.580 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:13.220 Hello and welcome to you all.
00:00:15.820 This is another edition of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:00:20.040 Midway through the week here, it is Wednesday, May 29th.
00:00:23.280 Coming to the end of May, believe it or not.
00:00:25.700 Try not to believe it, actually, because before you know it, it'll be back to September.
00:00:29.120 But I don't want to depress you too much.
00:00:31.280 I am actually on the road today.
00:00:33.180 I am, as I was promoting last week in Calgary, doing an event for my own book,
00:00:38.800 which officially was released yesterday.
00:00:41.360 But that is not the only political biography to hit the shelves this week.
00:00:47.340 As it happened, and I had no idea this was going to happen when I was working on my book,
00:00:51.660 but I shared a release date with a new book about Justin Trudeau
00:00:56.760 and his Turbulent Reign, as the subtitle says.
00:01:00.340 It's called The Prince, The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau.
00:01:03.820 It's written by longtime journalist Stephen Marr.
00:01:07.140 And it's actually, I think, a very helpful companion piece to my own work on this.
00:01:12.780 So I thought I'd bring Stephen on the show.
00:01:15.060 We'd have a chat about this.
00:01:16.720 It's a great book.
00:01:18.040 Congratulations, Stephen.
00:01:18.940 And thanks for coming on today.
00:01:20.880 Kind of you to say that.
00:01:22.060 I've been enjoying your book.
00:01:23.000 Well, I'm glad.
00:01:24.940 And we have different publishers.
00:01:26.160 So this isn't just some elaborate publicity stunt that the publisher concocted,
00:01:30.060 just in case people were getting suspicious.
00:01:33.120 Obviously, we don't know what the next election is going to look like for sure.
00:01:37.900 We can look at polls, though.
00:01:39.200 And I think that the general story here is that this is the decline of Justin Trudeau
00:01:44.280 and the rise of Pierre Polyev.
00:01:46.040 Now, again, there are a whole bunch of asterisks and caveats there.
00:01:49.800 But let me ask you about that trajectory for Justin Trudeau,
00:01:54.840 because this is a book and I'd say a premise to a book that would have seen just so foreign
00:02:00.000 about a decade ago when he was the sexiest thing in politics.
00:02:04.680 He had momentum.
00:02:06.360 He had energy.
00:02:07.300 He had this Obama-like quality about him.
00:02:10.940 Where and when did it go so wrong?
00:02:13.360 Well, he had about a year of where I wrote in the book that Ottawa felt more like a pageant ground
00:02:21.560 than a scene of grim partisan struggle, right?
00:02:23.940 For that first year, there was a polling number that struck me that 44% of people
00:02:30.580 after the election said that they supported him, which was more than the people who voted for him.
00:02:36.500 So even people who didn't vote for him felt optimistic and kind of caught up in this new charismatic figure.
00:02:42.060 He was getting positive coverage in Vogue and the Daily Telegraph and all over the world.
00:02:48.540 He seemed like he could do no wrong.
00:02:51.680 And then you have a period.
00:02:52.980 The first big thing was the trip to the Aga Khan's Island in the Caribbean,
00:02:58.260 where, you know, he seemed to show poor judgment in making that trip.
00:03:04.180 He had to apologize for it, as followed by a disastrous trip to India,
00:03:08.560 and then the SNC-Lavalin matter, where he lost two prominent female cabinet ministers
00:03:17.000 and two of his most senior staffers, Gerald Butts and Michael Wernick.
00:03:24.520 So that was sort of the beginning of a period of difficulty.
00:03:30.880 Later, you had the blackface matter and foreign interference.
00:03:36.780 And overarching, more important than any of that, I think, in this period, is cost of living.
00:03:44.760 In the housing crisis, you look at, and there's good political science research on this,
00:03:49.000 when people are finding it hard to stretch their paycheck from one month to the next,
00:03:54.880 they blame the incumbent government.
00:03:58.000 That's why we're seeing Richie Sunak is struggling right now in the United Kingdom
00:04:01.860 and is likely to lose the election.
00:04:04.060 Joe Biden is having a hard time.
00:04:06.120 So partisans can argue about how responsible Justin Trudeau is for inflation,
00:04:11.680 but there's no arguing about the fact that that's like a kind of weight on his feet now,
00:04:19.520 holding him down.
00:04:21.760 When I look at, I mean, you mentioned the Aga Khan's Island,
00:04:25.320 and there was a point near the end of the book that I found quite interesting,
00:04:28.220 where you talk about how vacations have always been a blind spot for this government.
00:04:33.480 And, you know, Trudeau himself, you had asked him about the cost of living issue,
00:04:37.760 and you almost seemed like you caught him off guard with it.
00:04:41.140 He was like, oh, yeah, you know, fair enough.
00:04:42.600 But he really defends this.
00:04:44.580 And it seems like even his own staff were very frustrated with this from the sense that I got.
00:04:51.780 And I am not entirely unsympathetic to him in that, you know,
00:04:58.220 when you're writing something, you try to understand how they see the world.
