Chrystia Freeland
Chrystia Freeland spoke 346 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Good morning, Ms. Chaudhury.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
On a religious document.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I have my Bible.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
My name is Chrystia Freeland, C-H-R-Y-S-T-I-A, Freeland, F-R-E-E-L-A-N-D.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. So as Minister of Finance, I'm responsible for Canada's federal finances. I think that role does also include a broader responsibility for the economy as a whole. One of the principal jobs which is relevant to our discussion today, one of the principal jobs obviously of the Department of Finance is preparing a budget every year. That budget is presented in the spring. My second role is as Deputy Prime Minister. That is a more loosely defined role. I would say it means I'm available to do whatever the Prime Minister needs me to do. I maybe am especially involved in areas where I have a particular background or knowledge or expertise. Today and during the period that this covers, that would certainly involve Ukraine and Russia. And I think it does often involve my past as a Trade Minister and my involvement in the negotiation of the new NAFTA. And then maybe the final thing worth mentioning is, you know, largely, you know, being the Finance Minister is a big and consuming role, particularly when a budget is being prepared. Being Deputy Prime Minister as well, I feel a particular responsibility when an issue emerges as being of sort of overwhelming national significance, even if it's not specifically in my lane, to start getting involved.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. Well, I'll try. And I'll mostly focus on the economic and financial perspective because that was largely my focus. So all of this started to happen at the end of January. And it's worth bearing in mind, as I said, we were preparing the budget at that point. We were sort of deep, deep in budget preparation mode. And that means that the Department of Finance, I personally, Michael Sabia, we were all really focussed on where is the Canadian economy right now, and what is our path forward. And I think it's worth reminding people that it was a really challenging time for the Canadian economy. COVID was still very much with us in January. In Ontario, there had been lockdowns. There was virtual school. So we still have COVID with us. We could see beyond it, and we could see that the time was coming to go from a COVID lockdown, really emergency government support for the economy situation to reopening the economy and doing everything we could to achieve a soft landing for the Canadian economy after the trauma of COVID, the COVID lockdowns, the COVID recession, the economic trauma. That meant that we were particularly focussed in the economy on two things. One was supply chains. You know, by now, I think it's sort of become part of the common discourse that supply chains were strained by COVID. It was maybe less apparent to regular Canadians in January of this year, but it was really apparent to us that the peculiar nature of the global economy during COVID had placed some very significant strains on supply chains. That was jeopardizing Canada's recovery from the COVID recession in areas like the lack of semiconductors putting real stress on our car sector, to give just one example of very specific supply chain problems that we were focussed on and thinking about. The second area we were really focussed on, which again has moved more into what everyday people are talking about, but we were focussed on it already in January was we could see, partly because of those strained supply chains, that inflation was elevated and rising. And so it was apparent, I think to us, that we were going to be moving from the covid recession situation, where the challenge was, you know, prevent the greatest downturn since the Great Depression in Canada from really taking hold and scarring the Canadian economy. That had been the preoccupation during covid. We knew that we were moving into an environment where the challenge was reopening and elevated inflation, and how do you deal with that. And that made us particularly concerned, again, about the supply chains, because they posed a challenge to elevated inflation. So I would say that was kind of my Finance Minister budget related set of concerns. The second economic issue that I was very focused on in December/January -- November/December/January, was the U.S. Build Back Better legislation. And in particular, their proposal on EV incentives. And, you know, I realize to an Ottawa kind of maybe legal community type audience, that might seem a little bit esoteric. But the reality is -- and it might seem a little bit esoteric and a little bit specific. The EV incentives, as proposed by the U.S. -- and that legislation made its way through the House in the fall in the U.S., I believe in November. That legislation, as proposed, would have been completely devastating to the future of the Canadian car sector. What the incentives would have done, had they been passed into law as initially proposed is create very strong incentives for buying electric vehicles that were made in the U.S., not North America, just the U.S. And EVs, that’s a nation industry; right? We’re just shifting to the production of EVs. Imagine if you are a car company -- and all the car companies that produce cars in Canada operate on both sides of the border. Imagine these powerful U.S. incentives are put in place, but they only apply to EVs and batteries made in the U.S. Are you going to build anything in Canada? Are you going to put any of those production lines in Canada? And the answer is you wouldn’t have. And, you know, these incentives, frankly, were quite intentionally designed to drive all of the building of the new fledgling EV industry into the U.S. only and to create a powerful economic disincentive to build any of that in Canada. That would have been a disaster for us because EVs are the cars of the future. And to just give you a final kind of sense of how significant this was, at the end of 2021, Marry Ng, the Trade Minister, and I, sent a letter, which we made public, to the U.S. warning that Canada was prepared to retaliate, at scale, were this measure to be passed into law. In December, in Finance, we were looking at and putting the final touches on a retaliation list, because whenever there is trade retaliation, the first step is you publish the list of things you might retaliate against. We did that during the 232 challenge, say we say, the 232 Tariff challenge. The initial retaliation list that we were looking at was going to include up to $100 billion of U.S. imports into Canada. So that’s to give you a sense of the scale that we judged this challenge to be at. Now, we didn’t want to do that. We really didn’t want a trade war. That would have been terrible for Canada. And so we were also negotiating. And we were talking all of us, the Prime Minister with President Biden, Mary Ng with the U.S. TR. I was speaking about it with Janet Yellen at the Treasury. And really, the key person emerged as a guy called Brian Deese, who is in the White House. He is the President’s Economic Advisor. And what we were trying to persuade Brian Deese of is the idea that look, we understand that you want incentives for electric vehicles. We believe in that too. We also believe in the green transition. We understand that you want U.S. workers to benefit from these incentives, but our car sector is very, very closely interconnected. A favourite line that you’ll hear every single Canadian trade negotiator who ever has negotiated mention to the Americans on this is a single car part can cross the border six times on the way to becoming part of a car. So we say that all the time to the Americans. And so what I said to Brian is, our sectors are totally integrated. We’re not asking for a free ride from the U.S. Why don’t we match your incentives, and you guys have incentives, we’ll have incentives too, and both of us have incentives for North American made EVs, thus creating a level playing field between Canada and the U.S. and frankly, a strong incentive for investment into Canada, because in that kind of an environment, Canadian made EVs would be uniquely able to be sold into the U.S. market. So that was what we were talking about precisely at that time. And in the months of December and January, we were drafting these ideas. My department was working on it, and I was sharing them with the Treasury and with Brian Deese. And actually, at the very end of January, my department prepared for me a sort of yet another iteration of this sort of Deese note on how can we coordinate? So that was sort of a second direction of economic concern. I would even say anxiety. We knew we had to make this work, coming at exactly that time. And then the final thing, which was more maybe a Deputy Prime Minister area of focus, was Russia and Ukraine. The war hadn’t started yet, but we and our allies started to get intelligence in December and in January that Russia could well be preparing to invade Ukraine. I was briefed directly at the beginning of January that the judgement was this could really happen. And again, it’s happened now, so we might not fully remember how astonishing and horrifying that thought was before it actually happened. It’s horrifying now too, of course. So, you know, that was a very big deal. I learned about it at the beginning of January and the threat just kept getting greater, and greater, and greater. I believe NATO troops were put on alert at the end of January and then I think the U.S. took this extraordinary step of declassifying its intelligence about Russia’s plans in early February, to kind of alert everyone. And I was also involved at the Finance Minister level, working with other Finance Ministers, talking to the Ukrainians about putting together sort of pre-emptive sanctions. If you think back to that time, the idea was we would be very explicit with Russia about the sanctions that would snap in in the event of an invasion. So we were working on that. So that was kind of a third area I was very aware of. I thought then, and I think today, that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which of course did ultimately happen, is the biggest challenge to Canada’s national security since the Second World War. I think it’s a very serious attack on western democracies, on the rules-based international order. I took it seriously then and I believed it was really important for Canada to be in a strong position to be able to respond.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
There was a lot going on.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
well, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the first time that one internationally recognized state has tried to take -- has tried to conquer or seize the territory of another since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It’s a very grave violation of what I think is one of the greatest accomplishments of the post-World War II international order, which was, you know, a basic, basic understanding that internationally recognized countries don’t invade each other and seize each other’s territory. Now, that has been perfectly honoured, but if you compare the entire post-World War II period with all of human history prior to that, it’s a huge change, and that has hugely enhanced the security of every country in the world. So that’s number one. Number two way that Canada’s security was threatened, is threatened, but I think our -- I think the Allied response has been strong and has strengthened Canada, is I absolutely believe that one of Vladimir Putin’s warnings -- you know, his principal objective was -- is -- to crush Ukraine to take it over; to crush Ukrainians as a people and to replace democratically elected government, to make it a puppet satrapy. But he has another objective, which is to show that dictatorships work, and democracies don’t. There is a broader goal he has in mind, and that is, I believe, in his view, because he wants that demonstration effect; he wants to show Russians, “You know, you might not like that much, how things work here, but we’re better than those, you know, weak, feeble, pathetic Western democracies.” That’s sort of the message that he wants to communicate with what he perceives to be his own strength. And his success, were he to be successful, I absolutely believe would weaken Western democracies writ large, including our own.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That’s the second weekend, right?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Is that the Saturday or the Sunday?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. Yes, that’s true. And that’s kind of consistent with how I was describing my role. So I would sort of say up until that point, I was pretty much heads-down, we have the budget, we have -- budget is sort of 90 percent of the focus and then there’s electric vehicles over here, “Hope we can get a good outcome otherwise it’s going to be really bad.” And, you know, I’ve spoken with a lot of conviction a moment ago about the significance of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but I want to remind us all at the end of January, beginning of February, it hadn’t happened yet. So that was just out there as a threat that I had in mind. So up until February 6th, 90 percent budget; EVs on one side; worried about Russia/Ukraine; hoping that we can put forward strong sanction ideas that will prevent it, but it was really budget, budget, budget. But then the second weekend of the occupation happened, and I started hearing, particularly from business leaders, that this was starting to be an area of concern. And so I did attend that committee meeting. And then, as that week went on, I became more and more and more involved.