Juno News - Will Trudeau's cabinet shuffle change anything？

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:22.220 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:30.000 hey everyone and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew

00:01:36.660 lawton show here on true north it is cabinet shuffle day i know it is something that should

00:01:43.060 probably be at some point a statutory holiday i know all of you will remember where you were

00:01:49.520 on that fateful day in 2023 i think it's 20 is it 2020 yeah it is okay the last like four years

00:01:56.560 has basically been so much of a blur, I have no idea when it is.

00:01:59.180 I don't even know where I am.

00:02:00.280 So if you find me, rescue me.

00:02:02.420 But this is all going to be a day that will go down in the ages.

00:02:05.540 You'll remember where you were when you learned that Marco Mendicino was out of cabinet.

00:02:11.840 Not just him, also a few others, David Lamedi and Omar Al-Gabra, Mona Fortier,

00:02:17.040 who one time was, if you can believe this, and if I can do it with a straight face,

00:02:22.380 the Minister for Middle Class Prosperity, who never at any point during her tenure as Minister

00:02:29.240 of Middle Class Prosperity thought it would be suitable to learn what the definition of middle

00:02:34.000 class was. She gave that great answer where it was like, well, you know, people in the middle

00:02:40.160 class know what it means and that's what matters. So she's gone, as is the Minister of Middle Class

00:02:46.640 Prosperity. That was like a relic that we went and did away with two or three shuffles ago now.

00:02:51.740 This has been Justin Trudeau's biggest shuffle yet.

00:02:56.540 And the thing about this is that it is not really going to change all that.

00:03:02.060 My colleague Phil has just reminded me that we got rid of middle class prosperity,

00:03:06.800 but we got Minister of Citizens Services.

00:03:09.420 So if you are a citizen in need of servicing, there's now a minister for you,

00:03:15.200 whatever the Minister of Citizens Services is going to do.

00:03:18.460 Shouldn't all government be like a ministry of citizen service?

00:03:21.840 I guess that's the whole point here, but it's supposed to be anyway.

00:03:24.920 But we are going to talk a little bit about the cabinet changes we saw today.

00:03:28.760 But I want to focus on the bigger picture, which is that it's easy to look at the list of ministers and say,

00:03:33.780 oh, well, you know, Bill Blair went to defense and this guy went to emergency preparedness

00:03:38.840 and Anita Anand went from defense to treasury board and all of these things. 0.93

00:03:44.200 But it's less easy to look at this and say that none of it really matters, that this is not actually an issue that will change anything materially about the function or lack of functionality in this government.

00:03:59.720 Now, what was interesting here is that it wasn't just about the shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic, so to speak.

00:04:07.240 There were some pretty key promotions, some rookies.

00:04:10.080 It's now a backbencher, Arif Varani, that went up to be the Minister of Justice.

00:04:15.340 And then you had some pretty senior people who have been Trudeau loyalists for their time in cabinet

00:04:19.920 that are now finding themselves relegated to the backbenches.

00:04:23.520 And some of those did the whole face-saving exercise yesterday of saying,

00:04:28.780 oh, it's because I'm not running again.

00:04:31.220 That was Omar Al-Gabra's line.

00:04:33.060 But some of them have not actually said whether they're running again.

00:04:36.080 So Marco Mendicino, assuming he manages to find his way back to his office,

00:04:40.880 which I think is a stroke of luck every day if he does,

00:04:45.360 he hasn't actually done the whole I'm not running again thing.

00:04:48.180 He just gave this statement this morning in which he talked about how grateful he was

00:04:53.120 and how proud he was and how great Justin Trudeau is

00:04:55.580 and how he did so much good stuff in cabinet.

00:04:58.300 And oh, there we have the letter there. If you haven't read through it all and you can't see it and you can't read it, don't worry, neither can Marco. But the thing about it that I would point out is that it's like the guy was fired and he's somehow been head faked into writing this letter about just how great it was and how honored he was and all of that.

00:05:18.020 when he was like the biggest embarrassment in the Trudeau cabinet

00:05:22.120 who had to wear the Emergencies Act, the Firearms File,

00:05:25.880 Paul Bernardo, the Nova Scotia shooting, all of these things.

00:05:29.380 Every single one was bungled.

00:05:32.340 And he was the guy at the helm.

00:05:33.880 Like, I was convinced he was going to be the fall guy for the Emergencies Act.

00:05:37.200 But unfortunately, Justin Trudeau managed to hoodwink the media

00:05:41.180 and many Canadians into being A-OK with the Emergencies Act.

00:05:44.560 So they didn't actually need a fall guy.

00:05:46.040 But Marco Mendicino has finally left, as has David Lometti, the guy who, as I mentioned yesterday, believes that the mentally ill should be given the ability to kill themselves with the state's assistance.

00:05:57.980 He is now on the back benches.

00:06:00.720 And to all of the departing cabinet ministers, we will once again give you the somber send-off we did on yesterday's show.

00:06:16.040 Last time I added a repeat afterwards by singing along,

00:06:34.620 and I believe our numbers tanked the longer I sang.

00:06:36.840 So this time I'll just let you hear the original version there.

00:06:41.260 I want to give a little bit of an honest take on this.

00:06:44.360 So I'll let you hear in Trudeau's own words how he rationalizes why he fired the people he fired.

00:06:52.560 And again, it's odd he doesn't even mention their names.

