THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 37, Season 6
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Host: Vassy Kapelos
Guest Interviews: Minister Chrystia Freeland, Michael Isikoff,
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose
Location: Ottawa
On this Sunday, the Trump administration gives 90 days’ notice to renegotiate NAFTA. Talks are expected to begin in August. What is Canada looking for in a new deal?
Then, as President Donald Trump continues his first overseas visit since taking office, the turmoil surrounding his administration after he fired the FBI director, grows. Does the chaos affect the president’s ability to govern and what about the investigation into Russia’s role in the U.S. election?
Plus, we’ll talk to Rona Ambrose about what lies ahead as she prepares to hand over the leadership reins of the Conservative Party.
It’s Sunday, May 21st. I’m Vassy Kapelos. And this is The West Block.
Late last week, the Trump administration officially gave its 90 day notice to renegotiate NAFTA. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the Canadian government is keen to get started and will work to modernize the agreement for labour and the environment. But when talks begin in August, will the U.S. insist on side deals with Canada and Mexico? And will the U.S. push for a complete overhaul of the deal or just a few tweaks?
Joining me now from Toronto is Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. Minister Freeland, great to have you on the show, thanks for your time.
Chrystia Freeland: Great to be with you, Vassy.
Vassy Kapelos: Minister you head to Mexico on Tuesday to meet with your counterparts to discuss NAFTA. I’m wondering are there any sections of the agreement that you’d be willing to negotiate in a bilateral capacity as President Trump has indicated he might prefer, or is the deal a take it or leave it kind of thing where all three countries are in it together no matter what?
Chrystia Freeland: The important thing to remember about NAFTA is that it is a trilateral agreement. And so I think it really makes sense that the negotiation should be a trilateral negotiation. That’s certainly the approach that we’re taking, and I think that that is going to be the approach that all the parties take. In order to make changes to NAFTA we’re going to have to have agreement of all three parties. But I am really looking forward to spending some time in Mexico with my counterparts, Luis Videgaray, the foreign minister and Ildefonso Guajardo, the trade minister because it’s good for Canada and Mexico to spend a little bit of time talking about our bilateral relationship and also talking about what both our countries are hoping to get out of this really valuable opportunity to modernize NAFTA.
Vassy Kapelos: So for you this is trilateral all the way. At this point you don’t see any sort of breakoff bilateral sort of sub-agreements.
Chrystia Freeland: Look, NAFTA like many other multilateral trade agreements does have bilateral side letters. That’s very standard practice. But the bulk of the agreement is a trilateral agreement and so it should be. And I am confident it will be a trilateral negotiation.
Vassy Kapelos: On the subject of trade, but shifting a little bit, I wanted to ask you about a statement you issued last week which stated in part, and I quote, “We strongly disagree with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision to initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations into imports of Canadian large civil aircraft.” You go on to say “Canada is reviewing current military procurement that relates to Boeing.” So I’m wondering does that mean that the Super Hornet deal with Boeing for Canada’s military is no longer happening.
Chrystia Freeland: The statement was very carefully worded and it means exactly what it says. We think that the commerce decision to initiate an investigation into Bombardier is mistaken and wrong, and this was at the request of Boeing. And so it’s important for Boeing to appreciate that we will be reviewing our military procurement in light of this.
Vassy Kapelos: How long will the review of military procurement take?
Chrystia Freeland: This is a developing situation. I have every confidence that it will be resolved to the satisfaction of Canada, the U.S., Bombardier and Boeing. So let’s see how things develop.
Vassy Kapelos: I understand that you’re saying it’s carefully worded—
Chrystia Freeland: But I do want to be clear, Vassy, that Canada will in this case and in all other trade cases, be very strong and very firm in defending Canadian companies, and above all, in defending Canadian workers. We’re going to be very tough in standing up for the national economic interest. I think that’s what Canadians expect and that is what they can count on.
Vassy Kapelos: Do you think Boeing has a point at all in saying that it’s unfair, and this is a point that other governments around the world have made too, it’s unfair that Bombardier is subsidized by taxpayer money.
Chrystia Freeland: As I said Vassy, my statement was very carefully worded and I think it was very clear that we believe that the commerce decision to initiate an investigation, and we should also be clear, the investigation has not yet concluded. It’s just at its very outset. We think that was a mistake. We’re strongly opposed to it. And we’ve also been clear that for Boeing, the company that started this off, there will be consequences in terms of how the Government of Canada looks at its relationship with that company. And we think that this is very clearly an effort to keep the C-series. This is very clearly a protectionist effort to keep the C-series out of the U.S. market, and that’s not something that we can stand for.
