The West Block — Episode 50, Season 9

THE WEST BLOCK

Episode 50, Season 9

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Host: Mercedes Stephenson

Guests: Catherine McKenna, Erin O’Toole, Rob Fleming, Robert Fife, Amanda Connolly

Location: Ottawa, Ontario

Mercedes Stephenson: This week on The West Block: the opposition probe more deeply into the WE controversy.

 Peter Julian, NDP MP: “There’s been a lot of contradictions through this saga.”

 Andrew Scheer, Conservative Party Leader: “There are so many smoking guns in this WE scandal. I mean you could smoke a brisket in the Liberal cabinet room.”

 Pierre Poilievre, Conservative MP: “How did WE think it was authorized to start implementing a government program if no one in the government had authorized you to do so?”

 Unidentified Woman: “So that’s a question that I cannot respond to.”

 Mercedes Stephenson: Threats against politicians.

 Catherine McKenna, Infrastructure Minister: “This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s not just involving me. Too often there are incidents against politicians, often female politicians.”

Mercedes Stephenson: And COVID reopening concerns.

Farah Nasser, Global Toronto Anchor: “Modeling for B.C. shows the province is trending toward massive growth of new cases in September.”

Mercedes Stephenson: The government is still under fire over the WE controversy here in Ottawa, all this amid calls for Bill Morneau, the finance minister, to resign, and threats against politicians as they try to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joining me now to talk about all of this is Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us, minister. You know, there is a video that was very disturbing of you being harassed and abused on social media this week. It’s really raised the question about the threats that politicians are facing. Some people are saying this is all going to end with somebody being seriously injured or killed. How serious do you think these threats are to people in political life?

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna: Look, I have now heard from so many women about incidents that they have faced, even in Ottawa. So this past week, we had a councillor, Laura Dudas, a brick was thrown through a window. Lisa McLeod, an incident involving her car or her tires being slashed. And then this incident, which actually wasn’t even me. It was one of my core staff members, a new young, female staff member opens the door to some man hurling abuses at her, and there’s many other examples. And I think that we do need to take it seriously.

Mercedes Stephenson: And we do want to talk to you about your job, too, because it’s unfortunate that we’re in this position of having to talk about you being threatened, about women in the public eye being threatened. You’re here to do a job and that job is infrastructure. And that’s a particularly important topic for a lot of people during the pandemic. I’m curious to know if you’re going to be putting a significant amount of infrastructure money towards, for example, the provinces and cities, to try to help them create jobs, to rebuild after the pandemic out of your portfolio.

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna: Well first of all, let’s be clear what I’ve been focused on with my department, we’ve been approving hundreds of projects across the country, creating thousands—tens of thousands of jobs in a whole range of areas from public transit, to renewable energy, to cycling paths, to community culture and rec centres, all the things that are really important. Just last week, I announced a new COVID-19 resilience stream where provinces could focus on things that need to be done such as making schools safer. I know a lot of parents are worried about kids going back to school, retrofitting health care facilities for both elderly people but also the workers and visitors so people could stay safe, where the federal government would put in a higher share and these would be projects approved quickly.

Mercedes Stephenson: On the WE Charity, this is a controversy that continues to rage. This week, WE actually registered to lobby. They hadn’t done that before. Your government has said that essentially, it was a mistake the way that you went forward with giving this $900 million program to WE. There seems to have been a lot of information that was out there that WE was potentially problematic, whether it was charity intelligence or journalists reporting. Yet, your government sat around the cabinet table and made the decision to hand this project over. It’s now been cancelled, which has left thousands of young people in a lurch. Some Canadians are questioning whether your government can continue to govern during the pandemic and manage large spending programs given the performance on the WE file. What do you say to them?

