The West Block – Episode 8, Season 13 – National

THE WEST BLOCK

Episode 8, Season 13

Sunday, November 5, 2023

Host: Mercedes Stephenson

Guests:

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian Vivian Silver

Irwin Cotler, Former Liberal Justice Minister and Former Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism

Location:

Ottawa, ON

Mercedes Stephenson: A deal to help Canadians who use oil to heat their homes is backfiring on the Liberals. Can they save the credibility of their signature carbon tax?

I’m Mercedes Stephenson. Welcome to The West Block.

The Conservatives and the NDP want the Liberals to give Canadians a break on their home heating costs by pausing the carbon tax. The prime minister, though, says there will be no more exemptions. What’s the political cost to saying no? We’ll ask Cabinet Minister Randy Boissonnault.

And it’s been almost a month since more than 240 people were taken hostage by Hamas in Israel. Their desperate families want them back. We’ll speak to the son of a missing Canadian and to former justice minister Irwin Cotler on the sinister rise of antisemitism.

The Liberal government has been playing defence for days now, facing political backlash against their plan to give only some Canadians a break on the carbon tax. The policy backflip will see a three year carbon pricing pause on home heating oil, which is mostly used in Atlantic Canada that had some premiers calling for a break on all forms of home heating fuel, like natural gas. The prime minister immediately ruled that out.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “There will absolutely not be any other carve-outs or suspensions of the price on pollution. This is designed to phase our home heating oil.”

Mercedes Stephenson: Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre has now introduced a motion calling for Ottawa to extend the home heating freeze for all households.

Pierre Poilievre, Opposition Leader: “Give them a pause on the carbon tax because a Canadian is a Canadian, is a Canadian.”

Mercedes Stephenson: The vote on the Conservative motion is expected tomorrow and it has the support of the NDP.

Joining me now to talk about all of this is Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault. Randy, thank you so much for joining us today.

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: It’s my pleasure, Mercedes.

Mercedes Stephenson: You’re out there in Alberta. I have to imagine that your office is getting some slightly irritated calls from constituents, potentially. My question to you as an Alberta MP is, do you think this program change is fair?

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: Well actually, if we take a look at the details, Mercedes, what we’ve done with this program is we’ve accelerated the replacement of home heating oil with heat pumps across the country, and we’ve started in Atlantic Canada. We’ve got deals in place with some provincial governments now. And as I said yesterday at a housing forum here in Edmonton, I invite the Alberta government to join us so that Albertans who are using home heating oil can also have the same program and make sure that they get heating pumps to get off of fuel which is four times more expensive than natural gas and twice as polluting.

If you take a look, Mercedes, at some things that Albertans have benefitted from that other parts of the country haven’t been able to benefit from. We have electricity generating plants right now that are using natural gas that have been grandfathered into the system well past 2035. And, you know, as I said at the housing forum yesterday, we built a pipeline and TMX is going to get completed. And that pipeline disproportionately benefits Albertans, the Alberta coffers. It also benefits the federal treasury. And so when you have a country as vast and regionally diverse as ours, there are going to be some policy decisions that are going to, you know, take a regional focus but have a national impact, and that’s what we’ve done here.

And I think the last thing I’d say is any rural Albertan that’s getting the top up for our Climate Action Incentive program, that top up is now going to double. So it is a national program. I think it got rolled out as a regional only program and that’s simply not the case. So Albertans have the ability to participate in this program and I hope that the government of Alberta will work with us to make those heat pumps available right here in my own home province.

Mercedes Stephenson: How many Albertans use heating oil, because my understanding from looking at the statistics is that it is overwhelmingly Atlantic Canada, which would also be suggested by how your government presented this program, which was the prime minister in front of his entire Atlantic caucus?

