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blue-sky (verb)
: to offer ideas that are conceived by unrestrained imagination or optimism.
Hosted by Erin O’Toole, President and Managing Director of ADIT North America. Erin is the former Member of Parliament for Durham and former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. The Blue Skies political podcast explores issues facing Canada and the world in a format that brings together thought leaders for an informed and engaging conversation.
Erin O'Toole (00:01.67)
Welcome to the Blue Skies podcast. I'm Erin O'Toole. And you know, I started the Blue Skies podcast five years ago because I said in the age of Twitter or X social media, we needed more serious long form discussions of important issues facing Canada, facing the world. And we needed to do that in sometimes a bipartisan fashion. And Blue Skies now back after my political career, we're going to keep that up and we're going to have a bipartisan Blue Skies. So a bit of
Blue skies with a bit of red hues on the horizon. I'm very happy to have the Honorable John McKay join us today. Welcome to blue skies, John.
John McKay (00:38.901)
Well, thank you, Aaron. And we'll see how much of a red tinge this Blue Skies podcast has by the end.
Erin OToole (00:47.144)
Well, listen, you're someone I had immense respect for and we would enjoy trading barbs. But for the Canadians that aren't familiar with your career, it's an impressive one. John was a lawyer before he was elected to Parliament, quite active in the real estate bar in Ontario, including the Durham bar. I used to think I was the, I thought I was the Durham guy, but clearly you have some credibility there too. John was elected in 1997.
John McKay (01:04.821)
There are remarks. I was president there.
Erin OToole (01:14.888)
He is approaching 30 years, 27 years in public life. In the governments of Critchin and Martin, he served as critic in a range of roles and as parliamentary secretary to finance and to national defense. He served as chair of the National Defense Committee of Public Safety and National Security. He sat as the lead on the Canadian section of the Canadian Joint Permanent Board of Defense.
He's successfully passed a few private members bills, one on health, dealing with smoking, and one dealing with foreign aid and accountability for Canadian dollars going to alleviate poverty. He's been a long champion of responsible business practices for the extractives industry. He and I have, you know, jousted on this issue for a time, but he's talked about corporate social responsibility, ESG, before it was ESG.
for a couple of decades now. And John's efforts were really a large portion behind the success of S211 in last spring passing in parliament, which is going to place restrictions and track foreign labour practices that involve slave labour, child labour, unfair labour practices. That's what we're going to talk about today. But John, you've been in office a long time. Are you running again?
John McKay (02:39.029)
Yeah, or you get the easy question right off the top or you're just getting rid of it. Yes, all of the Lord knows and he hasn't revealed it to me yet.
Erin OToole (02:48.488)
Well, when you get that divine intervention, come on the blue skies and talk about it. But I...
John McKay (02:52.767)
I think given the polls, we might need divine intervention.
Erin OToole (02:56.68)
Well, I know better than anyone that an eternity can or you know, a day can be an eternity in politics. And for us, it was the final weekend of the campaign. The polls shifted a little bit in a negative way for me. But your long work on the extractive sector, John, talk about where that came from. Because, you I used to say to you when I was the Carl Sackler for trade and was trying to sort of say, you know, Canada can't trace around the world.
people are doing, but we can encourage responsible conduct. The mining sector, finance in Toronto, you were kind of in that mix. You know it's important for our economy. Why was this an issue that was important for you to advance?
John McKay (03:40.917)
Well, clearly I was not the poster boy of the mining industry for a long time. And why? I think I'll bring it back to faith background. I'm, as you know, I'm, I want to say a born again capitalist. I'm not quite there, but I'm a big believer in the free market, but even the free market has rules and the free market cannot.
use slave labor, cannot use forced labor, cannot use environmental practices that would, that in any other situation would degrade our own environment. So why should we foist it on others? So that's the motivation. And it's true that I've been at this for a while. Sometimes you learn more from glorious failures than you learn from successes. So one of the ones was C300 and
I don't remember whether you were around at the time or not, but I was pretty sure I had the vote count on C300. And then there was a stampede to the washroom just as the vote was being called. And I lost by six votes. Oh gosh. So the lobbying efforts of the mining industry paid off.
And interestingly, I thought the issue was frankly dead and buried when we lost the vote. But it became an election issue in 2000.
and was kept alive by universities and various other groups, way beyond what I could do. But I, you know, I do my little circuit around to various people who would listen to me, which was not a big circuit, may I say. And it started, as I say, take a length of its own. In 2015, the Liberal Party at least had committed to implementing that kind of legislation.
John McKay (05:45.237)
then there's another story to get to where we are today. But that's how it stayed alive.
Erin OToole (05:51.034)
The original bill was in 08 and 09. It was before my time, but I reviewed it when I became parliamentary secretary for trade and had the extractives file. And we were pushing an issue, you might recall, called economic diplomacy, where we tried to get the corporate sector, global affairs, or defate as it was then, and groups like World Vision and other organizations to work together. And I looked to some of your work. So.
