THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 4, Season 3
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Host: Tom Clark
Guest Interviews: John Baird, Michael Ignatieff, Steven Fletcher
Feature: Paul Wells, Brad Lavigne, Streeters
Location: Ottawa
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Tom Clark:
Welcome to The West Block on this Sunday, September the 29th. From the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. Well coming up on today’s show.
Two Canadians plea their innocence and demand their freedom after spending six weeks in an Egyptian prison. Foreign Minister John Baird is here with the latest.
And in his bid to reach the top, he brought the Liberal party to historic lows. Michael Ignatieff on his success and failure in politics.
The debate over assisted suicide is reignited with a plea from beyond the grave.
Dr. Donald Low:
Why make people suffer for no reason.
Tom Clark:
Dr. Donald Low’s moving video leads a Conservative MP to break ranks.
But first, after six weeks in an Egyptian prison, two Canadians are demanding justice.
Last month, as riots spread throughout Cairo. Two Canadians found themselves trapped in that city on their way to Gaza. So Tarek Loubani and John Greyson said that they went downtown to see what was going on, and that’s when things exploded into violence. Loubani started to treat the injured while Greyson recorded it. But when they asked police for help to get out, that’s when they say their nightmare began. Here’s what they said in a statement issued yesterday:
“We were arrested, searched, caged, questioned, interrogated, videotaped with a ‘Syrian terrorist’, slapped, beaten, ridiculed, hot boxed, refused phone calls, stripped, shaved bald, accused of being foreign mercenaries. They screamed “Canadian” as they kicked and hit us. We deserve due process not coach roaches on concrete. We demand to be released.”
Joining me now exclusively now from New York to talk more about this is Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. Minister thanks very much for being here this morning.
John Baird:
Good to be with you Tom.
Tom Clark:
You met with the Egyptian foreign minister yesterday I believe and this morning there are rumours that these two Canadians are going to be charged by the Egyptian government. What’s the latest on all this?
John Baird:
Well we’re taking a two track approach. We’re working with these two Canadians to ensure they have the best legal representation through the legal process and then obviously at a very high level, both Consular Affairs Minister Lynne Yelich and I are working directly with senior leaders in the Egyptian government. I’ve talked to the Egyptian foreign minister three times in the last week. We spent more than an hour together on Friday evening and we’re doing all we can to push for their immediate release and to try to get them out of the country as quickly as possible. We’ve had a favourable response at the political level but we haven’t got the action that we want to see at this stage. We’re going to keep focusing and keep working hard.
Tom Clark:
Is it your understanding that they may be charged?
John Baird:
Listen, I just can’t go into too much details on the legal side. Obviously this is a more complex case than I think many Canadians understand. But, you know, Canadians have to know that we’re taking every action we can at the most senior levels to secure the release of these two Canadians.
Tom Clark:
Just one quick last question on it, in the statement that they made they sort of indicated that they were tortured, hot boxed was one of them. Have we got any independent confirmation of torture of these two men?
John Baird:
Listen, what I can say is that when we initially, our consular officials, initially met them, we wanted to have a Canadian physician to make sure they were safe and make sure they were healthy.
Tom Clark:
Mr. Baird, you’re speaking to the General Assembly of the United Nations tomorrow and I want to get to what your thrust of the speech is going to be but you’ve been very critical, the governments been very critical, of the United Nations in the past. In your view, is the United Nations a dysfunctional organization?
John Baird:
Well if you look at for example the crisis in Syria, for more than 31 months the UN Security Council hasn’t even been able to get a simple condemnation of the war that Assad has been waging against his own people and that’s a tremendous disappointment. There’s many dysfunctional parts of the UN. But you know at the same time, there’s many parts of it that do a pretty good job. Let me take time to point out Valerie Amos, the UN head for humanitarian aid. She and her organization do a phenomenal job; the UN World Food Program, UNICEF. So Canada is very supportive of those good parts of the UN but we’re not afraid, and not unprepared to say when the emperor has no clothes. And I think that’s what Canadians expect us to do. Not to simply whistle past graveyard and not point out the real and fundamental problems that exist in parts of the UN.
Tom Clark:
And yet some people might say this, that that despite Russia’s intransigence initially on the Syria question, they came together, especially with United States and the rest of the Security Council yesterday to come up with a unanimous resolution dealing with the question of Assad’s weapons. Is that in your view a success story of the United Nations?
