Transcript Season 6 Episode 10

Host: Tom Clark

Guest Interviews: Haley Barbour, Roland Paris, Dwight Ball

Location: Ottawa

On this Sunday, a bitter election campaign that left both parties and the United States divided. As President-elect, Donald Trump prepares to take over the Oval Office in January. Can this political outsider unite the country and work with Congress?

Then, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invited Trump to Canada. Will the relationship between our two countries change under the new president?

And Newfoundland’s auditor general is calling for urgent action to combat a deficit that has grown by nearly $4 billion in just two years. The premier has a plan, but is it going to be enough?

It is Sunday, November the 13^th. And from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. And you are in The West Block.

Well, it was a political victory that stunned the country and the entire world. The election of Donald Trump as the 45^th president of the United States divided his party and the country. Late last week, President-elect Trump met with President Obama in the Oval Office where both leaders vowed to move on.

Barack Obama: I believe that it is important for all of us, regardless of party and regardless of political preferences, to now come together and work together, to deal with the many challenges that we face.

Donald Trump: Mr. President, it was a great honour being with you, and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future.

Tom Clark: But will all that polite talk be enough to man the political divide in the United States? Late last week, I sat down with former Mississippi governor, Haley Barbour. He was also the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a political aide to President Ronald Reagan. I got his thoughts on the Trump presidency and his party’s own future. Here’s that interview:

Governor Barbour, awfully good to have you here, thanks very much.

Haley Barbour: Thank you.

Tom Clark: You know during the campaign you had your differences with Donald Trump. You were concerned about a lot of what he did. You ended up supporting him in the end, but I’m wondering now that he’s president-elect, have you still got those concerns about the man?

Haley Barbour: Well, the first thing is there are some issues upon which we have different ideas and that’s fine. I mean my wife and I don’t agree on everything, so that was part of it. Part of it was I thought the campaign that they ran was too focused on the base and not trying enough to increase the supporters, which he ultimately did.

Tom Clark: And some of that, you’re talking about appealing to the base, and I take it what you’re talking about there was in the very early stages talking about building the wall which was very popular, and some of those issues that sort of people in the middle found a little bit offensive. Do you expect Donald Trump to be as radical in the Oval Office as he was on the campaign trail?

Haley Barbour: Well I don’t think his ideas will change. They may be smoothed out some as always is the case. But I think Donald Trump wants to get things done so he wants to work with Congress—my opinion—Congress wants to work with him. If you look at the Republican leaders, both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are doers. They want to get things done. And so if Trump wants to, they’ll work with him. And I think he wants to.

Tom Clark: You bring up something interesting because you’re talking about Congress which is controlled by the Republicans in both the House and the Senate. And in fact, most governors now are in the red column as well. But you know during the campaign, a lot of established Republicans, and I’m thinking of former presidents Bush, both George Herbert Walker and George W. distanced themselves. When you take a look then at the establishment if you want of the Republican Party, what has happened to the party that we used to know as the Republican Party? Has it changed so fundamentally?

Haley Barbour: Not really. First of all, 88 per cent of Republicans voted for Trump yesterday. That’s almost exactly what Romney got. It’s almost exactly what McCain got. Both got in the low 90s. A lot, a lot of Republicans came home. A lot of them didn’t come home till October but a lot of them came home. But you know Ronald Reagan was my boss. I was political rep for the White House for a couple of years for Reagan. Reagan was the most conservative president of the modern era. Not only perceived as such but he was. But Reagan compromised on everything because he had to, to get it done. And he was not going to let the ‘perfect be the enemy of the good.’ I see Donald Trump as a guy that wants to get things done, the art of the deal and all that. He is a good negotiator.

Tom Clark: So do you see him as being a sort of a Reagan Republican?

Haley Barbour: Not on a lot of issues, no. Economically, I think he very generally is in terms of domestic economics very close to Reagan. On energy policy be very close to Reagan; obviously on immigration and on trade policy very different from Reagan.

Tom Clark: On that issue of trade though, it is true that from a Canadian perspective, we’ve looked at the Republican Party as the party of trade. As it’s said, you know sometimes the Canadian heart may be with the Democrats but the Canadian head and wallet are with the Republicans. Because Donald Trump has said that he wants to radically renegotiate NAFTA or rip it up, how seriously do you think the Republican Party outside of the White House, in other words in Congress, would support that idea of cracking down or throwing out a free trade deal with Canada?