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna: Well like look, obviously lessons are learned from the WE incident, but when I talked to Canadians, when I talked to, you know, people who live in my riding of Ottawa-Centre, they recognized that, you know the programs—a lot of the programs that have been instituted made a huge difference, in fact, whether or not that they can pay their bills or their businesses can stay open. So whether it is CERB, which has managed to keep many families and people afloat, or it’s the wage subsidy programs that are keeping people employed and businesses going. I mean those are really important programs. Were some mistakes made from WE? Yes, and there’s committee hearings and other, you know, other initiatives to get to the bottom of that.

Mercedes Stephenson: We just have a few seconds left, but on the transparency file, will your government be more transparent when it comes to infrastructure projects because the parliamentary budget officer has said he couldn’t account for the spending on 20 thousand of the projects so far. If there’s more to come, will you increase your transparency there?

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna: So I want to be 100 per cent clear on this because I think there’s a lot of misinformation, including this information online. The parliamentary budget officer has acknowledged that all the projects are there, all the money has been accounted for. It can be a challenge with certain programs when you’re dealing with like the CMHC and mortgages and funding to centres for women or money that goes directly for municipalities that flows directly to them and there isn’t a reporting obligation from the province. But all those money—all the projects are there. The money’s been invested. We’ve been working extraordinarily hard with our public service to approve thousands of projects, creating jobs across the country and really improving communities. And we’re going to continue doing that. That is my commitment and we will do that in a transparent way. You can go to a map right now, see where the projects are, see what investments have been made to improve lives in communities and that is what I wake up every day doing. How do we build a better Canada for now and how do we build a better Canada for the future? 

Mercedes Stephenson: Okay. That’s all the time we have, but thank you so much for joining me, minister. We appreciate it.

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna: Thanks very much.

Andrew Scheer, Conservative Party Leader: “Well Mr. Speaker, it looks like my last question period as leader of the Conservative party, is just like my first: warm, sunny and the prime minister nowhere to be found.”

Mercedes Stephenson: That was Andrew Scheer on his final day in the House of Commons as Opposition Leader. Joining me now to talk about who will replace Andrew Scheer is one of the leadership candidates themselves: Erin O’Toole. Erin thanks for coming back on the show.

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: Good to be with you.

Mercedes Stephenson: So Erin, I think the big question on everyone’s mind right now after what happened with the Bloc leader this week saying he’d call an election, is if you become the Conservative leader, are you willing to go to the polls in the fall during a pandemic?

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: Well the first thing I’ll do is consult my caucus. I’m a current MP, so I’ve been involved in all the debates, all our meetings. But as leader, I’m going to talk to them to hear about what’s going on around the country, where the economic recovery is not going well. That’s going to be our focus, as well as holding the Trudeau government to account. The scandals are piling up faster than we can even write the stories, Mercedes, so we’re going to hold them to account. The Bloc can’t form government, but the Conservatives will. So we will take the lead when Parliament returns in September.

Mercedes Stephenson: I know that Elections Canada is currently conducting a review of how to safely carry out an election during a pandemic. Would you commit to waiting until that review is complete and you have scientific advice before committing to go to the polls?

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: Well my children are going to be going to school like thousands and millions of Canadian families, shortly. And in recent years, we’ve had more advanced polling, Mercedes, so this is not rocket science. This can be done safely and effectively, and it will be.

Mercedes Stephenson: Are you concerned about trying to bring down government at this time, not only from a health perspective but just from a political one? I mean this is a government that has been spending a lot of money with very popular programs. Conservatives known for being a little fiscally austere, would you continue to spend the same kind of money and keep the same programs alive that the Liberal government has implemented? And do you think that Canadians are ready to hand the reins to you when right now they have a secure source of income?

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: Yes they are, because they know the future is grim. We’ve seen investment fleeing Canada, Mercedes. The trouble is, is when the CERB is wound down, we need jobs. And the Trudeau government’s driven them away in the oil sector, forestry, manufacturing here in Ontario, tariffs on us again. They’ve mishandled literally every trade and important foreign relation we have. Canadians know we need a serious prime minister. Again, I’m going to offer that from my business experience, cabinet experience, military experience. I’m in it for Canadians. Justin Trudeau’s clearly in it for himself, his family, and Liberal insiders, and I think Canadians are sick of it.

