The West Block Transcript – Episode 28, Season 13

THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 28, Season 13
Sunday, March 24, 2024

Host: Mercedes Stephenson

Guests:
Bill Blair, Defence Minister
Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute

Location:
Ottawa Studio

Mercedes Stephenson: Shaking up national defence: how are Bill Blair’s big decisions being received?

I’m Mercedes Stephenson. The West Block starts now.

From how changes in sexual offences in the military will be addressed, to controversial attempts at getting recruitment numbers up, the defence minister joins us in studio to talk about his new directives. This, as Global News broke the story JTF2, Canada’s elite counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit is in Haiti to help protect the Canadian embassy.

Jonathan Wilkinson, Energy and Natural Resources Minister: “Shame on you!”

Mercedes Stephenson: Plus, carbon showdown. As the war of words over the carbon tax reached fever pitch, we take a reality check on which taxes actually work best for the environment.

Plus, remembering Brian Mulroney—the final goodbye to Canada’s 18th prime minister.

Caroline Mulroney, Brian Mulroney’s Daughter: “We adored him. I miss you, daddy.”

Mercedes Stephenson: Canada’s elite military unit has landed in Haiti. Global News has learned JTF2 is there to help secure the Canadian embassy as the country devolves into lawlessness. JTF2 has deployed frequently in recently years, as the capabilities of the rest of the armed forces have declined.

The military is facing a crisis from recruiting, retention and equipment, to its ongoing efforts to grapple with sexual misconduct.

Change has been slow to come. Two years ago, former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, recommended that the military stop investing and prosecuting criminal sexual offences after she raised concerns that the military justice system was failing victims. Now Defence Minister Bill Blair has introduced changes to the National Defence Act to make that happen.

Under the proposed legislation, cases involving criminal sexual misconduct will be handled by civilian police and civilian courts but only if they happened in Canada.
It’s one of the many changes Blair is overseeing as he seeks to modernize and grow Canada’s military. It’s a big job, though, as he acknowledged when we sat down, late last week.

Nice to see you Minister Blair. Welcome to the studio.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: Thank you very much for having me.

Mercedes Stephenson: The last time I saw you was a couple weeks ago and boy did you make headlines, because you talked about the crisis that the Canadian Armed Forces is facing, especially when it comes to recruiting. And you in a very non-ministerial but excellent way described it bluntly and that’s a rare thing from a politician. You said the Canadian Armed Forces are at risk of going into a “death spiral”. What does that mean, a death spiral? Is it the end of the military?

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: No, of course not. I think it’s a wakeup notice for all of us and that was my intent in speaking to people who I think are very important in Canadian military and Canadian military culture, the support that we have from industries. A lot of former serving command officers were also in the room, and I think it’s really important for us to acknowledge that, you know, a prolonged period of time where more people are leaving than joining the Canadian Armed Forces isn’t sustainable, and that just doing what we have always done and being patient that somehow it’s going to turn around isn’t good enough. Sometimes you have to do what’s required. And that was really what I was trying to do: to call people—like now we all have to come together and do what is required because the Canadian Armed Forces is important to this country. It’s important to maintaining our national defence, our national security. Canadians expect it of us and we’ve got to deliver.

Mercedes Stephenson: It felt a little bit maybe like you were talking to some of the generals in that room, and I saw their faces and they seemed to think you were talking to them, too. Do you feel that senior military leadership has dragged their feet on issues around recruiting and retention and making changes fast enough?

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: I have an enormous respect for them. I know that they’re up to the task. I think that all of us have a responsibility to come together, recognize what needs to be done and go get it done. It needs—we need to make significant new investments. I’ve said that many times. I’ve said that to my government as well. We need to make new investments in defence. But our most important asset is our people, and we need Canadians, and permanent residents now, to look for a career in the Canadian Armed Forces. We need to move quicker. We need to get people in. We need to get them trained. We need to get those positions filled so that we can fulfill our obligations to keep the country safe, live up to our international alliance obligations. There’s a great deal of work to be done and we’re not going to be able to do it without the people we need.

