The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge
Moore-Butts: Do Advisory Councils Make A Difference Or Are They Just Show?
28 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Are you ready for the latest More Butts conversation? It's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Gerald Butts and James Moore, our tag team of great voices about the behind-the-scenes nature of Canadian politics.
Gerry, of course, was former Principal Secretary to Justin Trudeau after the 2015 election, and James Moore was in a number of different Stephen Harper cabinets in the I guess from what, 2006 right up to 2015.
Well, just close your eyes and remember sort of the golden era in those years. That's right.
We all say that about our past jobs.
I was younger. I'll remember it.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the newly announced advisory council on trade?
All the grass is green. All the boys are handsome. It was a good time.
I remember when I was a young reporter and used to hear the old guys talk about the golden era, and you'd go, give me a break. And now I'm the guy talking about it. Okay, here's the topic for this week. You know, last week with much fanfare, they announced an advisory board for the Canada-U.S. relationship in terms of upcoming negotiations, whether it's KUSMA or what have you.
Distinguished people, all of them, not taking any credit away from them, great careers in politics and business elsewhere. Okay. But the question becomes, you know, we've heard of advisory boards and advisory councils at different times through different governments over the past. And at a certain point after the appointment. of the members, you're left wondering, well, what do they actually do?
Or what did they actually did? What happened? Were they of any use? Or was this all about show and trying to look nonpartisan and that everybody's united on these things? So that's what I want to talk about, because I know both of you have had experience either on or with advisory boards in the past. So James, cue James Moore. You start us, James.
Yeah, the well, I've been on some and I've created some when I was a minister. So keeping it within the context of trade, Jerry will know this because Jerry was part of the obviously Justin Trudeau's government where they invited me on the NAFTA board. He can speak more to the background of that. But when you're.
Well, on the trade file, going back to the summer of 2017 and Trump 45 in his first term as president, the reality is on the trade file, mostly Canada and the experience that we'd had was on international files, right? When Prime Minister Harper was in government, we did the Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement with Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Trans-Pacific Partnership, in terms of its broad strokes, is basically NAFTA+. It's NAFTA and structure, and then you add on You bolt on the Asia-Pacific countries. And so it was kind of an expansionist agreement, not really massive rethinking. It was complicated because there were different wins and losses in different regions of the world and all that.
And that's actually where Ambassador Hillman, Kirsten Hillman, cut her teeth. And, you know, shocked, frankly, within the government of Canada for either the red team or the blue team into super startup because she was so impressive on the substance of the trade files. And then she added she added on the politics and the diplomatic stuff afterwards in her role as ambassador.
But when when the American file came around, because Donald Trump was threatening to abrogate NAFTA and to create sort of this dynamic that we're still operating in a decade later. We didn't have a lot of muscle memory because we kind of have always gotten on with the Americans.
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Chapter 3: How do advisory councils impact government decisions?
You've opened a number of doors for me and I want to go there, but first some opening general thoughts from you, Jerry.
Okay.
Yeah, thanks, Peter. And I think this is one of those topics that may look boring to people, but is actually really fascinating because it reveals the way people think about how they approach politics, how they approach getting ready for an election, how they approach governing.
And I think it's a really interesting, some of the best work that I've ever been around has been done by councils like this. And I would separate them into two groups and then a couple of subsets within each group. And the most important grouping is whether you're in opposition or in government when you call one.
And for obvious reasons, we spend a lot of time thinking about the types of groups that governments appoint. But in my experience, I've probably been involved with, I don't know, 20 of these over the course of the time I spent in politics and government. And by far, the most productive ones were the opposition advisory groups. And that was because...
Excuse me, as in general, when you're in opposition, you're freer to think outside the bounds of what is politically acceptable on any given day and start to think strategically about where you would want to take the country or in my case, in the first part, my first go around in government, the province.
And it allows you to separate yourself from what has by definition been unsuccessful in the past and for your party. Obviously, you're in the opposition benches. You couldn't have been too successful. So you need to make some strategic policy changes. And by far the most successful one I've been involved with was the process we put in place when I was policy director for Dalton McGuinty.
We completely changed the policy backbone of the Ontario Liberal Party. The timing turned out to be right. We were in the third term of a Conservative government. People were looking for change. But Dalton came out of the 1999 campaign having lost, not dissimilarly to the way that Polyev lost in this election.
But he came out of it with the determination that he wasn't just going to be the anti-Harris, Mike Harris at that time guy. He was going to have his own platform for governing. So he brought a bunch of us in. We were all in our late 20s, early 30s. And he said, have at it. These are the things I want to do. I want the best ideas from politicians. public education around the world.
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Chapter 4: What experiences do the guests have with advisory boards?