Mercedes Stephenson: You know, Erin, but there are people who are receiving that CERB cheque who are feeling pretty confident that as long as the Liberals are in power at least they have that. What would your alternative be in terms of an economic recovery? It’s great to talk about job creation, but that takes time. There’s people who won’t have jobs in the meantime.

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: The CERB needs to be wound down in a way that’s just, Mercedes, but there are thousands of jobs going unfilled because people are being paid not to work. So we are actually shifting the narrative here from people having the opportunity to provide for their family in Canada through work and entrepreneurship and getting out there and working or depending on government. I think the vast majority of Canadians want a chance to work, provide for their families. We need jobs. We need the economy to be moving. And people know that we can’t spend almost a quarter of a trillion dollars in half a year without there need to be some discipline. So we’re going to be fair, Mercedes, but Canadians know what Justin Trudeau is doing, is putting Old Age Security, putting health care and putting the future at risk.

Mercedes Stephenson: Erin, we just have a few moments left. Obviously, Conservative leadership wrapping up, we will know who the new leader is just over a week from now, Sunday night, next Sunday night. What do you think the biggest high point of your campaign has been and what was your biggest mistake?

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: I think our high point was we were a month and a half ahead of the government on a plan for COVID-19. In fact, I was talking about getting the EI system stood up to avoid the problems we’ve seen with the CERB. We asked for the border to be shut. People saw that a campaign team with limited funds and money was a month ahead of the federal government with everything they had at their fingertips. I don’t think we’ve made a mistake. We’ve been principled, we’ve been tough, Mercedes.

Mercedes Stephenson: No mistakes?

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: No mistakes. You would be pointing them out if they were mistakes.

Mercedes Stephenson: I could think of a few that I could highlight, but we’re out of time so I have to wrap it up there, Erin. Thanks so much for coming on the show, and we’ll see who wins next week.

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party Leadership Candidate: Thank you very much. Look forward to coming back as leader.

Mercedes Stephenson: Each province and territory across Canada has their own approach to reopening schools up after COVID-19. Up next, B.C.’s education minister will tell us what classrooms will look like in his province this fall.

Mercedes Stephenson: September is just around the corner and many Canadian parents are questioning what school will look like for their children with COVID-19 haunting the hallways this fall.

B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming joins us now to talk about what parents can expect in that province. Welcome to the show, Minister Fleming.

B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming: Thank you for having me.

Mercedes Stephenson: So, you’ve made the decision to put kids back in schools like many Canadian provinces, but at the same time B.C. is seeing rising numbers in cases of COVID-19 once again. Is that giving you any pause to return as planned with the school year?

B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming: Yeah, I think, you know, in terms of the leadership we have from the provincial health officer and the daily briefings from our minister of health, there’s, you know, some tough talk happening here because it’s very concentrated in a demographic of 20 to 29-year-olds who have really, in some cases, let their responsibility to live within the guidelines slide. There’s a lot of partying going on. I don’t want to castigate one entire generation because, of course, 20 to 29-year-olds are serving us in everything we do that is COVID safe, whether it’s banking or central retail activities in all kinds of jobs, but you’ve heard some admonishments, some stern words and some additional enforcement around some of the things that have led to a few episodic outbreaks in British Columbia. The key to opening schools safely here in British Columbia and every part of the country is having a very low transmission rate. That’s the number one layer of protection for our communities and for our schools. So obviously, that’s an effort that all of us in British Columbia, we’re all in it together, are working towards. We’ll hope to see some good numbers and indicators. We’ll disclose that on a daily basis as we go forward.

Mercedes Stephenson: Is there any role that you’d like see the federal government playing here in terms of providing funding or resources for the provinces to be able to do things like renovations on schools or renting additional places so you can get that physical distancing in place?