00:06:59.060 Can you explain your decision to fire Marco Mendicino, Morna Forche, and David Lamedi and remove them entirely from your cabinet?

00:07:05.640 I want to thank everyone who has served this country and this cabinet so well over the past number of years.

00:07:14.360 This is a moment where putting forward the strongest possible team with fresh energy and a range of skills that are going to be able to continue the really important work of showing Canadians the positive and ambitious vision for the future that we're so committed to and that I know Canadians need and deserve.

00:07:37.560 I'm really excited about the work we're doing, and quite frankly, we have a huge team in caucus and across the country working really hard to deliver for Canadians in all sorts of great ways.

00:07:55.020 So the question was, why did you get rid of these three people?

00:07:59.500 The answer is a drink, water, juice, bottle, box, drink.

00:08:03.960 Oh, no, sorry, that was a different answer.

00:08:05.280 I sometimes get the meandering answers mixed up.

00:08:08.780 The answer is that, well, we have a great team and we're going to put the good team forward.

00:08:13.400 And this is the strongest possible team, by which he means to say that all of the folks he got rid of,

00:08:18.580 he believes were weak and were not part of the strong team that he believes he needs heading in to the next election,

00:08:25.020 which he, it sounds like from earlier in those remarks, is convinced will not be until 2025.

00:08:30.380 so Trudeau is basically saying that he thinks he has enough to go on to stick around for the next

00:08:38.640 two years and Jagmeet Singh once again today is tweeting about all the failures of the liberals

00:08:43.780 and conservatives and it's like it's my favorite running gag in Canadian politics when Jagmeet

00:08:49.340 Singh is all indignant and says oh man how dare the liberals do this it's like yeah if only there

00:08:54.820 were someone who had literally with the snap of his fingers and an email to his caucus the ability

00:09:01.020 to change that Jagmeet Singh is actually a guy who could topple the government I mean some people say

00:09:06.840 oh I should write a letter to the governor general or oh we should call an election and maybe Canadians

00:09:11.900 will oust him like Jagmeet Singh could actually single-handedly take down the liberal government

00:09:17.800 at least single-handedly insofar as his ability to lead his party which I think he probably could do

00:09:23.600 And he just doesn't know that or refuses to accept it because he knows that he has his last kick of the can in the next election and then he will be done.

00:09:35.720 So what do we have as far as highlights go in this new cabinet?

00:09:39.760 Well, we have the new fisheries minister, Diane Laboutier, who has decided to welcome

00:09:45.840 in the job with a brilliant and incisive analysis, a brilliant and incisive analysis of the role

00:09:52.820 of fishing and fisheries in Canada.

00:09:56.120 I can tell you that I like fish.

00:10:00.120 Yeah.

00:10:01.100 Well, if that is the position that our fisheries minister had, to be honest, actually, I don't

00:10:06.340 want a fisheries minister who likes fish unless he means to eat them.

00:10:09.220 Because, like, the animal rights fisheries minister who likes fish,

00:10:13.340 I mean, that seems to be antithetical to what fishing is all about.

00:10:17.020 But that was her brilliant observation on the way in that she likes fish.

00:10:20.160 Well, good, because, you know, if you had said, you know, you like taxes,

00:10:23.580 you might have to be stuck in national revenue where you were before.

00:10:27.820 And then we have Yara Sachs. 0.98

00:10:30.180 Now, Yara Sachs, a backbench member of Parliament from the greater Toronto area

00:10:33.900 that is now the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.

00:10:38.260 the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions

00:10:40.740 now I don't know a lot about Yara Sachs

00:10:43.780 in fact I basically know one thing about her

00:10:46.500 which is the one thing that comes to mind when I hear her name

00:10:50.040 and this is a little bit of a reminder of what that thing is

00:10:53.840 how many guns need to be seized

00:11:00.240 how much vitriol do we have to see of honk honk

00:11:06.520 which is an acronym for hail hitler do we need to see by these protesters on social media

00:11:13.400 yes the minister responsible for the mental health file in canada who believes that honking

00:11:23.440 your horn is synonymous with a proclamation for hitler honk honk equals heil hitler says

00:11:31.280 yara sacks with a straight face she is now responsible for uh the mental health file 1.00

00:11:35.860 which is actually a very important file to me.

00:11:38.000 And I hope that she manages to come up with a greater hit that is more substantive

00:11:42.180 for the sake of those struggling with mental illness in this country.

00:11:46.000 We have a few other changes here.

00:11:48.140 I mean, you look at Pablo Rodriguez, the guy who I was talking about this yesterday,

00:11:52.360 has just done such a bang-up job on the heritage file

00:11:55.680 that now he's decided he wants to serve in the transport file.

00:12:00.440 So Pablo Rodriguez is going to be taking over as Minister of Transport.

00:12:04.540 I can only fear that the next time you take an Air Canada flight from, I don't know, wherever, Toronto to Hong Kong or something, the only options on the in-flight entertainment menu will be diverse and or Canadian content.

00:12:18.820 So you'll have to watch like Bon Cop, Bad Cop in English and French two or three times before you get to your destination because that's going to be the only option you have with the Pablo Rodriguez approach, the heritage turned transportation approach to government.

00:12:34.540 And then you look at the people who are staying still.

00:12:36.840 People like Stephen Gilbeau remains as environment minister.

00:12:40.540 People like Wilkinson adds environment to natural resources.

00:12:44.680 But basically there's some continuity there.

