News

Get the Flash Player to hear this audio.

• Download the podcast here (right-click, save target as)

The complete podcast appears below

Edward Greenspon:

Hi, this is Ed Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief of the Globe and Mail. Welcome to the Globe Round Table, the place for the most wide ranging possible political discussion of the issues of the day. Today we are so wide ranging that we span 10 time zones. Doug McArthur, the distinguished Fellow in Public Policy at Simon Fraser University, and a former Saskatchewan Cabinet minister and deputy minister to two premiers in British Columbia; joins us from Vancouver. Jodi White, president of the Public Policy Forum and a former chief of staff to Joe Clark and Kim Campbell, joins us from Israel. And John Manley, senior counsel at the law firm of McCarthy Tetrault and Canada's former minister of industry, finance, foreign affairs and deputy prime minister is on the line from South Africa. Welcome all.

Okay, since two of you are already overseas let's begin our questions this morning on the subject of Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. This weekend the public learned that a Canadian journalist, Mellissa Fung of the CBC, had been freed after being kidnapped in Afghanistan four weeks earlier. Yet another reminder of the deteriorating security situation there as was a major suicide bomb blast today in Kandahar. And yesterday we had families of fallen soldiers in Kandahar for Remembrance Day and a very moving ceremony.

So I guess with our Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, I mean the government says our troops will be out in 2011. Doug, is that a good idea? Is that a realistic idea?

Doug McArthur:

Well I want to preface my comments by saying that I was and to a certain extent am a supporter of what we're doing in Afghanistan. I've written about this in support of it.

But I am now becoming — having grave doubts about what's happening in Afghanistan in terms of the — both the NATO mission and the Canadian mission there. I think that what we're seeing is a really — an undertaking that lacks balance. Now we saw from the last report on the costs of the Canadian presence there that now we're down to less than 10 per cent of our money is going to development aid. Over 90 per cent is now going to this military mission.

This military mission is really not functioning very effectively in terms of a way of dealing with insurgents. We really have our troops on bases there chasing after insurgents and hiding back in their bases and the situation is becoming much less insecure in the country.

We've seen this Melissa Fung kidnapping is just a part of that. We now have criminal gangs operating much easier across Afghanistan but particularly in the south and central regions. We have the Taliban being very successful in winning over the hearts and minds of people. Their support is increasing.

I'm not saying that they have majority support but their support is increasing in a worrying fashion. Development aid is just not taking place in the way it should be. And so the West which needs to win the minds and hearts of the Afghani people simply is not doing so.

So I think, yes we should get out in 2011 with respect to our military presence. I think there needs to be a reconfiguration of what's being done there. We need a much greater emphasis on aid, much greater emphasis on security of a different form there.

And unless we change, unless things change, Canada is going to have lost many, many young people with really no good reason for having done so, given the failures of the mission.

Edward Greenspon:

Jodi, you've been up close in Foreign Affairs and working in the minister's office. Do you think it's going to be as easy to extricate ourselves in 2011 militarily as just saying, okay, we're out.

Jodi White:

I think we don't know right now frankly. But I think the question is very valid. I mean it seems to me Afghanistan is one of those really heartbreaking places where it just never seems to get better. This has been going on and on and on. We're now there and committed. We're clearly at war I guess, which is a statement that many Canadians have difficulty with.

And sort of announcing a date when you're withdrawing is a funny thing to do if you're at war. I mean I agree with a lot of what Doug says, but I think to do more development aid it's got to be secure and safe to be able to do that.

But this is actually also going to be an important part of the relationship that the prime minister is going to have to build with the President Elect in the United States. I mean this is one angle where we will get to have a conversation with the U.S. because that's a new relationship that's got to develop. It's not going to be easy. We can't just go there and say, we're your best friend and have a long list of things we want.

But he can clearly go to the table with some specifics on our role there. And the President Elect has talked about the U.S. Role and the idea of increasing that. And that would obviously help in terms of the kind of situation that Doug again outlined in terms of its getting worse.

So it will be an important part of that. In terms of 2011, I frankly don't think any of us know right now. We may have terrible pressure on us to stay. We also may have a lot of domestic pressure to get out and I just don't think we know.

