Juno News - Justin Trudeau doesn't want MPs looking into WE

00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:06.320 Well, as you saw and heard last week,

00:00:08.800 Pierre Paliyev and Michael Barrett last week

00:00:11.420 were raising the issues of the redacted WE documents

00:00:16.200 and talking about all of the things that they were finding in them,

00:00:20.200 although a lot of the things that they couldn't find

00:00:21.900 because the Liberals decided to take the old black highlighter

00:00:24.940 to these things before handing them over.

00:00:27.520 And when Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament, of course,

00:00:30.480 it ended up putting a stop to all of the committee work,

00:00:34.460 including the committee investigating the WE scandal,

00:00:38.240 the scandal in which Justin Trudeau was handing out giant, massive contracts

00:00:43.520 to people that have been paying his family members

00:00:45.820 and bringing Bill Morneau on vacations

00:00:48.340 and cozying up with Liberal staff and all of these other things.

00:00:52.040 And the fact is that without the parliamentary oversight of this,

00:00:56.000 a lot of people are questioning what can still be done.

00:00:59.380 So I want to talk about this with Michael Barrett.

00:01:01.720 He joins me on the line now.

00:01:03.120 He's a Conservative Member of Parliament from Ontario

00:01:05.700 and also the Conservative Ethics Critic.

00:01:08.520 Michael, good to talk to you.

00:01:09.560 Thanks very much for coming on today.

00:01:11.740 Thanks for having me here, Andrew.

00:01:13.060 Ethics Critic. 0.90

00:01:13.760 That's pretty much a full-time job with this government, isn't it?

00:01:16.260 Yeah, absolutely.

00:01:17.920 And it's no surprise that the Ethics Commissioner's office

00:01:22.160 has had job postings in the summer of scandal 2020

00:01:27.760 with all that's going on.

00:01:29.860 So we hear often from Justin Trudeau that he works closely

00:01:33.320 with the Ethics Commissioner,

00:01:35.660 and I think that they should probably just get someone on retainer

00:01:40.320 or maybe put a direct door between the two offices

00:01:42.980 they have to visit so often.

00:01:44.240 So, yeah, for my part, it's busy.

00:01:46.860 We saw the press conference last week with you

00:01:49.600 and your colleague in the Conservative Caucus,

00:01:51.680 Pierre Polyev,

00:01:52.460 going through a number of those released documents from WE,

00:01:56.460 a great many of them redacted,

00:01:58.640 and the Liberals have tried to use the release of those documents

00:02:02.160 in some way to defend against shutting down

00:02:05.620 the committee investigation.

00:02:07.280 I was hoping you could set the record straight here.

00:02:09.160 What work can actually continue over the course of the summer

00:02:12.540 with Parliament prorogued?

00:02:14.240 Well, I'll first note that on those documents

00:02:17.580 that the Prime Minister and other Liberals have trumpeted

00:02:20.900 as this great measure of transparency,

00:02:23.540 the documents came redacted,

00:02:26.360 which is contrary to the committee's order.

00:02:29.700 They had allowed for the law clerk sufficient time 0.99

00:02:34.060 to do redactions for privacy purposes,

00:02:36.560 you know, in someone's personal phone number, name,

00:02:39.780 that kind of thing.

00:02:41.740 But they came with substantial redactions from the government.

00:02:45.760 So that's the first point.

00:02:47.620 The next is that while I am the ethics critic

00:02:51.020 and I was a member of the standing committee

00:02:54.580 that was doing this investigation,

00:02:58.660 all of the committees effectively cease to exist

00:03:01.640 once Parliament is prorogued.

00:03:03.040 So no witnesses can be called,

00:03:04.900 no further documents can be ordered.

00:03:07.020 None of those formal parliamentary tools

00:03:12.880 can be taken out of the toolbox.

00:03:15.300 I hear from a lot of folks that they say,

00:03:17.080 well, there should be a vote of non-confidence

00:03:18.700 because Justin Trudeau is prorogued.

00:03:20.640 Well, we have no opportunity to do that

00:03:24.320 until the House reconvenes

00:03:26.520 and then, of course, see what he has on offer.

00:03:29.240 So the short answer to your question is

00:03:30.880 the opposition, the best tool that we have

00:03:34.560 is a microphone and talking to journalists like yourself.

00:03:39.660 When Parliament does resume,

00:03:41.360 can the committee resume its work

00:03:43.400 or is it really going back to start from zero?

