Transcript: Season 4 Episode 12

THE WEST BLOCK

Episode 12, Season 4

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Host: Tom Clark

Guest Interviews: Joe Oliver, James Bezan, Jean Crowder, Mark Kennedy

Location: Ottawa

***please check against delivery

Listen below or watch above:

On this Sunday, with oil prices dropping, the Canadian dollar falling and new military deployments ramping up, what does this all mean for the Canadian economy?  We’ll talk to Finance Minister Joe Oliver.

Then, 52 First Nation bands will lose federal funding if they don’t post their financial statements publically.  Now, government critics say that’s too heavy handed.  So, what is the solution?

And, the latest on the Tory tactic of secretly recording private conversations of their opponents; is it time to ask every Conservative if they’re wearing a wire?

It is Sunday, November 30^th and from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark.  And you are in The West Block.

Well late last week, Statistics Canada announced the Canadian economy outgrew market expectations with a growth of 2.8 per cent in the third quarter.  This month, the federal government adjusted its budget surplus to $1.9 billion because of its recent family benefit initiatives, and that surplus may get smaller as oil prices and the Canadian dollar continue to slide.

And joining me now from Toronto is federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver.  Minister Oliver thanks very much for being here.  Some pretty good numbers this week on the Canadian economy and I know that at this point you’re doing some pre-budget consultation.  What I’m wondering is, what are you hearing as the number one concern of those who are giving you advice right now?

Minister Joe Oliver:

Well it depends of course on the sector and the region.  People are very interested in what kinds of benefits might accrue to different portions of the population.  You know our family tax package was very important because it affected directly over 4 million families, so there was some discussion about that.  Small businesses were appreciative of the rebate we gave them which was over half a billion dollars.  But companies and individuals are looking to the government to try to be supportive of their needs.

Tom Clark:

You know the International Monetary Fund, the governor of the Bank of Canada, among many others has sounded the warning about high household debt in this country.  We know that interest rates at some point, maybe sooner than later, are going to be going back up again.  How worried are you about that day of reckoning and what’s that going to do to economic growth in this country?

Minister Joe Oliver:

We are watching the market.  We’re looking at consumer debt and we’re aware that interest rates are at an historic low.  I don’t forecast interest rates.  That’s the responsibility of the Bank of Canada, but the bank has said that they’re not contemplating any major changes in the near future.  So we think things are in pretty good shape for Canadians.  The major risks actually are external.

Tom Clark:

Well but there is, I suppose, one internal slash external threat and that is the tumbling oil prices.  I mean in New York, at the end of last week, they were down below $70 dollars a barrel US for WTI prices.  With those prices going down, what is that going to do, not only to your revenue stream, you’ve already had to reduce it once I know, but again, what does that do to economic growth if oil goes down as some people are saying to $60 dollars a barrel, maybe even $50 dollars a barrel?

Minister Joe Oliver:

We’re still projecting a healthy surplus.  I forecasted at one point $9 billion.  There were some announcements by the prime minister in respect to infrastructure which would bring that number down to $1.6 billion, but in addition to that, we have the $3 billion contingency fund.  So we’re comfortable we’re going to have a surplus.  Now as to the decline in oil prices and its impact on the economy, it affects things in quite a number of different complex ways. As we know, the most obvious and immediate impact is the lower price at the pump.  So that’s going to help consumers.  They’re going to have more money to spend.  They’re going to have more money to save.  We know that oil price declines are a result of more supply and less demand so that’s an international macro-economic situation, but to the extent it’s more supply, and it is coming from the United States.  That’s good for the US economy which is the bounds on economic growth in Canada.  But also of course, it impacts positively on manufacturers.

Tom Clark:

Well okay, but you know, look, low oil prices beat up on provincial revenue streams as well as federal revenue streams.  We know that, but let’s move on from there.

Minister Joe Oliver:

Yes they do.

Tom Clark:

You know you talked about the surplus…

Minister Joe Oliver:

I didn’t want to belittle that.

Tom Clark:

No but the idea that there’s nothing but good coming out of low oil prices isn’t exactly the case, but you know because it…

Minister Joe Oliver:

No, no, I didn’t want to suggest that.  I was trying to give a balance that I was giving the positives and I was going to come to the point, to the very point that you mentioned which is, it will have a negative impact on revenues for oil companies.  It will impact on royalties to provincial governments, and it will impact on corporate taxes.  So it definitely does have an impact on the fiscal framework and we took account of that when I made my statement on our update.  And it’s something that we’re going to monitor.  But the point I wanted to make is, that it isn’t only a negative thing.  It has positive implications for the economy as well.

Tom Clark:

Okay, federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver always good to talk to you, thanks very much for being here today.