00:05:01.140 He grew up going to these kinds of places.
00:05:03.140 The most recent controversy was around his trip to a resort in Jamaica,
00:05:10.760 where he's been going since he was in diapers.
00:05:14.720 And there isn't the same kind of ethical question there about,
00:05:18.120 oh, well, you know, the Conflict of Intrax code.
00:05:23.820 The people, like old family friends said, go ahead and stay at this place.
00:05:31.120 Genuine family friends, not in that like sort of strained Aga Khan family friend way.
00:05:35.820 No, that's right.
00:05:36.880 These people, they grew up going to that beach together when they were kids.
00:05:41.020 And so on a personal level, he wants to go there and share that with his own kids.
00:05:47.360 And like, I understand that, you know, that's his personal life.
00:05:54.040 But if he is making the argument that he is better positioned than Pierre Polyev
00:05:59.920 to grapple with the kind of cost of living issues that are affecting so many Canadians,
00:06:05.860 people standing in line in the grocery store,
00:06:07.760 wondering if they have enough money to buy, you know,
00:06:11.400 the roast beef that they want to get for dinner.
00:06:15.640 So that's the overwhelming preconception of his government, or ought to be.
00:06:19.800 And here he is taking a free trip to a gorgeous resort paid for by rich buddies, right?
00:06:27.700 So you can't help but think, well, that's frustrating for the people
00:06:31.780 who are making sacrifices to get him elected, who believe in him,
00:06:34.940 believe in his vision of the country, are afraid of Pierre Polyev coming to power.
00:06:40.340 So that's the dynamic that I try to describe.
00:06:42.480 I don't try to judge him personally.
00:06:44.160 He's, you know, I can see why he would want to go to that place.
00:06:49.080 It looks very nice.
00:06:51.300 You know?
00:06:52.000 It seemed, I mean, my theory early on in Trudeau's time as leader, certainly,
00:06:59.420 and as prime minister, was that the people around him didn't really see any weaknesses in him.
00:07:05.480 It is that he genuinely had this godlike quality, it seemed like.
00:07:10.380 And maybe you disagree with that.
00:07:12.740 And if you do, please let me know.
00:07:13.960 But I'm wondering if you got the sense that the perception that the people around him have of him
00:07:19.640 has changed over the last 10 years.
00:07:22.480 Oh, I'm sure it has.
00:07:23.720 But I don't think I agree with that.
00:07:26.140 Because to me, one of the strengths of Justin Trudeau in that early phase from 2013,
00:07:33.160 when he wins the leadership of the Liberal Party until some later period,
00:07:37.800 is that he had a great deal of promise, but he was undisciplined.
00:07:41.640 Undisciplined, and he didn't, and by undisciplined, I don't mean that he would be not doing what he was advised to do.
00:07:53.520 I mean that he, his mind was kind of undisciplined.
00:07:56.160 He hadn't been through all the partisan scrapes that someone like Pierre Polyev has now.
00:08:00.200 And he really worked closely with those advisors, with Katie Telford and Gerald Butts, Robert Aslan.
00:08:12.120 And I think that if he had not done that work, media coaching, working on his speaking,
00:08:18.640 that he would not have got where he was.
00:08:21.420 And, you know, when he said something dumb, he would sometimes go to his people after the interview
00:08:26.540 and say, frankly, I shouldn't have said that, should I?
00:08:29.440 And they'd say, no, no, that's right, here's what you should have said.
00:08:32.020 So he was doing the work.
00:08:35.020 And he, I think that he did take advice.
00:08:44.000 But he would not be the first politician on this vacation thing to reject advice from staff
00:08:49.900 when it comes to private time.
00:08:51.500 And that's conservatives and liberals and new Democrats, that these people, their lives
00:08:58.500 are so difficult and they don't have any time to themselves and their families.
00:09:01.460 And every now and then they say, well, I'm not asking your advice about this because this
00:09:05.240 is about my family and what we're going to do over the holidays.
00:09:10.400 So when you look at your, your time here, and I want to ask you a little bit about the
00:09:15.980 process and the access in a moment, but, but what is your central thesis?
00:09:20.580 If you have one about Justin Trudeau and his, basically his story as prime minister?
00:09:27.100 Well, it's that he's a princely sort of character.
00:09:29.660 He's different from other politicians.
00:09:31.140 If you look at, at the, the previous successful prime ministers in the last decades, you have
00:09:37.660 Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper, you know, people won more than one government.
00:09:42.620 Uh, and they're all in a sense, kind of similar figures in that they, they do not come from
00:09:47.380 the halls of power.
00:09:48.440 They are intensely driven people, uh, who through hard work and guile and, um, uh, careful study
00:09:58.700 of the art of politics managed to win government and retain it through multiple elections.
00:10:03.740 Whereas, um, Justin Trudeau was born with a connection to the people of Canada.
00:10:08.680 And that was his great strength in that liberal leadership contest in that 2015 election that
00:10:14.560 Canadians felt they knew him.
