WATCH: Full broadcast of The West Block with Tom Clark, aired March 15, 2015.
Host: Tom Clark
Guest Interviews: Rob Nicholson, Ron Atkey, Vassy Kapelos, Joe Oliver
Location: Ottawa
On this Sunday, less than a month before the end of our current military mission in Iraq. We’ll talk to Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson about what happens next.
Then, exclusive and disturbing footage of an ISIS recruiter trying to woe a young Canadian woman to join the terrorist cause in Syria; part of a Global 16×9 investigation.
Then, we’ll head to the skies for a little bit of “plane talk” with Finance Minister Joe Oliver.
It is Sunday, March the 15th and from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. And you are in The West Block.
Late last week, there was a curious story out of Istanbul, Turkey that someone working with a western intelligence agency helped three British girls join ISIS in Syria. The person has been arrested and according to some reports, he had a connection to Canada’s spy network. So far, the Canadian government has not denied the story.
And I’m joined now by Canada’s Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson from Toronto. Minister thanks very much for being here. First of all, have you been in touch yet with the Government of Turkey over this issue of the person who has been arrested dealing with this ISIS matter and the British girls? If you’ve been in touch with the Turkish government, what have you told them?
Rob Nicholson:
I won’t get involved in issues or talk about issues of national security.
Tom Clark:
Well, I would imagine this would be a fairly keen issue for our foreign affairs. I would assume though, Minister that if our hands were clean we’d be able to stand up and say, not us, right?
Rob Nicholson:
Well Canada’s hands are always clean. We’re always very careful about what we do and that’s Canada’s record.
Tom Clark:
Okay, so then this person has nothing to do with any Canadian security service at all, as an asset or as an agent?
Rob Nicholson:
I think my colleague, Minister Blaney yesterday in the House I think summed it up for the government that when you get to these areas of national security that we don’t comment or elaborate on them.
Tom Clark:
Well okay, at some point I think Canadians will want to know what’s going on but let’s move on. We’re less than a month away from having to renew our commitment in Iraq. You’ve already said that we are there for the long haul. Just before we look at what our renewal may look like, what is the long haul? What does that mean?
Rob Nicholson:
Well we are absolutely committed to the humanitarian aid that we have been delivering and we’re going to continue to do that. I think it’s extremely important that we assist in that regard and just last week, I was in Iraq and I had the opportunity to see one of the refugee camps. And I had the opportunity to see first-hand, the difference that Canada and countries like us are making. We have to reach out and help with the terrible tragedy that has taken place in that area and Canada comes as no surprise has been making a meaningful contribution and I think that’s very, very important.
Tom Clark:
Right but when I say, what does the long haul mean? I guess the question meant are you talking months? Are you talking years?
Rob Nicholson:
We had a six-month mandate that will expire on April 7th and the government is considering its options, and if the government decides to continue that, we’ve indicated we’ll place the matter before Parliament, so you’d be looking at the next couple of weeks if we came forward with something.
Tom Clark:
Right, but you’ve already said we’re in it for the long haul. But anyway, let’s move on from there.
Rob Nicholson:
I mean the long haul… I mean in terms of the humanitarian assistance that we are giving; we are going to be there for that long haul. I mean I think that’s important that we continue. Now, if you’re asking about the military engagement, we have a six-month mandate for that and that’s something for the government to consider and make up its mind and that we’ve indicated that we are going to do that.
Tom Clark:
What does victory look like for Canada in Iraq?
Rob Nicholson:
Obviously the degradation of ISIL is what we have been working towards with our coalition partners. ISIL represents a threat to that area but it represents a direct threat to Canada as well. And so in my discussions with my colleagues in that area, I mean I was heartened by the fact that they believe progress is being made in containing ISIL and that’s obviously very, very important. But there are no easy solutions. It’s a very complex issue that we’re dealing with but I think that progress has been made.
Tom Clark:
Well once we’ve degraded ISIL, what happens next because we have the examples of what happened in Libya after we left, to a degree what happened in Afghanistan after we left, so I guess I’m wondering what happens after that initial objective has been made? Are we prepared to stay in for the long haul as this continues on, possibly as it did in Libya?
Rob Nicholson:
I mean the military component is one important component of what is being done and has to be done but the long term assistance, humanitarian, economic aid, these are what are very important to ensure that these challenges continues to be met and so Canada has an outstanding record in this area, and as I’ve indicated, we want to continue to help.
Tom Clark:
Thank you very much for your time today, I appreciate it.
Rob Nicholson:
My pleasure.
Tom Clark:
Well as we prepare to extend our mission in Iraq, here at home the political battle rages over the government’s sweeping new anti-terrorist bill, C-51 that will give greater powers to police and intelligence agencies. One of the key areas of concern has been about oversight. Many are calling for a standing committee of MPs to provide that as is done in most allied countries. While the government maintains that the existing SIRC, that’s the Security and Intelligence Review Committee, is more than adequate for that job.
