00:32:30.320And welcome to it. Happy Sunday. It is time for our Sunday Political Panel. Joining us on the phone this morning is Carl Belanger. He is the president of Traction Strategies. Carl, good morning. Thanks for joining us.
00:32:48.840And Tasha Carradine will return next week. That is my mistake here on our panel. So I'll play our true blue conservative here. We were just listening to some clips from yesterday's touching tributes to the former Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney. Caroline Mulroney giving a very touching tribute to her father as well. A politician in her own right. Just wondering what you took away from yesterday's service, Carl, in watching some of those speeches.
00:33:14.240Well, I mean, it was a grand ceremony and very touching at times. The highlight for me was when Brian Mulroney's granddaughter went to the microphone to sing the Prime Minister's favorite song.
00:33:30.720And I think there was not a dry eye in the audience, certainly in those watching. What was interesting is the diverse horizon of people that pay tribute to him politically and from the economic horizon, from sports.
00:34:02.960And I think what you saw in this play is a man that, while using a lot of political capital in office, left a lasting legacy that people today remember fondly, even though at the time they were not so fond of him when he left office.
00:34:23.140Yeah, time has definitely helped repair some of those perceptions of Warren, as Carl mentioned, kind of a wide array here.
00:34:30.720I was also going to add that while he was lying in state here, we did have a number of, you know, Canadians coming to pay their respects as well.
00:34:36.380I guess does all of these tributes just kind of speak to Mr. Mulroney's wider legacy?
00:34:42.080And, you know, it was grand and sweeping and well done, you know, much like every announcement the guy did when he was prime minister.
00:34:54.100But I kind of prefer to remember guys like him when they were alive.
00:34:59.420Like, it just, it feels, it's just so weird that he's gone, you know, and I said this to a couple of his sons.
00:35:06.360Like, he was one of those politicians, whether you liked him or not, where you felt he was going to be around forever, you know, occasionally chiming in on, you know, events that are taking place, you know, not being too critical of any of his successors.
00:35:22.580Like, he's been there since he left public office in 93, and it's just this constant in our consciousness.
00:35:32.880So, to me, it's just so weird that he's gone.
00:35:37.760We were certainly reminded yesterday about his achievements.
00:35:41.220To me, when I was writing his obituary for Post Media, I said, you know, he took risks, right?
00:35:47.800It's easy to be a politician if you don't take risks, you know, if you play it safe.
00:35:51.760And this guy didn't play it safe, you know, from Meech Lake to Free Trade to South Africa.
00:35:59.060You know, he always took a risk, and those are the great ones, the ones who aren't prepared to just, you know, sit on their hands and let time go by.
00:36:09.340He wanted to do things, and, you know, I didn't agree with quite a few of the things that he wanted to do, but he tried.
00:36:15.760And I think that's his greatest legacy, is he was a politician who had guts, and he was prepared to take risks.
00:36:23.820Yeah, and something that Jean Charest touched on yesterday as well, calling him, you know, courageous with some of his political decisions.
00:36:29.420But I think it's definitely a good way to put it weird.
00:36:31.620It feels like he was part of the furniture for so many decades here in Canada, and now he's gone.
00:36:57.280We heard from Anthony Housefather this week.
00:36:59.000He has been opposed to the Liberals' position on this, going so far as to say, you know, he may be courted by other parties.
00:37:05.920Warren, I'll start with you on this one.
00:37:07.120And has the government found the balance here, or is it risking kind of alienating its own caucus?
00:37:13.520No, they have found no balance, and it's not working for them.
00:37:17.420Like, you know, the shorthand calculus, which is despicable, but, you know, Jews in Canada are only about 300,000,
00:37:27.060and the Muslim contingency, you know, vote contingent is about four times that big, okay?
00:37:34.880And so you get people saying, oh, well, they're doing this because the non-Jewish vote is so much bigger.
00:37:42.040But I don't think that's true, because they've got the Muslim community mad at them, too.
00:37:47.440In fact, they've got leadership in the Muslim community saying, don't even come to our mosques during your election because we're so mad at you.
00:37:53.760Like, the government, whatever they're doing, is not motivated by any kind of strategy or common sense, because they've got everybody mad at them.
00:38:03.820And this, you know, statehood motion is an example of that.
00:38:07.580Like, how do you recognize a state that's governed by a terrorist entity that you yourself listed as a terrorist entity?
00:38:19.660And so we see in the United States yesterday, the president signed an executive order saying that there would be no funding of UNRWA for at least a year
00:38:28.560until they get to the bottom of what UNRWA was doing.
00:38:32.160Meanwhile, in Canada, alone in the world, practically, we've announced that we're going to keep funding them.
00:38:38.220Like, the government's just all over the map on this thing, and it's not working.
00:38:42.880It's like alienating every constituency in the country, and it's, well, it's yet another thing that's pulling them down.
00:38:51.040The UNRWA aspect, a very good point, just in terms of, you know, we resumed funding a couple of weeks ago,
00:38:56.800but it's kind of on the heels of the prime minister facing some domestic political pressure from those protests here at home as well.
00:39:03.580So it's definitely a good issue to raise.
00:39:05.100I guess, Carl, as I talked about, you know, Anthony Housefire kind of, you know, echoing a lot of what Warren is saying in terms of the Liberals' stance on this,
00:39:13.720I was kind of thinking, if you're not making any side happy, did you find the balance, or have the Liberals completely missed the mark on this?
00:39:21.940Well, what's interesting to me is that the NEP, which put forward the original motion that was calling for the government to officially recognize the state of Palestine,
00:39:31.540you know, played ball with the government to see how far they would go.
00:39:38.100And the government brought this 11th hour amendment, didn't consult with caucus, they didn't talk to anyone,
00:39:44.540they were trying to, you know, kind of save face and protect their, you know,
00:39:49.280the wing of the caucus and the party and the voters who are more on the Palestinian side of the issue.
00:39:57.120And in doing so, ended up with a divided caucus.
00:40:01.100And Anthony Housefire is one of them, but there's others.
00:40:03.740And in that sense, the fact that the NEP made that move was, I don't know if it was on purpose,
00:40:08.400but very cunning, because the NEP is united on the issue, the conservatives are united on the issue,
00:40:14.380the one party that's divided is the Liberal Party.
00:40:16.860And you see those cracks happening, and you see the NEP is musing publicly about crossing the floor to another party on this issue.
00:40:26.020So, it's a lot of damage internally, for sure.
00:40:29.960And as Warren outlined, like, out there, the perception is that the Liberal government doesn't know what it wants to do,
00:40:36.080and doesn't know its position, which is why you ended up with that last minute,
00:40:39.740these last minute amendments, which, you know, on the other side,
00:40:43.400made the NEP look reasonable, because they accepted the amendments of the government.
00:40:46.540So, of course, they come out of this as a, you know, as a winner politically.
00:40:52.200But at the end of the day, we shouldn't probably, we shouldn't play games with this issue.