Arguably Canada's Best Prime Minister Gently Criticizes Trudeau

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Jean Cretien, one of Canada's best Prime Ministers, discusses Trudeau's failures in the Huawei / 2 Michaels affair. Cretien rose in stature in my mind when he stood up to President Bush and refused to get involved in the Iraq War.

Chrétien says government should have moved more quickly

on release of two Michaels

Former prime minister says Trudeau should have reached out to

old-guard Liberals for advice

Christian Paas-Lang · 

CBC News · 

Posted: Oct 24, 2021 12:00 PM ET

Former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien speaks to CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton about the approach to the detainment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. (Mathieu Theriault/CBC)

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien says the government should have moved earlier to resolve the issue of the detainment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

"We lost three years. That is a problem, they stayed in jail for three years. So, I thought at the beginning that they should have moved earlier," Chrétien said in an interview airing on Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.

The former Liberal prime minister, who led Canada from 1993 to 2003, told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton he'd always had a "special relationship" with China. He noted that he had been called by contacts in China about the issue and spoken publicly about it before.

But he wasn't called by the Canadian Government for advice. The arrogance in the PMO would never allow for the opinions of those more experienced or smarter than they.

Chrétien said during his tenure, he was able to balance a working relationship with China, especially on economic issues, while being "very candid" on human rights.

"They don't always agree with you, and most of the time we have to say, 'We agree to disagree,'" he said.

WATCH | Former PM Chrétien discusses Canada-China relations, cabinet considerations

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien spoke to CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton about his years in government, Canada's relationship with China and his personal style of politics. 11:19

He spends less than a minute discussing forming a cabinet and several minutes discussing how he would have handled the three-year tiff with China differently. CBC, as always, does what it can to protect Justin Trudeau from criticism, even from his own party.

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney suggested in mid-2019 that Chrétien be sent to China to help resolve the crisis sparked by the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada in late 2018. Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were arrested in China a few hours later.

Chrétien said at the time he was willing to go, and was reported in June 2019 to have floated the idea of Trudeau intervening to cancel Meng's case — his former chief of staff Eddie Goldenberg later made the case plainly The Globe and Mail, calling for "a prisoner exchange."

In a book being released Tuesday, My Stories, My Times, Vol. 2, Chrétien discusses how he came to that idea and his own contention that the Meng case was always a political problem, not a legal one.

I have said from the start that Canada should never have arrested Huawei's Meng. Throwing away Canada's relationship with a country as big and powerful as China to support America's economic sanctions was a stupid and cowardly thing to do. I don't believe Cretien would have ever gone along with that.

'Now they have become a power'

Chrétien acknowledged that China had changed since his time leading Canada and that played a role in the government's behaviour.

"It's a different time today, I have to recognize that," he said. "We had disagreements, but now they have become a power, and they're playing as a power. I'm not surprised."

Chrétien said it should always be expected that other countries would act in their own self-interest and that needed to be considered when determining strategy.

"For us, you have to roll with the punches and take the avenues that are beneficial for your country, and slow down when the obstacle is too big," he said.

During his interview with Barton, Chrétien also said Trudeau would have been "better served" in several cases if he and his government reached out to old-guard Liberals for advice, though noting he wasn't passing judgment on them.

On China, he said, "Everyone does it his own way. I had my own way and I survived with it."

Iraqi Teen Terrorist Convicted of 2017 London Train Bombing

By Sara Shayanian

An injured woman is aided by an emergency officer at the Parsons Green Underground Station in London after a bombing on September 15, 2017. File photo by Will Oliver/EPA-EFE

UPI -- An Iraqi teenager was convicted Friday of attempted murder for bombing a crowded London underground train last summer.

Ahmed Hassan, 18, was found guilty after a trial at which he said he didn't intend to injure anyone with the bomb. He told jurors the bombing was an effort to get attention, and that he'd been "very bored, very depressed, very confused."

Hassan was arrested in September after his bomb injured 29 passengers on a subway during rush hour at the Parsons Green station in London.

Hassan said he'd been influenced by action films and wanted to be a fugitive. Prosecutor Alison Morgan called him "calculated and clever."

"You can be sure it was not an act of attention-seeking or boredom," Morgan said. "This was someone who wanted to cause death and damage and make good his escape."

Both Hassan's parents died when he was a child, and prosecutors said he blamed Britain for his father's death during an airstrike on Baghdad.

"The prosecution rely heavily on motive in this case and point to evidence that Mr. Hassan was angry. He blamed the coalition for his father's death. He had been killed by a bomb in Iraq," judge Justice Haddon-Cave said.

