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Front Burner Transcript for June 18, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hey everybody, I'm Jayme Poisson, and we are going to start today's episode in Kananaskis in Alberta's Rocky Mountains, where the G7 wrapped yesterday with Trump splitting early to deal with the repercussions of Israel's strike on Iran. Stick around though, because later in the episode I'll be speaking to longtime politics reporter Althia Raj about a bill that the federal Liberals are trying to push through real fast that is being met with a ton of criticism for being generally undemocratic, among other things. First though, Aaron Wherry is here with me. He has been covering this summit, so let's get right into it.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Aaron, hey.

AARON WHERRY: Hey, Jayme.

JP: Always great to talk to you. So I do want to start with the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Trump, as I mentioned, left the summit early. He spent time Tuesday in the Situation Room. There is now growing evidence that the U.S. is considering more involvement in the conflict. For example, Trump is calling for Iran's unconditional surrender. He is talking about assassinating its leader. Referring to Israel's war efforts as "we." People are trying to flee Tehran after Israel and now Trump warned them to evacuate, and both Iran and Israel are continuing to hit each other with missiles and airstrikes. Obviously, this is a very precarious and dangerous situation. Broadly, how much did the Iran story loom over the summit?

AARON WHERRY: You know, I think loom is the right way to put it. I don't think that it dominated the conversation, at least from what we know of the conversation. I guess in part because, you know, it precipitated Donald Trump going back to Washington rather abruptly last night. And so that may have kind of moved the discussion, you know, both figuratively and literally, to Washington. And we didn't get a ton of discussion, at least openly, amongst the leaders about what was happening there or what the options were or what their response should be. There was a bit of a back and forth, I guess, virtually, where French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that Donald Trump, you know, was going back to Washington to help broker a ceasefire. And then Donald Trump responded late at night, last night, suggesting that Emmanuel Macron didn't know what he was talking about, and he wasn't looking for a ceasefire. But that was about the extent of the real kind of debate that we were able to see. The other part of it was that there was this, seemingly there was this dispute behind closed doors about the exact wording of a joint declaration by the leaders where, at least according to reports from the Washington Post and the Guardian, the other leaders wanted to go pretty far in terms of a ceasefire or in terms of de-escalation, and the U.S. didn't want to go that far. So it was sort of all around what was happening here, but it didn't become a summit about what was happening in the Middle East.

JP: Yeah. You and I just watched Carney's end of day presser. He addressed a bunch of the other main issues to come out of, to actually come out of the summit. So I guess let's go through some of them, uh, that way. Carney was asked about the meeting he held Tuesday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There was a lot of eyes on this, because the relationship between our two countries has been strained, to say the least. Modi's government was accused by the Trudeau government of being connected to the assassination of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. And last week, even Global reported that actually a suspected Indian government agent had former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh under close surveillance. There was a lot of criticism of Modi even being invited, of this bilateral meeting between the two leaders. And what did Carney have to say about it at the presser when he was asked about it?

AARON WHERRY: Yeah, so Carney emphasized a couple of things. One is, as chair of the G7, you know, not just the Canadian prime minister in this context, he felt there was a reason to invite India. They have been invited to the last several summits.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: Prime Minister Modi has attended every G7 since 2018. That is a reflection of the size of the Indian economy, the dynamism of the India economy, Indian technology.

AARON WHERRY: And so I think that gave him a reason to invite Mr. Modi here. I do... You know, then he kind of moved into the meeting itself and said, you know, talked about the two leaders discussing, you know, cooperation between law enforcement. He sort of, on specific cases of, of the violence that-- the allegations of violence that we've heard, he kind of, he didn't say a ton, but in his, in a subsequent answer, he talked a bit more about this being kind of a foundational meeting.

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MARK CARNEY: As a necessary first step, an exchange of views. A frank, open exchange of views around law enforcement, transnational repression. It's two examples. Um, an agreement to provide the necessary foundations to begin to rebuild a relationship based on mutual respect, sovereignty, trust.

AARON WHERRY: So I think, you know, in a way, Carney saw this as an opportunity to reset the relationship. You know, not without some controversy, obviously. And I think what happens next is going to depend-- is going to matter a lot because that's kind of how this is going to be judged, is, does this, does this meeting, you know, in addition to sort of rebuilding the relationship, whatever that means, does it lead to some resolution of what are some, you know, very serious [JP: Yeah.] concerns about what's been happening here?

