Juno News - March 10, 2023


Will Trudeau do anything about Roxham Road？ (Ft. Aaron Wudrick)


Episode Stats

Length

27 minutes

Words per Minute

196.11345

Word Count

5,453

Sentence Count

286


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello everybody. I'm Rupa Subramanya and welcome to the Rupa Subramanya show. Today we have a great
00:00:24.640 guest. Erin Woodrick is director of the domestic policy program at the Ottawa-based think tank
00:00:29.680 at the McDonnell Laurier Institute. He's been at the forefront of some great commentary on some very
00:00:35.600 big domestic issues like immigration reform, healthcare, the opioid crisis, and more recently
00:00:42.540 allegations of foreign election interference in our elections. All of these issues have been in
00:00:47.980 the news lately. We're going to talk about them and it's a real pleasure to welcome Erin to the show.
00:00:54.660 Erin, welcome to the show. I wonder if we could just start by chatting about something you wrote
00:01:02.560 recently in the Montreal Gazette on immigration reform. You start with the crisis at Roxham Road.
00:01:10.800 I've written about this as well recently. You have this crazy loophole in our third safe country
00:01:17.820 agreement with the U.S. where would-be asylum seekers, if they cross illegally, or what Canada
00:01:23.340 euphemistically calls an irregular border crossing, they have to have their case heard and not be sent
00:01:29.560 back to the U.S. Now, the Americans aren't too shy about enforcing their borders, yet the Trudeau
00:01:34.980 government has been extremely lax. Why do you think this is? Is it driven by politics, incompetence,
00:01:42.260 or is something else going on here?
00:01:45.720 Yeah, look, it's a bit of a pickle from a legal standpoint. Because of this deal we have with
00:01:49.780 the Americans. It basically is a loophole, like you say. I mean, it's a loophole that's being abused
00:01:54.900 dramatically right now, right? I mean, for many years, no one cared about this loophole because
00:01:58.700 there was nobody coming. But the numbers of people who are coming, and to be clear, it's nothing like
00:02:02.960 on the U.S. southern border or what they see in Europe with millions. But relative to what Canada
00:02:07.220 had got before, we're talking about tenfold increases in the number of people. And I think
00:02:12.440 this really starts to eat away at Canadians' confidence. I think a fundamental thing for a
00:02:18.520 lot of people is having integrity on our borders. I mean, countries have to have borders. If you don't
00:02:22.500 have a border in a country, you're kind of not really a country. And yes, of course, every country
00:02:27.880 is going to be able to decide how many refugees can we absorb, how much humanitarian support are we
00:02:33.000 willing to offer? That's up to people in any given country. But you can't have people sort of abusing
00:02:38.140 the system and sneaking in and using loopholes. That undermines, I think, trust in our borders
00:02:43.420 and our system generally. And frankly, it's not even fair to other refugees who are going through
00:02:48.060 the right process and following all the rules. I mean, they're essentially getting crowded out by
00:02:52.300 these people who are breaking the rules. Yeah, no, absolutely. So, you know, a couple of
00:02:57.100 follow-up questions to that. So, Roxham Road is not a legal border crossing, yet it was closed during
00:03:04.300 the pandemic. And then Trudeau decides to reopen it, I think, I believe, in the fall of 2021.
00:03:10.540 Why would you reopen a border crossing that is not legal?
00:03:16.620 Yeah, it doesn't make sense. I mean, why have legal ones if you're going to sort of openly send
00:03:20.220 this invitation? And let's not forget the Prime Minister had previously sort of, you know,
00:03:25.820 signaled that, you know, Canada is welcoming and almost sort of inviting people in not so many words
00:03:31.420 to abuse these loopholes. So, you know, he says, well, you know, we've got a 5,000 mile border and
00:03:37.020 we can't block all the spots. Well, as you point out, it was closed during the pandemic, so it can
00:03:41.500 be done. And secondly, yes, maybe you can't close, you can't, it's not like you can stand a cop, you
00:03:46.300 know, every 10 feet across a 5,000 mile border, but you can certainly make it harder. You can certainly
00:03:51.740 make it less accessible for people. And, you know, they say, well, that's dangerous, but it might also
00:03:56.700 deter people. I mean, people are doing this. They're using Roxham Road because it's easy to get to.
