Who's actually threatening national unity？
Episode Stats
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168.98445
Summary
A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accuses premiers in this country of threatening national unity. He accuses them of creating a "national unity crisis" by opposing proposed amendments to Bill C-69, a piece of legislation that could make it almost impossible to build new oil and gas projects in Canada.
Transcript
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Talk about a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.
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Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, stepping forward to accuse
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premiers in this country of threatening national unity. Him accusing them of
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doing this. And what's the Backstory Bill C-69, that highly controversial piece of
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legislation that a lot of expert observers say is going to make it almost
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impossible to build new oil and gas sector projects in this country. That's
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how high of a threshold they will be putting a whole bunch of environmental
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assessment rules attached to it. Now the traditional lawmaking process in Canada
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typically unfolds where a political leader puts forward a piece of
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legislation and then it goes to committee, both for MPs in the House of Commons and
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in the Senate for senators to look at, and they hear testimony from a bunch of
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witnesses and then they propose various amendments to the bill. Sometimes a few, a
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few dozen, maybe even a hundred amendments. And the government adopts quite a number
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of them and they moderate the bill. They take people's views into consideration.
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While the Senate has heard from a lot of people who are very concerned about this
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legislation and they've proposed almost 200 amendments to this bill. And now
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Justin Trudeau, according to one government source speaking to the Canadian
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Press, will have none of it or almost none of it. They're planning to actually
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say no to about 90 percent of those amendments. Basically most of the
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substantial idea is to try and improve this bill and get broad buy-in from all
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across society on this legislation. To both be responsible stewards for the
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environment but to continue actually growing the economy and protecting jobs.
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Because just the other day we had 4,000 people out in the streets in Alberta
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protesting this legislation. Regular folks who are saying they're worried about what
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it's going to mean for them and their families. So it's in this whole scene where
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Justin Trudeau makes these national unity accusations. Because six premiers signed a
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letter, sent it to Trudeau, said if you don't accept these amendments you are causing a
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national unity crisis. And you know what he does? He doesn't turn around and say well
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thank you, thank you for your letter, we'll take this into consideration. He turns around and tries to
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smack talk them. And accuses them of threatening national unity by what? By drawing attention to
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the issue that caused the national unity problem in the first place. I mean it's the classic case of the
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kindergartner saying, I know you are, but what am I? It's quite something that not only is he not willing
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to actually talk about amendments with this legislation, but he's pretty much vilifying
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anybody out there who wants to talk about it. And he's accusing others of creating national unity problems.