Vassy Kapelos: You made another statement last week, this time in the House of Commons and it was in support of Magnitsky-style legislation coming out of the Senate that supports sanctions against human rights abusers. Why did you choose to express support for the bill now and what message are you sending Russia?
Chrystia Freeland: Well, I think it’s important to understand that my friend, Senator Reynell Andreychuk’s bill S-226 is a global one. And from the government’s perspective, this is really about bringing our diplomatic tools in line with how the world works in the 21st century. It’s not directed towards any specific country. This is about giving our government the tools to say if you are a gross violator of human rights, if you are grossly corrupt, the Government of Canada should have the ability to individually sanction you and to say it’s not okay for you to come on holiday to Whistler or the Rockies or to buy a beautiful holiday home in Vancouver or Toronto. We want to be able to say that individual conduct is conduct that our country won’t stand for. Right now, the foreign policy tools are designed to address state to state conflicts. But there are many instances now where there’s an individual in a country who we as a country will want to choose to sanction and focus on. And that is what the legislation that is being contemplated here proposes.
Vassy Kapelos: Thank you very much for your time, minister. I appreciate it.
Chrystia Freeland: Great to be with you.
Vassy Kapelos: Up next, turmoil within the Trump administration as a former FBI director is called into investigation possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election.
Donald Trump: “The entire thing has been a witch hunt, and there is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself and the Russians. Zero. I think it divides the country. I think we have a very divided country because of that and many other things.”
Vassy Kapelos: Welcome back. That was President Trump late last week responding to questions on possible involvement between him, his campaign and Russia during elections last year. FBI director James Comey was investigating Russia’s role in the U.S. election until President Trump abruptly fired him last week, which triggered the assistant attorney general to name a special council to take over the investigation. All of this as the president embarks on his first foreign trip since taking office in January.
Joining me now from Washington to help explain it all is chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, Michael Isikoff. Mr. Isikoff, great to see you, thanks for being on the program.
Michael Isikoff: Good to be with you.
Vassy Kapelos: Help us make sense of all this. What do you make of the past week there in Washington? What just happened?
Michael Isikoff: It’s been crazy. I mean what else can you say? But look this is clearly blown up into a major scandal/investigation that is sucking up all the oxygen in Washington and is going to plague the Trump White House and administration for a long period of time. And what’s so astonishing about this is that so much of it is self-inflicted wounds. Trump now has a special counsel investigating him. Bob Mueller, a tough as nails prosecutor, no nonsense former FBI director who has absolutely no interest other than making criminal cases against people associated with Donald Trump. That’s his charge. He is there to bring criminal prosecutions. And it is likely he never would have been appointed if Trump hadn’t made such a botch of his firing of FBI director Jim Comey without any warning, putting out a false story saying that it came at the recommendation of the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, which was not true. He had to own up and admit—he Trump—that it was his idea to begin with. He only asked Rosenstein to come up with a memo to justify it and that contradiction and false account forced Rosenstein’s hand in order to preserve his own reputation as a non-partisan impartial law enforcement official. He made the decision to have Bob Mueller come in and bet the special counsel. And that means that we’re going to have this ongoing criminal investigation of the Trump White House and people associated with the Trump campaign in the hands of a guy who will have absolutely no compunction about subpoenaing every document, demanding testimony and trying to make a criminal case.
Vassy Kapelos: So given that, what did you make of Mr. Trump’s reaction when he essentially called it a witch hunt? I think he tweeted out ‘this is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.’
Michael Isikoff: You know it is standard in situations like this and I’ve covered many of them, investigations involving the White House that White House officials come out and say we’re going to cooperate with the investigation. I’ve never seen anybody come out and say we’re going to cooperate with a witch hunt. So you do have to wonder if this isn’t very calculated on Trump’s part to lay the groundwork for a) not cooperating in this investigation, b) trying to discredit it in some way, and c) if it gets too out of hand, setting the stage for is demanding of his own justice department that they fire Bob Mueller. Now obviously that would blow things up politically as if they aren’t already blown up in Washington. But knowing everything we know about Donald Trump and the way he operates, I don’t think it’s at all inconceivable.
