Podcast appearances and mentions of catherine mckenna

Free For All Friday - Hour 1 Amanda Galbraith breaks down the biggest stories of the day with Canada's top newsmakers. On today's show: Prime Minister Carney went to Washington earlier this week, looking for economic peace. But after hearing the latest comments from U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the Auto sector, it's apparent that the waters are still rocky. We sift through the tea leaves with David McLaughlin, a former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Israel and Hamas have agreed to the primary phases of a peace deal, which would end the war in Gaza. Does this mean the bloodshed is finally over? We dig deeper with Iddo Moed, who is Israel’s Ambassador to Canada. Catherine McKenna, a former Liberal MP and Canada's Energy Minister during the Justin Trudeau era, has released a new memoir. She talks about women in politics, and her days in one of Canada's biggest boardrooms. Free For All Friday - Hour 2 Contributors from all over the country join The Roundtable to discuss the top stories of the week. Today's edition features Hill and Knowlton senior vice-president Chris Day and Wright Strategies founder Kim Wright. Topic 1: Prime Minister Carney went to Washington, but didn't come home with a trade deal. Was this week's trek to D.C. a failure for Canada? Topic 2: As the NDP leadership race heats up, could a worker-focused voice for the Orange Crush serve as a threat to Poilievre's union voter coalition? Topic 3: Today is World Mental Health Day, and young Canadians are less happy than ever. Topic 4: Should today’s banks be required to put more safety features around e-transfers? Or should people just pay attention and be responsible? Topic 5: Your favourite Canadian Thanksgiving traditions.

As Canada's environment minister in 2015, Catherine McKenna emerged as a leading voice in the climate debate. She also faced some of the unprecedented and disturbing abuse that was aimed at public officials, and became an advocate for the voice of women in politics. McKenna is still a force at the centre of Canada's climate discussion and the global one. She talks to Wonk host Amanda Lang about the urgent economics of climate change, her new memoir and why Canada needs to deal with rising polarization.