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, not at all.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The Finance Minister has a stand -- I think they call it an ad refreo member. The Finance Minister can attend any Cabinet Committee meeting that she or he chooses to attend.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think my colleagues also thought it would be good to have me there.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Sure. And I think -- so this was on he 9th, which is the Wednesday.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Right. So -- and that really was the crucial week, from my perspective, and I think the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge began on the Monday of that week.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So from a finance/economic perspective, that escalated things exponentially; that’s what made it a hugely significant economic action. And, you know, I had started to get really worried on the Sunday. I attended the Cabinet Committee meeting; the bridge is occupied on the Monday. I start talking very urgently with my team, with Michael Sabia and officials, and we basically go through sort of three thought processes. Number one, is this a really huge problem that has risen to the level of that we need to figure out a way to stop this? And by the beginning of that week, especially with the bridge blockade, we were coming to that conclusion; we have to figure out something to do. So then step two is; we’re the Department of Finance. I think you’ve probably heard from other ministers, the instruction was, “Okay, everyone, take a look in your toolbox and figure out what tools are available to you to act on this.” And so that’s what we did. And we found, looking at what was in the finance toolbox, that there were basically two areas where there could be authority. One was FINTRAC, which is the centre that sort of monitors financial transactions, money laundering, terrorist financial activity, and then the second was the Bank Act, and would there be authorities under the Bank Act that could be useful in resolving this situation. So that was the two areas we looked at. We looked at what the existing tools, available as of that moment, permitted us to do, and we came to the conclusion pretty quickly that everything that could be utilized was being utilized. So then we thought, well, is there a need to legislate, and that memo outlines areas where the department said you could legislate to create this authority, or, you know, you could legislate to create these various authorities as outlined in the memo.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
We definitely looked at them. As you know, I would say -- let me say a couple of things. So on the FINTRAC front, what we concluded was, you know, to put it in maybe kind of more regular terms, what we concluded, and this is something that finance officials had been thinking about for a while, is that basically the FINTRAC monitoring authorities were appropriate for a 20th century economy, but not for a 21st century economy. That FINTRAC -- so FINTRAC, and I know you guys know this because you have been over this for hours and hours and hours, but maybe for people who are tuning in for the first time, FINTRAC is not an enforcement agency. The job of FINTRAC is to monitor what's going on, to both look into reports that it gets and to just kind of have situational awareness and let us know what's happening in terms of illicit financial flows in Canada. I think that's a summary I would offer you of FINTRAC, of FINTRAC's job. What we were sort of reminded of in looking at this is FINTRAC's sort of line of sight was very blinkered. They could look into what you might call the 20th century financial system, but they didn't have authority over the 21st century financial system. And by that specifically, I mean over crowdfunding and over payment platforms. So that was the lacuna. It was well known that it was a lacuna, but there hadn't been an urgency to act. And the memo identifies this is an authority that we think FINTRAC should have, and you could legislate to create that authority. Subsequently, as we all became FINTRAC experts very quickly, or thought we were becoming FINTRAC experts very quickly, we understood that regulatory authority would be sufficient to grant FINTRAC these additional powers. And as you know, that's what we ultimately did. So FINTRAC, one area. And then second area which is outlined in this note is could the Bank Act be used to allow the banks to effectively freeze accounts. That's basically what the memo discusses, and it discusses what would be the different authorities which would allow that. And so those were the options that were developed there. Maybe the final point worth mentioning with regard to that memo is in terms of a legislative path, what we understood was it takes a long time. And, look, it's a good thing that it takes a long time for legislation to be passed in Canada, even when we're working really together and urgently and quickly. And an example, you know, just this fall of Parliament coming together, understanding an urgent necessity and passing legislation was the Bill that granted us the authority to double the GST credit, which we proposed as soon as we returned from the summer recess. It gained all party's support, and it speeded through. And, you know, we got -- we proposed it in the middle of September, and we got the first cheques out to Canadians on November 5th. In Parliamentary legislative time, that is a sprint, and that was good, because we know that Canadians need inflation relief, but that's really, really fast from September 19th to November 5th. So -- and that's just one real-life example where there was urgent action by Parliament and the Senate -- and the House and the Senate. And so while this -- we looked at what the legislative options could be, we quickly understood that they would take a long time.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Not that -- I mean, I think the short answer is yes. You know, basically, the legislative timelines and the snowballing sort of exponentially damaging impact on the economy, they were not -- the legislative timeline was not appropriate to the scale and speed with which the damage was mounting.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
A hundred percent. I would say when it comes to U.S. executive economic authority, the most important person is President Biden, obviously, and his most important advisor is Brian Deese, and then, of course, Secretary Yellen is a very significant and, you know, frankly, brilliant figure and player in all of this. And we were -- maybe just as a quick footnote, I don't want to offend the Treasury, in talking about these EV incentives, we were very much in touch with the Treasury, both with Secretary Yellen and with David Lipton, who worked in the Treasury. They were very aware of our proposals too and supportive of them.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I try to. What was striking to me about the conversation I had with him on the 10th of February is he is a person who is very hard for Canadians to get a hold of. And actually, in the fall when we realized how significant the EV issue was, and when in my conversations with the Treasury I really learned how important the White House and Brian Deese were, and also our Ambassador Kirsten Hillman sort of identified to us Brian Deese is the guy you have to talk to. And it was a real effort to develop a relationship and a dialogue with him, and an effort to get -- always an effort to get him on the phone, to get him to answer an email. And I don't mean that in any way to slight him. He's an extremely busy person. In a way, the fact that it's hard for Canada to reach him is a good thing. It means we're a peace border and good government country and they're not very worried about us. And so what was really striking to me was how quickly he got on the phone with me on that Thursday. It was instant. And while in some ways, you know, that was in -- as a practical matter that was good, but it gave me a measure of how worried the White House was about this.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah. I mean, you know, I think -- can you move up a little bit? Just, you know, I think the point, the second sentence, he said that this proved the point about how integrated our economies are and he didn’t seem to see this as a positive, he brought that up. And you have to kind of bear in mind, I have been bugging the guy, and Canadians have been nagging Americans since the fall, and we’ve been saying, “Guys, you don’t understand Canada. You don’t understand how integrated our economies are. This approach you’re taking to the EVs, it’s completely counterproductive for you, because we work so closely together, those parts, they cross the border six times.” We’ve been saying this over and over. And so he comes back at me and he says, “Yeah, okay.” Like, “You’ve made the point. We get it.” And it was a surprise to him, actually, the extent to which their car industry was dependent on the trade with Canada. But that was a dangerous moment for Canada, I felt. Very, very dangerous. Because the U.S. then and now, as part of their own soft landing from covid, something that is happening there is a real move to protect the supply chains of the United States, the same supply chain challenges I was talking about earlier is affecting Canada, affected the U.S. And I think we have all seen a very strong push this year, by Americans, to insulate their supply chains, particularly, from China, are very worried about the semiconductors, but more broadly, covid brought alive to them the vulnerability of their supply chains. And this was so worrying to me because I could see, really, for the first time ever, the Americans having this amber light flashing in Canada. And this amber light that said to them, “You know what? The Canadian supply chain could be a vulnerability too.” And that’s a problem for us because there are plenty of Americans, both Democrats and republicans, who would love any excuse to impose more protectionist measures on us. So that line to me, it jumped out at me, it made me really, really worried, and I understood -- I really understood at that point that the danger wasn’t just the danger of the -- it wasn’t just the immediate damage. It wasn’t just the immediate harm. It wasn’t, oh, you know, this plant looses four days of operation. The danger was were we in the process as a country of doing long-term and possibly irreparable harm to our trading relationship with the United States. And it’s also important to understand that our trading relationship with the United States, it’s not just about Canada/U.S. trade. It’s about Canada’s attractiveness as a destination for all foreign investments. Japanese car companies invest in Canada because of our trading relationship with the United States. So that one conversation was a seminal one for me, and it was a moment when I realized, as a country, somehow we had to find a way to bring this to an end.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It didn’t, because we sorted it out. So, you know, that was a conversation on the Thursday night. You’ll see from that conversation that I asked Brian to help organize a call between the Prime Minister and the President. And again, that’s a very hard thing to set up. The President of the United States, the most important elected leader in the world, very, very busy guy. He also, by the way, was involved in this potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. Very involved. And yet I asked for the call that Thursday, I can’t remember exactly when my call with Brian happened Thursday, sort of early evening, I think, late afternoon/early evening. The President and the Prime Minister spoke on the Friday. And then, as you know, we made an announcement on the Monday.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, okay. And that is - --