"He was angry at the continued bombing of his country by the U.K. It was suggested he had a deep down hate of this country."

Hassan said he'd been abducted by the Islamic State in Iraq and "trained on how to kill." The 18-year-old said he then made his way to Britain via Istanbul, Paris and Calais as a stowaway.

Hassan later said he made up the story of his kidnapping in an attempt to win sympathy and stay in Britain.

So, in all probability, he was trained by IS on how to kill, but it was completely voluntary. The effects of Bush's insane attack on Iraq will continue to haunt the western world for many years to come.

UK Inquiry Find Blair Went 'Beyond the Facts' Promoting Iraq War; No Inquiry for USA

The 7 year inquiry made it clear that there was no real evidence of WMDs or any immediate threat from Iraq. It found that Blair pushed for war without any scrutiny from parliament.

The USA did the same only VP Cheney knew the facts and altered them presenting outright lies to the people and to the world. 

And, based on those lies, pressured other countries into joining their illegal and immoral war. The US needs an inquiry to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Blair went ‘beyond the facts’ & damaged UK politics when advocating for Iraq invasion – Chilcot

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair © Neil Hall / Reuters

Former British PM Tony Blair resorted to rhetoric unsupported by any compelling evidence when he promoted the Iraq invasion to his cabinet and the British people, eroding public trust and inflicting long-term damage on UK politics, Sir John Chilcot said.

The author of the 2.6-million-word inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the US-led invasion in Iraq in 2003, Chilcot told the House of Commons Liaison Committee on Wednesday that he could “only imagine” how much time it would take to repair the trust of the UK public in politics damaged by Tony Blair, who manipulated public opinion and his own cabinet by strong words into invading Iraq, rather than presenting hard evidence. 

"I think when a government or the leader of a government presents a case with all the powers of advocacy that he or she can command, and in doing so goes beyond what the facts of the case and the basic analysis of that can support, then it does damage politics, yes," Chilcot said, as cited by the Independent, after being questioned about the longstanding repercussions of Blair’s policy.

In his parliamentary address to the nation on March 18, 2003, Blair had employed all his rhetorical prowess to persuade the public of an “imminent threat” that did not exist, the report has found.

"A speech was made in advocate's terms and putting the best possible inflection on the description that he used," Chilcot said, adding that “objectively” the decision to send troops to Iraq was “unreasonable.”

However, Chilcot was cautious about blaming Blair for duping the British people into believing what he knew was not true, saying, “It’s impossible for me to say what was going through Tony Blair’s mind when he came to the conclusions he did,” the Guardian reported.  

While Chilcot does not consider Blair to be an outright liar who would “state falsehoods knowing them to be false,” he believes that the former PM had exploited his “political and personal dominance” over the cabinet to shun any debate on the issue.

Even when some cabinet members attempted to initiate a debate and seek more info from the PM on the weapons of mass destruction the then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was claimed to possess, Blair appeared to dodge the questions, Chilcot said.

"They were promised it sometimes, but the promises were not delivered,” Chilcot said, as cited by Daily Mail, recalling the evidence he was given by Blair’s foreign secretary Jack Straw.  

The single-handed manner in which Blair dealt with the issue bypassing his government’s oversight resembles the way it could have been handled in the absolute monarchy of the 18th century, with Blair being a sovereign himself, Iain Wright, the member of the committee from the Labor Party, pointed  out.  

"Is it almost the 21st Century equivalent of Louis XIV – 'I am the state'?" he asked Chilcot, as cited by the Guardian. Chilcot, in turn, agreed with the notion.

"I observed what can be described in that way,” he said.

"Sir John's evidence confirmed what many of us have long suspected – in making his case for war, Mr Blair went beyond the facts. In doing so, Mr Blair eroded the trust of the electorate in its leaders, a shocking legacy," the committee chair said, commenting on the questioning session.

The much-awaited seven-year investigation into the Iraqi war, the Chilcot Report, was published in July. While the report did not raise the issue of the legality of the war, it shed light on the lack of evidence that would suggest that Iraq posed immediate threat to the UK, and blamed government for “wholly inadequate” preparations of the UK army to the war and underestimating its consequences.

In the wake of its release, Blair defended his controversial decision to venture into the war, arguing it was “the right thing to do” saying that he was acting in “good faith.”

Faith in who, or what? You acted recklessly, Mr Blair, and sorely tarnished a legacy that would otherwise have been complimentary, and you did it deliberately. No, it was not 'the right thing to do', as time has made clear, 'it was the wrong thing to do' as any immoral act always is.