Catherine McKenna joined me in person for a live recording of this episode at the Naval Club of Toronto here in our east end. We discussed her new book ‘Run Like a Girl', lessons learned from her six years in federal politics, the reality of political harassment, the tension between party loyalty and telling it like it is, and why we should be wary of “grand bargains” on climate with oil and gas companies.Catherine served as Environment and Climate Change Minister from 2015-2019 and Infrastructure Minister from 2019-2021. She's now the founder and CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions and chairs a UN expert group advising the Secretary General on net zero commitments.Read further:Run Like A Girl - Catherine McKenna (2025)https://www.catherinemckenna.caChapters:00:00 Introduction & Run Like A Girl Book05:32 Lessons from Politics: Hard Work & Balance08:52 Climate Barbie & Political Harassment15:26 Running for Office in Ottawa Centre23:17 Being a Team Player vs. Speaking Truth32:05 Leaving Politics40:30 Climate Policy & the Oil & Gas “Grand Bargain”48:24 Supporting Others in Politics52:56 Carbon Pricing Communication Failures59:13 Gender Balance, Feminism & Cabinet01:04:04 Final Thoughts & ClosingTranscript:Nate Erskine-Smith00:02 - 00:38Well, thank you everyone for joining. This is a live recording of the Uncommon's podcast, and I'm lucky to be joined by Catherine McKenna, who has a very impressive CV. You will know her as the former Environment Minister. She is also the founder and CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions, a consultancy focused on all things environment and nature protection. And you may or may not know, but she's also the chair of a UN expert group that gives advice to the Secretary General on net zero solutions. So thank you for coming to Beaches East York.Catherine McKenna00:38 - 00:56It's great to be here. Hello, everyone. And special shout out to the guy who came from, all the way from Bowmanville. That's awesome. Anyone from Hamilton, that's where I'm originally found. All right. Nice, we got a shout out for Hamilton. Woo-hoo.Nate Erskine-Smith00:57 - 01:19So I ran down a few things you've accomplished over the years, but you are also the author of Run Like a Girl. I was at, you mentioned a book launch last night here in Toronto, but I attended your book launch in Ottawa. And you can all pick up a book on the way out. But who did you write this book for?Catherine McKenna01:21 - 02:58So, I mean, this book has been a long time in the making. It's probably been five years. It was a bit of a COVID project. And you'll see, it's good, I've got my prop here, my book. But you'll see it's not a normal kind of book. So it has a lot of images of objects and of, you know, pictures, pictures of me getting ready to go to the state visit dinner that was hosted by Obama while I'm trying to finalize the text on climate. So it's got like random things in it, but it's intended for a much broader audience. It's really intended to inspire women and girls and young people. And I think that's particularly important right now because I work on climate and I think it's really hard. Do people here care about climate? Yes, I imagine here you care about climate. I mean, I actually think most Canadians do because they understand the wildfires and they see the smoke and people are being evacuated from communities and you can't get insurance if you're in a flood zone. But I do think in particular we need to bolster spirits. But also it's a book, it's really about how to make change. It's not like people think it's like a political memoir. So I think, you know, fancy people in politics will look at the end of the book to see if their name is there and maybe be disappointed if it isn't. But it's not really that kind of book. It's like I was a kid from Hamilton. I didn't want to be a politician. That wasn't my dream when I grew up. I wanted to go to the Olympics for swimming. And spoiler alert, I did not make the Olympic team, but I went to Olympic trials.Nate Erskine-Smith02:59 - 02:59You're close.Catherine McKenna03:00 - 04:05I was, well, closest, closest, but, but it wasn't, I mean, you know, life is a journey and that wasn't, it wasn't sad that I didn't make it, but I think it's just to hopefully for people to think I can make change too. Like I didn't come as a fully formed politician that was, you know, destined to be minister for the environment and climate change. So in particular for women and young people who are trying to figure out how to make change, I think it's a little bit my story. I just tried to figure it out. And one day I decided the best way to make change was to go into politics and get rid of Stephen Harper. That was my goal. He was my inspiration, yes, because we needed a new government. And yeah, so I really, really, really am trying to reach a much broader audience because I think we often are politicians talking to a very narrow group of people, often very partisan. And that's not my deal. My deal is we need everyone to be making change in their own way. And I want people who are feeling like maybe it's a bit hard working on climate or in politics or on democracy or human rights that you too can make change.Nate Erskine-Smith04:06 - 05:17And you were holding it up. I mean, it's a bit of a scrapbook. You've described it. And it's also honest. I mean, there was some media coverage of it that was sort of saying, oh, you said this about Trudeau, calling him a loofer. And there's a certain honesty about I've lived in politics and I'm going to call it like it is. But what I find most interesting is not the sort of the gotcha coverage after the fact. It's when you go to write something, you said you're not a writer at the launch that I saw in Ottawa, but you obviously sat down and were trying to figure out what are the lessons learned. You've had successes, you've had failures, and you're trying to impart these lessons learned. You mentioned you sort of were going down that road a little bit of what you wanted to impart to people, but you've had six years in politics at the upper echelon of decision-making on a really important file. I want to get to some of the failures because we're living through some of them right now, I think. Not of your doing, of conservative doing, unfortunately. But what would you say are the lessons learned that you, you know, as you're crystallizing the moments you've lived through, what are those lessons?Catherine McKenna05:19 - 07:12It's funny because the lessons I learned actually are from swimming in a way that actually you got to do the work. That, you know, you set a long-term goal and, you know, whatever that goal is, whatever you hope to make change on. And then you get up and you do the work. And then you get up the next morning and you do the work again. And sometimes things won't go your way. But you still get up the next morning. And I think it's important because, like, you know, look, I will talk, I'm sure, about carbon pricing. We lost the consumer carbon price. There's a chapter. It's called Hard Things Are Hard. I'm also, like, really into slogans. I used to be the captain of the U of T swim team. So I feel like my whole life is like a Nike ad or something. Hard things are hard. We can do it. But yeah, I mean, I think that the change is incremental. And sometimes in life, you're going to have hard times. But the other thing I want people to take from it is that, you know, sometimes you can just go dancing with your friends, right? Or you can call up your book club. I would sometimes have hard days in politics. And I was like, oh, gosh, that was like, what? happened. So I'd send an email, it would say to my book club. So if you have book clubs, book clubs are a good thing. Even if you don't always read the book, that would be me. But I would be SOS, come to my house. And I'd be like, all I have is like chips and wine, but I just need to hang out with regular people. And I think that's also important. Like, you know, life is life. Like, you know, you got to do the work if you're really trying to make change. But some days are going to be harder and sometimes you're just trying to hang in there and I had you know I had I have three kids one of them they're older now one of them is actually manning the the booth selling the books but you know when you're a mom too like you know sometimes you're going to focus on that so I don't know I think my my lessons are I I'm too gen x to be like you've got to do this and INate Erskine-Smith07:12 - 07:16learned this and I'm amazing no that's not writing a graduation speech I'm not I'm not writing aCatherine McKenna07:16 - 08:43graduation speech and I don't know that you know the particular path I took is what anyone else is going to do I was going to I went to Indonesia to do a documentary about Komodo dragons because my roommate asked me to so that led me to go back to Indonesia which led me to work for UN peacekeeping and peacekeeping mission in East Timor but I think it's also like take risks if you're a young person Like, don't, people will tell you all the time how you should do things. And I, you know, often, you know, doubted, should I do this, or I didn't have enough confidence. And I think that's often, women often feel like that, I'll say. And, you know, at the end, sometimes you are right. And it's okay if your parents don't like exactly what you're doing. Or, you know, people say you should stay in corporate law, which I hated. Or, you know, so I don't know if there's so many lessons as a bit as, you know, one, you got to do the work to, you know, listen to what you really want to do. That doesn't mean every day you're going to get to do what you want to do. But, you know, if you're really passionate about working human rights, work on human rights, like figure out a way to do it and then also have some fun. Like life can feel really heavy. And I felt that during COVID. I think sometimes now after, you know, looking at, you know, social media and what Donald Trump has done or threatened to do, it can feel hard. So I think it's also OK to to just check out and have fun.Nate Erskine-Smith08:44 - 08:46I like it. Well, there aren't lessons, but here are three important lessons.Catherine McKenna08:48 - 08:50I am a politician. It's good. Well, it's OK.Nate Erskine-Smith08:50 - 09:57You mentioned a few times really writing this book in a way to young people and specifically to young women to encourage them to to make a difference and to get involved. and yet politics, we were both drawn to politics, I think for similar reasons, and it is one of the most important ways to make a difference, and I wanna get to you. There are other ways to make a difference, of course, but there's a bit of a tension, I think, in what you're writing, because you're writing this encouragement to make a difference, and politics is so important, and on the flip side, you document all sorts of different ways that politics has been truly awful, the absurdity of, I knew the ridiculous idiocy of Climate Barbie, but I didn't actually appreciate that you had these bizarre men coming to your house to take selfies in front of your house. That's just a next-level awfulness. And so how do you, when you're talking to young people, to encourage them on the one hand, but also you don't want to shield them from the awfulness, and we all want to make politics a more civil, better place, but these are problematic tensions.Catherine McKenna09:58 - 10:42Yeah, I mean, look, I thought a lot about what I wanted to say about like the hate and abuse that I got, but also my staff got. I mean, they come to my office and start screaming. And of course, everything's videotaped. So and, you know, there were incidents at my house. And so I first of all, I believe in being honest. Like, I just believe in it. I believe that people deserve the truth. But also in this case, I wasn't looking for sympathy. I'm out of politics. I don't need sympathy, but we need change. And so I think the only way, one of the only ways we get changed, and you know how hard it is to get policy, like online harm legislation. We still have not gotten online harm. In a way, it's kind of unfathomable that we can't just get it. Like, we know that online.Nate Erskine-Smith10:42 - 10:43C5 happened real quick, though. Don't worry.Catherine McKenna10:43 - 10:43Okay.Catherine McKenna10:44 - 10:48Well, luckily, I'm not in politics anymore. I'm not in politics anymore.Catherine McKenna10:48 - 11:48I just do my thing. But I do think that by documenting this, I'm hoping that people will read it and say, well, wait a minute, that's not OK, because that's how we will get the support to get legislation to make sure that we hold social media platforms accountable. that's the way that we will be able to get people to say to politicians, you cannot go and do personal attacks and then go spread them online to get to get clicks. And that we can get proper protection for politicians, which I don't love, but actually we need that sometimes. So I think that it is important to say that I don't want people to feel down because I have multiple purposes in the book. Like people are talking about this. And I've had a number of my female politician friends saying thank you for stepping up because now people are taking it more seriously because they're like wow that was bad like climate barbie sounds kind of quaint now but climate barbie led to a whole bunch of things that led to a bunch of things that led to rcmp finally being outside my house whichNate Erskine-Smith11:49 - 12:05wasn't amazing but at least i felt safe but it's one thing to say quaint but it normalizes a misogyny that is that is awful right yeah so it's and it might it might not be a direct threat it might not be taking a selfie outside of your home which is an implicit threat but it is it's normalizing an awfulness in our politics.Catherine McKenna12:06 - 12:10Yeah, I mean, it is. From other politicians. It was a former minister in Harper's CabinetNate Erskine-Smith12:10 - 12:11who started it, right?Catherine McKenna12:11 - 12:21It was, or at least amplified it. We'll go there, like the climate Barbie. Okay, so climate Barbie is, it's quite weird because now my kids are like, well, Barbie went to the moon.Catherine McKenna12:21 - 12:22Barbie was an asteroid.Catherine McKenna12:23 - 14:57Quinn is here, like, you know, Barbies are, like, you know, not that big a deal. The thing is, if you are my age, if anyone here is 50 or over, I think you're pretty clear when someone who's 50 or over calls you climate barbie there's a lot going on in that and i said nothing like i was actually baptized climate barbie very early on um by a rage farming alt-right outlet they are not media and that's what they do this is their game they go after progressives to make money actually um for clickbait but i didn't do anything for so long um and i guess my team was lovely and i had a lot of really awesome women and they're like just don't do it because you'll they'll know that you know they can go after you um and so i'm at the un actually it's like seven years ago i was just at the un last week yes i heard donald trump but i was there to work on climate but it was the same thing it was the end of a really long day i was going back to the hotel i was actually in the hotel lobby some crabby hotel with my team and i look at my phone i was like why is my twitter exploded what has happened and then i see the climate barbie tweet and i said to my team. I said, okay, I'm sorry. I'm just going to have to deal with this situation. And they knew, like, I'm, when I say I'm dealing with it, I'm going to deal with it. And so I, I, you know, I'm a lawyer by training. So I, you know, try, I am Irish. I've got the hot headed side and then I've got the lawyer rational side. So I was like, okay, what am I going to say? There's going to call it out, but in a way that isn't falling into the trap of just calling names. So I said, it's in this book. I'm not going to get exactly right, but it was something like, would you use that kind of language with your girlfriend, wife, mother? You're not chasing women out of politics. Your sexism is going to chase women, whatever it was. And what was so interesting about this, and this is why in this book, I do the same thing, is that it went viral. And I wasn't trying to do this. I was trying to shame him so he would stop. And people like would stop me in the streets. And it would be, you know, conservative men, they'd be like, I'm a conservative, I'm ashamed. This is not acceptable. And I really appreciate this. This is how you stand up to bullies. And I thought, oh, this is important that we do this every once in a while, because often as a woman, you're kind of supposed to take it because otherwise you look a bit weak. And I realized actually the power is other people saying that this is not okay. So I actually appreciate that you call it out. You will see in my book. I will just let me see if I can find it. I also, like, kind of bizarrely, a bunch of, like, men would send me Barbies with really mean notes.Catherine McKenna14:57 - 15:04So they'd go to a store, buy a Barbie, then go and find the address of my constituency office or my ministerial office,Catherine McKenna15:05 - 15:32and then send it with a note that they personally addressed. Like, that's kind of weird. So anyway, the funny thing is, I guess, is it funny? I don't know. It's just it. There's a Barbie. This is actually a picture of one of the Barbies that was sent. We would normally put our Barbies in the Christmas toy drive. I guess we figured might as well give it to, you know, kids that would like the Barbie. But I found one when I was cleaning up my office. And I was like, oh, I'm going to just keep that. I'm going to like, you know, just keep that. So you can...Nate Erskine-Smith15:32 - 15:33No one's sending you Barbies.Catherine McKenna15:33 - 15:38I have a book of just... No one's sending you Barbies. Glorious things that people have sent, like written notes that people have sent over the yearsNate Erskine-Smith15:38 - 16:33where you're just like, this is the most bizarre thing to have received. And, you know, in 10 years in politics, the scrapbook grows. So speaking of, you mentioned Harper being an inspiration of sorts. You also have said, I'm just a regular person who wanted to make a change. And politics, you also said, I didn't want to be a politician. I want to be an Olympian. But you also document Sheila Copps as someone you looked up to. You mentioned your dad being very political. And Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the person in politics who was a bit of an inspiration for your dad and family. And so Harper, obviously, a motivating force for me as well in the lead up to 2015. I think there's a whole class of us in the lead up to 2015 that wanted a different kind of politics. How did you get on the ballot, though? It was you were a lawyer and you thought, no, this is this particular moment. Were people tapping on the shoulder and saying, come on, Catherine, now's the time?Catherine McKenna16:37 - 18:52Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a funny story because women often have to be asked multiple times. The thing is, I'd already been asked before 2015. And it's kind of funny because I saw my friend last night who's part of the story. So when Stéphane Dion was running, I went back to Hamilton. So that's where my parents, my dad passed away. But that's where my parents lived. And I was walking up my street. And the head of the riding association was like, would you like to run? So the election, I think, was already called. I'm pregnant. I live in Ottawa. And so I was like, oh, maybe I should think about that. So I asked my friend. He's like, well, I guess you won't have to knock on doors. So that was my first time getting asked. I did not run then. But I ran a charity that did human rights, rule of law, and good governance. I'd started this charity after having lived abroad with a friend. And, I mean, it was like banging your head on a wall in the pre-Harper times. We were trying to support human rights. We were working with indigenous youth in Canada focused on reconciliation. I cared about climate change. I was like, all of these things I'm trying to do outside of the system are a complete and utter waste of time. So I thought, OK, we've got to get rid of the government. So that's my theory of change now. My theory of change was create this charitable organization, and it's just not getting the impact. So I decided I was going to run, but I was in Ottawa Centre. So I don't know if many of you know Ottawa Centre. It's actually where Parliament's located, so it's great. It's a bike ride to work. But it was Paul Dewar, who was a really beloved NDP member of parliament. His mother had been mayor. And I really like Paul, too. But the reality is you've got to win, right? So you've got to win enough seats so you can form government. So I ran for two years. And it's interesting because I just decided to run. I canvassed, and so maybe the woman, this will maybe resonate a little bit. So I was like, okay, I really want to run, but I kind of need permission. I don't know why I thought I needed permission, but I did. So I went the rounds. And I like the Liberal Party, but it can be like an inside club. And I wasn't from Ottawa Centre. And so I think people were like a bit perplexed. They're like, we're kind of keeping this riding for a star candidate. And I was like, okay, what the heck? Who's a star?Catherine McKenna18:52 - 18:53Like, what's a star candidate?Catherine McKenna18:53 - 19:07Is that like a male lawyer who gives a lot of money to the Liberal Party? Like, I was like, seriously, what is a star candidate? Yeah, that's what it is. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I don't know. You are a male. I ran when I was 29 and had no money.Nate Erskine-Smith19:07 - 19:09That was a setup. That was a setup.Catherine McKenna19:09 - 20:15No, it wasn't. Okay. Anyway, we'll just blow by that one. You're a little bit unusual. Okay. So we'll take you out of that. But anyway, it's quite funny because then I was like, and then people were like, actually, you should just get the party to go get you another riding that's winnable. So I was like, okay, on the one hand, you need a star candidate here for this great riding that, but on the flip side, no one can win. So I was like, okay, I don't really know. So I looked at, like, you know, I'm not a fool. I was a competitive swimmer. I want to win. So I looked at the numbers, and I realized, like, you know, if Justin Trudeau was then leader, if we did super well, we were in third place, and it was two years out. But if I worked really hard and we did super well, there was a shot at winning. So I just decided I'm going to run. And I got the chapters called The New Girls Club. And then I had men supporting me. It was fine. But I literally had a lot of women who were just like, I don't know if you can win. This is kind of bonkers. You're doing it. But I'm going to step up and give you some money. I'm going to go help sell nominations. And at that point, you had to sell them. And no one wanted to buy a nomination.Catherine McKenna20:15 - 20:20People are like, I don't want to be a party. I want to join a party, especially a liberal party.Catherine McKenna20:22 - 21:04And so those of you who are thinking about politics, how do you win a nomination? I was trying to sell memberships and people weren't buying them. I was like, oh gosh, every night I'm going out, I've got these kids and I'm going out and talking to people. And I'm spending two hours and getting one or two nominations, people signing up. So I actually realized it was my kids' friends' mothers whose names I didn't know. I just knew their kids. And I think they were like, wow, we don't really know anyone that would go into politics. But we actually think you'd be pretty good. And your kids would kind of nice. And I don't know. I'll just sign up. I don't care.Catherine McKenna21:04 - 21:06And so it was actually really heartening.Catherine McKenna21:07 - 23:15And I will say, like, for all the bad of politics, and there is some bad for sure. And you will read about it in my book. That campaign for two years, like, we knocked on more than 100,000 doors. We had the highest voter turnout in the country. We had, I had my own rules. Like, I was like, we're going to do this in the way that I believe in. and you know some like some of it was following the bomb a snowflake model like you know we wanted to run hard but we also engaged kids and it wasn't like we had just like a kid area we would have kid canvases and I just felt important to me and we went to low income parts of the riding where some people said they're not going to vote or we went to university we went to university residents they're like they're not going to vote actually they turned out in strong numbers and I got a ton of volunteers who, and people that knew my name, because like someone who knows someone who knows someone. So it was great. But I will say like, that's the one thing about getting involved in politics. You may be here. I met a couple of you who said younger people who said you'd like to run. You can do it. You don't need permission. You're gonna have to hustle. You're gonna have to build your team. But this isn't an in club. And I do sometimes worry that politics feels like an in club and it shouldn't be that like we need everyone who wants to step up and get involved in however they want to get involved to be able to do that and so that's my lesson read that chapter hopefully you feel quite inspired and when I knocked on the last door I didn't know if I would win or not but I knew we'd left it all on the ice and I felt great like I was like we also have another woman who has run here it's Kelly is it Kelly who's run a couple times you know what it's like like you build a team. Now you were in a super hard riding. I do hope you run again. But it, it's just this feeling of doing something that matters and bringing people together in a common cause that is bigger than yourself. And it's about believing you can improve lives and you can tackle climate change. So that was a great I hope you read it and feel like you can do it too, if you want to run because you can, I will say you got to work hard. That is one of the most important thing doors gotNate Erskine-Smith23:15 - 23:36got a knock on doors well so i want to get back to though you were emphasizing one this idea of an insider culture but at the same time the need to have a really local presence and it was people who who were on the ground in the community who who ultimately helped get you over the finish line the nomination i mean here you know sandy's working the bar i went to high school with his kids andCatherine McKenna23:36 - 23:41he signed up in the nomination you got sandy and he got us a beer and and you got claire and fredNate Erskine-Smith23:41 - 24:44here who again i went i went to high school with their kids and they signed up in the nomination probably for joining the Liberal Party for the first time. And you go down the list, and there are people who are behind you locally. And in part, I think when you get started, now you go, okay, well, I know this person in the party, I know that person in the party, I've lived in the party for 12, 13 years. But I was 29 when I was starting to run the nomination. No one was tapping me on the shoulder and going, like, you're a star candidate, whatever that means, as you say. And so it does require that desire to say, no one has to ask me. I'm going to go do it and I'm going to build my own local team. But it also gets, I think, at another tension of who is your team? Because you say at one point, sometimes you need to be on the outside so you can push the inside to do more. And so you're on the outside now and you can be probably more honest in your assessment of things and more critical. I have tried, though, at times over the 10 years to play that same role in caucus.Catherine McKenna24:46 - 24:49What? Nate? I thought you were always all in on everything. Yeah, all in on everything.Nate Erskine-Smith24:50 - 25:32But it does get to this idea of team. It's like, be a team player, be a team player, be a team player. And the answer back is, well, who's your team? And yeah, sure, of course the team is the Liberal caucus, but the team is also people in Beaches of East York, the people who are knocking doors with the nomination, people who are knocking doors in the election. And they also want accountability. They also want the party and the government to be the best version of itself. And so do you find you were when you think back at the six years that you were in. I mean, cabinet's a different level of solidarity, obviously. But do you think it's possible to navigate that, you know, critical accountability role inside the tent? Or do you think it's essential as you are now to be outside to play that, you know, that that truth function?Catherine McKenna25:34 - 25:46I mean, that's a that's a really hard question because I mean, I'm a team person. I just sound like I was captain of a swim team. But that doesn't team. So it's different. Like, I'll just have to distinguish like being in cabinet.Catherine McKenna25:47 - 25:52Like you do have cabinet solidarity. But in cabinet, let me tell you, like I spoke up.Catherine McKenna25:52 - 26:50I like everyone didn't didn't always like it, but I felt like I had an obligation to just say things. And that was as much to myself as it was to anyone else. But then once you do that, you know, there is this view that then you stand with the team or else you leave cabinet. That is hard. That is hard. But it's probably less hard than being in caucus where you feel like you might have less influence on the issues. The one time I felt this was actually when I was out, but it was hard to do. And this is when I spoke up and I said I felt it was time for Justin Trudeau to step down, like to like have a leadership race to allow someone new to come in. And it was funny because I got like all these texts like and I was out. Right. So you think not such a big deal. But I got texts from people and like saying, who do you think you are? Like, you know, we're a liberal team. And I was like, OK, this is weird because I get team, but team doesn't equal cult.Nate Erskine-Smith26:52 - 26:52Welcome to my world.Catherine McKenna26:56 - 28:06Nate and me, are we exactly the same? Probably not exactly the same, but no, no. but I think it's true because I was like, well, wait a minute. We also owe it to, in that case, it was also like, we got to win. Are we going to just go? Is this the way it's going? We're just going to allow us to go down even though it's clear that the wheels have come off the cart. And that was hard. But I thought about it, and I was just so worried about the other option. Like Pierre Paulyab, that was too much. And I was like, okay, if I can make a bit of a difference, I will take a hit. It's fine. But I like, look, there is it is really hard to navigate that. And I mean, obviously, if it's super chaotic and no one's supporting things, I mean, the government will fall and you can't get agendas through. There does have to be some leeway to say things like that is important. It's that line and the tension. And I know you've you've felt it. And, you know, we haven't always been on the same side of those things, probably. But that is hard. That is hard. And I don't know that there's any easy answer to that because you can't always be in opposition because you can't govern.Catherine McKenna28:07 - 28:09So I would actually put that to you, Nate.Catherine McKenna28:10 - 28:38No, but I think it's an interesting question for you because, as I said, I was in cabinet, so it was a little bit easier. I mean, you literally have to vote with the government. But for you, there were times that you decided to, you know, be your own voice and not necessarily, well, not when I say not necessarily, not support, you know, the government's position. like how did you make decisions on that like how do you decide this is the moment i'm going to do that sometimes i care but i don't care as much or maybe i've done it you know a few times and iNate Erskine-Smith28:38 - 31:51should stay together like how did you how do you make that choice so i i think that uh trudeau and running for his leadership one thing that drew me to him actually he was calling for generational renewal at the time which which appealed to me but he was also