In many ways, you laid the groundwork for what we're looking at now.
John McKay (06:25.967)
Yeah, if I look back over the 10 or 15 year span, I think politically we've shifted significantly. I think socially we've shifted significantly and it's no longer the CSR department of any large corporation is kind of an irrelevancy. It's now central to
business practices. So I think our society has evolved and I think it's in the right direction.
Erin OToole (07:01.928)
And I think the debate you started really led a lot of, you know, mining companies and other players in the resource sector to create corporate social responsibility programs and to really audit and check what they were doing around the world so often, because obviously they raised money in the Toronto Stock Exchange. They, you know, have the corporate leadership in Canada, but sometimes when you're operating in far corners of the world, you start using local contractors, you're paying for them. They're your agents.
you know, from a legal standpoint, but they're operating in a way that doesn't meet our values. So was that why you always talked about having this sort of extractives ombudsman so that, you know, obviously we can't have extra territoriality to our opera, we can't go into other countries and conduct investigations. But was your effort there really just to raise all boats to a higher level and all their global operations?
John McKay (07:33.589)
Right.
John McKay (07:59.349)
I'd be naive to think that I'm going to raise all boats. I don't think the Chinese boat is raiseable. But the Canadian boat definitely can be. You can only be responsible for your own people. And as I would talk to executives, it became an interesting point of conversation that when they were going in to bid on a site, they had a Canadian advantage.
And the Canadian advantage was that they would adhere to the rules of whatever the particular site was. There was a much better expectation that the Canadian companies would do that. And in most instances, that's an advantage. In some instances, that's a disadvantage, especially where there's significant corruption in the country. But it became, I remember a particular conversation.
with a Mongolian ambassador and he was talking about a large copper mine in Mongolia and they specifically selected the Canadian company over other competition and you can imagine who the other competition might well be. And as far as I know that became a successful enterprise. I haven't followed it. I don't know.
don't know what ultimately happened with it but it was an interesting illustration to me that if you do things right people will notice and if your undertaking is worth something then you may actually get the contract.
Erin OToole (09:43.464)
Yeah, I think what has also happened is the awareness of critical minerals for the decarbonization agenda for electrification. Now this rivalry that was a corporate one is also a global inter -country rivalry. I remember as parliamentary secretary in the Harper government, when I started talking about rare earths and things like this, that's kind of what we talked about free the sort of critical minerals, because copper is a critical mineral. It's the wire that...
John McKay (10:12.947)
Right.
Erin OToole (10:13.192)
power is electrification. There wasn't really a sense that Western led country or countries needed to have significant access to some of these resources. It was kind of a brief for all whoever could raise the capital could own the asset and develop it. But over time, we realized that China has kind of outplayed the West on a lot of this to have control over some of these sectors. So I think a lot more people are aware of the mining.
industry and critical minerals now because of the electrification agenda. So listen, let's talk specifically. You had carriage of this issue for many years and see 211 passed last spring. Give our listeners a brief little overview of the legislation because it came into force at the beginning of this year.
John McKay (11:09.781)
It's relatively simple legislation. So any entity over a certain size in this particular case, it's $20 million in assets or 40 million in sales or 250 employees. So two out of three. So if you hit the bell on two out of three, you are an entity that's going to have to do a filing. And the filing is going to have to say, I, Mr. or Mrs. CEO,
or chairman or chairperson of the board have examined our supply chains and I'm satisfied that there are no child or forced labour in our supply chains. And for a lot of corporations, for a lot of entities, that will be easy filing. And I'm using the word entities intentionally because it's not just corporations. One of the main sponsors of this legislation, World Vision, will have to do a filing.
And the other part of the legislation was that governments will have to do with filings. And you'll recollect during COVID, there were some dubious purchases of PPE, not that you would know a thing about that. And so this will hopefully start to be the framework on which those kinds of filings get generated. So the legislation came into effect on January the 1st.
and it's been a bit of a scramble to get out the guidelines slash regs. I won't get into all of the ugly details as you can probably appreciate more than most that this is not an easy undertaking to move the bureaucracy around here. But to the credit of Minister LeBlanc, he has lit a fire under them.
They do have guidelines out. There have been seminars that I participated in with four or 500 lawyers on the other line trying to figure out how their clients are going to comply. And so it's going to be a rich data source and it is a filing. I think.
John McKay (13:32.981)
I didn't appreciate, but corporate lawyers will appreciate, that a filing by a corporation signed by its CEO or its chair is a filing for all purposes, including other regulatory bodies. So if you're on a TSX or some other exchange, that becomes part of your filings. And...
That will be viewed by investors. It'll be viewed by other regulatory entities. It'll be reviewed by potential consumers and customers. And it'll be reviewed by government entities. So, woe betide an insufficient statement by a CEO or a chair or a failure to file.
because there'll be an adverse implication for failure to file. So it's kind of a big deal.