Well I’m joined now by the very first chairman of that committee Ron Atkey. Mr. Atkey good to have you here. You testified last week to a parliamentary committee on Bill C-51 and I think to summarize, it’s fair to say that you feel that there is a need for this type of security legislation but there are some fundamental flaws, so if I could ask you to pinpoint why Canadians should be concerned and what is the most serious flaw in this bill?
Ron Atkey:
Well the most serious flaw doesn’t relate to review or oversight, I think that could be beefed up. The most serious flaw is its unconstitutionality. In effect, the legislation purports to direct federal court judges to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and you just can’t do that in constitutional law, and I think the courts will react against this and probably declare that portion of it unconstitutional. That can be easily fixed through a minor drafting amendment and that’s a bit of overreaching but that’s a serious flaw in my opinion. The question of review or oversight is an important one and I think it’s been raised by parliamentarians. It’s understood by Canadians just as it was understood when CSIS first got started in 1984. They said we’ll give you these broad powers but they have to be subject to regular review by a very active bipartisan committee that will operate with full access to information. And that has operated quite effectively for 30 years.
Tom Clark:
But if I can jump in, that was 30 years ago. Do you believe that the SIRC committee is up to the job of providing the oversight necessary for these expanded powers?
Ron Atkey:
Tom, I think the structure of the committee is sound as it was set up in the original CSIS Act. I think it’s an issue of resources, people power, investigators to work for the committee to do the job under a security cleared basis. I think SIRC has not grown exponentially as has CSIS. Its budget has not grown and I think it’s been frozen in time essentially. That’s an issue, not for Parliament but issue for the government to fix and I would hope that in the fullness of time, the government would indicate its intentions, maybe in the course of the budget, maybe in other contexts within a parliamentary framework, the minister could indicate where resources would be provided to, to start to appropriately do its job in the year 2015.
Tom Clark:
It’s been pointed out that our allies in the 5-Eyes, this intelligence sharing community that we are a part of have all got some form of elected oversight on their security systems. In addition to SIRC, do you think that having a committee of MPs properly sworn to secrecy would be an appropriate thing to do?
Ron Atkey:
Yes I do, Tom. I’ve been both a parliamentarian and a professsional watchdog so I’ve seen in both sides of it. And I think we need both. I think you need a committee of parliamentarians who are properly security cleared, members of the House and the Senate to deal with problems as they arise and act as an overview committee to see that the problem is properly dealt with, it’s delegated to the appropriate review body as the case may be and I think also you need a parliamentary committee to undertake a five year review of these new legislative provisions which are quite extreme in their nature, just as the CSIS Act was reviewed in 1989, five years after it was introduced. I think these new provisions which extend CSIS powers should be reviewed over the next four, five years by a parliamentary committee and we should get started on that now. The bill is before the House and the Senate that could achieve that right now.
Tom Clark:
Ron Atkey speaking from great experience, I appreciate your time and thanks very much.
Ron Atkey:
Tom, great.
Tom Clark:
Well we put the question of oversight to Justice Minister Peter MacKay. He raised some concerns about parliamentary involvement. For the interview with Peter MacKay, head to our website: www.globalnews.ca/thewestblock.
Well coming up next, a bit later on the show, we’ll take Joe Oliver up in the skies for a little bit of “plane talk”.
But first, young Canadian women joining ISIS as jihadi brides, often being recruited through their home computers and cell phones, how is it happening? That’s coming up next.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well it’s hard for a lot of us to comprehend, young western women, teenagers leaving home to join ISIS, not to fight but to become brides of fighters. Global’s Vassy Kapelos has spent some time investigating this new kind of recruit for Global’s flagship show, 16×9 and what she found was chilling. Here’s just a bit of her special report:
ISIS Male: Can you hear me, yeah?
Young Female Recruit (16×9 reporter): Yeah, can you hear me?
Vassy Kapelos: What you’re watching is a Skype call.
Young Female Recruit (16×9 reporter): Would you meet me at the border or is somebody going to meet me there?
ISIS Male: Yeah.
Vassy Kapelos: It’s with a man claiming to be an ISIS fighter, living in Syria.
ISIS Male: Here’s what you do. You say you’re going to have a weekend sleepover where you basically start from Friday evening.
Vassy Kapelos: He’s talking to this woman who he believes is a 15-year-old Canadian girl from Edmonton.
ISIS Male: So you get on the flight to Calgary. You know Calgary, right?
Young Female Recruit (16×9 reporter): Yeah.
ISIS Male: When you get to the flight on Calgary you fly to Germany, to Frankfurt.
Vassy Kapelos: He’s coaching her on how to deceive her parents, get on a plane and travel to Turkey and then Syria to join ISIS.