Edward Greenspon:

John, what do you think that first conversation is going to be like on the subject of Afghanistan between Prime Minister Harper and either President Elect or by then perhaps President Obama?

John Manley:

I think first of all the Prime Minister will want to ensure that the new President will be well aware of what Canada has done and is doing in Afghanistan. Undoubtedly he will have been briefed on it. But it's going to be important. And quite frankly for the next 15 years I would be reminding American counterparts of what we've done in Afghanistan because we've paid an enormous price and we don't want to just be yesterday's news. So I think there will be an element of that.

I think that the Prime Minister will want to explore what Mr. Obama's commitment is to Afghanistan. He seemed to be indicating during the campaign that he would be shifting American forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, thereby significantly increasing the presence of U.S. forces there. And I think he'll want to know what the President is hoping to encourage other allies to contribute in order to increase that effort.

I think there's general understanding that there's just not enough robust presence in Afghanistan compared to other situations where NATO or other international coalitions have been involved.

Edward Greenspon:

But John, can you have not enough robust presence and say that we're leaving at the same time?

John Manley:

Yeah, I think you can. I mean essentially — a couple of things here. First of all, this is essentially what we in our report last January said would happen. If there wasn't a bigger response that the security situation would continue to deteriorate.

I'm sitting here in Johannesburg, as you mentioned in your introduction, at an international meeting of CARE which is an NGO that I'm involved with. I spent a good number of hours with the folks that are on the ground in Afghanistan.

They can't go to Kandahar. They can't go to Kandahar; it's not secure enough. So it's a bit facile to say we've got to increase our development expenditure. But when the people that are actually — that have the skills and knowledge to apply it say there's inadequate security for them to go there, it's a bit of a problem.

NATO sent the same number of troops to Bosnia and the same number of troops to Kosovo as they've sent to Afghanistan, which is a population many, many times larger and a country that's much bigger, much more difficult in terms of terrain. So this makes no sense at all at this point.

And if it doesn't start to make sense, the what I would call that, the utility futility continuum, we're too close to the futility end. And then I think it's our obligation to stop sending our young men and women into harm's way if it's a hopeless situation

Doug McArthur:

But I think that it's also Canada's responsibility over the next couple of years to be clear about what the failures are there and what's not working. And I don't think in doing so it's necessary for Canada to engage in a commitment to a longer presence there.

Other countries may need to step up and help the U.S. Canada has earned a lot of credit for what it's done in Afghanistan. And I think it's time that Canada really engaged in an effort to change the conversation and refocus the effort there and that's not going to be done by committing to a longer period of military presence.

John Manley:

I'd say the contrary is true. That in fact the day we're essentially gone — as we get closer to the point where that becomes an inevitability — is the day when our ability to change that conversation begins to diminish.

Doug McArthur:

Well then this is a trap. The whole thing has been a trap in that case.

Edward Greenspon:

You know, that's exactly what I'm wondering. You want to come on it. If it's become a trip it certainly seems a paradox. We've been there. We've gone for particular reasons. Some of them have to do with our relations with the United States. A lot of them should have to do with our belief in Afghanistan, in trying to help Afghanistan build the capacity to get back on its feet.

It looks like that really won't be there by 2011. So I'm wondering what the, if you will, the moral imperative is, of departing at that point. If you're saying, in a futile way, Jodi, as John says, I guess that doesn't make sense. Perhaps a surge makes sense for Afghanistan. Perhaps we have to re-commit.

It also doesn't seem to make sense to me to say other NATO countries will pick up the slack because so far they've shown very little appetite for doing that. Can somebody help me?

Jodi White:

It seems to me that often you hear the families of the soldiers, men and women who have died and they're the most committed because they see a sacrifice that's been made, so walking away is a heartbreak to them.

But I mean this does go back to, as I said, I mean this is not new in Afghanistan and the Soviets and the Russians were all involved many years ago, as we know, in much of the same kind of things. It does sound to me like Obama wants to do some kind of a surge if he's talking about moving his troops out of Iraq and maybe that is a solution.

I mean I really do agree with John that if you aren't doing one, you don't get much of a voice to talk about the other. But this is a very tough one.

Doug McArthur:

Can I just beg to differ a little bit. Canada is now spending over a billion dollars a year in Afghanistan. If Canada ends its commitment in 2011 and continues that spending, over a billion dollars in aid a year in Afghanistan would be a major contribution and one much needed to assist the development.

