THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 10, Season 3
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Host: Tom Clark
Guest Interviews: Eric Perelshtein, John Cruickshank, Joe Clark, Guy Parent
Location: Ottawa
**Please check against delivery**
Tom Clark:
On this Sunday morning time to go to rehab? Rob Ford says, no, no, no. So why does he still have so much support? We’ll talk with Rob Ford’s biggest supporter and his worst nightmare, the publisher of the Toronto Star. A Conservative casts and jaundiced eye at Stephen Harper. We sit down with former Prime Minister Joe Clark. Plus, tomorrow Canadians will pay tribute to those who died fighting for our country but how are we treating those who fought and survived? The Veterans Ombudsman is here.
It is Sunday, November the 10th. I’m Tom Clark and you are in The West Block.
Toronto, in fact Canada has never seen anything like the Rob Ford meltdown. The fourth largest city in North America has become the object of both pity and derision from around the world. Need a reminder why? Well here it is, your weekly West Block Primer:
It all started with that photo of Mayor Rob Ford posing with alleged gang members outside a known crackhouse. There were allegations that Ford smoked crack with the gangsters, that it was on video but it didn’t knock him down.
Quietly a police investigation was underway. Hundreds of surveillance photos of the mayor and long-time friend Alexander Lisi are released. Still, the mayor would not be knocked down.
Then Ford himself shocked everyone. He confessed to what he had denied. The video he said was real. He smoked crack. Late night TV lit up.
Jon Stewart:
You’re not helping. Look, am I a crack user? I’m a social crack user. When I drink, yes, I sometimes smoke a little crack. It’s how I am.
David Letterman:
Ah, Mayor of Toronto, your buddy Rob Ford, his approval ratings have skyrocketed since he announced that he is smoking crack. Is everybody up there on crack? Is that the deal?
Tom Clark:
But his supporters known as Ford Nation, continue to back their hero. His popularity initially increased after the video was confirmed.
Streeters:
Female 1:
He is on our side and we love him to death so you keep going Rob Ford.
Female 2:
Trust me I would put him in again.
Tom Clark:
But how much more can he take? A violent rant caught on tape. Police saying there is yet another video. And news organizations saying this story is nowhere from over. The ball is headed straight for the kingpin.
One of those Ford Nation supporters is Eric Perelshtein. He works in the IT sector in Toronto. He voted for Rob Ford in the last election and still supports him today. He joins us from Toronto.
Eric thanks very much for being here. Welcome to The West Block.
Eric Perelshtein:
Thank you.
Tom Clark:
Let me ask you this, Rob Ford has lied to his city. He’s lied to you, his supporters. He admits that he uses hard drugs. He consorts with known criminals. Why do you continue to support him?
Eric Perelshtein:
It’s really not a matter of supporting Rob Ford as much as it is supporting Rob Ford’s policies and trying to distinguish between his personal issues and the political reasons that people voted for him in the first place.
Tom Clark:
Well that brings up a good question because is the support for Rob Ford or the support for a Conservative notion of Toronto?
Eric Perelshtein:
I believe the support is primarily for the Conservative notion of Toronto or at least a more Conservative notion than has been over the last decade, the years prior to Rob Ford coming into his role as mayor.
Tom Clark:
But let me ask you this, in supporting Rob Ford though through this because he is the Conservative face of Toronto, aren’t you worried about things like, I mean if he is by his own admission often in drunken stupors, smoking crack cocaine and so on, I think to Calgary and the floods or Lac Megantic where mayors needed to step in right away in emergencies. Are you confident that Rob Ford is in any sort of shape to step in to any sort of emergency that may happen in Toronto?
Eric Perelshtein:
It’s definitely a concern. He has been able to come to the city’s need when he had to, during the shooting at the Eaton Centre, he was front and centre. What has been documented over the past several weeks, months and you can even say years has happened outside of work hours. This is what he does in his personal time. Clearly that still may affect what he does as mayor but it is not something that is going to overwhelm my opinion of the individual for the role of mayor.
Tom Clark:
Well fair enough but when you see him admitting that he drinks to excess, that he smokes hard drugs and so on, do you think that should automatically disqualify him from running the city or are you happy with a mayor who does those things?
Eric Perelshtein:
I’m somewhere in the middle of the two. I’m definitely not happy with a mayor that admits to using crack cocaine that is vulgar in his presentation, whether it’s during work hours or outside of work hours. At the same time, I have to focus on what is important for myself and other taxpayers in Toronto who have daily lives to run and for those individuals, his policies and his stances have been really on point.