00:04:01.100 And if you make it less easy for them to abuse loopholes, and it follows that fewer people are
00:04:05.660 going to abuse them. Yeah. You also make a very interesting observation in your piece,
00:04:11.980 in this op-ed, that unlike most Western liberal democracies, Canada has a near universal all-party
00:04:21.020 consensus, at least among the major parties, political parties, in support of large increases
00:04:26.220 and immigration targets. But you note that in some ways, this is a facade. People are afraid to
00:04:32.620 challenge the official position because no one wants to be branded a racist or a xenophobe,
00:04:38.780 and the consensus could crumble very quickly if things go south. Do you want to elaborate on this
00:04:44.220 argument? What's the actual level of support for high immigration targets in Canada? And how are the
00:04:50.940 major political parties positioning themselves on this issue? Yeah. So first, I want to be clear.
00:04:55.820 I mean, I'm a child of an immigrant. My wife is a child of immigrants. I'm from immigration. I think
00:05:00.700 immigration has been good for Canada. And I think we are lucky that we live in a country where we have
00:05:05.820 people who come here because they want to be Canadians. So that's a good thing. I also think that,
00:05:09.820 generally speaking, Canadians are welcoming to immigrants. What I'm talking about, you know, in the
00:05:15.740 piece I wrote is that this idea that people can't have reasonable concerns, most obviously about the
00:05:21.020 number of immigrants that are coming. And the reason for that even has nothing to do with even the types
00:05:26.460 of immigrants. It has to do with things like housing. It has to do with things like infrastructure. It has
00:05:31.420 to do with things like the fact that people can't find doctors. I mean, what is the point in welcoming
00:05:35.420 people to a country where you have nowhere for them to live and where they instantly become competitors
00:05:40.540 and exacerbate a demand problem for housing? That's already a huge problem for the Canadians
00:05:45.900 who are already here. So I think we need to be reasonable. We need to listen to the concerns about
00:05:51.260 people who are saying, hold on. Can we take this many people? What is the impact going to be on the
00:05:55.580 rest of the country? Can we manage this level of immigration? We have to take that seriously,
00:05:59.900 because if we don't do that, I think we're going to get a much nastier backlash. And I don't think
00:06:05.180 anyone is going to like the outcome. Okay. So since you mentioned a number,
00:06:09.420 you said number in your response, what is the magic number? I know a lot of people have been
00:06:15.100 a little taken aback by the fact that Canada is now going to have 500,000 people coming in every
00:06:21.580 year starting next year, I think. What is the magic number? I mean, I get all of the arguments. I've
00:06:28.060 made these arguments myself that can the system actually support this large influx of immigrants
00:06:34.220 coming in. I'm also an immigrant myself. But I do have concerns, just like the ones that you raised.
00:06:42.780 Can the system actually support this large number of immigrants coming in? How do you decide the
00:06:47.900 number? Why 500,000? Yeah. Well, maybe part of the problem is that we're picking a number,
00:06:52.700 right? I mean, we don't do this for a lot of other things. The government is trying to centrally plan
00:06:57.740 a metric, which is really should be more market driven, right? I mean, part of the decisions that we make,
00:07:03.100 and our system is already structured this way, frankly, to a better degree than other countries,
00:07:06.700 where the point system, you know, the immigrants that we select outside the humanitarian and the
00:07:11.500 family categories are based on our economic needs, right? The government tries to estimate. So,
00:07:15.900 but we should go a step further in a lot of cases, you know, I think, and the model I mentioned in my
00:07:20.940 piece is for refugees. I mean, the evidence shows that privately sponsored refugees that have people who
00:07:26.380 support them and help them integrate and help them learn the language and find jobs, they have much
00:07:29.900 greater success. It's a win-win for Canada and for the refugees than the ones that have government
00:07:33.980 sponsorship. I think when it comes to economic categories, we need to look at this more. It
00:07:37.660 needs to be employer driven. It needs to be driven by places and industries where they have labor
00:07:42.300 shortages and they can't find people. That's a better fit than picking a number and saying,
00:07:46.620 well, we're just going to let in 300,000 or 500,000 or 800,000. It should be a market driven process.
00:07:51.740 That I think is the better way to ensure both they have the support and that there is a defensible
00:07:56.540 rationale for letting those people, that level of people in.