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That’s the Friday.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes. And also, you know, that point “Windsor was supposed to be today”, I think it’s worth dwelling on for a moment because it speaks, you know, to our experience in the eye of the storm, which is that we continued to hear that action was going to be taken and things were going to come to an end. And it seemed that that wasn’t happening. And at the same time, what seemed to be happening is we had this metastasizing of the illegal blockades and occupations. So there was sort of, you know, copy cat action across the country, sort of a wack-a-mole. And that was also worrying.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, Flavio is the head of the car parts group. He is a real leader in the car sector. I got to know him well during the NAFTA negotiations, where we had sort of a real Team Canada approach and autos were a very important issue. And so Flavio and his constituent companies and the trade negotiators and I worked really closely together on the specifics of the deal. And Flavio also, you know, significantly, I think, for this exchange, Flavio was very aware of the EV issue. And if I have seemed to you guys today to be kind of weirdly obsessed with EVs, and U.S. EV incentives, I would urge you to spend five minutes talking to Flavio and you will understand how really kind of life or death for the car sector it is. So he was very, very steeped in all of these issues.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Not really, because I don’t have, sort of, specific memory of actual things we said and I can’t even tell you 100 percent whether we spoke on the phone or just exchanged texts. So I don’t want to pretend to knowledge of that. But, you know, I can give you some context for that view that I expressed there, which I do remember expressing, which I think is consistent with what I’ve been saying earlier this morning, that all of us who had been involved in the NAFTA negotiation, very much the car sector people, but I think you'll see that I also had a text exchange with one of the steel guys, you know, all of the industries that were very implicated in the NAFTA negotiations were aware of how Canada's access to the U.S. market was both essential and kind of constantly fragile and in need of tending. I don't know, maybe it's like a marriage. Like your whole life is based on it, but you have to take care of it every single day. And these people, whose jobs, whose livelihoods depending on it really understood that. And like I'm aware as I'm speaking that this might seem esoteric to lawyers, and what I really want to say is, you know, especially for me, personally, the NAFTA negotiations were kind of a bonding experience, just for me as an elected Canadian leader, with everyone who works in a Canadian car plant or a Canadian car part plant with Canadian steelworkers, with Canadian aluminum workers, with people in Regina who make pipes. I knew during the NAFTA negotiations their jobs were on the line, and they knew it too. And all of those people across Canada, they were so great. Like they were prepared for Canada to take a strong position, they were prepared for the U.S. President to insult us, they were prepared for us to take really strong retaliatory actions against the 232 tariffs because they knew how important it was for them and their jobs and their lives. And what text exchange with Flavio represents is me sharing with him something I know he felt too, which is this really important market access that we managed to secure just a couple of years ago, it's constantly under threat, witness the EV incentives, and it's under threat right now, and we just -- we can't let Canada be devastated this way.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It certainly would.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
For me, the salient point was the first part of his message, and you know, I think what he says there, and he is -- runs Stelco in Hamilton, he is American, though, and U.S. based. What he was saying at the beginning about onshoring and relocating to the U.S. that's what I was talking about earlier today. And I kind of highlight that for all of us here, just to kind of make clear to everyone that for people whose bread and butter, whose livelihoods were in the U.S. trade exposed industries, their immediate conclusion, you didn't have to think about it, the immediate conclusion from the blockage of trade was the Americans are going to respond by cutting us out. And then in terms of Alan's proposal, I didn't debate it with him. I don't think that it's -- I think that the relevant information for me from him wasn't for him to tell me what the right solution was, the relevant information for me from him was for him pointing out to me that this was a really big problem and it had to get resolved.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It does. I'm just referring to my own chronology because there was one other meeting which is relevant, which is at two o'clock that day I had a national security meeting on Ukraine.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So just to give you guys the sense of how overlapping the issues were.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Tyler Meredith.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
He doesn't work in my office anymore, but he -- I think his title was Strategic Policy Advisor, a senior ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- policy person.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So I -- I mean, this was an extremely busy time that week. Tons and tons of stuff was happening. I had a lot of information flowing through my phone and my inbox. And I can't confirm one way or the other whether I read the specific note from Tyler. So I can't comment on this specific email. What I can say is that -- and you've seen sort of the disclosure of all of the things that -- all of the messages that I sent and things I wrote down. What I can also say is that weekend, and I can't tell you the specific times, I had two one-on-one phone calls with bank CEOs, with the CEO of BMO and the CEO of TD, I believe at their request. That was unusual. I do, sort of as a matter of course, meet with the bank CEOs as a group every six months, and obviously, they can and should have access to me, like, they should be able to meet with me. But it usually takes a while for people's calendars to work and for the meeting to be arranged. And it's highly unusual for them to want to talk to me on a weekend. So that was significant to me that they wanted to talk to me on the phone. I spoke to both of them, I am sure, pretty sure -- well, 90 percent sure I spoke to both of them before this call at 1 p.m. on Sunday with all of the bank CEOs. And each of them expressed a high degree of concern about the damage being done to Canada and the Canadian economy, which was then reflected in the group call.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I believe so. I mean, I shouldn't put words in the mouth of another person, but I think one of the messages that I recall came through in this call and that, you know, my memory was refreshed when I looked at these notes, one of the messages from the bank CEOs was kind of what finance had concluded independently earlier in the week, which is there's this whole space where financial transactions happen that no one has any line of sight to. And that is crowdfunding platforms, or the crowdfunding platforms, the payment systems, and then I think someone also mentions crypto later on in this call.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So I was responding specifically to one of the CEOs whose bank had acted to freeze an account based on -- this was prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. It was based, as that note shows, on what the banks anti-money laundering systems detected, and based on that, the bank rightly acted. What was a concern for me, and this was -- this did shape how we acted, was the banks being blamed for taking this action, the banks being seen as choosing to do it, as having the agency. And it was particularly a concern, and you note the mention of Fox News -- the thing you have to remember about Canadian banks is many of them are significant banks in the United States as well. They are big players there, and some of them trade under their Canadian names. And so they were in jeopardy not only in Canada, but also in the United States, if they were being seen to taking a politicized position. I didn't think that was their responsibility. I thought it was the responsibility of the government to make judgments about this.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No. It was -- I mean, look, if you look at that conversation, people raised lots of different points in their commentary, and I didn't respond to every single one, just as in my previous exchange with Alan Kestenbaum, our Stelco guy, I acknowledged his concern, but I didn't really address his public health measure point. My point there was, as I said in my follow-up, that what we need to is, as a government, one, resolve it, two, be clear it's not going to happen again. And, you know, from my perspective, I wanted - - the reason I convened that call, and again, probably worth highlighting, it is highly unusual for the CEOs, like, highly, highly, like, never -- I mean, I've only been Finance Minister for two years, but it hasn't happened before and I hope it will never happen again -- for the CEOs of all of Canada's banks on, you know, a couple of hours' notice on a Sunday afternoon to come together on a Zoom call with the Finance Minister and Deputy Minister of Finance. It's very, very unusual for them to find the time to do that. I'm right now trying to organize a meeting with them, my kind of every six-month meeting, for December, and it's the kind of thing that we sort of organize four to six weeks in advance because these are all busy people. So that's kind of just worth mentioning. It shows their degree of concern and anxiety. Value for me of this meeting, why did I want to have it, what did I want to get out of it? Two things. One, I wanted to hear from them how worried were they. By that point, I was really worried, but we were contemplating, as you know, really serious action. And I needed to hear directly myself from the leaders of Canada's financial institutions did they share my level of concern. That was a very important proof point for me. So that was kind of number one. And it was important for me for them -- it was important for it to be a meeting of everyone because that's also a measure of how worried were they; right? Are you prepared to say these things to a group of your peers? Is that -- that's -- you judge your words carefully there and you should. So, number one, am I right to be as worried as I am? What do these guys think? And then number two concern was, okay, we do have some tools. Are -- how are the tools working? The people who have these tools, who are in charge of using them, how are they finding they work in practice? Those were the two things I tried to get out of the call. And it was a very useful call in terms of answering both those questions.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Well, I mean, I believe, and subsequent conversations underscore -- you know, if I were an editor, I would ask my -- still an editor, I would ask my reporter, “Is that a direct quote, or are you paraphrasing?” And I think subsequent conversations we had show that was a direct quote, and a direct quote that a Canadian bank CEO was relaying to me that he had heard on an investment trip to the US from someone who he wanted to invest in Canada; he was trying to persuade someone to invest in Canada. And that was a heart-stopping quote, for me. That was really a moment when having already been concerned, when I really understood that what was happening was profoundly jeopardizing the Canadian economy and putting investment in Canada at risk. And, you know, I don’t expect you guys to have read our April budget, but one of the things we identify in the April budget is underinvestment as being a core problem for the Canadian economy, an Achilles heel. We don’t have a high enough rate of business investment. We’ve done really well. Like, I don’t want to talk Canada down. Canada’s fantastic. Our economy is very strong; we have a great jobs recovery from the COVID recession. But one indicator where we’re underperforming is business investment. And, again, that can sound like a dry thing to focus on, but a lack of business investment ultimately translates into Canadians not having jobs and Canadians not having jobs that pay well enough to maintain a good standard of living. That’s what a lack of business investment means. And that quote relayed to me, really made me realize I had a duty of stewardship; I have a duty. I had, at that moment, a very profound duty to Canadians to stand up for them. And I’m surprised that I’m getting emotional, but I really felt it, and I felt like you know, the Canadian economy, it can feel like this amorphous thing; investment, it can seem amorphous; EV incentives, amorphous. But when I heard that, I realized, I’m the Finance Minister, I’m the Deputy Prime Minister, I have to protect Canadians; I have to protect their wellbeing, it’s being really, really damaged. So, yeah, that was a meaningful conversation for me and that was a very memorable quote, and for sure a spur to action.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Well, look; I can’t comment on what that investor was thinking; it’s second-hand, right? That was what a bank CEO reported to me an investor said to him. But it is my job to -- ultimately, what’s the job of the Finance Minister? To make sure Canadians have a good life, right? And part of how Canadians have a good life is capital is invested into the Canadian economy, so they have well-paying jobs. And what that quote said is something is happening in Canada that very profoundly hurts Canadian jobs. And if you go down a little bit, you’ll see -- and I didn’t remember this until I reread this note; you know, I tried to kind of rally the troops there in the call. I tried to say -- I can show you the line.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, please.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So this is it: “If the investor you speak of is American,...” I sort of said -- what I was trying to do was rally the bank CEOs, and kind of say to them, “You guys are playing for Team Canada. Don’t take that from your investors.” Don’t let guys -- you know, I don’t know if it was New York or wherever, but, like, “Don’t let those guys say to you that Canada is a banana republic. We’re a great country.” That’s what I was trying to say there, and I was trying to say, sure we have our problems, but you know, we -- as I say there, our report card looks not too shabby. I wanted the CEOs to have confidence in Canada and the Canadian economy so that they could relay that to investors. So, you know, I put up a good -- I think anyway, my objective was to imbue them with confidence because the confidence they project is important for Canada. But when I turned the Zoom off, I thought, “Wow, this is really serious.”
