Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today has several notable profiles that should be of interest to listeners in Central New York. Marc Garneau is Canada's first astronaut to go into space and then twenty four years following his first flight, he was the first former astronaut elected to Canada's parliament. The Liberal Party member served in two cabinet posts as Minister of Transport and as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Garneau, welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you.
Marc Garneau: Good to be with you, Grant.
GR: Thanks for making the time for this, we really appreciate it. So let me just start with this, and I know this is a longer and more complicated story, but if you could briefly just refresh our listeners on the current political situation in Canada, you are in the midst of an election.
MG: Indeed. Our previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau, resigned under pressure in January, and that triggered a federal election. First of all, the Liberal Party, which was the party in power, had to find a new leader, his name is Mark Carney. He became the prime minister and within about a week triggered an actual election which will take place on the 28th of April. So we're right in the middle of it.
GR: So very similar to the British model in that sense, that short, short election periods and the parliamentary system, okay, great. And you mentioned that Justin Trudeau resigned under pressure. I remember that was the story in the States. Just remind us briefly what the source of the pressure was.
MG: Well, a number of things. He had been the prime minister of the country for over nine years. And as often happens with systems like ours, Canadians kind of get tired of the incumbent and decide it's time for a change. And I think it was really a collection of past mistakes and the feeling that the prime minister was not addressing the issues very similar to those in the United States related to affordability, related to housing. And so I think within the caucus, that is the Liberal members of parliament, there was growing pressure for him to step down.
GR: And I know there's a lot of differences between Canadian politics and American politics and also the views that tend to, Canadians and Americans tend to have. I mean, you folks have a, you know, a guaranteed health care system. It's a complicated one at a provincial level, but certainly something different, profoundly different from what the United States has. But would it be fair to say that the Liberal Party would be sort of the equivalent of the Democratic Party in the United States?
MG: I think that's the parallel that is often made. We're certainly closer to being Democrats than Republicans.
GR: Okay, all right. So do you think that this tariff issue that's going on with the Trump administration and obviously its effects on countries around the world, do you think it's affecting the dynamics of this Canadian general election right now?
MG: Oh, it most certainly is. In fact, I think the ballot question in this election is which of the four party leaders, there are actually four parties or five, if you include the Greens, is going to best be able to handle the tariff question and negotiate with Mr. Trump. That is the central question because it is going to have such a profound effect on Canada and unfortunately also on your country.
GR: Yes, I mean, you're a huge trading partner for us. Do you expect that the Liberal Party will maintain its majority in Parliament and that Canada will have a Liberal Prime Minister going forward? I know you're in the Liberal Party and you may not want to speculate about that, but I want to ask anyway.
MG: Well, if you read the tea leaves or look into the crystal ball at the moment now with barely ten days left to go, it looks like the favorite appears to be Mark Carney, who was a former governor of the Central Bank, the equivalent of your Federal Reserve, not only for Canada, but also for Great Britain, a man of great economic experience. And it looks like he's in the favored position at the moment to win. So if that happens, yes, it will be a liberal government. And at the moment, if you believe the poll numbers, it looks like a majority. I don't want to jinx anything here, but it does look like he, at the moment, unless he makes a big mistake, seems to be the favorite.
GR: Okay, all right. And I wanted to ask you a question about Justin Trudeau and his political legacy, because he was known in the United States. But I think kind of more personally, I mean, he became something of a sex symbol here in the States as sort of the world's most handsomest national leader. But what do you think his political legacy is going to be in Canada?
MG: I personally, from having been in his cabinet for a number of years and known him, we were elected at the same time, I think that his legacy will be twofold. One, something that perhaps Americans don't hear a lot about, but that is what we call reconciliation, which is a massive effort which will take probably two generations to accomplish, to reconcile with our indigenous peoples for all the wrongs we did to them. And that's a massive undertaking. It has begun, but I think the Justin Trudeau is the first prime minister to take it to the level that it has reached and I think it has critical mass. The second thing is, as you know, Justin Trudeau is a progressive and believes very strongly in the social safety net and one of his signature initiatives is what's called the Canadian Child Benefit, which is money that goes to people below a certain income and it has proven to reduce poverty with children by a significant amount. And so that, I think, will also be considered part of his legacy.
