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Trump Loves Doerkson | Political Capital Daily · Political Capital with Rob Shaw

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  Speaker 1: and this is Political Capital Daily.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday to you as we work our way through
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  Speaker 1: this week in BC politics. Joining me this morning, Jillian
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  Speaker 1: Oliver from Political Capital Prime.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, Jillian.
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  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
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  Speaker 2: Good. Good morning.
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  Speaker 1: Our first chat since the weekend election extravaganza show. Is
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  Speaker 1: it all settled in for you? Are you looking at
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  Speaker 1: this brave new landscape and wondering what's about to happen? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I think we're kind of getting like drips
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  Speaker 2: of what the government is going to look like as
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  Speaker 2: it moves from campaign to reality. But it's pretty slow still.
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  Speaker 2: So kind of feels like we're in like a bit
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  Speaker 2: of a waiting period to see what it's actually going
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  Speaker 2: to look like.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. From the outside, you know, there's so much going on.
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  Speaker 1: There must be all these meetings and interviews and stuff,
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  Speaker 1: but it's all internal to this transition team and not
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  Speaker 1: a lot of it is public. So the one thing
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  Speaker 1: we do know is today on our agenda, the first
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  Speaker 1: of two, bc ndp caucus meetings one is the outgoing
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  Speaker 1: 47 mla caucus in victoria packing up their offices getting
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  Speaker 1: out of there some people didn't run again some people
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  Speaker 1: lost some people did win uh no word no one
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  Speaker 1: is quite sure if a former leader i guess technically
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  Speaker 1: former because they haven't named a new one and still
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  Speaker 1: premier technically on paper uh until the new one's sworn
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  Speaker 1: in david eby It's going to be at this meeting
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  Speaker 1: where I'm sure if he was there, he'd get an
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  Speaker 1: earful from the people who lost due to his snap decision.
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  Speaker 1: And then the following day, so tomorrow on Thursday, the
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  Speaker 1: 28th MLA caucus meets to select a new interim leader.
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  Speaker 1: Those are going to be rough meetings, Jillian. There's no
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  Speaker 1: way around that. There's no sugarcoating those meetings.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we heard... EB on election night kind
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  Speaker 2: of try to head it off a little bit by
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  Speaker 2: really accepting all of the blame for the situation that
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  Speaker 2: we find ourselves in. But, you know, the other thing
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  Speaker 2: that I've been hearing from folks in politics is just
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  Speaker 2: like how much work was underway that just had to
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  Speaker 2: stop when he dropped the writ. So it's not just
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  Speaker 2: that many people are not returning votes. to their jobs
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  Speaker 2: um it's not that you know just that they lost
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  Speaker 2: power it's that there was like everybody was in the
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  Speaker 2: middle of working on things that they really care about
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  Speaker 2: whether that was um on committees on legislation um there
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  Speaker 2: was a bunch of treaties that were supposed to go
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  Speaker 2: through that now just like that they're just gone um
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  Speaker 2: and so I think that there will still be some
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  Speaker 2: a lot of uh hard feelings about that. And I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it would be pretty crazy for him to not show
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  Speaker 2: up and face the music, but I guess we'll find out.
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  Speaker 1: I had, it's a good point. I hadn't thought about
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  Speaker 1: one of the treaties went through. I think the Comox
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  Speaker 1: treaty went through, but the other one, there was a
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  Speaker 1: second treaty that didn't make it through. And I can't
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  Speaker 1: imagine that the conservative government is going to put that
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  Speaker 1: treaty on the floor and pass it given its positions.
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  Speaker 1: But we'll, we'll talk a bit about that, uh, later
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  Speaker 1: in the show, uh, just to cap off the NDP conversation,
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  Speaker 1: there are three names floating around for interim leader, uh, uh,
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  Speaker 1: Mike Farnworth. Adrian Dix, and Bowen Ma. They're all different
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  Speaker 1: in a way. You know, Farnworth's been around a long time,
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  Speaker 1: more of an establishment type choice. Dix has been around
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  Speaker 1: a long time, but he's kind of, Dix is more
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  Speaker 1: of a sort of like rabble-rousing change kind of guy.