Vassy Kapelos: Looking at the bigger picture, and when you talk about sucking all the air out of Washington up with these scandals, do you think it’s possible for the Trump administration to move forward on any of its actual agenda items with everything that’s going on?
Michael Isikoff: Well they’re certainly going to try, but they’ve shot themselves in the foot so many times here and they’ve made it so much more difficult. Then you have Democrats, who if they’re not talking using the ‘I’ word right now, impeachment, they’re all thinking about it and wondering if that’s where this is going to end up. And what’s astonishing about it is that all this has happened. You know we’re at a Watergate level of hysteria going on here and yet we still don’t have anybody charged much less convicted of an actual crime. We don’t know if there’s any criminal act that underlies all this, but we have extremely suspicious behaviour on the part of the president and his top people, and that’s fueled this whole scandal. And like I said it’s remarkable because there still isn’t an underlying crime at the centre of it.
Vassy Kapelos: Given that, we just have about 30 seconds left, but what will you be watching for next week with President Trump on that first foreign trip?
Michael Isikoff: Well look there’s a lot about Mid-East policy on this trip that’s very significant. We’ve even had this week, it’s almost completely overlooked. But a rather sharp change in policy towards Syria in which the White House has essentially said there can never be a stable Syria while Bashar al-Assad is in power. That is very important, but got totally overlooked because of the Comey-Russia scandal blow up. I think I think the next shoe to drop is Comey’s testimony, and that’s going to be riveting. It’s going to transfix Washington and it’s going to keep this very much alive and on the front pages.
Vassy Kapelos: Transfixing us here in Canada as well. Thanks so much for your time, Mr. Isikoff.
Michael Isikoff: Sure enough, thank you.
Vassy Kapelos: Up next, a conversation with outgoing interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose about why she’s leaving politics and what’s next for her.
Vassy Kapelos: Welcome back. For the past 18 months, Rona Ambrose has been the interim leader of the Conservative Party. Late last week, we went for a walk in the park near her Ottawa home to talk about her life in politics and why she’s decided to give up her seat on the Hill as she hands over the leadership reins. Here’s that conversation:
So thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it.
Rona Ambrose: Thank you.
Vassy Kapelos: It’s great to see you.
Rona Ambrose: You too.
Vassy Kapelos: This is my last opportunity to interview you in this capacity and I wanted to so much that I am hiking, which I never ever do.
Rona Ambrose: Well thank you.
Vassy Kapelos: Literally bought these clothes this morning.
Rona Ambrose: What? Well you look great. You look like an expert hiker.
Vassy Kapelos: Because I don’t own workout clothes. But you like to hike, right?
Rona Ambrose: I love hiking.
Vassy Kapelos: What is it about it?
Rona Ambrose: I just love being outdoors. It takes my mind off work, and I love nature. I grew up in it and I love it. I love it, and I hike a lot in the Rockies. I mean I even hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Vassy Kapelos: Oh nice.
Rona Ambrose: Yeah. And it’s just something I really appreciate, whether it’s a day hike or a long six, seven day hike into the back country in the mountains. It’s fantastic.
Vassy Kapelos: Have you had a lot of opportunities in the past year where you’ve needed to get out there and hike and sort of the frustrations of this job or the stress of it I guess?
Rona Ambrose: There’s definitely a lot of pressure and stress with this job, and I haven’t been able to do the hiking I normally do.
Vassy Kapelos: How has this experience this year leading the party changed your life?
Rona Ambrose: You know what, it’s been one of the highlights of my political career without a doubt, and I’m sure it will be one of the highlights of my life. It has been such an amazing experience to get to lead a team of people. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it and I’ve seen us thrive in 18 months. Who knew how things would have turned out after our defeat in the election, and having a leader like Mr. Harper leave after 10 years, there’s a lot of question marks about what would happen to our party and to our caucus. We had 33 brand new people. They say to me well we were nervous when we first started because Mr. Harper was gone and that’s who we ran in the election for. And it’s turned out well.
Vassy Kapelos: Why step away from federal politics at this point? What was it that sort of led you to decide at this juncture that you’re going to leave?
Rona Ambrose: It’s just time for me. I had planned this all along.
Vassy Kapelos: Since when? Since you won or since the interim leadership or–?
