Transcript Season 4 Episode 40

WATCH: full episode of The West Block with Tom Clark, aired June 14, 2015.

Host: Tom Clark

Guest Interviews: NDP leader Tom Mulcair, Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, CROP polling vice president Youri Rivest, Defence Minsiter Jason Kenney

Location: Ottawa

On this Sunday, New Democrats in historic territory with the NDP leading in the polls, the party is bracing for new attacks. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair is here.

Then, back to the future in Quebec: Gilles Duceppe is once again the Leader of the Bloc Quebecois. He joins us to explain why and we’ll ask a pollster what it means for Quebec.

Plus, the government is considering joining NATOs Rapid Reaction Force: Defence Minister Jason Kenney joins us from London.

It is Sunday, June the 14^th and from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. And you are in The West Block.

Well we’re four months from Election Day but a poll last Friday suggests that this country could be headed for an historic upset. Take a look at the latest numbers from EKOS. Of those who were asked who would they vote for if an election was held tomorrow? About 34 per cent said the NDP, 27 per cent said the Conservatives, and 23 per cent for the Liberals.

And joining me now is the Leader of the NDP, Tom Mulcair from Montreal. Mr. Mulcair good to have you here again.

Tom Mulcair:

Hi Tom.

Tom Clark:

You know, it’s not surprising with these numbers that the guns that the Liberals and the Conservatives have been aiming at each other are beginning to pivot now towards you. So I just want to take a look at what their targets are going to be against you in the coming weeks and months.

Tom Mulcair:

Sure.

Tom Clark:

First of all, spending, the Liberals claim that you put new spending on the table that amounts to about $35 billion over four years, $131 billion over eight years, so the question is where are you going to get this money?

Tom Mulcair:

That’s a debate that I’m looking forward to having with the Liberals. Everything that we’re doing, Tom is costed. When we did our child care announcement, we had one of Canada’s most respected economists with us to show that the numbers held. When I talk this week about municipalities and giving them a hand with infrastructure, you know, municipalities are responsible for 60 per cent of the infrastructure in Canada but they only have 8 per cent of the tax base. That doesn’t work mathematically so we’re going to participate. We’re going to be there. We’re going to be reliable and we showed where the money was coming from, a transfer from the bas tax, ramped up existing tax, not a new one. So it works, our numbers hold. But when I hear a number being put up like that by the Liberals, I really do look forward to having the debate with them because I think they’re having a little bit of trouble with their arithmetic.

Tom Clark:

What’s you’re estimate then as to how much you’ve laid on the table so far in extra costs?

Tom Mulcair:

Well, we put it out one at a time. Yesterday I was talking about three things: I was talking about infrastructure, I was talking about transit and I was talking about housing. Each one of those numbers was validated and money that’s coming from an existing tax, in the case of the infrastructure with regard to the transfer, the amount of money that we’re putting into transit is very well costed. The overall amount is corresponding to what we’re cutting from Stephen Harper’s. For example, he has something called Income Splitting that only benefits the wealthiest 15 per cent in Canadian society. We’re going to get rid of that and that’s where some of the money will flow into our other programs. I know this might come as a surprise but I don’t have the same priorities as Stephen Harper. We’re going to be spending money differently from them, but everything we’re doing is costed to the penny, Tom.

Tom Clark:

One of the things that you have said is that you are going to raise the corporate tax rate, I believe up to 19.5 per cent. But you’ve always said that you’re going to keep it a few points below the American corporate tax rate, but here is the problem, both the Republicans and the Democrats are saying, in the United States, that they’re going to lower the corporate tax rate. So, if the American corporate tax rate goes down, do you have to then lower the Canadian corporate tax rate, in other words, allowing the Americans to determine what the corporate tax rate is going to be in North America?

Tom Mulcair:

Just a small correction if I might in what you just said, Tom. I’ve never put out the 19.5 figure. That did appear in a newspaper article this week. It didn’t come from us. What I’ve always said, for years now, is that we’re going to raise the corporate tax rates for large corporations to something closer to the G7 average because those are our closest trading partners and we’re well below their average.