00:12:46.640 Patti Hajdu, who did, again, just such a phenomenal job as the health minister 1.00

00:12:51.720 who said border closures were racist before closing the borders.

00:12:55.940 She is remaining in Indigenous services.

00:12:59.180 Christia Freeland in finance.

00:13:00.520 Melanie Jolie in foreign affairs.

00:13:02.500 Francois-Philippe Champagne in innovation.

00:13:04.220 And, of course, Justin Trudeau remaining at the top.

00:13:08.220 Justin Trudeau remaining as the Prime Minister, the first minister of his cabinet,

00:13:12.940 which strikes me as though there won't be much of a change in focus at all.

00:13:17.900 Such was Pierre Polyev's approach on this.

00:13:20.160 He gave a bit of a response after Trudeau unveiled his cabinet.

00:13:23.880 Here's a snippet of that.

00:13:28.220 You know, it's funny.

00:13:30.340 Justin Trudeau has fired a lot of ministers today.

00:13:34.220 admitted his government is broken but the ones he didn't fire he didn't fire the minister of

00:13:39.980 inflation christia freeland who's caught who weeks after saying government deficits drive inflation

00:13:47.920 decided to introduce 60 billion more in government deficits he didn't fire the minister of the

00:13:53.420 carbon tax stefan gilbo who wants to hit people with another 61 cents a liter and he did not fire

00:13:59.720 the one minister who is most responsible, the one minister who has presided over the record increase in costs,

00:14:09.060 the doubling of housing prices, the growing crime and chaos in our street,

00:14:15.280 the doubling of housing costs so that nobody can afford a place to live,

00:14:19.520 that minister is the prime minister, and he needs to be fired

00:14:23.340 and replaced with a new common-sense conservative prime minister.

00:14:28.200 And that Prime Minister will be me.

00:14:33.280 So, yes, the point of this is that there may be some big changes.

00:14:37.400 We may see some big promotions.

00:14:39.120 There may be a lot to extrapolate about why certain people got the boot,

00:14:42.900 why the Marco Mendicino's and the Omar Al-Gabra's and the David Lamedi's are out.

00:14:47.180 But at the end of the day, the most prominent people in this cabinet remain in place.

00:14:50.960 Justin Trudeau remains in place.

00:14:52.560 and it stands to reason that Justin Trudeau's agenda will remain in place with no real sense

00:14:58.880 that anything is going to change there. Aaron Woodrick joins us now. He is the guru on all

00:15:05.160 things domestic policy at the McDonald-Laurier Institute. Now, that's not actually how it's

00:15:09.820 listed on his resume, at least not last time I checked. Aaron, good to talk to you as always.

00:15:14.300 Thanks for coming on today. Always great to be here, Andrew. I mean, look, you've been around

00:15:18.540 politics for a while you know the game here what are the reasons for a shuffle of this magnitude

00:15:24.940 well you know especially what i call late stage government any government that's getting into

00:15:28.700 second term or later um you know they need to put on a fresh face just because people are kind of

00:15:33.500 getting sick and tired of them um they want to present themselves as being able to uh you know

00:15:38.620 reform themselves right when the public you saw polls today there's a huge appetite for change

00:15:43.660 right and this happens you know to every government after a certain amount of time although i'd argue

00:15:47.580 this government's certainly speeding up the process more than other ones do.

00:15:52.620 So by presenting new people in cabinet, you can sort of at least superficially make the

00:15:56.640 argument that, you know what, we're technically a new government.

00:15:58.860 We have different people in charge.

00:16:01.240 But as I think, you know, Pierre Pauly just pointed out, really in our system of government,

00:16:05.480 it's the prime minister that matters.

00:16:07.180 People associate the prime minister.

00:16:09.220 He makes all the calls at the end of the day.

00:16:11.240 He's the one who picks all of the cabinet, handpicks them.

00:16:14.300 So unless the prime minister is actually being changed,

00:16:17.600 it's really hard to make the case that you've got a completely new government.

00:16:22.060 Yeah, and you're right when you talk about the longevity of a government.

00:16:25.400 I mean, Stephen Harper ran into this when he was running in 2015.

00:16:28.440 When you've been there for, at that time, nine years,

00:16:31.660 you don't really have much of an excuse for not having done something.

00:16:36.140 I mean, theoretically, you may be responding to a new challenge that's popped up.

00:16:39.700 And Harper had the refugee crisis, national security, stuff like that.

00:16:43.860 But it's a lot easier to be in opposition when you can look at the government and say they're doing this wrong, this wrong, this wrong, this wrong.

00:16:49.600 When you're a guy like now Justin Trudeau, who's been there for eight years, potentially 10 years by the time the next election rolls around,

00:16:57.960 it's very difficult for him to convincingly tell people he's going to do something when he's had at that point a decade in which he could have and should have done whatever that thing is.

00:17:07.020 Sure. And look, part of politics is just gravity, right?

00:17:10.440 I mean, you're there for a long time.

00:17:12.000 You pile up a lot of baggage.

00:17:13.600 And, you know, I've been a big critic of many, many things this government's done.

00:17:17.360 But part of it is sort of the death of a thousand cuts, right?

00:17:20.080 It just builds up over time.

00:17:22.240 And so governments, they see cabinet shuffles as a way to try and, again, I say superficially

00:17:27.540 because, frankly, I don't think they matter very much.