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  Speaker 1: Like he does stuff. And Ma, Dix and Farnworth have
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  Speaker 1: experience in opposition. Ma has only been a cabinet minister
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  Speaker 1: since 2017, but is the youngest and kind of most
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  Speaker 1: modern of those three choices. I don't know if any
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  Speaker 1: of them stand out to you, Jillian, as what the
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  Speaker 1: NDP needs or should be looking for in an interim leader?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you need a few things for an interim leader.
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  Speaker 2: This person is going to have to play a big
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  Speaker 2: job internally keeping caucus together now, and then also as
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  Speaker 2: they head into a leadership race that we don't know
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  Speaker 2: what that is going to look like. I am assuming
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  Speaker 2: it will probably be on a bit of a longer
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  Speaker 2: time frame. I think the party will probably decide that
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  Speaker 2: they need to sort of lick their wounds and give
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  Speaker 2: people the time to contemplate if they want to run
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  Speaker 2: and they might even have to kind of recruit and
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  Speaker 2: encourage people to run given the job that they're going
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  Speaker 2: to be taking over is far less enticing than it
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  Speaker 2: was last time. So yeah, I mean, it seems to
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  Speaker 2: me typically But then they're also going to have to
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  Speaker 2: lead the party as the voice of the official opposition
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  Speaker 2: and holding the government to account. To me, I think
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  Speaker 2: that Dick seems like the natural choice. He's done the
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  Speaker 2: job before. He's substantial. He has good relationships. I think
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  Speaker 2: he would be like a, like he had a good
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  Speaker 2: profile during the pandemic. But yeah, we'll see. I guess
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  Speaker 2: that going with someone more like Bowen Ma would maybe
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  Speaker 2: signal more of like, listening to voters that it's time
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  Speaker 2: for change and time for a fresh face.
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  Speaker 1: I guess so. The opposition is not a, is not
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  Speaker 1: anything even remotely similar to government. And, you know, there's
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  Speaker 1: no staff, there's no resources, you're doing your own photocopying,
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  Speaker 1: you're writing your own speeches, there's no one there. It's
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  Speaker 1: a rough transition for people who've only ever been in cabinet.
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  Speaker 1: They only came in when the government was successful to
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  Speaker 1: come into an opposition. You don't provide solutions. You oppose
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  Speaker 1: most of the time, right? And it's not like you're
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  Speaker 1: looking for policy wins and So it requires a certain mindset,
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  Speaker 1: but maybe that's part of reinventing the NDP.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: We'll see who they choose on Thursday. One other topic
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  Speaker 1: before we go to a break here. The BC election
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  Speaker 1: landing in the crosshairs of who else but US President
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump posting on his Truth Social account. Congratulations to
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  Speaker 1: Lorne Dirksen on his big victory. Conservatives are moving strong
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  Speaker 1: in Canada. President Donald J. Trump with a link to
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  Speaker 1: the B.C. left-wing leader loses to conservatives in a vote
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  Speaker 1: he called, a story from Bloomberg. That is on the
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  Speaker 1: same day, Gillian, that Lauren Dirksen, the premier-elect, spoke to
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  Speaker 1: Prime Minister Mark Carney for the first time, and the
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  Speaker 1: two discussed a bunch of different things, supercharging the economy
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  Speaker 1: and LNG and a joint desire to work on managing
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  Speaker 1: trade risks and opportunity and things like that. So you've
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  Speaker 1: got Trump and some of the MAGA folks talking kind
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  Speaker 1: of trying to take credit in a way, well, not
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  Speaker 1: take credit, but maybe to point to the movement of
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  Speaker 1: conservatism as getting a win in some similar comparable way
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  Speaker 1: to the American conservatism? I don't really know. And then
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  Speaker 1: Dirksen focusing on the prime minister. What do you think
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  Speaker 1: of all that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of funny. Like I think as, just
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  Speaker 2: as Dirksen's trying to sort of moderate and seem more
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  Speaker 2: like Carney-esque, Trump is trying to like reach his tentacles
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  Speaker 2: up and drag him back down, which is wild. We're
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  Speaker 2: just this little, Canadian province. I have to imagine that, um,
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  Speaker 2: probably Trump or people in his orbit had been like
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  Speaker 2: aware of EB and his criticisms and like they showed him, Hey,
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  Speaker 2: that guy's out. Cause they're all trying to like, um,
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  Speaker 2: boost Trump's mood in the light of his, uh, own
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  Speaker 2: election that he's facing next week. That doesn't look like
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  Speaker 2: it's going to go great for him. But I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that does Dirks in any favors.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine if that had landed during the election.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding.
