Nothing unites like political success

this podcast is recorded on the traditional and unseated territories of the musim Squamish slth and quum peoples British colia I've seen your mountains High seen your pretty rainbows and your blue crystal Skies watch your winding Rivers as they blow around the B to me you're not a Strang coming to from the West Coast this is politicos today is August 22nd 2024 I'm Scott LOM and I'm Ian bushfield on today's show conspiracy theories and internal drama in the BC conservative party and the railway shutdown Al beit very briefly go to patreon.com co to keep this show from shutting down we don't have a union we don't have Collective agreements we just have a few of us so help us keep the lights on and thank you to Ryan Clayton for filling in last week it was great to listen to you you I loved it good episode yeah it's a good conversation uh thanks to him for filling in and uh welcome back yes it's been a week and a bit uh we don't need to get into that anyway I have thoughts about the Healthcare System nurses are awesome that's what I'll say they're doing a great job and all of them were lovely here in BC let's start with the BC conservative party the United has been launching you know all guns at them trying to get something to stick and they have found a candidate in Northern British Columbia who has very strong feelings about the Wi-Fi specifically Rachel Weber the candidate for Prince George McKenzie has called 5G Network's genocidal weapons uh in one video she posted to her own Facebook page she said 60 GHz has a very distinct impact on none other than oxygen itself being a physicist that hurts to C and not hurts like htz HTS the the the painful kind yes not the not the frequency kind not one to overplay their hand uh BC United MLA Mike Bernier called it downright weird because we haven't driven that into the ground yet oh I'm sure we'll get like at least one or two more cycles of uh politicians awkwardly trying to make that a th north of the Border too uh but yeah yeah it's that is rapidly uh diminishing what little uh oom fit had I will give credit to but yeah no this one is actually weird though so yeah I'll give credit to BC United they had a separate stunt earlier today where they bade literal tinfoil hats and stapled like the BC conservative logo onto them and were handing those out and that's the kind of funny simple message that I think works and that's why the weird comment worked so well the first time because it was simple and it cut through the noise to just go oh wait a minute we can actually just laugh at some of these you know people who are trying to be really serious uh but man we it it's it's good reminder that the reason John rustad is not in the BC liberals and now BC United is because of his position on climate change and that it's not real at least he has said in the past or implied heavily indeed although this is like 12 levels crazier than uh that the uh the 5G thing is just so weirdly Niche and Fringe even uh by those standards and it's kind of wild they're not just dumping this candidate and finding someone new uh so like I think the the real story here on how this Gand they got in is looking back on when they were nominated was almost exactly a year ago on uh the end of August 2023 like at that point the party had you know was basically John rustad and like two staffers um and was somewhere in the range of 10ish maybe 15% in the po so like it was just a party that only that had basically very limited V resources and was kind of a we'll take anyone who comes no um on it because they were still kind of not really viably contesting the election at that point but now that this has completely changed and the landscape is where they're actually at this point basically the main opposition party and contesting for power on this it sure would be a good time to actually just clean house and kind of uh get rid of the more unelectable people that uh maybe were there in the beginning but are going to hurt more than help on this it's not like they haven't done this before and a few other and it's it's weird that this one hasn't just jettison and they find like a pretty normal person who like last cycle would have just run with the BC liberals so I knew her name sounded kind of familiar and I had to double check and look this up but yeah she is the chair of the uh Prince George School District sd57 and has been under pretty heavy criticism for quite a while from the Teachers Association and a number of other groups in the area uh in Octo October 2013 I found at least sorry in October 2023 I found at least one article where it came out she was liking group uh posts in a Facebook group on uh private school thing and that was critical of the public school system and she said you know was even her defense here anyway the Teachers Association said she should resign because if you're the chair of a public school district you should have quote unquestioned support for public educ um but I think she like that one's a little bit softer she has I think that's a bit of a stretch like it's an oversight role like there's there's a time a place for not just uncritical support on that if you're on the political oversight stuff I think she's been more than that like this is the cap on a number of other things she was a Critic of soi1 123 uh I think she was opening some Prince George school district meetings with prayers like just straight unconstitutionally both from uh Supreme Court president and from the fact the school act says schools must be strictly secular in BC um she's got a long line of criticisms for her time on the school district but she did manage to get elected to the school district and within the board uh appointed chair