Transcript: Season 4, Episode 22

Watch: The full broadcast of The West Block with Tom Clark, aired Sunday, February 8, 2015. 

Host: Tom Clark

Guest Interviews: Conservative MPs Steven Fletcher and Brad Trost, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau,The Canadian Press Otttawa bureau chief Heather Scoffield and Mark Kennedy from the Ottawa Citizen.

Location: Ottawa

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On this Sunday, an historic decision by the Supreme Court, striking down a ban on doctor-assisted suicide.  We look at what happens next.

Then, an exclusive interview with Justin Trudeau about his environmental policy that leaves the heavy lifting up to the provinces with a little bit of federal support.

And then, “Canada will never become a safe haven for zombies, ever!”

Vintage John Baird, but no more, the political pit bull has slipped his leash.  We unpack the politics of that surprise move.

It is Sunday, February the 8th and from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark.  And you are in The West Block.

It was a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court, the law banning doctor-assisted suicide has been struck down.  In its place some guidelines from the court on what happens next like a new law has to be in place within a year.  And the court laid out a few conditions:  a person seeking assisted death must be a competent adult who clearly consents to this procedure.  The person must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition and that condition must cause endless suffering that is intolerable to the person.  And the suffering though can be physical or it can be psychological.

Well joining me now is Conservative MP Steven Fletcher from the Winnipeg area and also a long-time proponent of physician assisted suicide.  Mr. Fletcher welcome.  Friday was an extraordinary day for you.  You’ve been fighting this for a long, long time but we’re now moving into a different phase.  Now the decision is here, the question is, what comes next?  What do we do?  And let’s start on the political level.  You know your own caucus as well as anybody does.  How much of a fight or a division internally is this going to cause for your party?

Steven Fletcher:

I don’t think it will cause any kind of division or fight.  We are not monolithic in our beliefs.  We have many issues that there are different points of view on.

Tom Clark:

But you’ve also got a very socially conservative wing of your party that has long opposed this.

Steven Fletcher:

Sure, we also have a libertarian wing in our party.  We have a lot of people who believe in empowerment of the individual and that the state shouldn’t be involved in people’s lives.  You know people that have that point of view and the social conservative point of view is a legitimate point of view.  It shouldn’t just be dismissed off hand.

Tom Clark:

But let’s take a look at where the fault lines may be in this discussion, both within your party and across the country, from these sides.  And it really comes down to what the government should do now.  And first and foremost, if the government is really opposed to this, it could use the notwithstanding clause, first time in Canadian history that the federal government would do it.  Do you think that’s even an option that the government would try to overrule the Supreme Court?

Steven Fletcher:

No, absolutely not.

Tom Clark:

Okay.  In that case, you’re left really with, I guess, two other options.  And one is to take the court decision, codify it into a new law.  Define what you mean by certain terms that the court laid down, irremediable illness for example, what exactly is that? Or you could choose to do nothing as we’ve done with abortion.  There’s no law against it but there’s no law for it.  Which way do you go?

Steven Fletcher:

Well, I think there needs to be some law that would codify some of the ambiguities that may exist.  The issue…one cannot just leave it open, I don’t think because if someone is assisted in death and they didn’t have the consent, that is breaking the law and that is murder.  And nothing changes that.  We also…

Tom Clark:

So your point…sorry to interrupt, but your point then is that some sort of law is needed.  The court has given Parliament one year.  Little bit of a problem with an election coming in the midst of it.  So two election related questions, is this going to be an issue in the upcoming election in your view?

Steven Fletcher:

Well it depends if Parliament is able to deal with it before the next election.  If it is, I think it won’t be an election issue and if the Parliament isn’t able to deal with it, it probably will be an election issue, but it won’t be an issue like a partisan election issue.  I think it would be riding by riding, candidate by candidate, constituent asking the candidate which way they will go, which is different than just about everything else.

Tom Clark:

But I guess there’s really only one way that everybody can go, the court was unanimous in its decision.  There’s no sort of candidate to stand up and say I’m against it.

Steven Fletcher:

Well they can say they’re against it for themselves or whatever but I guess it depends on your point of view how much of the codification…how much sort of framing should Parliament produce?  And you’re right it could be left perhaps to the provinces to decide.

Tom Clark:

Steven Fletcher, I’ve got to cut it off there but congratulations, you have fought long and hard for this and any political victory should be recognized.

Steven Fletcher:

Thank you, Tom.

Tom Clark:

And joining me now from Saskatoon is Conservative MP Brad Trost.  Mr. Trost, you have been opposed to physician assisted suicide for some time, however, is the end of it?  Has the decision been made and will you go along with it?