[music]

JP: Before Trump left, he and Carney did spend some quality time together. They spent an hour talking on Monday, right? And just what came of that? What did Carney have to say about it just now when we were listening to him as well?

AARON WHERRY: Yeah, so the kind of headline item out of that discussion, beyond the fact that it happened for as long as it seems to have had -- you know, an hour of the two of them discussing things is a significant chunk of time at a summit like this -- the major piece coming out of it was this suggestion that there's now sort of a 30-day deadline on negotiations for some kind of new trade or trade and security arrangement between the two countries. Coming out of that meeting, the Canadian Ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, and Dominic LeBlanc, one of Mark Carney's senior cabinet ministers, both, you know, said that there had been progress, that they were told to sort of accelerate their discussions with the United States. Mark Carney made the point that:

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: Quite often in deadli-- in negotiations, having a form of deadline is helpful to concentrate the mind. And that can be the case here.

AARON WHERRY: I think that's probably what the Canadian side is looking for is, you know, let's not drag this out. Let's get this resolved. I think the question though still is, what exactly kind of a resolution are we looking at here? Is it a, is it going to end up being a kind of a framework to further an agreement down the road? [JP: Mm-hmm.] Is it actually going to result in the end of tariffs? I think those are the questions that, you know, still have to be answered.

JP: And then I guess like what happens if they blow the deadline, like what, what happens after that. Mm-hmm.

AARON WHERRY: Yeah, I mean, I guess to that point, like there is some suggestion that... You know, Mark Carney keeps being asked, when will there be retaliation for the latest round of tariffs? I think that's sort of the unspoken thing, is at some point, he may have to go forward with retaliation and maybe that's what happens after 30 days.

JP: Carney also announced Tuesday big money for Ukraine, $4.3 billion, and also more Russian sanctions. It is clear, though, there was a divide between the U.S. and all the other countries on Ukraine. Carney himself has talked about a realignment of the world order because the U.S. is no longer essentially like a reliable partner. Was that supposed realignment on display during the summit? How so?

AARON WHERRY: I think so. In bits and pieces. You know, the most interesting thing Mark Carney said off the top of this summit, you know, in his meeting with Donald Trump was that:

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: The G7 is nothing without U.S. leadership, and so...

AARON WHERRY: And I think, you know, that statement may have been meant to flatter Donald Trump, but I do think it kind of goes to the question of what is the G7 at this point when the United States is just so offside with the other six on so many issues. And you saw that with the conflict over the statement on Iran and Israel. You saw it in the agreement they did put out on wildfires, and wildfire response doesn't mention climate change. That is, I would guess, is a, is a nod to the fact that the United States isn't exactly on side on that issue. And then on Ukraine, Canada continues, you know, Mark Carney continues to be very enthusiastic in his support for Ukraine, but we know that the language on Ukraine, they couldn't get to a real agreement on that. And, you know, Mark Carney in the, in the news conference afterwards, I think was trying to sort of tamp down or obscure sort of some of the divisions that may have come up over the last couple days. But he did, at one point, finally concede that, yes:

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: There would be, if you want a nuance or if you want a sense, there would be things that some of us, Canada included, would say above and beyond what was said in the Chair's Summary.

AARON WHERRY: So I think, I think there is this kind of push and pull of, of trying to find places where the two-- you know, the six countries on one side and the United States agree, but at the same time, still kind of running into these conflicts.

JP: Okay. As you talked about on the show last week, this was a kind of test of Carney in a way. He's just become prime minister and now he was hosting this big summit. Broadly, how successful do you think it was, as far as summits go I guess, and by extension, Carney?