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  Speaker 1: Go get them, Dirksen. It would have just been like,
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  Speaker 1: EB would have been all over that. So yeah, no
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  Speaker 1: one from the BC Conservatives talking about that endorsement from Trump. But,
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  Speaker 1: you know, on Truth Social, you instantly get like millions
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  Speaker 1: of views. So now everyone is aware of the name
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  Speaker 1: Lorne Dirksen, though perhaps not for the reasons Lorne Dirksen
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  Speaker 1: would like. That's politics. Okay, let's take a quick break
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  Speaker 1: and we'll come up with more topics after this. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Back to the show. All right. One other topic here, Gillian,
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  Speaker 1: that I noted in the news, Wolfgang Deppner from Canadian
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  Speaker 1: Press reporting this. Very interesting in the context of the
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  Speaker 1: election and what we're talking about. His reporting that the
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  Speaker 1: lawyer for the Cowichan tribes says they will make a
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  Speaker 1: proposal in January. that protects private property rights in the
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  Speaker 1: Aboriginal title case, and that the lawyer says that if
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  Speaker 1: the new Conservative government has, in his words, quote, the
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  Speaker 1: right attitude, quote, the government could find it easier to
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  Speaker 1: resolve the Cowichan case than to repeal the Declaration on
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  Speaker 1: the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, known as DRIPA. So
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  Speaker 1: kind of like a, I don't know if it's an
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  Speaker 1: olive branch. I'm not sure where this solution was when
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  Speaker 1: David Eby was in government. I don't know why it's,
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  Speaker 1: now it's out, but here it is. And Dirksen, who
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  Speaker 1: has just said as recently as Sunday that he intends
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  Speaker 1: to repeal DRIPA and is following through on that, now
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  Speaker 1: has this option in front of him. I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think that all lands?
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  Speaker 2: Super interesting. So actually, I think like the judge in
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  Speaker 2: the Cowichan case had actually said to the government, you
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  Speaker 2: go away and come back with a remedy and kind
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  Speaker 2: of put the onus on the government. But now that
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  Speaker 2: the government is gone, I think that's why we're seeing
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  Speaker 2: the lawyer for the Cowichan tribe say like, okay, actually,
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  Speaker 2: I have an idea. Because, you know, it was on
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  Speaker 2: the government to be coming back with that. But now
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  Speaker 2: he's got a new government to deal with that's going
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  Speaker 2: to be an unknown quantity or... partially unknown, somewhat known. Um,
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  Speaker 2: I think that they are acting like the adults in
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  Speaker 2: the room by doing this. I think that, um, it
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  Speaker 2: does like, I think that there is a huge risk
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  Speaker 2: that the, that if the conservatives rush to repeal DRIPA,
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  Speaker 2: it's like kicking a hornet's nest and it makes things
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  Speaker 2: way more complicated and actually ends up in way more uncertainty. Um,
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  Speaker 2: it kind of gets us back into it. Like we
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  Speaker 2: already kind of know because we've been in that place
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  Speaker 2: before where we were hobbled by court cases. And the
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  Speaker 2: majority of the Cowichan decision is actually based on constitutional protections,
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  Speaker 2: not on DRIPA. Um, what is even more interesting to
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  Speaker 2: me is that the government was supposed to also be negotiating, um,
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  Speaker 2: on the Gitzala decision. And, you know, they said that
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  Speaker 2: they would go away and try to come up with
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  Speaker 2: a remedy for that. Um, but now, um, now they're
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  Speaker 2: not the government anymore. So we never got to hear
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  Speaker 2: what their kind of proposed remedy was to not having
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  Speaker 2: to amend DREPA because they were unable to kind of just, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, throw so much stuff into question because the
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  Speaker 2: Conservatives have made this huge promise. It's been a very
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  Speaker 2: strong promise for them. But the reality of it is
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  Speaker 2: that it could kind of following through and it could
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  Speaker 2: lead to more complications for them.