GR: In the United States, we do have income supports of that nature. They are pretty much run by the states rather than the national government and that was a product of a law that Bill Clinton signed decades ago. But one of the distinguishing features of the United States system is there are a lot of hoops that people have to go through to get that and depending on the state, quite a bit of restrictions on them in terms of work requirements or needing to show that you are engaged in an activity that will lead to work. Is the Canadian system a little more, for lack of a better word, forgiving or generous in that sense? Do you have a sense of that?
MG: Yes and no. We are composed of ten provinces and three territories and constitutionally, provinces have certain rights and certain responsibilities and the two most notable are health care and secondly, education. The federal government provides funding for those activities, but there is a certain autonomy providing that the provinces act within, for example, the Canada Health Act, which has a number of principles that must be respected. So there is autonomy for the provinces to direct a number of things. The other part of it is the fact that some provinces have barriers to trade internally within the country. And this is one of the things that Mr. Trump's threat of tariffs has really brought to the fore. And that is the fact that we within our own country, sometimes our own worst enemy, because we have interprovincial barriers to trade. And there has been a strong resolve in recent weeks for the framers of the provinces to do everything they can to reduce, if not eliminate those interprovincial barriers Economists believe that this will significantly increase our GDP and I think it's a good thing. And hopefully, perhaps Mr. Trump has done us a favor here. He will have provoked this discussion on interprovincial barriers.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Marc Garneau, a former member of the Canadian Parliament who served both as Minister of Transport and as Minister of Foreign Affairs. So you mentioned the tariffs, I did want to ask you a few questions about that. In addition to the fact that the tariffs have been on again, off again, or, you know, increased at one level and then taken down to a 10% level. President Trump has made a lot of comments about Canada in recent months that have often obviously ruffled feathers on both sides of the border. I had a, the first question want to ask you about that is my understanding is that Canada generally derives some of its sense of national identity from being on the one hand, great friends with the United States, but also and maybe more importantly, not being the United States that, you know, you're distinct. Have Canadian views on the U.S. been significantly damaged by all of what the president saying, or is there a stronger sense now of Canadian identity because of this, do you think?
MG: Both. Yes, there has been significant damage caused, particularly when Mr. Trump started to talk about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state. Now, if you do that once, it may be considered a joke in perhaps poor taste, but he repeatedly said it. You don't treat other countries, particularly your closest and best friend, that way. And so, yes, that has ruffled feathers in a very, very serious manner, but it has also galvanized Canadians to begin to take measures that will reduce our dependence on the United States. Not an easy task, because we do more than 75% of our trade with you. We are closest neighbors and I know particularly in the northern states like New York and others across the country, that there's a great deal of exchange, whether it's Canadians coming to shop, Canadians coming to spend their tourist dollars and that has taken a significant hit. And that, I think, speaks to the seriousness with which we view Mr. Trump's aggressive approach towards Canada. It's fine to want to renegotiate tariffs. We have the USMCA Treaty between Canada, the United States and Mexico, and it was scheduled to come up for review next year. That's fine, we can make some adjustments if Mr. Trump wants to change certain things because he feels it's unfair to the United States in a particular area, fair game. And we can do the same, and so can Mexico. But him jumping in right away and taking this extremely aggressive approach towards tariffs is definitely going to have a very painful effect on Canada with respect to jobs and with respect to affordability of certain things. But make no mistake about it, it's also going to have an effect on the United States. I was reading this morning about how you depend on Canadian aluminum. And the reason that you depend on Canadian aluminum is because you haven't got enough in your own country. It's an energy intensive area, you need a lot of electricity to produce aluminum. Another one is potash. Farmers in the United States depend twice a year on receiving their allotment or buying their allotment of potash for fertilizing the soil. Most of that comes from Canada. So there are going to be some serious effects on both sides. And it's unfortunate because it didn't have to happen this way.
GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Mark Garneau. He's a former cabinet minister in the Canadian Parliament and was the first Canadian astronaut to go into space. So I want to come back to what we were talking about before the break and the effect of what Donald Trump has been saying about Canada, this idea of, you know, annexing it or making it the 51st state. And you were talking about the effects that this is having on Canadians, but also, you know, it's going to have some policy effects, perhaps. This is my personal view of this, and you made a good point about the fact that, you know, if he says it once, we might dismiss it, but if he repeats that over and over again, you have to take it seriously. But personally, I've regarded these statements as just posturing and bluster because it just seems so unrealistic, let's put it that way. I can't imagine Canadians would want this, I can't even imagine that Americans would want it really if it was being considered. So I just wonder, is there any way in which Canadians might be willing to take this a little less seriously? Maybe I'm being to dismissive or optimistic about this whole issue.