AARON WHERRY: I think it really depends on how you measure it. If the measuring stick was, can he get through these two days without a major falling out, without something like [JP: Charlevoix?] Charlevoix happening again. [Jayme laughs] Yeah, exactly. Poor Charlevoix has become so synonymous with that meeting. If that's the measure, if kind of maintaining a certain amount of decorum and agreement was the measuring stick, then I, you know, I think Mark Carney comes away from this fairly satisfied. You know, they did get agreement on certain things -- artificial intelligence, critical minerals. So they're, you know, they did seem to accomplish some, some things here. But there I think are still sort of those broader questions about where the G7 is headed, where the world order is headed and so on. And I thought, you know, maybe the most interesting thing after, you know, Mark Carney's statement at the top about the G7 and the United States, was at the end, when-- at the end of his news conference he says, well:

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: I'm gonna, I'm going to close, I'm going to make one final comment if I may. Just, this is a, this is an ad-lib to the question you didn't ask. What was it like in the room? Um...

AARON WHERRY: And he talked about the value of just having those leaders around the table talking to each other, even when they disagreed.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: And there's nine people in the room, and they're the principals, they're the leaders. And there is a great amount of direct dialogue and discussion. Very frank exchanges. Very strategic exchanges. Um, differences of opinion on a number of issues, but from a, from an effort to find common solutions to some of these problems.

AARON WHERRY: And I think that is something that I think maybe people who still value these summits and value keeping the United States in it are still kind of falling-- are kind of ready to fall back on, which is it's still good to have everyone around a table talking. Even if they disagree, even if they can't agree on everything, and even if they can't necessarily come out with the sort of, you know, 20,000-word communiqués that they used to come out with and be aligned on, you know, foundational issues like climate change, that there's still value in something like this.

JP: Yeah. He did really take a run at the end there of just trying to defend the whole thing. Um. Okay, Aaron, thank you.

AARON WHERRY: Any time.

[music]

JP: Okay. So now we are going to pivot back to Ottawa, where Parliament is speeding incredibly quickly through a new omnibus bill, C-5. And the second part of this bill, the Building Canada Act, is generating a ton of controversy. It's about fast-tracking major infrastructure projects, but it's being slammed by critics as undemocratic and a danger to the environment and Indigenous rights. On Monday, Parliament also passed a motion to move it through more quickly than normal, meaning that it could pass by the end of the week. I'm going to discuss all of this today with Toronto Star national columnist Althia Raj, who has written two scathing pieces about C-5. Her latest column says that it runs roughshod over democratic norms in this country. Althia, hey, thanks so much for coming back on the show.

ALTHIA RAJ: Thanks for having me.

JP: Okay, so this omnibus bill has two parts. The first part, the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act, it basically reduces, or its goal is to reduce inter-provincial trade barriers. And I think it is safe to say that it's not, it's not particularly controversial. It's not why you and I are talking today. So what I want to spend the time with you on today is the second part of this bill, omnibus bill called the Building Canada Act. We're going to spend most of this conversation talking about why this act is facing so much criticism and why you personally have big concerns with it. But before we do that, I wonder if you could talk about the case for a bill that would fast-track projects, and why a lot of people might see something like that as necessary right now.

ALTHIA RAJ: So I will say I actually do not know a single member of Parliament who doesn't think that we should be building things faster in this country. I mean, that includes the Green Party leader, that includes the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, you know, Steven Guilbeault, the former environment minister. Everybody agrees that we should be build things faster. But the question is, how to go through the motions to get projects built faster. So there are some, like, large examples of projects that have been waiting like 15 years before being approved. That is not the norm. But there are certainly ways, and even the government's own advisory board on-- or advisory committee, rather, I should say, on impact assessments, have recommended ways to kind of speed things up. So the point of the bill is to try to get big projects done faster, or approved faster.

JP: And so, what is it that people don't like about how they're trying to do that? Like why are they doing kind of different things here than what you just suggested?

ALTHIA RAJ: So what I suggested would basically require more time. And the government doesn't want to spend that time so I will split the concerns of-- in this bill in two parts: the process that the bill is being rushed through the House of Commons and Parliament, and the substantive issues with the bill. The bill gives an insane amount of power back to cabinet and rest power in one designated cabinet minister. So that means the prime minister could choose to redesignate another cabinet minister. It's not a named cabinet minister in the legislation. What this bill says is, based on a bunch of loose factors that the government could consider -- so it doesn't even force the government to consider them -- it can approve, it can list a project. And by listing a project the project is approved. So let's say you want to build the Northern Gateway pipeline. The government can say, we think this is in the national interest, based on what we believe the national interest is -- uh, not necessarily defined -- and we approve it. And then we're going to start thinking about all the reviews and assessments that need to get done. And so like the minister of the environment would come back after the assessments are done and tell this designated minister, let's say for example, "These are 219 conditions that we believe should be imposed on this project." And that designated minister could say, oh, that's interesting.

