YouSaid · the spoken record

Gerald Butts

lines on the record: 94
first: 2020-03-30
most recent: 2020-03-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, and you guys in the first Obama term were sort of the test case for a lot of the new kind of conservative politics, the really hard-edged right-wing politics. I don't know how I think we have this conversation when you were there, but how many times was Obama described as a divisive figure? Right, he wasn't a divisive figure. He was in the political interests of his opponents for him to be thought of that way. And I think that on the progressive side of the equation, we have to get a lot smarter about that sort of thing.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. I know you're not one of those people, which is why I feel comfortable raising it, but I have a lot of faith in young people, David. You work with them all the time here. And I think that they're just. They're just beginning to realize what kind of power they have to shape their own future And they're going to seize it.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is changing, and I think it's changing generationally. I think I have a lot of faith in, I know a lot of people from my generation and yours can too often look down our noses at millennials and Gen Z, but I have a lot of faith in.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Working class people, yeah. I think that if Hillary Clinton was right for all time about one thing, it was that remark about there being a global right-wing conspiracy. Because on climate, there really is. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but the Murdoch press and their finance hears have spent a lot of strategic effort and money to convince people that climate action is not in their interest, right? And I think that we're seeing this. I know we're seeing this most conclusively in Australia as we speak, but it's a dynamic that's infected politics all over the West for the last 30 years.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The velocity at which this issue is traveling, I think it's a globally significant thing what happens to the politics of Australia in the aftermath of these wildfires. But most importantly, I think that I have a 13-year-old and a 12-year-old kid. I think about I'm intimately aware of the science. I'm not a scientist myself, but I certainly have read in detail most of the major studies. I know enough to be really concerned. And these dates like 2040 and 2050, I start thinking that my kids are going to be younger than I am now then. So it's, I think, a scientist once said to me that the reason climate scientists sound like alarmists is because we're alarmed. And I think politics needs to catch up to that sense of urgency.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I think, and I should take the opportunity to stump for Eurasia Group because I think it's one, obviously, I wouldn't have associated with the firm if I didn't think highly of it. Ian Bremer, who founded it, it's Climate change is becoming a geopolitical risk issue in a way that I think few are prepared for. I think in our last election, we've gone in a 10-year cycle from a government winning an election opposed.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, we lifted a million people out of poverty, including 300,000 kids in four years. We have a real climate change plan for the first time in the history of the country. Whatever happened last February is insignificant to me personally compared to those things.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I didn't. I didn't. And nobody does. But you also know, and you would know this as well if not better than I do, that every day in those jobs, it's sort of a political friend in Canada of mine said, it's like in Star Wars where they have to fly the fighter jets through the asteroid belt. Someday an asteroid's going to crack the windshield. And it could be tomorrow over that issue. It could be Wednesday over another issue. And you just have to be a little, in my view, a little bit stoic about it and see it for what it is. I mean, at the end of the day, I got to work with a lot of people who I deeply respect and admire to do things that I really believe needed doing for my country. And who gets to do that?”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it's a question of whether you're an even keel. I mean, I think that one of the most, one of my favorite writers, David Wallace, wrote this, that the most important freedom we have in life is the freedom to choose what we pay attention to, right? And I was keenly aware I was going to do basically what you did. I was going to leave after the election and there are enormous number of talented people who could step into the roles that we created and we built a whole organization with the thought of succession in the first place. But”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I thought that at the time, and I stand by that decision as well, I thought there was a real risk that my closeness to the Prime Minister and the role that was being depicted that I played, which was not the role I played in the whole issue was going to be weaponized against him, either by the opposition or the press or basically I was worried that people were going to say it was all his fault, but the prime minister won't do anything about it because he's his best friend. And that's not a responsible place to be, right? You can't allow, we were talking about this beforehand too, that there's There's an upside and a downside about having a deep friendship with the person you're working with. And I think that's true in every workplace. It's especially true in the Fishbowl of politics.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And in the aftermath, I think those entrails have been picked. The government's been re-elected. Anybody who wanted to make up their mind on that basis did so. I maintain every word of what I said in March of last year. And I don't think the government did anything wrong.