Erin OToole (14:34.376)
So you made a point there, this is for public companies, you know, listed on a TSX, for example, it's for private companies. It's, is this just for companies that are federally incorporated, John, or is this for everyone? Everyone. And if, if someone fails to file, say, or has a filing that information comes to light later that wasn't complete, what are the consequences for the person that, that signed that off the seat?
John McKay (14:51.037)
Applies to everybody.
John McKay (15:08.085)
Well, we built in a fine, $250 ,000, which for some corporations is, you know, that's a rounding error, maybe not even a rounding error, but rounding error. But there will be reputational damage. A lot of these folks don't want to see themselves on the front page of the Willman Mail for failure to file or incomplete filing. The minister, in this case, the Minister of Public Safety, also has authority, delegated authority.
to investigate the filing if in fact that's what they wish to do. So, it's got powers of subpoena, it's got powers to investigate, you can take computers out of offices and go through them. It's actually quite significant.
Erin OToole (15:51.208)
And so the regs are coming into place and this will be an annual filing each year, not with taxes or anything. This is a filing specific to this legislation. And will the filing be to the Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise or will it be to Public Safety? Who gets the sign off and the filing?
John McKay (16:17.013)
It's due on May 31st and it's to go to the Public Safety Minister. They are developing a website, so electronic filing. How it will interact with the office of, Canadian Office of Responsible Enterprise has yet to be determined. In my casual conversations with the Ombudsperson, she sees it as a real opportunity to generate data.
generate information, generate evidence, where how the intersection will go remains to be seen. But I'm rather hoping that between the two, those entities will, the filing plus the office will work together to be a significant force in the conduct of business in our country.
Erin OToole (17:10.632)
Yeah, no. And really, I think we'll talk about core and the Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise in a moment, but I think, you know, the casual listener to blue skies, the casual, even business person, when you say supply chain, um, there could be a company that, that acquires an ingredient from a distributor in Europe. And they said, Oh, we got our, we got our materials for this product. Say it's clothing from Italy.
And so our Italian supplier gives us a number of fabrics, a number of other things. And if they sign off on that, that's not sufficient, right? Because the traceability of where that supply actually comes from, it's not just the person you buy it from. You have to trace it back to source. And that in particular with Xinjiang in China is where there's the potential for problems. So the obligation upon the signatory under this new
John McKay (17:53.461)
Right.
Erin OToole (18:09.626)
legislation is to really understand their supply chain and to guarantee that there's no child or slave labor in it. And that means traceability, right?
John McKay (18:27.413)
It's kind of interesting. One of my daughters works for a very large retail company. And in the irony of ironies, she is responsible for the creation of the statement for her CEO to sign. And so we have conversations from time to time. Well, it's funny, she just came back from maternity leave.
Erin OToole (18:44.104)
She's, she's nursing you.
John McKay (18:57.525)
And her boss said, here, this is yours. And I don't know how many minutes it took her to phone me and say, what did you do to me? I told her, I was just getting her a full -time job. And it is a full -time job for her ending, but it's useful for me to actually listen to the struggle. They have 6 ,000 lines of supply.
And you can imagine that some of them are a little on the dubious side. Interestingly, they have in place a code system that allows them to trace the product way back into the supply chain. Much more than I had thought, or I as a lay person had thought, I thought,
much like your question was that, oh man, this is gonna be really tough on some of the corporations. And it may still be. But for this large entity, who will likely be targeted by NGOs and others who are gonna be watching this legislation, the tracing is easier than I thought it would be. Having said that, you raise the issue of Xinjiang, and that's a...
gaping big hole. But you know, you and I are both lawyers and I think that the working presumption against any product coming from Jing Jing, it had to actually prove the reverse, that it was free of slave labor. So, yeah, reverse the presumption here. But the other things, there's another couple of things that are happening that I didn't really quite realize when we did the bill.
Erin OToole (20:36.808)
default presumption.
John McKay (20:55.253)
And that is that there are entities out there that actually provide a service to corporations who previously were concerned about the origins of their products. And so they will be presumably providing their services. Interestingly as well, there is interaction between the corporations and the NGOs.
that the NGOs in many instances are out in the field and they've got some pretty good information. And again, woe betide not picking on a mining situation, a mining corporation that ignores the working conditions of the mine that it says are perfectly fine. So I think that's gonna happen. The Americans are...
in some respects in their own way, pretty aggressive on this, particularly with the Weakener Slave Labor Act. And they are turning away products shipped to the United States. And apparently when they turn away a container or a ship or whatever, they put that on their website. We don't.
That's a bit of a problem. And there's a suspicion, that's only suspicion, not evidence, that those containers containing products that the Americans won't let directly into their country are finding a backdoor entry through Canada. That in turn will put CBSA on notice and won't be tied to a public safety minister that ignores.
slave products coming in back door through Canada. And as you well know, being one of the trade guys, certainly one of the most knowledgeable trade people in the House of Commons when you were there, that may well trigger some review of the Canada -US trading arrangement, KUSMA. So, we started the bill, I had no idea that...