And I don't buy this that you can't do a billion dollars of aid without the troops in Kandahar. It is true that we've got a very bad situation in Kandahar with a strategy that's not working but there's development that's needed all across that country.

You still can't get electricity and water running all day long in — well most places can't get water all in their homes — in Kabul. There's been a complete failure on what is the most important strategy here and that is committing to aid and development and that —

Edward Greenspon:

But Doug, can you de-link that? Because I mean if you can't get out in the field —

Doug McArthur:

This is the continuing argument. You have to have a large military force in Kandahar before it's claimed you can do aid in Afghanistan. I've been on the ground in Afghanistan. You can do a tremendous amount in Afghanistan.

The last 6 or 7 years in Kabul, if we had been spending a billion dollars of aid in Kabul alone — and I don't argue putting everything in Kabul — we would have the hearts and minds of the people there.

I don't argue that a strategy to handle the Taliban is necessary but that required doing something about the bases in Pakistan and nobody was willing to deal with Musharraf on that. We've got a continuing pattern of failure here. We've got to figure out a different way of going ahead.

Edward Greenspon:

Okay, last questions. I want to go round. It just requires a quick yes-no-perhaps. In 2011 will Canadian troops be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan. John?

John Manley:

Too soon to say.

Edward Greenspon:

That's a yes or a no.

John Manley:

It's not a yes or — some questions are not capable of a yes or no answer. I just don't think (overlap)…

Edward Greenspon:

Okay. So this question would not be capable of a yes or no answer. Yes or no? (laughter) Jodi, do you think we'll still be there in 2011?

Jodi White:

How about if I say yes, but maybe no.

Edward Greenspon:

Good. Doug?

Doug McArthur:

No.

Edward Greenspon:

Thank you, Doug. We're moving on. We're moving on to the federal Cabinet. Parliament returns next week. I want to ask you about the new Environment minister, Jim Prentice. There's been a lot of talk about his move from Industry to Environment, seen as a very strong minister.

Industry is obviously at the centre of attention now with the factors of the economy. So what's that all about? I mean was this a warm embrace by the prime minister or is this some kind of kiss of death?

Jodi White:

No, I actually think it's a signal that they are going to develop a strategy frankly. So I do not think it was the kiss of death. There are some journalists talking that this was putting him aside. This was one of the few ministers who gets listened to by Mr. Harper.

He chairs the very important Cabinet Ops committee. This was not pushing him aside at all. It's interesting that they also picked someone who in terms of Environment, obviously comes from Alberta and so the understanding of the requirement in any environmental strategy or climate change strategy that we put together has got to take into account Alberta and what's happening out there.

So I actually see it as a very strong signal. I mean this is a minister who understands that you have to connect energy, environment and the economy and that it's a huge issue for Canada. I think the change in — I mean no matter who had won the election in the United States there was going to be a change there in terms of their climate change policy and we knew that as well, have known that for some time.

I think over the last number of years in both countries, governments at what you would call the sub-national level have been leading the way on climate change. The provinces here, some of the provinces, not all of them, and the states in the United States have often been the leaders on some of the policies. And I think both national governments have watched that and understand it's time that something has to be done.

So I very much see it as a signal that they are taking this seriously. They are going to develop a strategy. I would hope — I mean there is a saying: Is Canada going to be a policy taker or a policy maker on this issue and too often we've been a policy taker and let others decide, because perhaps we have the complexity of an enormous oil and gas industry that's so important to us.

But I would hope on some of these things we could start to become a policy maker and put some things out there that balance our interests, most definitely. There's another international meeting coming up next year in Copenhagen in 2009 and it will be important for Canada to be there and have a voice and have a voice that makes sense frankly.

So I do see it as a positive. I mean I don't want to put too much pressure or expectations on him because it's an enormous challenge to try to balance the interests in this country. But I think it was a positive move.

Edward Greenspon:

Doug, would you like to be the federal environment minister from Alberta in a Harper government?

Doug McArthur:

No, I wouldn't enjoy the job. I wouldn't want it and I wouldn't necessarily think that it would be good for advancing my career. This is not a government that there are any indications of moving on the environment front with any conviction or with any new significant moves.