00:10:16.020 Uh, Fred DeLore, who, uh, worked for Mr. Harper and then for Mr. O'Toole described him
00:10:21.140 as the son of Canada.
00:10:22.500 The Canadians really felt at that time that they knew him and wanted to give him a chance,
00:10:28.180 which was, uh, um, so that makes him different from all these other people.
00:10:33.000 And I, I think of it as sort of paired qualities.
00:10:36.260 He has princely courage.
00:10:38.280 Uh, certainly you look at that boxing match.
00:10:39.960 That was a brave thing to do.
00:10:41.900 Um, uh, princely charisma, princely confidence, but also princely vanity, princely capriciousness,
00:10:49.140 a princely sense of entitlement, sense of entitlement.
00:10:52.200 So that you, you look at him and you, I do and think, well, that sets him apart.
00:10:57.660 That's a frame of a way to think about him.
00:10:59.520 Uh, Ola, you, you, you, you raise, I think an interesting point and you have this quote
00:11:06.120 that was, I, I gather relayed to you secondhand through David Hurley in the book, uh, where
00:11:11.280 Justin Trudeau said to Hurley, uh, David, I've always known my whole life that this would
00:11:16.620 be available to me if I want, referring to the premiership of Canada.
00:11:21.000 And, and that strikes me as one of the great contrasts, just to go back to the, you know,
00:11:25.380 the dueling books here between Pierre Polyevce and Justin Trudeau.
00:11:29.060 Is it in the case of Pierre Polyevce, you, you could make a case that his life has been
00:11:33.480 working towards this moment of becoming Canada's prime minister.
00:11:37.480 Whereas for Justin Trudeau, it was one door that if he wanted to, he could open it and
00:11:43.040 walk through it.
00:11:43.720 And he did, but it was almost as though what I take from that quote, and I may be reading
00:11:48.620 too much into it, is that Justin Trudeau didn't really feel like he needed this.
00:11:52.200 He, he didn't really feel like it was necessarily a given, even it was just, if he wanted to,
00:11:57.140 it would be there and he could go to it when it was convenient.
00:12:00.620 I think that that's a reasonable way of looking at it.
00:12:03.340 I don't, I don't think he was referring to the premiership then, but to the, you know,
00:12:08.280 leadership of the liberal party.
00:12:09.720 Yeah.
00:12:10.060 Yeah.
00:12:10.300 Sorry to, to, to political, political aspiration.
00:12:13.060 Yeah.
00:12:13.180 Yes, that's right.
00:12:14.080 Uh, and that was a door that was waiting for him in a sense.
00:12:16.520 And this is a thing I find interesting about, uh, Trudeau is that he is so accustomed to
00:12:22.460 scrutiny, to having people, uh, pay close attention to him from childhood that he's developed a
00:12:28.820 kind of ease.
00:12:30.480 He's, he may even overshare a time.
00:12:32.760 So he's saying that to Hurley.
00:12:34.500 Um, but I see that in his earlier interviews, he's just sort of accustomed to talking about
00:12:38.800 himself and in quite a, uh, uh, an open way.
00:12:42.400 And that's an example of that.
00:12:44.160 Um, but, and in a sense, it's just the fact it was there waiting for him as it would be
00:12:50.500 to say, Ben Mulroney, if Ben Mulroney decided that he wanted to seek a, uh, a seat in the conservative
00:12:56.340 party of Canada, there would be a, uh, people would be very interested in that.
00:13:00.480 Um, we saw that with Carolyn Mulroney.
00:13:02.800 So in a sense, it's, it's not that damning, I don't think, but it is a contrast with Pierre
00:13:09.360 Polyev who fits more into the mold of these other guys, uh, Stephen Harper, Jean Chrétien,
00:13:14.660 Brian Mulroney, a guy from, um, you know, uh, an outsider who, uh, has had to find a way
00:13:23.720 to get closer to the inside.
00:13:25.160 Uh, one thing that's been interesting in following the Trudeau government is the relative
00:13:31.760 stability internally and in the inner ranks and the inner circle.
00:13:36.140 Uh, and obviously that's not to say there hasn't been movement, but, uh, the idea of
00:13:40.040 having a chief of staff who's been there for the entirety of the government, despite all
00:13:44.720 the scandals that have rocked that government is quite something.
00:13:47.760 So how has that managed to happen?
00:13:50.120 I mean, how has Katie Telford been there, uh, as long as she has without interruption
00:13:55.120 and, and how has in general that circle around him, uh, shifted or not shifted in the last
00:14:01.120 decade?
00:14:02.640 So you have a core, uh, small group of people led by Katie Telford and they have been together
00:14:10.220 from the very beginning, right?
00:14:12.080 I describe in the book, this big meeting that took place in Mont-Tremblant, a Quebec ski
00:14:16.980 resort where, um, Butts and Katie, uh, Katie and Sasha, um, Trudeau and, um, David Hurley
00:14:26.820 and a whole bunch of other liberals got together and said, okay, what kind of, uh, campaign should
00:14:31.420 we run?