00:08:00.060 Yeah. You know, I was also struck by this analogy that you make in your piece.
00:08:04.300 You know, it's an analogy between your argument on immigration and a very similar situation with
00:08:10.700 socialized medicine, for example. So for decades, again, there was this all party consensus on
00:08:15.740 socialized medicine and many Canadians apparently identified this as a key feature of Canada or the
00:08:21.500 Canadian identity. Anyone challenging it was seen as, you know, was branded as cruel and heartless
00:08:28.860 and no party really touched it. But now you have these provincial healthcare systems that are
00:08:32.780 basically collapsing all over Canada. They're falling apart and provincial governments are now
00:08:37.420 finally testing the waters by privatizing more services. How do you see this debate on socialized
00:08:44.060 medicine and allowing a private alternative play out over the coming months? You know, could this be an
00:08:50.140 election issue? I should note that one of the things that struck me about the immigration issue
00:08:56.540 is that there are a lot of liberal voices in the pages of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, I
00:09:02.220 think, that have been raising concerns about, you know, can we actually support this large influx of
00:09:08.380 immigrants? Yeah, look, first on the healthcare debate, I think the tattoo is gone. I think it's gone. I
00:09:15.580 think that's a good thing. I think we can actually have a grown up discussion about healthcare. I mean,
00:09:19.900 it's kind of bizarre the language around healthcare. It only really is here, right? I mean, you don't have
00:09:25.180 this taboo against private healthcare in any other country, including progressive and lefty parties
00:09:31.180 and politicians in other progressive countries. They just don't have this strange taboo around
00:09:37.500 private healthcare. So when it comes to immigration, you know, what my hope is that we get out a little bit
00:09:41.580 more nuanced, that we can recognize that people can have legitimate concerns about immigration that isn't
00:09:47.180 because you're a racist. And I don't want to say there aren't any racist. I mean, there are some
00:09:50.220 people that just don't want immigrants because they don't want people who don't look like them
00:09:53.900 to come here. I'm not talking about those people. I don't agree with those people. I agree with the
00:09:57.660 people who say, you know, I would be fine with welcoming new people, but I can't find a family
00:10:03.260 doctor. My kids can't afford a home until you address these things. I am voicing the fact that I'm
00:10:09.180 concerned that we don't have the ability to absorb, you know, hundreds of thousands of new people,
00:10:14.860 because there's just no room and nowhere to put them.
00:10:17.500 Yeah. I mean, again, I mean, I asked the question, why, why this increase in immigrants? Is there a
00:10:25.980 labor shortage in the country? Of course. I mean, we know that there is a labor constraint in Canada,
00:10:32.220 exacerbated by the pandemic. What exactly is going on? Like, you know, I'm a little puzzled.
00:10:38.460 Yeah. Well, look, part of it is demographic shifts and every, especially every sort of,
00:10:43.980 you know, developed country is going to be dealing with this problem. You've probably seen,
00:10:47.340 people have seen in the news, the fertility rate has dropped sort of across the developed world.
00:10:51.180 You know, historically the immigration is sort of made up for that gap. And now, and now the debate
00:10:58.940 is like, well, what's the right level? And there's another separate debate about this because some
00:11:03.180 people say, well, why do we need new immigrants or why do we need to have more babies? Well,
00:11:06.940 are all our social safety nets are built on this sort of pyramid, right? Where you sort of,
00:11:10.460 there are more people working than are retired. That ratio is shrinking dramatically. So it's going to put a
00:11:14.700 lot of pressure on our healthcare system on, you know, pressure to increase taxes, things like CPP.
00:11:21.020 So we do need to do something. We need to get the right mix between, you know, immigration and,
00:11:26.060 and having, you know, families in Canada, having the amount of kids they want to have. It's not about
00:11:30.940 telling people they have to have kids, but surely, you know, there was other work out there showing that
00:11:35.820 there are a lot of Canadians who there's a gap between how many kids they have and how many they
00:11:39.900 want to have. Surely that seems like a legitimate public policy problem for governments to be wrestling.