Tom Clark:

So, is it, if it’s not 19.5 per cent then, what is it?

Tom Mulcair:

Well, it came down gradually. It’s going to be brought back up gradually. We’re going to get revenue from that, but we haven’t given a fixed number on what the percentage will be. We’re working on that and that’s going to be part of all the fixed costs and all of the numbers that are going to be published just before the election campaign.

Tom Clark:

Let me talk about a different type of money because this is something that hangs over you, and I’m talking about this $2.7 million that the Board of Internal Economy, albeit a rather political board, you’ve called it a kangaroo court, has said that you and the NDP, have misspent or spent that money illegally. How are you going to have this resolved and let me ask you in a very focused way, would you have the auditor general come in and take a look at this and try and get it decided before the election?

Tom Mulcair:

Well we’ve actually tried to take it to a real court and now the Conservatives are trying to stall that, saying that courts don’t have jurisdiction over this. But you make a fine point, that this is simply a partisan attack by the old time parties. It’s the Liberals and the Conservatives using their majority and the secretive Board of Internal Economy and if people don’t understand what that body is, they can be forgiven because it is so secretive. That’s the body behind closed doors where journalists like you are not allowed to get a look at the books. We’ve said for a long time that that Board of Internal Economy should be completely open to the public. We believe that every penny of public money that gets spent should be seen by the public. They’re allowed to track every penny of it, including the hundreds of millions of dollars that are spent by Parliament. With regard to the auditor general, the NDP proposed that. The Liberals and the Conservatives voted against it. When we form government, we’re going to open up the Board of Internal Economy. You will see how every penny is spent and we think that the auditor general should be playing a part of that. With regard to this partisan attack, everybody can see right through that, Tom.

Tom Clark:

Well except the reality is going to hit you in July when Parliament no longer pays your expenses because in effect they’re garnishing your wages to get this money back.

Tom Mulcair:

Well there’s no question of that, Tom. That’s not going to happen.

Tom Clark:

Why not?

Tom Mulcair:

Tom Clark:

You’re out there saying that you’re going to abolish the Senate. You know, we polled all the provincial governments last week. We found seven governments representing 50 per cent of the population, that’s the amending formula, who said they were willing to reopen the Constitution if it meant Senate reform. But the two biggest provinces, Ontario and Quebec, said no to abolition. So, you know that’s not going to happen. Why then keep on promising something that you know you can’t deliver?

Tom Mulcair:

I don’t take the same point of view as you. I’m going to work hard, as the prime minister, across the country to convince the provinces that it is in our interest to get rid of this archaic institution that’s undemocratic, it’s unaccountable and it simply has no place in a free and democratic society.

Tom Clark:

But you could reform it right now or—

Tom Mulcair:

No, that’s false, Tom. No I don’t know who told you that but—

Tom Clark:

Well seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population—

Tom Mulcair:

No.

Tom Clark:

So seven premiers told us that.

Tom Mulcair:

No, that’s not the amending formula. It’s not the 7/50 amending formula.

Tom Clark:
For reform it is.

Tom Mulcair:

No, the Supreme Court said you cannot change the rules of the Senate without unanimity. That’s what the Supreme Court has ruled.

Tom Clark:

Well, we’ll avoid a constitutional debate on this, Mr. Mulcair. I appreciate your time as always and thanks very much for being here.

Tom Mulcair:

Great to talk to you again, Tom. All the best. Bye-bye.

Tom Clark:

Well by the way, since then, we have double and triple checked this: Senate reform can indeed be done with seven provinces, representing 50 per cent of the population. Abolishing the Senate or dramatically changing its powers, that takes unanimity, and maybe that’s what Mr. Mulcair meant. The Supreme Court decision can be found by going to our website.

Well coming up next, Gilles Duceppe returns to the federal scene to lead the Bloc Quebecois. What’s behind his comeback? We’ll ask him next.