of it so she has some local political weight which is probably why they are happy to have her as a candidate uh 5G opinions notwithstanding but it does kind of point that she has fallen down the qanon style rabbit hole of just all conspiracies eventually merged together yeah indeed the 5G thing never even made sense as like how but uh H I'm honestly not even sure what to say on this it is almost too crazy for words at this point um yeah the uh it's interesting the conservers decide to kind of stick with this one rather than doing what they've done before and jettison uh C that's like too far outside the mainstream maybe they're feeling cocky on this one and that they're in a strong enough spot they can hold on or that you know now that this is out in the summer it's not and nobody's really paying attention it's might not have stain power cuz like the uh BC United's thrown out a lot of stuff right now to try and Claw back their position I'm not sure it's actually going to work just because nobody's paying attention here and if you exhaust all your ammunition before that uh you don't have much to actually do when it could potentially stick but from the conservatives perspective that's a pretty big risk sticking with it because yeah this is the sort of thing that attack ads are made out of and the reason parties have such a strong discipline process uh and particular in can of such straight message display is because you know candidates or random bat benchers tend to draw a lot of uh photus when they do stuff like this and that just uh takes the leaders off message so I'm honestly confused on why the conservatives are sticking with her at this point even the ability to get on a local school board is not worth it if it costs you like five seats elsewhere and School Board elections no to those who have run them they are they are still hard but they're quite a step different in terms of the level of scrutiny applied and the challenge so also it's it's Prince George just the interior that a right of Center party is going to win that seat anyway so it's who cares if it's going to be someone else it's party ID is pretty much going to carry that rustad is doubled down in saying that it's cancel culture from the bcnp and BC United to try to push her out uh the hint at why things may be going the way they are comes from a Rob Shaw article from 3 days ago about efforts within the ranks to possibly OU rustad uh Shaw points to some sources he have who are disgruntled by the defection of a number of BC United mlas including Teresa watt uh thinking they're too liberal uh they have launched fire joh rad.com that's disappointing I wanted to yeah I also thought that same ER I tried to pop it open um so you know whatever organizational capabilities they may have clearly does not extend to basic web development uh they are also mad about a number of others with previous NDP ties including Gwen om money which is just funny uh given how much she's spun uh away from the NDP in recent years like people should be able to change Brands that's fine um but it does kind of highlight that there is this tension between the people who are like the stalwarts the longtime members the old stock conservatives who've been trying to fight this for years and very unsuccessful at it clearly and the money and organizers and everything that's shifting and jumping over from BC United as they try to build a new free market Coalition and that tension is kind of what you see in like the UCP in Alberto where you have the tension between the Wild rosers and the uh Progressive conservatives although they were more equal in power in many ways versus I don't know the or the federal conservatives and the old PCS where the conservatives just basically and the alliance and reform types just basically ate out all of the Power there but yeah here it's a mess yeah anyway this is yeah this is a wild t for the people try to get rid of rustad on this because he has done more to take this party from a joke at 2% into a viable operation and parties fundamentally exist to win elections hold power and govern and if you can't do that what is the point so ultimate like having Teresa Watt and all the other mlas jump ship has done more to advance the conservative party even in a in their perspective you know reduced or watered down state than anything else before that there hasn't even been any like big disagreement bubble to the surface in terms of policy there's no in the open fighting on that and farbe it from diluting the conservative brand it is if anything strengthened it by clearly signal in a big tent and the last thing uh Rising party should do is go into a purity spiral rather than uh be as welcome as possible to anyone that can kind of see themselves in the tent for their part uh the conservatives are claiming this is possibly an outside third party they don't see any evidence it's a current member and they are potentially going to file a complaint with elections BC I don't know over what I it's it's not a crime to say I don't think John rustat should be leader of the conservative party of BC um we yeah I guess maybe the they should be a registered third party Advertiser if they aren't a member if they're maybe that's where the complaint would if they're spending money on that um I think as long as they're not doing paid advertising that's fine cuz I I think the rules allow you to basically you know host a website write write opinion pieces ETA without having to go through all that you just can't be pumping out pay paid uh stuff on that you know you can communicate to members of an organiz you know organ of the organization and everything um on there without Traer and that so yeah I I just don't see as at least based on what I know