B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming: Yeah, I mean a few things there. We would welcome any federal money that is relief money, stimulus money that would be directed towards school buildings, physical buildings. Also, where they have jurisdiction, which is First Nations on reserve schools that are federally administered. In terms of additional COVID funding, we’ve provided a resource package that includes money to hire extra custodians, portable hand washing stations, well-stocked supplies. So those sorts of things would be welcome, and I think also this is a great opportunity not just for British Columbia but for every province, where there exists a digital divide where rural and remote communities do not have connectivity to support the type of learning that you can do over the internet. You know, we should as a country, vow to have good high speed internet service for everybody, including those living in rural and remote B.C. and other parts of Canada, and federal leadership and cooperation with the provinces would be more than welcome.

Mercedes Stephenson: We just have a few moments left, but what is your message to education ministers across this country as Canadian children go back to school?

B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming: Yeah, and we had a national roundtable yesterday with my colleagues from the provinces and territories, all of the ministers of education. Everybody is wanting to do this safely. They all have operating guidelines that put safety as the first and foremost priority. Everybody’s doing things more similarly than differently. There are some slight adjustments in different provinces, but we’re all in this together. We’re all facing the same kinds of social and emotional effects on kids by having a prolonged period. You know, some kids coming back to school this September will have been out of the classroom for over six months. We need a strong restart in the country to help get kids back together, safely learning in the classroom and it requires, you know, that everybody who works in a school be very literate about COVID safety and doing things differently and that includes the kids. So, you know, what we have done with week one of school is really making it an orientation week about what the new normal looks like in schools and we were able to share our perspective about why we made that adjustment this week with my provincial and territorial counterparts and we got some good ideas from them as well.

Mercedes Stephenson: Great. Well we have to wrap it up there, but we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thank you, minister.

B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming: Thank you very much.

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, I’ll be joined by our journalists on the Hill, to talk more about the biggest headlines from this week.

Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc Québécois Leader: “As one important voice for Quebec, we observe that this government might not be worthy of our trust anymore.”

Mercedes Stephenson: That was Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet last week, weighing in on the controversy over WE. He says if the finance minister, the prime minister, and the prime minister’s chief of staff do not resign, the Bloc will do everything in their power to push for a fall election. But how likely is that to really happen?

Joining me now to discuss this and more are the Globe and Mail’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife, and here in studio we have Amanda Connolly who writes for us at http://www.Globalnews.ca.

Bob, you know a lot of fluster and bluster from the Bloc, but it doesn’t seem like for all of the howling by opposition parties, there’s any real appetite to go to an election.

Robert Fife, Globe and Mail Bureau Chief: Well Mercedes, I was always under the impression that the Liberals, if they could, would push a fall election—late fall election to come off their management of the pandemic. But given the scandal over the WE Charity, I think that is completely off the table. The opposition parties are not going to defeat this government right now, despite what Mr. Blanchet is doing. The NDP cannot afford to lose any seats. They have no money. They would definitely lose more seats. It seems to me, the Conservatives will just have an elected leader. They do need to raise more money and more importantly, they need to get some policy ideas to contrast themselves with the Liberal government. So I think there’ll be an election, but it’ll probably be next year.

Mercedes Stephenson: Well that gives us—those who are still tired from the last one—some time to prepare for the next one. But Amanda, we heard a lot this week. There was ongoing testimony, this WE scandal continues. What jumped out for you in all the committee hearings, and there were a lot this week as well as the House sitting that viewers at home would want to know in terms of developments on that front?

Amanda Connolly, Global News Parliamentary Reporter: I think one of the really big takeaways from this week, is really the importance of the lobbying registry. Again, you saw through a lot of that testimony at committee, really trying to get to the root of who met who at what point? What did they discuss? What were, the kind of specific details going on here that are causing a lot of questions to be asked about how exactly this played out? And of course, when we saw the WE Charity register as lobbyists this week, a lot of those details were, I guess, verified in a certain way through the registrations made with the lobby register.

Mercedes Stephenson: Bob, there was a lot of questions about not only the Liberal government’s future this week, but especially Bill Morneau’s, and you broke that story in the Globe and Mail, saying that there has been conflict between the Prime Minister’s Office and the finance minister. His future could be in jeopardy. Tell us a little bit about how that came about.