00:14:31.960 Um, and so she's been by his side all through that period and she's, uh, uh, by all accounts
00:14:40.160 a very talented person, a, uh, savvy political operative, uh, early on, you had the sense that
00:14:47.260 Gerald was sort of the strategist and Katie the implementer, but obviously after, uh, Butts
00:14:54.220 leaves, that's, that's no longer the case.
00:14:56.740 Um, and you have some other people, Brian Clow is very important.
00:15:01.960 Uh, Zita Astravaz, uh, although, um, uh, she left recently, Jeremy Broadhurst.
00:15:07.740 And the sense that I get from people who've been around them and worked with them and seen
00:15:13.380 them in various circumstances is these people are good at what they do.
00:15:16.720 They have good judgment, they're good operators, they know politics, uh, they're high achievers.
00:15:23.500 Um, a critique, and I think it's, it's well-founded is that, um, because of Trudeau's sort of lack
00:15:33.440 of comfort with a larger group or those people's lack of comfort with a larger group files get
00:15:38.640 jammed up in the hands of that small group of kind of trusted people close to Justin so
00:15:44.140 that the government is not as effective as it can be.
00:15:47.120 And, um, I think that that's a reasonable critique and, and not particularly harsh to
00:15:54.160 these staffers who I think are going in and probably doing their best every day.
00:15:58.720 So I think Pierre Polyev's relationship with the media has obviously been a source of interest
00:16:05.580 given how differently he approaches it from, from even, uh, conservative leaders past.
00:16:10.440 I think Justin Trudeau's relationship with the media is interesting for, for different
00:16:14.980 reasons.
00:16:15.380 I know that he had made that crack at the parliamentary press gallery dinner.
00:16:19.740 I can't remember how many years ago, but basically about how, you know, the $600 million
00:16:24.040 that he gave them was, was buying them off.
00:16:26.720 And I know some of the press gallery were actually a bit uncomfortable with that joke, but did Trudeau
00:16:32.980 take the media for granted as being on his side early on in his term?
00:16:39.660 I don't know.
00:16:40.620 I mean, I don't know.
00:16:46.840 Um, I mean, at first, that first year, um,
00:16:54.040 there was a sort of pleasure in the land, not everywhere, obviously not in Calgary or medicine
00:17:00.640 hat, but in a lot of the country, there was a feeling of, of, um, sunny ways, sunny ways.
00:17:07.480 And they were doing things right.
00:17:09.000 They were doing things that, that made people happy.
00:17:12.420 They were doing things they'd promised to do that they were elected to do.
00:17:15.480 So I'm not sure that there was a, um, you know, it was a honeymoon, but they, uh, governments
00:17:23.040 deserve a honeymoon if they're proceeding with what they've, uh, said they would do.
00:17:28.220 Well, and unlike just to contrast it with Stephen Harper, trust Justin Trudeau came in
00:17:32.220 on a majority.
00:17:32.920 So he had a much greater, uh, toolkit available to him than the conservatives did in 2006.
00:17:39.480 Yes, that's right.
00:17:40.920 Uh, and there was a lot of pent up frustration with the Harper government on a number of different
00:17:45.840 files.
00:17:46.200 So, so for the, uh, you know, among progressive Canadians.
00:17:50.640 So for the first year, Justin Trudeau, uh, and his people were able to hit the items that
00:17:57.080 they promised to do, um, and just get good points from their own people by reversing things
00:18:04.800 that, that Harper had done.
00:18:05.920 Um, but I, I didn't feel like, like the media was particularly soft on him.
00:18:11.020 The, at the beginning of the, um, uh, the, so the honeymoon ended with the Aga Khan trip.
00:18:17.820 Uh, but earlier than that, there was elbow gate when he hit, uh, NDP MP, Ruth Ellen Brasso,
00:18:26.040 uh, in the chest with his elbow on the floor of the house of commons and had to apologize.
00:18:30.020 And I remember that being covered, um, aggressively, um, you know, I, I, you mentioned the, uh, the
00:18:38.620 media bailout.
00:18:39.540 I find it, um, kind of painful that the, the, the Canadians are so suspicious of the media
00:18:49.940 now because of these bailouts.
00:18:51.800 Uh, and I also understand, and I suspect you, you would not agree with me, but that the
00:18:56.740 government was in a bit of a pickle here, uh, in that they were looking at the real prospect
00:19:01.940 of, you know, the Toronto star and post media going out of business and, um, the expansion
00:19:07.440 of news deserts, which I find alarming.
00:19:09.480 I'm, uh, I've been in the newspaper business and magazines for most of my life.
00:19:14.220 And, and several of the papers where I used to work are now gone, right.
00:19:17.680 And the, and they're not being served by other outlets.
00:19:20.940 So I, I suspect I see that somewhat differently, you know, but I, yeah, you, you do.