talking about doing politics differently and whether that promise was entirely realized or not you know you lived around the cabinet table you you know more than me in some ways but I would say the promise of freer votes was incredibly appealing to me as the kind of politics that I that I want to see because I do think you you want that grassroots politics you want people to be it sounds trite now but that idea of being voices for the community in Ottawa not the other way around but there is a there's a truth to that. And so how do you get there and also maintain unity? And I think they navigated that quite well when in the leadership and then it became part of our platform in 2015, he articulated this idea of, well, we're going to have whipped votes on platform promises. Do I agree with everything in the platform? No, but I'll bite my tongue where I disagree and I'll certainly vote with the government. Two, on charter rights and human rights issues. And then three, and this is more fraught but on confidence matters more fraught i say because there were moments where they made certain things confidence matters that i didn't think they should have but you know that was that was the deal and that was the deal that you know you make with constituents it's the deal that you make with with members of the liberal party beyond that i think it's more about how you go about disagreeing and then it's making sure that you've given notice making sure that you've explained your reasons i i've i've uh i've joked i've been on many different whips couches but uh andy leslie i thought was the best whip in part because he would say why are you doing this and you'd run through the reasons he goes well have you have you engaged with them like do they know yeah well have they tried to convince you otherwise yeah and but here are the reasons okay well sounds like you thought about it kid get in my office and it was a there was a you could tell why he was an effective general because he he built respect as between you uh whereas you know the other approach is you have to vote with us. But that's not the deal, and here's why. And it's a less effective approach from a whip. But I would say how you, you know, I've used the example of electoral reform. I wasn't going and doing media saying Justin Trudeau is an awful person for breaking this promise, and, you know, he's, this is the most cynical thing he could have possibly have done, and what a bait and switch. I wasn't burning bridges and making this personal. I was saying, you know, he doesn't think a referendum is a good idea. Here's why I think there's a better forward and here's why I think we here's a way of us maintaining that promise and here's why I don't think we should have broken the promise and you know different people in the liberal party of different views I think the way we go about disagreeing and creating space for reasonable disagreement within the party outside the party but especially within the party really matters and then sometimes you just have to say there's an old Kurt Vonnegut line it's we are who we pretend to be so be careful who you pretend to be and I think it's double each room politics and so you know you want to wake up after politics and think I did the thing I was supposed to do when I was there. And sometimes that means being a good team player, and other times it means standing up and saying what you think. Okay, but back to questions for you.Catherine McKenna31:52 - 31:57Do you like that one? That was pretty good. Just put Nate on the hot speed for a little bit.Nate Erskine-Smith31:59 - 33:01You can ask me questions, too. Okay, so I was going to ask you why not politics, but you've sort of said, I've heard you say you felt that you were done, and you did what you came to do. But I want to push back on that a little bit, because you did a lot of things, especially around climate. First climate plan, you put carbon pricing in place, a number of measures. I mean, that gets all the attention, and we can talk about the walk back on it. But there's stringent methane rules, there were major investments in public transit, there's clean electricity. You run down the list of different things that we've worked towards in advance. And then we talk about consumer carbon pricing, but the industrial carbon piece is huge. Having said that, do you worry you left at a time when the politics were toxic, but not as toxic as they are today around climate and certainly around carbon pricing? And do you feel like you left before you had made sure the gains were going to be protected?Catherine McKenna33:02 - 33:11I think the lesson I learned, you can never protect gains, right? Like, you're just going to always have to fight. And, like, I can't, like, when am I going to be in politics? So I'm, like, 120?Catherine McKenna33:12 - 33:12Like, sorry.Catherine McKenna33:14 - 34:43And it is really true. Like, when I, the weird thing, when, so I'd been through COVID. I had three teenagers, one who, as I mentioned, is here. And I really thought hard. Like, I turned 50. And, like, I'm not someone who's, like, big birthdays. It's, like, this existential thing. I wasn't sad. It was, like, whatever. But I was, like, okay, I'm 50 now. Like, you know, there's what do I want to do at 50? I really forced myself to do it. And I really felt like, remember, I got into politics to make change. So I just thought, what is the best way to make change? And I really felt it wasn't, I felt personally for myself at this point, it wasn't through politics. I really wanted to work globally on climate because I really felt we'd done a lot. And I did think we kind of landed a carbon price. and we'd gone through two elections and one at the Supreme Court. So I felt like, okay, people will keep it. We will be able to keep it. So I just felt that there were other things I wanted to do, and I'd really come when I – you know, I said I would leave when I had done what I'd come to do, and that was a really important promise to myself. And I really want to spend time with my kids. Like, you give up a lot in politics, and my kids were going off to university, and I'd been through COVID, and if any parents – anyone been through COVID, But if you're a parent of teenage kids, that was a pretty bleak time. I'd be like, do you guys want to play another game? And they're like, oh my God.Audience Q34:43 - 34:44As if, and then they go to their bed.Catherine McKenna34:44 - 35:15They'd be like, I'm doing school. And I'd be like, as if you're doing school, you're online. Probably playing video game. But what am I going to do, right? Let's go for another walk. They're like, okay, we'll go for a walk if we can go get a slushie. And I was like, I'm going to rot their teeth. And my dad was a dentist. So I was like, this is bad. But this is like, we're engaging for 20 minutes. Like it was really hard. And so I actually, when I made the decision, like, but the counter, the funny thing that is so hilarious now to me is I almost, I was like, I'm not going to leave because if I leave, those haters will thinkCatherine McKenna35:15 - 35:16they drove me out.Nate Erskine-Smith35:16 - 35:18So I was like, okay, I'm going to stay.Catherine McKenna35:18 - 35:20And like, it was bizarre. I was like, okay.Nate Erskine-Smith35:20 - 35:21I don't want to stay when I'm staying. I don't want to stay.Catherine McKenna35:21 - 35:46I don't think this is the most useful point of my, like, you know, part of what I, you know, this is this useful, but I'm going to stay because these random people that I don't care about are actually going to say, ha ha, I chased her out. So then I was like, okay, well, let's actually be rational here and, you know, an adult. So I made the decision. And I actually felt really zen. Like, it was quite weird after I did it, where it was actually politicians who would do it to me. They'd be like, are you okay?Catherine McKenna35:47 - 35:49And I'd be like, I'm amazing.Catherine McKenna35:49 - 36:05What are you talking about? And, like, you know, it was as if leaving politics, I would not be okay. And then people would say, like, is it hard not to have stuff? I was like, I'm actually free. I can do whatever I want. I can go to a microphone now and say whatever. Probably people will care a lot less. But I don't.Nate Erskine-Smith36:05 - 36:07You can do that in politics sometimes too.Catherine McKenna36:08 - 36:08Yes, Nate.Nate Erskine-Smith36:09 - 36:09Yes, Nate.Catherine McKenna36:09 - 39:32We know about that. Yeah, it was just. So anyway, I left politics. I was not. I do think that what I always worried about more than actually the haters thinking they won. It was that women and women and girls would think I love politics because of all the hate. And once again, I'll just repeat it because it's very important to me. The reason I say the things that happened to me in the book is not because I need sympathy. I don't. We do need change. And I felt when I left, I said I would support women and girls in politics. One of the ways I am doing it is making sure that it is a better place than what I had to put up with. Now, sadly, it's not because it's actually worse now. I hear from counselors. I hear from school board trustees. I hear from all sorts of women in politics, but also men, however you identify. Like, it's bad out there. And it's not just online. It is now offline. People think they can shout at you and scream at you and take a video of it, like put it in the dark web or wherever that goes. So, you know, that's bad. But I feel like, you know, people are like, oh, we got to stop that. And that's what's important. There's a nice letter here. So as I said, I have like random things in here. But there's this lovely gentleman named Luigi. I haven't talked about Luigi yet, have I? So I was at the airport and this gentleman came over to me. And I still get a little nervous when people, because I don't know what people are going to do. Like I probably 99% of them are very nice, but it only takes one percent. So I always get like slightly nervous. And I don't mean to be because I'm actually, as you can see, quite gregarious. I like talking to people, but never exactly sure. And he hands me a note and walks away. And I'm like, oh, God, is this like an exploding letter? Who knows? And I open it and it's in the book. So I'll read you his letter because it actually, I put it towards the end because I think it's really important. because you can see I asked Luigi if I could put his note so his note is here so Ms. McKenna I did not want to disturb you as I thought so I thought I would write this note instead because I identify as a conservative in all likelihood we probably would disagree on many issues I find it quite disturbing the level of abuse that you and many other female politicians must endure. It is unfortunate and unacceptable, and I make a point of speaking out when I see it. I hope that you take consolation in the fact that you and others like you are making it easier for the next generation of women, including my three daughters, Luigi. And I was like, this is like the nicest note. And I think that's also what I hope for my book like I hope people are like yeah we can be we can actually disagree but be normal and you know okay with each other and probably most people are um most people are like Luigi are probably not paying attention but there are people that aren't doing that and I think they're also fed sometimes by politicians themselves um who you know really ratchet things up and attack people personally and And so that's a long answer to I can't even remember the question. But I mean, I left politics and I was done. And that's not related to Luigi, but Luigi is a nice guy.Nate Erskine-Smith39:34 - 41:21It's a I think I've got those are my questions around the book. But I do have a couple of questions on climate policy because you're living and breathing that still. And although it's interesting, you comment about politicians. I mean, there's a deep inauthenticity sometimes where politicians treat it as a game. And there's these attacks for clicks. Or in some cases, especially when the conservatives were riding high in the polls, people were tripping over themselves to try and prove to the center that they could be nasty to and that they could score points and all of that. And so they all want to make cabinet by ratcheting up a certain nastiness. But then cameras get turned off and they turn human beings again to a degree. And so that kind of inauthenticity, I think, sets a real nasty tone for others in politics more generally. But on climate policy, I was in Edmonton for our national caucus meeting. I think I texted you this, but I get scrummed by reporters and they're asking me all climate questions. And I was like, oh, this is nice. I'm getting asked climate questions for a change. this is good. This is put climate back on the radar. And then a reporter says, well, are you concerned about the Carney government backtracking on climate commitments? And I said, well, backtracking on climate commitments. I mean, if you read the book Values, it'd be a very odd thing for us to do. Do you worry that we are backtracking? Do you worry that we're not going to be ambitious enough? Or do you think we're still, we haven't yet seen the climate competitiveness strategy? I mean, you know, here's an opportunity to say we should do much more. I don't know. But are you concerned, just given the dynamic in politics as they're unfolding, that we are not going to get where we need to get?Catherine McKenna41:22 - 42:31I mean, look, I'm like you. You know, first of all, I did get into politics. I wasn't an expert on climate, but I cared about climate because I have kids. Like, we have this truck that's coming for our kids, and I'm a mother, so I'm going to do everything I can. I was in a position that I learned a lot about climate policy, and climate policy is complicated, and you've got to get it right. But look, I mean, you know, Mark Carney knows as much about, you know, climate as an economic issue as anyone. And so, I mean, I'm certainly hopeful that you can take different approaches, but at the end of the day, your climate policy requires you to reduce emissions because climate change isn't a political issue. Of course, it's very political. I'm not going to understate it. I know that as much as anyone. But in the end, the science is the science. We've got to reduce our emissions. And you've probably all heard this rant of mine before, but I will bring up my rant again. I sometimes hear about a grand bargain with oil and gas companies. We did a grand bargain with oil and gas companies.Catherine McKenna42:31 - 42:31How did that work out?Catherine McKenna42:31 - 42:32Yeah.Catherine McKenna42:32 - 42:33How did that work out? Tell us. How did that work out?Catherine McKenna42:33 - 47:27Let me tell you how that worked out. So we were working really hard to get a national climate plan. And I saw it as an obligation of mine to work with provinces to build on the policies they had. The Alberta government had stood, so it was the government of Rachel Notley, but with Murray Edwards, who's the head of one of the oil and gas companies, with environmentalists, with economists, with indigenous peoples, saying, okay, this is the climate plan Alberta's going to do. A cap on emissions from oil and gas. a price on pollution, tough methane regs, and, you know, some other things. And so then we were pushed, and it was really hard. I was the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, where we had a climate emergency one day, and then we had a pipeline. The next, I talk about that. That was hard. But the reality is, we felt like that, you know, the Alberta government, we needed to support the NDP Alberta, you know, the NDP government at the time early on. And so then what did we get? Like, where are we right now? We basically, none of the, either those policies are gone or not effective. We got a pipeline at massive taxpayer costs. It's like 500% over. We have oil and gas companies that made historic record profits, largely as a result of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. What did they do with those profits? They said that they were going to invest in climate solutions. They were going to reduce their emissions. They were all in. But instead, they give their CEOs massive, massive historic bonuses. I'm from Hamilton. That's not a thing when you get these massive historic record bonuses. At the same time, they gave the money back to shareholders who were largely Americans. While they demanded more subsidies to clean up their own pollution, while we are in a climate crisis that is a fossil fuel climate crisis. I now feel taken for a fool because I believed that the oil and gas, like in particular, the oil sands would live up to their end of the bargain. You will see in the book also, I don't know, I probably can't find the page fast enough. I did pinky promises with kids because all these kids came up to me all the time and they said, like, I'm really working hard on climate change. You know, I've got a water bottle. I'm riding my bike. I'm doing like a used clothing drive, whatever it was. And I said, you know what? I'm doing my part, too. Let's do a pinky promise like a pinky swear. And we will promise to continue doing our part. Well, we all did our part. By the way, basically everyone in all sectors have done their part except for oil and gas when they had massive historic record profits. And I wrote a report for the UN Secretary General on greenwashing. And they were exhibit A, exhibit A on what greenwashing looks like, like saying you're doing things that you are not doing and while you're lobbying to kill every policy. So I just hope that people aren't taken for fools again. Like the grand bargain should be they should live up with their end of the bargain. Like that is what bargains are. You got to do what you say you were going to do. And they didn't do it. And as a result, it's extremely hard for Canada to meet our target because they are 30% and growing of our emissions. So I also think like, why are we paying? Why would taxpayers pay? So, look, I don't know. Hard things are hard, as my mug says that I was given by my team because I said it every single day, about 12 times a day. You have to make very tough decisions in government. And we're in a trade war. And also defending our we have to absolutely stand up and defend our sovereignty against the Trump regime, which is very dangerous and very destabilizing. but at the same time we can't not act on climate climate is a here and now problem it's not this fire problem like all these people were evacuated from communities the cost of climate change is massive people are not going to be able to be insured that's already happening and so i just think you gotta walk and chew gum you gotta like figure out how to you know build and grow the economy but you also need to figure out how to tackle climate change and reduce your emissions and to be honest, hold the sector that is most responsible for climate change accountable for their actions and also for their words because they said they were going to act on climate and they supported these policies and they are now still fighting to kill all these policies. You almost can't make it up. And I just don't think Canadians should be taken for fools and I think you've got to make a lot of choices with tax dollars. But I'm not in government And I think, you know, we have, you know, Mark Carney, he's very smart. He's doing a great job of defending Canada. You know, I think like everyone, I'm waiting to see what the climate plan is because it's extremely important. And the climate plan is an economic plan as much as anything else.Nate Erskine-Smith47:28 - 48:23And on that, I would say not just an economic plan, but when you talk about national resiliency, there's a promise in our platform to become a clean energy superpower. There's a promise in our platform to create an east-west transmission grid. And just in Ontario, when you look at the fact that not only are they doubling down on natural gas, but they're also importing natural gas from the United States. When solar, wind, storage is actually more cost effective, investments in east-west transmission grid and in clean energy would make a lot more sense, not only for the climate, not only for the economy, but also as a matter of resiliency and energy independence as well. Okay, those are my questions. So thank you for... Give a round of applause for Calvin. Thank you for joining. With the time that we've got left, Christian, we've got, what, 10, 15 minutes? What time is it? Okay, great. Okay, so does anyone have questions for Ms. McKenna?Audience Q48:25 - 49:09It's a question for both of you, actually. You guys have both been trailblazers in your own right, I think, inside and inside of politics. And you talk a lot about building your community and building your team, whether it's swimming or local politics, and also demanding space in those places to be competitive, all the way up from your local team up to the prime minister. But I'm curious on the other side of that, what does it look like to be a good teammate inside and inside of politics, and how do we support more people, for those of us that might not be running, but trying to get more people like you? Or maybe as an example, somebody that supported you in your run?Catherine McKenna49:11 - 49:56well i mean look i'm trying to do my part and so what i did and it's like what most of you did you go support people that you think are good that are running so i in the last election i went and i supported people that i thought were serious about climate including in ridings that we had never won before um and i also well probably especially those writings um and i also supported women candidates that was just a choice I mean but I think everyone getting involved in politics is a great way to do it but also you know when you think there's someone good that might be good to run you know you know talk to them about it and as I said for women they need to be asked often seven times I think is it so like for women maybe just start asking and if we get to the seventh time maybeNate Erskine-Smith49:56 - 51:38really good women will run and I would add I suppose just on locally I have found one, going into schools and talking politics and encouraging people to think about politics as an opportunity has translated into our youth council. It's then translated into our young liberals internship over the summer where we make sure people are able to be paid to knock on doors and just maintain involvement. And then a number of those people come through either our office and then they're working in politics in the minister's office or in the prime minister's office or they're going to law school or they're adjacent to politics and helping other people and just encouraging people to at least be close to politics so that they see politics as a way to make a difference, there will then be people that will want to run from that or help encourage other people to run. The second thing, and I'll use Mark Holland as an example, when I was running the nomination and I didn't have contacts in the party, but I had someone who knew Mark Holland and he gave me advice to think about it like concentric circles when you're running a nomination where you have people who are close to you and then the people who are close to you will have 10 people that are close to them that maybe they can sign them up for you or maybe they just are they open the door and I you know if so if someone opens the door to a conversation with me I feel pretty confident that I can close the sale but if the door is closed in my face I'm not gonna I'm not gonna even have an opportunity to and so just that idea of building out you start with your your home base and you build out from there build out from there so I just think I have in the last week had conversations with two people who want to run for office at some point, they're both under the age of 30, and I've given that same kind of advice of, here's what worked for me. It may work for you, it may not, it depends, but find where your home base is, and then just grow from there. And so I think just spending time, likeAudience Q51:39 - 52:30giving one's time to give advice like that is really important. Yeah. Building on that, that's, I wanted to, because I think that does nicely into what you said earlier, Catherine, about and really encouraging young women in particular to get into politics. But it's not just, it's all the peripheral people, people that are peripheral to politics, your concentric circles, so that you don't necessarily have to run for an office. And I appreciate what you've done for girls. But I also want you to know that, I mean, I'm older than you, and still you are a role model to me. Not only that, though, I have sons in their mid to late 20s. and I've made sure you're a role model and women like you are a role model to them because I think that's how change begins.Nate Erskine-Smith52:32 - 52:34This was entirely planted just for you, by the way.Catherine McKenna52:35 - 52:37No, but I think that's...Nate Erskine-Smith52:37 - 52:40So I do think that's important, right?Catherine McKenna52:40 - 53:26My book is not... Run Like a Girl, I'm a woman, I identify as a woman and there's a story about how I was told I ran like a girl and so it really bugged me. So it's kind of a particular thing. But I think that is important. Like, you know, this isn't exclusive. Although, you know, there are, you know, certain different barriers, at least that I'm aware of, you know, that if you're a woman, if you're LGBTQ2+, if you're racialized or indigenous, there could be different barriers. But I hear you. And I think, you know, we do have to inspire each other in a whole range of ways. So that is very nice. I hope that, I mean, I'm not, you know, looking to, you know, you know, for kudos. I really, but it is nice to hear that you can inspire people in a whole different way, you know, range of ways.Audience Q53:26 - 53:47It's really, yeah, it's really not about kudos. It's about, you know, it's not that my intent is not just to applaud you. It's just, it's to, it's to recognize you. And that's different, like being seen, holding place, holding space for people to be involved. And so I do have one actual question of this.Catherine McKenna53:48 - 53:50You can ask a question after that.Audience Q53:51 - 53:57Regarding pricing, carbon pricing, how would you communicate the rollout differently?Catherine McKenna53:58 - 54:43Well, I would actually fund it. So hard things at heart, I'm like, okay, well, first of all, we know the Conservatives were terrible. They lied about it. They misled. They didn't talk about the money going back. The problem is, like, we hampered ourselves too. And it was really quite weird because I was like, okay, well, we need an advertising budget because clearly this is a bit of a complicated policy. But the most important thing I need people to know is that we're tackling climate change and we're doing it in a way that we're going to leave low income and middle income people better off. You're going to get more money back. That's very, very important. The second part of the message is as important because I knew the conservatives were going to be like, you're just increasing the price of everything. But we were told we couldn't advertise. And I was like, why? And they said, well, because we're not like conservatives because they had done the, what was the plan?Nate Erskine-Smith54:43 - 54:51The economic action plan. The signs everywhere. They basically, what Ford does now, they were doing it.Catherine McKenna54:51 - 57:40So that sounds really good, except if you're me. Because I was like, well, no one really knows about it. So I'm like one person. And we got some caucus members, not all of them. But Nate will go out and talk about it. Some people will talk about it. But I said, people are entitled to know what government policy is, especially in this particular case, where you've literally got to file your taxes to get the rebate. Because that was the second mistake we made. I was told that we couldn't just do quarterly checks, which would be much more obvious to people, even if it was automatically deposited, you actually named it properly, which was another problem. But, you know, all of these things that are just normal things. And instead, we were told, I was told by the folks in the Canada Revenue Agency, there's no way we could possibly do quarterly checks. after COVID, when we did everything, we blew everything up, then they were like, oh, actually, and this was after me, but they were like, we can do quarterly chaps. I was like, well, that's really helpful. Like, that would have been nice, like a little bit longer, you know, like the beginning of this. And so I think like, we do need to be sometimes very tough, like, don't do things that sound great and are not, are really hampering your ability to actually deliver a policy in a way that people understand. So like, it's just a hard policy. Like, you know, people say, would you have done, what would you have done differently? Yes, I would have communicated it differently. I tried. Like, I was out there. I went to H&R Block because I saw a sign, and they were like, climate action incentive. Oh, by the way, we couldn't call it a rebate because the lawyers told us injustice. We couldn't do that, and I'm a lawyer. I was like, what? And so I should have fought that one harder too, right? Like, I mean, there's so many fights you can have internally as well, but, you know, there I am. I was like, oh, H&R Block, they're doing free advertising for us because they wanted people to file their taxes, so then I would make, I said to all caucus members, you need to go to your HR block and get a family. I don't even want to see you necessarily. I want a family to be sitting down being told they're getting money back. And, and so like, look, I think it's just a hard policy. And, and what happened though, I mean, read hard things are hard, but the chapter, but it's, um, and people will be like, I'm definitely not reading that chapter. You can skip chapters. This book is like, go back and forth, rip things out. I don't, you don't have to read it in chronological order or read particular chapters. But was if the price is going to go up every year, every year you better be ready to fight for it because every year you're literally creating this conflict point where conservatives are like, they're on it. They're like spending so much tax dollars to mislead people. Remember the stickers on the pump that fell off? That was quite funny. They actually fell off. But you're going to have to fight for it. And so we just, it's a hard, it's a very hard policy. I did everything I could. And I don't live with life with regrets. I think it was really important. And by the way, it's a case study outside of Canada.Catherine McKenna57:41 - 57:42Everyone's like, Canada.Catherine McKenna57:42 - 57:52I was like, oh, yeah, there is like a little different ending than you might want to know about what happened. But they're like, yes, this is, of course, how we should do it. Should be a price on pollution. Give the money back.Nate Erskine-Smith57:52 - 58:38I went to a movie at the Beach Cinema with my kids. And there was an ad. This is years ago. But there was an ad. So we were advertising. But it was advertising about the environment climate plan. and it was like people in canoes. And I was like, what is this trying to, like we're spending how much money on this to tell me what exactly? And I went to, Stephen was the minister, and I went, Stephen, can we please advertise Carbon Pricing Works, it's 10 plus percent of our overall plan, and 80% of people get more money back or break even. Just tell people those three things, I don't need the canoe. and then he was like oh we can't we we they tell it they tell us we can't do it no no and that'sCatherine McKenna58:38 - 58:55what you're often told like it is kind of weird internally the amount of times you're told no like on advertising it is a particular thing because like and so then you're like having a fight about comms i was like oh my gosh can we don't think the canoe is going to win this carbon and it didn't turns out i love canoeing by the way so maybe it would have convinced me if i wasNate Erskine-Smith58:55 - 59:01i think last question we'll finish with that with maryland hi i'm maryland and i also happen to beAudience Q59:01 - 01