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. I don’t think it’s healthy for a democracy, for any democracy, for policy to be made, you know, at gunpoint, if you will. And that really also devalues the views and the contributions of all Canadians who express their political views and their political preferences in different ways; for example, by voting. So, yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, I think ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think -- I mean, again, I don’t have a sort of photographic or a video memory of exactly how that conversation evolved. And, in fact, I didn’t remember saying this until I read it again, but I’m sure that’s a faithful account. Having read the note -- having read this note what I think I was referring to is a comment made earlier in the conversation suggesting that the solution to this was a change in policy on vaccines. That’s what I think I was responding to.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Four o’clock.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It says right there 4 o’clock, yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
A Bloomberg economic analysis.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
And it was also fresh in my mind because in that bank CEO conversation, that number was also referred to by one of the CEOs. So I was aware of that Bloomberg economic analysis and I was also aware that on the street, that was the number that Canadian business leaders and international investors were seeing and citing.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
On Bay Street and probably on Wall Street too.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I cannot recall whether I did or not, but my -- yeah. So I can’t remember. But, you know, it was a very busy time. A lot of people were speaking. My objective was, in a succinct way, to convey to my colleagues, who aren’t responsible for the economy, that this was a really serious economic impact. So I think that it was possible, you know, say you’re a Cabinet Minister, you don’t have principally economic responsibilities, you might be seeing this mostly about, you know, damage to Ottawa shopkeepers. And that’s really serious. I don’t want to understate the human toll of that. but what I wanted to communicate was this is getting to have a macro impact that will be material on the Canadian economy. And the only other thing that I would say is, you know, with hindsight, if anything, I feel that number -- I feel that that statement, if that’s all I said there, I feel that statement understated the possible impact, because the real challenge was it was exponential. So as it happened, that trade blockade was effectively a weeklong thing, and that’s what statistics ended up recording. But had it gone on, then you would have seen not an arithmetic adding up the damage of week, plus week, plus week. I think what you would have seen, and why this really rose to the level of a profound threat to Canada’s economy, was the exponential nature of it, that the longer it went on, the greater threat that the U.S. would lose faith in us and our trading relationship would be irreparably damaged. The longer it went on, the greater the threat that foreign investors would write off Canada.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Probably more clearly to you right now than I did then. but I think I did communicate to them I was really worried.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, I wouldn’t say that. What I would say is a couple of things. One, one of the things that this occupation and the blockades really brought to our attention was how little official insight we had to crowdfunding and payment platforms, how little we knew for sure about what was going on there. And we’ve talked about that and we have since acted on a permanent basis to correct that. The -- there was very good reason to believe and in fact the subsequent report that the Commission did that I thought was very good on foreign donations documents in a lot of detail that there were foreign donations coming in to support the convoy. And so, you know, that was happening. Our own systems were weak at officially picking that up, and slow. And quite rightly, actually, there are a lot of checks and balances within the Canadian system about what Finance specifically learns; right? Because law enforcement and Finance are -- operate in different silos, and certainly elected Ministers and law enforcement have a lot of silos between them, and I think that’s a good thing. So yeah, so that would be my understanding of the situation.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, I would 100 percent say that. And the other thing I would say is, you know, we were operating in the fog of war. And we -- things were moving very quickly in real life on the ground. We had to operate based on the best possible information we could get at every single moment. And sometimes that meant using open-source information. It didn’t always mean relying on official government information and analysis that came through the Finance channels. And I feel, you know, not only comfortable doing that, but that that’s the right thing to do. In a fast moving, hour by hour situation like this, you have to gather information from a lot of different sources, reliable sources. But I believe that’s the responsibility of an elected Minister. And if you don’t do that, my experience in government has been, you know, quite rightly, stuff that you officially get through official channels as a Minister, I don’t know, it’s like flour that has been sifted many, many times. It’s like very pure, very verified. It’s gone through a lot of different hands and there have been a lot of different checks on it. That’s a good thing, because it has, you know, Government of Canada stamp of approval. And I think it’s really good for us to have those systems. But at the same time, I think to do your job as a minister you have to be aware of and actively seek out other sources of information, including open sources of information, and I think you have to hear some things for yourself. That's, for example, why for me having that call with the banks directly was really, really important, and I wasn't just going to rely on other people telling what they were hearing.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I wasn't part of that whole process.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I mean, that -- I wasn't part of that process and of the drafting of all of that, and Finance was not -- we weren't the people responsible for looking at that aspect of what was going on. And you know, as my previous comments have kind of underscored I think, my primary concern and anxiety around this was about the economic impact. And we've talked about that at some length, but that's -- that -- I felt my job was in the Cabinet and as a teammate with my colleagues, you know, what were they relying on me as the Minister of Finance to do. They were relying on me to figure out and communicate to them how big is the economic problem, and then they were relying on me to figure out and communicate to them, "Look, Finance guys, are you doing your job here? Are you awake? Are you using all the possible tools you have to stop the problem?" That was my job number two. And then job number three is, "Okay. If you think it's a really big problem", which we did, "if you think you're using all the tools which currently exist", which we did, number 3, "do you have any ideas? Is there anything in the Finance toolbox that could be devised that would help?" That was how I understood Finance's job.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think so.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. That's a lot of questions, but it's -- I mean, that is kind of, I would say, core -- you're getting at some core things to be grappled with beforehand during the time the measures were enforce and in our reflections afterwards. And I want to start by saying something that I was really, really worried about and extremely conscious of the whole time was, you know, I've talked a lot about my profound conviction that Canada was in economic jeopardy, but then as we were talking about, okay, what can we do about it, I had probably an equally profound and even emotional concern of we don't want anybody to get hurt. And one of my colleagues said to me in our conversation about all of this, as, you know, we had -- we were talking constantly, and I was sort of saying we really have to act, something has to be done, and I remember a colleague saying to me "my nightmare is blood on the face of a child." And I remember that very clearly because I was worried about that. And I really was conscious that yes, we had to end this, but it was so important for it to be ended peacefully without anybody being hurt. So that was a hugely important objective for me. I didn't want to be a person responsible for making Canada a place where people, and you have heard by now there were reports of children, would actually get hurt in our efforts to protect the country. That was wrong. And I felt so strongly we had to look for ways to resolve this, yes, that was urgent, but not physically hurting anyone, and look, especially not a change, but anyone was a really key objective for me. And that -- so that was one key thing, and that is -- was the consideration that very much shaped the development and use of the financial measures. From my perspective at the time, and also with hindsight, a virtue of these measures was no blood on the face of a child, no physical coercion required, and I thought that it was good that we came up with a way of creating some economic incentives for people to leave. So that was a very important consideration. And -- yeah. And a second really important consideration in this question, right, I think you're asking exactly the right question. It's the balance; right? I've talked a lot now about why it was such a big problem, why I think we needed to act. Are your actions kind of appropriate and proportionate? And I would say the other thing in my mind there was we needed to always have in our minds, yes, a concern about the number of people who would be restricted by these measures, but that always need to be -- needed to be balanced against an awareness of the number of people who would be protected by this action. So those were the things that I chiefly had in mind. And you know, I think at the end of the day, it was something like 280 accounts frozen. One of the reports I remember when we were at like 240 or 241 accounts frozen, my numbers won't be exact but I know you guys have all the numbers too, it was something like 57 people when we were at around 240. So I don’t have the exact figure of how many actual people, when we were at 280, but I think we have an idea of the ballpark. And so in my mind, I say okay, that I regret that that happened to those people, I really do. I would have prefer -- it was a serious thing; I would have preferred not to have had to do this. But in my mind, I weigh that against what I really believe is the tens -- hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs and families that we protected. So that’s kind of a high-level thing. I can talk about donations and family members, if you’d like me to?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I wouldn’t quite go that far. So, you know, had it been possible, if we lived in a universe where, you know, it was possible that a joint -- a jointly held family account, the family members could still have access to it but the person doing the illegal activity didn’t, that would be great. But that’s not how these accounts really work. So the intention was not to apply -- to create any incentives on people who were not personally choosing to engage in this illegal activity. I accept that that may have happened to some people, but that wasn’t the intention. The intention was really clear -- and I think, broadly, it worked -- was to create non-violent, non-physical incentives for people to stop doing this illegal activity, which was hurting Canadians very much. And what I would also say is, you know, I would have loved it if we had made the announcement on February 14th that, “We are going to take this action unless you leave”; ideal outcome would have been if everyone had left that night and if none of the measures had actually had to be used. There was no desire -- there was no desire to be in any way punitive. There was a desire to create non-violent incentives for people to do the right thing.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes. He's my Director of Communications.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
What I remember being concerned about, and again, this isn't something that I wrote. It's something that Alex wrote, so I can't speak to his specific conveying of what I said to him and what I was concerned about. But once we put the measures in place, I knew this was an extraordinary action, the kind of thing that I hope only happens, you know, once in a generation. And I knew that Canadians were very focussed on what was happening and concerned about it. And it was very important for me, having taken this extraordinary step, to be as careful as possible in communicating what was happening, not to over-egg the pudding, not to stretch the truth. And I didn't want to make a flat statement that no small donors have had their accounts frozen, although I very much hoped that was the case. I didn't want to make that categorical statement unless I knew for sure that was the case, because I really did understand that we were, you know, in terra incognita, and it was really important for us to do everything we could to maintain public confidence of Canadians in their government, including the confidence of the Canadians who disagreed with us, maybe most of all the confidence of those Canadians. And so my skepticism was sort of about saying to my team, "If I'm going to be in question period, if I'm going to be in a press conference, I only want to assert things that are absolutely true." And the position I didn't want to be in was, to take this example of donations, I'm really glad that no small donors had their accounts frozen. That was a good outcome and the one that I hoped would be the case. But I also knew that things were happening in real time, and what I didn't want to have happen was for me to go out to say categorically and reassuringly, "Don't worry, if you made a small donation, your account isn't going to be frozen," and then have someone show up and say, "Well, actually, it was." Because had that been the case and had I categorically asserted otherwise, then people who already had real doubts about our government would be feeling, wow, these guys are even lying to us. So that's where my skepticism came from.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I was concerned about bank tellers. You know, they are vulnerable, they’re front-line people, they don’t get paid that much money, they worked hard during covid. It was important to me for them not to be exposed to any danger in all of this. And actually, one of the motivations for crafting the measures the way we did was to protect them. And you’ll remember in the document we looked at from that Sunday, February 13th, a concern one of the CEOs expressed is absent a clear government instruction to the banks, the banks would be held responsible and that that was not fair or appropriate. And I actually agreed with that. And my central concern was, you know, that some poor teller not get yelled at and be held responsible, and even be in a dangerous situation. And so that was part of the thinking behind having these measures, to give the banks, at all levels, including the tellers, the ability to say, “This is the government’s decision, it’s not my decision. If you’re angry at someone, you know, be angry at Chrystia Freeland. Don’t be angry at me.” And I think that’s appropriate.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, I think by and large it did.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It’s a good question, and something that we thought about a lot, and we were constantly assessing. And so one of the things I think worth bearing in mind is, you know, sitting here today, we kind of are judging a period of time that’s frozen, whereas as we were making the decisions, we were making the decisions in real time as things were evolving. It’s a real difference in perspective. And I’ve been struck by it myself as I have reviewed documents to get ready for today. In that real-time process, you know, I can’t emphasize too much the extent to which our preference, everyone’s preference, would have been for the actions to stop the blockades and occupation, without the Emergencies Act needing to be invoked. That was overwhelmingly what we would have preferred to do. It is a measure of last resort. We understood it to be a measure of last resort. And we would have preferred not to have needed to resort to it. So on the financial side of things, we were constantly looking and seeing, okay, are the tools that are currently in place good enough, effective enough? And that was one reason, from my perspective, that I convened that call of the banks’ CEOs on February 13th. And what you’ll see in that call that we’ve gone over already is they were very clear that the measures were not enough. And there was one CEO there who talked about how very specifically they had identified an account, they went to get the court order, but by the time they did, just four hours had passed, and the money had moved. And that -- it is certainly consistent with my understanding of the financial system as moving faster than the legal system can move. The other concern, which was also raised on that call, which I was very alive to, was the inappropriateness of putting the onus on the banks, including the tellers that we’ve spoken about, about acting, that this had become a very politicized space and they felt, and one of the CEOs said in that conversation on Sunday, “We are being seen in taking this measure as having taken a political position.” And I thought it was really legitimate for them to say, “It’s not our job to make a political judgement here. You are the elected government. It’s your job. And it’s your job to bear that responsibility.”