00:19:25.540 And I mean, I, I did an interview with Jen Gerson not that long ago, and we, we talked about
00:19:29.760 this and Jen had said the part out loud that a lot of people are uncomfortable saying, which
00:19:34.680 is that we have to be, we have to get acquainted with the idea and comfortable with the idea
00:19:38.260 of collapse because there's no incentive to come up with the business model that works if
00:19:42.980 something doesn't die.
00:19:44.020 But, but to your point, I realized that that's a high stakes game and, and that, uh, you know,
00:19:48.840 as much as I'm, I'm very happy that true North, for example, is, is, you know, doing something
00:19:53.560 that's working for us.
00:19:54.600 I also realized that we do need a diverse media landscape.
00:19:58.060 So I, I don't have the answer to it.
00:20:00.480 Um, but, uh, but I also am, I, I'm, I'm very much on, on team no bailout, uh, which, which
00:20:06.000 I suspect, uh, we, we could have a good company.
00:20:09.100 If I can say you're in good company on that team.
00:20:11.960 Okay.
00:20:12.240 And I'm, I, I don't feel that the, that the people who express that view are, um, against
00:20:18.800 Canada or anything.
00:20:19.600 I, I, I just, I'm, I see the reason why they would have felt the pressure to prevent this
00:20:25.740 kind of disaster from happening.
00:20:28.200 The, the, one, one of the, one of the great, uh, contrast between the liberals and conservatives
00:20:33.280 and by, by great, I don't mean positive.
00:20:35.080 I just mean stark has, has been the way that they treat their leaders.
00:20:40.620 Uh, the conservatives I feel are far more, I don't even think it's a feeling.
00:20:44.980 I think it's, you know, bears out empirically.
00:20:46.940 The conservatives are ruthless with their leaders in a way that the liberals clearly are, are
00:20:51.320 not.
00:20:51.760 I mean, I mentioned on my show earlier this week that, uh, a Hill times interview with
00:20:55.680 liberal MP, Sean Casey, where he, uh, wouldn't even give an answer on whether he thinks Justin
00:21:00.560 Trudeau should lead the party into the next election, which is about as forceful as it
00:21:05.500 gets from this liberal caucus about Justin Trudeau.
00:21:08.720 There there's, there's no criticism.
00:21:10.640 We don't see the knives.
00:21:12.100 We don't see the movements against them.
00:21:14.180 And I'm curious, and I know you spoke to, to liberal MPs for, for your book here.
00:21:18.720 What is the read quietly?
00:21:21.180 Because I mean, even before poll numbers, uh, started to show the liberals headed towards
00:21:25.840 a collapse, I'm sure there were some frustrations on some issues, but he has kept an iron grip
00:21:31.180 on that caucus.
00:21:32.320 And I, and that goes back to the very beginning that the caucus loyalty that exists to Justin
00:21:37.020 Trudeau seems significant and just completely foreign to what happens in conservative politics
00:21:43.260 in this country.
00:21:44.080 What are those MPs tell you?
00:21:46.600 So, uh, I would make two points.
00:21:48.700 One, um, that, uh, they know very well that things are not going well.
00:21:58.080 I have a quote from an MP in my book who's saying every MP in the liberal party is hearing
00:22:03.720 it from long time liberals.
00:22:06.800 Often people who really like Justin Trudeau and are glad at what he's done, but they're
00:22:10.940 saying it's time for him to move on.
00:22:13.040 Right?
00:22:13.340 Like that's the, the clear enough message.
00:22:15.080 Uh, but the other thing about the knives coming out, I don't remember knives coming
00:22:20.180 out for Stephen Harper when he was leading, uh, a government that was trailing in the polls,
00:22:26.540 uh, during that last year in, in office.
00:22:29.900 And I think that there's a similar reason why in the Harper case, in the Trudeau case,
00:22:35.180 these gentlemen created the modern conservative party, uh, and the modern liberal party.
00:22:43.960 Our politics has become so leader focused, um, that it's not like the old days where you
00:22:50.020 would have someone like Lucien Bouchard, uh, leading an important contingent of the conservative
00:22:55.920 party, the progressive conservative party.
00:22:58.240 There is just the leader.
00:22:59.720 Now, uh, you don't have regional chieftains in the same old way.
00:23:02.680 So all of these people, almost all of the people on, in Justin Trudeau's caucus are elected
00:23:09.400 because he got them elected.
00:23:13.960 One of the things I'm interested in your take on, and I suspect it's probably very different
00:23:18.700 from what my audience wants to hear, but I think it's also helpful because you, you did
00:23:22.480 cover this extensively is, uh, Trudeau's handling of COVID and, and I'll say more specifically
00:23:28.320 the freedom convoy, because I, I suspected that the emergencies act would have been more
00:23:35.740 controversial within the liberal party than it openly was.
00:23:39.160 And I, I know there was some, some quiet dissent and frustration, but for the most part, again,
00:23:43.600 everyone fell in line and went on it.
00:23:45.220 But I, what, what is your overarching read?
00:23:48.300 And I know it's a big question on that chapter of Trudeau's tenure as prime minister.