John Baird:
It’s a baby step in the right direction, for us obviously we feel that Assad’s been able to act with impunity, gassing more than 1,400 children, men and women in Syria. He’s gotten away with this. It’s going to be an incredibly difficult job to secure all of the chemical weapons, the huge stockpiles of chemical weapons throughout Syria and then to destroy them, particularly in the middle of a war. What we were concerned with that the resolution passed by the Security Council, there’s absolutely no sanction for Assad that if he doesn’t cooperate and honour the specific commitments that he’s made. This is a concern that Canada has and frankly, just about every single other country in the Middle East shares that view.
Tom Clark:
And I guess there’s also the fact Assad will not be punished for using chemical weapons.
John Baird:
Yeah, this is the real concern for us, I mean the convention for the prohibition of weapons has been one of the more successful conventions that the UN has adopted with very few exceptions, chemical weapons have not been used in battle, since the First World War on a large scale, with a few exceptions, and we’re concerned. One is that if Assad can get away with using these weapons of mass destruction he might do it again or that others and other difficult parts of the world could see these as viable option and this causes us great concern. So we’re going to work with the international community. We obviously want to see these weapons destroyed but you know one moving van, moving truck, 18-wheeler, could have enough chemical weapons that could kill tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands. So this is going to be a big job and incredibly complex to do in a war zone, let alone to be able to trust someone who only a few short weeks ago denied that he had any of these weapons. So Assad’s got a credibility problem and you know we’re like many countries here, are not prepared to give him a lot of the benefit of the doubt.
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Tom Clark:
Mr. Baird, just before we go in the fifteen seconds I’ve got left, let me ask you the impossible to sum up in a line or two what the core of your message tomorrow morning will be?
John Baird:
I’m going to speak about Canadian interests, Canadian values, obviously the priority of prosperity and job creation but also the importance of security; fighting terrorism and of stopping violence and stopping people from being victimized by despotic regimes around the world. We think this is important and we’re going to talk about the human rights, exactly, I think, what Canadians would expect us to.
Tom Clark:
Foreign Minister John Baird joining us this morning from outside of the United Nations thanks very much for being here minister. I appreciate your time.
John Baird:
Great to be with you Tom.
Tom Clark:
Well coming up, he led the Liberal party to its greatest defeat; Michael Ignatieff’s failure in politics, in his own words coming up next.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well it’s hard to imagine but only four years ago, the name Michael Ignatieff dominated political news in Canada. Now, his name is hardly a whisper on Parliament Hill. But he’s back, this week he released a memoir of his time in politics called, “Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics”. I sat down with Michael Ignatieff for an interview on Parliament Hill a couple of days ago. But first, on the way up, we asked a few people what they thought of the former Liberal leader.
Paul Wells:
The thing that has always struck me about Ignatieff is, and people say a lot of nasty things about him, and many of them are true, but people say he’s arrogant. He has just never been arrogant for one minute that I`ve seen.
Streeters:
Male 1:
Intellectual.
Female 1:
Total incompetence.
Female 2:
Intelligent.
Brad Lavigne:
The arrogance of coming back after being away for so long thinking that this was an entry-level position, being prime minister and being leader.
Female 3:
Very boring to listen to.
Paul Wells:
The other thing that’s striking about Ignatieff is that politics still today is a perfect mystery to him. He hasn’t the faintest idea why some candidates win and other candidates lose.
Male 2:
High expectations and disappointment.
Tom Clark:
Michael Ignatieff good to have you on the show again.
Michael Ignatieff:
Same here Tom.
Tom Clark:
You’re back on Parliament Hill, how does this feel?
Michael Ignatieff:
It feels good and I got a nice day for it.
Tom Clark:
You were never able to connect electorally with Canadians, do you know why?
Michael Ignatieff:
Oh, by the time they fit a frame around me I was toast.
Tom Clark:
You’re talking about the attack ads.
Michael Ignatieff:
Yeah, and I’ve tried to take the frame off. Also, I’m an old professor, maybe a little remote. I think you know me, Tom. You in fact, I’m actually extremely curious about people, being with people. The best part of politics was being with people. Just couldn’t get the message across. So that’s a failing of mine. I can blame the frame. They did all that stuff to me, but I also have to own up to my inability to connect to people.
Tom Clark:
Let me talk about those attack ads because those were the ads that said you’d been away from the country for 35 years, you’re only in it for yourself.