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, the Prime Minister felt that I think the office, everyone around the Prime Minister felt that we had to be able to look, it was 5,000 people who were going to lose their jobs if the company went down the toilet. And we wanted to be able to look those people in the eye and say we did everything possible to save their jobs. And we felt at the time that everything possible hadn't been done. And Canadians will know that I spent two hours of live television on this going through all of the entrails. But at the end of the day, I think it came down to a difference of a disagreement between us and her about what was appropriate.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think that It's a fair summation, absolutely. I think that she. At the end, she didn't. In fact, she went on record afterwards saying that I had never pressured her. But she definitely made an accusation that the office and the prime minister himself had tried to pressure her into signing a deferred prosecution agreement with the company. Obviously, I disagree with that conclusion. What did it?”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those are some guardrails. What I will say about Trump, having had a lot of exposure to him and his people is that he is exactly the same person behind closed doors as he is in front of the cameras. And I think that we have spent, we had spent, and I'm sure that my former colleagues are still spending an enormous amount of time thinking about what makes him tick and what motivates him. And some of it is the level of state secrets still, probably. So I shouldn't talk about it too much. I think he's too bad. He's someone who's motivated by everyone is their own success politically, but he's a He's a ferocious campaigner. And I think that he's an unpredictable one. All the stuff. You know, but you know what? I'll tell you something.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like everything to do with the Canada US relationship All Canadian prime ministers are judged by how on a few core things, and one of them, they're sort of like the never-ending files that are on any Canadian Prime Minister's desk. And one of the most important of them is maintaining a constructive and productive relationship with the President of the United States. And it's very difficult. And I think the Prime Minister was keenly aware of his father's difficulties with President Nixon. And he was determined, and I think he's done an unbelievably, people are going to expect me to say this, but I think he's done an unbelievable.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I would venture to guess you'd agree with this. The people that I talk to around the world that I've had formed relationships with over the course of my time in politics, everybody's a little uneasy, right? And that's because this is a very, very novel. Set of circumstances we're dealing with in the global community.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They really are like that. They really are. And President Obama told the whole history for the newcomers around the table of how important the G7 table was in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the role that the G20 played, the Pittsburgh G20. It's easy to, I think it's a macro point that we would both agree with. It's easy to deride these public institutions. It's easy to deride political leadership and politicians and people who spend time in public life. But when you need them to function, they've got to function.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would be the last one, for sure, I think. But in terms of security crisis, it's been a very long time. So what worries me having been in those situations in government is what happens when something really serious happens.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they are for a variety of factors, and Trump has become sort of the proximate instrument for it. But it's not like he's making novel arguments. These arguments have been around for a long time. The thing that worries me is it's always the unknowns. You don't know how weak an alliance is until there is a crisis We've had a very long period of time globally, and this is part of the work that I'm doing with the Eurasia group. We've had a very long period of time without a global crisis. Financial crisis, which you're into. I remember it. You remember that movie”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enormous criticism. And yeah, so I think we could talk about that for a long time. As a Canadian, a Canadian citizen, a private Canadian citizen these days. I am keenly aware of how much my country's prosperity and peace depends on well functioning, alliances of like minded countries who share values, whether that's NATO, whether that's the WTO, whether that's a variety of really important post-war institutions that we came together to build so that we can maintain the rule of law in some aren't all those institutions.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree, and I think the role that Bush's Iraq war has played in fostering the environment for the politics that you and I have navigated for the past 15 years is perhaps too seldom commented upon and thought about because I think it weakened institutions all over the world to see their governments not being honest with them about a matter of life and death. I think in some ways the demise of the British Labour Party is associated.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'd say a couple of things to that, David. The first is you, as you know, better than I do, have a long history of isolationism in the United States. Donald Trump is not the first isolationist. Well, and there is a weird.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, it was, it dominated to say that it dominated our agenda would be an understatement. I'm not sure what the appropriate superlative would be, but when Trump became president and suddenly said that came into office and then confirmed that he wanted to renegotiate NAFTA. Needless to say, it's a very big deal to Canada. So it dominated our agenda for a better part of two and a half years.