ISIS Male: You go to Istanbul.
Young Female Recruit (16×9 reporter): What airport should I go to? It’s just the one in Istanbul? Is there more than one?
ISIS Male: You’ve never left the country?
Young Female Recruit (16×9 reporter): I’ve never left the country but I’ve flown before.
Vassy Kapelos: But he doesn’t want her to join ISIS as a fighter. He wants this 15-year-old to be his wife.
Tom Clark:
Well I mean that’s just a stunning bit of tape. You spoke with Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney about this very thing. Did you get a sense that the government has a strategy to deal with this?
Vassy Kapelos:
Well I think to no one’s surprise the strategy right now is C-51. Definitely Minister Blaney talked a lot about how C-51 could perhaps prevent this, especially talking about shutting down websites and removing terrorist propaganda but beyond that, just sort of overarching ideas about counter radicalization, but not a whole lot of specifics.
Tom Clark:
But shutdown that website, there’s probably 500 more… 5 million more.
Vassy Kapelos:
Exactly and that’s what most experts who study this say, shutdown a website, shutdown a Twitter account, 15 more will pop up. Many of the girls that we investigated here were on their sixth, seventh, even tenth Twitter account.
Tom Clark:
You know one thing that really strikes me about this report is we’re talking about teenage girls. Obviously those who fall prey to this and actually go to Syria are making a bad choice, a bad lifestyle choice. But you know, in society, if a 15-year-old girl is loured online into a sexual situation, she’s a victim. Did you get the sense that a 15-year-old girl who is loured online into a sexual situation in Syria is considered to be a victim by this government?
Vassy Kapelos:
Ah definitely no. I put that direct question to Minister Blaney. I said you know, “do you see this girl as a victim?” and he would not use the word. He instead used the idea of criminal activity and he stressed you’ve got to intervene early but once they’re involved in this criminal activity, essentially they’re a terrorist. And I think it’s really important to say that in this country, if that happens like you mentioned, that scenario you mentioned, the girl is a victim but all of a sudden you involve some kind of extremist ideology or ISIS or whatever it be, and a 13-year-old girl is considered a terrorist by this government.
Tom Clark:
Well and for the parents, it must be just awful because not only might you lose your daughter to Syria and to ISIS but if she decides that she’s made the worst decision of her life and wants to come home, there is legislation in this town that could mean that she’s thrown away for the rest of her life.
Vassy Kapelos:
Yeah, and that’s what a lot of parents, Muslim community leaders, people who study this are saying by taking such a hardline approach and you know while the government feels it’s justified, basically if you’re a parent and you’re thinking oh my kid might be going down the wrong path and you think that if you pick up the phone and call the police they’re immediately going to arrest your child, are you going to do that? No and so a lot of experts say, C-51, whatever the hardline may it be we’ll shove this process of radicalization underground.
Tom Clark:
Did you get a sense talking to all the experts that there was a better fix for this? Is there even a possibility of a national strategy to deal with this?
Vassy Kapelos:
Well I think it’s a really important question. I think that they’re not offhand saying C-51 is terrible, don’t do anything when it comes to criminal behaviour. Of course people recognize that some of that is necessary but I think that what most of them are saying is that there is no cohesive counter-radicalization strategy. These kids have to feel like they can go talk to somebody. People who have a tendency to believe these things need some kind of solution that isn’t just throwing them in jail, taking away their passport. There needs to be a combination and right now, there is no overarching strategy to provide that.
Tom Clark:
Vassy Kapelos, fantastic report: 16×9. Go to www.globalnews.ca/thewestblock. We’ll put up a link to it. Vassy thanks very much.
Vassy Kapelos:
Thanks, Tom.
Tom Clark:
Well still to come, “Plane Talk” with Canada’s finance minister: why he lip-syncs to O Canada and the question you should never ask him again. That’s coming up next.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well one of Stephen Harper’s top cabinet ministers, the man in charge of all the money, Joe Oliver, appears to be a very serious guy. One MP even called him a “grumpy old man”. But what’s he really like? Well we took to the skies with him for a little bit of “Plane Talk”.
Tom Clark:
At Rockliffe: Traffic, Gulf, Bravo, X-ray, Papa rolling 2-7.
Minister of Finance Joe Oliver, welcome to “Plane Talk”.
Joe Oliver:
Well thank you very much. I’m delighted, I guess to be in your hands.
Tom Clark:
Haha I’d save that until we land and then we’ll…
Joe Oliver:
We’ll reserve judgment.
Tom Clark:
Well reserve judgment. I want to ask a personal question here. What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Joe Oliver:
Well…
Tom Clark:
Just between you and me.