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: It’s a great question and I think Atlantic caucus was—was obviously pushing for this. It’s an important piece, and if we take a look at who uses home heating, Mercedes, it tends to be the lowest income Canadians. A lot of single female seniors, and what we’re going to now is we’re going to be able to make sure that they get these heat pumps, that’s going to be affordable. Like these things cost $20 grand. So $20 thousand for somebody on low income that would be—you’d never be able to do that. And so this is going to get people off home heating oil forever. It’s going to put more money in their pocket because they’re going to go to a lower source of a—like a cheaper energy source to heat their homes. And, you know, we’re talking about thousands of Albertans here being able to take advantage of this program, but we got, you know, $4.5 million Albertans. I live in Edmonton centre and we’re actually—my partner, David and I—are actually looking at the Greener Homes Grant and the Greener Homes Loan, which provides Albertans and Canadians a $5 thousand grant and a $40 thousand tax free loan if we want to switch, you know, an old furnace like I have, to a high efficiency one or to a heat pump. So that’s in place, and just to—maybe to clear the air, there are more people who heat their homes using heating oil in Northern Ontario than all the Atlantic provinces combined. So this is why it’s a national appeal to premiers across the country to have them join us. Right now we have Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador as part of the program, and we’re fully expecting and will be hopeful to see more premiers join us. And I hope that Premier Smith is one of those premiers that will join us in this ability to transition Canadians from heating oil to heat pumps.

Mercedes Stephenson: I think that some Albertans would take issue with the comparison of TMX being built, which is in the national interests and does not put money into every single Albertans pocket or people who are struggling to pay their bills right now in the way that this program will put money into those who are low income. And I don’t think that folks are against people who are struggling to pay their bills getting help doing that, but the question is the decision to step back on the carbon tax specifically versus just creating a separate program that would help with those heat pumps, do you think that the decision to do this backflip on the carbon tax undermines your argument that it’s not presenting undo financial hardship on people who are low income and trying to pay their bills in a time when we’re seeing all kinds of inflation and difficulty with the cost of living?

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: The short answer is not at all, if we take a look at how the Climate Action Incentive program applies in the country, where there’s a federal backstop, like here in Alberta, for example. Eight out of ten families get more money back from the federal government, from collecting the price on pollution than they actually pay for, you know, the price on pollution when it comes to either their home heating source or, you know, filling up at the pump. In the case of Atlantic Canada, and in the case of this project across the country, it’s a three year pause so that we can make sure that we can get this transition done and, Mercedes….

Mercedes Stephenson: But, Randy, if people are getting all this money back, why if it is, you know, basically net zero cost to them, why would you need to reverse that to help them pay? I think that is the inconsistency that people here are struggling with.

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: I think it’s because home heating oil is so much more polluting and so it’s got a higher profile. Like it has a higher GHG profile, and so the price on pollution applies there to…

Mercedes Stephenson: But that doesn’t change the amount that the person paying is struggling with their bills, right? I mean there are people who have natural gas in Alberta who are struggling just as much, or in B.C., or in, you know, Ontario, as folks are in Atlantic Canada, and they don’t understand why the federal government won’t consider helping them alleviate their struggle. Why not extend this to other parts of the country?

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: But I think if you take a look at where we started this in Atlantic Canada, we’re also talking about areas what we call energy poverty. So what does that mean? Areas where there simply isn’t a vendor solution. Like, if you’re in parts of rural Newfoundland and Labrador, if you’re in parts of northern Ontario, like you can’t actually—there’s no other source. And so we needed this three year time period to be able to make sure that we had people to apply to get the heat pump installed and then be on the other side of that, not paying as much money, like to your point, saving more money in their pockets and being able to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Mercedes Stephenson: I hear what you’re saying on heat pumps. Your government could have created a program that was purely centred around that. You didn’t have to have a rebate on the carbon tax to do that pause, and that’s where your political adversaries are ceasing on and saying this is proof that it’s not really about changing behaviour. This is proof that it is not in fact financially neutral. If it is all of those things, why make this decision, which seems to kind of have blown up politically for you?

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: It’s because of the high GHG component and the high cost of home heating oil, which is—has nothing to do with carbon pricing. It has to do with the actual price of home heating oil, which is high—two to four times higher than natural gas, and the fact that it’s two times more polluting, makes that, quite frankly, the worst kind of way to heat your home. And guess what? For thousands of Canadians, it’s the only option they have. And so this was a compassionate, responsible approach to making sure that our carbon pricing system continues to have integrity across the country, and look, the Conservatives were always going to come at us when we found a solution for this issue because their leader, Pierre Poilievre, simply doesn’t believe in climate change and actually threw out what they all ran on last time, which was an actual plan to use technological changes to somehow magically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. So I’m not surprised at all that the Conservatives have pounced on that, and the New Democrats are looking for a way for their polls to come up in—you know, their numbers to come up in the polls. What we’ve done is made sure that our climate change process, our climate pricing pollution process can be there for the long term. We’ve done something that applies not just in Atlantic Canada but across the country. And, when we get on the other side of this, people are going to save money and they’re going to lower their GHGs. And I think that’s a reasonable, responsible approach for any government to take because, look, the government is built on compromises and solutions that make sense regionally and across the country, and that’s what we’ve done here.