And certainly the renegotiation of NAFTA and broad more broadly, because. We counted on James and that group for a lot more than just advice on what clause should go into the CUSMA agreement. It was more, can we build a stable cross-partisan political consensus for how we can deal with Trump?
Because we saw that as a long-term structural change in the relationship with the United States and not just something that was idiosyncratic to Trump. And that turned out to be right.
Yeah.
Well, on that example, which is perhaps the best example for us to use, because it seems generally to be an accepted as a really good thing. And we're talking about the one that James was on in terms of trade policy at the time NAFTA turned to KUSMA. Is advisory the right word to use, an advisory council or an advisory board? Or is it more than advice? Are they directing?
Because there seemed to be in that one that the advice coming out of that council was more than just advice.
Yeah.
Yeah. And the answer is yes, it was advisory council. And it wasn't really said, but it was, again, it was a small group. And Jerry can remind me, I think it was 12 or 14 people. So it wasn't a big group. And we got together and, you know, it's built down from the financial services sector. Ron Ambrose and I sort of from the blue team, Brian Topp from the orange team.
As I said, you know, Aboriginal leaders, Hassan Youssef and the Labour, like there was, so a lot of boxes were checked. And yes, it was, some of it was symbolic.
Some of it was sort of signaling to Canadians who, again, going back in the context of, you know, eight years ago, we didn't really know what Trump's intent was or how crazy this was going to get or how intense it was going to get or how sincere he was going to be in actually arriving at an agreement and what it knew, what we knew.
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges faced by advisory councils?
Everybody else did. Obviously, Ron Ambrose had deep ties in the conventional energy business on both sides of the border. Everybody came with something to the table. And I think the challenge with a bigger group, and I'm not being critical of the, I think it's a bunch of distinguished people that were appointed last week by the government.
The issue is it's kind of like cabinet, Peter, that the old adage about cabinet that you make 20 friends and 140 enemies. It's also true of these advisory councils that people who have leadership positions in business, in the third sector, in labor, in other parties, they all have,
you know substantial egos and when they see one of their competitors get appointed to these bodies and they don't it can cause a problem for the government so there's always uh as is always the case in government when you choose one person you by definition don't choose 40 million people and that means you've got an issues management challenge on your hand um
Politically, does it cause friction? I mean, James, when you got appointed on that one and took an active role in it, one assumes somewhat similar to what may be going through Aaron O'Toole's mind and Jean Serret and others. Does it cause friction in the old home base?
Can. It didn't really for me, but yeah, I can. You know, but speaking candidly about it, I don't like the way in which this past week has gone in terms of the tension between Erin O'Toole and Pierre Poliev, not just for the conservative family reasons, but actually I don't think it helps the mission. And the mission is Canada-U.S.
relations and the long-term stability of the economic partnership for the benefit of Canada. Like, that should be the North Star. And so I don't think that's gone well. I think ā so my experience was very good. Some conservatives, you know, they wonder, like, has he gone liberal now? Like, what's going on? And I said, well, no.
Especially these days.
Yeah, for sure.
Right. And I was like, well, no. But also, I think context matters. There's a similarity of context. So you go back to summer 17 when the council was announced and the negotiations began in fall 17. That wasn't quite peak Trudeau, and the bloom wasn't off the rose, but he still had...
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Chapter 6: How do advisory councils differ between government and opposition?
You answer the call. And there's risk with that. And he didn't run again. But he served the country well.
Okay. I stand corrected. It was Stephen Harper who worked behind everyone's back in a dirty backroom deal.
Exactly. That was the liberals with Belinda Stronach. That was the liberals with Belinda Stronach.
Listen, the point James makes, and it's a cliche about politics that it's a people business, but it definitely is a people business. And sometimes feelings get in the way of strategy. And there are certainly a lot of feelings between Pierre Polyev and Aaron O'Toole. Yeah. And I get why I absolutely get why, but you got to dial that stuff down.
I think James gives wise counsel there and extra points for the use of the word braggadocious.
All right. We're going to, we're going to take our break and switch topics and I've got one I'm going to throw at you. I don't, I don't think I even warned you, but I'll, I'll, I'll tell you about it in a moment. We'll be right back after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode. This Tuesday, it's a more butts conversation with... Gerald Butts, James Moore.
Uh, we talked about advisory councils. We're going to talk about something different in a moment, but first a reminder about what our question of the week is this week. And it's an easy one. It's an ask me anything week. It's the last week of April. Can you believe it? We're into May next week. Uh, ask me anything.
And it literally means that you can ask me anything about the, about the program, how we put it together, what some of the issues are, whatever you want to ask me anything. Um, So have your answers or your questions for me in by 6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Keep it 75 words or fewer.
