At Issue Oct 10| 2024 :Poilievre accuses Trudeau of paralyzing parliament
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at issue tonight the House of Commons grinds to a halt it sounds like there's a new story every week to justify paralyzing Parliament to cover up the truth a standoff over releasing documents to the RCMP with both parties accusing the other of delaying the work of the house it is the government's view that we should send this to committee so that we can get on with the important work of this house and protect the Canadians so what's we made of this stoppage inside the house how could it affect the block Kaz ultimatum uh to get more from the government I'm Rosary Barton here to break it down tonight shant T bear Andrew coin alaj um so pharmacare did pass in the in the Senate on on Thursday night so that's something uh but there haven't they haven't really the government hasn't really been able to do much else because of this uh privilege debate on a couple of issues um Alia what do you make of the way this is being handled by the conservatives government well at the core of it it is an important issue I don't want to take the substance away um there is a fund that was created many years ago more than 20 years ago actually that has successfully worked to invest in startups and seed companies to that made Green Technology that worked and then it went through a period where it didn't work and the AG released a very scathing report earlier this year saying hey a number of company got millions of dollars that they shouldn't have gotten that either they didn't meet the definition of being eligible for the money or actually cases where there were conflict of interests including with the chair so the conservatives have um gotten a a ruling from the speaker saying they have this uh a real cause for uh wanting to have access to these documents and they've been monopolizing the house time to have a motion passed to go to committee to talk about all the documents related to this case except that the liberal government actually says we support you and the conservatives are basically filibustering own motion today they introduce a sub amendment to their other sub amendment to their Amendment on the motion and it is every time they do this the clock starts again and every single MP in the House of Commons gets to have a 20-minute speech with a 10-minute question and answer so who's fil bustering whom I think is a little bit the question here and why um the conservatives would love for the Liberals to bring forward a motion to shut down the debate because they would need to find one party to support them and then they would attack that party for shutting down debate over things that they alleged like corruption they've been saying words like this is worse than the sponsorship Scandal which we don't have evidence of just yet to be clear um so there's that gamesmanship at play I think there's also some wishing that this fashing will mean the Liberals perogue and that they can attack the Liberals for that as well so there's all sorts of shenanigan working around this but the consider could also just stop talking and send this motion to committee where it would be you know debated as it should and discussed as it should that that was a very good synopsis of of what's going on and maybe the why I should also point out that the RCMP have said we don't want to get documents this way this is not going to help us in an investigation um and Andrew what if you make what do you make of either as althia points out the gamesmanship or the substance of the issue which I I think everyone agrees is important for sure well I don't doubt there's games being played but there's also an absolutely fundamental issue which is when Parliament demands documents the government has to hand them over the government doesn't get to decide on what basis or on what grounds it passes them over and it has not agreed to do so it has found all kinds of reasons to justify why it should not hand over this document or that document or why this document should be redacted Etc which it maintains to this day the only issue that's in dispute within the parliament is not whether or not the the document should be handed over but the secondary part of it whether they should whether Parliament once it has the documents should then pass them on to the RCMP that's fine Parliament can debate and decide that and go rent committee but the government's obligation still stands regardless of what happens to to the documents after they after they've gone to Parliament the government has to hand over the documents to Parliament this is far from the first time either this government or the government before that has played this game we went through this under the Harper government with the Afghan detainees documents we went after we we went through it with the F35 costing we went through with this government with the wi charity documents we've gone through it with uh um the the the Winnipeg Laboratory Affair where they went to they took the speaker to court so time and time again governments in this country have been essentially defying the law this is not controversial this is not in dispute this is absolutely fundamental to our system of government it's as Bedrock as the constitution convention the the power of parliament to send for for persons papers and things goes back centuries and governments on both the left and the right are defying it and I think uh every party believes it has something to gain from this paralysis the conservatives obviously believe that they're on to something and that