00:11:44.380 Yeah, no, absolutely. Shifting gears a bit, in your role as director of domestic policy at
00:11:53.580 McDonnell Laurier Institute, I believe you commissioned a study last fall assessing the response to the
00:11:59.980 opioid crisis in BC versus Alberta. This, this issue has been heating up with, you know, you have the
00:12:06.620 usual progressive commentators decrying Alberta's approach and praising BC's. What is the real story
00:12:13.260 here? What exactly is the difference in approaches between the two provinces? Are they really that
00:12:19.100 different? And what, what, in your opinion, is the way out of this opioid crisis?
00:12:24.220 Yeah, look, this is, this is obviously a very charged topic. And I think it's hard to separate
00:12:28.780 the politics of some of the facts here, right? It's, it's very highly charged and politicians have
00:12:34.140 a very strong interest to sort of make anyone proposing some alternative as the villain.
00:12:39.740 So I think both on the sort of liberal and conservative sides, you've seen some,
00:12:43.180 both some exaggerations and some sort of vilification, misrepresentation of what these
00:12:48.220 two differences are. You know, what we have in British Columbia and most of sort of the West Coast
00:12:52.300 United States is what they call the sort of the harm reduction safe supply approach. The logic behind
00:12:57.740 this is people are going to do these drugs anyway. So we're going to give them clean versions of the
00:13:01.900 drug, which is to say, I mean, there's still drugs that are bad for you, but they, they don't have sort of
00:13:06.220 street ingredients in them. So, you know, the odds of an overdose are lower, you have these
00:13:11.740 safe injection sites, so people have help on site, so they don't die. You know, the thing that that
00:13:16.540 has done, of course, is that people, they don't die at these injection sites, because there are people,
00:13:20.540 their staff around. So that's the sort of thing that the safe supply advocates are sort of declaring
00:13:25.500 victory on saying, well, people come to these sites, they do drugs, they don't die, that's a win,
00:13:30.220 because you can't help people recover if they don't die. That's their argument. I think if that's
00:13:35.020 where you stop the analysis, that's pretty hard to argue with. The problem is there's a lot more
00:13:39.420 going on here. I think a lot of people believe that it's, you know, yes, keeping people alive
00:13:43.660 is important, but it's not the only thing. What happens after that? How do you help them recover?
00:13:47.820 How do you incentivize them to recover? What are the impacts of things like, if you look at places
00:13:52.940 like the Lower East Side and Vancouver, I mean, the 10 cities and homelessness is growing,
00:13:57.660 it is not shrinking, crime is rising, it is not shrinking. So there are other problems
00:14:01.980 associated with this. Like, yes, it's great that more people aren't dying. That's a victory. I'm
00:14:05.980 not saying that's bad. But you can't just stop there and say, you know, we won, this is the solution.
00:14:10.780 And in Alberta, what they're doing is a little bit different. They do have an element of harm
00:14:15.980 reduction, they don't give you the street drugs, they give you sort of synthetic drugs that address
00:14:19.980 the high, but don't, sorry, that address the craving, but don't give you the high. But they have all
00:14:25.980 kinds of levels of off ramps into treatment, which is all fully funded. So, you know, in Alberta,
00:14:30.860 it's not just about keeping you alive. It's about what can we do to try and get your life back on
00:14:35.900 track as well. That's the real distinction between these two approaches. I think some people are trying
00:14:40.540 to frame Alberta as some sort of, you know, retro 1980s, you know, you know, throw everybody in jail
00:14:46.700 who smokes one joint kind of thing. That's not what Alberta is doing. Alberta is trying, I think,
00:14:51.260 to take the best of the harm reduction approach, which is keep people alive, but also recognize
00:14:55.980 that for society's benefit, and for these individuals, you can't stop there, you have
00:14:59.900 to try and look at everything you can do to help them recover to get them off drugs and to to
00:15:05.500 incentivize recovery, which is was something that we don't see in places like risk formula.
00:15:10.220 Yeah, so you know, on a related issue, BC took the extraordinary step recently of
00:15:16.140 legalizing the possession of a small quantity of illegal hard drugs, I believe of hard drugs such
00:15:22.700 as cocaine, heroin, etc. Yet, the production, sale and purchase of these drugs is still illegal.
00:15:31.820 So can you tell me how exactly this is supposed to work? How does it make sense to legalize
00:15:36.700 possession when you can't legally buy it?