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not in the same way as the case in the United States, and mercifully so. But we have had a long term. It's one of the most important things about Canada, I think. We have had a long-term cross-partisan agreement about the value of immigration, right? And globally, the right has attacked that policy area as a way to make people feel fearful for their jobs and worried about their own economic security. We in Canada have so far, and it's a fragile thing, and you have to continuously tend to that garden or it goes awry. But so far, so good, I would tentatively say in Canada, it's still a pretty third rail issue.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The politics of it are dicey. Very dicey. I think that it's the kind of thing that really excites the base when you talk about it. And independent-minded voters, it's sort of the dynamic you were describing earlier. They'd rather you talk about their job and their pensions.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there's something so Canadian about it as well that these were largely Canadians of either Iranian origin or had relation, family relationships in Iran. And a bunch of people from Iran who were coming to Canada to study. I don't think we've ever had a tragedy that's affected our post-secondary institutions so directly. Like my wife went to the University of Windsor and the University of Toronto. As you mentioned earlier, I went to McGill. We're inundated with alumni association stuff and everybody knows somebody who was somehow connected to this. The Persian community, it's just such a terrible, terrible story”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I see this as a human tragedy, David. And I think that things happen in politics all the time and people's lives are affected and the instinct or maybe the tendency is to grow a thick skin and get inured to it over time. 63 lies.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That this was the case. That's correct. And we have zero tradition in Canada of the politicization of intelligence. So if the prime minister of the country is saying, it's a very good policy. It served us well. If the prime minister of the country is saying that, then it is, I think every Canadian can take it to the bank.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Well, I'll say a couple of things about it because I don't want to say too much about it because as you would know, When you go from having being privy to intelligence to not being privy to intelligence, I think you forever know the difference between those two states. The government... I'm sure she is aware of things that we are not for a variety of good reasons. So I just prime minister”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That said, I think that you have a very different system of government here. But in parliamentary democracies, you can't know that every minority government has more in common with every other minority government than it has with any majority government. And their logistic and technical parliamentary reasons why that's the case. But it's also from a broad 30,000 foot level. You just don't have the same levers to control the agenda as you.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. I think The important thing I'm an optimist, right? Like you, I choose to see the positive possibilities and things. And I think that it could be interpreted. And I think they've done a very good job of it so far as an opportunity to focus on core issues. That you're not going to follow momentary issues down. Rabbit holes, you're going to focus on the core aspects of the agenda. And I think that that is definitely the intention of the government, or it appears to me from the decisions they've made. It's a disciplining factor. It is a disciplining factor, that's the word I was searching for.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and in ways that are, I think, familiar to them as government. It's almost there are two preconceived notions you're working against. One is what is a politician like? And the other is what is the government like? And I think that the longer you're in government, the more you sound like the government.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Democracy. Yeah, it is. And we shouldn't be ashamed of that. Self-government is something we should be proud of. And you can only do self-government through politics.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And it's also related to the, I think, the core point, which is you have to start from what you think is the right thing for the country and work out from there and build a political strategy around how you're going to maintain support for what you think is right. If you begin with what's the political strategy to win an election, then I think you're going to be lost in the wilderness for a long time”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have to be comfortable with conflict, right? And we had a public conversation about this in Halifax a couple of years ago. I remember the way you put it, which I like the phrase. You said you always have to create a positive sense of what's possible. But at the end of the day, it's a dereliction of duty not to paint a picture of what your country looks like under different leadership.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, maybe you're doing the bad guys' work, David, but I doubt it. I think there's a degree of truth to it. But the very important difference was at the beginning of the 2015 campaign, we were in third place, and we were in third place in the polls, and most people had written us off in the polls. What connected with Canadians, and I think this is a very, we're talking about this before the podcast, I think this is very similar to what happened with you folks in 2008, that everybody looks back on it now as the right derisively calls it the Hopi-Change campaign. But you guys had a very core economic message. We did. And it was a very tough contrast message with what the Republicans had on offer. We campaigned in 2015 on lifting people at a poverty, on a middle-class tax cut on fixing pension systems. It was very core meat and potatoes things.