Minister Joe Oliver:

Sure, most welcome.

Tom Clark:

I want to focus in a bit more now on military spending.  As you know, Canada has nine aircraft and hundreds of personnel involved in the mission to combat ISIS.  What we don’t know is how much that mission will cost us.

Canadian aircraft, mainly the CF-18s, have flown more than 100 sorties, as they’re called.  Now the military has provided the government with an estimate of the total cost of this mission, but the Conservatives are keeping a very tight lip about that figure.

Not so our allies.  The Pentagon released information that pegged a daily cost of their mission at just over $8 million dollars.  And between August 8^th and November 12^th, the total cost reached $776 million dollars.  And the Aussies, their prime minister told his public that he expects the mission to cost about $500 million dollars each year.

Well joining me now from Kiev in Ukraine is James Bezan, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence.  And Mr. Bezan, I want to get to the issue of costing in a moment but we’ve caught up with you in Ukraine.  Canada has announced that we’re going to be donating a lot of non-lethal aid to the Ukrainian Army by way of coats and jackets and that sort of thing, but the Ukrainian’s have always said they want guns and bullets.  Why are we giving them coats when they want guns?

James Bezan:

Well first and foremost, we’re actually supplying the Government of Ukraine put in as a request directly from the Minister of National Defence to our Minister of National Defence, Rob Nicholson.  They asked for winter gear and so we’re providing enough winter gear; jackets, coats for 30,000 troops, as well as 70,000 winter boots that are all waterproof.  There are 4,500 pairs of gloves.  And in addition to that kit, we’re also supplying a field hospital.  We’re also going to be providing night vision goggles, medical tactical kits for use in the field and we’re going to provide them with equipment to deal with unexploded ordinances.  So this is significant and you’ve got to remember that there is various asks of other coalition partners and I think that as allies work together in helping the Government of Ukraine and the people of Ukraine deal with the Putin regimes aggression in the Donbass, that overall, the donations that are coming in will provide Ukraine with the equipment they need, both lethal and non-lethal.  And I think that the significant part of this is that the Government of Ukraine is so thankful and grateful for the donation and generosity of Canada made possible by the Canadian Armed Forces.

Tom Clark:

I do want to point out Mr. Bezan that we actually gave the Afghans guns and ammunition but I want to move on to another theatre here and I’m talking about Iraq.  You know the estimates of how much this is costing us because the military gave it to you.  What is it about those estimates that you don’t want Canadians to know about?

James Bezan:

Well you’ve got to remember that all the costs of the mission in Iraq are going to be incremental.  A lot of the costs are baseline costs because salaries and training and manoeuvres and all that are something that we do on an ongoing basis.  There are some incremental increases that we are going to have to budget for, but more importantly, we want to report back through the normal processes, the actual costs of the mission as they become known.

Tom Clark:

Okay, I want to pull up a website here.  This is from the Department of Defence in the United States.  Anybody can look at this.  It gives the daily cost of the American mission.  It gives the total cost since the mission began and it gives details on all the airstrikes on a daily basis.  If the Americans can do this, and we’ve seen that the Aussies have also told their people about their costs, if the Aussies can do it, if the Americans can do it, why aren’t we doing it?  What are you afraid of?

James Bezan:

It’s about the processes in place to collect all that information and bring it back to Parliament and Canadians and we’re going to do that.  We’re going to be transparent.  We’re going to be accountable and it’s going to be done in a timely manner, but we want to make sure that we’re going to be reporting the hard costs and not some estimates.

Tom Clark:

Well what are the Americans doing then?  What are the Aussies doing? You’re saying that you don’t want to do what the Americans and the Australians are doing for their people?

James Bezan:

Well we’ll let the Americans and the Aussies do what’s in their capabilities.  We’re going to work what’s in the best interest of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Government of Canada, and ultimately providing the accurate information to the people of Canada and of course to Parliament.

Tom Clark:

But I don’t understand Mr. Bezan because you have estimates provided to you.  Why not give the estimates to the people?  I mean, can Canadians not be trusted with this information?

James Bezan:

No, you’ve got to remember that an estimate can change.  Activity and potential involvement will go in ebbs and flows and so you never know what those final costs are going to be, and I think as long as we are accounting for every tax dollar and reporting back the tax dollars that are actually spent, is in the best interest of the taxpayer.

Tom Clark:

Alright, James Bezan joining us from Kiev in Ukraine.  Thanks very much for your time.

James Bezan:

Any time Tom.

Tom Clark:

We’ll unpack some of the politics of this past week with Mark Kennedy a little later in the show but first, the government is threatening to pull all non-essential funding to more than 50 reserves for refusing to make their financial statements public:  a critic of the government stance right after the break.