** There are less than 10 tickets remaining for the live recording of Uncommons with Catherine McKenna on Thursday Oct 2nd. Register for free here. **On this two-part episode of Uncommons, Nate digs into Bill C-2 and potential impacts on privacy, data surveillance and sharing with US authorities, and asylum claims and refugee protections.In the first half, Nate is joined by Kate Robertson, senior researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. Kate's career has spanned criminal prosecutions, regulatory investigations, and international human rights work with the United Nations in Cambodia. She has advocated at every level of court in Canada, clerked at the Supreme Court, and has provided pro bono services through organizations like Human Rights Watch Canada. Her current research at Citizen Lab examines the intersection of technology, privacy, and the law.In part two, Nate is joined by Adam Sadinsky, a Toronto-based immigration and refugee lawyer and co-chair of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers' Advocacy Committee. Adam has represented clients at every level of court in Canada, including the Supreme Court, and was co-counsel in M.A.A. v. D.E.M.E. (2020 ONCA 486) and Canadian Council for Refugees v. Canada (2023 SCC 17).Further Reading:Unspoken Implications A Preliminary Analysis of Bill C-2 and Canada's Potential Data-Sharing Obligations Towards the United States and Other Countries - Kate Robertson, Citizen LabKate Robertson Chapters:00:00 Introduction & Citizen Lab03:00 Bill C-2 and the Strong Borders Act08:00 Data Sharing and Human Rights Concerns15:00 The Cloud Act & International Agreements22:00 Real-World Examples & Privacy Risks28:00 Parliamentary Process & Fixing the BillAdam Sadinsky Chapters:33:33 Concerns Over Asylum Eligibility in Canada36:30 Government Goals and Fairness for Refugee Claimants39:00 Changing Country Conditions and New Risks41:30 The Niagara Falls Example & Other Unfair Exclusions44:00 Frivolous vs. Legitimate Claims in the Refugee System47:00 Clearing the Backlog with Fair Pathways50:00 Broad Powers Granted to the Government52:00 Privacy Concerns and Closing ReflectionsPart 1: Kate RobertsonNate Erskine-Smith00:00-00:01Kate, thanks for joining me.Kate Robertson00:01-00:01Thanks for having me.Nate Erskine-Smith00:02-00:15So I have had Ron Debert on the podcast before. So for people who really want to go back into the archive, they can learn a little bit about what the Citizen Lab is. But for those who are not that interested, you're a senior researcher there. What is the Citizen Lab?Kate Robertson00:16-01:00Well, it's an interdisciplinary research lab based at University of Toronto. It brings together researchers from a technology standpoint, political science, lawyers like myself and other disciplines to examine the intersection between information and communication technologies, law, human rights, and global security. And over time, it's published human rights reports about some of the controversial and emerging surveillance technologies of our time, including spyware or AI-driven technologies. And it's also really attempted to produce a thoughtful research that helps policymakers navigate some of these challenges and threats.Nate Erskine-Smith01:01-02:50That's a very good lead into this conversation because here we have Bill C-2 coming before Parliament for debate this fall, introduced in June, at the beginning of June. And it's called the Strong Borders Act in short, but it touches, I started counting, it's 15 different acts that are touched by this omnibus legislation. The government has laid out a rationale around strengthening our borders, keeping our borders secure, combating transnational organized crime, stopping the flow of illegal fentanyl, cracking down on money laundering, a litany of things that I think most people would look at and say broadly supportive of stopping these things from happening and making sure we're enhancing our security and the integrity of our immigration system and on. You, though, have provided some pretty thoughtful and detailed rational legal advice around some of the challenges you see in the bill. You're not the only one. There are other challenges on the asylum changes we're making. There are other challenges on lawful access and privacy. You've, though, highlighted, in keeping with the work of the Citizen Lab, the cross-border data sharing, the challenges with those data sharing provisions in the bill. It is a bit of a deep dive and a little wonky, but you've written a preliminary analysis of C2 and Canada's potential data sharing obligations towards the U.S. and other countries, unspoken implications, and you published it mid-June. It is incredibly relevant given the conversation we're having this fall. So if you were to at a high level, and we'll go ahead and some of the weeds, but at a high level articulate the main challenges you see in the legislation from the standpoint that you wrote in unspoken implications. Walk us through them.Kate Robertson02:51-06:15Well, before C2 was tabled for a number of years now, myself and other colleagues at the lab have been studying new and evolving ways that we're seeing law enforcement data sharing and cross-border cooperation mechanisms being put to use in new ways. We have seen within this realm some controversial data sharing frameworks under treaty protocols or bilateral agreement mechanisms with the United States and others, which reshape how information is shared with law enforcement in foreign jurisdictions and what kinds of safeguards and mechanisms are applied to that framework to protect human rights. And I think as a really broad trend, what is probably most, the simplest way to put it is that what we're really seeing is a growing number of ways that borders are actually being exploited to the detriment of human rights standards. Rights are essentially falling through the cracks. This can happen either through cross-border joint investigations between agencies in multiple states in ways that essentially go forum shopping for the laws and the most locks, that's right. You can also see foreign states that seek to leverage cooperation tools in democratic states in order to track, surveil, or potentially even extradite human rights activists and dissidents, journalists that are living in exile outside their borders. And what this has really come out of is a discussion point that has been made really around the world that if crime is going to become more transient across borders, that law enforcement also needs to have a greater freedom to move more seamlessly across borders. But what often is left out of that framing is that human rights standards that are really deeply entrenched in our domestic law systems, they would also need to be concurrently meaningful across borders. And unfortunately, that's not what we're seeing. Canada is going to be facing decisions around this, both within the context of C2 and around it in the coming months and beyond, as we know that it has been considering and in negotiation around a couple of very controversial agreements. One of those, the sort of elephant in the room, so to speak, is that the legislation has been tabled at a time where we know that Canada and the United States have been in negotiations for actually a couple of years around a potential agreement called the CLOUD Act, which would quite literally cede Canada's sovereignty to the United States and law enforcement authorities and give them really a blanket opportunity to directly apply surveillance orders onto entities, both public and private in Canada?Nate Erskine-Smith06:16-07:46Well, so years in the making negotiations, but we are in a very different world with the United States today than we were two years ago. And I was just in, I was in Mexico City for a conference with parliamentarians across the Americas, and there were six Democratic congressmen and women there. One, Chuy Garcia represents Chicago district. He was telling me that he went up to ICE officials and they're masked and he is saying, identify yourself. And he's a congressman. He's saying, identify yourself. What's your ID? What's your badge number? They're hiding their ID and maintaining masks and they're refusing to identify who they are as law enforcement officials, ostensibly refusing to identify who they are to an American congressman. And if they're willing to refuse to identify themselves in that manner to a congressman. I can only imagine what is happening to people who don't have that kind of authority and standing in American life. And that's the context that I see this in now. I would have probably still been troubled to a degree with open data sharing and laxer standards on the human rights side, but all the more troubling, you talk about less democratic jurisdictions and authoritarian regimes. Well, isn't the U.S. itself a challenge today more than ever has been? And then shouldn't we maybe slam the pause button on negotiations like this? Well, you raise a number of really important points. And I think thatKate Robertson07:47-09:54there have been warning signs and worse that have long preceded the current administration and the backsliding that you're commenting upon since the beginning of 2025. Certainly, I spoke about the increasing trend of the exploitation of borders. I mean, I think we're seeing signs that really borders are actually, in essence, being used as a form of punishment, even in some respects, which I would say it is when you say to someone who would potentially exercise due process rights against deportation and say if you exercise those rights, you'll be deported to a different continent from your home country where your rights are perhaps less. And that's something that UN human rights authorities have been raising alarm bells about around the deportation of persons to third countries, potentially where they'll face risks of torture even. But these patterns are all too reminiscent of what we saw in the wake of 9-11 and the creation of black sites where individuals, including Canadian persons, were detained or even tortured. And really, this stems from a number of issues. But what we have identified in analyzing potential cloud agreement is really just the momentous decision that the Canadian government would have to make to concede sovereignty to a country which is in many ways a pariah for refusing to acknowledge extraterritorial international human rights obligations to persons outside of its borders. And so to invite that type of direct surveillance and exercise of authority within Canada's borders was a country who has refused for a very long time, unlike Canada and many other countries around the world, has refused to recognize through its courts and through its government any obligation to protect the international human rights of people in Canada.Nate Erskine-Smith09:56-10:21And yet, you wrote, some of the data and surveillance powers in Bill C-2 read like they could have been drafted by U.S. officials. So you take the frame that you're just articulating around with what the U.S. worldview is on this and has been and exacerbated by obviously the current administration. But I don't love the sound of it reading like it was drafted by AmericanKate Robertson10:22-12:43officials. Well, you know, it's always struck me as a really remarkable story, to be frank. You know, to borrow Dickens' tale of two countries, which is that since the 1990s, Canada's Supreme Court has been charting a fundamentally different course from the constitutional approach that's taken the United States around privacy and surveillance. And it really started with persons looking at what's happening and the way that technology evolves and how much insecurity people feel when they believe that surveillance is happening without any judicial oversight. And looking ahead and saying, you know what, if we take this approach, it's not going to go anywhere good. And that's a really remarkable decision that was made and has continued to be made by the court time and time again, even as recently as last year, the court has said we take a distinct approach from the United States. And it had a lot of foresight given, you know, in the 1990s, technology is nowhere near what it is today. Of course. And yet in the text of C2, we see provisions that, you know, I struggle when I hear proponents of the legislation describe it as balanced and in keeping with the Charter, when actually they're proposing to essentially flip the table on principles that have been enshrined for decades to protect Canadians, including, for example, the notion that third parties like private companies have the authority to voluntarily share our own. information with the police without any warrant. And that's actually the crux of what has become a fundamentally different approach that I think has really led Canada to be a more resilient country when it comes to technological change. And I sometimes describe us as a country that is showing the world that, you know, it's possible to do both. You can judicially supervise investigations that are effective and protect the public. And the sky does not fall if you do so. And right now we're literally seeing and see to something that I think is really unique and important made in Canada approach being potentially put on the chopping block.Nate Erskine-Smith12:44-13:29And for those listening who might think, okay, well, at a high level, I don't love expansive data sharing and reduced human rights protections, but practically, are there examples? And you pointed to in your writing right from the hop, the Arar case, and you mentioned the Supreme Court, but they, you know, they noted that it's a chilling example of the dangers of unconditional information sharing. And the commission noted to the potentially risky exercise of open ended, unconditional data sharing as well. But that's a real life example, a real life Canadian example of what can go wrong in a really horrible, tragic way when you don't have guardrails that focus and protect human rights.Kate Robertson13:31-14:56You're right to raise that example. I raise it. It's a really important one. It's one that is, I think, part of, you know, Canada has many commendable and important features to its framework, but it's not a perfect country by any means. That was an example of just information sharing with the United States itself that led to a Canadian citizen being rendered and tortured in a foreign country. Even a more recent example, we are not the only country that's received requests for cooperation from a foreign state in circumstances where a person's life is quite literally in jeopardy. We have known from public reporting that in the case of Hardeep Najjar, before he was ultimately assassinated on Canadian soil, an Interpol Red Notice had been issued about him at the request of the government of India. And the government had also requested his extradition. And we know that there's a number of important circumstances that have been commented upon by the federal government in the wake of those revelations. And it's provoked a really important discussion around the risks of foreign interference. But it is certainly an example where we know that cooperation requests have been made in respect of someone who's quite literally and tragically at risk of loss of life.Nate Erskine-Smith14:57-16:07And when it comes to the, what we're really talking about is, you mentioned the Cloud Act. There's also, I got to go to the notes because it's so arcane, but the second additional protocol to the Budapest Convention. These are, in that case, it's a treaty that Canada would ratify. And then this piece of legislation would in some way create implementing authorities for. I didn't fully appreciate this until going through that. And I'd be interested in your thoughts just in terms of the details of these. And we can make it as wonky as you like in terms of the challenges that these treaties offer. I think you've already articulated the watering down of traditional human rights protections and privacy protections we would understand in Canadian law. But the transparency piece, I didn't fully appreciate either. And as a parliamentarian, I probably should have because there's... Until reading your paper, I didn't know that there was a policy on tabling of treaties That really directs a process for introducing treaty implementing legislation. And this process also gets that entirely backwards.Kate Robertson16:09-17:01That's right. And, you know, in researching and studying what to do with, you know, what I foresee is potentially quite a mess if we were to enter into a treaty that binds us to standards that are unconstitutional. You know, that is a diplomatic nightmare of sorts, but it's also one that would create, you know, a constitutional entanglement of that's really, I think, unprecedented in Canada. But nevertheless, that problem is foreseen if one or both of these were to go ahead. And I refer to that in the cloud agreement or the 2AP. But this policy, as I understand it, I believe it was tabled by then Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, as he was at the time, by Prime Minister Harper's government.Nate Erskine-Smith17:02-17:04He's come a long way.Kate Robertson17:07-18:12I believe that the rationale for the policy was quite self-evident at the time. I mean, if you think about the discussions that are happening right now, for example, in Quebec around digital sovereignty and the types of entanglements that U.S. legal process might impact around Quebec privacy legislation. Other issues around the AI space in Ontario or our health sector in terms of technology companies in Ontario. These treaties really have profound implications at a much broader scale than the federal government and law enforcement. And that's not even getting to Indigenous sovereignty issues. And so the policy is really trying to give a greater voice to the range of perspectives that a federal government would consider before binding Canada internationally on behalf of all of these layers of decision making without perhaps even consulting with Parliament First.Nate Erskine-Smith18:12-19:15So this is, I guess, one struggle. There's the specific concerns around watering down protections, but just on process. This just bothered me in particular because we're going to undergo this process in the fall. And so I printed out the Strong Borders Act, Government of Canada Strengthens Border Security and the backgrounder to the law. And going through it, it's six pages when I print it out. And it doesn't make mention of the Budapest Convention. It doesn't make mention of the Cloud Act. It doesn't make mention of any number of rationales for this legislation. But it doesn't make mention that this is in part, at least, to help implement treaties that are under active negotiation. not only gets backwards the policy, but one would have thought, especially I took from your paper, that the Department has subsequently, the Justice Department has subsequently acknowledged that this would in fact help the government implement these treaties. So surely it shouldKate Robertson19:15-19:57be in the background. I would have thought so. As someone that has been studying these treaty frameworks very carefully, it was immediately apparent to me that they're at least relevant. It was put in the briefing as a question as to whether or not the actual intent of some of these new proposed powers is to put Canada in a position to ratify this treaty. And the answer at that time was yes, that that is the intent of them. And it was also stated that other cooperation frameworks were foreseeable.Nate Erskine-Smith19:59-20:57What next? So here I am, one member of parliament, and oftentimes through these processes, we're going to, there's the objective of the bill, and then there's the details of the bill, and we're going to get this bill to a committee process. I understand the intention is for it to be a pretty fulsome committee hearing, and it's an omnibus bill. So what should happen is the asylum components should get kicked to the immigration committee. The pieces around national security should obviously get kicked to public safety committee, and there should be different committees that deal with their different constituent elements that are relevant to those committees. I don't know if it will work that way, but that would be a more rational way of engaging with a really broad ranging bill. Is there a fix for this though? So are there amendments that could cure it or is it foundationally a problem that is incurable?Kate Robertson20:58-21:59Well, I mean, I think that for myself as someone studying this area, it's obvious to me that what agreements may be struck would profoundly alter the implications of pretty much every aspect of this legislation. And that stems in part from just how fundamental it would be if Canada were to cede its sovereignty to US law enforcement agencies and potentially even national security agencies as well. But obviously, the provisions themselves are quite relevant to these frameworks. And so it's clear that Parliament needs to have the opportunity to study how these provisions would actually be used. And I am still left on knowing how that would be possible without transparencyNate Erskine-Smith22:00-22:05about what is at stake in terms of potential agreements. Right. What have we agreed to? If thisKate Robertson22:05-24:57is implementing legislation what are we implementing certainly it's a significantly different proposition now even parking the international data sharing context the constitutional issues that are raised in the parts of the bill that i'm able to study within my realm of expertise which is in the context of omnibus legislation not the entire bill of course yeah um but it's hard to even know where to begin um the the the powers that are being put forward you know i kind of have to set the table a bit to understand to explain why the table is being flipped yeah yeah we're at a time where um you know a number of years ago i published about the growing use of algorithms and AI and surveillance systems in Canada and gaps in the law and the need to bring Canada's oversight into the 21st century. Those gaps now, even five years later, are growing into chasms. And we've also had multiple investigative reports by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada being sent to Parliament about difficulties it's had reviewing the activities of law enforcement agencies, difficulties it's had with private sector companies who've been non-compliant with privacy legislation, and cooperating at all with the regulator. And we now have powers being put forward that would essentially say, for greater certainty, it's finders keepers rules. Anything in the public domain can be obtained and used by police without warrant. And while this has been put forward as a balancing of constitutional norms, the Supreme Court has said the opposite. It's not an all or nothing field. And in the context of commercial data brokers that are harvesting and selling our data, including mental health care that we might seek online, AI-fueled surveillance tools that are otherwise unchecked in the Canadian domain. I think this is a frankly stunning response to the context of the threats that we face. And I really think it sends and creates really problematic questions around what law enforcement and other government agencies are expected to do in the context of future privacy reviews when essentially everything that's been happening is supposedly being green lit with this new completely un-nuanced power. I should note you are certainly not alone in theseNate Erskine-Smith24:57-27:07concerns. I mean, in addition to the paper that I was talking about at the outset that you've written as an analyst that alongside Ron Deaver in the Citizen Lab. But there's another open letter you've signed that's called for the withdrawal of C2, but it's led by open media. I mean, BCCLA, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees, QP, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, Penn Canada, the Center for Free Expression, privacy experts like Colin Bennett, who I used be on the Privacy Committee and that were pretty regular witnesses. You mentioned the Privacy Commissioner has not signed the open letter, but the Privacy Commissioner of both Canada and the Information Commissioner of Ontario, who's also responsible for privacy. In the context of the treaties that you were mentioning, the Budapest Convention in particular, they had highlighted concerns absent updated, modernized legislation. And at the federal level, we have had in fits and starts attempts to modernize our private sector privacy legislation. But apart from a consultation paper at one point around the Privacy