MG: Well, I agree with you. And right away when he started to say that, I recognized it as posturing because he is a transactionalist. He's somebody who wants to get something out of this and he takes a very aggressive posture. And no, there is absolutely no chance to quote Justin Trudeau, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that it's ever going to happen. Canadians don't want it. At least 85% of Canadians are totally against the idea. And as you say, perhaps Americans don't want it as well, because it brings a lot of complications, too, as well. But yeah, you know, it's a negotiating tactic. We never thought it was really going to, or I didn't personally think that it was going to happen. But the point is, you don't say things like that. It's really going, in my opinion, beyond proper negotiations if you're trying to make a point.
GR: Yeah, fair enough. So I wanted to ask you this different question about Canadian politics and society, bigger picture question. But in recent years, the United States has really been rent by a variety of social issues that have that have really been part of our political polarization and the divisiveness that you see here. And they cover different topics, race abortion, gender identity, issues about education that relate to some of those things and other things. Now, we've got similar things going on with higher education, the Trump administration waging war in many respects, on what is happening in higher education in the United States. So I'm just curious, has Canada had any analogous experiences in recent years to those kinds of cultural political conversations of divisions?
MG: Yes, it has. I mean, you know, the issues of DEI and the issues of abortion and political correctness and wokeness and all that have also touched Canada, but to a much, much lesser degree that in the United States. I always like to fall back on a very old analogy, but I think it encapsulates very well the difference between Canadians and Americans. You are the famous melting pot. People who come to the United States to make their life subscribe give wholeheartedly to American values and that's the way your model works and it has been extremely successful. We in Canada are closer to the old concept that we've managed to hold on to, which is that our country is a cultural mosaic. In other words, we're more disposed to be tolerant of differences of opinion, differences in culture. Now, having said that, there has been a growing intolerance in certain quarters, a growing one in the last decade or two. But I think it's at a much, much lower level than in the United States. Now, don't get me wrong, we have anti-Semitism in our country, we have Islamophobia in our country. We have people who are against, for example, transgender people but it's at a much, much lower level. And I think that explains the basic difference between Canada and the United States. We have more of a live and let live rather than, okay, you're here now, you have to subscribe wholeheartedly to our values.
GR: On that point, and this is now a pet theory of mine, and it could be absolutely wrong. I'm going to be dealing in stereotypes, but I have to say you fit my stereotype. (laughter) Which is that, is part of this, I mean, Canadians just seem to me on average, much more reasonable people than Americans. I mean, they just seem much more even keeled and much more, for lack of a better word, sort of dealing just in rationality. Is that, am I on to something there?
MG: Well, thank you for saying that, I view that as a compliment. I think that there are strengths and weaknesses to that approach. I admire the passion with which Americans embrace certain things, and it gives them an energy and a capability that is to be envied. But there's always flip sides to every coin. We come from a system that, we were a colony, a British colony. And if you look at immigration in the 20th century, people came from all sorts of different places around the world where they also, much like the example of New York City when people came in boats and ships at the beginning of the 20th century, we have many Canadians who came from countries where they were persecuted. And I think there was a resolve in Canada to say, look, you are now coming to a country where you don't have to be afraid, where you are going to be respected and you're going to be able to live your lives in the way that you would like to be able to live your lives. And so I think that sort of is inculcated in the minds of Canadians. That being said, there has, and I'll repeat it again, there has been a growing perhaps intolerance that we have to be concerned about.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Marc Garneau, a former Canadian astronaut and is the author of a new book which I'm about to ask him about titled, “A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream”. Well, as I just mentioned, you've just published a new book and it's a memoir, and congratulations on that book. I'd like to talk about it a little bit with you.
MG: Well, thank you very much. I enjoyed the experience of writing it.
GR: Well, does the book have a central, I mean, it's about your life and your experiences, but does it have a broader central message that you want readers to take away?