00:15:38.780 Yeah, I think this is just another step in the whole destigmatization argument,
00:15:42.780 right? It's that we can't. And it's also a matter of, well, we don't want to criminalize
00:15:47.420 someone who's got an addiction if they can't help themselves. And all they're doing is feeding their
00:15:51.820 own habit, as opposed to increasing the supply and getting other people addicted, you know,
00:15:57.100 that that's a relatively minor crime. You know, my response to that is that is this really going to
00:16:01.420 change very much? I mean, in a lot of cases, when these laws were on the book, they weren't enforced
00:16:05.660 anyway. So I really don't know that there's going to be a really dramatic shift here. And, you know,
00:16:11.180 when I come back to the stigma issue, I mean, I think there's a legitimate debate about, you know,
00:16:15.260 sometimes stigma is that it can be a useful incentive to people, right? And I find that
00:16:20.300 there's a big disconnect in sort of progressive circles between stigmatizing things like cigarettes
00:16:26.220 and alcohol versus cannabis and hard drugs. I mean, why in some ways is it acceptable to try and
00:16:34.300 stigmatize it and see that as an effective way to get people to change their behavior? In other cases,
00:16:38.940 it's like, well, we can't do that, because it will it won't help. I just I find there's an
00:16:43.820 inconsistency there. Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm switching gears yet again, Aaron. Let's talk
00:16:51.340 about the public inquiry into the Emergencies Act. You know, it's disappointed many, including myself,
00:16:59.340 I've I've written about this as well. And despite all of the caveats in what Rouleau said, ultimately,
00:17:07.820 he was rubber stamping what the Trudeau government did. Again, you take you had an interesting take
00:17:14.540 criticizing the report. You're you're also a lawyer by profession. Could you could you dissect
00:17:20.220 where you think Rouleau went wrong and whether he ought to have found whether he ought to have found
00:17:27.180 whether the government acted incorrectly in using emergency powers? You note in your piece that the
00:17:33.580 Rouleau report is not the last word. And ultimately, this will be decided in the court of public opinion,
00:17:40.220 presumably at the ballot box in the next election. Do you think this this will whenever
00:17:45.820 that will whenever that's expected to happen? Do you think this issue will resonate enough with
00:17:50.780 especially fence sitters that could sway how they how they vote in the next election?
00:17:56.300 Yeah, I mean, on the first point on the electoral consequences, I actually think the people,
00:18:00.940 you know, on in the minority on this issue. So, you know, supporters of the convoy,
00:18:06.140 I think it's going to resonate more with them because they it's going to be fresher in their mind.
00:18:09.980 I mean, a lot of the people who came to the protest, I mean, they did it out of exasperation.
00:18:14.780 They did it out of frustration. They did it because the measures being imposed on them were
00:18:18.780 causing real hardship in their lives. And so for them, that is going to weigh heavily on their mind.
00:18:24.620 I would I would guess that probably most of those people were not voting liberal anyway.
00:18:28.620 So I don't know about the electoral consequences. You know, in terms of the report itself,
00:18:33.980 first of all, I do want to say there were some there were some good parts of the report.
00:18:37.580 I thought that Rouleau did a much better job than some other certainly other observers recognizing,
00:18:43.420 for example, that, you know, not everybody in the convoy was a racist and there was not,
00:18:47.420 you know, he I think he did a fairer job of saying, you know what, the media and some politicians,
00:18:52.380 they really didn't help this by trying to characterize this as some, you know, uniformly hate
00:18:59.100 filled get together. I think he I think he did a better job with the nuance there. So I'll give him
00:19:06.060 credit for that. What really bothered me, though, was that while recognizing it wasn't his job to make a
00:19:11.820 legal determination, he kind of went ahead and did it anyway. And then he did it with all these sort
00:19:15.980 of caveats saying, well, you know, I'm not entirely sure and I recognize reasonable people could disagree
00:19:22.060 and I recognize the court is going to have the final say on this. But anyway, I'm going to go
00:19:25.740 ahead and say I think it was valid under the law. You know, to me, the lawyer, you either you either
00:19:31.500 sort of state your opinion because you're supposed to and stand behind it or don't say anything at all.