they corruption dismissal of parliament although the RCMP element is probably the element that they didn't need because yes uh Parliament should be able to order governments to produce documents but to say so that they can be passed on to the RC MP really gets in the in in in the way of the independence of an inquiry by the RCMP but set that conservatives uh believe that they're keeping the government on its toes demonstrating corruption lack of transparency the Liberals believe that they're showing uh the conservatives for what they are people who are not talking about dayto day and they're happy when PV is not talking about bread and butter issues and the more that this issue goes on uh the more it stays inside the bubble frankly it it is not a conflict it is about something that most Canadians would see as something that is vital to their daily lives yeah the NDP is Happy enough because it gets to call the conservatives agents of Chaos in Parliament and that's pretty good if you're going to face the conservatives in many writings in an election and even that I think rightly says neither the Liberals nor the conservatives want this to end did I mention it allows the Liberals to live for another day another week another three weeks um get the sense that they get more leverage I.E if the Liberals want this to stop then they would probably need either the mdp or the black to be on side for a closure motion and the BL is saying well give us what we have for and will help you end this dead end so I don't think there's any political will on any side of the house to end this I I I will say there is concern from what I've heard from the conservative side about that issue that Shantel signals there that you're not going to be talking about the things that matter to Canadians I think this is very hard to understand it's very hard to see how it relates to your life or why it matters Andrew well that's a sad comment and how far we've already let Parliament slip so it's true nobody cares what goes on in Parliament um one way we can start to make people care about Parliament is actually allowing Parliament to exercise some Powers it doesn't get any more fundamental than whether the government's going to obey the law or not supposing there was real corruption behind this I don't know if there is or not but the fact that the government can just endlessly Stonewall and and obstruct and cover up on these things is fundamental you know it's only a convention that we obey the law ultimately all of our system of government and our system of law depends upon people in the crunch actually obeying it and deciding to obey it Nixon even Nixon when the when the Supreme Court said you got to hand over the tapes hand it over the tapes uh he could have just said well come and get me so basically what Canadian government's both liberal and conservative been saying is come and get me Shartel and then Alia y yeah except that the the conservatives or the opposition parties are not judge and jury in this the RCMP is undergoing an investigation it does have the tools to get the documents and the notion that documents should Transit through a parliamentary committee uh to get to the RCMP is frankly not that's not in dispute I'm not I don't I don't disagree with that no but the the only reason for the phillybuster is to talk forever about a motion that says that this issue should be trashed out because it is a serious issue about the independence of the RCMP it's not no longer about governments not handing documents it's about the opposition making CH for the government can hand over the doc today okay okay Alia Alia gets the last word here Alia like everything there's policy and politics I agree with shanata on the politics I think the risk for the the conservatives is they are shooting themselves in the foot and frankly we're on day nine I really wonder if this is the privilege motion they want to talk about when we return from Thanksgiving or if they're going to bring in another frankly I think more scandalous privilege motion on the substance I mean Andrew raises some really good points but all of these points could be discussed in the committee the other issue which I think the Liberals are right to point out is if the RCMP says we can't even use these documents please don't give it them to us what if you have a constituent who has a criminal case against them and is like hey why don't you ask Parliament to get some documents because that might help me with my case like maybe there are things that we want our legislators to think things through and they can do that at committee and all of that can be done after the government has rendered the documents this no reason why they has to wait for for the commit egg Andre egg that's the speaker's ruling to send it to a committee you know what we did there we made Canadians care with that vigorous debate at issue Pier PV was silenced by the speaker for a day after attacking the Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Jolie twice she refused to condemn those remarks she continues to Pander to Hamas supporters in the liberal party as part of her leadership campaign rather than doing her job PV did not withdraw the remarks and Jolie fired back clearly what we're seeing is that PV is about double himself so what's to be made of Pier pov's remarks what challenges come with this strategy here to break all that down shant Telly bear Andrew coin ala Raj shant tell I'll start with you on this one um the these these attacks on on Melanie Jolie followed a uh very passionate but quite partisan speech that Pier PV made on Monday at a