Tom Clark:
What are you hearing from your friends in terms, and I suppose I’m talking about people like you who support the Conservative notion of Toronto, who support Rob Ford despite it all and so on. Are you hearing any sort of wavering among Ford Nation at all about what Rob Ford should do next?
Eric Perelshtein:
There’s definitely wavering and many of my friends do not have the same opinion that I do. And just to set things straight, it’s the fiscal Conservative aspect, not the social Conservative aspect that I’m more concerned with. There’s a lot of conversation. There’s a lot of discussion but not so many people really understand where municipal dollars come from, how municipal dollars are spent, who is really going to be affected, and there is a huge divide amongst those friends I have who live in the downtown core, who live in the outlying areas. Whether they’re home owners or not, it’s a very, very big city now and I think Mayor Ford addresses the bigness of that city whereas some people who still see it as a small city don’t quite understand where some of his policies are coming from.
Tom Clark:
Okay, Eric Perelshtein, we have to stop there but I thank you very much for coming in this morning. Good to talk to you.
Eric Perelshtein:
Thank you for having me.
Tom Clark:
Well right from the beginning, the Rob Ford story has been owned by the Toronto Star. It was the Star that first broke that story of the crack video. And it was the Star that revealed the latest video of Ford’s violent rant. Well joining me now is John Cruickshank, the publisher of the Toronto Start. John, good to have you back on the show.
You know you in many ways have become part of this story so let’s start with these two videos. Why did you pay for the rant video and why did you not pay for the video that allegedly shows him smoking crack cocaine? Isn’t that more important than the rant?
John Cruickshank:
It was more important but the circumstances were so very different. The biggest thing was we would have been required to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to folks who were drug dealers and apparently gun runners and we simply couldn’t do that. We couldn’t rationalize that. We weren’t at all concerned about the second payment. We weren’t concerned about who was getting the money and we also felt we had a complete justification on a couple of different grounds Tom. One of them: the simple fact that anything that reveals the character of the mayor and his present state of mind since taking office, I think is very important to become public knowledge. The Second thing is…
Tom Clark:
Sorry let me just interrupt you there for a second John…I just want to interrupt you there because you bring up a very important point and a lot of people have been saying, where does the public interest stop and where does privacy begin because when you take a look at that rant video, it doesn’t appear that he is breaking any laws, as is purportedly shown in the first video of him purportedly smoking crack cocaine. It could be anybody having a bad day privately in somebody’s home. So where is that line between public interest and privacy?
John Cruickshank:
I think whenever the mayor, the prime minister, even the head of a powerful corporation has a bad day, as you call it and threatens to kill somebody in the most gruesome terms, it’s of the public’s interest. I don’t…I’m finding it very hard to make this differentiation between the vices that political people have in their private lives and the virtues they’re supposed to have in their public lives. It spills over.
Tom Clark:
Well let’s deal with another thing John and that is when you revealed this really quite shocking video of the mayor in this violent rant, you didn’t though tell us any of the context of it, who you purchased it from, what the date was, what perhaps he was talking about, who else was in the room, and specifically who you bought it from. You know when you make the decision to buy it, why would you withhold that information from your readers?
John Cruickshank:
Well like all news organizations, at times we have to make agreements with sources to get material that we think is in the public interest out into the public space. And that’s the case in this circumstance. The mayor immediately validated this video. Immediately said yep that’s me. Clearly he’s the person who bears the biggest responsibility to explain what it’s all about.
Tom Clark:
But don’t we have the right to know who sold it to you, what the circumstances were?
John Cruickshank:
Yes, and I think the onus is on the mayor of the city. I agree with you, it was shocking. A tremendous number of people have found it shocking. This is, after all, we put this video up after his very famous I’ve got nothing further to hide speech. We need to talk about this.
Tom Clark:
It is a good point. John unfortunately we’re out of time but I appreciate you coming in this morning. This story, I suspect is far from over and I’ll keep my eye on the Toronto Star for the next developments. John Cruickshank, publisher of the Toronto Start, thanks for being here this morning.
John Cruickshank:
My pleasure.
Tom Clark:
Well coming up, what does former Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark think of Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau? We sit down for a feature interview. But, before we go, here’s some advice from coast to coast for Toronto and it’s mayor. Take a listen:
Male 1:
Maybe don’t associate with known gangsters.
Female 1:
Lay off the pipe.
Male 2:
Perhaps being in a drunken stupor is not helping things so I’d suggest cutting that out of your daily routine.
Male 3:
More crack…yeah at this point he might as well.