John McKay (23:22.655)
this is the kind of thing that could be triggered by even, I was going to say, an aggressive.
interpretation of the bill, but even though a less aggressive interpretation of the bill, it's going to start generating material which corporate lawyers and others are going to have to deal with.
Erin OToole (23:37.736)
Yeah, no, and thank you for the nice compliment. I'll send you the check later. You won't remember this, but the actual first time we ever met was when I was with Procter & Gamble and I was working on a lot of counterfeit goods that were coming into Canada, largely from China, but also from Turkey and the UAE. And the US put us on their intellectual property watch list in part because we were a kind of a gateway for these products to come in. And I think you and...
John McKay (23:50.901)
Hahaha.
Erin OToole (24:07.624)
The MP Roy Cullen, I think, came to a few events that would be put on by many of the brands. Sporting and luxury were the big targets of this. And trying to make sure that we could trace and attach some of this coming into the country. But traceability, as you said, for some companies that are doing this already, they have a bit of a handle. The food background, you needed traceability in case there was a recall. And, and, you know, we've talked traceability in terms of beef and BSC and all these sorts of things, but.
John McKay (24:09.525)
Oh, really?
Erin OToole (24:37.832)
garments and some other things, there was never really a big risk of a public health recall. So some of these sectors and some of these companies are now scrambling to have some supply chain certainty to say, yeah, where are all of our products, ingredients actually coming from? So I think people like your daughter are scrambling to make sure that they can meet their filing. And as you said, there's going to be...
monetary fine, but the reputational damage, the Globe and Mail test, as you said, is something that I think everyone wants to avoid. So we now have a regime. So this filing will go to public safety, as you mentioned, but as part of that commitment a number of years ago by your government, I think a year or two ago now, the Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise was created.
talk a little bit about her role and how this will interact with this new legislation.
Erin OToole (25:50.088)
Why didn't you do this two years ago?
John McKay (25:51.957)
Yeah, before we get there, Eric, I think I need to give you a showdown because, okay, I mean, you know, that's not one check, it's two checks. But, you know, getting a private member's bill through the House is like a 1 % chance. But it really helped that the Conservative Party, under your leadership,
said that supply chain legislation was in your platform. Because effectively, both the liberals and the conservatives then had it in their platform. And so when there was a bill in front of the House and in front of committees, I could count on your party and of course mine, not always mine by the way, but at least your party to...
be there. And I don't think you need to minimize your role in that. You were the leader for an ever so brief period. But that was very, very helpful. But anyways, I just wanted to, I didn't want to leave that out there.
Erin OToole (27:00.36)
Listen, you can always go off script if it's about a nice compliment. You know, that's welcome. And look, you were considered by many in our caucus kind of an honorary member of our caucus at times, John, you know, you know, when you might in some of your colleagues, you have the odd bozo eruption yourself. But I remember a couple of votes you seem to meander out of the house.
John McKay (27:14.709)
Okay.
John McKay (27:23.093)
Yeah, that's a very awkward compliment.
Erin OToole (27:27.976)
on certain votes, much like you said colleagues did to you back on C300. But look, especially the...
John McKay (27:32.917)
Hehehe.
John McKay (27:44.213)
Yeah, but at least my call to the washroom was a legitimate call to the washroom. And I do want to make the distinction, we encountered those votes because they told us they were.
Erin OToole (27:45.384)
I have given you shout outs in the house. So this isn't just on the podcast about your support for the Canadian Armed Forces and your knowledge about the defence file. We'll talk about that in a second. But give us your quick take on the Corps, the Canadian Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise. How's she doing? How you see that office kind of evolving? Any agency like this, you know, is, gosh, you have to stand it up. She has issued a couple of investigation. I think there was one extractive, several garment.
So she's active, this is something companies should always also be aware of, particularly as they're preparing their filing.
John McKay (28:32.749)
First of all, I want to give a shout out to the late Jim Carr. There were several ministers before him, but Jim was the one that stood it up, got the budget, hired the Sherry -Meyer offer, and set up the framework. I, to this day, remain disappointed that it is not a free -standing offer.
ombudsperson with a separate budget free from any ministerial office, but it is, that's the way it is. It's been slower to ramp up than I would have liked, but we all live within limitations. I do think that Sherry and her team are very thorough. They anticipate that they will have challenges from...
from corporate entities who don't want to be investigated. And so yeah, there's the criticism. I hear the criticism. It's maybe slower than I would like and it certainly doesn't have the authorities that I would like. But you soldier on with what you got. And the interaction between the legislation we've just been talking about, the modern slavery bill and the ombudsman.
