The West Block Transcript: Season 6 Episode 13

THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 14, Season 6
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Host: Tom Clark

Guest Interviews: Premier Brad Wall, Arif Virani, Michelle Rempel, Susan Delacourt, Chris Waddell

Location: Ottawa

On this Sunday, troubled waters on climate change action and health care: The premiers and the prime minister face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball.

One year later, many Syrian refugees are facing a bleak future as money dries up and jobs don’t materialize. Should Ottawa be doing more? We’ll debate that.

And ‘fake news’, stuff that people make up and put on social media. It’s not just a nuisance; it’s a threat to politics and democracy. Is there anything that can be done?

It is Sunday, December the 11^th. And from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. And you are in The West Block.

No deal, a nationwide agreement on climate change action has hit resistance from the west. I spoke with one of the decenters late on Friday night.

Joining me now from the site of the conference is Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall. Premier thanks very much for being here. Boy that was some negotiation you had to go through today. Here’s my opening question to you, the Government of Canada is calling this a Pan-Canadian framework for climate change action. You’re not in it. In your mind, is this a Pan-Canadian solution?

Premier Brad Wall: Well, I’m not sure about that debate. I’ll just say this, Tom; we’re serious about the climate change issue. There’s much in the framework we like. We’re going to continue with our own plans to move towards 50 per cent renewables to make the largest per capita investment in CCS technology that exists in North America. But we think a carbon tax is just fundamentally wrong for Saskatchewan. We have carbon intense industries that create jobs and provide quality of life and provide a tax base for all the services  we prize and frankly allow us to contribute as a have province and we don’t want to those sectors or those jobs at risk. And we really believe this would do this and notwithstanding the revenue neutrality promise which really is unclear. There are so many questions about this, I just didn’t feel right signing off and so whether the feds call it Pan-Canadian or not, it’s really irrelevant to us in Saskatchewan. We simply can’t sign this.

Tom Clark: You know, I couldn’t help but notice that the prime minister, and even some of your other fellow premiers, refers to the fact that Saskatchewan represents only 3 per cent of the population of Canada, almost completely minimizing your objective to that. Were you offended by that?

Premier Brad Wall: You know what—they can say what they want to say. They want to use numbers. I’ll just tell you this; Saskatchewan represents 100 per cent of the people that I work for. And that’s what has to shape my positions on issues and it’s what will continue to shape those positions. It’s just my questions have not been answered, Tom. I mean again, I’ve heard on this revenue argument that look if you’ve got a potash mine that is competing with the Russian potash mine and they don’t have a carbon tax, just take the proceeds from your carbon tax and reduce the taxes for the potash mine. In other words, keep the emitter whole. Well then what’s the point? This tax is supposed to reduce emissions and change behaviour. But if that’s the commitment they’re making then it’s just this bureaucratic merry-go-round. If we can’t keep the emitters whole then we will lose jobs in those sectors. And moreover, Tom there’s been an election south of the border, everybody knows for good or for ill, Donald Trump is going to be the new president. And he’s just appointed a new head of the EPA, who is, if you read his bio, not all that enthusiastic about the climate change battle. They’re not going to have a carbon tax and so are we going to go into the new relationship with the United States, our number one competitor and trading partner with them at an advantage because they don’t have a carbon tax we’ve imposed on ourselves. Australia’s moved away from it. France is moving away from it and we’re running towards it very fast in a rushed way without answers to basic questions in my view.

Tom Clark: Well, it’s clear what you’re against premier, but I guess what I wonder about is what are you for in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the levels that everybody has agreed to. If it’s not going to be a price on carbon, if you’re going to meet those targets on those dates how are you going to do that?

Premier Brad Wall: Well, we have an electrical utility in Saskatchewan. At SaskPower we’ve directed as the shareholder that SaskPower move to 50 per cent renewables by 2030. That’s going to get us a long ways there. We’re going to continue to invest in CCS. We right now have one of 14 existing coal plants in the world with actual technology that’s working. We’re now burning coal at that plant two times cleaner than natural gas. That technology doesn’t just help us, it’s part of our answer to your question, Tom. We think Canada should lead internationally. We’re responsible for 1.6 to 2 per cent of global emissions from this country and while we’re myopically focused on a tax to try to deal with that, 30 per cent of that really, there’s 2,000 coal plants being built in Asia. How about if Canada led? How about if we focused on technology that could actually clean up the coal? And we’re saying in Saskatchewan we made that investment, let’s do the next generations of it. We should focus on adaptation. We’re going to do that through continued research on crop science for climate change resilient varieties. Agriculture is apparently a powerful sync or offset to carbon because of nitrogen fixing crops like pulses, like lentils. And we have pasture land at sequestering CO2. We’re absolutely committed to doing our part. We just think a carbon tax aimed at 30 per cent of 1.6 of global emissions that may not work frankly if you take a look at the models where it’s in place to hit targets and risk the economy in the bargain just isn’t the right thing, at least not at this time when the energy sector’s already suffering considerably.