Mercedes Stephenson: Randy, always nice to talk to a fellow Albertan. Thanks for coming on the show today to answer our questions.

Randy Boissonnault, Employment Minister: Thanks Mercedes, all the best. Take care.

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, a plea from the son of one of the Canadians believed to be held hostage in Gaza.

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: “I feel there is still hope that she is alive and well and that we will be able to see her back with us.”

[Break]

Mercedes Stephenson: Is Israeli ground forces move deeper into Gaza, the families of Israeli hostages are growing increasingly concerned about their safety, nearly one month after they were taken.

Families have been holding vigils and protests to pressure the Israeli government and the world to get their loved ones released.

About 240 people were taken hostage during the attack by Hamas. Two Canadians are missing. One of them is Vivian Silver.

I sat down with her son, Chen Zeigen, when he was here in Ottawa to raise awareness about the hostages. And joining him is Irwin Cotler, former liberal justice minister and Canada’s first special envoy on preserving holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism.  We talk about the hostages and why never again must be more than just words.

Thank you both so much for joining us today, I know under very sad and difficult circumstances.

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: Thank you.

Irwin Cotler, Former Liberal Justice Minister and Former Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism: Thank you for having us.

Mercedes Stephenson: Chen, if I could begin with you. What have you heard about your mother from the IDF, from the Israel authorities? What have they been able to share about what they believe happened to her and where she may be being held?

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: About a week after she disappeared, we had contact from the Israeli government. They told us that her phone was geo-located in Gaza. And based only on that information, they are considering her as a hostage. But other than that, no one has seen any evidence, any videos. No one knows what may have happened to her.

Mercedes Stephenson: What is this experience like for you?

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: It’s very hard to describe. It’s feeling up in the air. We are doing all that we can, based on the belief that she is alive and well, and all that we can to raise awareness to the hostages in hope that we will get any information and we will be able to see her back soon. I just came back from a visit to Israel, where I went to support my family and my community on Kebbutz Be’eri where she lived. I went to funerals. I made shiva calls. The grieving families often look at me and my brother as if we need to be comforted because the sentiment is that they have closure and they can grieve and we are being held up in the air and we don’t know anything. For me, at least I feel there is still hope that she is alive and well and that we will be able to see her back with us.

Mercedes Stephenson: You are just so incredibly brave to be doing this, and I know it’s very difficult and we so appreciate you sharing your time with us and with our viewers because I can’t imagine being in your shoes and having to speak about this.

Irwin, I know that you have worked on issues around human rights and concerns about antisemitism. For years you’ve been with these family members as they engage with the Canadian government and with governments around the world. We’re starting to hear some stories of the IDF freeing some hostages. What is your impression of where this going to go with the hostages and the hopes for getting them back as soon as possible?

Irwin Cotler, Former Liberal Justice Minister and Former Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism: Well you know we see the hostages as really a looking glass into horrors too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened. I was in Israel that October—Saturday, October 7th. We were there to celebrate my son’s marriage and it ended up becoming, as it’s been said, the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, and the immediate and unconditional return of the hostages is for us, a standalone obligation. It’s a humanitarian imperative of the first order. It’s a moral imperative because their ongoing detention and forced disappearances is really torture. It’s a legal imperative of the first order because every day that they are being held is an ongoing crime against humanity as it all began and it’s an international legal responsibility. States are obliged to do everything they can to secure the release of hostages. So we have recommended an international coalition for that purpose. At this point, there’s been no real movement on the matter of the hostages and we say it’s a matter of urgency and it’s a matter of international responsibility.

Mercedes Stephenson: Chen, if your mother could speak right now, what message do you think she would have for the world?

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: My mother was a peace activist all her life. She believed in reaching peaceful agreement, building up peace from the bottom up. She devoted her life to garnering understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, organizing encounters. She constantly opposed any use of violence on either side. It would be very hard for me right now to imagine what state she is in. I know that one of the heartbreaking consequences of this attack is that many of her friends that survived the attack, many of the people in my community, in Kebbutz Be’eri who shared these views with her, who struggled for a peaceful solution, they have completely lost faith. So I hope if we see her again soon that she is still the hopeful and strong woman that we know.