Commercial:
Michael Ignatieff – just visiting.
Tom Clark:
In your book you say this, talking about that era of politicians that you greatly admired, your father among them, Lester Pearson and so on and you wrote this, “It never occurred to me when I returned home and entered politics, that their Liberal world and the Canada they made had long since vanished”. In a way, doesn’t that prove that the attack ad was right, that you had lost the rhythm and the pulse of this country if you only discovered that when you came back?
Michael Ignatieff:
Well I’m meaning something else. You know there are some values that just stay true. I’m a Mike Pearson, Pierre Trudeau Liberal and some of the principles that those guys stood for animated my whole life and continue to do so but did I know the country when I came back? Probably not. Did I know the country by the time the May 2000 (2011) election came? You bet I did. I knew every single last kilometre of this place. And that was an unforgettable experience. And I think I got better at it. I just got better at it too late.
Tom Clark:
Would you have done it differently? Because you also say that you had mapped out a slightly different course. You thought that Paul Martin was going to be elected. You could have served in the cabinet, earned your bones doing that and it didn’t turn out that way. Did you run too early for leader?
Michael Ignatieff:
I think it’s possible I did, but you know you get one shot, here it comes. I didn’t choose my moment. You know, remember the night, it’s the 23rd of January, 2006. Our party has just lost. I just won my seat. I’ve been a Member of Parliament for six minutes or something and Mr. Martin gets up and says I’m resigning the leadership and there will be a leadership convention – kaboom. It absolutely took us all by surprise. That was a moment in which I could have said I’ll sit this one out and come next time. But I’d come back to seek high office and I thought that this is my moment. I’d probably do it all the same, actually.
Tom Clark:
But speaking about politics, another thing you wrote in your book: you said profession- you’re saying politics is not a profession. You’re saying: “Profession implies standards and techniques that can be taught. There are no techniques in politics. It is not a science but a charismatic art dependent on skills of persuasion, oratory and bloody-minded perseverance. Do you truly believe that there are no techniques in politics because if you talk to other politicians they say no, there is, if it’s not an art, there is a science to the game. It is something you learn. There are basic rules about how you do successful politics but you seem to be suggesting that that’s not the case.
Michael Ignatieff:
Oh look there are things you can learn. I remember when my wife and I were on platforms, I’d look down when I was being introduced and she’d hiss in my ear, “for God sake look at the people, they’re talking about you.” You know, you can learn about a lot of things and learn to… There are techniques you can learn but communicating a deep passion for the country, I somehow wasn’t able to get that through and I don’t think that’s technique. It was in me. It was in me, it’s in my heart – why the hell would I have come back home if I didn’t feel that? But sometimes you just can’t communicate it. So there are things, in other words, and this is important because I’m now back teaching, there are things you can learn in politics by doing it but they can’t be taught. That’s what I mean by not being a technique. And pushing that because all the spin doctors and all the experts and all the smart guys on the Hill tell you, well we’ll just put you in a new suit, we change the message, we change the eye line, we smarten you up, you smile more, wear funny hats. This is not what it’s about. What it’s about is connecting with the Canadian people and you either can do that or you can’t.
Tom Clark:
Final thought from you, when you look back on this, you took a real kicking in this profession. Do you wish you hadn’t done it?
Michael Ignatieff:
No, no I’m glad I did it Tom. I’ve been up in the stands. I’ve been a spectator and a journalist like you. It was an extraordinary experience to put my skates on. I’m not going to complain because I took a few checks into the boards and got slapped down a bit. If you decide to do that you have to take everything that comes at you and the stupidest thing to do is complain about it. What I wanted to do in this book is to say here’s what it’s really like. Let’s not fool around. This is the stuff I should have known before I went in. But I really want the book to appeal to people who think, yeah, maybe one day I should come out of the stands and get on the ice.
Tom Clark:
Michael Ignatieff, author of Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics. Thanks very much for being here. It’s good to see you again.
Michael Ignatieff:
Nice to see you Tom.
Tom Clark:
Well coming up, why one Conservative MP says it’s time to have a serious discussion about assisted suicide. That’s next.
Break
Dr. Donald Low:
A lot of clinicians have opposition to dying with dignity. I wish they could live in my body for 24 hours and I think they would change that opinion.