memorial for October 7th um and I'm sure that part of the idea was to to keep that sort of theme going for him what what did you make of the comments and that um I'm not sure that uh if PV was a truck he would have a reverse uh gear I've seen no evidence of it so I'm surprised that he wouldn't withdraw comments um that being said I also find that he tends to always uh bring it a line too far and on this there are many things you can say about melan and Canada's stance uh difficult to pin down on the Israel amas issue but the notion that anyone in the House of Commons is pandering to amas supporters is a bit hard uh to swallow especially when it's framed as part of a leadership campaign I suspect that uh uh most people in Mill's writing would question whether the fact that there may not be pro-israel makes them Hamas and terrorist supporters so um it there is something to be said about being the aspiring prime minister and to be able to talk with some moderation about Foreign Affairs I do note that Mr PV also this week said that uh initially uh Israel should feel free to bomb nuclear installations uh in Iran no Ally of Canada that I know of is really promoting that line and it has now become that he meant that they should be able to Target nuclear weapons so I don't know if there's a file that requires a bit of moderation it may be that one yeah and I wondered what the risks of that is uh Andrew to to uh be so staunchly in in one camp and be willing to attack in on those grounds whether there's a risk politically for Mr P of there well he's obviously calculated the Rison uh I'm not sure that the Eternal equivocation of the liberal government has stood it very well politically or morally frankly uh I'm less con I mean yeah it's over the top he only has one gear I agree with everything Shantel said I'm less concerned with that in this particular instance than with the way it was handled by the speaker yeah um um the parliament is supposed to be a pretty free willing place people say things every day that are a little over the top hyperbolic Etc but it's the kind of place where you can say things that you couldn't say outside of parliament because you get sued for liable why because we want the people to be able to test the limits of debate we want them to prod things to get out uncomfortable truths and sometimes they get out in ways that are pretty unconventional in this particular case he did ask Melanie Julie a very direct and simple question would she disavow would she disown these appalling remarks that are being remarks chants that are being made at these rallies that have inre increasingly taken a tone that is not just Pro Palestine but anti-semitic and indeed Pro Hamas all she had to do it seems to me this was not a gotcha question was just denounce them instead she retreated into strange kind of prepared remarks that had been written for her and I think a fair-minded person could say what is the game that she's playing at that stage was his uh comeback in that well judged no but it seems to me that's the sort of thing that the court of public opinion uh can figure out rather than the speaker basically Banning him from speaking for a and I think I I would say the same thing about the speakers ruling in the case of Ivon Baker the liberal MP who talked about the Putin wing of the cons taking over the conservative party again Overkill but gets at something some questions that need to be answered by the Alia well I mean I think by Andrew mentioning the case of Ivon Baker you just answered you know why the speaker do this I don't know that if and Bon Baker had not gone public and noted to reporters you know a lot of us didn't even notice that he had been muted for the past six months for saying that there was a pro Putin Wing had taken over the conservative party the conservatives complain in the house and the speaker told them he wasn't going to be recognized so in order to have some consistency still like visible hypocrisy because it's not like Pier poo has been mut muted for six months there had to be some form of discipline in order to maintain some level of consistency and now lo and behold Ivon Baker's muzzle has been lifted so I think that's why there was that punishment against Mr PV on the substance yeah um I do agree with Andrew that uh melan Jolie the foreign affairs minister could have actually responded to the question and said something substantial I also do worry that with Mr Pia's so Ardent stance like very very Pro Netanyahu Israel stance and the painting of everybody who's protesting as Pro Hamas supporters how does that how does a leader bring different Canadians together after the fact because you can't just say all the people out there protesting on the streets because they're worried about their family members and their friends uh you know uh having no food and being bombed and dying and so many Canadians have family members that have died to say Oh no you're all Hamas supporter you're all terrorist supporters and I will not be a prime minister for you like that that raises a whole bunch of other questions in addition to the Iran nuclear stuff question that raises a lot of questions about does the prime does here prob as prime minister have a Nuance button uh when it comes to Foreign Affairs that wouldn't get us uh killed you know like you can't go around saying stuff like that well that is one type of an error the other type is turning a blind eye as this government appears to be doing to these increasingly unhinged protests and I can tell you there's a lot of Jews in this country who are terrified as a result and I have not seen