Mercedes Stephenson: One of the questions I was hoping to put to both of you is the ripple effect that this has had globally, the concern in the Jewish community of rising antisemitism. I watched the videos of what happened in the airport in Degestan where an El Al flight was surrounded by a mob, looking for Jews on the flight. And I am hearing from Jewish Canadians that they are feeling fear like they never have before.

Irwin, what are your concerns about where this is going after the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust?

Irwin Cotler, Former Liberal Justice Minister and Former Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism: Well I’m very concerned because when I concluded my mandate, and that was before these atrocities began, I said then that we were witnessing the most alarming rise in antisemitism since audits began 50 years ago. Yet the rise has been explosive since these mass atrocities occurred. You would have thought it would have been the other way around. We’re seeing now an intensifying resurgent, metastasizing global antisemitism and Canadian Jews are being caught up in this kind of global hatred, which is as I say is metastasizing as we meet.

Mercedes Stephenson: Are you concerned about that Chen, as you watch what’s unfolding in the world and what this may have triggered?

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: Yes, of course I am. I currently live in Connecticut, in the United States. The feeling in Israel is that our faith and our safety has been compromised. And for me, it might be easy to think that okay right now in my little corner in the world, detached from all this, but as I see the sentiment in universities, as I see all the hatreds, it makes me feel that there is no real safe place for me.

Mercedes Stephenson: Irwin, you’ve worked for years to try to address antisemitism and also you’ve spoken fearlessly about the role of Iran in all of this, including backing groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and you’ve been critical that the Canadian government has not done enough to prevent Iran from operating in Canada, from gathering funds here to fund operations around the globe that can be used to carry out terrorist attacks.

Irwin Cotler, Former Liberal Justice Minister and Former Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism: Well, you know it’s about 12 years ago when I was a Liberal Member of Parliament, I then proposed that the IRDC put on the terrorist list and I reaffirmed this in my meetings that we’ve had now with the government and opposition leaders. And Iran, you know, is—has been arming, training, financing, incentivising, supporting and celebrating Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist proxies, so we have to hold, really, Iran accountable. It’s part of this axis of evil that is itself becoming so much more prevalent, and we have to preach here with regard to antisemitism, it’s not just threatening to Jews. It’s toxic to our democracy. It’s an assault on our common humanity. It’s the canary in the mineshaft of global evils. And so we need a whole of government responsibility and involvement to combat it, and we need a whole of society to combat because the hatred that begins with the Jews won’t end with Jews, and we have to combat all forms of hatred in our society.

Mercedes Stephenson: Irwin and Chen, thank you so much for joining us today. We are so sorry to meet you under these circumstances, but we appreciate your time and you speaking with such love about your mother, and all of our thoughts are with you and your family and your community.

Chen Zeigen, Son of missing Canadian, Vivian Silver: Thank you.

Irwin Cotler, Former Liberal Justice Minister and Former Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism: Thank you. Thank you, Mercedes.

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, why China’s intercept of a Canadian helicopter over the South China Sea is raising alarm bells.

[Break]

Mercedes Stephenson: Now for one last thing.

The South China Sea was the scene of another extremely dangerous interception by the Chinese military. This time, the Canadian Armed Forces says a Canadian Cyclone helicopter was dangerously and unprofessionally intercepted by a Chinese fighter jet.

Defence Minister Bill Blair says the Canadian aircraft was in international airspace, conducting routine exercises.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: “The helicopter pilot had to manoeuvre to avoid the flares and reduce the risk of ingesting a flare into the helicopter’s rotor and intakes. This encounter was also deemed unsafe.”

Mercedes Stephenson: My sources say this intercept put the crew of the helicopter in significant jeopardy and risked a catastrophic crash, something that could be interpreted as an escalation of aggression by China.

Global News has previously witnessed two dangerous intercepts in-person, in the last six months, one aboard HMCS Montreal and one just a couple of weeks ago on an Aurora aircraft.

While our focus is on the ever worsening crisis in the Middle East, this incident is a reminder that Canada can’t let its guard down in other global arenas.

That’s our show for today. We’ll see you next Sunday.