Mercedes Stephenson: Training those people is tough because there’s such a low number of people right now in the Canadian Armed Forces in the first place, that one of the challenges is they can either be on operations or they can be training, but they can’t do both.

One of the concerns that’s been raised to me by military recruiters is that in some of the ways that you’re trying to open up recruiting, which includes some controversial measures like dropping an aptitude test, or allowing people who have anaphylactic allergies to things like peanuts to join, people with mental health issues that previously would have been disqualified. They’re worried this is going to generate a huge glut of people, many of whom won’t be qualified to serve in the military, and they’re telling me they don’t have the capacity to process this. So how do you get around that bottleneck in the pipeline that if you pump a bunch more recruits in, but you haven’t put in the investment to process them, how does that work?

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: It’s a process of intake into the Canadian Armed Forces and by the way, a continuation of that process is all the things that we need to do to retain those good people when they come in to CAF. But at the same time, we clearly have to make some new investments in processing people, and frankly, we’ve got to go fast. When nearly 16 thousand people put an application in and say they’re interested in a career in the armed forces, and more than a year later, less than 100 of them have actually processed, that indicates that that’s not acceptable.

Mercedes Stephenson: One of the things I hear from people in the military, but I didn’t used to hear is ‘I hope my kid doesn’t join’. There’s a sense of really experienced personnel that they’re tired. They don’t feel a sense of purpose. They feel a lack of investment by the government. They see things like we saw come out last week, that the Canadian Armed Forces will no longer be able to train our own fighter pilots because we can’t replace the fleet of training planes, and they feel deeply demoralized by that. And I know as a former police officer, you understand how deep and emotional that call is for people who serve their country, put their lives on the line, to feel like what they’re doing is being valued by the people of Canada and the government. If they’re not feeling that, how do you fix it? And they say it’s not through being able to pierce your ears or wear nail polish or dye your beard purple.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: I think the most important thing we can do is help them be proud. Proud of the uniform they wear. Proud of the job they do. Proud of the team that they’re on and part of the role that they play on that team. And in order to make sure that they can be proud of the job they’re doing and that we have to adequately support them. We have to create a safe work environment, it’s part of the work we’ve been doing today. But also to make sure that they have the right equipment, the right training, good deployment opportunities and frankly, one of my jobs—but it’s a job that I share with many, certainly all of the leadership in the Canadian Armed Forces, frankly, all the membership of the Canadian Armed Forces—is to speak about the work that we do with pride, and to make sure that we support every man and woman who makes that choice to serve. It’s a remarkable choice, quite honestly. It’s an extraordinary thing when people say I’m going to make this commitment to public service. I’m going to defend my country. It’s a remarkable thing and I think we need to make sure that in every way possible, we are supporting individuals who’ve made that choice and that’s by speaking respectfully to them and helping them have a safe and respectful workforce, making sure that they’ve got the right equipment and training and opportunity to excel in service. And that’s the work that’s the challenge. I’m in agreement, we need to do more. We need to invest in new platforms. I think…

Mercedes Stephenson: Is the Prime Minister’s Office listening to you on that?

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: Yeah, they are. To be honest with you, a very robust discussion taking place on how we do what needs to be done. There’s a very strong acknowledgement: it needs to be done. I mean there are—there’s a lot of other, you know, competing challenges that the country faces, but we recognize the importance of investing in the Canadian Armed Forces and most importantly, investing in men and women who serve.

Mercedes Stephenson: Sexual misconduct has been a huge issue in the forces and last week, your government introduced legislation to open up the National Defence Act and make some pretty major changes, including removing the investigation and prosecution of criminal code sexual offences from the military. A lot of women felt they couldn’t come forward, that they were dissatisfied, and men as well. I’ve spoken to numerous men who experienced it. They couldn’t come forward. We were seeing complications in the investigation and we were seeing complications when these cases got into the civilian system, too, where civilian prosecutors didn’t understand what the military police were doing and cases didn’t go forward. It’s a long term solution, but in the short term, you’re shoving a lot of cases that have been in the military into the civilian system, and we all know the civilian system doesn’t have that much capacity. Is your government willing to step up to the plate to provide more resources, to make sure these cases don’t just languish? Because what’s happening is they’re being dropped. It’s too long before a trial. It’s two years and then somebody just walks away.

