Gerald Butts

speaker

1,669 appearances 11 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 15 Sep

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

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.

Appearances

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The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge · Moore-Butts Conversation Encore Episode -- Is Affordability An Issue That Governments Can Even Solve? · 19 Aug 2026 podcast

than

Well, because you know, Charlie and Rita Butts couldn't hire lobbyists.

I think that

Yep, it's true of every industry.

I mean, I I've often said this, Peter, that the most underappreciated power in politics is the power of inertia.

And um there are lots of people, you look at the revolving door in the net of indust Industry Canada, for instance, who um uh spend part of their career at uh in policy making roles, then they go into the industries where they were making policy that directly affected those count companies.

And again, I'm not speaking ill of any individual involved, but the system that has been created here.

Um here being Ottawa, I'm looking out at this lovely scene of some kids playing hockey across the street, by the way, uh to cheer everybody up.

Totally free, by the way.

Uh I'm sure their skates probably pinch their parents' budget, but other than that, they're playing outside in the fresh air for free.

You know, there are entrenched interests that don't want to see the system change and it really doesn't matter who's in power, uh, because the associations that have formed to keep those interests in the front forefront of policymakers' minds know how to amoeba-like change, uh, to make arguments, hire people, uh, create lobby organizations that maintain the status quo.

And um we've talked about this in in specific policy areas in the past.

Uh CDC comes to mind.

Uh if you decide you're going to make a big change, let's say, and it's just the first one that comes to my my mind in uh the way financial services are provided to Canadians.

Well, I've got your next six months of meetings lined up for you.

if you're an official in the Prime Minister's office or in Industry Canada and they're gonna be all of the people with a million different reasons why you shouldn't be doing what you're doing, whatever it is you're doing.

And uh there are only two or three of those that the a government can take on at any given moment.

And that's why the system stays the way it is.

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