00:04:07.840She is someone that, like anyone else in power,
00:04:10.320needs to be held to account and needs to be asked questions
00:04:13.120about things that she might not normally speak about.
00:04:15.860So we sat down and we talked about one issue that she has been very prolific in talking about, and that's been Justin Trudeau's Just Transition.
00:04:24.500And I want to share a clip of this with her, because oftentimes the Liberals have tried to reframe the climate debate and energy policy as being the evil, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal, troglodyte, anti-science louts on one hand,
00:04:40.660with the progressive greeny acts being the liberals on the other hand and we forget that
00:04:46.480like anything else things cannot be distilled so easily into extremes and a lot of the people that
00:04:51.380say no to carbon taxes people like danielle smith people like pierre polyev are not actually
00:04:56.880rejecting some of the core premises underlying these things they're saying no no you want to
00:05:01.960go net zero fine we believe that our way can do it better and it can be enterprise that leads this
00:05:08.800Now, I believe we can debate that position, and in fact, I actually think just as a matter of practicality, accepting the Liberals' premises is never going to work, and I feel that the net zero thing is actually not a worthwhile goal, because if you talk to a lot of the environmental activists, they don't want net zero, they want absolute zero, they don't like this idea of doing what Danielle Smith is talking about, of carbon capture, of carbon sequestration, they want emissions to plummet to zero,
00:05:37.320They want to get rid of air travel.1.00
00:06:45.940We also have already been a world leader on developing carbon capture utilization and storage, on hydrogen, on geothermal.
00:06:53.780These are the kind of things that make sense in the Alberta context.
00:06:56.760And so when I look out 30 years into the future, I have great confidence in our innovators and those who are in the technology sector that they're going to find answers to these problems.
00:07:09.680They just need a large enough runway because we're already seeing promising technologies develop.
00:07:14.560The thing that is so important is that I do not see any transition as a transition away from oil and natural gas.
00:07:20.920It's a transition away from emissions.
00:10:06.460and then have to do a whole show after
00:10:07.780because I would have wanted to take a nap instead.
00:10:10.160So let's talk about the other story we did have on this show, I believe it was two weeks ago, maybe last week, about the city of Calgary banning protesters that they don't like.
00:10:20.160And this was something Christine Van Gein joined the show to talk about, the wonderful constitutional lawyer in Canada, because the city of Calgary has said, we don't like people that protest drag story hour at libraries.
00:10:35.120So they passed this little bylaw saying, well, specific protests that are on a racial, gender, sexual identity, gender identity, stuff like that, you can't do outside public spaces.
00:10:49.100So it was the anti-drag story time protest ban.
00:10:52.900It has been derided as unconstitutional, although it takes a little bit of time for there to be a challenge afoot.0.52
00:10:59.600I hadn't actually heard Premier Danielle Smith weigh in on this.
00:11:26.700I don't like anyone disrupting an event.
00:11:29.000I mean, we feel very strongly about that in religious ceremonies, that a pastor cannot be interrupted during a religious ceremony.
00:11:37.420It's a criminal co-defense to do that.
00:11:39.060So I think that we should allow for that same kind of approach, that if an event is taking place, let's find a way to protest peacefully, non-disruptively, and in a way that's within the bounds of the law.
00:11:49.040When it comes to the event in particular that you're referring to, it's an opt-in event on behalf of parents making the choice of what's age-appropriate for their children.
00:11:59.420And I believe also in parental choice.
00:12:01.340We've got to balance these things, that making sure that we have age-appropriate content for kids, making sure that there's parental choice and opt-in, as well as preserving the right of peaceful protest.
00:12:10.700And I'm watching with interest to see if they get the right balance in Calgary, because I think it's been a bit of a fractious debate.
00:12:18.520And so I don't know if they've come to a resolution on that yet.
00:12:20.860But I think all three of those things are very important.
00:12:23.220But the bylaw is not focused just on disruption.
00:14:07.080And I would encourage you to check that out.
00:14:09.140One of the interesting dynamics is that with an election coming up in Alberta in basically two months, it's fast approaching,
00:14:17.880there was this idea of whether Rachel Notley is really the opponent to Danielle Smith or whether Justin Trudeau is.
00:14:23.920And Danielle's position on that, Premier Smith's position on that, was it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.
00:14:31.140And we'll certainly have coverage of that election when it comes up, which will be very, very quickly, I assure you.