Mercedes Stephenson: As a former police officer, when you looked at the military justice system and how it was handling criminal sexual offences and how the military police were investing it, what did you think?

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: I have actually a long history of this. Back in the mid-80s, I was appointed as the sexual assault coordinator, investigative coordinator for the Toronto Police Service, and I was very much involved in the development of training programs for civilian police officers on sexual assault investigations in the early establishment of the sexual assault squad in Toronto. I’m not unfamiliar with some of those challenges that occur in every jurisdiction with these very difficult investigations, but at the same time, I also heard very clearly, the experience of many victims and their lack of trust in a system that’s supposed to protect them and supposed to support them, and they were very clear that they did not feel that it did. And so change is absolutely necessary. It’s really important to listen to people.

I want to say also, very carefully, we’ve had experiences of cases that were not properly handled on the military side. There’s been lots of cases where they were not properly handled on the civilian side, too. And I don’t see one as a panacea to all of these challenges. We need to do better for all of the victims of sexual assault in the military and in society. There’s still a great deal of work that needs to be done. We talked about the training of judges, the training of police officers. I think all of that’s really important and we’ve really got to—you’ve got to listen to people about their experiences in the criminal justice system, both investigative and prosecutorial, and to respond to providing them with the right supports. And for many of them, it isn’t necessarily the initiation of a criminal investigation with the arrest of the offender, or the prosecution, or even conviction of the offender. They need something more from that whole process, and it’s respect and it’s support, compassion and understanding. There’s a lot that is required there. I think we’ve all got a responsibility to make sure that that’s available not just to the CAF members, but to everybody.

Mercedes Stephenson: Minister Blair, thank you for joining us today.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: Okay. Thanks.

Pierre Poilievre, Conservative Leader: “Axing the tax…”

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, as the battle continues over the carbon tax, is it worth it for the environment? We’ll reality check the issue.

Mercedes Stephenson: The Liberal government survived a non-confidence vote over the carbon tax last week, so Canadians hoping for a carbon pricing pause or a change in government are out of luck.

Next month, the carbon price will rise to $80 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions. That translates for those of us at home to about 3 cents more per litre of gas, which means about 17 cents in carbon tax for each litre you buy.

While the axe the tax chorus from Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre and premiers gets louder ahead of the April 1st increase, a new report on emissions has added some interesting food for thought to the debate.

Joining me now to discuss his new report is Rick Smith. He is the president of the Canadian Climate Institute. Nice to see you, Rick. Thanks for joining us today.

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: It’s a pleasure to be here.

Mercedes Stephenson: We wanted to talk to you because we have been watching this political fight on Parliament Hill all week, the motions by the Conservatives, the non-confidence vote, which failed. The government stays in power, but a lot of really intense political debate about pricing carbon. What’s your reaction to what you’ve seen unfolding in the political world?

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: Well I mean this climate discussion’s very important, and our hope with this new report is to provide a little bit more light and take some of the heat out of this debate. And what we’ve done is really try to take a look at which policies are important in terms of moving us forward with climate progress and how they country’s been doing, and so I think these numbers will be helpful to move us forward in a more productive way.

Mercedes Stephenson: Yeah, I think that’s such a great point because we wonder what policies work. Are they making a difference? Yes, it’s a sacrifice, but is it worth it? So let’s break it down a bit for our viewers.