Haley Barbour: Well, there may be some people who would be for that but I don’t think there’s anything like a majority. I don’t think there’s anything like a majority in either party.

Tom Clark: So you’re saying if President-elect Trump tried doing that he might get pushback from the Republicans and Congress?

Haley Barbour: I just don’t believe that Congress in either party would do that. Look, Canada is often many years our biggest trading partner, a good trading partner, open borders that work. You know there are not many countries in the world that you can have an open border with. But the relationship between our two countries is so close that we effectively have open borders, and American people are totally comfortable with that. So I don’t see the trade relationship and the general economic relationship between your country and my country changing. I really don’t.

Tom Clark: Everybody seems to be saying at this point that there is this enormous cultural and political divide in America, maybe exacerbated by this campaign that we’ve just been through. And everybody talks about rebuilding. But specifically, where we stand right now, how do you bridge that chasm that exists between Democrats on one side and the new Trump reality on the other side?

Haley Barbour: Well some people would make you believe that divided government has caused this. Well Ronald Reagan was incredibly successful and popular in divided government. The Democrats had control of the House every day that he was president. Bill Clinton was very effective in divided government. The problem is not divided government, we need a president who will lead. And this president, President Obama is the most polarizing president of, I think modern times and maybe of all time. Very polarizing, and the country is not only polarized, it’s pretty evenly divided. So you’ve got this parody that’s accompanied by polarity, very unusual in the American experience.

Tom Clark: If you worry about one thing for the next four years, what would that be?

Haley Barbour: I worry about the world’s reaction to somebody they don’t know. That a lot of people look and say here’s a guy that’s president of the United States, I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know if he knows anything about what’s going on. So I don’t think he needs to make his business trying to make the world happy. I think he needs to make his business being effective in the United States, particularly with our economy, with crime, anti-terrorism. And the world will then say like they did about Ronald Reagan, we were scared about this guy when he first came in here. Darn, he turned out to be our best ally.

Tom Clark: Governor, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it very much.

Haley Barbour: Thank you, Tom.

Tom Clark: Well coming up, how will the Trump presidency affect Canada-U.S. relations?

Justin Trudeau: Look, we need to have a constructive relationship with whomever the Americans elect as their president and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

Tom Clark: Welcome back. Well that was the prime minister late last week responding to the election of Donald Trump. The relationship that Canada has with its closest neighbour will be, shall we say ‘in flux’, with President Trump on areas such as climate change, immigration and trade, given his stance on all these issues.

Well joining me now is Roland Paris, a former foreign policy advisor to Justin Trudeau, now at the University of Ottawa. Roland, good to have you here. You have been a critic of Donald Trump since the beginning on this. Do you believe that the world is a more dangerous place this week than it was last week before his election?

Roland Paris: Yeah, I’m not sure if it’s more dangerous this week but there’s a lot more uncertainty now. During his campaign, Donald Trump called into question some of the foundations of American foreign policy, including its trade commitments, its alliance commitments. I mean these are critically important. Not just to American partners and allies, but they are part of a network of arrangements and institutions that have helped underpin a largely stable, largely open international system for decades. So, I’m not convinced that Donald Trump is going to throw away NATO or tear up NAFTA. But we’re in a moment of uncertainty now where all of America’s partners are wondering what does it mean? How will those very significant changes that he was setting out in broad terms in his campaign be translated into specific policy?

Tom Clark: Let’s just as they say ‘get granular’ here for a moment on some of the issues that we’re going to face. You mentioned defence. You mentioned NATO. I hear this not only from just Republicans because Donald Trump has said it, but Democrats as well that there is going to be a big demand from the United States that countries such as Canada actually meet their NATO obligations in terms of spending on defence. We’re half of what our commitment is. If Democrats and Republicans are going to speak loudly about this issue—Obama did when he gave a speech to the House of Commons—is that something that we’re going to have to accommodate?

Roland Paris: It is, I mean I think we have to be thinking about these in two ways. One is the big picture and the other is the implications for Canada specifically. The big picture, as I was suggesting a minute ago, is that we have for the first time somebody who’s been elected as president of the United States, first time in generations basically calling into question the degree of commitment that the United States has to the security of its European allies. And let’s not forget that NATO and the American security commitment to Europe has had profoundly stabilizing effects, not just on European security but on the political stability of Europe basically almost for 70 years now. So we, Canada, have an interest in nudging the United States back into thinking about NATO as an alliance and not thinking about it in instrumental terms as a way of extracting resources.

