The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - July 20, 2017


Justin Trudeau’s payout to a terrorist


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

143.45398

Word count

1,053

Sentence count

74

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Justin Trudeau's secret payout to Omar Khadr raises many questions about his government's decision to settle a lawsuit with a convicted terrorist. Why did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rush to do this, while knowing that his former supporter of al-Qaeda was facing the possibility of being convicted in court?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:09.000 Well, they thought they were going to have an easy day over there today, but not so fast, Mr. Speaker.
00:00:16.640 What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?
00:00:25.320 And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:31.360 Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:35.980 A lot of questions still remaining about Justin Trudeau's secret payout to Omar Khadr, the convicted terrorist who received $10.5 million from the taxpayer just a few weeks ago, as well as a personal apology from the government of Canada.
00:00:51.980 This was all confirmed after it leaked out on the 4th of July of all days.
00:00:57.580 Certainly, very few people need reminding Omar Khadr's story.
00:01:02.380 He was raised in a terrorist family.
00:01:05.580 That was the family business of the Khadr family, and ended up making bombs, 1.00
00:01:10.720 and, of course, being involved in that firefight in Afghanistan, where Sergeant Spear of the U.S. Forces, a medic, was killed, and another U.S. soldier was badly injured.
00:01:22.600 Mr. Khadr himself was also injured in that firefight, and was kept alive by the U.S. Army medics, the very comrades of Sergeant Spear,
00:01:34.560 who was killed as a result of Mr. Khadr's unfortunate efforts.
00:01:39.900 So that's the backstory.
00:01:41.880 We know that he was detained in Guantanamo Bay for a number of years.
00:01:46.320 We know that as a part of the deal to extract him, he did admit to those crimes.
00:01:52.000 If he wants to recant those in the court of law, he is welcome to do so, but right now he is a convicted terrorist.
00:01:58.260 What was the reaction of the Trudeau government to this?
00:02:00.940 Well, we all know that as a result of a $20 million lawsuit by Khadr's lawyers, the reaction of the federal liberal government was not to fight this in court,
00:02:11.540 but indeed to pay out $10.5 million and offer the apology.
00:02:17.140 The way Canadians found out about this is part of the story as well.
00:02:20.380 This was not on some government website.
00:02:24.040 There was no official announcement before it leaked.
00:02:26.620 This had to be ferreted out by leaks and by the Canadian media, and of course, the reaction was very swift.
00:02:36.500 I know in my constituency, literally hundreds of phone calls and emails and contacts to my office where Canadians were disagreeing with this decision, and I know I was not alone.
00:02:50.020 Many MPs had the same reaction from the public.
00:02:52.740 And indeed, a public opinion poll that came out about a week after the story broke indicated that 71% of Canadians disagree with this secret payout,
00:03:04.300 and of course, that has spurred Conservative MPs to continue to call out the Liberals for falsely shifting the blame for their choices that they made in their own government.
00:03:17.520 This is not a Stephen Harper choice.
00:03:19.240 This is not even a Jean Chrétien choice.
00:03:21.180 This is a Justin Trudeau choice.
00:03:23.140 Now, what's the reaction?
00:03:24.080 What does it mean?
00:03:24.580 Well, it means that Canadians know that Prime Minister Trudeau's decision is wrong.
00:03:28.420 Of course, Conservatives, we have been resolute in supporting our military forces.
00:03:32.840 We don't support the terrorists who target our military forces.
00:03:37.340 And just this way this was done, Justin Trudeau made this payment in secret,
00:03:40.920 and he has resolutely refused to answer detailed questions about his choice to make Canada's newest millionaire,
00:03:49.000 who is Mr. Cotter, Omar Cotter, who is, of course, a convicted terrorist.
00:03:54.000 That's why we want to force a debate on this issue.
00:03:56.860 When Parliament does resume in September, we want to hold Justin Trudeau accountable for his decision.
00:04:02.720 Now, we've heard Justin Trudeau say, well, I was forced to do this, a court of law.
00:04:06.580 No court of law said pay Omar Cotter $10.5 million.
00:04:09.780 A court of law, the Supreme Court of Canada, did say that Cotter's rights were violated
00:04:15.120 by the actions of previous governments, in plural, including his charter rights.
00:04:20.840 Fair game.
00:04:21.900 That's part of the reason why he was removed from Guantanamo-May
00:04:25.660 and is a free man in a free society that is Canada.
00:04:30.640 That is how we, as a society, and the government of Canada,
00:04:35.200 the previous Harper government, dealt with Omar Cotter.
00:04:37.380 To add to that, a $10.5 million settlement, plus a formal apology,
00:04:42.720 many Canadians feel it was not necessary.
00:04:45.540 Many Canadians feel that this, of course, should have been litigated in court.
00:04:49.960 The $10.5 million number didn't come from any court.
00:04:53.580 So this is one of the reasons why we want to question the secret deal.
00:04:56.500 Why did Justin Trudeau rush to do this payout to a convicted terrorist
00:05:01.440 while knowing it was going to make it harder for Sergeant Spears' widow
00:05:04.980 to seek justice for her husband's death?
00:05:08.160 Why did Justin Trudeau not insist that this former supporter of al-Qaeda 0.61
00:05:13.060 prove his claims in court?
00:05:15.400 Why won't Justin Trudeau tell Canadians how much money he gave to a convicted terrorist?
00:05:21.140 Why did this have to be done with a series of leaks, not of his own volition?
00:05:26.680 And why has Justin Trudeau refused to disclose the details of the payout
00:05:30.400 when he was asked initially?
00:05:32.920 So this is a choice.
00:05:34.560 This is not mandated by a court.
00:05:36.600 I want to repeat that point.
00:05:38.700 This is a choice that Justin Trudeau made.
00:05:40.680 It is a slap in the face to the women and men in uniform who face incredible danger
00:05:46.700 every day to keep us safe.
00:05:48.540 And of course, our thoughts continue to be with Sergeant Spears' widow and family
00:05:52.340 who must relive this ordeal every time this matter comes up for discussion.
00:05:56.520 So yes, we are going to be asking these questions on your behalf in Parliament
00:05:59.720 when Parliament resumes.
00:06:01.040 And we are going to continue to ask these questions through the media.
00:06:03.620 And through, of course, there's a number of different ways that people can be called
00:06:10.940 to action, including signing a petition.
00:06:15.020 So these things continue to be offered to the public.
00:06:18.340 Just visit conservative.ca to find out more.
00:06:20.440 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:06:34.600 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:06:38.520 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.
00:06:50.440 The Blueprint on iTunes