Act, which would apply to public sector organizations, there's really been no serious effort to table legislation or otherwise modernize that. So am I right to say, you know, we are creating a myriad number of problems with respect to watering down privacy and human rights protections domestically and especially in relation to foreign governments with relation to data of our citizens here. And we could potentially cure those problems, at least in part, if we modernize our privacy legislation and our privacy protections and human rights protections here at home. But we are, as you say, a gap to chasm. We are so woefully behind in that conversation. It's a bit of an odd thing to pass the open-ended data sharing and surveillance piece before you even have a conversation around updating your privacy protections.Kate Robertson27:07-28:13Yeah, I mean, frankly, odd, I would use the word irresponsible. We know that these tools, it's becoming increasingly well documented how impactful they are for communities and individuals, whether it's wrongful arrests, whether it's discriminatory algorithms. really fraught tools to say the least. And it's not as if Parliament does not have a critical role here. You know, in decades past, to use the example of surveillance within Quebec, which was ultimately found to have involved, you know, years of illegal activity and surveillance activities focused on political organizing in Quebec. And that led to Parliament striking an inquiry and ultimately overhauling the mandate of the RCMP. There were recommendations made that the RCMP needs to follow the law. That was an actual recommendation.Nate Erskine-Smith28:14-28:16I'm sorry that it needs to be said, but yeah.Kate Robertson28:16-29:05The safeguards around surveillance are about ensuring that when we use these powers, they're being used appropriately. And, you know, there isn't even, frankly, a guarantee that judicial oversight will enable this to happen. And it certainly provides comfort to many Canadians. But we know, for example, that there were phones being watched of journalists in Montreal with, unfortunately, judicial oversight not even that many years ago. So this is something that certainly is capable of leading to more abuses in Canada around political speech and online activity. And it's something that we need to be protective against and forward thinking about.Nate Erskine-Smith29:05-29:58Yeah, and the conversation has to hold at the same time considerations of public safety, of course, but also considerations for due process and privacy and human rights protections. These things, we have to do both. If we don't do both, then we're not the democratic society we hold ourselves out as. I said odd, you said irresponsible. You were forceful in your commentary, but the open letter that had a number of civil society organizations, I mentioned a few, was pretty clear to say the proposed legislation reflects little more than shameful appeasement of the dangerous rhetoric and false claims about our country emanating from the United States. It's a multi-pronged assault on the basic human rights and freedoms Canada holds dear. Got anything else to add?Kate Robertson30:00-30:56I mean, the elephant in the room is the context in which the legislation has been tabled within. And I do think that we're at a time where we are seeing democratic backsliding around the world, of course, and rising digital authoritarianism. And these standards really don't come out of the air. They're ones that need to be protected. And I do find myself, when I look at some of the really un-nuanced powers that are being put forward, I do find myself asking whether or not those risks are really front and center when we're proposing to move forward in this way. And I can only defer to experts from, as you said, hundreds of organizations that have called attention towards pretty much every aspect of this legislation.Nate Erskine-Smith30:57-31:44And I will have the benefit of engaging folks on the privacy side around lawful access and around concerns around changes to the asylum claim and due process from the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. But as we do see this move its way through Parliament, if we see it move its way through Parliament in the fall, if they're recognizing that the call was for withdrawal, but also recognizing a political reality where if it is to pass, we want to make sure we are improving it as much as possible. If there are amendments along the way, if there are other people you think that I should engage with, please do let me know because this is before us. It's an important piece of legislation. And if it's not to be withdrawn, we better improve it as much as possible.Kate Robertson31:46-32:02I appreciate that offer and really commend you for covering the issue carefully. And I really look forward to more engagement from yourself and other colleagues in parliament as legislation is considered further. I expect you will be a witness at committee,Nate Erskine-Smith32:02-32:06but thanks very much for the time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me.Part 2: Adam SadinskyChapters:33:33 Concerns Over Asylum Eligibility in Canada36:30 Government Goals and Fairness for Refugee Claimants39:00 Changing Country Conditions and New Risks41:30 The Niagara Falls Example & Other Unfair Exclusions44:00 Frivolous vs. Legitimate Claims in the Refugee System47:00 Clearing the Backlog with Fair Pathways50:00 Broad Powers Granted to the Government52:00 Privacy Concerns and Closing ReflectionsNate Erskine-Smith33:33-33:35Adam, thanks for joining me.Adam Sadinsky33:35-33:36Thanks for having me, Nate.Nate Erskine-Smith33:36-33:57We've had a brief discussion about this, by way of my role as an MP, but, for those who are listening in, they'll have just heard a rundown of all the concerns that the Citizen Lab has with data surveillance and data sharing with law enforcement around the world. You've got different concerns about C2 and you represent the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. What are your concerns here?Adam Sadinsky33:57-35:31I mean, our biggest concern with this bill is new provisions that create additional categories of folks ineligible to claim asylum in Canada. And specifically to have their hearings heard at the Immigration and Refugee Board. The biggest one of those categories is definitely, a bar on individuals making refugee claims in Canada one year after they have arrived in Canada, and that's one year, whether they have been in Canada for that whole year or they left at some point and came back. Those folks who have been here, who came more than a year ago, if they now fear persecution and want to make a claim for refugee protection, this bill would shunt them into an inferior system where rather than having a full hearing in their day in court.Their application will be decided by an officer of immigration, alone, sitting in the cubicle, probably, with some papers in front of them. That person is going to make an enormous decision about whether to send that person back home where they feared persecution, torture, death. Our position is that this new form of ineligibility. Is unfair. it doesn't meet the government's goals, as we understand them, and we share, we share the views of organizations like, Citizen Lab, that the bill should be withdrawn. There are other ways to do this, but this bill is fundamentally flawed.Nate Erskine-Smith35:31-35:57Let's talk about government goals. Those looking at the influx of temporary residents in Canada specifically, and I don't, and I don't wanna pick on international students, but we've seen a huge influx of international students just as one category example. And they've said, well, if someone's been here for a year and they didn't claim right away, they didn't come here to claim asylum. Because they would've claimed within that first year, presumably, you know, what's the problem with, uh, with a rule that is really trying to tackle this problem.Adam Sadinsky35:57-38:33The issue is, I mean, Nate, you had mentioned, you know, people who had come to Canada, they didn't initially claim and it didn't initially claim asylum, temporary residents. What do we do about it? I wanna give a couple of examples of people who would be caught by this provision, who fall into that category. But there's legitimate reasons why they might claim more than a year after arriving in Canada. The first is someone who came to Canada, student worker, whatever. At the time they came to Canada, they would've been safe going back home they didn't have a fear of returning back home. But country conditions change and they can change quickly. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, was a stark example there may have been people who came to Canada as students planning to go back to Afghanistan and rebuild their country. As the bill is currently written. If there were to be a situation like that, and there will be some other Afghanistan, there will be some other situation down the line. Those people who weren't afraid when they originally came to Canada and now have a legitimate claim, will have an inferior, process that they go through, one that is riddled with issues, examples of unfairness compared to the refugee, the regular refugee system, and a lack of protection from deportation, pending any appeal.So that's one category. A second category is people who were afraid of going back home when they came to Canada but didn't need to claim asylum because they had another avenue to remain in Canada. So the government advertised, Minister Frazier was saying this often come to Canada, come as a student and there's a well-established pathway. You'll have a study permit, you'll get a post-graduation work permit. This is what the government wanted. The rug has been pulled out from under many of those people. Towards the end of last year when Canada said, okay, it's enough, too many temporary residents. But what about the temporary residents who had a fear of returning home when they came? They went through the system the “right way,” quote unquote. They didn't go to the asylum system. they went through another path. And now they're looking at it. They say, well, you know, I came to Canada to study, but also I'm gay and I'm from a country where, if people know about that, you know, I'll be tortured. Maybe since they've been in Canada, that person in that example, they've been in a relationship, they've been posting on social media with their partner. It is very dangerous so why, why shouldn't that person claim refugee protection through regular means?Nate Erskine-Smith38:33-39:06Is this right on your read of the law as it is written right now, if someone were to come with their family when they're a kid and they were to be in Canada for over a year and then their family were to move back to either the home country or to a different country, and, they wake up as a teenager many years later, they wake up as an adult many years later and their country's falling apart, and they were to flee and come to Canada. By virtue of the fact they've been here for a year as a kid, would that preclude them from making a claim?Adam Sadinsky39:06-39:10It's even worse than that, Nate.Nate Erskine-Smith39:09-39:10Oh, great.Adam Sadinsky39:10-39:47In your example, the family stayed in Canada for more than a year. Yes, absolutely. That person is caught by this provision. But here's who else would be someone comes when they're five years old with their family, on a trip to the United States. during that trip, they decide we want to see the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. They either have a visa or get whatever visa they need, or don't need one. They visit the falls, and at that point that they enter Canada, a clock starts ticking. That never stops ticking. So maybe they came to Canada for two hours.Nate Erskine-Smith39:44-39:45Two hours and you're outta luck.Adam Sadinsky39:45-39:47They go back to the USNate Erskine-Smith39:47-39:47Oh man.Adam Sadinsky39:47-40:09They never come back to Canada again. The way that the bill is written, that clock never stops ticking, right? Their country falls apart. They come back 15 years later. That person is going to have a very different kind of process that they go through, to get protection in Canada, than someone who wouldn't be caught by this bill.Nate Erskine-Smith40:09-40:34Say those are the facts as they are, that's one category. There's another category where I've come as a student, I thought there would be a pathway. I don't really fear persecution in my home country, but I want to stay in Canada we see in this constituency office, as other constituency offices do people come with immigration help or they've got legitimate claims. We see some people come with help with illegitimate claimsAdam Sadinsky40:34-42:46We have to be very careful when we talk about categorizing claims as frivolous. There is no question people make refugee claims in Canada that have no merit. You'll not hear from me, you'll not hear from our organization saying that every 100% of refugee claims made in Canada, are with merit. The issue is how we determine. At that initial stage that you're saying, oh, let's, let's deal quickly with frivolous claims. How do you determine if a claim is frivolous? What if someone, you know, I do a lot of appeal work, we get appeals of claims prepared by immigration consultants, or not even immigration consultants. And, you know, there's a core of a very strong refugee claim there that wasn't prepared properly.Nate Erskine-Smith42:46-42:46Yeah, we see it too. That's a good point.Adam Sadinsky42:46-42:46How that claim was prepared has nothing to do with what the person actually faces back home. We have to be very careful in terms of, quick negative claims, and clearing the decks of what some might think are frivolous claims. But there may be some legitimate and very strong core there. What could be done, and you alluded to this, is there are significant claims in the refugee board's backlog that are very, very strong just based on the countries they come from or the profiles of the individuals who have made those claims, where there are countries that have 99% success rate. And that's not because the board is super generous. It's because the conditions in those countries are very, very bad. And so the government could implement policies and this would be done without legislation to grant pathways for folks from, for example, Eritrea 99ish percent success rate. However, the government wants to deal with that in terms of numbers, but there's no need for the board to spend time determining whether this claim is in the 1%, that doesn't deserve to be accepted. Our view is that 1% being accepted is, a trade off for, a more efficient system.Nate Erskine-Smith42:46-43:30Similarly though, individuals who come into my office and they've been here for more than five years. They have been strong contributors to the community. They have jobs. They're oftentimes connected to a faith organization. They're certainly connected to a community based organization that is going to bat for them. There's, you know, obviously no criminal record in many cases they have other family here. And they've gone through so many appeals at different times. I look at that and I go, throughout Canadian history, there have been different regularization programs. Couldn't you kick a ton of people not a country specific basis, but a category specific basis of over five years, economic contributions, community contributions, no criminal record, you're approved.Adam Sadinsky43:30-44:20Yeah, I'd add to your list of categories, folks who are working in, professions, that Canada needs workers in. give the example of construction. We are facing a housing crisis. So many construction workers are not Canadian. Many of my clients who are refugee claimants waiting for their hearings are working in the construction industry. And the government did that, back in the COVID pandemic, creating what was, what became known as the Guardian Angels Program, where folks who were working in the healthcare sector, on the front lines, combating the pandemic, supporting, folks who needed it, that they were allowed to be taken again out of the refugee queue with a designated, pathway to permanent residents on the basis of the work and the contribution they were doing. All of these could be done.Adam Sadinsky44:20-45:05The refugee system is built on Canada's international obligations under the refugee convention, to claim refugee protection, to claim asylum is a human right. Every person in the world has the right to claim asylum. Individuals who are claiming asylum in Canada are exercising that right. Each individual has their own claim, and that's the real value that the refugee board brings to bear and why Canada has had a gold standard. The refugee system, replicated, around the world, every individual has their day in court, to explain to an expert tribunal why they face persecution. This bill would take that away.Nate Erskine-Smith45:05-46:18Yeah, I can't put my finger on what the other rationale would be though, because why the, why this change now? Well, we have right now, a huge number over a million people who are going to eventually be without status because they're not gonna have a pathway that was originally, that they originally thought would be there. The one frustration I have sometimes in the system is there are people who have come into my office with, the original claim, being unfounded. But then I look at it, and they've been here partly because the process took so long, they've been here for over five years. If you've been here for over five years and you're contributing and you're a member of the community, and now we're gonna kick you out. Like your original claim might have been unfounded, but this is insane. Now you're contributing to this country, and what a broken system. So I guess I'm sympathetic to the need for speed at the front end to ensure that unfounded claims are deemed unfounded and people are deported and legitimate claims are deemed founded, and they can be welcomed. So cases don't continue to come into my office that are over five or over six years long where I go, I don't even care if it was originally unfounded or not. Welcome to Canada. You've been contributing here for six years anyway.Adam Sadinsky46:18-46:33But if I can interject? Even if the bill passes as written, each of these individuals is still going to have what's called a pre-removal risk assessment.Nate Erskine-Smith46:31-46:33They're still gonna have a process. Yeah, exactly.Adam Sadinsky46:33-46:55They're still gonna have a process, and they're still going to wait time. All these people are still in the system. The bill is a bit of a shell game where folks are being just transferred from one process to another and say, oh, wow. Great. Look, we've reduced the backlog at the IRB by however many thousand claims,Nate Erskine-Smith46:53-46:55And we've increased the backlog in the process.Adam Sadinsky46:55-48:25Oh, look at the wait time at IRCC, and I'm sure you have constituents who come into your office and say, I filed a spousal sponsorship application two and a half years ago. I'm waiting for my spouse to come and it's taking so long. IRCC is not immune from processing delays. There doesn't seem to be, along with this bill, a corresponding hiring of hundreds and hundreds more pro officers. So, this backlog and this number of claims is shifting from one place to another. And another point I mentioned earlier within the refugee system within the board, when a person appeals a negative decision, right? Because, humans make decisions and humans make mistakes. And that's why we have legislative appeal processes in the system to allow for mistakes to be corrected. That appeal process happens within the board, and a person is protected from deportation while they're appealing with a pro. With this other system, it's different. The moment that an officer makes a negative decision on a pro that person is now eligible to be deported. CBSA can ask them to show up the next day and get on a plane and go home. Yes, a person can apply for judicial review in the federal court that does not stop their deportation. If they can bring a motion to the court for a stay of removal.Nate Erskine-Smith48:19-48:25You're gonna see a ton of new work for the federal court. You are gonna see double the work for the federal courtAdam Sadinsky48:25-48:39Which is already overburdened. So unless the government is also appointing many, many new judges, and probably hiring more Council Department of Justice, this backlog is going to move from one place to another.Nate Erskine-Smith48:39-48:41It's just gonna be industry whack-a-mole with the backlog.Adam Sadinsky48:41-48:52The only way to clear the backlog is to clear people out of it. There's no fair way to clear folks out of it in a negative way. So the only way to do that is positively.Nate Erskine-Smith48:52-49:37In the limited time we got left, the bill also empowers the governor and council of the cabinet to cancel documents, to suspend documents. And just so I've got this clearer in my mind, so if, for example: say one is a say, one is a student on campus, or say one is on a, on a work permit and one is involved in a protest, and that protest the government deems to be something they don't like. The government could cancel the student's permit on the basis that they were involved in the protest. Is that right? The law? Not to say that this government would do that. But this would allow the government to legally do just that. Am I reading it wrong?Adam Sadinsky49:37-50:46The bill gives broad powers to the government to cancel documents. I think you're reading it correctly. To me, when I read the bill, I don't particularly understand exactly what is envisioned. Where it would, where the government would do this, why a government would want to put this in. But you are right. I would hope this government would not do that, but this government is not going to be in power forever. When you put laws on the books, they can be used by whomever for whatever reason they can they want, that's within how that law is drafted. You know, we saw down south, you know, the secretary of State a few months ago said, okay, we're gonna cancel the permits of everyone from South Sudan, in the US because they're not taking back people being deported. It's hugely problematic. It's a complete overreach. It seems like there could be regulations that are brought in. But the power is so broad as written in this law, that it could definitely be used, for purposes most Canadians would not support.Nate Erskine-Smith50:46-51:07And, obviously that's a worst case scenario when we think about the United States in today's political climate. But, it's not clear to your point what the powers are necessary for. If we are to provide additional powers, we should only provide power as much as necessary and proportionate to the goal we want to achieve. Is there anything else you want to add?Adam Sadinsky51:07-51:43I just wanna touch, and I'm sure you got into a lot of these issues, on the privacy side but. The privacy issues in this bill bleed over into the refugee system with broad search powers, um, particularly requiring service providers to provide information, we are concerned these powers could be used by CBSA, for example, to ask a women's shelter, to hand over information about a woman claiming refugee protection or who's undocumented, living in a shelter, we have huge concerns that, you know, these powers will not just be used by police, but also by Canada Border Services and immigration enforcement. I'm not the expert on privacy issues, but we see it we see the specter of those issues as well.Nate Erskine-Smith51:43-52:22That's all the time we got, but in terms of what would help me to inform my own advocacy going forward is, this bill is gonna get to committee. I'm gonna support the bill in committee and see if we can amend it. I know, the position of CARL is withdraw. The position of a number of civil society organizations is to withdraw it. I think it's constructive to have your voice and others at committee, and to make the same arguments you made today with me. Where you have. I know your argument's gonna be withdrawn, you'll say then in the alternative, here are changes that should be made. When you've got a list of those changes in detailed, legislative amendment form, flip them to me and I'll share the ideas around the ministry and around with colleagues, and I appreciate the time. Appreciate the advocacy.Adam Sadinsky52:22-52:24Absolutely. Thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Guest: Catherine McKenna, former MP and Minister of the Environment. Author of Run Like a Girl.