Brad Trost:

Well, I suspect Tom actually this is just the beginning of it.  I suspect the government will put together some sort of law, legislation depending on the nuances of the ruling and I suspect someone else is going to bring this back to court again in a couple more years and we may go through two or three iterations of this.  So I suspect this isn’t the end of it.  The court reversed its opinion of 20 years ago and who knows what the court will rule again in 20 years when this comes up again.

Tom Clark:

Politically speaking, the government, your government that you support has to make a decision as to what they do.  You say they’re going to pass a law, would you be in favour of them using the notwithstanding clause to overturn the Supreme Court decision?

Brad Trost:

I suspect the majority of Parliament would be.  I personally would probably be quite comfortable with it but I rather suspect the government’s not going to go that way for a couple of reasons.  Probably first above everything else, I suspect the majority of the Parliament would not be thinking something similar to what I would be.

Tom Clark:

You are part of a group of what we would call social Conservatives, certainly in the Conservative caucus.  Are you thinking that there is any sort of rear guard action that you can mount at this point?  Either helping to write the restrictions in such a way that it preserves some of your opinion on this?

Brad Trost:

Well I think we should be very pragmatic about this but I also think we should be very principled about it.  First of all, I think we should very much put in the legislation, whatever legislation comes forth.  Conscience rights for everyone who is involved in the medical profession dealing with this issue.  I also think many Canadians, even Canadians who are strongly supportive of this decision, would feel quite comfortable with the tightest possible restrictions and the strongest possible safeguards.  So if it is as appears after the decision of a couple days ago, that we have to write legislation, I suspect Canadians would feel most comfortable with some very tight, very strong safeguards.  And even though I’m not thrilled with this decision, I think we’ll look into those and be supportive of what can be put forward.

Tom Clark:

It sure sounds that even under those conditions that there are some fights ahead, even within your caucus and perhaps others as well.  Do you think this is going to become an election issue?

Brad Trost:

I think it would become an election issue as far as individual candidates and individual ridings.  Our party believes this is a conscience issue.  Conservative embers of Parliament hold divergent views on it.  Many hold the position that I do, many do not. So I think as far as individual candidates being responsible to their electorate, yes, but as far as a party-wide Conservative, Liberal, NDP issue, I don’t think so. You have to remember, even Jack Layton’s NDP, joined the Conservatives and Liberals in defeating euthanasia assisted suicide legislation in previous parliaments.  So all political parties have some very, very serious concerns about the issues involved here.

Tom Clark:

Brad Trost from Saskatoon, thanks very much for dropping in today, I appreciate your point of view.

Brad Trost:

Thank you.

Tom Clark:

And we’ll unpack the politics of all of this, plus the departure of John Baird a little later in the show.  But first, Justin Trudeau’s plan for the federal government to bring all provinces together in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Will it include imposed carbon taxes?  Find out next.

Break

Tom Clark:

Welcome back.  Well Justin Trudeau has outlined his plan to tackle climate change if he becomes prime minister.  Criticizing Stephen Harper on his environmental record, Trudeau says he would set up a national standard giving provinces the freedom to set the policies needed to make it happen.  And to sweeten the deal, his government would throw in some money.  We spoke to Mr. Trudeau shortly after his announcement in Calgary.

And joining me now from Calgary is Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.  Mr. Trudeau thanks very much for being here.  This in many ways is the most detailed policy that you’ve put out so far, but I think there are a few details missing.  I want to start with one.  You talk about this notion of cooperative federalism, that Ottawa sets the goals the provinces enact but what if a province says, I don’t like your goals, I’m not going to participate in this.  What about the enforcement?

Justin Trudeau:

Well at the centre of this proposal is an understanding that in order to develop strong economy, in order to get the social license for many of the resource projects that keep Alberta’s economy growing, is the need to be strong on environmental oversight and strong on emissions reductions.  And that’s what Mr. Prentice has indicated as premier and that’s what we know that provinces and Canadians want to see.  So to actually sit down and work together to build a plan that is going to be national in scope but recognize the different challenges and opportunities of the provinces, is at the heart of what makes Canada work well.

Tom Clark:

But let’s take for example, what would happen if Brad Wall sat down with you, if you were elected prime minister, you want to enact this, you said you’d do it within 90 days.  And what is Premier Wall said, you know what prime minister, I’m just not interested in being part of this.

Justin Trudeau:

Well I think there was when we created medicare as a country, there were a lot of people; Saskatchewan was first in that case, that ended up coming on board in their own pace and in their own time.  And I think one of the things we’ve seen is that provinces right across the country, 86 per cent of our economy have actually indicated yes, we need to price carbon, we need to move forward with mechanisms to reduce our emissions.  And the only thing that’s missing really is a leadership from the federal government that’s actually pulling it together and showing international partners and Canadians that we are serious about reducing emissions.