I'm not asking for business, but you and I should have this conversation a year from now and maybe two years from now because by then there will be a fairly rich data source of material for the ombudsperson. In some respects, the bill will be able to go where the ombudsperson can't go. And these will be sworn statements that can be used in a variety of contexts. And I would think that the...
Ombudsperson will be looking very carefully at some of the filings with Nike and Zara and various other investigations she's launched. I'm particularly interested in the filing from the company of Markham called Sheen, which is a Chinese based company and sells really high end products at deeply discounted prices.
Erin OToole (30:54.6)
So what you're saying is, you know, she's finding her footing, their office is finding her footing, you know, maybe not as quick of a buildup as you would like, but S211 filings that people will be completing over the next few months will be fertile ground for her to go through for future investigation. So, you know, the work I do now with providing advice and intelligence to folks exporting and working around the world.
John McKay (30:57.241)
The suspicion there is that those products are obtained in strange ways.
Erin OToole (31:24.36)
I've been saying to people in fall, this is coming and some people have a really good handle on their supply chain. Others do not. And so you've got to really get up to speed. There are partners out there that can help, but any executive must be very careful before they put their signature to anything. And as you said, fines can be a rounding error, but the reputational piece here, this is a filing of the federal government and with the ombudsman.
John McKay (31:27.029)
Yeah, exactly.
Erin OToole (31:54.248)
person now out there, somebody's name or brand could get dragged through the mud. And so I like to say, and when we used to fight about, well, argue about the social responsibility officer and what became the Ombudsman, I think the vast majority of Canadian extracted resource players are miles ahead of, you know, other operators around the world, but we need to aspire to have.
as you said, that market -based approach to work competitive, but not sacrificing our values. And I think the reduction of modern slavery, the US, Canada, other countries are trying to make sure that the bottom line isn't the only thing we look at here and that our values and our trading partners have to adhere to respect for human rights and responsible conduct. So I think the vast majority of Canadian players are ready for this, but those that are not,
better pull up their socks.
John McKay (33:06.805)
Well, I think you've done a nice little summary of the environment. The only thing I would add to it is that, and this might be a nice transition to security issues, which both you and I, in interest of both you and I share, supply chains are shortening. If the pandemic taught us anything, know what your supply chain is, know where it's coming from and shorten it if possible, because it creates its own vulnerability.
The Chinese government for reasons best known to itself have decided, in my judgment, to shoot themselves in the foot by playing politics with various supply chains. And you can think of various products that are withheld from various countries who've created their own dependencies. We've created our own dependencies.
but I see corporate Canada in particular, corporate US as well, pulling out of vulnerable supply chains, that in and of itself.
John McKay (34:16.469)
maybe alleviate a little bit the deep suspicion that there's child and slave labor involved in these products. So it's an interesting confluence of geopolitics, but also a recognition that doing things the right way is really the only way.
Erin OToole (34:25.512)
Years ago, I said, you know, free trade amongst free countries and, you know, more regulated trade when there's bad actors involved, both on the labour and the human rights standards, but also in environment and other things when we're bending over backwards to reduce emissions and other players aren't even being transparent about what we're doing. We shouldn't be shooting ourselves in the foot. But this is a perfect time to move on to an area of complete agreement. And I think it's.
Sadly ironic that we're recording this the morning that we found out that Alexei Navalny, the dissident in Russia that had been really the most vocal critic of Vladimir Putin, is dead. Circumstances right now on his death are not promising, but in Russia, walking by an open window or eating a meal can be an unlucky event if you're a dissident. But talk about the world.
John McKay (34:55.989)
Right. Yeah.
Erin OToole (35:20.2)
from your view, you've been in office a quarter of a century, quarter of a century, John. Gosh, I'm a, compared to you, I was like child labor in the House of Commons for good mistake. But have you seen a time like this where we see war again on the continent of Europe, you know, an aggressive war through Russia? We have the situation in Gaza and I don't want to get,
John McKay (35:38.549)
Oh, gee. Man, that sounds like a long time, man.
John McKay (35:46.741)
Yeah.
Erin OToole (35:48.488)
much into that because that can be, you know, something that could be a whole other podcast. You see tensions in the Taiwan Strait. You see other actors like even Serbia and others sort of rattling their cages and other things. We're living in a time where I'm seeing the unwinding of the post -World War II kind of order. Is Canada prepared from your view, whether the politics, are we in a position
to have a voice and to prepare for our own national defense in these uncertain times.
John McKay (36:36.373)
I can answer that in one word. It's no. I am from the lucky generation of baby boomers. You are slightly younger than I am and have benefited mightily from being in the wake of the baby boomer generation. So Canadians for at least two, maybe three generations have not really appreciated the horror of war.