00:17:30.160 I mean, I was remarking to someone that, can anybody point to me, historically, a cabinet

00:17:34.920 shuffle that really changed the game, that had a, you know, a government that was tired

00:17:38.480 and unpopular and they shovel to some ministers and suddenly their fortunes reverse. I mean,

00:17:42.540 it just doesn't happen. And part of that is because, you know, folks like you and me and

00:17:46.700 folks tuning in, we're the weirdos. We pay a lot of attention to politics. A lot of Canadians don't.

00:17:51.540 They got busy lives. They could not name, pick out any of these people out of a police lineup,

00:17:56.100 maybe Chrystia Freeland. But the vast majority of these people, they just don't know who they are.

00:18:01.320 And so I don't think it really helps Justin Trudeau's fortunes when he changes them.

00:18:05.540 Yeah, and I would say generally are probably better off not needing to know, because the more you learn about politics, the less sane and less convivial you are in my experience on these things.

00:18:16.620 So I'll ask then about it in a bit of a different approach, because, you know, we may see at some point in the next couple of weeks mandate letters for these ministers, but are we expecting anything resembling a change in policy to go along with this?

00:18:30.000 Because if we are just, you know, changing around the faces, but you're actually making no change to your overall agenda, it's really not that convincing a fresh face, as you had put it earlier.

00:18:40.560 Yeah, I mean, I think what's more important is going to be mandate letters, because that signals what the prime minister wants.

00:18:46.700 And at the end of the day, especially under this prime minister, and I would argue under Stephen Harper as well, you know, ministers are only going to be as effective as their boss lets them be.

00:18:54.840 And so, you know, it doesn't really matter how great you are.

00:18:57.700 If Justin Trudeau puts you in a box and says you can only do these two things, you know, you're kind of limited in what you're able to do.

00:19:04.160 One thing I thought was interesting was the assignment of Sean Fraser to housing.

00:19:08.740 So this is everybody knows housing is a very important file.

00:19:12.340 I think it is the main going to be the main issue in the next election, if it isn't already.

00:19:17.960 I think the Liberals are tuning into this late in the game.

00:19:19.940 I think they realize that if they don't take some major action on this, Pierre Paulyab is going to eat their lunch on housing.

00:19:26.540 So, you know, John Fraser's, you know, by all accounts, been a pretty strong performer in cabinet.

00:19:31.180 He's generally well liked.

00:19:32.620 So I think that giving him this portfolio is a sign that they're probably taking it more seriously.

00:19:38.760 Yeah. And I think that's actually an important point as well that should factor into people's analysis on this is, you know,

00:19:45.040 who the stronger communicators are when you're putting them on a certain file.

00:19:49.580 And I mean, I was making a few cracks at Pablo Rodriguez's expense, but this is not a guy who I'd say has been a particularly good messenger on Bill C-11 and Bill C-18.

00:20:00.680 He has failed to understand, either by obstinance or just by not being particularly transparent, he's failed to understand what his bill does.

00:20:08.700 He's flip-flopped on what it will do and all these internet regulations.

00:20:12.520 and the fact that he's out of that file when the internet regulation file is still alive and well

00:20:17.340 in Canada I feel is actually quite noteworthy. Yeah look communications are obviously important

00:20:22.660 to every government very important to this government in many cases I would argue that

00:20:26.100 from this government's point of view the communications are the deliverable you know

00:20:29.660 actually following through and delivering what you promise doesn't matter it's the press

00:20:33.300 conference and the messaging that they value most because that's where they get their political

00:20:37.340 bang for the buck. And for, you know, Pablo Rodriguez, I mean, to be fair, there's only so

00:20:42.940 much lipstick you can put on a pig. And Bill C-18 is a pretty big pig. And I don't know that there's 0.99

00:20:48.780 any way to message that bill well, because it's a terrible bill that is doing a lot of damage

00:20:53.680 to Canadian media. So yes, I think there are other files on things like housing where, you know,

00:20:59.020 the Liberals are doing certain things. I don't think they're doing anywhere near enough on

00:21:03.220 housing, but there are a few things they're doing that. If they had better comms, they could probably

00:21:06.820 get a little bit more credit for. Now you had pointed something out on Twitter earlier, which

00:21:10.820 I found quite funny. It was, I don't know which TV network it was, but you were watching and they

00:21:15.720 had this like bold observation about the new cabinet that they might, you know, focus on the

00:21:20.340 economy now. Yeah. They said, you know, new, new cabinet to focus on economy. And I thought, well,

00:21:25.100 what have they been doing for the last eight years? That's like a John Madden style, you know,

00:21:29.380 political commentary there. I'm like, oh yeah, when the quarterback goes, that'll be a touchdown.