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think I'd say a couple of things to that. One is the people who are not our friends would try to impose the Obama narrative on us, right? They would try and say, basically this is going to be like Obama. Everybody's expectations are through the roop and they're going to inevitably disappoint too many people. And there is a degree of...”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Me too. Me too. But it was very much a collective operation. And there was more than just Katie and I involved in it. There were quite a few really important people involved in it. And we built it. Out from scratch first to win the leadership of the party and then to build the campaign apparatus and then to build the government. It all sounds easy when you say unmistakable.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first we sort of, I usually describe it to friends in the business community like very successful startup operation, right? It started with about three or four volunteers in my kitchen in Toronto. Katie Telford and I sort of planned the organization from scratch. You being the starting structure.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were pretty merry, actually. You know, it takes a special kind of political talent to survive an apocalypse like that. And I think he came to the conclusion that if he didn't do this now, there may not be. a party to lead, right?”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before I Well, it was as is often the case in politics and in life. It was a collision of necessity and opportunity, right? That the Liberal Party had its worst performance in history in 2011, faded to the third place party. And Justin had become an MP in caucus, and he was one of the few, the merry band of warriors that survived that.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I couldn't agree more. I think that that is the job of political leadership for the foreseeable future. It's leading, we're obviously going through an enormous transition In the global economy, about the way we produce and consume and transmit energy. And successful political leaders are going to be ones that cohesively lead through that period. And it's going to be very challenging.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say to Well, he was very non-judgmental about it. He would say something like the topic we're discussing, which is don't forget about the people who work in the industry.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fund Canada That's right. Well, our signature environmental initiative, one of them in the McGinty years, was to replace about 7,550 megawatts of coal-fired generation. The RNE was not lost on my father.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the first place, in contrast, I've only ever worked for two people in terms of campaigns. I've only ever worked for Dalton McGinty and Justin Trudeau. And I worked in politics both of those times because I think that those people had a unique ability to move the dial and a commitment to move the dial on the issues that I cared about. It wasn't about, it was never for me about being in an office or a particular job at a particular time. It was about latterly climate change and primarily what I would call now sort of economics that work for regular people. And that involves everything from taxation to public schools.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there are more of the latter than Observing class would like to think, but it's really important to have a clear idea of why you're there”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's an important point because I think that this is true of life, but my aunt, when I was thinking about whether to go work in politics at all and work for Dalton McGinty, she said to me as someone who had recently been in politics in a kind of peripheral way in the Senate, she said, you should always remember this. There are two kinds of people in politics. There are people who want to be something and there are people who want to do something. I”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not help is in the sense of handout, but help in the sense of possibility in their lives. Better wages and better pensions and all of the stuff is the meat and potatoes of progressive politics.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, it's an essential ingredient without which the rest of the recipe doesn't work. And I think that for a very long time here and in Canada, the centrist liberal Philosophy put that on the back burner, right? Torture the metaphor a little bit. And you, I Major issue and historically I think I was looking at the lovely collection of political memorabilia on the wall in the green room there and one of them is the Chicago Tribune in 1932 after Roosevelt. And he's FDR is probably the gold standard for the type of politics that you're talking about Know regular people come together in political movements because they need help. And we shouldn't be ashamed of that.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were very muscular. And again, they're the government of Ontario now, even more muscular. And it was an underdog campaign. I mean, you remember it very well. There's a lot of people who hadn't won an election in a very long time. And a lot of people expected Dalton never to be premier of Ontario. But he had a very clear sense of what he wanted to do and he wanted to build from a policy perspective, in particular in education and the environment. He's kind of the person who turned me into an environmentalist, frankly. But at that point, as you know, I was very focused on public education, and that was my policy orientation, is kind of what got me engaged in politics in the first place. I didn't like what the conservatives were doing in public schools.”
2020-03-30 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 377 — Gerald Butts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source