Tom Clark:
Well that is just part of a very powerful video released this week by the family of Dr. Donald Low. In the video, taped just days before he died, the prominent Canadian doctor best known for his handling of the SARS crisis describes his fear of losing control of his own body as it gave way to terminal cancer and he calls on Canadians to legalize assisted suicide. Now the last time that MPs voted on the issue back in 2010, they rejected assisted suicide but in the same week Dr. Low’s video was released, the Conservative government said it would not reopen the issue. But in contrast, the Quebec government started consultations on a bill that would allow doctors to help patients die in cases of terminal disease and uncontrollable pain. Well after hearing Dr. Low’s pleas, Conservative MP Steven Fletcher added his own voice and he joins us now.
Mr. Fletcher thanks very much for being here this morning.
Steven Fletcher:
Good morning.
Tom Clark:
You’ve spoken very powerfully about this issue. What I’m interested in is what brought you to that conclusion that assisted suicide should be legalized in this country?
Steven Fletcher:
Well it was my own experience in the hospital. I hit a moose with my car. I found myself instantly completely paralyzed. I was unable to talk, unable to breathe on my own and was in that situation for months and fully conscious through this whole episode, and in a lot of pain. Now I was 23.
Tom Clark:
Did you want to have assisted suicide? If it was available to you, would you have taken assisted suicide at that point?
Steven Fletcher:
Well I was 23 and I had a lot of life to live and I wasn’t really very accepting of the prognosis either. I thought the doctors would be wrong about all this and you know I’ll go on. So I was 23. So what would my answer be if I was 43 or 63 or 93? I know what it would be if I was 93 and it would be please help me end my time. So it is very much a very personal decision. It’s very much a decision based on one’s own values and where one is in their life cycle. There are so many factors that are involved. And in the government…or in the laws of the land make it very difficult for people to deal with end of life issues; Sue Rodriguez’s, the courageous lady who went to the Supreme Court.
Tom Clark;
Well and the way the laws are right now is that doctors who do aid end of life decisions actually open themselves up to criminal prosecution in the way the law stands right now. How do you feel about the fact that the government has said, your government has said, that no, no, this was decided back in 2010, we’re not reopening this issue; we’re not even going to discuss it.
Steven Fletcher:
Well I think that’s fair actually because there have been several elections fought, the position of the government has been well known. And in fact, the other parties by and large agree with that position about legislation. But Tom I don’t the change is going to come from Parliament on this. I think it’s going to come through the courts. We have a court proceeding going on right now in British Columbia on this issue and no matter which way it goes, you know it’s going to the Supreme Court. And the Sue Rodriguez case was a 5-4 decision on the support; a close decision. The composition of the court and times has changed. Perhaps it will go the other way and then we’ll have to deal with it.
Tom Clark:
Let me ask you this because people who were opposed to assisted suicide would say that the taking of a human life under any circumstance is simply wrong, let alone whether it’s illegal or not. How do you respond to that?
Steven Fletcher:
I would say I’m thankful that there are people who value life to that extent because it forces us to make sure that we’re doing the moral and ethical thing. Now life for life`s sake, to just experience pain, I would say that is a life that is a candidate for this. And it also depends on your point of view. I think if you have a religious point of view, as a practicing Christian myself, you know hope can mean eternal life. So it gets really complicated really fast but at the end of the day, I’m an individual, I’m an adult, I have my faculties and I want to be empowered to do what is best for me. I think most Canadians want to be empowered to make the best decisions for themselves and if they can’t, to have the people who love them make those decisions.
Tom Clark:
Steven Fletcher, thank you very much for being here. Everybody would agree that when you were 23 years old you decided to fight this. Good to have you here.
Steven Fletcher:
Thank you Tom.
Tom Clark:
Well just a final note before we go. Politics is not a gentle profession. It is, and rightly so, competitive and combative and very brutal. Reputations and even lives can be destroyed. Ask Michael Ignatieff. Whatever you may have thought of his politics or of his inappropriateness to lead, he was and is one of this country’s most respected thinkers. His demise though was ordained by a system that is suspicious about outsiders. Brutal, ask former Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro. He’s been charged with election fraud and was immediately drummed out of his party. None of the allegations against him have been proven and yet in many ways he was the author of his own political misfortune. He personified the ultra-combative politician who scored points but ultimately gained very little personal sympathy. Politics has a way of punishing those who colour outside the lines. There is no appeal.
I’m Tom Clark. Thanks for watching. See you back here next Sunday. Have a great week.
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