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
In retrospect, I am glad that we put both of those measures in there. And I can explain each one, if you would like me to.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So on FINTRAC, as we said we would do on February 14th, this was the case of this crisis causing us, you know, to review out toolbox and kind of saying, “Okay. We’re missing a screwdriver.” And it turned out we couldn’t, I don’t know, build the screwdriver in time to use it in this situation, but we were missing a screwdriver, we identified that, and we said on February 14th, you know, “This is a gap we’ve identified. We’re going to fill the gap.” And we did in fact go ahead and do that. So FINTRAC now has those authorities, and that’s a good thing. As it happened in this sort of fast-moving situation, the way FINTRAC works means there was a lag time between those authorities being granted to FINTRAC -- not granted, being sort of put there in the measures, and that actually being actionable and meaningful in this specific case. I judge that to be a good thing because it meant that things came to an end quite quickly. But I also judge, as we judged at the time -- and as we said very openly to Canadians, and I don’t think there’s actually a lot of debate around this -- that it’s a good thing for FINTRAC to have this authority. So that’s FINTRAC. And it was also appropriate, as was the case, that in the Emergency Measures, that specific extra power was limited just to the time of the -- just to the actions and the measures, it wasn’t a universal granting. We went back with regulatory changes to give that authority to FINTRAC in a permanent way. And I think Isabelle Jacques has explained that -- you know, I guess theoretically a person can say, “Well, why not just take that regulatory action on February the 14th or February the 15th, right away rather than put it in the Emergency Measures?” And regulation just takes longer to fully develop and to do properly. But that was always the intention, and we did it, and I think that’s good. On the insurance, from my perspective, it actually is good that we put it in place, and it’s good that we didn’t have to use it. You will have seen in some of the previous -- in some of the previous documents you’ve discussed with me, and in some of previous testimony, that a huge preoccupation was tow trucks. I think Canadians will not forget Premier Kenney’s comments about tow trucks, for example. And it's something that I raised with Brian Deese. It was, like, this serious thing; you know, for lack of a tow truck, the economy was wrecked, right; for lack of a nail, a kingdom was lost. It was that kind of a situation. It all came down to lack of tow trucks. The insurance measure I saw, and I see, as like a virtual tow truck. It was specifically designed to create an incentive for the trucks to move. And I think it did. And there was news reporting at the time that suggests that some people moved their trucks because they saw the insurance measure was there; we were very public about it being there, and that that created an incentive to leave. And that’s what we wanted to have happen. I see the fact that it didn’t ever have to be used as a feature, not a bug. Again, from my perspective, the less action we had to actually take, the less we had to actually use these measures, the better. If the measures had been effective purely upon being announced, creating a deterrent and an incentive for people to leave, and if that had happened in 24 or 48 hours, and no accounts had been frozen, that would have been a wonderful outcome.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I don’t think I can answer that question because I don’t think I had any precise expectation. In a situation like that, I think you have to just hope for the best and plan for the worst, and I think that’s what we tried to do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. And maybe for my benefit, you can remind me what the date of this was, because I don’t remember.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Oka, thanks. Maybe you already -- maybe you said that and I didn’t ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Sorry. So Perrin Beatty is the head of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a person with whom I have now worked closely for a long time; during the NAFTA negotiations, also during the COVID recession when we were working on our economic response. He was particular -- he is someone who I -- whose collaboration I really value, of course, because he represents the Chamber and Canadian small business, and that’s an important constituency for the Department of Finance, obviously. But also because Perrin is a former Conservative Cabinet Minister, and in fact is the guy originally responsible for the Emergencies Act. But in his capacity as sort of a former Conservative Cabinet Minister, I do think that where possible, it’s really good for a Liberal government to try to have good relationships, good working conversation with former Conservative Ministers, to understand that point of view; to, you know, I fully understand that we’re talking now about a very strong action we took, which was polarizing for the country, for -- which spoke to a time of polarization in the country. But Perrin specifically, for me, is an example of a person with whom I work hard to maintain a relationship because I think where we can have consensus in Canada, where we can work cross-partisan lines -- and we can’t always do that, but where we can, I think that’s good for the country.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think they were significant, for sure, and effective. I’m not sure I would say they were the most significant, but I think for sure they were significant.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think that’s a question for Perrin.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
He could -- Perrin -- actually, I mean quite seriously, I think Perrin Beatty would be a very good person to talk to about this.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
He's very thoughtful, and -- yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I did not recall it at the time, and so it didn't immediately come to mind, but having reviewed my own notes, I do see that I spoke to him.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
"In", that's "in", yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Being perfectly honest, my recollection of the conversation is really sparked and based on having the notes. There was a lot going on, that's why I take notes. I do think, actually, that the conversation was mostly or was a lot about Ukraine and Russia, and Prime Minister Mulroney was the Canadian Prime Minister who recognised Ukraine, and is very proud of that, and it's an issue that I talk with him about, and I have found him to be a really smart and wise advisor on it, so I do talk to him about that. And I do have a relationship with him dating back to the NAFTA negotiations where he was a very good and helpful advisor to me and to the government.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Right. Russian invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February, and I think -- I can't -- you know, I've sworn on the Bible, what I'm about to say I can't swear 100 percent, but my recollection is that that conversation was actually chiefly about Ukraine, and him giving me some advice, and specifically, that he thought it was an important opportunity for Canada to play an important role in the world, and he wanted me -- he wanted to encourage me, and you know, through me, our government, not to underestimate the impact that Canada could have and the seriousness of this.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, thank you for the question, and I say that really sincerely. I think that is a really important question, and a serious and challenging one. You know, people could write books about it, maybe someone can write a PhD thesis about it one day. But I will try to offer two links that are central in my own thinking, and were at the time. The first is I really do believe our security as a country is built on our economic security, and if our economic security is threatened all of our security is threatened. And I think that's true for us as a country, and it's true for individuals. It's true for the people who work in a Windsor car plant and who, you know, in some dystopian counterfactual let's imagine that we hadn't acted, let's imagine that this had entirely spiralled out of control, let's imagine that immediate trade in the car sector had been imperilled and that the Americans just sort of said, "you know what, we just can't do this building of cars together with you guys, you're too unreliable." So you know, the people who would have lost their jobs there, the people in a steel mill in Hamilton who would lose their job as that relationship fell apart. The people in aluminum smelter in Quebec. For each of those people, having this all fall apart and the country's economy become profoundly undermined, that would undermine their security and it would undermine our security as a country. And if that seems too abstract, I think you're seeing it today in the geopolitical space, where we're actually seeing economic tools being weaponized in actual wars. I spoke yesterday with the Prime Minister of Ukraine because we're issuing sovereignty bonds. It's a good thing that Canada is doing. I -- it's good. But I spoke with him yesterday, and he was talking to me in the darkness because most of Ukraine's power and water had been taken out by Russian missiles. Now, I'm not saying that we're talking about missiles with Canada, but I'm saying that a tool being used to undermine Ukraine is directly going at its economy. And we're seeing something similar happening in Europe, where energy supply to Europe, entirely an economic measure, is being used to undermine Europe's security. So I do think that an attack on, or an undermining of a country's economy, that can fundamentally undermine that country's national security. There's a second aspect which I was really worried about, which is maybe less kind of highfalutin and philosophical and more human and specific. And what I was worried about was, you know, it sounds -- it can sound very abstract to say economic security can undermine national security, to say geoeconomics is a tool in geopolitics, but actually that's not that complicated. And I think that while these illegal blockades and occupation were going on, I think actual ordinary Canadians, who do not debate these concepts in their ordinary lives, were feeling their own security to be undermined and were getting really angry. And one thing that I was worried about, I've mentioned that I was worried about in the ending of these blockades and occupation, I really didn't want anyone who was part of the blockade and occupation to be hurt. Another thing that was very much in my mind was the possibility of violent conflict between people doing the blockading and occupying and other Canadians who were very angry about it. I felt that Canada was sort of a powder keg and that you could have a violent physical confrontation at any point. I didn't visit Windsor at the time, but I heard a lot of people saying, you know this could really get out of hand. And the people of Windsor did really understand how important that trade over the Ambassador Bridge is, and I did really fear you could have counterprotests and a confrontation there, and that would’ve been terrible for the people involved and terrible for our country. And I was worried in Ottawa, also. And this is now just very sort of personal eye-witness experience. But I don’t normally have RCMP security, and I think that’s a good thing; I think that says something good about Canada. But the RCMP, they know what I’m doing everyday, and it’s their job to judge whether they think I need security or not. And I have to say to the RCMP officers who are here, who I recognize, they do a very good job of it, of making that judgment, I think. So a measure for me of how much Ottawa was a powder keg, was the fact that, I think from the end of January, the RCMP judged that I did need to have RCMP with me, just walking around. And so I didn’t feel personally in danger because the RCMP were taking care of me. But I do remember one morning -- and I’m sorry, I didn’t write it down in my notebook so I can’t tell you the date, but I remember one morning when I was walking from my hotel to my office, I walked past a parked truck and there was a young woman walking there too. And the truck honked really loudly, and she shouted something not very nice and made an obscene hand gesture, and the truck honked again really loudly. And I was really glad that I was there, and more importantly, that the RCMP was there, because I thought this is exactly the kind of thing -- like, imagine no-one had been there, it was just this small, young woman, and this big truck, and a person in it. And she was mad, and I just thought, you know, there are dozens and dozens of these things happening every day, and you know, God forbid that one of them should actually flare into violence and physical harm. So I was worried about that too, and that does speak to the economic challenge because many, many Canadians, while this was happening, understood that this -- for them, this threat to Canada’s economic security, for many, many Canadians, it was a personal threat to them, and they felt that their government was not protecting them. And they were right, we weren’t, for a while. And it was a real danger, I think, that that totally understandable and reasonable feeling that, “My economic security is being undermined by these illegal blockades and occupation. My government isn’t taking care of me, maybe I have to take care of myself.” And that would have been terrible, had that happened. That’s why we have a government.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I don’t recall the exact date, but I’m prepared to believe you are citing ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- it correctly.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I’m -- don’t recall the exact dates myself, but I do know we didn’t have the mandate and then it came into force.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