Break

Tom Clark:

Welcome back.  The federal government is threatening to pull all non-essential funding for 52 First Nations bands for refusing to comply with the new transparency law.  In return, one band is taking the government to court over the law that requires them to post audited financial statements online.  The Chief of the Onion Lake Cree Nation saying this is the last step in a long journey to get the federal government to sit down and talk with the nations.

Well joining me now is the Aboriginal Affairs critic for the official Opposition, the NDP, Jean Crowder.  Nice to have you here.  Fifty-two bands have yet to supply their audited statements, should they, right away?

Jean Crowder:

Well I think there are some challenges with some of those bands being able to do that.  Some of those bands actually…there have been three bands that have come forward in British Columbia where they actually don’t pay any money to the chief in council, in one case.  In another case, they actually don’t have a band office or any kind of infrastructure so they’re not able to post it and they don’t actually have the funds to pay for the audit.

Tom Clark:

Well give me the for instance then, that band, how much money does it get from the federal government every year?

Jean Crowder:

I don’t know precisely how much money they get but they actually don’t pay their chief in council anything.  So, and that’s what’s at the heart of that bill.

Tom Clark:

But they must receive federal funds?

Jean Crowder:

Sure, they receive some money, I don’t know how much.  They’re a very small band.  I don’t know how much money they actually get.

Tom Clark:

Well some small bands make a lot of money.  One band, 87…a population of 87 and their chief was earning $300 thousand dollars a year, so size doesn’t necessarily equate to money.

Jean Crowder:

But in this case, they don’t actually get paid any money, the chief in council in this one particular case.  I’m not suggesting that’s the case for all the…I’m just saying that there is a variety of circumstances and so really what I think the minister should do is work with those bands to find out what the circumstances are and to see if they need some assistance in meeting the requirements.

Tom Clark:

But on the broader issue of transparency that when you receive federal government money, do you fundamentally disagree with the government that there should be this type of transparency from the reserves in terms of how much they’re paying their chief and their band council members and so on?

Jean Crowder:

No, we’ve always maintained…the New Democrats have always maintained that chiefs in councils need to be responsible to the members that elected them for the amount of money that they’re being paid.  When it comes to the federal government dollars because some chiefs in councils are not just paid federal government dollars, they’re paid from other businesses.  That’s been really at the heart of the dispute between many of the chiefs in councils and the federal government.  I haven’t really heard any bands say they don’t want to be accountable to their own people and that was what was supposed to be driving the federal government initiative was that people…

Tom Clark:

I think some chiefs didn’t want to be accountable.  They didn’t want their salaries to get out because at least in one case when it did come out, the members of the band voted him out of office right away.

Jean Crowder:

Yeah, absolutely, I’m not suggesting that there haven’t been cases…Shuswap is probably the one you’re talking about where there haven’t been cases where there has been as an alleged corruption.  I don’t want to say it is corruption but that’s not the norm, just as in municipal politics and federal politics, and provincial politics.  You have a small percentage of people who gain the system.

Tom Clark:

But what’s the heart of the problem as far as you’re concerned?

Jean Crowder:

Well at the heart of the problem is the way the government did this.  Back in 2006, the Assembly of First Nations put together a comprehensive accountability package which they provided to the federal government, which included things like a First Nations auditor general.  It included things like the potential for having some sort of ethics and conflict of interest commissioner, as well as some suggestions for how things would be reported to the band members.  But the government didn’t respond to that and so once again, what the government has done has taken the approach of we know what’s best and not taking input from First Nations and coming up with a package that people have been very unhappy about.

Tom Clark:

But for most Canadians, if you receive money from the federal government, you’re expected in a very open way, so that everybody can see it, you‘ve got to account for that money.  I mean so when it comes down to that, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.  The numbers are numbers so what’s the nuance involved here?

Jean Crowder:

Well the nuance is the way the government insisted that this information was reported.  First Nations have said that yes, it should be reported to the people who elected them, just like my numbers are reported to the people who elect me.

Tom Clark:

But available to everybody?

Jean Crowder:

Yeah, but I’m in a national job so that would make sense that…I’m representing my riding but I have responsibilities from coast to coast to coast as the Aboriginal Affairs critic for example.  So it makes sense that I report to all Canadians, right?  But…

Tom Clark:

But you’re saying not them?

Jean Crowder:

Well I’m saying First Nations should be accountable to the people who elected them, which are their members.

Tom Clark:

But the other Canadians can’t see this information, is that what you’re saying?

Jean Crowder:

Well I don’t know that that’s the driving factor though.  I mean they’re not accountable…when it comes to federal government dollars but that’s not been at the heart of much of these dollars.  A lot of the money that chiefs in councils get is not federal government dollars.

Tom Clark:

But we’re talking about federal government dollars.