00:19:36.780 He could have actually just demurred and said, you know what, it's not my job to make a ruling of
00:19:41.580 legality. That's for the court. And he didn't do that. The other thing, a theme that sort of ran
00:19:47.420 throughout it that bothered me was that he seemed to almost be leaning all the time to looking for
00:19:53.180 ways to make it easier to use the act. You know, people need to recognize this law is so unusual and
00:19:59.580 extreme. It's basically supposed to be it's designed to be very hard to use. Like you should have
00:20:04.460 government should have to jump through so many hoops to use this thing that they almost never
00:20:07.660 even want to think about using it. And all the recommendations that Rouleau makes are almost
00:20:11.900 about how can we make it easier in the future for a government to use this in any context.
00:20:16.860 I think that's very problematic. I think it's against the spirit of the act. And I think it's
00:20:20.540 the opposite. I think the government, if anything, there were there were some wiggle rooms over certain
00:20:26.140 interpretations. People are probably familiar with this definition of a threat to national security
00:20:32.460 under under the CSIS Act. I mean, these are things that were put in place to make it hard to use.
00:20:38.540 And Rouleau is basically viewing them as obstacles. And I'm like, yes, they are obstacles. They were
00:20:42.620 there for a good reason. And we should keep them there. We should tighten them up. We shouldn't be
00:20:46.220 saying, Oh, well, we've got to make it easier for governments to use this tool down the road.
00:20:50.540 And I fear now because of that report, there are going to be people who are saying, Oh, yeah,
00:20:54.780 let's, let's make this easier to use. And one last thing on that,
00:20:59.020 I really feel a lot of people make that tremendous mistake of their position on the act and its use
00:21:05.580 falling along the line of whether they like the convoy or not. I think that is a tremendous
00:21:09.180 mistake. People need to think of it in a context where they don't know the nature of the protest,
00:21:14.860 and they don't know whether they're sympathetic to it or not. That is the proper test. Because
00:21:19.180 someday, and I genuinely worry about this, there's going to be a different government and a different
00:21:23.420 protest. And all the people that were happy to use this hammer on the convoy are going to be
00:21:28.220 horrified when a future government uses this act for all and they're going to use all the same
00:21:32.620 arguments that the Trudeau government used against the convoy. The only difference is that people are
00:21:36.140 going to be sympathetic to the cause where they weren't sympathetic convoy. And I am a firm believer
00:21:40.940 that governments should not use tools, you know, against their enemies that they then could then,
00:21:45.980 you know, have used against them down. If you don't use a tool, if you're not prepared to see
00:21:49.900 a different government with a very different point of view, use the same tool later on.
00:21:53.900 Yeah, no, absolutely. There's got to be some consistency. And this, you know, cuts through,
00:22:01.020 you know, partisan politics. And of course, I mean, what happened sets an incredibly bad
00:22:09.740 precedent for, you know, and as you point to this, that future governments could use this
00:22:15.820 for an issue that their supporters, you know, care about. And it's, it's, it's, it's very dangerous.
00:22:25.900 And yeah, and I have, you know, I must say, I'm just more than just disappointed. I'm actually quite
00:22:31.980 worried. But, but anyway, let's, let's talk about being worried. Let's talk about what's in the news
00:22:40.540 right now, which is China's interference in Canada's elections. Until now, I feel that Trudeau
00:22:49.020 has been Teflon man, many people have referred, referred to him in that way. But finally, it appears
00:22:55.020 that this very serious issue of China's interference in our elections, this might finally spell the end
00:23:01.900 for the Trudeau government. So far, the NDP, which at first joined hands with the conservatives in
00:23:08.140 agreeing that there should be a public inquiry seems to have gone radio silent after Trudeau
00:23:13.740 quashed the idea. Do you think this special rapporteur is meant to give the NDP a face saving,
00:23:19.660 a face saving way to keep supporting the government? How do you think, how do you think things will play
00:23:24.860 out? Yeah, look, with respect to the NDP first, I mean, I understand their rationale for striking
00:23:30.860 this deal is the sort of well, we could be a positive influence and we deliver a tangible result.
00:23:35.260 I don't know that they properly weighed the trade off to that. I think if to the average
00:23:39.020 Canadian, it just looks very bizarre to be both sort of a member, almost a coalition partner and also
00:23:45.420 a critic, like, like every time Jagmeet Singh opens his mouth to say, well, you know, I'm going to hold
00:23:50.700 the government account for this people were like, well, you, you'll have the power to do that right now.