Tom Clark:

Well let me bring together two things that you’ve just said:  carbon pricing and leadership from Ottawa.  Under your plan, you encourage provinces to put a price on carbon.  That will be part you say of the cooperative effort of this but why didn’t you suggest that Ottawa put a price on carbon?  I mean I’m not sure I understand what the difference would be in the first case and if we’re talking about leadership, there’s a whole body of opinion out there that says putting a price on carbon federally would be a pretty effective way to go.

Justin Trudeau:

Yes, but the provinces have already moved forward.  I mean four of our biggest provinces have done that already.  Ontario is about to and it wouldn’t make sense for the federal government to then turn to BC that has a very effective process to say no, no, you’re going to do this one instead.  So what I’m focused on is sitting down with the premiers in a First Ministers conferences, the likes of which this prime minister hasn’t held in an awfully long time, and actually work out a process whereby we can show the world that we are serious about it and that provinces will do their part, as will the federal government in making sure that we’re attaining our carbon emission reduction goals.

Tom Clark:

Part of this plan is that the feds will help out the provinces.  I’ve got two questions on that.  Because you want to institute this so quickly, if you are elected, how much is this going to cost?  How much money will be going to the provinces?

Justin Trudeau:

Well that’s a big part of what we’re going to sit down and negotiate.  My commitments are to get going on doing this right away.  The setup of framework and a plan that we can move for in time for Paris where I hope that the federal government and the provinces will at least go together and not be sniping at each other as we were in Copenhagen unfortunately.  So that kind of pulling people together is the starting point that means that we will be able to finally move forward on reducing our emissions in this country in a responsible way.  This isn’t an end plan.  This is a beginning of picking up on the nine years of lacking leadership from the federal government.

Tom Clark:

Well you know that we have a national goal already.  It’s reducing our carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020.  That will be just five years away.  Would you continue with the sector by sector approach to get to that mark, the 17 per cent mark or would you start a whole new concept in order to get there.  And could this plan of yours get us there at all?

Justin Trudeau:

Well these questions are obviously what we’re going to be working on with the provinces and lead up to Paris and following Paris, but the fact is, the Conservative government’s Copenhagen set targets are not going to be met.  The government’s own scientists have recognized that so we’re starting from a place where all of Canada is significantly behind.  And that’s what we’re going to have to work on and that’s why this kind of leadership that recognizes the very strengths of our federation and uses those to our advantage, is what we need to do.

Tom Clark:

I’ve literally only got 20 seconds left.  You were speaking at the Petroleum Club in Calgary, so after your speech, did any big oil person come up to you and say that’s a heck of an idea, Justin?

Justin Trudeau:

Listen there was a lot of openness.  I had some meetings with CEO’s over the past couple of days and there is an understanding that we need to get right on the environment if we’re going to build the economy, and that’s what I’m serious about doing.

Tom Clark:

Justin Trudeau, Leader of the Liberal Party, joining me from Calgary.  Thanks very much for being here, I appreciate your time.

Justin Trudeau:

Always a pleasure, Tom.

Tom Clark:

Still to come, we unpack the politics of what you’ve heard.  What about that sudden announcement from John Baird?  Harper’s pit bull in Parliament is out, is stepping down.  That discussion is next.

Break

Tom Clark:

Wow, what a week in Ottawa it was last week. Joining me to unpack the politics of it:  Heather Scoffield the Bureau Chief for the Canadian Press here in Ottawa and Mark Kennedy, the Parliamentary Bureau Chief for the Ottawa Citizen.

Let’s start with the Supreme Court ruling on physician assisted death.  The question I kept on asking politicians last Friday was this, is this going to become an election issue and how divisive is this going to be within the Conservative caucus itself, knowing that those social Conservatives have long opposed this idea.  Heather, do you want to take a stab?

Heather Scoffield:

Well they are going to be wrestling with it.  They already are within their own party but I mean even within the broader public, people want to talk about this.  We’re dealing with a demographic here that we’ve got adults that are dealing with aging parents and you know the younger generation too worried about this kind of thing.  It resonates very far and wide, not necessarily with people taking opinions on either side but it’s something that pulls people in.  So you know it’s not just a debate that they can have amongst themselves and try to figure out where they go.  It’s something that’s very, very emotional.  I mean we saw it in all the news conferences in the reaction to the ruling last week where people could hardly contain themselves on one side or the other.  And it’s going to show up in the election campaign, not just in terms of right to die but also, how do we take care of the aging and what is the federal role in health care?  And that’s very uncomfortable for the Conservatives.

Mark Kennedy:

When the ruling came down, I couldn’t help but start thinking, what is Stephen Harper doing right now?  He must be climbing the walls because Stephen Harper has a long history of objecting to judge-made law.  And in this case, he’s already had the instance of a court making a ruling on prostitution that he had to deal with.  And in this case, as he heads towards the fall election campaign, the question is, does he take a position on this issue, and if not, why not?  And if he does, how does he balance that problem that he’ll be having from the social Conservatives within his caucus.  It’s a real political dilemma for Stephen Harper.  It’ll drive him crazy.