However, I suspect that those very reasons in a kind of perverse way are the reason that Prentice has been appointed. Once I said before that Cabinet ministers first and foremost are the face of your government. They're the ones that communicate with the public. They're the ones that try to convince the public that the program you're undertaking is a good one.

And I think, I hope, that Harper has seen that one of the real weaknesses, as we've said before, of his government up till now, has been that ministers haven't been the face of this government and so this government hasn't communicated very well.

So I suspect that Prentice is put in there to solve a political problem. It's looked upon as one of the most difficult jobs in the Cabinet and so he was picked because he is a minister who is greatly competent.

Will he come out a winner in this? No. I think his star will fade and I think that Mr. Prentice's longer term prospects in terms of his profile as a leader in the Conservative party is on the decline.

Edward Greenspon:

Oh, okay. John, do you think that he will succeed while he's on the decline in getting Canada and the United States together, perhaps as a policy maker, at least with an Obama government in some sort of North American wide cap and trade system?

John Manley:

First of all, success is always dependent on how you define it, isn't it, at the outset. I think if the criteria for success includes a comprehensive new set of plans to genuinely reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emission well then I agree he's not likely to succeed.

I think he has proven himself to be a skilful minister. He's a good communicator. He is trusted by the Prime Minister. He's trusted in the oil belt. He's from Calgary. The oil people know him well and respect him. And therefore his vulnerability is on the other side which is the environmental NGO community and those who will be fundamentally disagreeing with the Harper government on the path forward.

Can he keep them at bay? Probably better than a John Baird because he's a more cerebral, quite frankly nicer person than John Baird. But he will never be able to satisfy them. Is that going to do any kind of harm to his longer term political prospects within the Conservative party? I doubt it. Those people don't vote Conservative.

I think it's going to be the skill he shows in managing with the provinces and with the United States on what will be an area of very great policy change over the next number of years, as the U.S. moves into some serious measures with respect to greenhouse gas emissions that will be the test of his skill.

The question will be whether the government is able to make those accommodations. I have a feeling that they will be able to persuade even their supporters in the oil patch that they should at least have regulations that are consistent with that which come into effect in the United States. And if it's cap and trade, they'll want to be part of a continental system.

Edward Greenspon:

Okay, well let's move across the aisle for a moment to the Liberal party and the Liberal leadership race. This morning, or I guess yesterday afternoon, Martha Hall-Finlay said that she won't be running either. There's a lot of people not running now.

It's looking like Bob Rae, Michael Ignatieff race with Dominic LeBlanc hoping to play the role of Stephan Dion I guess, slipping up the middle. Rae and Ignatieff were both in some ways controversial figures last leadership race when they ran. One of them new to politics, one of them new to the Liberal party.

I'm wondering how you see their evolution, their merits now. If those issues really play big and how you see them relative to each other. Iggy-Rae, the big race. Jodi?

Jodi White:

Well it's interesting as to whether they're just heading into a toe to toe right down to the end. I have a little bit of a feeling and this is sort of just my own instincts and bones talking to me where I think Michael Ignatieff was not as well known the last time. He's better known now.

He's been playing an important role in the House of Commons. He's done a good job from what I can see in the House of Commons in terms of serious questions and getting at the nub of issues, etc.

And so I have a little question in my mind as to whether perhaps Michael Ignatieff has grown a little more in people's understanding of him and their perception of what he brings. Bob Rae is always a strong performer but he has been for a long time. And so I guess I'm wondering in my mind whether Ignatieff has positioned himself a little bit better for another race, a second race, than Rae has. It's early days though so I'm not sure about that.

And Bob Rae's problem will always be, and his problem for some of the Liberals who he's asking to vote for him, is his economic record in Ontario and what everyone knows the Conservative party will do with that if Bob Rae is elected leader.

I think when they've been through what the Conservative party did to Stephan Dion in terms of very early advertising and very early trying to set the frame around Dion, if they look at that and think they're about to go into it again, that may be a problem for Bob Rae.

Edward Greenspon:

John, I'm not going to ask you to endorse anyone. I just want you to give us a little bit of analysis from your perspective knowing that party, knowing about these two candidates. What do you see as their relevant strengths and weaknesses?