00:21:33.460 yeah yeah it's it's a little bit it just makes you think you know you've been there a long time

00:21:38.180 you would have thought they'd come around to the importance of the economy a little bit sooner than

00:21:42.040 today yeah so let's just be a little bit more forward looking here and I know that neither of

00:21:47.840 us has the the crystal ball but we've seen the poll numbers I mean Justin Trudeau can stand up

00:21:53.360 there and talk about how everything is sunshine and roses Christopher Ealing can go out and talk

00:21:57.780 about oh actually inflation is doing really well right now but Canadians are clearly not buying it

00:22:03.000 at least not at this moment in time in the snapshot and sample that was captured by the

00:22:08.300 latest polls. I mean, what would the turnaround be? If you were advising Trudeau, I mean, I might

00:22:12.540 not have you on as much, but if you were, what would the message be on how to steer that ship

00:22:17.860 in a better direction? Boy, it's tough. It would require a dramatic break from the past, right? And

00:22:23.440 this government has shown no capacity to do that. I mean, Justin Trudeau has been a prime minister

00:22:28.100 who likes to spend in the bad times and spend in the good times and then spend some more for good

00:22:32.140 measure. That's one problem. I mean, there's just a colossal lot of money that's been going out the

00:22:36.640 door. For what? I mean, spending is up something in the range of 30%. I don't think most Canadians

00:22:42.160 believe they're getting 30% government services or have a 30% quicker commute or 30% better

00:22:47.780 healthcare or any of these things. So I think there needs to be a big U-turn there. I think,

00:22:52.980 you know, the interesting thing to me was by even having this shovel, it signals to me that

00:22:57.460 Justin Trudeau is definitely running in the next election, right? There's been a lot of talk about

00:23:00.860 whether or not he's going to take a walk in the snow or I guess a walk in the sand because it's

00:23:04.080 summertime. I think the fact he had this shuffle suggests he's not going anywhere because why have

00:23:08.820 this shuffle now? Why try and reset and retool now? If he was even thinking remotely of leaving,

00:23:14.820 you know, he would have just let the cabinet sit as it is. So the fact he's done this tells me

00:23:19.060 he's going to be prime minister when the next election is called and it's going to be him

00:23:23.160 versus Pierre Polyev. Yeah, and I think you're right about that. And I think that it's not

00:23:28.920 necessarily wise to go in and try to assess what Justin Trudeau's mindset is on a particular issue.

00:23:37.280 But I do feel that putting Anita Anand, who is by all accounts actually quite a capable defense

00:23:41.920 minister in Treasury Board, which is certainly an important role to the functioning of government,

00:23:46.980 but is a much less public facing role, has been a bit interesting because she was one that has been

00:23:53.200 wildly rumored to be a potential leadership contender and not really tarnished in the way

00:23:58.820 that Chrystia Freeland are and some other folks are by the Trudeau brand.

00:24:02.980 So the fact that she's now being taken out of this file,

00:24:05.520 I actually think is quite interesting.

00:24:08.000 Yeah, one other observation I had of all the new faces that we see in cabinet,

00:24:12.600 they're all relatively low profile folks, right?

00:24:15.180 These are not the sort of high profile partisan attack dogs

00:24:18.860 that folks will see on social media.

00:24:20.280 I'm not going to name names,

00:24:21.240 but people can probably guess the MPs that we're talking about.

00:24:23.960 I was actually pleasantly surprised to see

00:24:26.000 that those folks were not the ones who were promoted, right?

00:24:28.420 Because there are some people who think that, you know, being a sort of partisan clown on Twitter all day is sort of, you know, doing a solid for the team.

00:24:36.780 And that gets rewarded by putting these people in cabinet.

00:24:39.460 But I think that would be a really perverse incentive.

00:24:41.300 So I'm happy to see that for the new people they put in, these are relatively low-key MPs.

00:24:46.680 They're not in there because they're like a big name or that they've been sort of lighting the world for you or ticking people off or sort of provoking anger for their opponents.

00:24:55.120 So, you know, we'll see if these are folks that are just quietly competent and, you know, agree or disagree with his government.

00:25:01.460 Whoever's in charge on a given day, it's better that they be competent than not know what they're doing.

00:25:06.800 Yeah, fair enough. You're saying you didn't want Attorney General Mark Gerritsen then, I take that.

00:25:10.960 I'm not going to name any names, Andrew. You may think that.

00:25:13.240 All right. Well, you're far more diplomatic than I am.

00:25:15.740 Aaron Woodrick from the Macdonald-Laurie Institute. Always a pleasure, Aaron. Thanks for coming on today.

00:25:20.300 Thanks a lot.

00:25:20.860 Yeah, I will say I did like a little joking thing yesterday where when we learned that what's his name or what's her name, Anita Anand was being shuffled out of defense.

00:25:30.400 I like just plucked three random names and I said, you know, pick your next defense minister, Canada.

00:25:35.120 And the options I gave were Patty Hajdu, Mark Gerritsen and Jennifer O'Connell.

00:25:40.980 And some people didn't know I was joking. That was the terrifying part.

00:25:43.960 I mean, like one of those three would easily be doing a speech in which you'd be like,

00:25:48.320 we need to talk less about Ukraine and more about We-crane.

00:25:52.800 I've made that up, but that's like the type of thing that the people kind government would probably give us.

00:25:58.600 We're going to talk a little bit about this in the closing moments of the show.

00:26:03.100 And I suspect next week we'll have a bit more in the sense of where things are going.

00:26:07.720 But I want to talk about the story that really piqued my interest at CBC, which I should

00:26:15.520 say I do so you don't have to.

00:26:17.900 I read CBC so that you don't have to.

00:26:20.360 And I just deliver you stuff that I feel might rise to the level of being relevant or at

00:26:24.960 least relevant in the sense of being fodder for why the pledges to defund the CBC are

00:26:30.020 increasingly compelling.

00:26:31.120 This was a story that was like framed as though it was alerting us to the existence

00:26:37.380 of some far-right radical Christian cultist conspiracy of some kind.

00:26:43.680 Breakaway believers warn PC party of dominionist religious movement. 0.68

00:26:49.400 Now, I'm, you know, a religious person myself.