Tom Clark: Premier Wall, there’s obviously a lot to discuss going forward but I appreciate you joining us today to kick off that conversation. Thanks very much.

Premier Brad Wall: Tom, we’re going to miss you. All the best to you in your future.

Tom Clark: Thank you sir, I appreciate that.

Up next, how are Syrian refugees settling in one year after arriving in Canada?

Tom Clark: Welcome back. It is month 13 for many of the Syrian refugees who arrived in Canada last year. That means that government support is beginning to dry up. So how is Canada doing when it comes to resettling the thousands of refugees that we’ve welcomed in? Joining me now to talk about that is Arif Virani. And joining me from Calgary is the Conservative critic for immigration, Michelle Rempel. Welcome to you both. Arif, let me start with you and ask you what do we know about the cohort that came in last year? How many have found jobs first of all?

Arif Virani: So what we know is that out of the cohort that came in last year, there are 35,000 people that have arrived to date. As you noted, the first flights arrived as of tomorrow so the one-year anniversary is upon us. And we know that they are doing exactly the same in terms of their employability or employment statistics as previous refugee cohorts—

Tom Clark: Okay, I have no idea what that means? How many have got jobs?

Arif Virani: About half of the adult population have—

Tom Clark: So half, so that’s about 15,000 have got jobs?

Arif Virani: No because out of the 36,000 half are adults.

Tom Clark: Right.

Arif Virani: So you’re talking about 18,000, so about 9,000.

Tom Clark: Nine thousand (9,000) have got jobs.

Arif Virani: Yes.

Tom Clark: And how many don’t have jobs? About another 9,000?

Arif Virani: About another 9,000.

Tom Clark: Okay 9,000. Michelle Rempel, is this what we were expecting? Is this what you were expecting when we brought in the 25,000 to 30,000 refugees that a year later we would have 9,000 of them unemployed?

Michelle Rempel: Well, I think that everybody in Canada wants to help out with this dire humanitarian situation but the real rubber hits the road kind of right about now. And because the government was so focused on numbers, I think that they did lack a plan in terms of looking towards the future in terms of successful integration. So over the last year, we’ve had many witnesses in front of our parliamentary committee talking about how there’s a lack of funding, right down through provincial governments to things like elementary schools. Here in Calgary, I had the Calgary school board out in Ottawa and they were talking about how they took in the equivalent of a whole new elementary school full of kids and they didn’t receive any additional funding. We heard from experts across the country that they don’t have adequate funding for language training. So some of the people that you mentioned that are unemployed, especially when I think about women who might be excluded because they’ve got kids at home, they’re not being able to access services and there’s a lot of people who are really saying look the government is downloading costs to the provinces on this. So for me, it’s two things. If I can just—

Tom Clark: There’s a lot on the table there. I just want to stop for a second and let Arif come in because a Senate committee late last week came out with a report saying many of these things.

Arif Virani: Yes.

Tom Clark: That there’s not enough money for language training. If you don’t have language training, tough to get a job, tough even to find the right bus to get onto to go for a job interview.

Arif Virani: So the language training, the Senate committee report was very thorough and we’re very glad to have received it. In terms of the training, overall $900 million is dedicated in this past fiscal year towards settlement of all newcomers. Thirty-million dollars ($30 million) is dedicated specifically to Syrians. One month ago, we added $18 million to that overall total dedicated again specifically to Syrians to address part of these two needs that Michelle just addressed. One is language. And secondly is a program for what’s called settlement workers in Schools to address the very concern that has been raised by many individuals about the fact that the impact that this is having at the school level or in communities has been significant.

Tom Clark: Let me ask you this though, when your government first launched on this, and you would have gamed this out, you would have had some sense of what would happen. Did you think that there would be half of them unemployed after the first year?

Arif Virani: Well that goes back to the point I made at the outset, Tom which is that in fact it’s about exactly commensurate with other refugee populations. So you may know that I came as part of the Ugandan Asian wave in 1972. We’ve had waves—the Vietnamese boat people in the late 70s, early 80s. When you look at all of those cohorts, it usually takes a number of years before people are attaining at the same economic levels as other Canadians of who have been here multiple generations. And their children actually overachieve compared to Canadian born individuals.

Tom Clark: Michelle, let me go back to you because the government has said that they want to bring in perhaps as many as 30,000 more refugees from Syria. Given what we are facing now after the first year, is this simply a question of money? Is this just a question of throwing some money at this problem? What do you think?

