Gerald (Jerry) Butts

speaker

96 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 8 Jul

Gerald (Jerry) Butts’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge · Moore-Butts Encore Episode - Making Tough Choices · 8 Jul 2026 podcast

take on this position, no matter what I minister of, because that's been the consensus view of the room and the consensus in our system is declared by the prime minister, right?

And I can think of at least half a dozen examples where sitting quietly in the back of the cabinet room as staff, I observed

real differences of opinion on big picture issues like the assisted dying legislation, marijuana legalization, the structure of our climate plan, the structure of the Canada Child Benefit.

There were very thoughtful people who had very well considered arguments that lost.

And you never heard about them after you got out of that room.

So I think that there's this view in the public, not so much.

I think all these decisions are hard, Peter, almost by definition.

Mr. Crutchen had apparently said to one of his ministers early in his government who came to him with a hard problem.

He said, don't come to me with hard problems.

You solve the hard problems.

Come to me with the impossible problems.

And I think that every at the top of almost every cabinet agenda I was part of both in Ontario and in Ottawa, those impossible problems were at least items one through three on the cabinet agenda, because by nature, this is the highest body either in the province or in the country where we come to settle things we can't settle anywhere else.

and um i'm never one to run down politicians or public servants i think that they do incredible work uh most of them are and i i mean this is not a partisan point i mean this from from all parties and they take their work very seriously and they try their best to solve problems in the interest of the country that can't be solved anywhere else

Well, yeah, I can remember several.

I'm not sure I can reveal the subject matter, Peter, but I can remember several cases, uh, in, um,

in Ottawa, where the prime minister was predisposed to one, I may or may not have mentioned two of those cases already, where he was predisposed to the point of view that ended up

losing the debate in cabinet.

And that happens a lot, right?

And the prime minister always has a decision to make at that moment, whether he or she changes their mind and whether they stick to their guns.

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