00:26:51.840 I understand trends in the religious world and trends in the political world.

00:26:55.860 And they were using terms in this that I've really not been familiar with,

00:27:00.020 like Dominionist, and the other one that they acronymize as NAR.

00:27:05.600 I think it's like the, now I forget what it is, what it stands for,

00:27:09.020 but it's like Apostolic, there we go, the New Apostolic Reformation,

00:27:12.540 which is kind of used more as a smear than anything else.

00:27:15.500 But they talk about this group of folks that have been assembling,

00:27:18.480 that are generally people of faith, that have been mobilizing on a number of issues,

00:27:22.100 particularly in New Brunswick, where right now people of faith,

00:27:25.880 And I would point out people who are not at all connected to any religion organized or otherwise have been speaking up in support of parents' rights and in support of the New Brunswick government's defense of parental rights in school.

00:27:39.640 And there was a photo that I thought was quite lovely from the Canadian Prophetic Council,

00:27:45.640 which is one of the groups that has attracted the ire of CBC,

00:27:49.040 reenacting in front of the Lieutenant Governor's residence in Charlottetown,

00:27:54.380 this famous photo that you may recall from 1864 in the lead up to Confederation.

00:28:00.540 And Justin Trudeau should be very happy because unlike the original, we've got gender balance in this. 0.64

00:28:04.680 We've got women represented, unlike those old sexist, misogynist, white supremacist, homophobe, neo-Nazi fathers of confederation that Canada had.

00:28:13.560 These ones are gender balanced and ethnically diverse.

00:28:17.040 Do you think that would make Justin Trudeau and CBC happy?

00:28:20.420 But nevertheless, they are not.

00:28:22.540 And they've actually found a few religious dissidents to cast aspersions on this group and its motivations,

00:28:29.440 saying they want to make a Canada that's unsafe for marginalized communities,

00:28:33.740 which if you look at what they're doing is actually nowhere near what they're doing.

00:28:37.460 But I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

00:28:39.080 Fetine Grzeski joins us.

00:28:40.660 She is a fantastic television host and also the founder of a group that is very much name-checked in this.

00:28:47.340 That is For My Canada.

00:28:49.260 And I've had the great privilege of being on Fetine's show, and it's lovely to have her back here as well.

00:28:53.900 Fetine, good to talk to you.

00:28:54.860 Thanks for coming on today.

00:28:56.420 Hey, Andrew.

00:28:57.320 Always a pleasure to chat with you.

00:28:59.280 So just for context here, what is For My Canada?

00:29:02.340 and what is the Canadian Prophetic Council?

00:29:04.680 Because a lot of people, I think,

00:29:05.700 have only heard of these for the first time

00:29:07.500 through the CBC lens,

00:29:09.060 which is through the CBC lens.

00:29:12.760 Yeah, well, you know,

00:29:13.800 and then there would be a good reason

00:29:15.140 why people haven't heard of it

00:29:16.240 because we're actually not super, super active

00:29:19.000 on quote unquote the national stage.

00:29:21.540 So For My Canada, ironically,

00:29:23.960 was a group that we used to go down to the streets

00:29:27.040 in Vancouver and give out food,

00:29:29.640 give out chicken noodle soup and hot chocolate

00:29:31.500 to the poor and drug addicted on the corner of Main and Hastings there. And it was during that

00:29:38.140 time, this was like mid 2000s that we just got this desire. Like I was not a political kid at

00:29:45.240 all. My dad played NHL. I thought the senators were a hockey team, you know, so politically

00:29:50.280 illiterate. But we just got this burden to begin to speak to our leaders about issues we cared

00:29:55.860 about and so i took this little band we rented a minivan we went across canada and you know we

00:30:01.700 were covered in lots of media at that time the winnipeg press i think covered us and uh there

00:30:07.140 were different periodicals and and we just booked meetings with members of parliament and senators

00:30:11.460 and just talked to them about things that we cared about and there was a wide range of things that we

00:30:15.380 would chat about we talked about human trafficking we would talk about freedom of speech you know a

00:30:19.860 lot of the things that we're still talking about today you know in different capacities and that

00:30:24.820 began uh this basically almost a decade-long journey where we just started bringing teams to

00:30:29.700 parliament uh usually a couple times a year had over 1500 sit-down meetings with members of

00:30:34.900 parliament and senators i met with justin trudeau in his office uh when he was very first elected

00:30:41.060 and you know what he said to me right out of the gate sandra he said let's talk about my christian

00:30:45.940 faith that was that was his opening line you know yeah let's let's talk about it i would actually

00:30:51.060 accept that offer from him now if he made it and so i have to admit though we haven't been super

00:30:56.100 active the last couple years because those young people became older people and we have babies now

00:31:01.140 and jobs and you know we've gotten a lot busier but we still have an email list and we still push

00:31:06.100 stuff out you know when we feel people in our network need to know about something and be given

00:31:11.700 opportunity to take action i'm all about civic engagement i'm all about you know if you care

00:31:16.740 about something get involved you know that's why we worked with joy smith on our human trafficking 1.00

00:31:21.860 uh bills and that's why i do my tv show you know because i think there's a lot of stuff i care about

00:31:26.020 and so you know that's basically the heart of it in terms of the canadian prophetic council

00:31:31.620 honestly it's pretty benign as well it's just a group of leaders from across canada