Include your name and the location you're writing from and the address you write to is themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Okay, got it. Ask Me Anything this week. If you wrote, we've had lots of questions on Ask Me Anything weeks. We still have lots left over from the last two months. So if you wrote before and it wasn't on, you don't need to write again. We still have it. We may use it.
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Chapter 7: What role does public perception play in advisory councils?
I don't know whether it works like all frontier technologies, policies, it's probably going to have to be tried and adjusted and retuned and that sort of thing. But I think in an era where a lot of people have grave questions about the advent of technology and what it means for their basic standard of living and their rights and freedoms,
He seems, at least, to be willing to give an honest effort to try and help people. And I think that's what's working for him. And I'll confess, I tried to get to run for us in 2015, and he wasn't ready to enter public life. It turns out he's a new Democrat. I think that one of the best things about this country is partisan adhesion is not very strong. So who knows what happens?
I certainly didn't know he was going to run for the new Democratic Party in Manitoba and wouldn't have cared anyway. But he just seems to be a real dude. He seems like a real guy and a real person who says what he thinks and backs it up with actions. Politics is not rocket science at the end of the day.
Go ahead, James. There is a permanent government. In the sense that, and I don't mean that in the deep state stuff that Trump talks about, but there's a permanent government. There's a core of deputy ministers, there's heads of crown corporations, there's heads of agencies and all that that exist in the federal government, provincial governments and all that.
And when you get elected into government, the Public thinks that your job is to go into the provincial capital or the national capital and to stare down the permanent government and defend them and sort of, you know, cross the moat, get into the castle to make sure that those who are in that permanent government is reflecting your values and just sort of turn the ship in that way. Yeah.
There comes a point, though, of course, that you own the castle and you own them all and you've replaced the deputy ministers and the heads of the crown corporations and the boards of directors and all that of all these agencies and et cetera, where now you own it.
And then you still have to have this tension of we're going to go in and we're going to change things and then we're going to own the town. And then we have to sort of defend what it is that we're doing, but recognize that we're not always on the public side. And then we have to fix things and then re-reflect it back. And maybe we
rename things or reprofile things or cut things or add things or reshape things or do advisory councils and to get a fresh perspective on things. But there's this thing, right? Wab Kanu has managed, I think, what a lot of people haven't. And I think it's instructive to look at his contemporary counterpart of the same political family, David Eby.
He's managed to do what David Eby has manifestly failed to do. which is to maintain the rhetorical footing of being the person who goes into the capital and represents real people to the permanent government, such that the permanent government will be on the side of taxpayers as best as possible and to serve their purpose. And David Eby, I was on a panel in Vancouver not long ago,
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Chapter 8: How does Wab Kanu's leadership style contribute to his success?
Somebody once said, and I think I've said it on this podcast before, Peter, where somebody once said, and maybe it's overstatement, but they said, half of politics is, I just don't like that guy. I just don't like that guy. And then, but there's obviously an inverse to that, which is just, he just, he's got something.
He's there's still something there, you know, you know, Obama had the upside of that. Some people have the downside of that, but it's just, I like that. John Horgan had that. Yeah. Ralph Klein had his version of that, where you just kind of, I just kind of like that guy. Jean Charest has gone through a long political career of ups and downs.
And for enough of a cohort of a lot of people in politics, it's just, I like that guy. He's substantive and impressive. And yeah, Wab Kanu for sure has that.
What's the lesson for, you know, we're constantly asked by politicians. All three of us, even though we're different generations, different age groups, we're constantly asked by younger people, why should I get into politics? Or I want to get into politics, but really, do I really want to get into politics?
What do they take away from somebody like Wab Kanu about why they could make a difference in politics?
Well, because, you know, we're still a country, we're still the country that the United States sometimes used to pretend to be, which is that you can be from anywhere and end up premier of Ontario or premier of Manitoba or prime minister of Canada. And if you want to change things, there's still no better avenue to do it.
I think the advice I always give people is when you do get into politics, and WAB's a great example of this, the premier's a great example of this, You better know who you are when you get in because you're sure going to find out afterward. And you don't want to be the last person to know. And I think Wab, he knows who he is.
And he sounds like what he's saying comes from a deep set of convictions and not something his staff read to him that they heard in a focus group last night. And I think that that is... That's the key to success in politics. And if if you don't have that deep conviction and if you don't have something you want to accomplish and a way you want to talk about it, then it isn't for you.
And we've talked about this many times on this podcast. The advice I got from my aunt, Sister Peggy, way back in the day is. That there are two this this aphorism has been so become so popular. I've seen many people claim credit for it. But I know she said it to me when I was in my 20s asking her about Dalton McGinty.
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