Jean Crowder:

Federal government dollars…I mean there has to be a process where that money is accounted for and reported, absolutely.

Tom Clark:

Very publically.  Jean Crowder of the NDP, thank you very much for being here.  I appreciate your time.

Jean Crowder:

You’re welcome.

Tom Clark:

Still to come, dirty tricks in politics.  We unpack the bizarre week that was on Parliament Hill.

Break

Tom Clark:

Welcome back.  Well that time of the show, we’re going to unpack the politics of this very weird week on Parliament Hill last week.  Mark Kennedy, Parliamentary Bureau Chief for the Ottawa Citizen.  So Mark, we have this story this week of one Conservative operator secretly trying to record conversations of Liberals to trap them into saying something bad and so on, and I’m wondering if we’re at the point now that any time you meet a Conservative, is it a good idea to ask, are you wearing a wire?

Mark Kennedy:

Well that’s a heck of a good question.  I mean it’s truly remarkable what’s happening now.  I mean who would have thought over the last 20-30 years it’d come to this?  And frankly, I think it could backfire on the Conservative Party.  I think it could backfire on Stephen Harper because it will feed into the notion that Justin Trudeau is putting out there, that this guy is so desperate, that he will do anything to get re-elected.

Tom Clark:

And let me put some context around this.  What we’re talking about is a young woman who tried to secretly record a Liberal candidate in the riding of Banff-Airdrie in Alberta and she got a really muffled version of something and tried to say that he was trying to say something terrible about tax cuts.  Sun News had to retract and apologize because they ran the story.  But the most interesting thing about this Mark was when the central Conservative Party got involved, hired an audio expert…some expert, an American to say, oh yeah that was definitely the Liberal candidate on this tape that you can barely understand anyway.  That’s the first time that the Conservative Party has revealed that it in fact is involved in this, running the operatives and running this secret recording campaign.  Who knows how many operatives the Conservatives have across the country?

Mark Kennedy:
Well we’ve had two other instances haven’t we, where a Liberal MP has been recorded secretly and another Liberal candidate has been recorded secretly.  And we know have a senior Conservative cabinet minister, Jason Kenney basically defending what has been happening.  Again, I get back to this; does Stephen Harper really want people to think that as he seeks another mandate, he has “Nixonian” operatives out there secretly taping people with taperecorders under their jackets?  I don’t think so.  I think he could easily make his case publically that the Liberals ought to be kept in the Opposition benches because of what we know about them publically.  But for him to take this tactic, I think it could blow up on him.

Tom Clark:

Let’s take a look at fun with numbers that we had last week.  There was a big announcement that $200 million dollars was going to be spent on mental health care for Canada’s veterans.  Then it turns out that that money is going to be spent over half a century – 50 years.  This is stunning.

Mark Kennedy:

Again, it’s bad, bad, bad news for Stephen Harper.  They knew that it was going to be a bad, very embarrassing report coming forward last week from the auditor general so what did they do, they wanted to get out ahead of it.  They’re going to announce three cabinet ministers, $200 million dollars.  And we’re all left with the impression the money is going to be spent over six years.   Nuh, uh, ah, now we’re learning five decades!  I mean veterans out there are going to be totally offended by that and they’re going to ask again, themselves the question:  be upfront, be honest.  Don’t try and deceive us, which is what they will now be concluding.  And again, during a campaign that Stephen Harper’s going to have to be on, he’s going to have to face these people and they’re going to walk out and they’re going to say to him, you lied and you deceived us.  They shouldn’t be doing this.

Tom Clark:

And that should be a constituency that the Conservatives should naturally own.  There is a huge amount of connection between Veterans serving members in the Conservative Party but tricks like this are the very things you’re suggesting that puts a wedge between them.

Mark Kennedy:

The wedge in the next campaign is going to be Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau coming out saying we’ve had 6,7, 8 years of cynicism, bad politics and it’s because of Stephen Harper.  He lies, he deceives you, come to me.  I’ll bring you a new form of politics.  Stephen Harper has to just cut that off and now is the time for him to do it.

Tom Clark:

Mark Kennedy, Parliamentary Bureau Chief, Ottawa Citizen, thanks very much.

Mark Kennedy:

Thank you.

Tom Clark:

Well that is our show for today and in relation to the conversation I had with Joe Oliver;remember on Wednesday of this coming week, the Bank of Canada will announce what it’s going to do to interest rates.  And remember Joe Oliver said he didn’t think that those rates are going to change.

In the meantime, we’re always eager to hear from you.  You can find us online at:  www.thewestblock.ca.  You can also reach us on Twitter and on Facebook.

Well thanks for joining us today.  I’m Tom Clark from Ottawa.  We’ll see you back here next week.  In the meantime, have a great week.