the uh election rules how this could possibly be a violation the are you saying the guy Angela Isidor who made that quote who founded the Free Speech Club at UBC uh is on hypocritical grounds in going after somebody else's free speech I might be saying that but maybe at the very least this the seems like the best case scenario the the most generous interpretation I can see on this is it it's not so much a uh violation of the ACT a thing to try and dumb up the works maybe or try and scare this off but yeah it I just don't see how that's going to do anything it may also just be nothing right it's like a website and anyone can put those up who has a little bit of time and not much money what yeah and not not only that like every election you also always have a cycle of you know some electoral District Association getting upset about what the central office has done or how some nomination race went down and they are never consequential by the time the RIT drops and the elections true in full swing it it stopped mattering lot before that and nothing unites like uh political success does so one or two loud voices I I just don't see derailing it now if the conservatives tank their lead by not dealing with the uh the 5G crazy problem and that becomes a dead we around their Nets and some then I could actually see the uh the infighting getting more intense although the people trying to out thrust that are probably the uh the 5G types the ones more likely to support that's what I was just about to say is you tank her and you upset the balance a little bit more but we'll we'll keep our eye on that to see what's going uh the the other cliche story of every election uh is the debate over debates and this past week we saw BC green Le leader Sonia first now ask why aren't we having more debates uh and BC United leaders are also kind of in on this and both are kind of saying eie and rustad are trying to avoid pre-election sparring matches uh it's unclear from this global news article from Simon little how many debates we're talking about everyone agrees there will be a debate or two during the election notably the major media one I eie has a quoting here suggesting first and now is asking for like eight debates or something that would be unprecedented um it would be fun to watch we'd get tired and bored of them depending how poorly they were moderated but it would not be the eighth debate would not be you mix up the format eventually it's just like a gladiator style yeah this this is like I said a classic almost cliche electri story where the people in behind want to have a chance that the Front Runners stumble and they they can gain from it and the Front Runners have very little incentive to do it because debates are almost always downside for them they rarely go from a small lead to a giant lead because of a debate performance um particularly for like for someone like eie who's you know the ENC if you're voting not for the incumbent you've probably generally decided um that you're not going to favor them so there it's very hard to win over in that case and why would they do more than the uh some parties have even uh made it a habit of just not attending the local candidate debates because it's more effective just to go out and not spend that time knocking doors than it is to uh do debate prep and have the uh candidate tied up at a debate stage for a couple hours so I mean as much as we may want uh elections to become a uh pure contest of ideas sorted out on a debate stage it's generally not how elections are actually won there have been examples of debates that have mattered but they are more the exception I don't think any local candidate debate has ever really mattered unless like something terrible happens and it makes prominent news but most local candidate debates you get maybe a 100 or 200 people watching it in a constituency that's tens or 20 thousands of people uh of Voters the leaders debates are always interesting uh you know the prominent ones I'm thinking of that mattered was the 2011 federal election leaders debate when Jack Leighton made a very strong performance and the 2015 Alberta elections When Rachel notley had a very strong performance uh but outside of those yeah both of which yeah and that uh 2015 one was as much a Apprentice saying something really stupid uh on that one uh was it the is hard comment the uh the 2011 one yeah Jack Leon did a a solid job there but um and it did a good job of really tanking a nadf on that one but uh yeah look at it from a nf's perspective that was just downside for him on that it's uh it's ultim Ely I can't see the any of these debates in the upcoming ones matter I'd like to have one or two if just something to talk about something to watch but unless one of them really steps in it I'm uh not sure there's going to be a real poting it but I get why firsta now wants the debate because the green party basically can't get any traction on anything they say um and they're running a real risk of just being ignored through the whole campaign and that uh that's why they're trying to ha Mara of maybe more debates we get us more air time this election it doesn't look like we'll have to do the who gets in the debate kind of fight it looks like it it we should all agree it's a four party debate I'm sure we'll have to read this stupid story about oh BC con shouldn't be in it but the metrics we rely on are like how many mlas did you elect in the last legislature that would be a three-party debate uh who's polling strongly that would be a two-party debate uh who has mlas currently that would be a four-party debate uh and how many candidates you're running now probably don't qualify for but let's give them the benefit of doubt that they'll get there