JP: "I choose to ignore it"?

ALTHIA RAJ: "I choose to ignore it." Yes. That designated minister is under no obligation to take any of the recommendations that are given to him. So just imagine the amount of lobbying and the potential for corruption when like one person can determine whether a multibillion-dollar project goes ahead.

JP: You wrote also that the bill allows the government to essentially delete laws if it so chooses. Like what does that mean?

ALTHIA RAJ: Yeah, exactly. So that's the other part that could happen. Let's say the government is very worried about building, again, potential-- like a potential project, like a new nuclear facility. And they're very concerned about the environmental assessments that would happen because of this project. This legislation gives them the ability to just delete laws from consideration. So right now, in the annex, there's about 20 pieces of law that they have to consider and seven different regulations. They can just decide, oh, well, we're worried about what this independent review might come up with, and so we're going to delete it. They could eliminate the Tanker ban, for example. There is no process through this piece of legislation where the public will ever be able to convince the government to turn a project from a green light to a red light.

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JP: Already last week we were hearing from Indigenous groups, environmental groups, legal experts, democracy advocates, who all had big issues with this bill. But just break down for me some of what we've been hearing, maybe starting with Indigenous groups.

ALTHIA RAJ: So, this bill is going to be stuck in the courts. There is like no doubt about it. Not just from environmental groups, but Indigenous groups. In the Canadian Charter, there's something called Section 35, which basically says the government has to consider, is obliged to respect treaties signed with Indigenous people. What's more is the Canadian government under Justin Trudeau signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. So we must respect the right to free, prior, and informed consent. Now you see the Chiefs of Ontario, for example, were protesting on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, saying that that has not been respected, that there is nothing in this bill that ensures that their rights are respected.

SOUNDCLIP

ONTARIO CHIEF: To try to make that relationship work between this government and First Nations, that it's gone so many steps backwards. And that trust and that respect that we had worked so hard to build is pretty much gone.

ONTARIO CHIEF 2: The government talks about truth and reconciliation, has legislation around UNDRIP, talks about free, prior, and informed consent, and the process being used by the federal government to introduce legislation and bring it forward, ratified, within less than two months, is unacceptable. I can tell you that Canadians ought to be alarmed.

ALTHIA RAJ: Now, among the factors that the government may consider, is that a project advances the interest of Indigenous people. If you talk to government ministers, they will tell you that this is intended to ensure that before a project gets the green light, the provinces who are impacted have said yes, and that Indigenous groups, the right holders to the land on which this potential project could get done, have said yes. But the legislation doesn't actually say that. And it doesn't say the interest voiced by whom. By Indigenous peoples or by the government? So, I mean, Indigenous groups have warned, they've basically told the government, we're going to sue you. Like, we don't like this piece of law. We don't think it respects our rights. And um, so that's obviously troublesome and doesn't seem to respond to the stated goal of the government, which is to make sure that there is certainty, and that projects can get done faster because of that certainty.

JP: So the other piece of this is that process part, right? How quickly this is all moving, Althia. The Liberals passed a closure motion on Monday to speed the study and debate of this bill and have a final vote on it by the end of the week. How unusual is this?

ALTHIA RAJ: I've been on the Hill for... more than 20 years, wow. And I've never seen anything like this. Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, came out and said she had never seen anything like this. I mean, because it gives cabinet the ability to just delete laws that it doesn't like, it is creating such a dangerous precedent that you would think that Parliament would want to sit longer with this legislation. The government gave notice on Friday that they were going to introduce time allocation. On Monday, they voted to fast-track it. Right now, on Tuesday, there are two hours of debate for witnesses to come forward and testify, and all the amendments for the bill are expected on Wednesday before noon. So they will have reviewed a piece of legislation that fundamentally re-shifts, like, that gives power away from MPs in Parliament to cabinet, on a variety of laws, in ways that could impact the country profoundly, and they will have had two hours of witnesses who could influence the amendments that they want to bring to this bill. Then they will hold another sitting later in the evening on Wednesday to hear from more witnesses. But those amendments are already supposed to be filed. So, you know, a lot of people have asked, a lot members of Parliament have asked the government, please, like A, split this bill up into two parts so we can fast-track the first part. And the government said no. We heard from the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, the Greens on Monday, saying, please let us sit through the summer so that we can give this bill due diligence.