Myself included, you included as well. Your experience is a little bit more.
real than his mind. By the last two years, the world has changed. And maybe it's been really in the last four or five years, the world has changed. And part of it has to do with the policemen of geopolitics has decided to take a holiday. And so the United States of America, I think, its fractured politics has resulted in its...
intentional or unintentional withdrawal from the geopolitical environment. Hence, Vladimir Putin feels emboldened, hence, Freeman Shih feels emboldened, and a bunch of minor actors, which Iran will be the major one of the minors, feel emboldened to disrupt the world order. And...
which has been largely rules -based and largely quite prosperous for millions and millions and millions of citizens of the world. We are now, and I don't know that Canadians have recognized this existential threat. China wishes to turn us into a vassal state. If I walked up and down Wellington Street here and talked to...
John McKay (38:39.381)
10 people, would they think that's true? I doubt it. We have Vladimir Putin wishes to restore the Russian Empire and he lives in a delusional world of the 18th century. If I walked up and down Wellington Street and asked 10 people what the Ukrainian war was about, would they understand that? And then, you know, you've mentioned Taiwan Street.
Do people realize that if the Chinese take over Taiwan, the US Pacific fleet is way out in the, is pushed out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean? And the people realize that the Huthis shooting and shipping is gonna result in massive increase of shipping costs. And that's all gonna be passed on to the customers, which is you and I.
So the world has changed, but it feels to me like it's boiling the frog slowly and that Canadians have a dim awareness, but not an awareness that leads to the conclusion that we need to up our defense and security and intelligence game. And that's kind of where we're at. And I have some sympathy with...
the Prime Minister and the Minister just trying to come to grips with the challenges of making serious money and doing serious reforms with our military and our security operators writ large. We are woefully exposed and you you have been personally victimized by that exposure but
Erin OToole (40:33.81)
You know, it's interesting you use the frog in the pot of boiling water. I used that example as well when I appeared at committee on the foreign election interference, the parliamentary committee, not the inquiry, but because, you know, there's no single act, no single person, you know, to blame. Like this has been a slow, you know, whether it's willful blindness or slow kind of reaction to a
John McKay (40:39.015)
It's, the penny has not dropped. And I don't know what's gonna make it drop.
Erin OToole (41:01.736)
steadfast and dedicated campaign against Canada. I loved your example of, you you walk down Wellington Street and talk these issues, you know, we live under the blanket of distance, three oceans, we live amongst, I'm sorry. Yeah, so we'll talk about that in a second. One of the traditionally the most stable, strongest democracy in the world is our other ally, closest security partner.
So we've had this blanket of comfort that the Dutch people don't relate to because their country has been invaded and occupied and had to be liberated by Canadians. European countries have seen conflicts almost on a generational basis. We don't see the need. So there isn't public clamoring for spending or fixing procurement or new armored vehicles or new subs or whatever. But isn't this the role of a representative?
John McKay (41:35.373)
One of which unfortunately is melting.
John McKay (41:54.613)
Correct.
Erin OToole (42:00.392)
democracy where you elect a representative and you elect them. I'm almost going to Burkian type stuff here, but where you're picking someone with good judgment. And I think you are someone that has good judgment. We're different parties, but you've constantly tried to push for the equipment that our men and women need. Isn't this the role that a responsible parliament should have is, okay, the people aren't clamoring for this, but we see the world changing and we have to have a domestic capacity.
to A, protect ourselves, including in the north, but B, play our role in NATO and NORAD, menstruate with our size and importance as a country. Isn't that our role as parliamentarians to push that, whether it's in the polls or not?
John McKay (43:03.509)
Poor Edmund Burke. You know, you will like me for my judgment, not for my popularity. And I tell you, taking unpopular stands is not a happy situation. So I just, you know, I share with you my email thread these days on the Middle East. I toggle between being a genocidal murderer and a Jew hater. That's my world.
and bringing reason, judgment to that.
4000 year old conflict is a Sicilian task. It just doesn't seem to yield to. So to have even a reasoned conversation about some of these conflicts is just almost beyond. The other problem is that the incentives in elected life are wrong.
The incentives are to score in either committee or question period. The incentives are to get that sound bite, to get the catchy phrase, whatever. And that's where the rewards are. So I would like to think that there are more...
Erin OToole (44:31.88)
Well, I think the incentives you're right are, are verse. And it's gotten worse. Social media is creating a tribalism that, you know, that's the real driving force of the polarization. It's actually not the political parties. It's the political parties being impacted by social media preference book. And you've talked to the Gaza and how you're called the two different names from the different sides. The people that are calling you the respective names.
John McKay (44:35.623)
Edmund Burke's in the House of Commons than not, but I'm afraid that poor Edmund Burke would probably have a drinking problem by the end of his time in the House of Commons.
Erin OToole (44:59.496)
The only people they follow, they listen to, and the only people they're kind of virtue signaling to are people within their own social media bubble. They don't even really care about what the other side says. And now in the house, it's, it's really not having a witty debate as you and I had, you know, some nice words, a few barbs. I thought, I thought some of our exchanges were good. And now it's really, your opponent is irrelevant. You're performing for the camera.
John McKay (45:23.957)
Yeah.