Michelle Rempel: I really hate that the government is using money as a metric of success here. For me, it is how many people have found employment. You know the minister wasn’t even able to answer this question and that really concerns me. I think what we need to do is have a solid plan that is transparent to the Canadian taxpayer on the true costs of these programs. When the government was running on this promise of 30,000 refugees or 25—I don’t know what it was during the campaign. They said in their “fully costed campaign document” that it was only going to cost $250 million. And we now know that it’s going to be well above that. The government’s not able to talk about the cost of social assistance for these people that are unemployed. And look, we want people to integrate.

Tom Clark: Hang on a second, Michelle I just want to ask you something. Just let me ask you then. Given the deficiencies that you’ve pointed out, should Canada go ahead and accept the next wave of refugees?

Michelle Rempel: Well I think that the government needs to put forward a plan to Canadians that’s fully costed, that shows how those people are going to become employed, under what time period and what the cost to the Canadian taxpayer is going to be. There’s also a side conversation that we need to have as well too and it’s where are we drawing our refugee cohort from? This year we had a very rigorous debate in the House of Commons around the Yazidi genocide. The government did not acknowledge that the first time a motion went into the House. Now they’ve agreed to bring in some of the most vulnerable refugees but they won’t give a number on how many of those people there are. So for me, it’s two pronged. It’s not just about looking at the costs which are absolutely important. We want people to integrate successfully to have employment but it’s also who and from where?

Tom Clark: Okay, I want to get to Arif on that.

Arif Virani: Sure, and so a number of responses. So first of all, on the costing issue, the original estimates about the lodging for example, of the Syrian refugee cohort came in at $70 million under budget which was interesting for us to note the Conservative Party—

Tom Clark: But your global budget was nowhere close to what you spent, right?

Michelle Rempel: Yeah, that’s crazy man. It’s like way north of a billion, maybe $2 billion.

Arif Virani: The point that Michelle is raising is an important one in terms of the costing overall for the settlement. What we’ve heard from people around the country from coast to coast who are concerned about the incredible project we’ve undertaken is that they want to see more refugee settlements, not less. And they want to see more commitment to settlement agencies, not less. That’s what we’re hearing from private—

Tom Clark: To the point—very quickly Michelle, go ahead.

Michelle Rempel: I was just going to say—actually who deserves credit here for where there has been a lot of work happening is the private sector with our private sponsor refugee program. There are groups that have raised money to see the integration of these refugees that have been given absolutely no credit by the government. So I think that’s important to know too.

Tom Clark: Okay, I want to give the last 15 seconds to you, Arif.

Arif Virani: Okay, so I categorically reject that and as proof positive, the numbers of refugees that are coming in this year are 40,000 for the upcoming year, down from 55,000. But the number of private settlement refugees is 16,000, which is exactly commensurate with the 17,000 brought in last year. And that’s in recognition of the important contribution the province—

Michelle Rempel: But there’s no costing for the government sponsored refugees.

Tom Clark: I’m going to have to bring this to an end. It’s a terrific debate and one that should be happening in this country everywhere. Arif, thank you very much, and Michelle Rempel in Calgary, thank you for being part of this. I appreciate your time.

Michelle Rempel: Thank you.

Arif Virani: Thank you.

Tom Clark: Well coming up next, with the rise of fake news, does the truth really matter anymore in politics?

Hillary Clinton: “The epidemic of malicious, fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year, it’s now clear that so-called ‘fake news’ can have real-world consequences. This isn’t about politics or partisanship. Lives are at risk. Lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days to do their jobs and contribute to their communities. It’s a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly.”

Tom Clark: Well that of course is former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talking about fake news late last week. Clinton was responding to false reports spreading online during her election campaign accusing her of running a child sex ring just outside of downtown Washington. The business models for traditional media are failing and that means fewer reporters with fewer resources. And at the same time, fake or misleading news is exploding on social media skewing the political debate, perhaps even the outcome of elections. What does this mean for democracy and engagement in the political debate?

Well joining me now to discuss this is veteran journalist and author Susan Delacourt, and associate professor of journalism at Carleton University, Chris Waddell. Chris, let me start with you and let’s start with definitions. Fake news, what is it?

Chris Waddell: Let me try, conspiracy theories, lies, distortions, things that are partially true but playing to the prejudices of people. All those things put together, I think.

Tom Clark: On social media.

Chris Waddell: On social media and largely transmitted because the internet can move material around and get it to lots of people.

Tom Clark: And Susan, sticking with definition. Okay, so if that’s fake news, how prevalent is it? Where is it? How much is it taking over what people see, read and hear?