00:14:37.680So one of the things that I want to talk about before getting into Roxham Road, which is a big, big topic here that we have to address with Justin Trudeau's revised agreement with Joe Biden, is just what was happening in Ottawa.
00:14:49.900Because Stephen Harper made a bunch of comments on populism and the state of the conservative movement.
00:14:55.320This was really the theme of this summit in Ottawa.
00:14:58.800So I sat down with Jamil Javani, president of the Canada Strong and Free Network, to get his thoughts on what this is all about.
00:15:08.420Sitting down with Canada Strong and Free Network President Jameel Javani.
00:15:12.720Jameel, we spoke when you were taking over the reins of the organization,
00:15:16.340and obviously you had the conservative leadership race going on last year,
00:15:43.580That's one of the things we're trying to do here.
00:15:45.020The other thing is we're trying to connect generations.
00:15:46.800You mentioned Prime Minister Harper speaking, Preston Manning.
00:15:50.080We want them to share what they learned from their time in politics with young people,
00:15:53.660with the millennials and the Gen Zers who are going to be the future leaders of the conservative movement,
00:15:57.960and we're bringing those generations together this week.
00:16:00.120If you look at past conservative prime ministers in this country, people like Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney,
00:16:05.560I mean, it's not a large list of conservative prime ministers, but the ones that are still around today, they don't have the relevance to modern conservatives that Stephen Harper does.
00:16:14.340And I'm curious if you think that's just because Stephen Harper was more recent or if it's because Stephen Harper was just a different breed of conservative leader that still resonates today.
00:16:22.220I do think something very unique about Mr. Harper, which is that he is a principled man.
00:16:27.280And I think conservatives that might not always agree with his principles respect the fact that he tried to apply conservative thinking to solve problems.
00:16:38.180Every conservative, every conservative politician, member of the conservative movement has the same task.
00:16:43.240So when you see someone you respect and taking that responsibility on, it's something that I think we're naturally drawn to.
00:16:48.860And that is what I hope to see from whoever the next conservative prime minister might be,
00:16:53.200It's the same commitment to solving problems as a conservative, applying our principles, being relevant to both the movement and also to the rest of the country.
00:17:01.940You've got all the heavy hitters of the conservative movement here this year.
00:17:04.720You've got Stephen Harper, Pierre Polyeva speaking, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
00:17:08.900Do you think the fact that there has been this energy and this vibrance in the conservative movement is what Stephen Harper was talking about, about that conservative renaissance?
00:17:16.920That right now, there's not really that malaise that you sometimes have when you're in opposition.
00:18:26.960And it was interesting hearing Preston Manning and Stephen Harper talk about this of, you know, a split off party that said, you know, the status quo is not working for us.
00:18:34.960But they took a very constructive approach that ended up becoming what we now know is the Conservative Party of Canada and what was a government for about a decade.
00:23:41.840So let's start first off here. Was this as difficult as the government made it sound like to do?
00:23:48.220The thing is you can't just send people to another country without that country's permission.
00:23:54.100So the issue had you had people coming over the border, they'd be making refugee claims,0.76
00:23:58.500they weren't under the current state or country agreement, and we can't just pick them up0.85
00:24:01.980and send them to America because America has the right to control their own border just
00:24:05.000like we have the right to control our border.0.94
00:24:06.840So it gave us this choice where either you hear their claim or you send them to their
00:24:10.660home country without hearing their claim and the problem with that is that would violate
00:24:14.560our obligations under international law and you have, you know, you have political distance
00:24:17.980from venezuela you have um you know christians from iran or sudan you know and these aren't
00:24:22.780people we want to be sending to where they could be imprisoned or tortured or executed
00:24:26.480without a hearing um and so the issue is balancing the fact that you do have people with genuine
00:24:32.620claims but you also don't want to encourage asylum shopping where people just pick the
00:24:35.520country where they think they'll get the the most likely chance of success or the best life if they
00:24:40.240do succeed well and that was basically the premise behind the safe third country agreement in the
00:24:45.360first place was it not that by the time you've landed in the united states or canada you've
00:24:49.700already uh basically gotten to a safe haven so you don't really have a claim to go to the other one
00:24:54.960yeah i mean we have the european union has the same thing throughout the entire eu um where uh
00:25:01.120it's the country where you first enter where your claim is supposed to be heard and then they do
00:25:04.960have ways of sharing the burden but the idea is you know you might be traveling through countries