Break

Tom Clark:

Welcome back. Well it took almost everyone by surprise and it added a new element to discussions about the federal election. Gilles Duceppe is back. The former leader of the Bloc Quebecois is once again the current leader of the Bloc Quebecois. He stepped down after the party was decimated in the 2011 election. It went down to just four seats in the House of Commons and they’re now down to just two MPs here in Ottawa.

Well joining me now is the once and future leader of the Bloc Quebecois, Gilles Duceppe. Monsieur Duceppe welcome back.

Gilles Duceppe:

Well it’s a pleasure to be here.

Tom Clark:

First question, the obvious question, what on Earth are you thinking coming back to this?

Gilles Duceppe:

Well, I didn’t think of that before last Tuesday. Not this Tuesday, the one before—ten days ago. When Mario Beaulieau came to me we used to have lunch together to help them making analysis or meeting young militants or helping in a financial campaign, things like that. So I was surprised when he said, well we’re well organized. We have associations in each riding. We’ve got more than 20,000 members which is not bad and we’ve got no debt, money in bank, but we need someone better known than me. I want you to be the leader. I said, well that was quite a change in my life. I was not running after that, at all.

Tom Clark:

Did he give you any polling information that showed that if you were leading the Bloc Quebecois that you could do better than Beaulieu?

Gilles Duceppe:

Well, I will tell you something, I never commented the poll but I will tell you also that don’t believe a political party if they say they don’t make polls.

Tom Clark:

Gilles Duceppe:

And I didn’t tell you. I didn’t.

Tom Clark:

Let me put it another way to you then, what is your measure of success? What is the threshold that you have to cross in order to deem this to be a success?

Gilles Duceppe:

Well, I always refuse to answer that question and sorry for those answers but I think I want to do my best, want every candidate to do his best, to make all the efforts. This is which is important in life; able to see you in the mirror after the campaign, even if you lose. I don’t want to lose and I think I’ll win. But having said that, I play football a lot of time, a lot of years I would say, and if you start again thinking you’ll lose, you’ll lose. If you start again saying I don’t have to make any efforts, I’ll win. You’ll lose also. So you have to play the game. And play the game, it means you give shots but you receive shots also.

Tom Clark:

But, okay, let’s take a look at the playing field. Okay, so your major opponent in Quebec, at this point anyway, appears to be the NDP.

Gilles Duceppe:

At this point, yeah.

Tom Clark:

And Tom Mulcair. The NDP can make the argument to Quebecers that if you don’t want Stephen Harper but you want somebody who has a shot at becoming government, you vote NDP.

Gilles Duceppe:

That is for sure—

Tom Clark:

You will never form government. You don’t want to form government so why would any Quebecer want to vote for you as opposed to a party that could be in government?

Gilles Duceppe:

Yeah. Last time, exactly what they said, result was that Harper was in majority for the first time. And since then, we’re not defending Quebec’s interest a lot of time in that place. We’re not talking about Quebec as it was the case when the Bloc was there. And we used to respect the opponents. We negotiated a lot of times. We obtained things under Jean Chrétien majority government and also under—I supported too Harper’s budgets because they were good for Quebec.

Tom Clark:

If after October 19^th, there is a choice for you, if you support the Conservatives, Stephen Harper stays on a prime minister. If you support the NDP and the Liberals, Harper is finished. Which way do you go?

Gilles Duceppe:

It depends what they have to offer.

Tom Clark:

So you’re open to a sort of coalition or support of Stephen Harper?

Gilles Duceppe:

I’m always looking at a proposal for its own value. I don’t mind who’s proposing what. It depends on what are they proposing. I negotiated a lot before being in politics and I know we could have very different interests but sometimes those different interests have a common goal. The lines are crossing each other. You have to find a way—the place where it comes. So—

Tom Clark:

Whoever comes to you with the best deal is—

Gilles Duceppe:

Best deal for Quebec.

Tom Clark:

That’s who you’ll dance with.