00:23:54.800 Well, I'm waiting to see what the Supreme court of Canada says.
00:23:57.820 Um, there have been two judges now, Justice Rouleau and, uh, uh, Justice Mosley, both of
00:24:05.200 whom, um, sort of assessed the constitutionality of what he did.
00:24:10.680 And I would point out, so they came to different conclusions.
00:24:14.140 Justice Rouleau said that it was constitutional.
00:24:16.420 Justice Mosley said it wasn't.
00:24:18.080 Um, I would point out that both men said they understood that there are two ways of looking
00:24:23.840 at this and that it was a very difficult circumstance for the government.
00:24:26.640 So that's, um, kind of how I, I look at it is, um, I was glad at the Mosley decision because
00:24:36.780 I think that at the time of the convoy, and I, I would guess your listeners are not in
00:24:43.280 this group, but a lot of the people who I knew were having a hellish time of it in downtown
00:24:47.600 Ottawa, right?
00:24:48.420 They did not support the convoy.
00:24:50.080 They were not opposed to mandates and their city was under siege and they couldn't sleep,
00:24:55.000 right?
00:24:55.180 Imagine having a newborn or, um, uh, an older, uh, relative with dementia in those circumstances
00:25:02.820 with horns going all night and whatnot.
00:25:04.640 I like, it's a police failure and the government was forced to act.
00:25:08.020 That's my view.
00:25:09.160 Uh, I suspect that, uh, people watching this are, are, uh, strongly disagreeing, but that's
00:25:14.120 what I think.
00:25:15.220 Um, and so the government needed to do something.
00:25:18.060 I think that, uh, the, the question of whether they went too far in particular, uh, with freezing
00:25:25.000 bank accounts, which had an impact on spouses and other relatives, uh, who had really nothing
00:25:31.760 to do with the convoy.
00:25:32.880 Um, and, uh, whether they went too far in stopping, uh, people from demonstrating.
00:25:41.840 I would say, I don't see it as a sign of imminent civil disobedience in Canada.
00:25:46.340 There was nobody killed.
00:25:47.920 There, there, uh, any injuries were fairly minor.
00:25:51.580 We had a huge, big demonstration in Ottawa.
00:25:56.080 And at some level, I think that we can take comfort from the fact that unlike on January
00:26:01.280 6th in Washington, nobody was killed and we managed to bumble through it as Canadians,
00:26:08.240 even though we don't necessarily agree, we got through it.
00:26:14.180 It took on a life of its own and was sort of, you know, cheekily reclaimed by the people
00:26:19.600 who are in the, the crosshairs of the comment.
00:26:22.220 But when Justin Trudeau made that remark about the fringe minority, people with unacceptable
00:26:27.300 views, this was a departure from what his outward approach had been through the rest
00:26:32.920 of the pandemic, which was team Canada.
00:26:35.440 We all got to unite.
00:26:36.420 We all got to stick together.
00:26:37.780 And, and I, I think he was being very honest there.
00:26:40.660 I, I, I don't know if, if it was poll tested or anything, but I think he was speaking in a,
00:26:45.360 in a way that was very genuine to him.
00:26:48.060 Um, does he hold his critics in contempt in your view?
00:26:52.840 Because that, that's how it been always how it's looked.
00:26:54.800 And, and during COVID, that was certainly the, the perception that was, uh, taken up
00:26:59.740 by, by me at some points and certainly by members of the audience with comments he made in that
00:27:03.440 one interview in Quebec, uh, and, and certainly in the fringe minority comment.
00:27:07.420 Yeah.
00:27:08.420 So I, I believe, uh, that, that that was, um, unwise, uh, for Mr. Trudeau to be so provocative
00:27:18.420 in attacking the people of the convoy.
00:27:20.560 And I make that point in my book.
00:27:21.860 I thought that Joel Lightbound, the, the, uh, Quebec MP, a liberal MP who, um, spoke against
00:27:28.800 that was, was correct and, um, uh, uh, it was wrong.
00:27:35.860 Uh, I think that Trudeau was actually forced or felt forced to come up with this kind of
00:27:42.400 messaging, uh, because he had to polarize around the mandates.
00:27:45.920 They, they were in terrible, uh, difficulty during that election campaign and were at risk
00:27:51.780 of losing it to, um, Aaron O'Toole, uh, and the polling showed the way out for the liberals
00:27:58.640 was to, uh, put mandates front and center, partly because it exposed division and weakness
00:28:06.880 on the conservative side, where you had a, a distance between the view that Mr. O'Toole
00:28:11.560 had and the view by, uh, uh, held by Westerners like, uh, uh, Chris Workington and Andrew Scheer.
00:28:18.860 So, you know, I can see how he found himself doing that, Trudeau, but it was, I think it
00:28:25.240 was bad for the country.
00:28:26.260 It led to these painful divisions that will likely outlast him, you know, like, uh, uh,
00:28:33.360 I find it painful to think of, of how people, um, who were opposed to mandates ended up feeling
00:28:40.420 that they'd been scapegoated by their own government.