After a hiatus, we've officially restarted the Uncommons podcast, and our first long-form interview is with Professor Taylor Owen to discuss the ever changing landscape of the digital world, the fast emergence of AI and the implications for our kids, consumer safety and our democracy.Taylor Owen's work focuses on the intersection of media, technology and public policy and can be found at taylorowen.com. He is the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communications and the founding Director of The Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University where he is also an Associate Professor. He is the host of the Globe and Mail's Machines Like Us podcast and author of several books.Taylor also joined me for this discussion more than 5 years ago now. And a lot has happened in that time.Upcoming episodes will include guests Tanya Talaga and an episode focused on the border bill C-2, with experts from The Citizen Lab and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.We'll also be hosting a live event at the Naval Club of Toronto with Catherine McKenna, who will be launching her new book Run Like a Girl. Register for free through Eventbrite. As always, if you have ideas for future guests or topics, email us at info@beynate.ca Chapters:0:29 Setting the Stage1:44 Core Problems & Challenges4:31 Information Ecosystem Crisis10:19 Signals of Reliability & Policy Challenges14:33 Legislative Efforts18:29 Online Harms Act Deep Dive25:31 AI Fraud29:38 Platform Responsibility32:55 Future Policy DirectionFurther Reading and Listening:Public rules for big tech platforms with Taylor Owen — Uncommons Podcast“How the Next Government can Protect Canada's Information Ecosystem.” Taylor Owen with Helen Hayes, The Globe and Mail, April 7, 2025.Machines Like Us PodcastBill C-63Transcript:Nate Erskine-Smith00:00-00:43Welcome to Uncommons, I'm Nate Erskine-Smith. This is our first episode back after a bit of a hiatus, and we are back with a conversation focused on AI safety, digital governance, and all of the challenges with regulating the internet. I'm joined by Professor Taylor Owen. He's an expert in these issues. He's been writing about these issues for many years. I actually had him on this podcast more than five years ago, and he's been a huge part of getting us in Canada to where we are today. And it's up to this government to get us across the finish line, and that's what we talk about. Taylor, thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. So this feels like deja vu all over again, because I was going back before you arrived this morning and you joined this podcast in April of 2020 to talk about platform governance.Taylor Owen00:43-00:44It's a different world.Taylor00:45-00:45In some ways.Nate Erskine-Smith00:45-01:14Yeah. Well, yeah, a different world for sure in many ways, but also the same challenges in some ways too. Additional challenges, of course. But I feel like in some ways we've come a long way because there's been lots of consultation. There have been some legislative attempts at least, but also we haven't really accomplished the thing. So let's talk about set the stage. Some of the same challenges from five years ago, but some new challenges. What are the challenges? What are the problems we're trying to solve? Yeah, I mean, many of them are the same, right?Taylor Owen01:14-03:06I mean, this is part of the technology moves fast. But when you look at the range of things citizens are concerned about when they and their children and their friends and their families use these sets of digital technologies that shape so much of our lives, many things are the same. So they're worried about safety. They're worried about algorithmic content and how that's feeding into what they believe and what they think. They're worried about polarization. We're worried about the integrity of our democracy and our elections. We're worried about sort of some of the more acute harms of like real risks to safety, right? Like children taking their own lives and violence erupting, political violence emerging. Like these things have always been present as a part of our digital lives. And that's what we were concerned about five years ago, right? When we talked about those harms, that was roughly the list. Now, the technologies we were talking about at the time were largely social media platforms, right? So that was the main way five years ago that we shared, consumed information in our digital politics and our digital public lives. And that is what's changing slightly. Now, those are still prominent, right? We're still on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook to a certain degree. But we do now have a new layer of AI and particularly chatbots. And I think a big question we face in this conversation in this, like, how do we develop policies that maximize the benefits of digital technologies and minimize the harms, which is all this is trying to do. Do we need new tools for AI or some of the things we worked on for so many years to get right, the still the right tools for this new set of technologies with chatbots and various consumer facing AI interfaces?Nate Erskine-Smith03:07-03:55My line in politics has always been, especially around privacy protections, that we are increasingly living our lives online. And especially, you know, my kids are growing up online and our laws need to reflect that reality. All of the challenges you've articulated to varying degrees exist in offline spaces, but can be incredibly hard. The rules we have can be incredibly hard to enforce at a minimum in the online space. And then some rules are not entirely fit for purpose and they need to be updated in the online space. It's interesting. I was reading a recent op-ed of yours, but also some of the research you've done. This really stood out. So you've got the Hogue Commission that says disinformation is the single biggest threat to our democracy. That's worth pausing on.Taylor Owen03:55-04:31Yeah, exactly. Like the commission that spent a year at the request of all political parties in parliament, at the urging of the opposition party, so it spent a year looking at a wide range of threats to our democratic systems that everybody was concerned about originating in foreign countries. And the conclusion of that was that the single biggest threat to our democracy is the way information flows through our society and how we're not governing it. Like that is a remarkable statement and it kind of came and went. And I don't know why we moved off from that so fast.Nate Erskine-Smith04:31-05:17Well, and there's a lot to pull apart there because you've got purposeful, intentional, bad actors, foreign influence operations. But you also have a really core challenge of just the reliability and credibility of the information ecosystem. So you have Facebook, Instagram through Meta block news in Canada. And your research, this was the stat that stood out. Don't want to put you in and say like, what do we do? Okay. So there's, you say 11 million views of news have been lost as a consequence of that blocking. Okay. That's one piece of information people should know. Yeah. But at the same time.Taylor Owen05:17-05:17A day. Yeah.Nate Erskine-Smith05:18-05:18So right.Taylor Owen05:18-05:2711 million views a day. And we should sometimes we go through these things really fast. It's huge. Again, Facebook decides to block news. 40 million people in Canada. Yeah.Taylor05:27-05:29So 11 million times a Canadian.Taylor Owen05:29-05:45And what that means is 11 million times a Canadian would open one of their news feeds and see Canadian journalism is taken out of the ecosystem. And it was replaced by something. People aren't using these tools less. So that journalism was replaced by something else.Taylor05:45-05:45Okay.Taylor Owen05:45-05:46So that's just it.Nate Erskine-Smith05:46-06:04So on the one side, we've got 11 million views a day lost. Yeah. And on the other side, Canadians, the majority of Canadians get their news from social media. But when the Canadians who get their news from social media are asked where they get it from, they still say Instagram and Facebook. But there's no news there. Right.Taylor Owen06:04-06:04They say they get.Nate Erskine-Smith06:04-06:05It doesn't make any sense.Taylor Owen06:06-06:23It doesn't and it does. It's terrible. They ask Canadians, like, where do you get people who use social media to get their news? Where do they get their news? and they still say social media, even though it's not there. Journalism isn't there. Journalism isn't there. And I think one of the explanations— Traditional journalism. There is—Taylor06:23-06:23There is—Taylor Owen06:23-06:47Well, this is what I was going to get at, right? Like, there is—one, I think, conclusion is that people don't equate journalism with news about the world. There's not a one-to-one relationship there. Like, journalism is one provider of news, but so are influencers, so are podcasts, people listening to this. Like this would be labeled probably news in people's.Nate Erskine-Smith06:47-06:48Can't trust the thing we say.Taylor Owen06:48-07:05Right. And like, and neither of us are journalists, right? But we are providing information about the world. And if it shows up in people's feeds, as I'm sure it will, like that probably gets labeled in people's minds as news, right? As opposed to pure entertainment, as entertaining as you are.Nate Erskine-Smith07:05-07:06It's public affairs content.Taylor Owen07:06-07:39Exactly. So that's one thing that's happening. The other is that there's a generation of creators that are stepping into this ecosystem to both fill that void and that can use these tools much more effectively. So in the last election, we found that of all the information consumed about the election, 50% of it was created by creators. 50% of the engagement on the election was from creators. Guess what it was for journalists, for journalism? Like 5%. Well, you're more pessimistic though. I shouldn't have led with the question. 20%.Taylor07:39-07:39Okay.Taylor Owen07:39-07:56So all of journalism combined in the entire country, 20 percent of engagement, influencers, 50 percent in the last election. So like we've shifted, at least on social, the actors and people and institutions that are fostering our public.Nate Erskine-Smith07:56-08:09Is there a middle ground here where you take some people that play an influencer type role but also would consider themselves citizen journalists in a way? How do you – It's a super interesting question, right?Taylor Owen08:09-08:31Like who – when are these people doing journalism? When are they doing acts of journalism? Like someone can be – do journalism and 90% of the time do something else, right? And then like maybe they reveal something or they tell an interesting story that resonates with people or they interview somebody and it's revelatory and it's a journalistic act, right?Taylor08:31-08:34Like this is kind of a journalistic act we're playing here.Taylor Owen08:35-08:49So I don't think – I think these lines are gray. but I mean there's some other underlying things here which like it matters if I think if journalistic institutions go away entirely right like that's probably not a good thing yeah I mean that's whyNate Erskine-Smith08:49-09:30I say it's terrifying is there's a there's a lot of good in the in the digital space that is trying to be there's creative destruction there's a lot of work to provide people a direct sense of news that isn't that filter that people may mistrust in traditional media. Having said that, so many resources and there's so much history to these institutions and there's a real ethics to journalism and journalists take their craft seriously in terms of the pursuit of truth. Absolutely. And losing that access, losing the accessibility to that is devastating for democracy. I think so.Taylor Owen09:30-09:49And I think the bigger frame of that for me is a democracy needs signals of – we need – as citizens in a democracy, we need signals of reliability. Like we need to know broadly, and we're not always going to agree on it, but like what kind of information we can trust and how we evaluate whether we trust it.Nate Erskine-Smith09:49-10:13And that's what – that is really going away. Pause for a sec. So you could imagine signals of reliability is a good phrase. what does it mean for a legislator when it comes to putting a rule in place? Because you could imagine, you could have a Blade Runner kind of rule that says you've got to distinguish between something that is human generatedTaylor10:13-10:14and something that is machine generated.Nate Erskine-Smith10:15-10:26That seems straightforward enough. It's a lot harder if you're trying to distinguish between Taylor, what you're saying is credible, and Nate, what you're saying is not credible,Taylor10:27-10:27which is probably true.Nate Erskine-Smith10:28-10:33But how do you have a signal of reliability in a different kind of content?Taylor Owen10:34-13:12I mean, we're getting into like a journalistic journalism policy here to a certain degree, right? And it's a wicked problem because the primary role of journalism is to hold you personally to account. And you setting rules for what they can and can't do and how they can and can't behave touches on some real like third rails here, right? It's fraught. However, I don't think it should ever be about policy determining what can and can't be said or what is and isn't journalism. The real problem is the distribution mechanism and the incentives within it. So a great example and a horrible example happened last week, right? So Charlie Kirk gets assassinated. I don't know if you opened a feed in the few days after that, but it was a horrendous place, right? Social media was an awful, awful, awful place because what you saw in that feed was the clearest demonstration I've ever seen in a decade of looking at this of how those algorithmic feeds have become radicalized. Like all you saw on every platform was the worst possible representations of every view. Right. Right. It was truly shocking and horrendous. Like people defending the murder and people calling for the murder of leftists and like on both sides. Right. people blaming Israel, people, whatever. Right. And that isn't a function of like- Aaron Charlie Kirk to Jesus. Sure. Like- It was bonkers all the way around. Totally bonkers, right? And that is a function of how those ecosystems are designed and the incentives within them. It's not a function of like there was journalism being produced about that. Like New York Times, citizens were doing good content about what was happening. It was like a moment of uncertainty and journalism was doing or playing a role, but it wasn't And so I think with all of these questions, including the online harms ones, and I think how we step into an AI governance conversation, the focus always has to be on those systems. I'm like, what is who and what and what are the incentives and the technical decisions being made that determine what we experience when we open these products? These are commercial products that we're choosing to consume. And when we open them, a whole host of business and design and technical decisions and human decisions shape the effect it has on us as people, the effect it has on our democracy, the vulnerabilities that exist in our democracy, the way foreign actors or hostile actors can take advantage of them, right? Like all of that stuff we've been talking about, the role reliability of information plays, like these algorithms could be tweaked for reliable versus unreliable content, right? Over time.Taylor13:12-13:15That's not a – instead of reactionary –Taylor Owen13:15-13:42Or like what's most – it gets most engagement or what makes you feel the most angry, which is largely what's driving X, for example, right now, right? You can torque all those things. Now, I don't think we want government telling companies how they have to torque it. But we can slightly tweak the incentives to get better content, more reliable content, less polarizing content, less hateful content, less harmful content, right? Those dials can be incentivized to be turned. And that's where the policy space should play, I think.Nate Erskine-Smith13:43-14:12And your focus on systems and assessing risks with systems. I think that's the right place to play. I mean, we've seen legislative efforts. You've got the three pieces in Canada. You've got online harms. You've got the privacy and very kind of vague initial foray into AI regs, which we can get to. And then a cybersecurity piece. And all of those ultimately died on the order paper. Yeah. We also had the journalistic protection policies, right, that the previous government did.Taylor Owen14:12-14:23I mean – Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can debate their merits. Yeah. But there was considerable effort put into backstopping the institutions of journalism by the – Well, they're twofold, right?Nate Erskine-Smith14:23-14:33There's the tax credit piece, sort of financial support. And then there was the Online News Act. Right. Which was trying to pull some dollars out of the platforms to pay for the news as well. Exactly.Taylor14:33-14:35So the sort of supply and demand side thing, right?Nate Erskine-Smith14:35-14:38There's the digital service tax, which is no longer a thing.Taylor Owen14:40-14:52Although it still is a piece of past legislation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It still is a thing. Yeah, yeah. Until you guys decide whether to negate the thing you did last year or not, right? Yeah.Nate Erskine-Smith14:52-14:55I don't take full responsibility for that one.Taylor Owen14:55-14:56No, you shouldn't.Nate Erskine-Smith14:58-16:03But other countries have seen more success. Yeah. And so you've got in the UK, in Australia, the EU really has led the way. 2018, the EU passes GDPR, which is a privacy set of rules, which we are still behind seven years later. But you've got in 2022, 2023, you've got Digital Services Act that passes. You've got Digital Markets Act. And as I understand it, and we've had, you know, we've both been involved in international work on this. And we've heard from folks like Francis Hogan and others about the need for risk-based assessments. And you're well down the rabbit hole on this. But isn't it at a high level? You deploy a technology. You've got to identify material risks. You then have to take reasonable measures to mitigate those risks. That's effectively the duty of care built in. And then ideally, you've got the ability for third parties, either civil society or some public office that has the ability to audit whether you have adequately identified and disclosed material risks and whether you have taken reasonable steps to mitigate.Taylor Owen16:04-16:05That's like how I have it in my head.Nate Erskine-Smith16:05-16:06I mean, that's it.Taylor Owen16:08-16:14Write it down. Fill in the legislation. Well, I mean, that process happened. I know. That's right. I know.Nate Erskine-Smith16:14-16:25Exactly. Which people, I want to get to that because C63 gets us a large part of the way there. I think so. And yet has been sort of like cast aside.Taylor Owen16:25-17:39Exactly. Let's touch on that. But I do think what you described as the online harms piece of this governance agenda. When you look at what the EU has done, they have put in place the various building blocks for what a broad digital governance agenda might look like. Because the reality of this space, which we talked about last time, and it's the thing that's infuriating about digital policy, is that you can't do one thing. There's no – digital economy and our digital lives are so vast and the incentives and the effect they have on society is so broad that there's no one solution. So anyone who tells you fix privacy policy and you'll fix all the digital problems we just talked about are full of it. Anyone who says competition policy, like break up the companies, will solve all of these problems. is wrong, right? Anyone who says online harms policy, which we'll talk about, fixes everything is wrong. You have to do all of them. And Europe has, right? They updated their privacy policy. They've been to build a big online harms agenda. They updated their competition regime. And they're also doing some AI policy too, right? So like you need comprehensive approaches, which is not an easy thing to do, right? It means doing three big things all over.Nate Erskine-Smith17:39-17:41Especially minority parlance, short periods of time, legislatively.Taylor Owen17:41-18:20Different countries have taken different pieces of it. Now, on the online harms piece, which is what the previous government took really seriously, and I think it's worth putting a point on that, right, that when we talked last was the beginning of this process. After we spoke, there was a national expert panel. There were 20 consultations. There were four citizens' assemblies. There was a national commission, right? Like a lot of work went into looking at what every other country had done because this is a really wicked, difficult problem and trying to learn from what Europe, Australia and the UK had all done. And we kind of taking the benefit of being late, right? So they were all ahead of us.Taylor18:21-18:25People you work with on that grant committee. We're all quick and do our own consultations.Taylor Owen18:26-19:40Exactly. And like the model that was developed out of that, I think, was the best model of any of those countries. And it's now seen as internationally, interestingly, as the new sort of milestone that everybody else is building on, right? And what it does is it says if you're going to launch a digital product, right, like a consumer-facing product in Canada, you need to assess risk. And you need to assess risk on these broad categories of harms that we have decided as legislators we care about or you've decided as legislators you cared about, right? Child safety, child sexual abuse material, fomenting violence and extremist content, right? Like things that are like broad categories that we've said are we think are harmful to our democracy. All you have to do as a company is a broad assessment of what could go wrong with your product. If you find something could go wrong, so let's say, for example, let's use a tangible example. Let's say you are a social media platform and you are launching a product that's going to be used by kids and it allows adults to contact kids without parental consent or without kids opting into being a friend. What could go wrong with that?Nate Erskine-Smith19:40-19:40Yeah.Taylor19:40-19:43Like what could go wrong? Yeah, a lot could go wrong.Taylor Owen19:43-20:27And maybe strange men will approach teenage girls. Maybe, right? Like if you do a risk assessment, that is something you might find. You would then be obligated to mitigate that risk and show how you've mitigated it, right? Like you put in a policy in place to show how you're mitigating it. And then you have to share data about how these tools are used so that we can monitor, publics and researchers can monitor whether that mitigation strategy worked. That's it. In that case, that feature was launched by Instagram in Canada without any risk assessment, without any safety evaluation. And we know there was like a widespread problem of teenage girls being harassed by strange older men.Taylor20:28-20:29Incredibly creepy.Taylor Owen20:29-20:37A very easy, but not like a super illegal thing, not something that would be caught by the criminal code, but a harm we can all admit is a problem.Taylor20:37-20:41And this kind of mechanism would have just filtered out.Taylor Owen20:41-20:51Default settings, right? And doing thinking a bit before you launch a product in a country about what kind of broad risks might emerge when it's launched and being held accountable to do it for doing that.Nate Erskine-Smith20:52-21:05Yeah, I quite like the we I mean, maybe you've got a better read of this, but in the UK, California has pursued this. I was looking at recently, Elizabeth Denham is now the Jersey Information Commissioner or something like that.Taylor Owen21:05-21:06I know it's just yeah.Nate Erskine-Smith21:07-21:57I don't random. I don't know. But she is a Canadian, for those who don't know Elizabeth Denham. And she was the information commissioner in the UK. And she oversaw the implementation of the first age-appropriate design code. That always struck me as an incredibly useful approach. In that even outside of social media platforms, even outside of AI, take a product like Roblox, where tons of kids use it. And just forcing companies to ensure that the default settings are prioritizing child safety so that you don't put the onus on parents and kids to figure out each of these different games and platforms. In a previous world of consumer protection, offline, it would have been de facto. Of course we've prioritized consumer safety first and foremost. But in the online world, it's like an afterthought.Taylor Owen21:58-24:25Well, when you say consumer safety, it's worth like referring back to what we mean. Like a duty of care can seem like an obscure concept. But your lawyer is a real thing, right? Like you walk into a store. I walk into your office. I have an expectation that the bookshelves aren't going to fall off the wall and kill me, right? And you have to bolt them into the wall because of that, right? Like that is a duty of care that you have for me when I walk into your public space or private space. Like that's all we're talking about here. And the age-appropriate design code, yes, like sort of developed, implemented by a Canadian in the UK. And what it says, it also was embedded in the Online Harms Act, right? If we'd passed that last year, we would be implementing an age-appropriate design code as we speak, right? What that would say is any product that is likely to be used by a kid needs to do a set of additional things, not just these risk assessments, right? But we think like kids don't have the same rights as adults. We have different duties to protect kids as adults, right? So maybe they should do an extra set of things for their digital products. And it includes things like no behavioral targeting, no advertising, no data collection, no sexual adult content, right? Like kind of things that like – Seem obvious. And if you're now a child in the UK and you open – you go on a digital product, you are safer because you have an age-appropriate design code governing your experience online. Canadian kids don't have that because that bill didn't pass, right? So like there's consequences to this stuff. and I get really frustrated now when I see the conversation sort of pivoting to AI for example right like all we're supposed to care about is AI adoption and all the amazing things AI is going to do to transform our world which are probably real right like not discounting its power and just move on from all of these both problems and solutions that have been developed to a set of challenges that both still exist on social platforms like they haven't gone away people are still using these tools and the harms still exist and probably are applicable to this next set of technologies as well. So this moving on from what we've learned and the work that's been done is just to the people working in this space and like the wide stakeholders in this country who care about this stuff and working on it. It just, it feels like you say deja vu at the beginning and it is deja vu, but it's kind of worse, right? Cause it's like deja vu and then ignoring theTaylor24:25-24:29five years of work. Yeah, deja vu if we were doing it again. Right. We're not even, we're not evenTaylor Owen24:29-24:41Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully I actually am not, I'm actually optimistic, I would say that we will, because I actually think of if for a few reasons, like one, citizens want it, right? Like.Nate Erskine-Smith24:41-24:57Yeah, I was surprised on the, so you mentioned there that the rules that we design, the risk assessment framework really applied to social media could equally be applied to deliver AI safety and it could be applied to new technology in a useful way.Taylor Owen24:58-24:58Some elements of it. Exactly.Nate Erskine-Smith24:58-25:25I think AI safety is a broad bucket of things. So let's get to that a little bit because I want to pull the pieces together. So I had a constituent come in the office and he is really like super mad. He's super mad. Why is he mad? Does that happen very often? Do people be mad when they walk into this office? Not as often as you think, to be honest. Not as often as you think. And he's mad because he believes Mark Carney ripped him off.Taylor Owen25:25-25:25Okay.Nate Erskine-Smith25:25-26:36Okay. Yep. He believes Mark Carney ripped him off, not with broken promise in politics, not because he said one thing and is delivering something else, nothing to do with politics. He saw a video online, Mark Carney told him to invest money. He invested money and he's out the 200 bucks or whatever it was. And I was like, how could you possibly have lost money in this way? This is like, this was obviously a scam. Like what, how could you have been deceived? But then I go and I watched the video And it is, okay, I'm not gonna send the 200 bucks and I've grown up with the internet, but I can see how- Absolutely. In the same way, phone scams and Nigerian princes and all of that have their own success rate. I mean, this was a very believable video that was obviously AI generated. So we are going to see rampant fraud. If we aren't already, we are going to see many challenges with respect to AI safety. What over and above the risk assessment piece, what do we do to address these challenges?Taylor Owen26:37-27:04So that is a huge problem, right? Like the AI fraud, AI video fraud is a huge challenge. In the election, when we were monitoring the last election, by far the biggest problem or vulnerability of the election was a AI generated video campaign. that every day would take videos of Polyevs and Carney's speeches from the day before and generate, like morph them into conversations about investment strategies.Taylor27:05-27:07And it was driving people to a crypto scam.Taylor Owen27:08-27:11But it was torquing the political discourse.Taylor27:11-27:11That's what it must have been.Taylor Owen27:12-27:33I mean, there's other cases of this, but that's probably, and it was running rampant on particularly meta platforms. They were flagged. They did nothing about it. There were thousands of these videos circulating throughout the entire election, right? And it's not like the end of the world, right? Like nobody – but it torqued our political debate. It ripped off some people. And these kinds of scams are –Taylor27:33-27:38It's clearly illegal. It's clearly illegal. It probably breaks his election law too, misrepresenting a political figure, right?Taylor Owen27:38-27:54So I think there's probably an Elections Canada response to this that's needed. And it's fraud. And it's fraud, absolutely. So what do you do about that, right? And the head of the Canadian Banking Association said there's like billions of dollars in AI-based fraud in the Canadian economy right now. Right? So it's a big problem.Taylor27:54-27:55Yeah.Taylor Owen27:55-28:46I actually think there's like a very tangible policy solution. You put these consumer-facing AI products into the Online Harms Act framework, right? And then you add fraud and AI scams as a category of harm. And all of a sudden, if you're meta and you are operating in Canada during an election, you'd have to do a risk assessment on like AI fraud potential of your product. Responsibility for your platform. And then it starts to circulate. We would see it. They'd be called out on it. They'd have to take it down. And like that's that, right? Like so that we have mechanisms for dealing with this. But it does mean evolving what we worked on over the past five years, these like only harms risk assessment models and bringing in some of the consumer facing AI, both products and related harms into the framework.Nate Erskine-Smith28:47-30:18To put it a different way, I mean, so this is years ago now that we had this, you know, grand committee in the UK holding Facebook and others accountable. This really was creating the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. And the platforms at the time were really holding firm to this idea of Section 230 and avoiding host liability and saying, oh, we couldn't possibly be responsible for everything on our platform. And there was one problem with that argument, which is they completely acknowledged the need for them to take action when it came to child pornography. And so they said, yeah, well, you know, no liability for us. But of course, there can be liability on this one specific piece of content and we'll take action on this one specific piece of content. And it always struck me from there on out. I mean, there's no real intellectual consistency here. It's more just what should be in that category of things that they should take responsibility for. And obviously harmful content like that should be – that's an obvious first step but obvious for everyone. But there are other categories. Fraud is another one. When they're making so much money, when they are investing so much money in AI, when they're ignoring privacy protections and everything else throughout the years, I mean, we can't leave it up to them. And setting a clear set of rules to say this is what you're responsible for and expanding that responsibility seems to make a good amount of sense.Taylor Owen30:18-30:28It does, although I think those responsibilities need to be different for different kinds of harms. Because there are different speech implications and apocratic implications of sort of absolute solutions to different kinds of content.Taylor30:28-30:30So like child pornography is a great example.Taylor Owen30:30-31:44In the Online Harms Bill Act, for almost every type of content, it was that risk assessment model. But there was a carve out for child sexual abuse material. So including child pornography. And for intimate images and videos shared without consent. It said the platforms actually have a different obligation, and that's to take it down within 24 hours. And the reason you can do it with those two kinds of content is because if we, one, the AI is actually pretty good at spotting it. It might surprise you, but there's a lot of naked images on the internet that we can train AI with. So we're actually pretty good at using AI to pull this stuff down. But the bigger one is that we are, I think, as a society, it's okay to be wrong in the gray area of that speech, right? Like if something is like debatable, whether it's child pornography, I'm actually okay with us suppressing the speech of the person who sits in that gray area. Whereas for something like hate speech, it's a really different story, right? Like we do not want to suppress and over index for that gray area on hate speech because that's going to capture a lot of reasonable debate that we probably want.Nate Erskine-Smith31:44-31:55Yeah, I think soliciting investment via fraud probably falls more in line with the child pornography category where it's, you know, very obviously illegal.Taylor Owen31:55-32:02And that mechanism is like a takedown mechanism, right? Like if we see fraud, if we know it's fraud, then you take it down, right? Some of these other things we have to go with.Nate Erskine-Smith32:02-32:24I mean, my last question really is you pull the threads together. You've got these different pieces that were introduced in the past. And you've got a government that lots of similar folks around the table, but a new government and a new prime minister certainly with a vision for getting the most out of AI when it comes to our economy.Taylor32:24-32:25Absolutely.Nate Erskine-Smith32:25-33:04You have, for the first time in this country, an AI minister, a junior minister to industry, but still a specific title portfolio and with his own deputy minister and really wants to be seized with this. And in a way, I think that from every conversation I've had with him that wants to maximize productivity in this country using AI, but is also cognizant of the risks and wants to address AI safety. So where from here? You know, you've talked in the past about sort of a grander sort of tech accountability and sovereignty act. Do we do piecemeal, you know, a privacy bill here and an AI safety bill and an online harms bill and we have disparate pieces? What's the answer here?Taylor Owen33:05-34:14I mean, I don't have the exact answer. But I think there's some like, there's some lessons from the past that we can, this government could take. And one is piecemeal bills that aren't centrally coordinated or have no sort of connectivity between them end up with piecemeal solutions that are imperfect and like would benefit from some cohesiveness between them, right? So when the previous government released ADA, the AI Act, it was like really intention in some real ways with the online harms approach. So two different departments issuing two similar bills on two separate technologies, not really talking to each other as far as I can tell from the outside, right? So like we need a coordinating, coordinated, comprehensive effort to digital governance. Like that's point one and we've never had it in this country. And when I saw the announcement of an AI minister, my mind went first to that he or that office could be that role. Like you could – because AI is – it's cross-cutting, right? Like every department in our federal government touches AI in one way or another. And the governance of AI and the adoption on the other side of AI by society is going to affect every department and every bill we need.Nate Erskine-Smith34:14-34:35So if Evan pulled in the privacy pieces that would help us catch up to GDPR. Which it sounds like they will, right? Some version of C27 will probably come back. If he pulls in the online harms pieces that aren't related to the criminal code and drops those provisions, says, you know, Sean Frazier, you can deal with this if you like. But these are the pieces I'm holding on to.Taylor Owen34:35-34:37With a frame of consumer safety, right?Nate Erskine-Smith34:37-34:37Exactly.Taylor Owen34:38-34:39If he wants...Nate Erskine-Smith34:39-34:54Which is connected to privacy as well, right? Like these are all... So then you have thematically a bill that makes sense. And then you can pull in as well the AI safety piece. And then it becomes a consumer protection bill when it comes to living our lives online. Yeah.Taylor Owen34:54-36:06And I think there's an argument whether that should be one bill or whether it's multiple ones. I actually don't think it... I think there's cases for both, right? There's concern about big omnibus bills that do too many things and too many committees reviewing them and whatever. that's sort of a machinery of government question right but but the principle that these should be tied together in a narrative that the government is explicit about making and communicating to publics right that if if you we know that 85 percent of canadians want ai to be regulated what do they mean what they mean is at the same time as they're being told by our government by companies that they should be using and embracing this powerful technology in their lives they're also seeing some risks. They're seeing risks to their kids. They're being told their jobs might disappear and might take their... Why should I use this thing? When I'm seeing some harms, I don't see you guys doing anything about these harms. And I'm seeing some potential real downside for me personally and my family. So even in the adoption frame, I think thinking about data privacy, safety, consumer safety, I think to me, that's the real frame here. It's like citizen safety, consumer safety using these products. Yeah, politically, I just, I mean, that is what it is. It makes sense to me.Nate Erskine-Smith36:06-36:25Right, I agree. And really lean into child safety at the same time. Because like I've got a nine-year-old and a five-year-old. They are growing up with the internet. And I do not want to have to police every single platform that they use. I do not want to have to log in and go, these are the default settings on the parental controls.Taylor36:25-36:28I want to turn to government and go, do your damn job.Taylor Owen36:28-36:48Or just like make them slightly safer. I know these are going to be imperfect. I have a 12-year-old. He spends a lot of time on YouTube. I know that's going to always be a place with sort of content that I would prefer he doesn't see. But I would just like some basic safety standards on that thing. So he's not seeing the worst of the worst.Nate Erskine-Smith36:48-36:58And we should expect that. Certainly at YouTube with its promotion engine, the recommendation function is not actively promoting terrible content to your 12 year old.Taylor Owen36:59-37:31Yeah. That's like de minimis. Can we just torque this a little bit, right? So like maybe he's not seeing content about horrible content about Charlie Kirk when he's a 12 year old on YouTube, right? Like, can we just do something? And I think that's a reasonable expectation as a citizen. But it requires governance. That will not – and that's – it's worth putting a real emphasis on that is one thing we've learned in this moment of repeated deja vus going back 20 years really since our experience with social media for sure through to now is that these companies don't self-govern.Taylor37:31-37:31Right.Taylor Owen37:32-37:39Like we just – we know that indisputably. So to think that AI is going to be different is delusional. No, it'll be pseudo-profit, not the public interest.Taylor37:39-37:44Of course. Because that's what we are. These are the largest companies in the world. Yeah, exactly. And AI companies are even bigger than the last generation, right?Taylor Owen37:44-38:00We're creating something new with the scale of these companies. And to think that their commercial incentives and their broader long-term goals of around AI are not going to override these safety concerns is just naive in the nth degree.Nate Erskine-Smith38:00-38:38But I think you make the right point, and it's useful to close on this, that these goals of realizing the productivity possibilities and potentials of AI alongside AI safety, these are not mutually exclusive or oppositional goals. that it's you create a sandbox to play in and companies will be more successful. And if you have certainty in regulations, companies will be more successful. And if people feel safe using these tools and having certainly, you know, if I feel safe with my kids learning these tools growing up in their classrooms and everything else, you're going to adoption rates will soar. Absolutely. And then we'll benefit.Taylor Owen38:38-38:43They work in tandem, right? And I think you can't have one without the other fundamentally.Nate Erskine-Smith38:45-38:49Well, I hope I don't invite you back five years from now when we have the same conversation.Taylor Owen38:49-38:58Well, I hope you invite me back in five years, but I hope it's like thinking back on all the legislative successes of the previous five years. I mean, that'll be the moment.Taylor38:58-38:59Sounds good. Thanks, David. Thanks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.uncommons.ca