by the end and so that would probably be a four-party debate so you use all these metrics and balance it in some magic formula and I think it's justifiable all four of them should be there yeah yeah usually it's a yeah usually it's like a two out of three or something so and if the dream party continues to not do good at nominating candidates they may actually just not make the cut off uh they polling also continues to be pretty terrible but if they're only qualifying on the n r or got candidates elected last time they might be in trouble and yeah at 9% and got the exact number but I think less than half of the candidates nominated they yeah he might actually run a risk on that one although I don't think the formal requirements have been published but it's similar last time they they might have some serious challenges on that they don't get their act together speaking of serious challenges we have our latest quarterly financials for the provincial budget and we are posting a $5 billion deficit which is actually kind of on track with the budget it's all you know uh higher than the 4.2 billion that was predicted but lower than the uh 5.9 we were looking at last quarter so margin of error rounding of about a billion dollars were plus or minus uh the big criticism is the opposition saying we shouldn't have a deficit right now um too too late we already passed the budget that had it so yeah it doesn't mean the opposition isn't going to criticize if they think the the government's doing something wrong here uh for her part the Finance Minister said now is not the uh the time to balance the budget I am a little curious when is the time because it always seems like the time to balance the budget whether the economy is good or bad seems to be uh far off in the distance we have seen uh a record amount spent on Wildfire management this year uh there was also a drop in natural gas prices those are the two hard impacts on the budget but on the positive uh ICBC is helping give an extra $2 billion to the province so um Man David Eevee doesn't talk enough about how he turned that around almost a little bit too well remember when ICBC was costing like $2 billion to the public finances yeah this will probably end up being the a point during the uh the election campaign probably not one that's going to be uh super impactful would be my guess the the opposition will uh want more of a balanced budget but either way it uh doesn't it's not likely to be a huge political winner or loser and if anything I think the uh the line from the opposition ought to be more well what are we getting for this you we can't uh keep ER we're spending a record amount of money can't tbr's open housing's as unaffordable as ever despite spending huge amounts on H on housing to uh subsidize construction or uh wave the interest on loans for stuff and all of that strikes me as a more powerful line of ATT Tad than just on the uh balance budget because it's more directly impactful and seems like the uh the political impact of balance budget LS by 5 to 10 years of the actual reality like right now is more important we have fiscally sustainable Pathways because interest rates are significantly higher than they were in the period where the conventional wisdom in politics change from balance budgets are important because they are a sign of competent management and taking the economy seriously and that changed to a more yeah it's not really a huge deal voters don't really care all that much we don't really need to be too concerned about it um but as interest rates climb significantly the costs of running a deficit are significantly higher particularly over the long run and and when interest rates are at or real interest rates are pretty close to zero or you know nominal interest rates around inflation doesn't really matter all that much but when we're expecting the next several generations to to bear the cost because we can't uh keep current spending and uh current taxes about the same it's going to be a a lot more of a burden going forward historically interest rates aren't that high now they are higher than they've been for quite a while but you know we're not in the situation we were in the early 9s and I think what turned people around you know almost a decade ago now when Trudeau was coming to power on balanced budgets was just the frustration with the limits of an austerity approach right and so finding that balance I think you're right that the government does need to show better the value for money but on the other side the opposition like the conservatives in particular I've been thinking about their healthcare plan that we talked about a few weeks ago and they don't actually have a solution to the ER closures they talk about privatization and what that could help with in some sectors but that's something of tinkering around the edges of like surgical weight times not of like nothing in there really salvaged ERS other than stuff the NDP has also already talked about and so if it's one thing to you know point out the issue and the problem and try and distract with a different related healthare thing you could do but there's a credibility challenge there on the health care file at least that the conservatives I think still have to overcome in the voter's minds but they're not government maybe although like the path they're not government and there has been a successful model of conservatives running on Health Care against an incumbent left of center party and doing very well on that and that was uh Tim Houston in Nova Scotia and that's a campaign ball they should be uh pretty seriously considering because it can actually be executed on but just takes a little work on that speaking of work let's jump to the federal scene