a very strong stance from the government on that particular problem at all last word to they could be more vocal I agree with that last last word to you shanto so you asked about political risks to P I believe that he believes that it's paying off I think uh it stance as pro-israel St made the difference in the Toronto St Paul's byelection and I believe that the attempts of the Liberals to kind of straddle straddled The Divide caus them uh on the side of the equation the seat in Montreal the V seat so in the end there are yeah and as for Milan I don't think she came across as a Minister of Foreign Affairs in that uh exchange she looked like someone who was also trying points the prime minister is set to testify as the foreign interference inquiry wraps up next week it comes as his National Security adviser says there are no trees as MPS in the house despite warnings from the National Security and committee so what's to be made of these comments and why are they only being heard now here to break it down some more Shantel Andrew and Alia Andrew I'm totally going to start with you on this obviously um I mean we did for many months talk about potential traitors inside the House of Commons because of that report from enot from parliamentarians who were looking at information and now uh Natalie duu The New National Security adviser says no they're that that's that's not what's going on here there are people making mistakes bad judgment but not that what did you what did you make of that well she seem to be drawing a rather precious line first of all that that she wouldn't give them security clearance she wouldn't trust them they were Crossing Lines Etc but it didn't meet through the legal definition of treason I don't think that's really the issue I think the issue that was flagged by nsic cop and they certainly took a stronger line than she has and we'll have to see maybe the public inquiry can settle those differences I would only say it's of a piece with the kinds of views that the of the people the Prime Minister likes to surround himself with day after day in the foreign interference commission we've been hearing from senior officials in this government and in both the political and the bureaucratic side know the political the foreign interference didn't really meet that test or that that bit of intimidation wasn't really my job to prevent or I didn't pass the document on the Prime Minister because they didn't think he needed to see it uh um it's it's just continuing to to present this alarming position of a government and Senior officials of which who who kind of hear no evil and see no evil on this file in general so I can't say I'm totally surprised to hear his current national security adviser taking a similarly soft line on this but we'll have to wait and see what the inquiry finds out yeah I mean I I suppose you could also say Alia that that that she just has a different interpretation of the information than than enop had and is less concerned parliamentarians which includes senators and the way I interpreted her remarks she was talking about members of parliament so I guess you could say that maybe they're both right sure I do agree in the Nuance that she's making and I think what she's responding to is frankly what a lot of MPS themselves were worried about when this report landed that they were be you know they were looking at their neighbors wondering who was going to sell Adan secrets and who could be trusted and who could not be trusted and what she's basically saying is like take a deep breath you don't need to be worried about the people sitting next to you some people are quite naive some people are doing things they shouldn't be doing some people are saying things they shouldn't be saying but you don't need to worry that there is like somebody out to sabotage Canadian interests or you know like this isn't a movie from 60 years ago um so I do think there was value I think at least for MPS in having that message out and as far as why we haven't heard it well she's a public servant they don't really talk unless they're compelled to yes right Shel I I believe that neither of the committee nor anyone else except In the Heat of debate and the House of Commons used the word treason which is a loaded word and the test for defining treason is a lot higher than I anything that uh we have found out about what's in that committee report or from the National Security advisers that doesn't mean that there aren't MPS who live dangerously but that being said can we go back to basics unless we are talking about cabinet ministers and even they how many MPS have secrets to share with foreign entities they don't even have secrets to us I think she means National Security Secrets just to be clear I mean MPS by and large are kept in the dark by their own parties and their own governments about almost anything of significance yeah there's there's lots of other ways though that you can be serving in other country's interests without selling secrets for example asking questions in Parliament that somebody's paid you to ask yeah yeah uh okay opposition MPS uh would be doing that it would be nice then if the leader of the official opposition got the security clearance that allowed him to read the report to find out if any of his members are doing that okay I'm I'm going to leave it there and we're I'm sure we're going to talk about it next week because the prime minister is in front of that inquiry again next week thank you all appreciate it that is at issue for this week I'm Rosemary Barton thank you so
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