Joe Oliver:
Yeah, just the two of us. I’ll give you the gastronomic answer. I love ice cream and I eat it whenever I can. I guess one recent guilty pleasure and I feel guilty about it because of the time that it takes but you know, I’m so involved in what I’m doing, I need a little bit of a break from time to time and I’m sort of watching the series 24 and then the Americans which is about these Russians who are embedded in the United States under deep cover. I love that sort of stuff and you know it’s just an opportunity to veg out.
Tom Clark:
Watching television is not a guilty pleasure in my books.
Joe Oliver:
No I guess it wouldn’t be. This is true.
Tom Clark:
What talent would you most like to have?
Joe Oliver:
Well you know I used to play the piano. I love to listen to music of all kinds but I can’t sing. And it would be nice when they play O Canada not to have to lip-sync.
Tom Clark:
You lip-sync to O Canada?
Joe Oliver:
Well I’ve got to move my… you know people might think I don’t know the words.
Tom Clark:
I guess that’s important.
Joe Oliver:
Don’t ask me now because in spite of the elevation, I’m not going to do it.
Tom Clark:
So you lip-sync in deference to the people standing around you so they don’t have to hear you.
Joe Oliver:
Well yeah.
Tom Clark:
Okay, all right.
Joe Oliver:
Occasionally I emit a sound but it’s a bit disconcerting.
Tom Clark:
What phrase do you overuse?
Joe Oliver:
It’s a fact that I say, some say “it’s a fact”. And the reason I do…
Tom Clark:
Sometimes when it’s not a fact?
Joe Oliver:
The reason I do. No! The reason I do is that it is a fact. That is a fact but people who may have a different view don’t regard it as the fact which it is. So sometimes that may be overused.
Tom Clark:
Okay. Another personal question for you.
Joe Oliver:
Okay.
Tom Clark:
Under what circumstances do you lie?
Joe Oliver:
Well I guess white lies are told to avoid hurting people. They’re also used when no one really wants an answer. For example, I’m often asked, and I don’t quite know why, how’s everything? Well no one really wants to know how everything is and you know they are quite happy with “fine”. So is that categorized as a lie? I don’t really think so but it’s not exactly a full disclosure.
Tom Clark:
Haha. The one thing that every politician has to do is go knock on doors and some politicians love it, some people hate it, how about you?
Joe Oliver:
Well I find it strangely addictive. I must have gone to about 37,000 doors in the period of time that I was running for office so you get to hear a lot. And you know while it isn’t statistically significant, it’s highly indicative of what the country is thinking. It’s very important to listen to your constituents. I’ll tell you an instance of that. I was having lunch… I was about to order lunch at United Bakers which is sort of an iconic restaurant in my riding just opposite my constituency office and a gentleman came up to me and he said, “are you Joe Oliver?” Yes. “Minister of Finance?” Yeah. “Well Minister, I have some advice for you. It’s very important so listen carefully. Make sure you order the cabbage rolls, they’re very delicious.”
Tom Clark:
Haha and did you?
Joe Oliver:
Well I had to. Listen to your constituents. Very important.
Tom Clark:
You didn’t sing for him did you?
Joe Oliver:
No, I’m trying to win the next one.
Tom Clark:
So if there was one occasion where you would sing publically, where would that be?
Joe Oliver:
Well if asked, I suppose I could go to the Liberal nomination meeting in Eglinton-Lawrence. That might clear out the House.
Tom Clark:
But hasn’t Eve Adams already heard you sing? Because I heard that’s why she left the party but…
Joe Oliver:
Well that’s the first time I heard that but you know we all make our contributions in different ways.
Tom Clark:
Final question for you: what’s the most fun that you’ve had in politics?
Joe Oliver:
Some of the zingers in House were kind of fun and…
Tom Clark:
Is there one that you remember that you liked the best?
Joe Oliver:
Well someone who maybe I won’t name referred to me as a “grumpy old man”.
Meagan Leslie: “If being a grumpy old man makes you an expert in world…”
Joe Oliver:
…and I was inspired so I got up and I said it’s one thing for this party to go to the United States and talk down a major energy project but, “it’s another thing to insult senior citizens”. The whole House… well I should say our side leapt up just shouting and screaming.
Tom Clark:
So essentially though you deny that you’re a grumpy old man?
Joe Oliver:
Right, that’s a fact.
Tom Clark:
Now before you ask, of course I asked Joe Oliver when we can expect the budget and he stuck with the old line that we’ve already heard, “Not before April.” And that apparently is a fact. For the outtakes of our interview, you can head to our website: www.globalnews.ca/thewestblock and while you’re there, let us know what you think about what you’ve heard on today’s show and issues in general. You can find us on Twitter, on Facebook and of course online.
Well that is our show for this week. Thanks very much for joining us. I’m Tom Clark. Have a great week ahead and we’ll see you back here next Sunday for another edition of The West Block.
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