Erin OToole (45:27.752)
and for the clip for your people that you're hoping will generate money or likes or what have you. But I think this is why I started the podcast years ago. It's why I write on Substack is, and there's, you know, MPs like Michelle and Rempel Garner put her thoughts on Substack. I think we need longer, more serious discussions to counter this. So bringing it back, go back to that example of someone on Spark Street or Wellington, you know, they wouldn't know too much about what's happening.
John McKay (45:34.933)
Oh, we're very witty, Aaron. We are very witty.
Erin OToole (45:56.744)
in the war in Ukraine or things like this. Certainly they're worried about Canada. Do you think we could get more people interested in spending on defense if they knew about the impact of climate change in our northern approaches and Canada's role as an Arctic country? And China has ambitions in the Arctic. Russia has been militarizing their Arctic in the last 15 years at a remarkable pace.
The Americans think we're not doing our job in the Arctic. You guys have made investments in North warning. If we pick up a warning, we actually have very little ability to actually intersect. You know, we could fire up an F -18, but it would have to see it either shoot or come back. We saw that with the balloons. You know, I remember talking to Anita and Anne the night she shot down the balloons and it was the first action by NORAD since its creation.
So are we doing enough and could we get people to say, hey, we the North should be more than just a Raptors slogan. It should be Canada has full sovereignty and authority and goal in the Arctic. Do you think that's an area where Canadians would see increased investment as being a priority?
John McKay (46:57.621)
That's right. Yes.
John McKay (47:34.133)
It's kind of use it or lose it. And if we don't, we don't get up there and actually use it, establish ourselves, not only with patrols, but with bases with, with over the horizon radar, you know, it'll be a bit of a challenge, not a bit of a huge challenge with, with climate change, you know, doing a runway for instance, because with the,
With permafrost coming out of the ground, the roads and the runway will be heaving all the time. Same with buildings, same with all the infrastructure that goes with just putting a base up there. It'd be an enormous challenge, hugely expensive. Will the person on Spark Street actually get it? I'd spare. And this is where you have to damn the torpedoes and just do what you think is the right thing as opposed to what's the politically expedient thing.
I think if I don't want to completely denigrate the person that is on Spark Street, but doing the linkage, when a ship can't get through the Red Sea and has to go around the Horn of Africa, that's going to start adding costs. You've already seen the effect of the Ukrainian war on the costs of basic food steps.
when ships, if ships start getting stopped in the Taiwan Strait, that will just add to costs. And, you know, the superficial reaction is to say, oh, it's the government's fault. The more thoughtful Sparks Street person might actually realize that this is the consequence.
of geopolitics and of failure writ large of the West to be able to maintain the rules -based order. That and what is our responsibility? Well, our first and foremost responsibility is security for the nation, but we are part of the NORAD functioning treaty and, you know, it's pretty hard to argue that we've been carrying our weight for the last number of years.
John McKay (50:00.277)
I think the Americans have been exceedingly polite. I don't know that they will continue to be exceedingly polite. And if, as some anticipate, the election in November will turn out the way some think it will, all politeness will be in the toilet. And I don't know how whatever government is in place at the time, Canadian government is in place at the time, will be able to react. And it will have real world consequences.
And, and so it's not as if we've been slackers overnight, we've been slackers for, for quite a number of years and we are not carrying our weight. And, and, you know, I have some sympathy with Bill Blair doing his main over in the, at Mayo right now. And, and you know, how many times has it been asked? I was, I was leading a delegation of the defense committee last August and we went from Britain to.
to Latvia, to Estonia, and to Poland.
Erin OToole (51:03.016)
The Baltic nations and Poland, they know what Putin's step is after Ukraine, right? So they're fearful for the well -being of their country and the families in it. Well, listen, John, this is where I've appreciated your advocacy. I think if responsible and smart MPs from both Liberals and the Conservatives push...
John McKay (51:06.517)
And in all instances, we were being asked, how come your contribution is what it is? And they knew exactly what it was. And the Estonian guy wasn't even polite about it. It wasn't, it wasn't.
Erin OToole (51:29.48)
for more sustained defense spending, more commitment to long -term infrastructure and other things in the Arctic. These are fixing procurement, building up the base structure in the Arctic you just talked about. This will take commitment that goes longer than multiple governments of both parties. The naval port, Manacivic, that Harper ordered still hasn't been opened yet in the Arctic. So you have to have a longer -term commitment. And I...
John McKay (51:30.773)
Sure.
Erin OToole (51:57.032)
appreciate you being one of the lead voices within the local caucus on making sure our men and women have the equipment they need, making sure Canada lives up to its commitments. I think we've raised this point. I don't want to take you too long. And we're ending with doom and gloom. You know, there could be an election in November and seeing how the world rules based order is falling apart. This is blue skies. I have an optimistic nature to it. So I'm going to ask you for one of the positive things. Yes.