There is absolutely a distinction between things a government can do by regulation and things it can only ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- do by legislation.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No. I actually -- I believe that, taken as a whole, the Public Health measures that Canada put in place were very, very important ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- for the health and safety of Canadians ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, I’m afraid I don’t agree. In January we had an Omicron wave; we were still fighting COVID; and there was a real value in encouraging as many Canadians as possible ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- to get vaccinated.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That’s right.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I believe then, and I believe now, that creating strong incentives for Canadians to be vaccinated protected the health ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- of vaccinated Canadians, and protected ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- the health of our country overall.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Let me start with one aspect of that timeline, which is obviously when COVID first hit us, vaccines didn’t exist. And then even when vaccines arrived, it took time for them to be distributed. So of course vaccine mandates couldn’t be put in place before vaccines existed ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- or were made available.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I am prepared to accept that that’s the case. I can’t recall specifically.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- I’m prepared to accept that ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- that’s the case.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I’m not an expert in the history of vaccine compensation funds ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- in Canada.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I’m really not an expert ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- in vaccine compensation funds. If the direction of the question is to suggest that the COVID vaccines are more dangerous in some way, than previous vaccines we’ve used in Canada, I’ll say, one, I’m not a health expert, ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- but I ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- believe very much in, really, the advice, the effectiveness, the thoroughness of Health Canada.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
They’re very good at judging ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- the safety of vaccines. And I will say I have been vaccinated four times; my children have been vaccinated.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
But it does speak - - it does speak to my confidence in the vaccines, if ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- I’ve had my children vaccinated. It speaks to ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- my belief that they’re safe ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The mandate?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I am not the Health Minister, and I’m not going to speak to ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- specific moments that we had advice. But ---
-
Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- what I will say is we were very careful and thoughtful throughout COVID in the public health measures that we ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- put in place and acted based on advice of PHAC.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I can't recall the specific dates, but ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- I'm prepared to accept ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- what you're saying.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I don't know here personally, but I have read about her.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I don't know him personally, but I've read about him.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Can you say the third name?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I can't say that I know as much about him or I've heard as much about him.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
What was that final last name?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I'm afraid I'm not ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- so familiar with that final name, but ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- Tamara Lich and Chris Barber I've heard of, yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I had heard of their names, yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I had read their names in the media.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I can't say 100 percent, not having reviewed what I read, but my recollection is they were reasonably prominent, and so I think it's reasonable to think that I would've read their names.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I haven't familiarised myself with her biography ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- before coming here.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I really haven't studied about her before coming here.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I want to be careful ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- that I say things that I know for sure are true. I am certainly Canadian, and I'm born in Peace River, Alberta.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
In terms of designating who is a terrorist and who isn't, that is not my job as Minister of Finance or Deputy Prime Minister.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
We have authorities whose job is to do that.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes. We have intelligence services, we have enforcement agencies whose job is to determine who is a terrorist ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- and that's entirely appropriate. It's ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Can I say one thing about that?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So that handwritten note in my notebook, I can assure you that was not a meeting with the Director of CSIS.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
With him, I didn't have a meeting.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It doesn't say that. It says it's with a gentleman called Dave.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That meeting -- that is not an account of a ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- meeting with Dave Vigneault ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- because I didn't have ---
-
Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- a meeting ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- with the CSIS Director.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I need to see my whole notebook that you're referring to, but I can tell you for certain ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I can tell you for certain that I did not have a meeting during this time with the CSIS Director.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I can exclude that 100 percent.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I'm going to need advice from my counsel on whether things I said in Parliament I should be speaking about.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I'm not an expert in this.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do -- yes, I do remember the Terry Fox statue. I remember discussing it with my children ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- who were very upset.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I don't remember specifically ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- what -- how the Terry Fox statue was ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- implicated in this, but I do remember ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- reading about it, and I remember -- I remember it specifically because my children were aware of it ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- and were upset.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I am not going to go into -- I really don't think it's my job or helpful for Canadians for me to go into a discussion of what is okay and not okay to do with the Terry Fox statue.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, you've made a couple of leaps beyond anything that I've said.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I described in my testimony a moment ago two specific areas where I had concern. I was worried about the potential for conflict between angry people in Ottawa and the occupation.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I -- can I finish the answer because ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- I have something to add? And as I said in my earlier testimony, and I believe the Mayor of Windsor shared this concern, I was concerned about the possibility of that kind of a conflict in Windsor, and I was concerned about the situation in Coutts ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- which we heard about at the IRG ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- on the Saturday.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
My reference to Coutts just now was very specific. At the IRG on Saturday, the 12th of February, the RCMP Commissioner raised with us the possibility that there were weapons there, and that was a source of great concern.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I’m not a police expert, but that seems like a reasonable common-sense observation.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The concern about a single weapon somewhere in Canada, and as you say, I think that one weapon being investigated somewhere in Canada, if that were to happen today, certainly.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, that’s something I was very concerned about.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I am familiar with the Transparency International Index, but I haven’t looked at it recently.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I have to say that I disagree with the premise of the question. I think Canada is a very transparent democracy. And in fact, the Commission that we’re part of right now is a part of Canadian transparency.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That’s why it’s important.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, and with apologies, I can’t agree with the premise of the question. I think that -- but what I can say is I think that the fact that this Commission exists, that these hearings are being held, that they’re public, is really important for Canada and is a measure of Canadian transparency.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, here, I do believe that transparency and accountability are important, but I also recognize that Cabinet confidentiality in many issues needs to be preserved for a reason and, you know, there are areas where transparency is not appropriate, and I recognize that as well.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think that the Canadian Government should always seek not to mislead Canadians ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- first and foremost, because that’s wrong, and that is not the way we should treat Canadians.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I have to say prior to coming here, I have not specifically reviewed specific statements of the Prime Minister. If you want to point to a specific one, ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- maybe we could discuss it.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Based on some ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So first of all, good afternoon, Ms. Krajewska. Nice -- well, maybe I shouldn’t say nice.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, but I -- good afternoon. And I will try to answer your questions. And I think when you say testimony, you’re referring to the ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- two hours this morning. So to be very -- try to be precise, yes, as Finance Minister, in my judgement around the economic impact of the illegal blockades and occupation, certainly the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge was a very significant escalation.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, I don’t think I want to be so precise about that. What I am very clear about is the blockade of the bridge made this a real economic crisis for Canada. And that was a moment when, as Finance Minister, I really had to figure out a way to stop the harm to Canada from getting worse and from really snowballing and irreparably damaging our country.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, that -- by -- I mean, I wasn’t taking notes of what I said, but I believe that.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, here let me be sort of very precise about my state of mind. From my perspective, the -- we had a number of different, but certainly inspired by one another, occupations and blockades across the country. There was the occupation of Ottawa. And I can’t tell you the chronology of them. I’m sure you familiar with them. So there’s the occupation of Ottawa, there was Coutts, there was Emerson. In terms of economic impact, the Ambassador Bridge was the most significant. There was also, I believe, Sarnia, Niagara, and Surrey. So from my perspective, what was happening was this kind of metastasizing, wack-a-mole, copycat events around the country and some of them had a greater specific economy impact than others. The Ambassador Bridge sort of stepped up the impact. But it was not the case, in my view, that this was just the Ambassador Bridge.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, can I say yes and offer an explanation?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, just ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. Well, I would just say you are a lawyer, so a person ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- does have to be careful.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
But -- and I say that with the greatest of respect for all the lawyers who are here. But look, the point that I just want to be clear about, and I do think that there has been in some of the public thinking about this a lack of clarity, is from my perspective, one way that you could look at the economic harm was what happens every day arithmetically and just add it up. From my perspective, that grossly understates the potential economic harm that was being done, because what I was really worried about was that as this goes on, every single hour, more damage is done to American confidence in us as a trading partner, and more damage is done to us an investment destination. Witness the Banana Republic conflict.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I mean, Banana Republic wasn't my term ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- but it was a term that had an impact on me, for sure.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I totally do. And if I can be personal for one moment, in my life as a person and a writer and an elected politician, I would always prefer for myself to be on the same side as the Civil Liberties Association. That -- these are values I hold very dear, and I - - so I understand the urgency with which you champion them.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I absolutely agree with that.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do recognize that that sometimes happens. And I also recognize that laws are enforced against people committing acts of civil disobedience. People can believe in something and can bravely commit those acts and pay the price of the legal penalty.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
If the tendency of these questions is to equate the economic harm that was being done to Canada and that would have risen had these illegal occupations and blockades continued with the harm done by a general strike, then I strongly disagree.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