Ahead of MPs returning to the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre joins The House for a sit-down interview in studio to discuss the federal government's major projects list, his views on climate change and his worries about his family's security in a time of growing political violence.Then, Catherine Cullen talks to Dan Myerson, CEO of the Foran copper mine in Saskatchewan that made the top tier of Carney's projects list, and Martin Imbleau, the CEO of Alto, the high-speed rail project connecting Toronto to Quebec City that still has work to do before moving up to the A-list.Plus, Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Star and Stuart Thomson of the National Post evaluate whether Carney can walk the political tightrope and keep provinces and territories happy. Finally, former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna discusses her new memoir, Run Like A Girl, and explains how she coped with sexist attacks and the increasingly toxic nature of political life in Canada.This episode features the voices of:Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of CanadaDan Myerson, CEO of Foran MiningMartin Imbleau, CEO of AltoTonda MacCharles, Ottawa bureau chief for the Toronto StarStuart Thomson, parliamentary bureau chief for the National PostCatherine McKenna, former federal environment minister and author of Run Like A Girl

Plus: After scientists created "olo" -- a colour they say no one else can see, artist Stuart Semple created "yolo". And he says it can be yours for a small price.  Also: We remember tireless B.C. drug and addiction advocate Trey Helton. 

Is Canada a climate leader or a fossil-fueled dinosaur? And what will the recent ascension of Mark Carney as Prime Minister mean for the country's climate agenda - both domestically and on the world stage?In the second of our country deep-dives, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac speak with Catherine McKenna, Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, to discuss the mixed history, uncertain present and possible futures of the nation's climate record.As Canada's representative at the COP 21 negotiations in Paris, Catherine set the tone for the decade that has followed, during which time the country has increasingly engaged in international climate leadership. Back home, she also spearheaded an innovative carbon pricing system, which, though not always popular, attempted to shift the nation away from its fossil fuel dependency while delivering an economic net benefit for most Canadians.While former Bank of England and Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney has become widely known as a climate progressive, his first act in office was to end this carbon tax, leading many to question how his climate ideals will fare in the face of political reality. Catherine reflects on why the tax was scrapped, and the lessons that must be learned if we are to defend climate action.Along with Paul Dickinson, Christiana and Tom consider the challenges facing former Outrage + Optimism guest Carney as he takes the helm of one of the G20's highest emitters, and ask if we're witnessing a wider backlash against corporate net zero commitments.Learn more

Happy St Brigit's weekend! (For links to Brigit content see below). Instead of Brigit we were eager to release an episode we recorded just before Christmas with the brilliant Dr Colin Veach, from the University of Hull, on the English colonisation of Ireland, which may be known to some of you as the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Today's episode mostly focusses on the English perspective of the conquest. Whether it was inevitable, how we should frame the events, English or Anglo-Norman etc. We talk Diarmaid Mac Murchada or in English, Dermot McMurrough and Strongbow, King Henry II and the bad King John, but we'll cover Rory O'Connor and other aspects in more detail in future episodes. We've an extra super short bonus episode which we will release next week on the initial propaganda that was released justifying the English invasion and how historians should approach the sources today. Suggested reading: Colin Veach, From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland , The English Historical Review, 2024;, ceae210, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae210 Brigit links: Niamh on the Bitesize Irish Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-vObx_1gg Tiago's article on RTÉ Brainstorm: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0130/1493745-medieval-ireland-kildare-women-st-brigid-darlugdach-gnathnat-sebdann-muireann-and-coblaith-sarnat/ Podcast episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna last year: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GYSJHylMlTNuKUSSzLhN1?si=fcdf72608d9142b7 Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council). Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation Monday, saying he will leave office as soon as his party chooses a new leader as slumping polls and internal division took their toll. We hear from Catherine McKenna, a former minister in Trudeau's government.Also in the programme: Austria asks far-right leader to commence coalition talks; and the Capitol Hill cop on duty on January 6th 2021.(Picture: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to reporters, announcing he intends to step down as Liberal Party leader. Credit: Reuters)

Catherine McKenna, chair of the UN Zero Emissions working group, and former federal environment minister hears your thoughts. She has just returned from the COP29 international climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Plus: An enormous diamond necklace that may have played a role in the downfall of Marie Antoinette sells for a commensurately enormous price. Also: Médecins Sans Frontières says a recent attack against an ambulance and patients in Haiti raises serious questions about their ability to provide care in the country.

Liberal MPs save Catherine McKenna from summons over Jasper forest management. Records show feds knew of fire risk from dead pine. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau improperly divulged classified info & ignored unlawful activities by foreign agents to advantage of Liberals, opposition counsel says on final day of China inquiry: "Party before country." There is no chance of the feds meeting Yves-François Blanchet's ultimatum to pass 2 Bloc Quebecois bills by Tuesday, putting the 44th Parliament on borrowed time with 'plenty of non-confidence votes to Christmas. Guest: Tom Korski. Editor. Blacklock's Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kamala october surprise! Joe biden talking about re-writing the history books correctly! lol Jasper fire and Catherine Mckenna, 81% reduction of co2? If you needed an organ transplant but they could only give it to you from a homeless dude they just killed, i mean maided…is that cool? How about if it got you sick? BC elections being rigged Sign Up for the Full Show Locals (daily video) https://canadapoli2.locals.com/ Spotify https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/canadapoli/subscribe Private Full podcast audio https://canadapoli.com/feed/canadapoliblue/ Buy subscriptions here (daily video and audio podcast): https://canadapoli.com/canadapoli-subscriptions/ Sample Shows Me on Telegram https://t.me/realCanadaPoli Me on Rumble https://rumble.com/user/CanadaPoli Me on Odyssey https://odysee.com/@CanadaPoli:f Me on Bitchute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/l55JBxrgT3Hf/ Podcast RSS https://anchor.fm/s/e57706d8/podcast/rss

Greg Brady spoke with Dane Lloyd, Emergency Preparedness Shadow Minister, Conservative Party of Canada about the Conservatives motion to summon former Liberal Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna to the witness stand at the Jasper wildfire investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greg Brady spoke with Dane Lloyd, Emergency Preparedness Shadow Minister, Conservative Party of Canada about the Conservatives motion to summon former Liberal Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna to the witness stand at the Jasper wildfire investigation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Catherine McKenna, Former Environment Minister; Genevieve Beauchemin, CTV News & Jeff Keele, CTV News; Keir Giles, Chatham House Senior Fellow; The Front Bench with: Sabrina Grover, Melanie Paradis & Gurratan Singh.

The Montreal Gazette's James Mennie joined Aaron to talk about last night's presidential debate and Justin Trudeau's leadership.

Anyone seeking election as a politician can expect to have to argue their case with the electorate, and deal with opposition and criticism. But what happens when that democratic debate turns toxic and politicians face personal abuse, intimidation and threats of violence? With election campaigns being fought in several countries around the world, we bring together politicians in Canada, France and the UK to discuss some of their experiences of public office. Heather Williams, a councillor in the east of England tells presenter Luke Jones how she was threatened with being shot and Catherine McKenna who served in the Canadian government, and her son Matt share the challenges they faced living life under the political spotlight.

Margaret talks to former Canadian Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, about the challenges of climate change, political polarization, and her experience as a woman in politics.Support the Show.