00:31:36.020 uh some pastors people that lead different kinds of ministries that usually about once a year we

00:31:41.380 kind of got shut down during kobe usually about once a year we'll just come together and we'll

00:31:44.820 just pray together and share hearts together about what we're feeling about the state of our nation

00:31:50.340 and what we can do to be positive contributors so it's really as simple as that yeah and it's funny

00:31:56.020 and i and i don't mean this to besmirch any of the work that you're doing because i i think it's

00:31:59.620 wonderful but this doesn't come up on any of the discussions that i have as you know being these

00:32:04.900 like really top really hyperactive and hyper influential political groups because by your own

00:32:10.900 own definition, that's not really what you've strived to be. But the way CBC talks about it,

00:32:15.140 it's that, you know, it's you and a few evil, scary Christians just like pulling the strings 1.00

00:32:18.700 on the political system from behind the scenes. And I mean, it's like if you guys were running 0.96

00:32:23.980 the show, we wouldn't be in the problems we're in right now as a country.

00:32:28.280 Well, who knows, you know? But, you know, yeah, you're absolutely right. And like I said a few

00:32:35.100 moments ago, I'm just all about civic engagement. So when I see something that's happening, and

00:32:39.600 here. I live in New Brunswick. We actually moved here. We were part of the COVID exodus out of

00:32:43.700 Ontario. New Brunswick has had a real surge of people actually from Ontario and other parts of

00:32:49.240 the nation. And so we're here just raising our family. We moved here for community. And then

00:32:55.380 Premier Higgs, he sticks his neck out on this amendment to 713 saying, hey, we want to ensure

00:33:03.040 that things aren't being hidden from parents in terms of what's happening with their kids at

00:33:07.420 school in terms of their sexual health journey, right? And so, you know, I was talking.

00:33:16.060 Uh-oh, we lost Fetine. See, this is what happens when you, you know, get Bill C-11 is that anytime

00:33:21.780 something like this comes up, people all get suspicious that Justin Trudeau might be mucking

00:33:25.180 around in the engine room. We'll get Fetine back on the show in just a moment here. But I want to

00:33:31.320 just go back to the CBC article for a moment here. And the reason I want to is because

00:33:35.940 the framing of this is that they talk to three people that used to be Christians that now are

00:33:43.500 no longer Christians, that really just take out their grievances on religion itself and their 0.54

00:33:48.940 grievances on Christianity itself and Christian values and Christian communities. And then they

00:33:54.720 use that as sort of their wedge to criticize the stuff that this group is doing. I mean,

00:34:00.060 The one woman in particular here, again, a former Christian who says that now all of the things that these folks are doing are, quote, making a really unsafe place for a lot of marginalized groups, especially queer people, especially trans people.

00:34:15.380 I think we have Fetine back with us, and we're sorry about that brief interruption, but we have her back on the line now.

00:34:22.280 Fetine, that's one of the big concerns I have here, is that CBC is doing this thing that we often see from the media,

00:34:27.940 where they take former Christians, people that have had whatever their grievances are with the church,

00:34:33.680 and they use them as sort of authorities on what the church represents,

00:34:36.960 when a lot of the time, I mean, as we know, these stories come from a place of pain and any number of other issues

00:34:42.460 that really have nothing to do with the subject matter.

00:34:45.380 yeah and I you know my heart goes out to to anyone that's been hurt by anyone you know and

00:34:53.860 just to say that I'm not exactly sure uh what's happened with each of the individuals that were

00:34:59.220 interviewed uh one of the individuals uh did go to the same church that I went to I'm not exactly

00:35:04.520 sure all the stuff that might have happened there I wasn't directly involved um I did you know try

00:35:11.120 a love on her in different ways that i could but we were just really faint acquaintances really

00:35:16.800 like i would see her on a sunday or whatever but i i you know i i think we should all uh do whatever

00:35:22.000 we can to make peace right like the bible does say that blessed are the peacemakers um and so

00:35:28.400 i encourage people to pursue those that have been broken and and hurt in whatever way they have but

00:35:33.760 but that's not what we're talking about here like what we're talking about here with the current

00:35:38.400 situation is in new brunswick is that parents have a concern it's a legitimate concern our

00:35:44.000 parents actually have an appreciation a legitimate appreciation and that's an appreciation for what

00:35:49.360 premier higgs is doing and they're seeing him getting beat up in the media cabinet ministers

00:35:54.240 falling off the shake-up call for the leadership review and so you know parents organize you know

00:35:59.920 to support something that they appreciate in government this has nothing to do with religion

00:36:06.000 other than the fact that there might be a few of us that we happen to be Christian, you know,

00:36:10.800 in the mix. But we actually after we kind of felt the sense that CDC was starting to go this way and

00:36:15.600 others, we actually put a survey question on the petition and said, Hey, just let us know what

00:36:20.960 background you're from. You know, are you Jewish? Are you Muslim? Are you Christian? Are you from a 0.91

00:36:25.040 secular background? And, and I can verify now that there really is a cross section of support.

00:36:31.200 And so obviously, you know, it's disappointing to see the conversation kind of drug into the mud of what might even cross the line of religious discrimination, like coming at me for my faith.

00:36:42.380 You know, it's like, man, this is nothing.

00:36:44.060 What happened with these people really has nothing to do with me, though my heart goes out to them.

00:36:48.780 You know, but let's keep focus here because and I think if I could just say this, Andrew, like I long for a day.