Plus we're taping this on a Friday after hearing about Navalny's death, like we can be doom and gloom, but I call this blue skies because it's talking about issues with unrestrained optimism. That's kind of blue sky in the subject. I want you to pick something from your 25 plus years in public life, in government and out third party for a time. You've seen the ups and downs of public life. People get the slings and arrows on all sides, you know, all you politicians are liars or what have you. And
John McKay (52:32.605)
Yeah.
John McKay (52:42.837)
So I'm the Red Tinch, I'm the doom and gloom guy, am I?
Erin OToole (52:56.776)
But we need good people. We need thoughtful people to step up for public life. I consider you one of those type of people, thoughtful, smart, that could be doing other things, but want to serve. Pick something that you've worked on that I think most people wouldn't know, but has given you a lot of personal satisfaction to know that you've made a difference. Because I think we also have to tell these stories. If we want to draw good men and women into public life to know that you can make a difference, despite what you see trending on Twitter.
you can have an impact for your community or country. Pick something that most people wouldn't even know, but you consider a win that is part of your political legacy. Whether you run four more times when you get that divine call or whether, you know, the next few years your political time wraps up, what's something you're very proud of accomplishing in public life?
John McKay (54:11.125)
Well, interestingly, you mentioned that I had three bills that got to Royal Assent and two glorious failures, which you didn't describe as glorious failures, but nevertheless. So we have had a conversation about effectively three bills, two of which were failures, one of which was a success. And it's interesting, you learn a lot from your failures. But my first bill was...
on fire safe cigarettes. And I am not a smoker. I gave it up when I was eight years old. And I didn't realize that you could build a fire safe cigarette, but that tobacco companies had no interest in building fire safe cigarettes. So they always blamed the smoker, in case of kind of blaming the victim rather than my creation.
So you can build speed bumps into a cigarette. And the consequence of that was that you didn't burn the house down when you fell asleep smoking or whatever. And I'm sure that nobody on your podcast follows house fires. But when I started 25 years ago, there were a lot of house fires. And what...
started the bill was a real tragedy in Brampton and the lawyer that brought the file to me had tried unsuccessfully to sue the cigarette company for these people who burned the house down, two children killed, and the uncle who was the smoker. And I thought that was kind of wrong. And so you learn a few things and you pass a bill and...
and it becomes the law of the land and the consequence is that you seldom hear about
John McKay (56:17.301)
people falling asleep, smoking, and houses burning down, people being killed. And it's reflected not only in the news, but it's also reflected in your insurance premiums. So that's one of those things that you wouldn't know a thing about, and no reason why you would, unless you are deeply involved in those kinds of issues.
Erin OToole (56:24.124)
One quick question on that. What role were you in then? Were you a backbencher? You can't bring a bill when you're a minister of parliament sector. Were you like backbencher new in your career?
Erin OToole (56:49.832)
issue.
John McKay (56:55.189)
No, I was back venture. I think I was writing in the curtain burn section up at the Figaro there. And I just got kind of lucky with the draw number. And yeah, it was kind of, I mean, you know what it's like when you get there, Aaron, you don't know what you're doing. You have no idea what the whole thing is all about.
Erin OToole (57:20.072)
Well, why ask where you sat really in the house is it shows you as you said you were by the curtains back venture, but you passed a bill that is likely saved hundreds of lives saved tens of millions of dollars, maybe more in property damage since its passage. Not everyone would know that, but it shows the power and the privilege you have of being in that house if you use that privilege responsibly and you advance something so.
John McKay (57:23.611)
And so I kind of stumbled my way through the bill and had some success. And ironically, that bill then led to somebody approaching me about the better aid bill. And that's another story.
Erin OToole (57:48.328)
a hat tip to you, the Honourable John McKay, for your parliamentary service and for that bill. I didn't know that. I'd read about the fire safety cigarettes, but to tell you the truth, I didn't know much about it. You've got to take a lot of satisfaction from that. So I much prefer to end on a note like that. John McKay saves thousands as opposed to us being doomy and gloomy about the state of the world.
Well, listen, thank you, John, for blue -skying these issues with us today. Thanks for your service to Canada and thanks for your friendship. Maybe we'll have you back on after the election this fall in the States and we'll get your commentary.
John McKay (58:27.573)
Yes.
John McKay (58:34.365)
You have Daniels?
Erin OToole (58:36.168)
Well, listen, I still expect you to have your trademark barbs. You're known for your friendly jabs, but it's why a lot of conservatives have a lot of time for you. And I'm sure a lot of Blue Sky's listeners. So listen, continued success, best to your family, and thanks for Blue Skying these issues with us today, John.
John McKay (58:49.269)
Okay, that would be fine, Aaron. Does this mean because we've spent 45 minutes together that I have to be nice to you from now on? It's going to be a challenge, you know.
John McKay (59:02.581)
Yeah.
John McKay (59:17.023)
Thanks again, Harry. Take care.