Was Brigit a true feminist icon? Was she even real? Or merely made up by a man to exploit the veneration of a 'pagan' goddess? All this and more in our special St Brigit's Day episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna (Harvard University) to celebrate the Brigit 1500 commemorations in 2024. Happy St Brigit's Day! Hosted by Dr Niamh Wycherley. Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday). Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com Twitter X: @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & the Irish Research Council. Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/medievalirishhistory/message

In rural North Dakota an old, coal-fired power plant is being retrofitted to capture emissions before they enter the atmosphere and store them underground. $890 million from the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure law will go towards that and two similar projects in California and Texas. Critics take issue with spending taxpayer money to kick the tires on “carbon capture and storage” technology. Among those critics are Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of environment and climate change. She’s now CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions, an advisory firm,  and Chairs the UN’s expert group on net-zero commitments.

In rural North Dakota an old, coal-fired power plant is being retrofitted to capture emissions before they enter the atmosphere and store them underground. $890 million from the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure law will go towards that and two similar projects in California and Texas. Critics take issue with spending taxpayer money to kick the tires on “carbon capture and storage” technology. Among those critics are Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of environment and climate change. She’s now CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions, an advisory firm,  and Chairs the UN’s expert group on net-zero commitments.

In 2021, then-Infrastructure minister Catherine McKenna announced a process to assess all of Canada's existing infrastructure in order to better use $180 billion to fix, modernize and improve it over the next dozen years. After that announcement the government began a consultation process on how to do the assessment. At some point in the process there were roundtable discussions, written submissions, a report summarizing those submissions and discussions and ... everything but an infrastructure assessment.What do we know and what don't we know about the state of Canada's roads and bridges, pipes and public places? Why hasn't the assessment even begun, years later? Why does the saga of the infrastructure assessment seem to explain so much of how our governments can operate, and why is it so darkly funny?GUEST: David Reevely, Ottawa reporter, The Logic We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca Or by calling 416-935-5935 and leaving us a voicemailOr @thebigstoryfpn on Twitter

On October 31, 2023, Canada 2020 brought together a group of government and business leaders, technology experts, policymakers, and innovators from across the country at our Fall Net-Zero Leadership Summit: A Pre-COP28 Stocktake for Canada. In this featured session of the summit, Catherine McKenna (former Minister of Environment and Climate Change for Canada; Chair of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities) speaks with Braeden Caley (Executive Director, Canada 2020) about the policy ambition it will take to achieve real net-zero progress.This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

It's been described as a signature blow to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's signature policy. Last month, the Liberals announced a three-year pause to the application of the carbon price on home heating oil to help ease the costs, especially in Atlantic Canada where it's used in about a third of all households. Climate and energy experts decried it as a weakening of Trudeau's policy, former environment minister Catherine McKenna condemned the move, and potential leadership candidate Mark Carney said publicly that he wouldn't have done things that way. Provincial premiers, such as Alberta's Danielle Smith, Ontario's Doug Ford, British Columbia's David Ebby, Manitoba's Wab Kinew, and Saskatchewan's Scott Moe all called for the carbon price to be eliminated from home heating for all their residents. Moe went so far as to pledge to stop collecting and transmitting the levy on natural gas. What was expected by some rural MPs to be a popular announcement, unleashed a huge outcry putting the debate over carbon pricing right back on the front burner. This week on “It's Political” we dig into the carbon pricing debate, with Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, experts Andrew Leach, Dale Beugin and Katya Rhodes, and Liberal MP Kody Blois, whose persistent lobbying led to the policy change. 4:23.077 - Kody Blois 17:15.840 - The Case for Carbon Pricing 39:46.601 - Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault In this episode: Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, Nova Scotia Liberal MP Kody Blois, University of Alberta Professor Andrew Leach, Canadian Climate Institute Executive Vice President Dale Beugin, University of Victoria Assistant Professor in climate policy Katya Rhodes. Hosted by Althia Raj. Some of the clips this week were sourced from CPAC, The Senate, The House of Commons, The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, CBC, Global News, CTV, Pierre Poilievre's Facebook Page, The Conservative Party of Canada, Scott Moe's X/Twitter account. This episode of “It's Political” was produced by Althia Raj and Michal Stein. Kevin Sexton mixed the program. Our theme music is by Isaac Joel.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs says he is seeking legal advice about whether his province can stop collecting the carbon tax, arguing that it's making the affordability crisis worse for Canadians. But former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna says the tax is a necessary tool in the climate change fight, and the focus should be on companies charging high prices.

Renowned psychologist and bestselling author Jordan Peterson lost his court challenge against Ontario's college of psychologists today. The college sought to force Peterson into training on how to conduct himself on social media as a condition of remaining a licensed psychologist. Peterson took the matter to an Ontario court, which ruled today that the condition doesn't actually hinder his right to freedom of expression. Canadian Constitution Foundation lawyer Josh Dehaas joins the Andrew Lawton Show to discuss. Also, Catherine McKenna thinks Conservative politicians need their own mandatory education on climate change. True North's Andrew Lawton weighs in. Plus, is artificial intelligence leading to the end of thought? Christopher Snook tackles that question in an essay for C2C Journal titled “AI, the Destruction of Thought and the End of the Humanities.” He joins the show to explain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're looking at the return of mask mandates across several sectors. Is another round of pandemic paranoia settling in? Plus, former environment minister Catherine McKenna compared Conservatives to arsonists for opposing carbon taxes. We'll try to make sense of how opposing taxes sets fires. And finally, Liberal Minister Dominic LeBlanc was asked about reducing immigration to help solve Canada's housing crisis.

Former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna has accused the Conservatives and those who oppose carbon taxes of being “arsonists” as wildfires sweep across the Northwest Territories and British Columbia. Current Liberal ministers have criticized the Conservatives for wanting to “making pollution free.” If carbon taxes are the answer to forest fires, why did these fires happen in the first place, True North's Andrew Lawton asks. Also, Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz joins the show to talk about how Alberta is pushing back against Justin Trudeau's electricity regulations. Plus, Dr. Matt Strauss is suing Queen's University for forcing him out of his job because of his opposition to lockdowns and vaccine mandates. He joins Andrew to discuss free speech in medicine and academic freedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna had harsh words for Conservatives who oppose carbon taxes. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), McKenna called them “arsonists” responsible for the growing number of wildfires across Canada. Plus, no human remains were found in the excavation of a church basement in Pine Creek, Manitoba, which was formerly part of a residential school run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969. And a women's rights advocate is urging Conservatives to protect women's spaces and categories at the upcoming Conservative Party convention. Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Andrew Lawton! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada is a leading producer of oil and gas. It's also one of the few G7 members with a carbon tax. As Minister of Environment and Climate Change in 2015, Catherine McKenna was charged with getting Canadians on board with that policy. One of the most important tactics was calling it “a price on pollution.” Carbon taxes are having a moment after the Paris Climate Finance Summit and Cath joins Akshat this week to talk about the political practicalities of passing a carbon tax. She has advice about who to lean on, handling threats, and why focusing on outcomes above all else is the key to climate policy that works.    Akshat will be traveling to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and Delhi over the next few weeks. Fancy meeting for a drink? Sign up here.  More Links  Interview of Justin Trudeau Carbon taxes at the Paris Climate Summit Transcript of this conversation with Catherine McKenna The World Bank 2023 Report on the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim, Dave Sawyer, Gernot Wagner, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, and Abraiya Ruffin. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week's guest on Cleaning Up is Tzeporah Berman. Tzeporah has been leading environmental campaigns in her native Canada and beyond for over thirty years. Today, she is Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and International Program Director at Stand.earth, the environmental organisation that she co-founded.Tzeporah was formerly co-director of Greenpeace's Global Climate and Energy Program, and her success campaigning against fossil development has seen her dubbed “Canada's Queen of Green”. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningupLinks and Related Episodes Watch Episode 45 with Catherine McKenna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEP1SGL-DcA Watch Tzeporah's TED Talk on the “bad math” of the fossil-fuel industry: https://www.ted.com/talks/tzeporah_berman_the_bad_math_of_the_fossil_fuel_industry Find out more about Stand.earth here: https://stand.earth/ Learn about the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative: https://fossilfueltreaty.org/ Explore the Global Registry of Fossil Fuels: https://fossilfuelregistry.org/Guest Bio Tzeporah Berman is an environmental campaigner and policy advisor. She is International Program Director at Stand.earth, the environmental organization that she co-founded (as ForestEthics), and Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. At Stand.earth she works to help develop strategies for the Amazon, shipping, fashion, pipeline, LNG and old growth forests campaigns. As co-director of Greenpeace's Global Climate and Energy program, she led the creation of the Arctic campaign and a successful “Unfriend Coal” campaign to get Facebook, Apple, and others to switch from coal to renewable energy for their data centres. Tzeporah was one of the creators and lead negotiators of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and the Canadian Boreal Forest Initiative. Her work has contributed to the protection of over 40 million hectares of old growth forests. In 2013 Tzeporah was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of British Columbia, and she was the 2019 recipient of the Climate Breakthrough Project Award. Tzeporah is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada. In 2021, she was arrested for blockading the logging of thousand-year-old trees in Fairy Creek, Vancouver Island.

Dive into the latest episode of our podcast as Chris and Scotty make a splash with special guest, the Hon. Catherine McKenna! From champion swimmer to Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate, she shares her insights on Canada's carbon pricing, Indigenous engagement, and how we can all work together to tackle climate change. For a look at the report mentioned in the episode go to: https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/high-level_expert_group_n7b.pdf

What is Parliament Hill like as a workplace? Is it respectful? Is it safe? If we want our democracy to thrive, it should be. Former MPs tell us how they were treated on the job, both inside and beyond the House of Commons. How did they navigate the extreme workloads and all the pressure? And when you're in such a huge job, where can you turn for support?This episode features:Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, (2011-2019) - Interviews for Humans of the House were conducted in the summer of 2022 and the show was launched in March 2023. In August 2023 Romeo Saganash was charged with sexual assault. We will update when the court case is complete.Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor-Tecumseh, (2015-2019)Hon. Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, (2015-2021)Hon. Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, (2008-2019)Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, (2011-2018)Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, (2015-2019)Resources for this episode:View our episode page at https://www.samaracentre.ca/articles/hoth-episode-3/ On the challenges of balancing MP life with personal life: Why Divorce Rates are so High for MP'sMP spouses often lead even lonelier lifeParliament family-friendly? HardlyOn resting and productivity: How Resting More Can Boost Your Productivity.More data from SAMbot, tracking online toxicity during Canadian elections.More info on the Speaker of the House and other roles in the House of Commons. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @TheSamaraCentre and on Facebook at the Samara Centre for Democracy for updates. Join the conversation using #HumansOfTheHouse.This podcast is part of the Samara Centre for Democracy's MP Exit Interview Project. This episode features audio clips from CTV News, CBC and CPACThis series is produced by Media Girlfriends for the Samara Centre for Democracy.Visit our website to learn more about how the Samara Centre for Democracy is working to secure a resilient democracy, and consider supporting our work with a donation. Humans of the House is funded by the Government of Canada and Rosamond Ivey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So, you won an election and are officially a Member of Parliament. Now what? This episode, former MPs take us inside their very first days on Parliament Hill. What does an MP do in an average week? Where do they go? And as they settle into their new jobs, are they being set up to serve Canadians well? THIS EPISODE FEATURES: Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Whitby, (2015-2019); Independent, Whitby, (2019)Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, (2011-2018)Hon. Catherine McKenna, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, (2015-2021)Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal, Winnipeg Centre, (2015-2019Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina-Fort York, (2014-2021)Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, (2015-2019)James Cumming, Conservative, (2019-2021)Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, (2011-2019) - Interviews for Humans of the House were conducted in the summer of 2022 and the show was launched in March 2023. In August 2023 Romeo Saganash was charged with sexual assault. We will update when the court case is complete.RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE: View our episode page at https://www.samaracentre.ca/articles/hoth-episode-2/ Learn more about how new Members find their feet with this fact sheet from the 44th Parliament.Learn more about onboarding and retention: The True Cost of a Bad Hire.On motions and the legislative process: The process of debate The legislative process in Parliament.More on a typical sitting day in the House of Commons.Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @TheSamaraCentre and on Facebook at the Samara Centre for Democracy for updates. Join the conversation using #HumansOfTheHouse.This podcast is part of the Samara Centre for Democracy's MP Exit Interview Project. This episode features audio clips from Global News and The Canadian Press. This series is produced by Media Girlfriends for the Samara Centre for Democracy.Visit our website to learn more about how the Samara Centre for Democracy is working to secure a resilient democracy, and consider supporting our work with a donation. Humans of the House is funded by the Government of Canada and Rosamond Ivey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nate is joined on this episode by Catherine Mckenna, former minister of environment and climate and former minister of infrastructure and communities. She is currently the Chair of the United Nations High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities.The discussion covers a range of topics at federal and provincial levels but primarily focuses on a report from her UN working group, which calls out greenwashing and recommends radical transparency and accountability to make net zero pledges a reality. 

With UN negotiations underway in Egypt, the call continues to phase out fossil fuels. Former environment minister Catherine McKenna gives us a reality check on net zero pledges. A listener shares her memories of a beloved mountain park. And, one year after an atmospheric river hit B.C., we check in on recovery.

Catherine McKenna, Canada's former minister of the environment and climate change, was at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. She says some businesses are working hard to meet their net-zero pledges — but for those that aren't, they have to start backing up their talk.

Brian Conway, directeur médical du Centre des maladies infectieuses de Vancouver, se penche sur la crise des morts par surdose en Colombie-Britannique; Catherine McKenna, présidente d'un groupe d'experts de l'Organisation des Nations unies contre les changements climatiques, parle des recommandations de son groupe, qui vise à fixer un objectif de zéro émission nette pour les entreprises; et Vincent Boucher, chercheur en résidence de l'Observatoire sur les États-Unis de la Chaire Raoul-Dandurand en études stratégiques et diplomatiques de l'Université du Québec à Montréal, s'intéresse à ce qu'il faut surveiller lors des élections de mi-mandat aux États-Unis.

Welcome to this week's episode - It's a packed agenda. Our hosts cover everything from nature breakdown in the UK, the threat of nuclear war in Europe, the downfall of a World Bank President and plenty in-between. We also hear from the incredible Helen Clarkson and Catherine McKenna on everything to do with greenwashing, carbon tax and the power of straight-talking on climate. For those of you working in the corporate world and grappling with climate action, this is an episode you do not want to miss. Helen Clarkson, CEO of the Climate Group which convenies Climate Week NYC, shares a fascinating insight at the disconnect happening within companies on the road to net zero, who are now having to turn their commitments into real action. And that brings us to the fascinating conversation on greenwashing with Catherine McKenna, Chair of something with an extraordinarily long and very difficult to say without reading your notes name: the UN's High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. We talk about how, while we're all outraged - rightly - by greenwashing, we still need to lift up the folks who are doing the real work and not lump everyone in the same group. And there's more: on the balance between integrity and momentum, supply chain efficiencies, understanding risk, a price on carbon, disclosure and what blockchain has to do with all of that. We wrap up with a gorgeous song from Finnegan Tui. Your ears will thank you for staying on to listen.   Notes and Resources    Thank you to our guests this week:    Helen Clarkson | Chief Executive Office at the Climate Group  Twitter   Climate Group Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram Catch all of last week's Climate Week NYC On Demand   Catherine McKenna | Chair of H-LEG - the UN's High-Level Expert Group on the Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. Twitter - Thank you to our musical guest this week, Finnegan Tui! Finnegan Tui Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Website Patreon | Bandcamp Watch the ‘ZEPHYR' Audio-Visual Journey on YouTube - Congratulations to Global Optimism's very own Freya Newman on her Masters Resarch being published in Nature Communications! - For more on WBG President David Malpass's controversial remarks, start here. -  @OutrageOptimism is where we are online! Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Hannah Jones, CEO of The Earthshot Prize, discusses the catalytic global environment challenge to repair and regenerate the planet. Dr. Andrew Forrest, Executive Chairman at Fortescue Metals, explains the company's plan spend $6.2 billion over the next decade to decarbonize its iron ore operations. Catherine McKenna, Chair of the UN High-Level Expert Group and former Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada, talks about industries and governments achieving net-zero emissions. The Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L-P, the parent company of Bloomberg Radio.Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Net-zero commitments are a critical first step in the fight against climate change. But to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet, we actually have to ensure countries and corporations live up to those promises. In this episode, we chat with Catherine McKenna, head of the UN Task Force against greenwashing, about regulations and accountability when it comes to net-zero targets, as well as how  incentives might help. We need to quickly scale climate solutions; which means tackling bureaucratic hurdles. Nothing is off limits. Featured in this episode:Catherine McKenna, Canada's former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. Catherine's current role (as founder and principal) focuses on scaling Climate and Nature Solutions. She's also the Chair of the UN Secretary General's new High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities, and if that wasn't enough — Catherine is an avid open water swimmer and mother of three. She shares her perspective on what it takes to make progress on the climate file.Further Reading: Corporate net-zero pledges have a long way to goJust 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissionsClimate Emergency, Calling Intergovernmental Panel's Report ‘a File of Shame'Catherine McKenna to chair UN panel on climate change progressFour key climate change indicators break records in 2021 The Mission from MaRS initiative was created to help scale carbon reducing innovations by working to remove the barriers to adopting new technology. Mission from MaRS thanks its founding partners, HSBC, Trottier Family Foundation, RBC Tech for Nature and Thistledown Foundation. It has also received generous support from Peter Gilgan Foundation, BDC, EDC and Mitsubishi Corporation Americas. Learn more about the program at missionfrommars.ca. MaRS helps entrepreneurs looking to scale solutions in climate tech, health and software. We offer targeted support through our Capital and Growth Acceleration programs. To learn more visit us at marsdd.com

Andrew Chapados and Justin Trudeau's trip to Toronto; Sheila Gunn Reid on Catherine McKenna's chauffeuring expenses.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world is headed for catastrophe if we do not drastically cut emissions. We talk to former federal environment minister Catherine McKenna about how to get Canada on track.

Ezra Levant hosts as Catherine McKenna and CTV join Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland in being caught promoting Ukrainian neo-Nazis linked to the infamous Azov Battalion.

In 2019, while the US was distracted, Canada implemented a big ol' national carbon tax -- and in the subsequent election, voters overwhelmingly affirmed it. I talk with two of the key players about how it got passed & what it means. Get full access to Volts at www.volts.wtf/subscribe

In the wake of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, what does the fight for climate justice look like? In the first of our four-part post-COP26 series, former Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, and climate scientist and author Katharine Hayhoe talk about the outcomes of COP26, the future of climate advocacy, and Hayhoe's new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World.

CBC's Laura Lynch and U.K. climate envoy John Murton discuss pledges at COP26. Plus — the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador discusses the cyber attack on his province's healthcare system; the head of the Canadian Centre of Cyber Security on what can be done to prevent future attacks; and former environment minister Catherine McKenna and youth climate activist Meredith Adler talk about women leaders in the climate fight.