Rona Ambrose: Yes, since I made the decision to run as interim leader. If I was going to stay in politics, I would have run for the full leadership. I made that choice then. I knew I was going to leave, and I knew that this was an opportunity for me to contribute to the party to make it stronger, to help especially the new members with any experience that I could offer, and just really help through this transition. And I think it’s been successful. I mean we all did our job well. We held the government to account. There’s no doubt about that on everything from deficit spending, raising taxes. There’s a lot that we’ve brought to the forefront that I don’t think would have been brought to the forefront. I mean when I think back in the last 18 months, one of the things that was important to me was to put strong women out front. I did that because I knew there were a lot of capable women on our team that hadn’t really been put out front. And I did that, women like Lisa Raitt, Michelle Wemple, Dianne Watts, Karen Vecchio and Kelly Block and they’ve just thrived. And I think that’s really important for our party. I wanted to hold the government to account and Opposition matters.
Vassy Kapelos: Does your party need to be more than that? I noticed that you tweeted about inclusivity yesterday or the other day, and you’ve been at the forefront of calling for an inclusive party. At the same time there’s a leadership race going on where you have a lot of people running who don’t want to ever march in a Pride parade. Does your party have to stand for more than just the taxpayer in order to be successful in the future?
Rona Ambrose: I believe it’s an obvious thing to do. I think it was really well received, especially by the people that are members of our party who work for us that happen to be gay. This is an important thing for our party. I can’t imagine young people how they’d feel if our party did not accept the fact that they’re my friends too that want to get married.
Vassy Kapelos: When you think about the future, I know you said that you’re planning to write a children’s book and also crisscross the country trying to promote the idea of women in politics or attract women to politics, to your party I’m guessing specifically.
Rona Ambrose: Yeah.
Vassy Kapelos: How do you do that?
Rona Ambrose: I think that you actually reach out. I mean I find the toughest thing is a lot of young women are capable of running for office, but you have to ask them about five more times than you have to ask a young guy. If I ask a young guy and I say you’d be great. And they say sign me up. And if I say to a young woman you’ve got everything to be a great leader in Parliament. She’ll say well first I’ve got to go get my MBA, then I’d like to get my law degree, and then I’m going to work for 10 years. And I say well is that what you want to do or do you want to run for office? You could do that later, but what is your–? No, I want to run for office. Well you don’t need to do that then.
Vassy Kapelos: Why do you think we think like that?
Rona Ambrose: We need the passion that you already have and you need to put your name on a ballot and run and you’ll be great.
Vassy Kapelos: So what’s the first thing you’re going to do the final day after the House rises?
Rona Ambrose: Have a nap. Maybe go for a hike. No, you know what? I’m really looking forward to routine, looking forward to being in the same place for a little while and just settling in and having time with family. And I’m really looking forward to it. I really am. You know the time is right when you’re really excited about those kinds of things.
Vassy Kapelos: What has the lack of routine been like for your family?
Rona Ambrose: It’s tough. I mean it’s really tough, but I mentioned it in my comments in the house. We just embraced it as this big adventure and we just make it fun. And yes, it means travelling a lot, lots of miles on the car, lots of miles on the plane, but we just have fun with it. And we bring the kids to a lot of things with us so that they’re part of it and I try to include them in as many things as I can where it’s appropriate and we have fun with it.
Vassy Kapelos: And what’s the one thing you won’t miss about politics?
Vassy Kapelos: Just one thing, yeah.
Rona Ambrose: The partisanship.
Vassy Kapelos: Really?
Rona Ambrose: Yeah, my House Leader mentioned it. She said the truth is—you know one of the things people don’t know about Rona, she doesn’t not—I mean I managed to spend 11 years in Parliament and was named the most civil MP. That’s not an easy accomplishment, but let me tell me, I’m not a hyperpartisan and I don’t like the partisanship. I’m a policy person. I love solving problems, working with people, finding solutions. I won’t miss the partisanship, but that’s part of the game and I get it. And you know sometimes you get really upset and that’s not partisanship. But when you’re holding the government to account and you’re angry and you’re passionate, that’s important. It’s important, and that’s something that I think is important to have in Parliament.
Vassy Kapelos: Well thank you very much for your time today, and good luck with everything.
Rona Ambrose: It’s been great. Thanks for the hike.
Rona Ambrose: Thanks.
Vassy Kapelos: Awesome.
That’s our show for today, Happy Victoria Day weekend. Thanks for joining us. I’m Vassy Kapelos. See you back here next week.
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