00:36:55.460 I don't know about you, but I long for a day where we can just raise the water level of civil discourse in the media, where we can actually talk about the issues that Canadians care about.

00:37:06.160 Stop with the labeling.

00:37:07.920 Stop with the shaming.

00:37:09.060 You know, I heard somebody say once that if I can label you, I don't have to listen to you.

00:37:14.340 And, you know, we've seen that time and time again.

00:37:16.920 You know, we've seen that with, you know, I hate to say it, Justin Trudeau, you know, calling people that disagreed with his management of COVID-19 racist, misogynistic.

00:37:24.460 misogynistic you know a little Métis woman you get like how can you call a Métis woman you know

00:37:29.700 but if I can label you I don't have to listen to you right and that's like I just want to say as

00:37:34.700 media people let's take it higher like let's just stop with the labeling and and go a little bit

00:37:40.160 deeper with the listening and I think that's what was really disappointing about this but hey

00:37:44.020 I'm keeping my eye on the goal we're going to continue to encourage people to be a voice sign

00:37:48.640 the petition and support Premier Higgs in what yeah no you're quite right about that Fetine I

00:37:53.840 mean it was confusing because the article was conflating two organizations two movements I mean

00:37:58.780 obviously they they share a common participant in you and and by extension really trying to muddle

00:38:03.560 the discussion around an issue that has been tremendously unifying I mean the number of

00:38:07.860 Canadians uh that as you note not from religious backgrounds and even if they are religious not

00:38:12.600 necessarily from evangelical Christian backgrounds that are supporting what Blaine Higgs is doing

00:38:18.120 that are supporting in general, this cause of parental rights is massive. The governments that

00:38:23.920 oppose this are in minorities. And certainly the media's narrative on this is in the minority.

00:38:30.060 Yeah. Yeah. And I would just go back to, let's just do more, more listening. And there is an

00:38:35.060 overwhelming, this was actually one of the reasons that I felt to get involved in this. Because I

00:38:38.320 thought, man, if Blaine Higgs, excuse me, Premier Higgs falls on this mountain, so to speak,

00:38:44.100 this political mountain, it really will be an injustice to democracy because I really believe

00:38:49.880 authentically he is representing the majority of parents. I had one parent say, and I think it was

00:38:55.880 Chris Austin that actually said this in the legislative assembly, that parents, they need

00:39:00.860 to sign off on if their kids go on a field trip, if their kids go up the road to the zoo, and to

00:39:07.860 exclude parents from any part of their child's health and wellness journey at school, it just

00:39:14.640 feels so counterintuitive for so many. And so I, you know, I just think we need to stay focused

00:39:20.740 there. And, you know, it's unfortunate that some, you know, some people want to take it off of that,

00:39:25.520 but I'm committed to keeping my focus here, Andrew. Well, I certainly wanted your voice to

00:39:30.160 be out there to correct the record. You're doing a tremendous work on air and off. Fetine Grzeski

00:39:35.180 is the host of Fatin TV, the founder of For My Canada. And it's been my pleasure to be on your

00:39:41.380 show. And I'm glad to repay the favor. Thanks so much, Fatin. Thanks for your time, Andrew.

00:39:47.280 All right, all the best to you. And I think we have to have a bigger discussion in this country

00:39:51.400 about the relationship between faith and politics and faith groups and politics. But also this other

00:39:58.260 group that often gets left out, which is people that are motivated by values and motivated by

00:40:04.640 what we might call religious principles or religious tenets, but don't identify as religious.

00:40:10.240 Now, if you're talking about proselytizing, great.

00:40:12.900 Yes, if you want to go after those people, do it.

00:40:14.960 But if you're talking about building community, there are a lot of people that you would talk

00:40:18.280 to on the street that would agree with a lot of what I would as a Christian say are Christian

00:40:23.900 values, but they've reached that conclusion not because of faith necessarily or not knowingly

00:40:30.260 because of faith.

00:40:31.460 And this is why it's always so bizarre when the media tries to say, oh, this is just, you know, the religious right that cares about parental rights, whereas, well, actually, parents care about parental rights.

00:40:43.140 And parents who are not Christians, who are not Muslims, not Jews, not Sikhs, not Hindus care about this. 0.67

00:40:49.480 And parents who are those things often care about this.

00:40:51.600 And that doesn't mean 100%, no.

00:40:53.260 But when you looked at those numbers that our friends at Second Street put out a few months ago, it was the majority of Canadians across religious identification, across political identification that supported the idea of what Blaine Higgs is doing in New Brunswick, which is to say that parental consent is required for a child to change their gender, which is, I think, a pretty commonplace, uncontroversial thing to say that's been cast as like this horrendous assault on marginalized people.

00:41:23.260 groups, which is just absolutely baffling. So that does it for us for today. We'll be back

00:41:27.480 on Friday with another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. We'll be delving into

00:41:32.060 C-18 and internet regulations in a bit more of a comprehensive and perhaps educational way if

00:41:40.080 you've not been following it really closely. But even if you have, hopefully you'll take something

00:41:43.900 out of it and then lots more True North content in the days and weeks and hopefully years to come

00:41:49.200 as well. So that does it for me. Thank you. God bless and good day to you all.

00:41:53.260 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:41:57.320 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:42:23.260 We'll be right back.

Juno News - July 26, 2023

Will Trudeau's cabinet shuffle change anything？

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