Male 4:
The truth always comes out. Can’t really hide from the truth.
Female 2:
Get out while you still can.
Male 5:
Good luck.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well former Prime Minister Joe Clark is no fan of Stephen Harper’s. And in a new book he blames Harper, among other things, for Canada’s loss of reputation on the world stage. Elected as an MP back in 1972, Clark became this country’s youngest prime minster in 1979 but it was short lived. He then went on to become one of Canada’s longest serving foreign ministers. I sat down with Joe Clark earlier this week.
Tom Clark:
Mr. Clark great to have you back here.
Joe Clark:
Great to be back, thank you.
Tom Clark:
In so many areas in this book you’re very critical of Stephen Harper. What was his biggest political mistake? What was the biggest missed opportunity that he had?
Joe Clark:
I think it is precisely in this domain of focusing narrowly. I would say he’s done that domestically. He’s focused on his base rather than the whole country which is quite different in my view from literally every other prime minister I’ve known or had to do with. And internationally, it’s been very much a focus on hard power. Now he’s done some very good things, including learning from his own mistakes. I know about that. He had the opportunity to correct some of his mistakes. I think his initial position on China was a mistake and to his great credit, he changed it. I think that they were not very much interested in trade when they began because they were a domestically focused government. To their credit they’ve changed that. And that’s to their credit but I think that there is this immense capacity in dealing with the developing world, the emerging world, multi-lateral organizations and non-governmental organizations where they have in effect turned a deaf ear and there is a great potential for Canada.
Tom Clark:
In this book you talk about how we have siloed everything and how in modern politics we slice and dice. The politician doesn’t much care for one national message anymore. It’s far more effective if you can win that small area and that small area and cobble something together. Have we gotten to the point now where politics and public discussion in this country has become so Balkanized that we can’t have a national discussion anymore?
Joe Clark:
I’m really worried about that because my view has always been that while we’re a very lucky country, we’re not a natural country. We’re not an easy country. We have to work to build the country. We have to bring people out of their silos and our experience has always been that when we try to do that we accomplish some great things. That’s how we got the health care scheme. That’s how we got the free trade agreement. We brought people together who came from different places, may well have had different views and then we had discussions about it. And it’s been a long time since we’ve done any of that. And the reality is we haven’t talked about much as a country in the last 20 some years. We have gone back and talked about our professions, our provinces, our personal lives. All of that is very important but this is a country that needs to be lifted up and to focus on what we have in common.
Tom Clark:
I don’t think it’s any surprise to people who know your political history that you wouldn’t be necessarily a great fan of Stephen Harper’s. You two have been through political wars together. When you take a look at the modern scene right now and maybe this is a leap that I shouldn’t make but I would doubt very much that Joe Clark would cast his ballot for a Stephen Harper candidate in the next election, but when you take a look around at the alternatives do you like what you see? And if so, which one is your eye landing on?
Joe Clark:
I’m going to cast a private vote and I should say that Stephen Harper and I are cut from different cloth. We both recognize that. I have a great admiration for many of his Members of Parliament and indeed some of the government, in some cases, extraordinarily high view of some of them and so I don’t intend this to be categoric. I think that Tom Mulcair is the best Opposition leader since I was around and he’s been very effective in the House. Will that translate into his capacity as a prime minister, his attractiveness, I don’t know but he’s performing one institutional function very well. I knew Trudeau the father better than Trudeau the son. What I know of the son is that he deserves to be judged on his own. I’m somebody who understands political courage. He ran in a very tough constituency. He won it. He won it again when nobody else around him was winning. He obviously has attraction to the rest of the country. The question for him, as it was for every new leader, the question for him is whether he can attract enough new people to be with him. You’ll recall the 1979 election I won. I won in part because we were able in the by-elections before that to elect a Bob de Cotret, to elect a Dave Crombie, to elect a John Crosby and then people like Michael Wilson who had strengths that I didn’t have, came and joined us and we were able to build a party. Can he do that? That’s a question for the future but our choices are not as bleak as they might seem in the country and what I hope will happen is there will be a change in the atmosphere that will be, to go back to your original question, it will be a politics that looks forward and tries to build things rather than a divisive politics.
Tom Clark:
Joe Clark, author of How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change. Great seeing you again.
Joe Clark:
Thank you. Great to be here.
Tom Clark:
Well you can find my full interview with Joe Clark on our website, www.thewestblock.ca.