and the big story this week today especially is the railway lockout as the teamsters and CN and CP casc I hate it uh have come to logger heads and been unable to agree a a Collective Agreement or two between the uh respective Railways uh it was noted that these Railways don't usually both negotiate with the Union at the same time but uh one of them got a delay last year to bring us to like the nightmare scenario where all the railways shut down because all of the people who work speaking of oligopolies our our two Railway companies got locked out they didn't actually go on strike but there was strike action probably pending uh that started this morning which was quickly met by an order from the federal labor Minister Steve McKinnon to the Canadian industrial Relations Board to get the parties to binding arbitration and get a deal so that the railways could get back to work and the railway said sure we'll get back to work and TBD about The Binding arbitration yeah so this is the uh new labor Minister's first real uh big moment G to be interested to see just from a political perspective how that uh all plays out um on that and how he manages to do on this yeah RS are also one of those things where it does tend to lead itself to only a couple companies doesn't made sense to have eight parallel uh railway tracks all going between the same uh places on it but yeah it does certainly has some problems and uh yeah this is a very important uh National Lifeline like huge amounts of the e economy uh flow through and are trans flow through and are transported on these services and keeping that going is of pretty critical National importance and it's good that government is moving as quickly as possible to uh keep the uh the critical Goods that uh the economy households and all that uh depend on it's probably going to keep it from uh really boiling over into a problem that would both impact Canadians rather significantly and be politically quite damaging to the government that's already in a tough position details here are a little bit confusing because neither of us are labor lawyers or follow this kind of dispute too closely uh but I have seen at reported at least in a couple spots that these moves don't necessarily preclude further labor action at the moment uh the lockout could have continued but I think the companies decided to look like they were playing ball uh the union hasn't said if they will strike again I guess the federal government did for example order arbitration on the WestJet strike that came up earlier this year and the union still went on strike for a couple days there so there could be further disruptions the NDP have said that they strongly oppose the government intervening and this should play out between the Union and the companies like some Anal analysts point out that forcing quick closures is probably not good in the long term because it just pisses the unions off more and so you end up in the same situation again and again but if they can actually come to a good agreement they could have longer labor piece uh the disruption being the challenge for the government to manage uh I saw jug meet Singh had statements out on the ndp's website going at Trudeau specifically like don't intervene don't intervene repeatedly throughout the last month including two today both one this morning before the arbitration announcement and then one after condemning it um and that's the big challenge right uh there's no way he can bring down the government right now because parliament's not sitting he hasn't said he will bring down the government over this presumably if the government reconvenes Parliament to force through Back To Work legislation if it somehow got to that stage the NDP would just vote against it but the conservatives might support it in which case it all goes away uh the best case hypothetical I saw someone pitch is the Liberals should reconvene Parliament and force through a contract that is entirely what the union wants uh just to force the NDP to vote for back toor legislation and the conservatives against it yeah that that all feels too clever by half that's a little bit like the um Christy Clark Throne speech after the 2017 funny idea than a realistic one it probably also doesn't necessarily work well for anyone it just yeah it but it is a situation where the Liberals probably don't want to have to do binding or back toor legislation because then they also have to get the Senate to pass it and the Senate is sometimes a little bit grumpy about that it's a messy situation as you point out though Railways are still important even though we don't have as many as we used to most of them are for Freight and Freight this what you know lets my Amazon packages arrive on time although the uh West Coast Express was cancelled today it's uh going to also be uh closed Friday think it's TBD on next week um some of the reporting I saw said 30,000 people were impacted directly just on their commutes with that it's across three cities I'm guessing Toronto Vancouver and Montreal being the the main three on that um yeah even if they're mostly Freight Freight is extremely important a lot of critical Goods uh flow across the country on those Railways and even the uh albe far too limited passenger service in Canada is still pretty important because when the uh West Coast Espress goes down the the roads in and out of Vancouver are rougher than normal by quite a bit um yeah ultimately this is a an industry uh and a service that is quite literally of national importance and it's incumbent upon the government to to keep that running on there when it comes to the uh the NDP on that I mean at this point unless they're actually willing to bring down the government I'm not talking saying