Gilles Duceppe:

That’s my only concern, what’s the best deal for Quebec.

Tom Clark:

Could be the Conservatives, could be the Liberals.

Gilles Duceppe:

It depends what they’re proposing. I don’t mind. Otherwise, I don’t think it shows a very high degree of responsibility. Telling people I agree with you even if I don’t know what you’re proposing. I mean I’m not like that. I want to know. I want to be sure. I want to have a signature under it. Then, I say it’s okay or not. I think I’m elected for that. Not to tell people I prefer the red or the blue or the yellow. It’s not the question of preferring a colour or another. It’s a question of what are you getting and what are you asking and what did you say during the last campaign? It’s too easy to say I want this but just to keep my seat, I’ll say another thing. I’m not like that. I’ll never be like that.

Tom Clark:

Interesting months ahead. Gilles Duceppe I thank you very much for your time.

Joining me to take a look at what Gilles Duceppe’s return may mean to Quebec politics is Youri Rivest he is the vice president of the polling firm, CROP in Quebec. Mr. Rivest thanks very much for being here. Is this going to have a significant impact on the numbers in Quebec do you think?

Youri Rivest:

It’s hard to tell because Mr. Duceppe is very popular. His awareness is very high. He’s credible and I think among Quebecers he’s considered, I’d say a state person at the provincial level. Even people who don’t vote for him respect him. However, the Bloc trails behind. They’re right now, 30 points behind NDP so is Gilles Duceppe sufficient? That’s a question.

Tom Clark:

And this really is, in Quebec I guess, a fight between the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois now isn’t it?

Youri Rivest:

Yes, but still the Liberals are in the race and the Conservatives too in the Quebec region.

Tom Clark:

And this brings up another question because as many seats as the Bloc may win, I’m wondering what their effect is going to be in ridings where they lose. In other words, in those ridings where the Bloc and the NDP may split the vote, could there be unintended positive consequences for the Liberals or even for the Conservatives?

Youri Rivest:

Yes that can be the case because people hesitate between the Bloc and the NDP so what the Bloc has is what the NDP doesn’t have. So maybe a Conservative or a Liberal can win the four-way race.

Tom Clark:
and you pointed out in your research as well that the Conservatives may actually benefit by this because Quebecers by and large think the Conservatives have done not a bad job, right?

Youri Rivest:

Yes, usually when you look at the voting intention and the satisfaction to a government, the numbers are pretty much the same and it’s not the case for the Conservatives. They only have about 15 per cent support, but 35 per cent of Quebecers are satisfied with the way they manage a country. So they have room to grow.

Tom Clark:

Just in the last minute that we’ve got Mr. Rivest, the polling shows that support for sovereignty right now is around 33, 30 per cent somewhere in there. Do all of those sovereigntist votes automatically go to the Bloc Quebecois?

Youri Rivest:

Most of them but it’s hard to tell because I don’t know of the election will be on sovereignty and the way it used to be where the Bloc said, you know, you’re a Quebecer, we’re a Quebecer, vote for us. And that’s what they did in the 90s and until 2011. But I think the ballot question will be more do you want to replace the Conservatives or not? And if it’s the case, that should favour the NDP. And if it’s the case, the Bloc is in trouble, even with Mr. Duceppe.

Tom Clark:

Youri Rivest vice president of the polling firm CROP in Quebec, I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.

Youri Rivest:

Thank you.

Tom Clark:

Well coming up next, Canada is considering joining NATOs Quick Reaction Force. What does that mean? We’ll ask the minister of defence, next.

Break

Tom Clark:

Welcome back. Canada may be about to send our soldiers back to Europe on a permanent basis. The government is considering joining a new military formation called the NATO Rapid Response Unit, 30,000 strong to respond quickly to both civilian and military threats.

Joining me now from London is Canada’s Defence Minister Jason Kenney. Minister Kenney thanks very much for being here. The government has been considering this now for almost two years, in other words, before the Ukrainian crisis even started, but what’s the rationale? What’s the thinking behind it? Why would we want to be part of this force?