Well coming up next, after the victory celebrations, are we forgetting the men and women who wore the uniform for this country? Stay tuned.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well as the country prepares to honour and remember those Canadians who fell in battle, there is another fight underway, this one for the soldiers who survived. Yesterday in Cape Breton, more than 2,000 people, many of them veterans marched through Sydney to protest the closing of a Veterans Affairs office, one of the eight that are being closed across Canada. Veterans say that these closures will make it extremely difficult to properly access the help that they are entitled to. And the help that they say is diminishing in any case. Well joining me now is the Veterans Ombudsman, Guy Parent. Mr. Parent thank you very much for being here today.
Guy Parent:
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Tom Clark:
Good to have you here. What did you make of these protests yesterday in Cape Breton?
Guy Parent:
Well it’s nice to see that we have the freedom to protest first of all. I think this is the types of things you celebrate during Remembrance week. Of course we are concerned about some of the closures of offices but really, until they’re actually closed and we see the real impact, as you know my organization is an evidence based organization, so what we’re saying to people is that even now if you see any changes in the quality of the service that you receive, please call our office so we can record that and register that and be ready to move. And certainly the first indication that there is a proof that people are going to be…you know that the service is going to be less, then we’re certainly going to get involved. Right now we are tracking because our mechanisms for tracking files allows us to go by regions, so we are certainly looking at the type of complaints we get, whether there is more from those areas or not.
Tom Clark:
Let’s go to a broader look at how we’re treating our veterans in this country because you’ve been very outspoken in your office about the need to update the Veterans Charter which is basically the rights and entitlements that we give to our veterans. If you had to, and you’ve been pleading in a sense with the government to do something about this now because the dire situation of many of our veterans, if you had to choose one issue that needs immediate attention what would it be?
Guy Parent:
Well there are two things that come out of the report that are very evident as far as being in the critical realms. The first one is the fact that we’ve identified upwards of 400 people that when they turn 65 will become really wards of the state because their allowances will stop at 65 years old. So certainly one of the first things I would like the government to do is to at least track down those people, and we’re not saying that all of them will be in that position but that every one of them should be contacted and we should find out what kind of situation they’re going to be in when they turn 65. And over and above that, the second thing in the report that is evident is that those 400 and some, and there are probably more now since we produced the report, but they are actually people that are categorized by Veterans Affairs as totally and permanently incapacitated. Now some of those people are totally and permanently incapacitated, out of those, 53 percent are not receiving the permanent incapacity allowance. Well to me, it’s an allowance that’s self-defined. If you’re going to be totally and permanently incapacitated you should get the permanent incapacity allowance.
Tom Clark:
And why aren’t they?
Guy Parent:
Well again, it’s a matter of how the selection is made for this category and then people have to be contacted and find out really what kind of situation they are, because really an ombudsman’s office responsibility is to make sure the department understands the special circumstances of the case. So that’s why we keep doing with the department, have you looked at these people in particular?
Tom Clark;
I’ve spoken to many senior members of the military and those who are retired and perhaps can speak more openly. What I hear from ex-generals and ex-admirals is that we have not done a proper job of caring especially for the recently wounded soldiers who have come back either with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or physical injuries. They’re not being given access to jobs. They’re not being given the type of care…do you agree with that sentiment?
Guy Parent:
Well in fact, I agree that more can be done that’s for sure. There are efforts on the way trying to make it better for our young veterans but what a lot of people don’t understand and how we got to this business about people lacking benefits at 65 is that the new Veterans Charter was not very well communicated and people don’t understand it. So I urge people that are not sure about the new Veterans Charter to read the report because it’s very comprehensive as to what it entails. And again, if more people knew what it entails, a lot of the new veterans would be able to actually be able to seek what it is that they rightly deserve sort of thing. And I think what’s important as well is that the more people communicate with us or with other agencies to find out what information, what’s available is important. I think one of the biggest worries right now of course is the PTSD surge. People talk will be possibly some people with latent signs and symptoms of PTSD and my concern there and the concern of my team there is not if it happens or not but are we ready for it. Is the department ready for that?
Tom Clark:
Guy Parent Veterans Ombudsman, thank you very much for being here and I appreciate your service as well.
Guy Parent:
My pleasure.
Tom Clark:
Thank you so much.
Guy Parent:
Thank you.
Tom Clark:
And that is our show for today. Global News will have a special Remembrance Day show tomorrow hosted by Dawna Friesen. It starts at 10:30 eastern time. And I’ll be on as well from the War Memorial, just outside of our studio here in Ottawa.
I’m Tom Clark. We’ll be back next Sunday with another edition of The West Block. Until then have a great week.
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