There’s sort of two kinds of carbon pricing that we’re focusing on in this interview in terms of Canadian policies. One that you’re probably the most familiar with at home is called the fuel charge. It puts a price on emissions from fuel that is used by smaller businesses, households and individuals. What’s the reduction in emissions of that? Well, 8-14 per cent. Then there’s the large emitter trading systems that puts a price on emissions from industrial emitters, that’s things like oil and gas companies. The share of their incremental emissions reductions is 20-48 per cent. So obviously, Rick, a much higher number there for industrial emitters. What did you find to be the most effective policy in terms of cutting back on our emissions?

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: Well it is a series of industrial emission systems that we have across the country. So we’re in a strange position in Canada, where most of the political debate has been focused on this aspect of carbon pricing, the consumer carbon price, the retail or the fuel charge, but in fact, it’s the industrial carbon price that is doing most of the heavy lifting. And so what we’ve tried to do in this report is to point that out, and then because that policy is so important to say okay, here’s some simple things that could be done to improve that policy to actually bring emissions down even faster from big industrial facilities. We think the industrial carbon price deserves more focus in the public debate.

Mercedes Stephenson: I’m sure that there’s lots of folks filling up at the pump who would love to see a higher, perhaps emphasis on large emitters rather than on individuals. What did you find in terms of effectiveness of the carbon tax that individual households are paying? Does it work to change behaviour? Does it make a big difference in our overall emissions?

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: Well I think it’s important to point out here that we took a look at a variety, a kind of basket of policies that the country now has in place, and these policies are working together to bring down emissions, and in fact, if you extrapolate out to 2030, the policies that we already have in place will reduce emissions about 40 per cent below what they would be if we didn’t have this series of policies. So there’s no question that the carbon policies that are in place are working. The consumer carbon tax is part of that architecture. But some of these policies are doing more heavy lifting than others, and certainly the industrial carbon price is top of that list.

Mercedes Stephenson: Is there an option then, do you think, for politicians to focus more heavily on industrial emitters and less on households? Or would that just set us up for missing our targets?

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: Well they certainly—because there’s been this—because the debate around the fuel charge has been sucking all of the oxygen out of the room, there hasn’t been much focus on these other policies that are contributing more to emission reduction. So we do think that there needs to be a different kind of debate in the country, and we’re hoping that these numbers provide a basis for that. These are actually the first numbers that try to tease apart the relative contribution of these different policies. And again, some evidence that the current policies are working, but we have a ways to go to hit these important targets by 2030.

Mercedes Stephenson: What would happen, both in terms of emissions and the possible fallout in terms of cost of living with environmental change, if we were to get rid of the carbon tax, the fuel tax on individuals?

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: Well of course, any policy that we take off the table is going to leave a hole that needs to be filled if we want to bring down carbon emissions as needs to happen. And of course, we’re about to head into summer months, every indication that this summer is going to be even hotter than the last. In parts of Western Canada in particular, we’re already into drought conditions way earlier than we’ve seen before. So we know that there’s a mounting impact and accelerating damage from climate change, so we know that we need to do a better job bringing down emissions. So what we need to do as a country is take a look at the totality of policies that are on the table and say okay, how are these things working together? How can we crank this up? How can improve these things? And we think that’s a more productive way of looking at things than this kind of obsessive focus on one policy.

Mercedes Stephenson: If you could sit down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the minister of environment and they said Rick, anything you tell us, we’re going to implement it. What would your advice be to them on how to move forward?

Mercedes Stephenson: Rick, really interesting stuff. Thank you for breaking this down for us into bite-sized chunks that we can understand what things look like, what the future might be. We appreciate it.

Rick Smith, President, Canadian Climate Institute: Thanks so much.

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, remembering Brian Mulroney.

Mercedes Stephenson: It was a week of remembering and celebrating the life and service of Brian Mulroney, a man known both for his political life and his human touch.

Mr. Mulroney drew thousands of dignitaries, politicians and everyday Canadians, to pay their respects to Canada’s 18th prime minister. But yesterday was the final goodbye for the nation and for his family, who have lost a husband, father and grandfather.

We leave you know with some moments from the service at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica.

Thanks for watching.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “Brian was motivated by service. He was motivated by leadership, by getting the big things right.”