They do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Certainly, but the economic harm -- you know, to take those two specific instances, very, very limited actually compared to the damage being done to Canada. And if I may, you know, had what was happening in Canada been about, I don't know, the field behind the National Art Gallery being occupied for a long time, and maybe some comparable public park in Windsor being occupied, and so on across the country, that would have been entirely legitimate protest, but that wasn't what was happening.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I'm going to allow myself one personal comment, which is I did make a bet with myself that you and I would end up talking about Solidarność.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, I am aware of that, and I don't think you'll be surprised to think that I thought about that at the time. And more recently and more specifically, I thought about the Maiden in Ukraine. And -- when we took this action. And let me talk about a few differences, and the main one is this. Solidarność, as you know very well, was a protest against a government that was illegitimate. That was where -- from whence it drew its power and legitimacy. This was people rising up against an authoritarian, and I would even say in the case of Poland, colonial regime.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
In Canada, what happened was a democratically elected government that was actually acting on policies that we had campaigned on just that summer, so it was a fresh democratic mandate. There was no lack of transparency with the people of Canada. And people who disagreed with those policies were holding the country's economy hostage.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
And that was not appropriate.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
A hundred percent. And I am in no way, in no way suggesting that the activist is anti-democratic. On the contrary. The right to protest, I think it's a feature, not a bug, of democracy. But what I was saying, which I believe very strongly, is there is a big difference between acts of popular resistance and even revolution against an authoritarian regime and protest in a democracy.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So many things packed in there.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So, so many things packed in there, and many of them I agree with. I have reported on a lot of authoritarian regimes that spoke about their stability as something that should be attractive to investors. And clearly, I strongly disagree with that argument. My concern, when it came to the economic security of Canada, was about our ability not to not have political debate; political debate is a sign of healthy society . You know, the fact we’re having this Commission, that’s a healthy democracy. The fact that in Question Period we yell at each other; I really don’t like it but it’s a sign of a healthy democracy. What was undermining of Canada’s economic security sufficiently dangerously that I believed we needed to act, and it’s the right thing to do, was that our trade was being stopped, and was being serious blocked. And I was very worried that that was handing arguments to US protectionists, who were already on the move, and that had that relationship been seriously damaged, that would really hurt Canada.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I did not say War Museum, and I didn’t ---
-
Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- say placard, -- -
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- but the basic idea, I think we’re in ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I, you know, am not going to, right now, try to define with you specifically, you know, what is -- you know, give examples of protests. But I will say, and I really agree with, and I think one of the lines that very much in my mind in this decision is, I do agree with you that in a democracy the right to protest is important and has to be protected. And, yeah, obvious -- I mean, that’s such an obvious statement, and I agree with that, and I agree -- yeah, since it’s obvious I’ll say it and I won’t gild the lily.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Obviously, I don't have word by word recall of what I said, but that's what I believe and sounds like you're reading the transcript, so ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I am.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I am.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Not precisely. You know, if the direction of these questions is to ask me, did I believe we were acting within legal authorities granted by the Emergencies Act, if that's where this question is leading, then my answer is, yes, I believed we had the authority to do what we did. And I hope no one is surprised by my saying that. Had I not believed it, I would not have done it, and I wouldn't be here speaking, you know, with sadness but confidence that we did the right thing.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
It's a big question and so I was offering an answer in several parts. And I offered the first part of it, and I can continue if you'd like.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
And I also really do want to be respectful and answer this really important question. But it's a big question, so I'm going to have to take it in stages. And I offered the first stage. I can carry on if you'd like.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So that was my first stage. Second stage is in terms of, you know, one of the things that this Commission is I think quite rightly investigating, you know, was the government acting within its authorities. For me, as Finance Minister, an important factor in the judgment I came to, which is that we were, was the expert advice that we received. I'm not a lawyer. I rely on the judgment of officials who advised us and on expert legal advice. And I say that even as I am very confident that it was the right decision and confident in taking personal political responsibility. I can also speak to what I saw and experienced and believed that falls within the scope of the serious violence against persons or property point. But I do want to be clear that I'm not speaking here as someone with an expert legal opinion, but I'm speaking as a Minister who made a political judgment and as someone who was also in Ottawa. So some of the things that factored into my thinking about it were, as I described in my testimony this morning, a real concern that we were in a tinderbox situation, where the economic threats and the threats generally, that -- and the damage that were being created both by the Ottawa occupation and the Ambassador Bridge did risk, I felt at every moment, some kind of conflict between protesters and counter-protesters. I saw that and experienced it myself just being a person who was in Ottawa. I felt it was a tinder keg that could be sparked at any moment and was therefore very dangerous. And although I didn't see it myself, I heard accounts of Windsor of a situation there which I found to be very credible. I was ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- also influenced -- can I say one more thing?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Which speaks to this. I was also influenced by our IRG meeting on I think it was the Saturday the 12th, where we heard from the RCMP Commissioner about concerns that there were serious weapons in Coutts. And that really raised the stakes in terms of my degree of concern about what could be happening there, but also what could be happening in this sort of whack-a-mole copycat situation across the country.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I -- I mean my counsel may have something to say but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of what I said just now or of what I said this morning. What I think is fair is, first of all, that I relied on expert legal judgment to make a very important and weighty legal decision. What I also said is, as a person who was here in Ottawa, I did see a real danger of violence. And then finally, what I described in my testimony this morning was the way in which the economic security of our country, I really believe, is a part of our national security, but that was a much broader conversation we were having about a broad set of issues, which I certainly think are important for us to think about and consider.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
And again there, I really do not want to shirk my personal political responsibility. And while this was a grave and serious decision, we took it carefully and thoughtfully. And I believed it was the right decision then, and I believe today it is the right decision.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
But I’m also conscious -- if I may continue?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I’m also conscious that I am not a lawyer and I’m not a person who can give expert opinion on the precise parsing of these authorities. It was important for me to be assured that we did have the authority to act, and I received, as a Cabinet Member, assurances that we had those authorities from people who I believed were qualified to offer those assurances.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
If your question is, was it possible to grant FINTRAC -- to give FINTRAC these expanded powers through regulation, that is correct, and I said that this morning.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
We did go on to grant those powers through regulation.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
A hundred percent.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Absolutely.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Good afternoon.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I can’t say I’m familiar with them right now. Maybe I’ve heard of them, but ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I knew that some people asserted that it might.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I don’t agree with the estimates that are provided there, and I don’t agree with the assertion that the vaccine mandates themselves caused problems for our supply chain.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, I don’t agree with that.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The vast majority of Canadian truckers are, in fact, and were at the time vaccinated, and supported the vaccine mandates.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I can't ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- say whether that’s ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- true or not, but I have no reason to -- let me say this. Trucking is very important for the Canadian economy, trucking is very important for our supply chains, and trucking is very important for cross- border trade. That, I am very prepared to agree with.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The challenge here for me is I disagree with the fundamental premise, and this was something that was looked at carefully by Minister Alghabra, and also by the Minister of Health.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, that would be fair.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Not solely on mine, but it was something I was working on.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The Russian invasion.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
When it actually happened, yes, I think that is the biggest security -- national security challenge our country has faced.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, it was.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No. What I would describe as what we saw happening from the moment that the initial occupation began is copycat protests happening across the country, and that posed a particular national challenge.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Certainly. The ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The -- in particular, blockade of the Ambassador Bridge exposed the vulnerability of the U.S. economy, particularly the car sector to the Canadian car sector.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I absolutely disagree with that.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That’s correct.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I had spoken to Brian Dietz before and since, but the speed and urgency with which he got in touch with me was definitely significant and relevant.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
What he said to me, as I reported in that readout, was that they were very concerned that because of the blockades, U.S. factories would shut down.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, both of those things are true.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That’s true.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, I wouldn't agree with that characterization.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I would disagree with that.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I disagree with a great deal of that characterization.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, I disagree with many of the premises in that question and I would be happy to elaborate, but it seems that we're out of time.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Thank you for the question, and as a former intergovernmental relations minister, I understand it and I really do understand the importance and sometimes the challenges of that federal/provincial relationship. In this particular situation, it was a very complex fast-developing situation, and each minister was responsible for managing a series of relationships and bringing that information to the table. My colleague, Dominic LeBlanc, is an extremely able minister, an extremely able Intergovernmental Affairs minister, and I relied on him, as did everyone around the table, to manage that relationship and to bring to us and to the table his knowledge of the views of the provinces and territories.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
In my view, Minister LeBlanc very effectively, from what I could see, very effectively communicated with the provinces and territories, and communicated with us his -- what he learned from those conversations. That discussion that happened on the Monday was important. I wasn't part of that discussion, but it happened and it was important that it happened.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, there, I would say this was an area of responsibility for Minister LeBlanc, who I do absolutely believe does that very difficult job very well, and I had confidence in how he did that job.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think so.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The view that I do hold, as we discussed earlier today, is one of my very grave concerns about bringing these illegal blockades and this illegal occupation to an end was the danger that there would be violence, and that there would be violence directed towards the protesters. I was particularly concerned because of reports that children were present. And that was one of the reasons that I felt the financial tools that were put in place by the Emergencies Act were a better option. From my perspective, the job of these tools was to create a peaceful, non-violent incentive for people who were doing something illegal to leave. And I think those tools did work.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, not at all. On ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- February ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
May I? May I explain?