MG: Yes, I think it does. I wrote it for my children because, you know, first of all, I realized many years ago that I didn't know my parents before, in the first 30 years of their life because I wasn't around. And I realized that there are a lot of things in my children don't know about me and that I'm far from perfect. They have only grown up seeing sort of the public persona because I’ve, you know, I flew in in space 40 years ago, and I've been a sort of a public person. But they do not realize that I had my own challenges in the first, in my teenage years and that I made lots of mistakes and that that's okay if you use that opportunity to learn from those mistakes. So this may sound very boring, but I tried to be intensely honest in writing this book about not only areas where I was successful, but also about my failures and my missteps and my lucky breaks in many, many cases. Because I think that's more reflective of real life and something that perhaps is glossed over by some people when they write their books. And so I'm very proud of the fact that did this book covers my life, warts and all.
GR: Well, I want to just say that's a, you mentioned you wrote it for your children and why, I just want to compliment you on that because I am fortunate, neither of my parents wrote anything in that regard, but I have tapes that they made. And that, you know, it's an important thing and often overlooked. And, you know, you grow up and you hear the stories but you don't necessarily hear everything. And so it's nice to have someone sit down and say, okay, I'm going to you know, here's the entire trajectory. I want to come back to something you mentioned about the writing of the book in just a second. But if you could briefly, I wanted to ask this question first and then we'll finish with a couple of other questions about the book. People who have been to space often say that seeing the Earth from space is, of all the experiences they have, up there, the most powerful one. Was that true for you?
MG: Oh, by far, no question about it. It's been written about and in fact, in a fairly famous book called, “The Overview Effect”. What happens when you go into space and see Earth from above looking down, it is not only a physically different perspective, it's also an intellectually different perspective. Because instead of thinking about perhaps the local problems that we all deal with when we're down on Earth and as we look around us and we can see about five miles around us at any one time, when you're up there and you're going around the planet once every 90 minutes it shifts your perspective and you do a lot of thinking. First of all, you're in an extraordinary place that very few humans have ever been to, but you begin to think about the bigger issues, the bigger questions. For example, are we damaging our planet? You can see that wafer thin atmosphere that allows life to be sustained. You can see the oceans, but you can also see forest fires, and you can see incontrovertible evidence of pollution and other things. And because you're surrounded by the blackness of space, you begin to ask yourself, are we taking care of this planet so that it has a future for future generations? You're also, although you can't see it, and most of the time you can't see it, aware of the fact that there are many conflicts going on down on this planet, this beautiful looking planet, despite what we're doing to it. And you wonder, is there a way that we can find, can we find a way to get along with each other? Because at any one time, there are dozens of conflicts on the planet, many of which we don't even hear about, we just hear about the big ones. And so, again, there are 8 billion of us, it's the cradle of humanity. There is no option B, and so we have to find a way to get along with each other and to make the planet survivable for future generations. That sort of gets a hold of you when you're up there and you’re gazing out the window as you're orbiting over the top of the world and seeing the different countries. And I think it's something that stays with you for the rest of your life.
GR: Yes, I can see how it would. Now, we only have about a minute left. I want to squeeze one more question in, and I'm sorry it's a difficult one, and it's a difficult one to end on, perhaps. But you mentioned already in writing the book that you wanted to deal with warts and all, and you really do deal with some pretty difficult subjects there in that book. I was just wondering if you could share what was the hardest thing for you to write about? And in a few seconds or less.
MG: Yeah, it was the suicide of my first wife. I lost my first wife to, she was diagnosed as bipolar. We had twins at the time, they were 11 years old. And suddenly, after a two year illness, she took her life and I was now a single parent. And the tragedy of losing the woman that I loved and also the sobering reality that I now had to be the parent for two children is something that I've been aware of all my life. But I was encouraged by the editor to be open about it because you know, when this happened a long time ago, you sort of swept mental health under the carpet. And I thought, if I'm going to, you know, live up to my own words about trying to bring it out of the closet, I should be very honest about it.
GR: Well, again, I think that just makes the book better, and it has a lot of hope in it as well. We'll have to leave it there, unfortunately. That was Marc Garneau and again, his new book is titled, “A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream. Marc, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. And I want to give you best wishes and also your country best wishes.
MG: Thank you very much, Grant. And similarly to you, best wishes to the United States.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.
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