Robert Fife, Globe and Mail Bureau Chief: Well, this has been going on for some time. We all remember the prime minister having to overrule Mr. Morneau on the wage subsidy. He had a 10 per cent that went up to 75 per cent when the prime minister intervened, the change in legislation where they wanted to keep Parliament—give the finance department unlimited taxing authority until 2021. That blew up in their face. The whole ethical scandal involving Mr. Morneau, having to pay back money has hurt the government’s credibility, hurt the minister’s credibility and upset people in the Prime Minister’s Office because they didn’t know about this. And then lately, they’ve had a disagreement of over the new insurance—an employment insurance revamping that’s coming down. The prime minister wants a two-year freeze for business and Canadians, and Mr. Morneau was pushing for a one-year freeze. So, they are looking, as they decide on a cabinet shuffle, who can take care of the next phase of the post-pandemic economy. The prime minister’s not sure that Bill Morneau is the one. And they have names being mentioned, of course, as Mark Carney, the former Bank of England, Bank of Canada governor who would be a major reassurance to the markets if he was to come in. There’s of course, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne, the Foreign Affairs minister and I’ve also heard the name of the treasury board secretary Jean-Yves Duclos.

Mercedes Stephenson: Bob, how likely do you think it is that Mark Carney jumps back into the political pool at this point? Or into it for the first time I should say, not back into it. It kind of feels like he’s been there a while, but he’s been the Bank of Canada, of course, England governor as well.

Robert Fife, Globe and Mail Bureau Chief: You know I don’t have the answer to that. I mean, I think they would—my discussions with senior officials, is that if he wanted the job, he’d have the job. Right now, he’s serving as an informal advisor to the prime minster. So how would you feel as the finance minister if the prime minister’s got a choice between listening to the finance minister or to Mark Carney? I think you would feel a little bit diminished. I just don’t know how long Mr. Morneau can suffer the public humiliation of having his job questioned in this sort of a way. So, my sense is that we’ll have a good idea by September whether Mr. Morneau is going to resign on his own to spend more time with his family, Mercedes, or whether he’ll be able to hold onto this job. I have a feeling that it’s going to be hard for him to do so because they’re trying to change the page.

Mercedes Stephenson: Well, and you know, Amanda, we heard that the Prime Minister’s Office has full confidence. Of course, we’ve heard that from other Prime Minister’s Offices about other ministers and senior officials before they vanish off the political face of the earth. But one of the other big stories this week that I wanted to talk about with you was the threats against politicians. Catherine McKenna, who is the infrastructure minister we had on the show today, she faced some significant threats. She’s faced them and been under police protection before. So have other politicians. This spans all sides of the spectrum. How have things changed from being critical of politicians’ positions, to now, whether there is actually a potential threat on politicians’ lives?

Amanda Connolly, Global News Parliamentary Reporter: I think that’s a really good question to be asking right now. Again, you’re looking at kind of the ways that social media comes together here with politics and the way that it’s being covered and talked about online. I think that what you’re really seeing here is an inability to separate the person from the office and the ideas from the person. And so when you have someone, for example, whose ideas are perhaps more controversial or high profile even, individuals who don’t support those ideas, who don’t think that those are the right direction for the country, they’re not necessarily, or not showing a willingness at least, to recognize that the person who is working on those, you know, you can disagree with ideas, but the person is still a person. And I think that’s a real danger to politics, to democracy and any country that wants to have and be able to have civilized discourse going forward. And so this is going to be a big issue for—it was a big issue in the last election and will certainly be one for any future election that we do have coming up.

Mercedes Stephenson: Well I think it’s going to be an issue that we, unfortunately, are going to have to continue to discuss on this show, but we are out of time for today. Thank you both to Bob and Amanda, for joining us.

That’s all the time we have for this week. I’m Mercedes Stephenson, and we’ll see you right back here next week at the same time.