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No problem. It can be hard on the video calls. So on February 21st, when I made those comments, it was looking back on the events of the week that had passed, and I certainly believed then and I believe today that the financial tools we put in place aided in peaceful resolution of all of those occupations and blockades. The reports that we heard, the reports that were in the media, the reports from law enforcement were that many people did leave as a result of the incentives created by those tools. And then the final thing that I think is important to emphasise is we said on February 14th "we are putting these tools in place so please leave now so that these tools never need to be used." So any person who had their account frozen had due warning that they were engaged in illegal activity and that they should stop doing that activity. And the other thing that I would point to that I think did work well is the accounts were very quickly unfrozen after the illegal activity ceased.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Again, there, that was never the intent, that -- to in any way affect family members. Certainly the consequence, the reality of people having joint bank accounts made that impossible to entirely avoid. But I would say that the family members whose presence at the protest, at the illegal occupation and blockades, caused the accounts to be frozen, had a very easy readily available remedy with a lot of notice. They could have left before the freezing began, and as soon as people did leave the accounts were unfrozen.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I am.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I am.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That's right.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I'm very aware of that and was motivated by my awareness of that in some of the actions we've been discussing today.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I think you've been doing a very good job of telling us that, and certainly, I'm, you know, very prepared to agree with you, that Windsor was very specifically and meaningfully affected.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Extremely.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Well, let's get it off the ground, but I'm very optimistic about it.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I believe that's the case.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
A hundred percent.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
One hundred percent. It helped us get the 3M masks, in fact.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, Windsor is definitely an important partner.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Okay. Thank you.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Not intimately, but I know it exists.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I believe so.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Well, maybe not entirely. And I will say I am reading this news report for the first time as I see it on my screen. So my response is a little bit limited. But even in the paragraphs that you've displayed for us, the -- there is a misunderstanding if this email is genuine, and I'm just saying because ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- I haven't seen it; right? And ---
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
--- reporting is -- no, no, no, reporting is a hard thing to do. I used to be a reporter. But the email that is reported on here saying if the federal government directs us to, that is a misunderstanding of how the Order worked. We were always very conscious that it wasn't the job of the federal government or the Ministry of Finance to name specific names or to even know which names were involved.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The way the Order worked was that that was to be a communication between law enforcement and the financial institutions. And I know it's not my job to ask you to agree with me, but I hope you will agree with me that that was appropriate, that elected Ministers shouldn't be involved in naming specific names. So that was a misunderstanding.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
That -- yes, yes exactly.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So let me say a couple of things. First of all, I’m seeing this email now for the first time, and as far as I know, it had nothing to do with me.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Second of all, it’s certainly the case, that the Order was -- ceased to apply after February 23rd. And maybe the third thing, for people who are listening, that it’s worth pointing out, is all the accounts were unfrozen around that time.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
With real respect, I have to say I think these are questions for FCC and not for me.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
The Order applied to all financial institutions across the country.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
No, there was not.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
There absolutely was not.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, it would.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I do.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I was.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I can’t pretend to have memorized the exact date and content of the letter, but I was aware that Minister Alghabra was in touch with the Truckers Association, and that they were very concerned.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I absolutely do, and that’s in my timeline, I think it’s in my notebook, that when we spoke earlier today about concerns around achieving a soft landing for the Canadian economy, concerns about rising inflation, concerns about the rise in interest rates, which the Bank of Canada -- with which the Bank of Canada would respond to rising inflation, that was very much on my mind, and I mentioned that we had already had a January inflation number which was elevated. We expected inflation. We expected an elevated number -- the number that we had in January was for December. We expected in February to learn of an elevated number for January. We were aware that the bank was concerned, and that made us concerned. Definitely.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Sure. And if could just say one more thing on the Bank of Canada, that wasn’t in an interview with Bloomberg, Government Macklem spoke at a press conference about it. so that was widely reported.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, it was. And I remember when that came out very, very clearly. And what was being publicly said by U.S. officials, all of it worried me. But I think if I had to identify for people here one particular line that worried me the most, it’s those two sentences. And in particular: “It doesn’t matter if it’s an adversary or an ally -- we can’t be this reliant on parts coming from foreign countries.” That is a huge threat to Canada’s entire auto sector. And the point especially there that she’s underscoring, “adversary or ally”, because a point that we had been making, and actually, we had made successfully, for example, with the 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, was those were inappropriately levied against Canada by the U.S. because we were an ally. And so you could rely on us. And that point there is saying, “You know what? You shouldn’t differentiate between, for example, Canada and China. The United States is equally at risk if it has an economic dependency.” And having U.S. elected representatives assert that publicly and connect it to this blockade and say, “Look, by relying on Canada, you’re going to lose your job,” that was very, very dangerous for us. And I will also point out this was a democratic member of the Michigan delegation. And I think later on in the Tweet, Representative Slotkin talks about being in touch with the White House. These were the people that the White House was talking to about this situation, but also about the EV incentives. And their views mattered very, very much.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, I was.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I was aware of that. And we spoke earlier this morning about my conversation that day, the 10th of February, with Brian Deese, where he said, and I can’t recall exactly, but something like another 12 hours and all the northeast will shut down. So I was aware of the impact. And at some level, I wasn’t surprised, because I did know -- I knew two things, that the auto sector is so hugely integrated and, you know, the U.S. plants are dependent on us, but we’re also dependent on the U.S. plants. Those parts go across six times; right? So I knew that. And the other thing, which I think Rhys Mendes spoke to you guys about, but is very true, is the auto sector operates on a just in time production process. They don’t like to hold big stores of parts because that’s expensive. And so the industry requires very reliable and very speedy supply chains, and if there’s a break in them, yes, it stops production. So I knew that intellectually. I would say though, at a kind of emotional level, it still, you know, was breathtaking how quickly it had happened, how quickly the effect mounted, how swift the political impact was, and I think that was the case also for the White House. And that was reflected in my Brian Deese conversation, where he sort of said, “Yeah, you’ve been telling us about the integration, but now I really see it.”
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
So I was glad that the conversation happened because I knew it was important and valuable for the Prime Minister to have a chance to explain the situation, to discuss the situation directly with the President, so that was good, but -- and I had asked Brian for that call to happen, but at another level, I was quite concerned by how quickly the call was set up because the speed of response spoke to me about the degree of concern.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Very unusual, and her -- the content of her statement was also very striking. So she makes the point, first of all, that she is talking to the White House, she's talking to the congressional delegation, the people who we have been speaking about. There is a real concerted push. And then I can't quite see it here, yeah, this: "We [can't] let another minute to go by unnecessarily..." That was also striking to me and speaks to how I perceived, and I believe rightly, the economic situation. That every minute, every hour counted, that the situation was deteriorating really hour by hour and Canada was being very harmed. And so that speaks to why I believed, and I think it was the right judgement, we needed to act really swiftly.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I have. The -- and I'll give you a couple of examples. PDAC is a big annual Toronto mining conference. If you're in the mining industry you will have heard of it, it's famous among miners, and Canada is rightly proud to host it every year and to be the mining capital of the world. PDAC this year, because of COVID restrictions, it's normally held in the winter but it was held in June, and at PDAC in Toronto in June, Jonathan Wilkinson, the Minister of Natural Resources, and I convened a table to talk about critical minerals and metals, and electric vehicles. And one thing that really struck me was -- and we had sort of miners there, processors, and also car companies and car parts people, sort of the full circle of that sector. One of the people there, the Canadian CEO of a Japanese car company, proactively, so went around the table, everyone raised their points about critical minerals and metals and EVs and opportunities in Canada. And this CEO, who, you know, is a guy whose job is to get his Japanese headquarters to invest in Canada, and he raised in his remarks, I think it was the first thing he said, "I'm still getting questions around the blockades and the occupation. And I need to be able to say to my headquarters in Japan that this is not going to happen again in Canada. That they can be confident that that access to the U.S. market is not going to be impeded." So that was very striking to me, that still in June, even after our action, which worked, there were still those lingering concerns, and it made me glad that we had acted when we did and not later. And then in -- just in October, I was in Winsor, which we've heard so much about earlier today, speaking about the economy, actually at a big car parts event, and one of the car industry journalists asked me a question, and I'm -- you know, it's on the public record exactly what he said, but I'm just recalling broadly. His question was basically, "Can you offer assurances that something like the convoy and the blockade won't happen again? It continues to be a major concern in the car industry here." And again, I was surprised that someone in October was still asking the question, and it was further evidence to me of how serious the threat had been. And you know, while taking very seriously the magnitude of our action and the reluctance that any government should have on ultimately acting as we did, that question was a confirmation for me that there was very great harm that was in the process of being done, and I was glad that we acted to stop the harm.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I absolutely did not.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, that would be correct.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I'm not the main person who speaks to or hears from police officers, but it is my understanding that the tools were used and that they were effective.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I remember that exchange from this morning. I didn't remember that email from the time, but I remember our conversation this morning.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I didn't write it, and I can't remember whether I read it at the time or not, but what I can say 100 percent, based on the conversation that I had, which I both recorded and remember, certainly parts of it with striking, kind of branded on my brain clarity, is when I spoke to the bank CEOs on the Sunday they were very, very concerned. They did not feel the situation was under control. We did not discuss with them specific measures. I was sort of in listening mode, apart from kind of saying to them, you know, “Buck up, gentlemen, and do tell your investors that Canada is great,” and sort of wanting to give them confidence in our leadership. But, as you have seen from the transcript, they volunteered a number of them -- two things: one, grave concern about the economic situation, and two, absolute concern, and I would even say frustration, that the tools available to them were both inadequate. You remember from that transcript, there was the point made of, “We tried to get a court order but it took four, and by the time we tracked it down, the money had moved to another account.” And then also the concern, which I take seriously, about the banks being concerned that acting absent some form of government instruction would put them in jeopardy, the Fox News point that was there.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I suppose you could put it that way. And I think what they -- I think what the banks were saying -- and not “I think”, I mean people can read through the transcript -- is they were saying, “This is a real threat to our economy and you, the government, need to act.” And I think they were right. And the other thing that I will say there is it's not in the ordinary way of things for leaders of big Canadian businesses to want the government to do more in the economy. I would say, quite the contrary. And at this particular moment, the banks had reason to not be so happy about things the government was doing. This followed our election, during which we had campaigned on the 15-percent Covid-recovery dividend which would be levied on banks and financial institutions, and we had campaigned on a permanent tax on the banks. So I would guess -- and you could speak to them, but I would guess that if you had spoken to the bank’s CEOs at the beginning of January and said, “Would you like the Liberal Government to take a more active position when it comes to economic management of Canada,” they would say, “No, we wouldn’t like that, and we would certainly like them not to impose these taxes.” So I just say that because the fact that they were saying the tools were not adequate and, “You need to do more,” was particularly compelling to me because they were not a constituency that was inclined to seek strong government action in the economy.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense, but it was Bharat Masrani speaking
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
Yes, that was the concern, as we have also discussed already today, a concern about tellers being in jeopardy. And the Fox News reference there is especially significant because many Canadian Banks have significant operations in the United States. And so having Fox News attack you isn’t a problem only because Canadians might be watching, but if you have a big US operation, it’s a problem because your American customers will be watching. And I do think that was a problem that was legitimate to raise, and I was concerned about it.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I was not intending to do so. And to be clear, I was speaking about the advice we received, which I think the Commission -- some of which I think the Commission has heard about earlier from officials.
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Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister (GC-FIN)
I guess I should say thank you very much. And I will say to you, Commissioner, and all the lawyers doing this work, I do think it’s really important work, and it’s important for Canadians to be able to see and hear you asking the government and other people questions about this very important and serious decision.