Jason Kenney:

Well NATO is understandably concerned, Tom about the increasingly aggressive posture of Russia under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, including his illegal invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea. The Baltic States with Russian minorities, Poland and other eastern European countries, some of which the prime minister and I just visited, are understandably preoccupied. I think we all agree with them, that the strongest way of deterring, preventing Russian misstep is through a posture of determination of solidarity, so that’s why NATO has decided to have this Readiness Action Plan which involves current assurance members, that’s reflected by the 200 troops that we currently have on training exercises based out of Poland. The Baltic air policing operations that our Air Force has been involved in and the deployment of HMCS Fredericton and other Canadian frigates to assist NATO maritime exercises and we are looking at what more we might contribute in the future.

Tom Clark:

Right, but the notion of this Rapid Response Force was something that’s been talked about before anything happened in Ukraine. So this is not a response to Vladimir Putin and Ukraine. This had been talked about before then.

Jason Kenney:

Well certainly discussion at the Whales NATO Summit last year was very much informed by Putin’s aggression. There has been a discussion way back a few years, you’re quite right, about bringing together NATO assets to be more effectively and efficiently deployed, but this has been given a new relevance given Russian aggression.

Tom Clark:

Let’s just sort of delve into the for instances, and against the background that you haven’t made up your mind yet on what to do here, but first of all, realistically, how many Canadian soldiers could we afford to send to this unit?

Jason Kenney:

Well we’re just scoping out options at this point, Tom. We’re far from making any final decisions. This is we’re talking about a multi-year commitment on the part of several countries to the very high Readiness Task Force that you’re speaking of. For example, will be meeting, while I’m in London with the British defence secretary, the United Kingdom will be leading this high Readiness Task Force in one of the years and they’ve indicated to us they’d like Canadians to participate. They haven’t defined in which way. Quite frankly, I would not foresee large scale Canadian long term military commitments in Europe, simply because we’re the only NATO country that does not have a permanent base in Europe and it’s extremely expensive for us to forward deploy our troops here for any length of time. So we’ll look at ways that we can make a meaningful contribution without creating a kind of expensive permanent presence here.

Tom Clark:

Can I take you down the road though, let’s say for instance, that this force has been created and Canada is part of it. Can you sort of describe to me under what conditions or what circumstance would Canadian troops be in armed conflict as a result of this force and also, if they were in conflict, would Canada have anything to say about this?

Jason Kenney:

Well the circumstance, Tom is defined by the NATO treaty, under Article 5. If one of the NATO countries is invaded, then there is an obligation on all of the NATO treaty member states to respond. And of course, that would be coordinated by NATO supreme command and they would call upon, presumably, Canadian assets to support a NATO ally that’s been invaded. And so, that’s the whole point of the alliance and the point is, through that solidarity to send a message to any potential aggressors not to risk a conflict of that nature, and we hope and believe that that message is being sent right now.

Tom Clark:

I asked this question of Russian Ambassador last week so let me put it to you. Can you foresee any circumstances where Canada would go to war with Russia?

Jason Kenney:

I don’t think we want to speculate on remote hypotheticals of that nature. We think the best way of avoiding that potential is by sending Moscow a message of strength and not weakness. So the prime minister was in Kiev meeting with President Poroshenko last week. We were in Poland meeting with their leadership. As you know, we were in the Baltic Sea and met with the prime minister of Italy. Every European leader with whom we met agreed that the best way to prevent a misstep by Vladimir Putin in terms of his policy of aggression is through a posture of deterrence, of solidarity, of strength and that’s what NATO is demonstrating.

Tom Clark:

Defence Minister Jason Kenney joining us from London this morning. Thanks very much for being here.

Jason Kenney:

Thank you, Tom.

Tom Clark:

Well that is our show for this week. Thanks very much for joining us. As we go, we want to show you some pictures of the renovation on that other West Block. On the outside, it really is quite spectacular. See you next Sunday.