Susan Delacourt: Well, we’ve always had in political science, it’s called a pseudo-event. There are a lot of things that happen in Ottawa that are not really news; they’re just events because people declare them to be. I think we’re seeing a few more of those. But I think where Canada has been different from the United States, and I fear we may not be for long, has been in the idea that there’s an agreed upon set of facts. That we all sort of agree on certain things are happening and certain things did happen. But I think when you see people starting to lose their institutional memory of what happened. You can see people inventing things. I’ve seen it happen more often in the House of Commons that people stood up and said ‘You did this’ or ‘you are going to do this’ and it gets out there because there are people around to fact check it.

Tom Clark: So the problem as I see it is this, that in this post-truth environment where anybody can write anything and it might affect a lot of people is as I said right at the beginning. What does this do for the average Canadian who wants to follow, participate in the political debate when the debate itself becomes so corrupted and they don’t know where to turn and all of a sudden is there a debate anymore? Is there a national debate anymore?

Chris Waddell: Well yeah, I think there is. But I think what’s happened as well, Tom is as we’ve moved away from the days when we had what we call mainstream media, existing news organizations that actually had standards and if you were reading it in your local paper you knew what the standards were and those sorts of things. We’re now moving to on several levels, anybody can be a journalist. Anybody can create a news organization. And we’ve also got it being distributed by Facebook. And I think Facebook is a big issue in all of this because what Facebook does is Facebook essentially distributes anonymously the material in that the readers of Facebook, you have to work a little hard to figure out the source of the information that you see. And I think a lot of people don’t do that.

Tom Clark: I want to pick on something you said. You talked about that anybody could become a journalist, and by extension that means anybody can have a news organization that’s a fake news organization.

Chris Waddell: Yes.

Tom Clark: I’m thinking, for example, recently the Rebel Media far right organization that poses as a news organization. Well it’s actually a participant.

Susan Delacourt: It creates an event and then pretends to report on it.

Tom Clark: Yeah.

Susan Delacourt: I think the interesting numbers were out this week. iPolitics did an analysis of gallery data showing that the numbers of gallery journalists are down now to the lowest they’ve been in 22 years. And what is possible, it is possible now to report on Parliament Hill, for anybody to set themselves up, watch CPAC, watch TV, have conversations on e-mail and Twitter with politicians from far, far away from here. That federal politics, you need not go over and set foot in the House of Commons. What’s setting foot in the House of Commons and dealing with politicians day-to-day does for people is that it’s very hard to lie about a politician and face them the next day. It’s very easy to do it on social media, on Twitter, and it’s very easy to make up facts when you never have to stare down the people you’re writing about.

Tom Clark: Let’s move this into the next area and we’ve sort of described how bad it can get and how corrosive this can be to our democracy but what do we do about it? Or is there anything we can do about it?

Tom Clark: Is there a dangerous, Susan, for example, as much as politicians may share our angst about fake news and how this is disrupting things, a lot of politicians are going to go excellent. This is perfect; it’s exactly what I want.

Susan Delacourt: Yeah, well I wrote a whole book on marketing and its influence on that.

Tom Clark: That’s right.

Susan Delacourt: And you know there’s good marketing and there’s bad marketing. And there is going to be good politicians and bad politicians. The problem is that the power to be a bad politician is exponentially increased when you can send the message out so broadly.

Chris Waddell: But it’s always been around. And if you go back to the old scandal sheets of the old days and the papers in the start of the 20^th century, yellow journalism, all those sorts of things. The difference is you’re able to distribute that much more widely and the people who are doing it are able to target it in a much more focused fashion to generate the responses for some of what Susan’s talking about from audiences that will then lead to responses that the politician wants to have.

Susan Delacourt: We’re not going to be able to slow down information. I think we just as usual, we have to place faith in good conscious and hope that citizens—always the best innovations come when citizens demand them. So we can only hope that citizens are going to demand that they get real news, not fake.

Chris Waddell: And news organizations, large, small, new and old, can’t let up on their obligation to keep pointing out what’s right, what’s factual, what’s not factual to call out lies—

Tom Clark: Tougher to do with smaller budgets and smaller staff.

Chris Waddell: Yeah, and you may not be able to do it on everything. Maybe you have to pick what you’re going to do it on. But you still have to keep doing it. The accountability rule of news organizations, both new and old, can’t change and shouldn’t change.

Tom Clark: Well the good news is, for real news, people can come to The West Block and hear conversations like this. Chris Waddell—

Susan Delacourt: Well of course we could be making this all up.

Chris Waddell: Well yeah.

Tom Clark: Susan Delacourt, I think your name is. Thank you both very much. I appreciate your time.

Well that is our show for today. We leave you now with some images from the Christmas Light Show on Parliament Hill, which will continue until January the 7^th. Thanks for joining us today, I’m Tom Clark. Have a great week ahead. We’ll see you next Sunday.