00:03:46.220 Yeah, back to zero.

00:03:47.180 So the committees will be reconstituted.

00:03:49.140 All of the members will need to be reappointed

00:03:51.980 to those committees or not.

00:03:53.900 Then the motion to initiate hearings or a study

00:03:57.920 and then to write a report

00:04:01.780 and to get the documents and to order witnesses.

00:04:05.780 All of those things have to start from square one.

00:04:08.960 So if you have this prorogation

00:04:11.500 which halts this investigation into the government,

00:04:15.300 I mean, how can Canadians have any confidence 0.56

00:04:17.140 that there is a willingness to have the investigation,

00:04:20.740 to have the hearing of facts from the government,

00:04:22.480 which has always been their official line

00:04:24.940 that, oh, yes, we want everyone to look into it

00:04:27.120 and have at it.

00:04:28.300 And Justin Trudeau made this big magnanimous stand

00:04:30.700 saying that he was agreeing to appear as a witness.

00:04:33.580 But that really doesn't amount to all that much

00:04:35.800 if the testimony goes into a black hole.

00:04:38.460 Well, that's right.

00:04:40.060 And we said it before,

00:04:41.180 and this is very much a prorogation

00:04:44.700 to cover up this scandal.

00:04:47.920 And we have the independent officers of parliament

00:04:52.500 who are looking at this, and there are many.

00:04:54.220 You know, this matter has been referred

00:04:55.360 to the ethics commissioner,

00:04:57.320 to the procurement ombudsman,

00:04:59.400 to the privacy commissioner,

00:05:01.340 to Elections Canada,

00:05:03.640 and to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

00:05:05.580 I think I'm leaving one out, but there's a lot.

00:05:07.240 So those are all happening.

00:05:08.820 But members of parliament have a responsibility

00:05:11.600 to be a check against the power of the executive.

00:05:14.400 That's our role as members,

00:05:16.700 all members of the House who don't sit in government.

00:05:19.060 That's their job.

00:05:19.820 And it is very damaging to our democratic institutions

00:05:24.340 when we have a prime minister and a government

00:05:27.240 who so blatantly, you know,

00:05:30.960 throw transparency to the wayside

00:05:34.380 and, you know, and flat out mislead Canadians.

00:05:39.700 They lie to Canadians when they say that,

00:05:41.740 you know, well, they've got all of the, you know,

00:05:43.180 opposition members have all of the information

00:05:45.060 and they can read that

00:05:46.800 and continue to ask us questions.

00:05:48.140 That's what Justin Trudeau said

00:05:49.080 when he prorogued parliament.

00:05:51.160 So I'm not sure what time the prime minister

00:05:53.580 is prepared to take my questions today or tomorrow

00:05:56.980 because with the chamber locked,

00:06:00.700 with committee rooms locked,

00:06:02.540 that check that the opposition is to exercise

00:06:08.000 on the government isn't available.

00:06:10.180 You mentioned that a microphone becomes the primary tool

00:06:13.660 in the opposition's toolbox right now.

00:06:16.300 What have the more explosive aspects

00:06:19.020 of these documents revealed?

00:06:20.720 I know we heard in some cases from you

00:06:23.820 and Mr. Polyev last week

00:06:25.400 about some of the lines from the bureaucrats,

00:06:27.660 but has there really been a smoking gun

00:06:29.840 or anything you'd characterize as such in these?

00:06:32.940 Well, I think that the contention

00:06:35.840 that this was something that was imagined by

00:06:39.280 or first initiated by the public service

00:06:42.500 has been proven to be false.

00:06:44.380 So we've heard over and over again

00:06:46.840 from ministers and the prime minister

00:06:48.920 and his chief of staff that this was recommended

00:06:51.920 by the nonpartisan professional public service.

00:06:55.180 Right.

00:06:55.420 It was recommended after the WE organization

00:06:59.280 wrote the proposal.

00:07:01.280 So of course they were the only one

00:07:02.820 who can deliver on it.

00:07:04.340 The WE organization was the only organization

00:07:06.860 that could deliver on WE's proposal.

00:07:09.740 And we know that there were conversations

00:07:13.400 with officials, with ministers,

00:07:15.620 and this WE organization that were denied

00:07:20.120 in sworn testimony.

00:07:22.400 And so this idea that this was, you know,

00:07:26.620 just one morning a public servant woke up,

00:07:28.680 said this is going to be a billion dollar contract.

00:07:31.360 It's going to go to cabinet.