00:28:43.740 I wanted to ask you about the access you got.
00:28:46.360 Uh, you actually had greater access to, uh, the liberals than I had to the conservatives
00:28:51.340 in some respect, because you actually were, were able to speak with Justin Trudeau for
00:28:55.620 this.
00:28:55.880 And I'm, I've been asked, uh, in, in interviews from my book, why Pierre Polyev didn't speak
00:29:00.840 to me, which I think is a fair question.
00:29:02.240 So I'll ask you the inverse of that.
00:29:04.140 Why do you think Justin Trudeau did speak to you?
00:29:07.280 Um, I think it was wise for him to speak to me.
00:29:10.420 Um, and he and his people are quite astute and, uh, there were a number of things that
00:29:18.700 I wanted to ask him about to get his voice and his perspective on them and basically sprinkle
00:29:24.560 them throughout this book, which was largely, largely completed by the time of the interview.
00:29:28.220 So it, it made for a better book and, uh, it allowed him to put his voice and explain himself
00:29:34.020 into it.
00:29:35.320 Um, I'm not sure it was a black and white decision for them.
00:29:38.240 It only happened at the very end.
00:29:39.820 I'm sure that they did not look at this prospect of this book and think, oh, great.
00:29:43.840 Uh, that'll be good.
00:29:46.020 Um, and what was it just the one interview?
00:29:48.500 Just one interview.
00:29:49.500 Yes.
00:29:49.660 And how long was it?
00:29:50.900 For one hour.
00:29:51.760 So you had to be very selective in what you put to him, I suspect.
00:29:57.060 Yes.
00:29:57.560 And I, I did not, if I'd had several hours, I'd have loved to have said, well, let's relax
00:30:01.980 and talk about SNC-Lavalin for, uh, 20 minutes.
00:30:05.800 Um, but I did not believe that that would be helpful.
00:30:08.620 Uh, because, you know, um, something that I've learned over the years from doing interviews
00:30:15.840 is that if you put people on the defensive, uh, particularly practiced senior politicians,
00:30:21.740 like the prime minister, they have a whole, uh, collection of little recorded messages
00:30:28.220 and that stuff is of no use to anyone.
00:30:31.540 So I, I tried to ask questions that would not have him reaching for those, uh, little
00:30:38.280 sound clips, uh, that he's sort of trained to produce.
00:30:44.680 You talk about the, the foreign interference scandal, and I, I suspect that you were up against
00:30:50.400 this problem here of, of writing this book and, uh, finding you have to keep changing
00:30:55.360 the book because of the news cycle.
00:30:56.940 And, and I think that's a challenge with, with writing about any contemporary figure,
00:31:00.800 but I, I'm curious.
00:31:03.540 And there's, there's a line I'll, I'll read here.
00:31:06.300 Um, you know, when you talk about, uh, if I pull it up here and I, I lost, I lost the page,
00:31:12.240 but, but basically you talk about the way that this issue really affected the agenda for
00:31:18.300 the government and I was wondering if you could just extrapolate on that a bit.
00:31:21.720 Well, um, yeah, it threw them off.
00:31:24.660 There was a, a caucus retreat, uh, in Montreal, if memory serves, where it was seen as a reset,
00:31:31.080 right?
00:31:31.300 They've been struggling to reset.
00:31:32.400 They, they keep trying to sort of find their feet and make progress politically and, and
00:31:37.320 are, are struggling.
00:31:38.700 Um, and, uh, the people doing the leaking whom some of them must be actual current members.
00:31:48.240 Of, uh, our security services are recently retired, uh, members, which I sometimes think,
00:31:55.100 um, made it impossible for the government to ever put this issue behind them until such
00:32:03.620 time as they called, um, what I thought we needed, which was a public inquiry into foreign
00:32:09.960 interference.
00:32:10.440 It's one issue that, um, because of the, the secrecy involved, uh, I felt somewhat frustrated
00:32:19.740 by my inability to tell readers really what this is all about, but I was left with, and
00:32:27.640 I continue to have serious questions.
00:32:30.180 I don't know, uh, I am not impressed by the government's handling of this issue.
00:32:35.200 I don't know why we haven't had a, uh, already, um, for several years, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
00:32:44.060 for an agent registry.
00:32:45.000 We, we ought to have done that.
00:32:46.720 Uh, I think we will get it and we need it.
00:32:49.640 Um, and it's one of the least impressive files for this government.
00:32:53.520 And, uh, um, uh, it kept throwing them off because it kept wrestling, uh, the headlines
00:33:01.080 back to that.
00:33:02.560 Uh, and I hope we're going to see progress on a registry and, um, uh, a sense that the
00:33:08.680 government is taking this seriously.
00:33:11.860 I'll ask, uh, just in closing about this one section near the end of the book.