John Manley:

I think that Jodi has nailed it pretty much right on. Going into the last one, both of them had some serious problems. In Michael Ignatieff's case he was seen as not having been in Canada long enough. Flew in from Harvard one afternoon, said oh I'd like to be prime minister and the next thing we knew, he was a leading candidate.

Bob Rae had two strikes against him. The first, as Jodi said, was the performance of the economy in Ontario during his time as premier. And the second was that he wasn't a Liberal. He'd never run as a Liberal; he never identified himself as a Liberal.

He kind of went to the party office one day, bought a membership and said, oh by the way, I'd like to be leader of your party. And in the end, neither one could win on those terms.

I think both have had some degree of rehabilitation. Michael Ignatieff has now run and won in two elections. He, as Jodi said, performed very well in the House of Commons. He I think is seen as a strong performer, very intelligent guy. Very good in both official languages and he's built a strong base for his organization in Quebec.

Bob dealt with the not-a-Liberal thing. He's also now run in two elections as a Liberal and won — a by-election and the general election. But he still faces this challenge of how he puts himself forwards as a candidate when the economy has become THE overriding issue when many people saying, hm, don't know whether he can really speak to that credibly.

And I think the other problem for him within the party — and remember, this is not a campaign for prime minister, this is a campaign to lead the Liberal party — the party has just gone through a very rough campaign in which the leader proved to be a very heavy burden, especially in Ontario. Perhaps elsewhere as well but Ontario was seen as a place where we had to hold our own, if not gain. And I think there are a lot of Liberals that are saying, do we want to do that to the party again, have a leader who is a burden in the province where we should be re-establishing our base.

So I think it's a bit of an uphill battle for Bob. As for a third candidate, nobody can come up the middle in a three-person race because the third person is out. So for Dominic LeBlanc to have a scenario, he's got to find somebody else as Dion had Kennedy.

Edward Greenspon:

Okay, Doug you've been associated with the New Democratic party in your past. Can Bob Rae rehabilitate himself?

Doug McArthur:

(chuckle) Sounds like we have people with criminal records or something here running for the leader of the Liberal party this time around.

Edward Greenspon:

Let's just get this officially out that that was — that we don't. But yeah.

Doug McArthur:

Yes I think it's well known they don't.

John Manley:

We haven't criminalized the NDP yet have we? I've been away for a week. Did I miss something?

Doug McArthur:

Not that much of a threat yet that they're going to start that. I think that it does depend — it's the Liberal party as has been said that will choose this leader. It's whether or not the Liberal party — and of course it's hard for a party because a party is a collection of people, but whether the Liberal party can really gets its head together as to where it wants to go and how it wants to go forward.

My guess is they will choose Ignatieff. I think that he is seen by the elites in the Liberal party as the successor. The Liberal party has a tendency to want to have elite type leaders, people who are part of the inside in various ways.

There's also been a tendency in the Liberal party to look to a person like Ignatieff with a kind of — he is a Harvard professor. To me he's almost aristocratic. He shows that when he's out. He's been very good in Parliament but he shows that when he's out speaking around the country.

But I think there's going to be an inclination of the king makers in the Liberal party to want to put Ignatieff in there. My own view is that's a mistake. I think the Liberal has got a critical next election coming up. If they don't do well in the next election they'll be in the wilderness for a very, very long time. I think to do that they need to occupy not the right of centre territory that I think Ignatieff will drift to, but rather the middle ground with the progressive voters being attracted by the positions of a leader on that side.

I think Bob Rae can attract NDP voters, progressive voters as well as middle of the ground voters. So I would say if they want to win, Bob Rae's their person. But do I think they'll pick Bob Rae? Hm, I'm skeptical.

Edward Greenspon:

Well I think we're going to have a great debate down the road on the Globe Round Table about where the centre is them, if it's the centre right or the centre left and which guy straddles the centre better. But we're not going to have a convention until May. It's going to be in Vancouver so we're coming into your time zone, Doug, which I know you will appreciate.

Doug McArthur:

That's good.

Edward Greenspon:

And I think we're going to have a lot more to talk about about this and the other matters. So I thank you all today, particularly given how far flung we are, for joining us and look forward to talking to you all again next week.