Tom Clark: And that actually really—to interrupt for a second, but it brings up an interesting point because a lot of the concern on the foreign policy side is how cozy or relaxed is he going to be about Vladimir Putin in Russia and its objectives whether it be in Ukraine or whether it be in Eastern Europe.

Roland Paris: There are any numbers of these questions you’re pointing out, what is his relationship with Putin going to be? What is the relationship with NATO going to be, individual NATO countries in towards the alliance? You could ask the same questions about what is he going to do about the Iran deal? And then closer to home, what does he mean by tearing up or renegotiating NAFTA? For Asian allies, what does it mean to be calling into question the American security commitment there? These are big questions and when they’re unanswered, countries whose interests are engaged, they themselves have to start thinking about how they might position themselves in different scenarios. So that itself is problematic. But coming back to the point on Canada and NATO, Canada does pay less than a lot of other NATO allies in terms of our defence budget. What Canadian governments say, and it’s true, is that when Canada is called upon to provide forces to specific NATO missions that Canada almost always provides very useful forces and sometimes in leadership positions. Tough jobs, including in if you recall, the job that we’re doing in Afghanistan and more recently agreeing to send troops to Latvia in a leadership role but having said all that, we probably spending enough on our military.

Tom Clark: Well and the argument you outlined was exactly the argument that Stephen Harper outlined to me. We committed 2 per cent of GDP.

Ronald Paris: Fair enough.

Tom Clark: We committed 2 per cent of GDP to spend on defence. That is our commitment to NATO. We’re less than half or around half of that. So we are way below what we should be spending, what we agreed to spend, right?

Ronald Paris: Well there are very few countries that have actually met the 2 per cent target.

Tom Clark: Greece.

Ronald Paris: Well it’s a perfect example. Greece has, but Greece had less than 10 troops deployed to Afghanistan, for example. Whereas recently, Canada is one of four countries alongside the United States, Germany and the U.K. to take on a leadership role in the deterrence measures in Eastern Europe, we’re going to be leading the battle group in Latvia. Having said all that, I think that there are reasons internal to Canada to be thinking that we’re not spending enough on defence and so this is a time for us to be looking at our level of defence spending. And as you know, there’s a defence policy review underway right now. Given what we’re hearing from the United States it’s even more reason to be looking at those levels.

Tom Clark: I’ve only got 40 seconds left. How should countries like Canada proceed in the weeks and months ahead?

Ronald Paris: Well, I think that the Canadian government has already begun to open a conversation with the incoming administration and that’s critical for us. Our core interests with the United States are economic. Our merchandise exports to the United States alone account for one fifth of our total Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So part of that opening conversation is to make a case about the mutual benefits of this relationship and building on them. And the good news, and it’s not all good news, but part of the good news is that Donald Trump is a businessman and we do an enormous amount of business between our two countries. And I think that that’s a basis for Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump to have a productive conversation.

Tom Clark: Ronald Paris, terrific having you here as always. I appreciate your time.

Ronald Paris: Thank you.

Tom Clark: Thank you so much.

Well coming up next, Newfoundland Premier Dwight Ball maps out his plan nearly a year after being in power. That’s coming up next.

Tom Clark: Welcome back. Well, The Rock has been in a hard place when it comes to the economy. Last week, the auditor general raised the alarm and said its deficits, which reached $3.8 billion in just two years, was simply not sustainable. Newfoundland needs to cut its budget and boost its revenues if it hopes to meet its goal of getting out of debt by the year 2022. This week, Premier Dwight Ball launched the first part of his plan to get there and Premier Ball joins me now. Premier good to have you here.

Dwight Ball: It’s great to be here.

Tom Clark: Listen, just let me lay the table here a little bit. It’s a bit of an ugly table. You’ve got an unemployment rate of 14 per cent and scheduled to go higher. The revenues you’re getting from oil are down more than 70 per cent of what they used to be five years ago, and that’s just a little corner of it. First of all, how did Newfoundland get there? You became a have province. You were rolling in dough from oil on the offshore and now look at this mess. How’d that happen?

Dwight Ball: Well ironically enough, even now with a province per capita people we still lead the country when it comes to the amount of revenue that we actually generate. Unfortunately is, we also lead the country in the cost per capita on the services that we deliver. So really what it was is really over the last 10, 12 years when we had lots of oil money there was no preparation or no planning went to prepare for the day where the oil prices were not there and not able to produce the kind of revenue that’s required to sustain the types of services that have been in place.