they're willing to bring down the government but actually willing to to pull the trigger on that cuz they've done the well we might have to reconsider our support if the Liberals don't do this thing so many times that uh not sure any there's any credibility left with that um they really don't have a hand to play on this one um at all and it and the more they do that if they aren't willing to do it just the weaker that becomes each subsequent time uh so yeah I don't think they're naturally all that strong a position on this kind of interesting to see where the conservatives would come down I suspect they probably Back Back To Work legislation on the the grounds that it's such a critical uh part of the uh Canadian economy that there's really no other choice on that even if it does make things a slightly rockier for their attempts to uh explan their their blue colar Union uh I think we saw this the last time there was uh labor disputes that the federal government had to get involved in that the conservatives basically stayed silent and refused to answer questions on it until it like came up for a vote and they like softly supported the government in that situation but they just don't want to talk about this they would rather stay on their strong Turf which any smart political actor would want to do it's why the NDP is making noise now is historically they are a labor party and they want to show those roots when called upon and like maybe don't have any actual teeth to Bear here but at least they're making the noise that the labor Grassroots wants to hear without yeah maybe although I think it becomes less of a political winter when uh store shelves start to become empty if this was a strike that would uh go on but for the short time it shortterm time it does make a certain amount of political sense for them um but they are in the unenviable position of trying to Square the circle of propping up the government and being very critical of it and they've never managed to turn that into an actually coherent position and this isn't going to be any easier for them on that in addition to work stoppages we also have a temporary foreign worker stoppage at least like Jesus [ __ ] Christ the government is not going to allow additional temporary foreign workers for low wage jobs in Montreal for six months cool wonder if that has anything to do with the b elction in Montreal or is this the um that that Quebec generally is more able to get special treatment uh out of Ottawa than any other place it just made zero sense for it to be a Montreal or tobec only thing unless it's you know political um political mations rather than any actual r policy on it also the frees won't apply to the fields of health education construction Agriculture and food processing so it's basically just like Tim Horton's so yeah Tim Horton should reduce the number of temporary immigrants by 3500 months like the temporary foreign worker program has been criticized for this exact Issue four years for like as long as it's been around I remember the uh I remember the then opposition liberals being incredibly critical the program and like it's gone under the Liberals I think that's undeniable and what we're seeing against this like backlash we've seen grow against immigration that broke the consensus in Canada I think can be squarely put on the shoulders of like the massive amount of temporary migration if they had managed to do this in any other way I don't think it would have been as bad but we've just looked at took the most exploitative immigration stream we had had and went what if we like just open the gates that way yeah they took out I think a lot of the limiting factors on that related to um like labor market conditions and some of that stuff ramp that up as they're also ramping up the uh uh foreign student uh permits and everything and yeah no if the uh there anything K the immigration consensus in Canada it's the liberal government just completely mismanaging the file on it you know it's always been a delicate balance to maintain that and part of actually maintaining that consensus isn't delivering a bunch of high-minded speeches about how great and welcom in Place Canada is it's about making sure that it's done in a reasonable manner that doesn't cause a lot of other un unforeseen or in many cases foreseen uh but unreasonable costs on various parts of Canadian Society Canadian economy Etc and by not being just responsible stewards of it and making sure that the changes they made were fully thought out and the downstream consequences were properly the program has beened as a form of modern slavery because people who come to Canada under these permits are tied to the employer and so if they complain they could lose their job and be deported if they have a vindictive employer and like that's not supposed to happen but that very much happens so like what are we doing here like this freeze it's good honestly I like to see it I would love to see it nationally and maybe there's a you know broader question I think there's a time in a yeah I think there's time and a place for programs like this but I say it's it's part of the responsible stewardship of it all and just how this has been done and rather than improve safeguards they've loosened them on that CU there are cases where you do want to be able to fill gaps in a labor force where there aren't really um the messed options to do that but it should always be a uh a case where There's an actual the immigration Minister has talked problems with the temporary foreign worker program and that changes will be coming this is all we've seen uh and this was announced by the Quebec government and immigration Minister there rather than the federal one also notice Quebec is