SOUNDCLIP

MP NATHANIEL ERSKINE-SMITH: We are rushing legislation through Parliament under the auspices of an urgent threat, but we aren't willing to put Parliament to work, for what, an additional week to get things right? The debate on amendments does not need to be rushed.

MP ELIZABETH MAY: The idea that this bill will be done and dusted by Friday must be resisted, and as an effort to make sure the prime minister understands, we will sit through the summer. There is no objection that I have heard from any member of Parliament or any party to the idea that we need proper study. Witnesses can come forward in the summer. What is the rush to pass...

ALTHIA RAJ: And as a reminder, MPs just came back to work in May because [JP: Yeah.] the Liberals prorogued Parliament. You know, they were not sitting in January, then they were off February/early March because Justin Trudeau and the Lib-- resigned and the Liberals had a leadership race, and then Mark Carney called a snap election. So it's not MPs' fault that Parliament hasn't sat. So to rush through a bill that could have significant consequences on people's rights, on the water that we drink, on the air that we breathe, and the government says, no, they want this done before Canada Day. And the Conservatives have been critical of some parts of the bill. The Conservatives say they're concerned that while the prime minister talks about oil and gas, that they're not going to approve oil and gas pipelines because the decision to list a project lies with cabinet, and it could just be clean projects, for example.

JP: Right. But the Conservatives haven't necessarily been talking about some of these concerns that you brought up today.

ALTHIA RAJ: No. I mean, in part because the Liberals are telling the Conservatives how to delete the environmental laws that they don't like, like the Tanker ban that they don't like. Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act that they don't like. The Liberals have just told the Conservatives how to delete acts without people causing a fuss, without running through Parliament and creating new legislation to repeal them. You could just use this framework that the Liberals have presented. If-- This bill is supposed to sunset after five years. But that means that whoever is re-elected gets to inherit this legal framework and can build upon it. Like this is such, in my view, a dangerous precedent that we are creating.

[music]

JP: Althia, just before we go, I want to zoom out a little bit with you, because less than two weeks ago we had you on the show to talk about a different sweeping omnibus bill, the Strong Borders Act, that is supposed to address security at the border. But it also raised all sorts of concerns that it could trample privacy rights and civil liberties here. And so, I'm just wondering, when you look at these two bills, maybe some other stuff that you're thinking about, I don't know, but do you see a broader pattern here? And what do they tell you about how this new government operates, maybe?

ALTHIA RAJ: I have a lot of questions about the way these bills have been drafted. First of all, they're massive omnibus bills that often include things that have nothing to do with one another. These are, you know, steps that the Liberals used to rail against when Stephen Harper was prime minister and introduced omnibus bills. I don't know if the public service prepared these bills believing that we were going to have a Pierre Poilievre Conservative government and that is why we have legislation that looks a lot like stuff the Conservatives were running on, or if this is just really what Mark Carney's Liberals wanted to introduce. Because Bill C-2 and Bill C-5 -- and there's another bill, Bill C-4, that includes, you know, political parties excluding themselves from privacy rights; not, you know, not obliging themselves to tell Canadians if they misuse their data. Just full of like--

JP: We haven't even, [Cross-talk] we haven't even talked about that.

ALTHIA RAJ: We haven't even talked about that. There's, [JP: Yeah.] like, all these poison pills you think like, whoa, this needs a lot more public scrutiny, um, if this is really the agenda they wanted to put forward. And they're just using this kind of honeymoon period with the public to pass through what would normally be really controversial pieces of legislation that affect the rights of a lot of people and potentially could affect the rights of many more people. It's quite something.

JP: Okay. We could keep going, but I think that's a good place to leave it for today. Thank you for this.

ALTHIA RAJ: Well, thanks very much, Jayme.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right, that is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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Politics! Carney's 'delete laws' bill, G7 wraps - Transcript

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