Tom Clark: So you’re saying that the previous administrations in Newfoundland when it was good times and the oil was going—I mean at one point, I think you were making $3 billion on oil revenues alone. But is this a cautionary tale that nobody was putting money aside worrying about the day when this was all going to come to an end?

Dwight Ball: Well a couple of things, added to that is, we were running deficits when oil was at $100 dollars a barrel. We were making long term decisions based on oil being over $100 dollars. It was just simply not sustainable. Added to that, there was certainly a suite of services that were added, specialty offices and so on, really not core services of government. So what we’ve been able to do and able to do with our sustainability and growth plan that we talked about this year, Way Forward, our vision for the province is make sure that we can still deliver services, sometimes in a very different way, use technology more but make sure the services are reasonably located so that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians can access those services. But there’s no doubt, we had to do things differently.

Tom Clark: Well, and what the auditor general says that this is not sustainable. I guess it’s one thing to cut and I know part of your plan is get the waste out of government, the sort of thing that you’re talking about. That’s only going to take you so far. You’ve got to start getting money coming in. What is going to be the single largest form of revenue in the next five years for you?

Dwight Ball: Well there’ll be many. We will make sure that we extract whatever wealth we have available to us, if it’s within our hydro resources, if it’s within agriculture, if it’s within our forestry industry. We still have a lot of natural resources. I’ve often said we have the natural resources in one province that some countries would not have. So I’m very optimistic about our future but it will require some discipline. It will require focus. But we have an administration and we have a population now within the province that they understand where we are financially. And they understand that change will be required to make sure we get ourselves out of the situation that we’re into. But I’m convinced and optimistic that we will be able to do that.

Tom Clark: And this is not just confined to Newfoundland and Labrador because I take a look at Muskrat Falls. Muskrat Falls is way over budget, way out of schedule. The federal government has now extended a loan guarantee, so that’s everybody in Canada is now part of Muskrat Falls. Is this thing ever going to work? I mean it looks like an absolute disaster.

Dwight Ball: Well what we know about most hydro developments that over time, and if you take a 50-year period as an example, these things typically do have a way of making sure that they’re able to produce sustainable power for the long term. When you look at the commitment that we’ve made federally and provincially to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Muskrat Falls is an example provincially, will be able to help us and the country in doing so. No doubt, it is an expensive project. No doubt, right now is putting undue financial strain on our province in a very difficult time but it’s one of those projects that should have been planned better. But we’re going to see this through. There’s a significant amount of money already invested into this that the taxpayers and the rate payers of Newfoundland and Labrador will be responsible for.

Tom Clark: You’re not going to sell part of it to Quebec are you?

Dwight Ball: That is not our plan. We will not be doing that. But what we will be doing is making sure that we put mitigating measures in place so that we can keep rates low for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Tom Clark: In terms of other things that you want to do, you’ve talked about doubling aquaculture in the next period of time. You’re talking about increasing tourism. You know you’ve got some pretty good ads for tourism right now in Newfoundland and Labrador, but how are you going to double it? How are you going to create more fish farms? I mean you can’t do this without investing money and that’s money you haven’t got right now.

Dwight Ball: Well, it’s no doubt when you look at successful businesses and successful provinces, in sometimes you have to invest early to get the results and the revenue that you talked about in the long run. And it comes to making sure that you prepare yourself. We will have three mega projects right now within our province that within the next year or so will come to an end. And so therefore we had to plan now. We had to be aggressive now in how we invest. There will be risks that come with some of those investments as always. But aquaculture is one example that we see where there are opportunities to create jobs for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. And we’ve had a great tourism year this year. We’ve had people from all over Canada, from the Northeastern U.S. that have come to Newfoundland to experience what we already know. Because we live there, we already know is a very unique and different experience.

Tom Clark: Well, it’s a time to keep your sunny side up as you go through this. Premier Ball, you know a lot of politicians are in a position where they say my popularity will rise because I’ll have good news down the horizon. I’m not sure you’re quite there yet, but I appreciate your time and dropping in. Thanks very much for the conversation.

Dwight Ball: Thank you, Tom.

Tom Clark: I appreciate it.

That is our show for this week. I’m Tom Clark. Next week we’ll be coming from the Halifax International Security Forum. The first time that security experts and decision-makers have gathered since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

We leave you now though with some images and pictures of one of Canada’s greatest gifts to the world, Leonard Cohen, who passed away at age 82. See you next week.