the only province with its own immigration Minister kind of speaks to the special treatments there but maybe we'll see more coming on immigration from the government in the coming weeks stay tuned the other thing we saw saw this week was two new senators get named by the Prime Minister for the province of Manitoba former like reactionary conservative broadcaster and radio personality Charles Adler who's had like a come to Red Jesus moment over the last few years as he's dissociated with the conservatives and is kind of more of a free agent center rtist of recent uh is in I haven't followed too Clos that the conservatives I've been I've been following yeah I've been following him on Twitter for several years now and it's hard to think of very many cases where he's actually like articulated positions that are recognizably right of sander the um it's yeah pretty rare at this point I think I think that he's more kind of well not partisan liberal like is has fallen into the position that is the standard for the Liberals quote unquote independent senators of all being pretty much aligned in the broad stroes with how the Liberals Senator is Tracy mugley a Healthcare Executive in Saskatoon who's been on various boards and other organizations uh notably it's already been dug up that she has previously ran as a candidate for the Liberals in 2015 and 2019 and has been a longtime donor to the party um so that's one of the things they were trying to avoid with their independent process but it happens um so it shouldn't have to happen does it though is is it all I mean the independent Senators thing was always more branding I think than anything else yeah they kind of cut out some of the worst cas of uh just plump partisan hats into the Senate but it's not a it's not a huge difference on this than kind of what we've seen in the past and surely if it's all that independent you can find someone uh in the statu in that hasn't had a long history of a as a donor and former candidate for the governing party for his part there's number of people whove come out against uh Adler's appointment including the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs who have said uh he should not be in the Senate because of his comments back in 1999 on his radio shows that called a number of indigenous leaders quote uncivilized boneheads and intellectually Mor abund uh this was the subject of a Canadian broadcast standards Council complaint that ultimately dismissed the complaint saying it was fair political comment um because some people are boneheads and intellectually more abundant I haven't listened to his comments from 1999 so I don't know the full context maybe he was speaking to a number of specific leaders and just use you know flamboyant language maybe it was deeply problematic and racist and he's just like changed over time he does say he wants to meet with those Chiefs and try to make amends for any uh harm he's caused but most notably as well among his critics is St bonfice St Vital liberal MP and cabinate member uh for Northern Affairs Dan Vandal who said there are many eminently qualified manitobans who are better suited to represent our Province than Charles Adler which is an incredible statement for a Cabinet member to criticize his PM's appointment pick yeah it's basically just breaking the uh principal of cabinet solidarity on this one um just kind of wild to see it sounds like Vandal has personal issues with Adler it makes sense uh Vandal CBC notes was a city councelor and a mayoral candidate for Winnipeg when Adler was in Talk Radio in the city so undoubtedly they sparred and hated each other at the time yeah quite possibly uh I will not it's super weird that uh the CBC article on this just talks about how he's a liberal MP wa the oh no it has it it has whose cabinet responsibilities include Northern Affairs it does but the the heading on that se is liberal MP criticized his appointment He's initially introduced as liberal MP rather than cabinet minister which really I don't know why see kind of downplays the uh just how strong of rebuke it is and how much internal descent um cabinet solidarity is a pretty strongly established principle of the Canadian and well Westminster model of government so breaking that is not a small thing and it's kind of weird that actually doesn't get more play um in the story at all there's two paragraphs here in a row right under that heading that say he's a Cabinet member uh it yeah but yeah it's weird they don't they they needed the poly side they needed the PO person giving that one line they should have called Stuart uh they also note here Charles Adler has previously said that the Senate is a sewer that needs to be terminated but now he's in it so I I do appreciate calling out people's Change of Hearts um yeah that's one of those if you can't beat them join a moments I guess I I think the best know the the ultimate power move would be as your first uh thing to do as a Senators to to move a motion to to abolish the Senate refuse to take that's happen shin and refuse to take your oath of office I also kind of going guess that's probably not going to happen on this um this seems to be like a it's a weirdly contentious appointment for a government to make at this point like he said the uh the controversial comments were the subject of a broadcast standards complaint even the most basic vetting would have come up with that I just don't get the strategy here and you well there's a panel that recommends It ultimately the the decision on who to go for sits with the Prime Minister on that and the pmo didn't do the most basic level of vetting on this that's weird or if they decided yeah the we know this but we're going to plow ahead anyway what's even the