00:33:16.280 You say Trudeau has used sunny ways as promised, but they have not convinced Saskatchewan Premier
00:33:21.280 Scott Moe to collect the carbon tax as required by law or Danielle Smith, for instance, to
00:33:26.760 abandon a plan to withdraw her province from the Canada pension plan.
00:33:29.680 And he never seemed to know how to handle Francois Legault, whose nationalistic leadership
00:33:34.440 of Quebec poses a challenge to the rights of linguistic and religious minorities around
00:33:39.080 which the liberal party has traditionally built its brand.
00:33:43.080 Trudeau's relationship with the Federation is very different now than it was a decade ago.
00:33:48.720 How much of that is Justin Trudeau in your view, or how much of it is changes in the provinces
00:33:56.060 that have just coincided almost coincidentally with where we are now?
00:34:01.020 That's a good question.
00:34:02.000 I, I'm a little worried when, when you think about, uh, I'm a little worried about national
00:34:06.220 unity in the state of, of, uh, the Federation.
00:34:09.400 When you look at, uh, Pierre Trudeau, uh, and his, uh, reckoning with Peter Lougheed, who was
00:34:16.200 the premier of, uh, Alberta in his day, Lougheed was very much a, uh, uh, forthright about thinking
00:34:24.040 about Canada and, um, they had their fights and, uh, Albertans were angry about the national
00:34:29.580 energy program, uh, rightly, I think in retrospect.
00:34:33.100 Um, but the, the gulf was not as large as it is between Danielle Smith and, um, Justin Trudeau.
00:34:40.640 Uh, it's a difficult country to govern and I worry sometimes that, um, it's getting more
00:34:46.540 difficult as the media environment becomes more fragmented, uh, and Albertans feel less
00:34:53.000 a part of a Federation than they have.
00:34:54.600 Some of that is, is a temporary thing that would change, uh, with a change in government.
00:35:00.140 We've had this argument over resources that is in a sense insoluble because people in Western
00:35:06.320 Canada just feel like it's terrible and wrong that anyone is trying to limit the expansion
00:35:12.160 of, um, uh, the resource industry there.
00:35:15.180 And a lot of people in Eastern Canada feel we've got to do something to tackle emissions
00:35:19.440 and there's no way to do that without, uh, um, limiting the, the growth of the, uh, uh, oil
00:35:28.040 sands.
00:35:28.700 So stay tuned.
00:35:30.980 And it seems like it's a difficult, um, file to wrestle with.
00:35:35.820 What's one thing that you learned that stands out or that surprised you in writing this?
00:35:41.980 There was one moment, um, that I thought was interesting, just a minor thing, but that,
00:35:46.340 uh, when Mr. Trudeau back in 2015, uh, got, was traveling through Southwestern Ontario, uh,
00:35:53.860 and they got news that the press, uh, big Montreal, uh, daily had endorsed him, uh, and with a
00:36:01.720 very kind editorial that compared him to Laurier and said, Canada needs him now that he, uh,
00:36:07.240 wept in the, in the bus, uh, in front of his staff.
00:36:10.360 And when I asked him about that during my interview, his eyes teared up again, that sense
00:36:16.640 of how, uh, uh, emotional he was about his relationship with, uh, the people of Quebec.
00:36:24.800 Um, you know, he, he was seen his Quebecers have a very complicated relationship with his
00:36:31.540 father who was kind of revered, but also despised, um, and Trudeau struggled to be taken seriously.
00:36:39.300 So I found that an interesting moment, kind of, um, just the emotion of it, that, that
00:36:44.180 he had been accepted by his own people.
00:36:47.380 And that was, uh, it was kind of nice in a way.
00:36:51.080 All right.
00:36:51.680 Well, it's a very fascinating book, The Prince, The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau.
00:36:56.780 Uh, like I said, it's a great fun that we get to be, uh, coming out the same day, uh,
00:37:00.800 with, uh, two different characters in Canadian politics, but both, I think, tremendously relevant.
00:37:05.100 Stephen Marr, congratulations on the book and thank you for your time today.
00:37:08.080 I want to congratulate you on your book, Andrew.
00:37:10.440 I, I could just as easily be interviewing you if I had a podcast.
00:37:14.160 Congratulations.
00:37:14.860 It's, it's, uh, people are excited about it and, uh, uh, it must've been a lot of hard
00:37:19.060 work and good for you.
00:37:19.960 So thank you.
00:37:20.280 I think Amazon's already recommending them to the buyers of each other.
00:37:23.220 So, uh, hopefully it'll, uh, it'll rise together better than syncing together.
00:37:26.940 So, uh, Stephen, I appreciate that very much.
00:37:28.780 Thank you.
00:37:29.660 Thank you, Andrew.
00:37:30.380 Bye now.
00:37:31.340 That does it for us for today.
00:37:33.640 We'll be back tomorrow with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show here.
00:37:36.740 Uh, the Andrew Lawton show on true north.
00:37:38.940 Thank you.
00:37:39.400 God bless.
00:37:39.940 And good day to you all.
00:37:41.460 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton show.
00:37:43.720 Support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news.
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