Tom Clark:

It wasn’t the only political dilemma he had last week.  I want to show you something here, a little bit of tape.  So John Baird, the pit bull slips his leash and there’s the scene in the House of Commons where Stephen Harper goes over and hugs John Baird.  You can see it coming up here.  It seemed like a warm hug but boy it didn’t last much longer than a couple of seconds and then take a look.  The Prime Minister says, yeah I’m out of here.  We know that he was blindsided by the decision.  This has really got to rankle the folks in the PMO and especially Stephen Harper heading into an election campaign.

Heather Scoffield:

Definitely, I mean the Prime Minister’s lost a lot of his close inner circle to him over the past few years, especially Jim Flaherty, but also Nigel Wright.  And now you know John Baird was the person left there that would give him I think speak truth to power and now that that’s gone and you know it leaves him looking a little bit isolated there in the PMO, especially because I think you know the Prime Minister wears some of that for having the top soldier leave.

Tom Clark:

I might say, rather than speak truth to power, it’s more like bellow truth to power or bellow at anybody.  But Mark, I don’t know…we do know that Stephen Harper didn’t know about this until he turned on his TV set and there it was.

Mark Kennedy:

Yeah, that shocked me frankly because I think the two of them got along.  I think they became friends politically, personally and they did have a close acquaintanceship.  So what goes on here?  Why did Mr. Baird leave?  He says he’s doing it for personal reasons.  We still don’t know where he’s going but what it does do, is again, put Stephen Harper in a really tight spot because he’s going into this campaign, trying to tell voters, look to me, look to my party, look to my government because we are the people of experience.  We are the reliable ones at a time of economic uncertainty, uncertainly in the foreign stage; you do not want to look to the Liberals.  What’s happening?  He’s already lost a Finance Minister last year.  Now he’s losing his Foreign Affairs Minister.  Peter MacKay says he’s going to stay but if he was to go, it would start raising the question, why are they leaving?

Tom Clark:

Yeah, and it’s that very thing, people wondering the signal that it sends out has got to be the most damaging of all.

Heather Scoffield:

And we still don’t have a clear read on that, right?  But you have to remember that you know every time we come up to an election, people leave.  People leave in workplaces generally but you know, that doesn’t seem to quite all answer…when you’re talking about the very, very top levels of power, it doesn’t seem to quite answer all those questions.  And they’ve got to fill that void very quickly.  They don’t have very much time to do that.  It’s still quite a few months until the election but filling that spot, he leaves a big hole.

Mark Kennedy:

But the bottom line says when a prime minister loses his foreign affairs minister he shouldn’t find out about it the night before.

Tom Clark:

Yeah, exactly.  Listen, I want to go to another thing because there was another uncomfortable leader in the House last week and that was Tom Mulcair in the NDP.  Board of Internal Economy says they have to repay $2.75 million dollars of money that they say was improperly spent, although there didn’t seem to be any evidence that it was spent on lavish dinners or trips to Las Vegas.  It was parliamentary business but in the wrong place.  The NDP are loathe to talk about it.  The one thing I don’t understand is that they did admit that at one point they were trying to come to a settlement on it.  Well if you’ve done nothing wrong, as the NDP insists, why are you trying to come to a settlement?

Heather Scoffield:
That’s a very, very awkward position for them to be in but I think there is an argument to be had.  Even if you believe you’re right and there’s nothing that wrangles them more, they really don’t want to talk about it.  But even if you think you’re right, you’ve got to make the problem go away, right?  And I guess if they thought that that was the best way to make it go away, that’s kind of one way to square that circle, but it didn’t succeed did it?  It’s still here.

Tom Clark:

It’s still around, yeah.

Mark Kennedy:

They want to go into this campaign trying to tell voters that they are different.  They’ve always told voters that the NDP somehow is different than the two mainline parties.  Well now they’re a mainline party because they’ve got about a hundred seats in the House of Commons and the impression that’s being formed, with the help of the Board of Internal Economy, is that they’re just as crooked as anyone else, and that’s the last thing Mulcair wants.

Tom Clark:

It certainly changes the narrative.  Fascinating week.  Anyway, Heather Scoffield of the Canadian Press and Mark Kennedy of the Ottawa Citizen, thanks very much for helping us take a look in at a little bit of what was going on.  I appreciate your time.

Mark Kennedy:

Right.

Heather Scoffield:

Thanks.

Tom Clark:

Well that is our show for today.  Let us know what you think about the subject that we’ve talked about today.  You can find us online at www.thewestblock.ca, also on Twitter and Facebook.  Thanks very much for joining us.  I’m Tom Clark.  Have a great week.  We’ll see you back here next Sunday.