strategy this is not going to convince anyone who's on the fence about it or be a an alive Branch to the right flank that has kind of abandoned the party at this point I I just don't get this appointment maybe he's done something nice for the Liberals by you know scorning his past affiliate a and they wanted to just simply reward that maybe although once again in theory this is an independent it's not there to reward people who do partisan work for you in theory well Adler is in the Senate uh he might get to debate an upcoming motion from fellow Senator Peter Harter who is bringing forward a motion for the Senate would be non-binding that the Senate quote should not adopt any bill that contains a declaration pursuant to section 3 three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms commonly known as the notwithstanding Clause harter's argument is basically the Senate if it's going to be a you know a chamber of sober second thought that protects the rights of the minority should just veto any bill that not tries to use the notwithstanding Clause particularly as it's being threatened by uh Pierre POV if he forms government that sure seems like a constitutional crisis waiting to happen on that one and one that not sure if the conservatives are going to be offs side of the public on if they uh actually go for this uh particularly on the issue they've uh been talking about invoking it on um the Senate is unelected there's a very strong uh consensus parliamentary and constitutional tradition that the unelected Senate does not block legislation that the government has a mandate to pass on this and uh it becomes very messy if they start going all over the place on that on um legislation that the conservatives if they win because they've campaigned on it will have a a Democrat mandate to pass on it and it is using constitutionally permissible means to do so in the legislation it's it's a very it risks causing quite a bit of conflict and ultimately may not be in the Senate's long-term interest to do because the Senate undermining itself as an undemocratic uh institution is probably going to if anything accelerate the decline of the Senate only Province where people and it's not even like a huge majority it's like a narrow majority often support the notwithstanding Clause being used where it has been used is Quebec and in like Bill 96 um which was uh the French language bill when Doug Ford was using the not with standing Clause there was super strong opposition to that or uh his position around uh what was it Bill 28 the teachers uh issues yeah the B to work I mean b to work is always a a tricky what um on that one I've think the the subject matter of that one had as much to do with the uh the opposition on the rearrange the um Toronto city election boundaries one they it drew a bunch of criticism from the uh the pundits I'm not sure anyone in the public cared about that one at all and on the issue that the conservatives have been the most clear about wanting to use this on in terms of uh strengthening uh rules around bail and whatnot I'm not sure that they're offside on the public at all on that one and it could very well be the case that taking a spec The General few on the notwithstanding Clause isn't necessarily going to stick to a specific case of it the risk always for anyone invoking it is you change your debate from a policy one where you may even have public support to a broader question of Rights and values that is much riskier grounds and the Senate digging in forces that debate to actually happen more thoroughly and more robustly and maybe the Senate ultimately caves with just enough but it is interesting this idea of the Senate and where are its limits as an institution if it's going to exist what is it for uh slowing legislation down a bit seems like all we have it for right now uh sometimes they you know provide some meaningful critique uh a lot of the time if the government is sticking to its guns it's really just you know mud in the Cog of our democracy but sometime you know I if it if it kills something like it in the past it killed uh Jack Leighton had a bill on climate change that was killed by the Senate uh and there's a couple other examples in the history but so my perspective the the thing the Senate's done the most good work on is probably committee level looking at bills and stuff the thing that parliamentary committees uh ought to be doing if they don't turn into just partisan Grand standing all the time of actually digging into a lot of the nuts and bults of the legislation and having a group do that that isn't motivated by the political message of the day and and getting on the the news that day is benef ficial on that it gets significantly less beneficial when it goes from recommendations on that to just outright blocking um something that has the a democratic mandate behind it uh on there because there is a very significant um Democratic deficit when the Senate doesn't just advise or provide second thought on it but actually block they'll be very curious to see how this debate goes in the Senate and how they ultimately vote if it ever makes it to that it sounds like this could take quite a while for this motion to make it to a vote but it'll give Senators the chance to spout their own personal beliefs on what their role is which at least is interesting because they currently do have some power and that has been play co find links to everything we talked about atpl co.ca support the show and get hats us to our select Channel at patreon.com Coast our intro music credit is beautiful British Columbia by sarch plotnikov playcast is a production of leging boot media and editing services are provided by chly 101.7 FM in ano thanks for listening [Music]