00:25:09.860where you're not safe but once you get to a safe country you don't just get to pick and choose
00:25:13.460where you live asylum is a last ditch uh way of ensuring that people aren't deported to somewhere
00:25:20.220where they'll face torture or death or persecution it's not an immigration stream so was there not
00:25:26.820an ability i know justin trudeau in that clip i played a few moments ago was saying you can't
00:25:30.660just put up a fence because then people will go elsewhere and i think generally speaking there's
00:25:34.840some truth to that but roxham road became almost a parody of sorts because it literally became
00:25:41.180a pseudo-official border crossing because you had this pipeline of transportation that was getting
00:25:46.180there. So at a certain point, yes, I agree that theoretically someone could walk across at any
00:25:52.340point in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, functionally speaking, but Roxham Road was a
00:25:57.980very unique challenge. Could they not have prevented people from walking across that border in the
00:26:02.860first place? I mean, you could have put up a fence, but they would have gone around it. I mean, I do
00:26:09.780think one thing they could have done which they didn't do was most of the time when you have
00:26:13.600people crossing illegally into your country you know there's like a people smuggling pipeline
00:26:17.800it's generally criminals things like that and what was unique about roxham road is these are
00:26:21.380people who would be taking a bus to plattsburgh new york and they would just get a taxi and the
00:26:25.860taxi would drive them right to the border knowing full well these people are going to be illegally
00:26:29.740crossing and technically that that's people smuggling under canadian law we could have
00:26:33.820sought to have these taxi drivers extradited and i believe it would have been a three-year
00:26:37.560minimum uh prison sentence um now you know at the very least we could have started putting some
00:26:42.680pressure on these companies you know saying you can't be facilitating this flow of illegal
00:26:48.220immigration i mean for goodness sakes we had the mayor of new york at one point talking about how
00:26:53.220new york city was sending people up to canada um so certainly i do think we could have taken a bit
00:26:59.740more seriously about trying to dry up that what was essentially a people smuggling pipeline well
00:27:05.300Yeah, I think you raised an important point there, and my suspicion would be that the incentive for the United States to find a resolution to this would have been quite small, because this is, in a very real way, I think probably helping a United States problem, because these people were in the U.S. system, they're voluntarily deporting themselves to Canada.
00:27:22.720Yeah, it's very one-sided. I mean, the U.S. has the exact same issue on their southern border, where they're trying to get Mexico to sign a safer country agreement, and Mexico doesn't want to, and so they've been able to negotiate at certain points with the remaining Mexico policy, things like that.
00:27:37.600But on our border, you do have some people will fly to Canada and then illegally cross into the States, but generally not to make a refugee claim just to live there illegally.
00:27:45.900So there wasn't really any direct incentive for the Americans to extend the Save Their Country Agreement.
00:27:52.500And that's probably why you saw as part of this agreement that Canada has agreed to set up a pipeline,
00:27:58.700to set up a legal pipeline for more people from Central and South America to come to Canada.
00:28:03.320It's part of the Biden administration's hopes, but by setting up more legal pathways for people to legally move to Canada or the United States,
00:28:10.480it will reduce the incentive to cross illegally.
00:28:14.420Now, under this, are they making it easier for people to be admitted,
00:28:18.840or has that part remained essentially unchanged?
00:28:22.080Yeah, we have no idea what this $15,000 is going to look like,
00:28:25.140whether it will be what's called a refugee resettlement stream is one option,
00:28:28.440where potentially people who have been granted asylum in Mexico or maybe the United States or whatever
00:28:32.700will be resettled to Canada the same way we resettled the number of Syrian refugees,
00:29:37.900but for those who are really determined to come to Canada,
00:29:40.460There's still a loophole, it's a harder loophole, which basically says if you manage to make it into Canada and then you wait 15 days before turning yourselves in or making a claim, the agreement won't apply.
00:29:51.320So you'll probably see fewer people just openly crossing and then getting caught, but you will start to see some actual straight up people smuggling of probably people in vans crossing the border or just going through the woods or things like that in the hopes that they just come to Canada, sit underground for a few weeks, and then they can make their claim.
00:30:10.460What would you anticipate really happening here in the long term with some of these claimants?
00:30:18.340And I don't know if we've already seen some data on this about how successful Roxham Road claimants have been when their claims are processed.
00:30:26.780I mean, actually, generally pretty successful in getting asylum.
00:30:31.200You do have, whether it's people who come by air or by land, you have a chunk of claimants who do put forward fraudulent claims.
00:30:38.660or they may be genuine claims, but they're somewhere else in their country they can live