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  Speaker 1: And it's super complicated because as you pointed out, it
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  Speaker 1: was the Gatla decision. that DRIPA could strike down other
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  Speaker 1: laws like the Mineral Tenures Act that is consequential to
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  Speaker 1: repealing DRIPA. The Cowichan case about Aboriginal title doesn't really
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  Speaker 1: have anything to do with like the actual DRIPA Act
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  Speaker 1: per se. It has more to do with kind of like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, government's ongoing reconciliation attitude and what it's going
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  Speaker 1: to do if it went like, so there's, there are
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  Speaker 1: almost like three different things at play, but they're all
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  Speaker 1: colliding into the political world and They all get caught
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  Speaker 1: up together, as you pointed out. And so then we
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  Speaker 1: have the Union of BC Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stuart
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  Speaker 1: Phillip coming out and saying that if the Conservatives repeal DRIPA,
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  Speaker 1: in his words, it's a declaration of war. And I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what we do with that comment on top
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  Speaker 1: of everything else because that, I mean, I don't know
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  Speaker 1: where that takes us either and how we deal with
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  Speaker 1: that sort of view of DRIPA. I mean, at the
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  Speaker 1: end of the day, DRIPA is a law and... governments
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  Speaker 1: can repeal laws and put new laws in and they'll
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  Speaker 1: live and die based on whether the public supports that and,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the courts rule it constitutional or not. But
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  Speaker 1: is it a declaration of war? And what does that mean?
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  Speaker 1: Those are kind of frightening words too.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, super strong language. I think, you know, intended to
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  Speaker 2: illustrate to people the risk involved and the potential chaos
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  Speaker 2: that that could bring. I think from First Nations perspective,
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  Speaker 2: it took a long time to get people to, to get, to,
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  Speaker 2: to get agreement on what DRIPA looks like and to
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  Speaker 2: get it passed. Um, and even with it passed, it
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  Speaker 2: is just a roadmap to reconciliation and a roadmap to, to,
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  Speaker 2: to getting, you know, I, I think the goal is
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  Speaker 2: to get modern treaties like across the province. And so, um,
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  Speaker 2: I think it's Philip's way of communicating to the public
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  Speaker 2: very strongly how much of a setback that would be. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, just how frustrating that would be to, you know,
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  Speaker 2: First Nations that have engaged in a good faith process
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  Speaker 2: on something that is very difficult and takes a very
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  Speaker 2: long time to advance.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, at least the Cowichan lawyer is coming
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  Speaker 1: with some type of solution. I'm not sure. what the
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  Speaker 1: First Nations Leadership Council and solution has been, because it's
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  Speaker 1: all under NDAs, and the government's been locked up on it,
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  Speaker 1: and EB said he was working on it. So we
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  Speaker 1: don't really know what has been lost with the snap
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  Speaker 1: election on progress to fix DRIPA and the Gatla decision
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  Speaker 1: and the couching case, because it's all washed away now.
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  Speaker 1: And I guess that's another part of the problem, the many,
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  Speaker 1: many tentacles of problem that exists in this file.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay. Great.
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  Speaker 1: Jillian, I appreciate you being here this morning. Thanks so
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: much for being part of the show.
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  Speaker 2: My pleasure. See you later.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone for listening. Make sure you subscribe to
• 15:34
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• 15:41
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you tomorrow.