00:07:32.420 It gets approved in a few weeks time.

00:07:36.600 It's too incredible to believe.

00:07:39.200 So the problem is, is that the ministers,

00:07:43.600 the prime minister, his chief of staff,

00:07:45.420 they've gone to great efforts to muddy the water.

00:07:47.980 And what this comes down to, Andrew,

00:07:49.640 is an organization that gave members

00:07:52.220 of the prime minister's family

00:07:53.540 more than half a million dollars.

00:07:55.680 And the government then gave that organization

00:07:57.560 a half a billion dollars.

00:07:59.520 In that same government,

00:08:00.860 there's a finance minister who accepted

00:08:02.480 more than $40,000 in illegal gifts

00:08:04.540 from this organization.

00:08:05.400 So that's what this boils down to.

00:08:08.160 And that's what Canadians need to consider

00:08:11.000 when Justin Trudeau talks about doing a reset.

00:08:13.420 He's not looking to reset his legislative agenda.

00:08:15.580 He's looking to change the channel,

00:08:18.260 reset the story from this huge scandal.

00:08:22.100 Another story that came out recently,

00:08:24.480 the husband of Justin Trudeau's chief of staff,

00:08:27.240 Katie Telford, her husband, Rob Silver,

00:08:29.540 had apparently lobbied the finance minister's office

00:08:32.060 for changes to the wage subsidy program.

00:08:34.120 He's not a registered lobbyist.

00:08:36.360 Thankfully, his pursuit of changes was not successful.

00:08:39.500 But there does seem to be this culture of nepotism

00:08:42.660 and a wink and a nod to get into some office

00:08:46.520 where someone could give you what you want.

00:08:49.040 Well, that's right.

00:08:49.840 And when the question was asked,

00:08:52.080 if Mr. Silver had contacted finance department officials

00:08:56.920 or the prime minister's office,

00:08:58.600 there was no response.

00:09:00.060 And it wasn't until it was revealed

00:09:02.300 that there were these previously unreported

00:09:06.220 lobbying interactions by a then-unregistered lobbyist,

00:09:11.260 it should cause people great concern

00:09:15.220 that we have in the halls of power.

00:09:20.940 Some people have been given a hall pass

00:09:22.800 because of who they know.

00:09:24.400 And that's the pattern that we've seen with the Trudeau liberals.

00:09:29.140 They put their friends first.

00:09:31.680 And when anyone calls them out,

00:09:33.360 when anyone calls them out, they punish them.

00:09:35.600 They punish them as an enemy.

00:09:36.680 We saw that in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin

00:09:39.380 where the prime minister was found to have interfered.

00:09:41.260 And the then Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould,

00:09:46.120 she called it for what it was, and she was fired.

00:09:49.900 Dr. Jane Philpott, then the Treasury Board president,

00:09:52.580 saw what was happening, wouldn't be a part of it.

00:09:55.220 She was fired.

00:09:56.440 And we see this time and again.

00:09:59.160 So it's no wonder that around the cabinet table,

00:10:01.500 few have the courage to stand up to the prime minister.

00:10:03.940 And that's why the official opposition believes

00:10:06.800 that more than a few faces need to change around that table.

00:10:09.660 And as you mentioned, these are precisely the questions

00:10:12.300 and issues that can't be raised right now

00:10:14.080 when there's no question period, no committee,

00:10:16.180 and no parliamentary mechanism.

00:10:18.740 Yep, that's absolutely right.

00:10:20.320 Conservatives called for the House to sit over the summer

00:10:22.660 in a modified fashion to respect public health guidelines.

00:10:25.380 But it's essential that the government is held to account.

00:10:28.300 When we have opposition members who give their input,

00:10:32.840 who give the feedback from their constituents

00:10:34.620 and input that into the process,

00:10:37.460 we get better outcomes for all Canadians.

00:10:40.660 And this government certainly has demonstrated

00:10:43.980 that they can't operate without scrutiny.

00:10:47.700 And it doesn't seem like there's any adults in the room.

00:10:50.740 So it is very important that Parliament reconvene.

00:10:54.520 And frankly, we should have been in session all summer.

00:10:58.380 Conservative MP Michael Barrett,

00:10:59.860 thank you very much for your time, Michael.

00:11:01.920 Thanks, have a great day.

00:11:02.720 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:11:05.380 Support the program by donating to True North

00:11:07.440 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - August 27, 2020

Justin Trudeau doesn't want MPs looking into WE

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