00:23:54.620 I mean, you can right now you can hold them very accountable and he never does. So I just,
00:23:58.860 it just seems the very strange, the obvious question that I think a lot of people will ask,
00:24:04.060 you know, as to whether, you know, the, the prime minister is going to use another one of his
00:24:08.060 political lives up on this. I mean, if he's got nine, he's probably running out of them now,
00:24:12.620 you know, part of that is his specific government's track record, but part of it is also just how long
00:24:16.620 he's been there. I mean, people forget it's coming up on eight years that Justin Trudeau has been
00:24:20.540 prime minister. Every government starts to pile up baggage. This is not a specific
00:24:24.540 to him. And, you know, I mean, people, if people remember the euphoria of 2015, he was this fresh,
00:24:30.460 new progressive face. I mean, that's feels like a lifetime ago for a lot of people, including for
00:24:34.300 a lot of his voter coalition. So, you know, I do think, and the other thing too, I don't think
00:24:38.940 he's Teflon, man. I think he's consistently lost support over these issues. I think Blackface was a hit.
00:24:44.620 I think SNC-Lavalin was a hit. I think all the ethics violations were a hit. I mean, I think these
00:24:49.180 are hits. People forget he lost the popular vote the last two elections. Yes, the quirks of our
00:24:54.460 electoral system means he stays in power. Those are the rules of the game. But in terms of the
00:24:58.700 number of Canadians that voted for him, he was outvoted by his opponents the last two elections.
00:25:03.820 So he's not exactly starting from a position of strengths here, right? So I imagine they're going
00:25:09.900 to carry on as long as they can. I think the government is at the point now where they recognize
00:25:16.620 they're probably not the favorites in the next election. So they're going to try and forestall
00:25:20.060 that day as long as they can and hope that something comes up that might change the game,
00:25:25.020 you know, a misstep by Mr. Polyev or some other sort of economic good news or something that they can
00:25:30.780 change the channel with. Because right now, this Chinese interference story, it's interesting.
00:25:36.220 I think had Mr. Trudeau not sort of spent a lot of his political capital already, people might be
00:25:42.540 willing to give him the benefit of the doubt now. But with things like SNC-Lavalin and all these other
00:25:46.540 instances where he sort of, if not lied, certainly omitted things that he should have said. People now,
00:25:53.660 when he says things like, well, I didn't know, or well, I'm going to appoint an eminence,
00:25:57.660 you know, impartial person. A lot of people are not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt
00:26:01.740 of it. And that's, he only has himself to blame for that. Yeah. Well, I mean, since you mentioned
00:26:06.540 the elections, last question for you. If the election were called today, there's a good chance,
00:26:11.580 according to various polls, that Pierre Polyevre would be the next Prime Minister of Canada. If
00:26:16.860 the Liberal government survives its full term, then we won't see an election till 2025. How do you see
00:26:22.860 this battle playing out between now and then? Yeah. I mean, the interesting question for Mr.
00:26:27.980 Polyevre is that, you know, he was obviously elected with some very enthusiastic supporters.
00:26:33.020 I mean, he clobbered his opponents in that leadership race. It wasn't even close. I guess
00:26:36.860 the question for him is when the fire is burning that hot, how do you keep it burning at just the
00:26:40.860 right temperature, right? A lot of his people already in his coalition really don't like Justin Trudeau.
00:26:47.180 I mean, we already know that. The question is, those folks that are on the fence, maybe they
00:26:51.500 don't love Trudeau, but they kind of need an alternative that's a little more inviting.
00:26:55.980 How do we get those people? That's the tougher hill decline, those last 5% for Mr. Polyevre.
00:27:01.740 And it's going to be interesting to see how he balances keeping his supporters who are very angry,
00:27:06.780 happy and convinced that he's in their corner, while also reaching out to people who maybe aren't
00:27:11.260 really angry, but are kind of annoyed with the current government and could be sold on,
00:27:16.220 you know, voting conservative. How does he walk that line? That's going to be an interesting
00:27:20.060 challenge for him in the coming years. Okay. Well, on that note, Aaron, I really appreciate
00:27:25.660 you sharing your insights with us and for being on the show,
00:27:28.540 and I look forward to having you back again sometime soon. It was great. Thanks for having me.
00:27:46.220 Thank you,
00:27:48.040 I love you.