Full Comment - Carney’s high-flying promises come crashing back to earth

00:00:00.000 After 87 days away, Parliament resumed this past week.

00:00:05.980 It was the first time that Pierre Polyev, the newly minted MP for Battle River Crowfoot,

00:00:11.000 had faced off against Prime Minister Mark Carney in the House of Commons.

00:00:14.600 Hello and welcome to the Full Comment Podcast.

00:00:16.500 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:00:18.300 And this week, a treat for you.

00:00:19.980 The return of the political panel that entertained you so much during the federal election.

00:00:25.100 From the National Post, Stuart Thompson and Tasha Carradine.

00:00:28.460 Thanks so much for joining me, guys.

00:00:30.220 And good to have you back.

00:00:31.700 Great to be here.

00:00:32.560 Hey, Brian.

00:00:33.660 Let's play a bit of a couple of clips off the top.

00:00:38.000 I thought that Pierre Polyev had a bit of humor in him when he showed up and said he apologized, essentially, for being late.

00:00:47.600 My mother taught me never to be late.

00:00:50.340 So please forgive me for my late arrival to the session.

00:00:54.120 I had some meetings with extremely important people in East Central Alberta.

00:00:58.460 Mr. Speaker, after which I was honored to be elected by the great people of Battle River Crowfoot.

00:01:06.360 And on that same note, Mark Carney having a bit of a laugh and a joke when he mistakenly called Pierre Polyev a minister and invited him over to his side of the aisle.

00:01:15.500 So, Mr. Speaker, I understand the minister or the minister promotion.

00:01:22.840 So my question to you after the first week, how do you grade it?

00:01:30.680 You know, I think Carney and Polyev both hit a new tone.

00:01:34.900 It's a nicer tone than we saw back when it was Polyev versus Trudeau.

00:01:38.020 I think the opposition's asking serious questions.

00:01:42.220 Carney's giving serious answers and much as ministers always are.

00:01:45.720 What are your thoughts after a week of watching the House back?

00:01:49.900 I'll kick it off.

00:01:51.140 I agree with you.

00:01:52.300 The tone is less aggressive, less hostile.

00:01:55.520 I think the conservatives are saving their fire for some real moments, such as, you know, the budget obviously coming up.

00:02:05.460 But I think also the continued negotiations or lack thereof with the United States.

00:02:10.540 Now they're going to be hearings into the tariffs on both sides or Kuzma rather on both sides of the border.

00:02:15.560 How's that going to go?

00:02:16.540 So I think that the sense I get is that they want to be seen as more serious.

00:02:22.100 With Trudeau, it was easy.

00:02:22.980 They just attacked him.

00:02:24.240 They attacked everything he stood for and everything he did.

00:02:26.580 But Carney's a different animal.

00:02:28.320 And I think Polyev wants to look more like a prime minister in waiting.

00:02:31.040 So he's trying to be more substantive.

00:02:32.860 So, Stuart, on that note, I found it interesting that they started off as saying that in question period,

00:02:41.000 they're going to hold Mark Carney to account using his own words.

00:02:44.500 And they kept quoting him and saying either you didn't deliver or you didn't deliver enough or you're not meeting your problems, things like that.

00:02:51.760 It's kind of a way to hold the government account that, to Tash's point, isn't super aggressive, combative.

00:02:59.140 Yeah.

00:02:59.780 And actually, it's, I think, taking advantage of a big weakness or maybe just something in their favor as the opposition,

00:03:05.660 which is that Mark Carney has made a lot of big promises.

00:03:08.960 He's also made promises that have extremely long timelines.

00:03:12.120 So we're not going to see things on the ground.

00:03:14.860 We're not going to see tangible results on major projects or on housing or anything like that anytime soon.

00:03:20.700 So what that means is in the interim, the conservatives can just keep hammering away at Carney about that.

00:03:26.180 And I think that is really their tone right now, which is we will support the government when we agree and we will oppose them when they're not doing well enough on the things we agree with.

00:03:36.720 So that is a change in December of last year.

00:03:40.120 The conservatives told me there was no Team Canada and they were going to oppose Trudeau even on the Trump stuff.

00:03:45.620 And I think the tenor has changed.

00:03:47.740 And I think that's just strategic from the conservatives.

00:03:51.400 Okay.

00:03:51.940 So on this issue of is he delivering, you know, one of the things that you're supposed to do in politics is undersell and overdeliver.

00:04:02.480 That's a recipe for success.

00:04:03.820 And so far, in my view, the serious knock against Carney and look, I get people are still giving him benefit of the doubt and all of that.

00:04:13.600 But he has oversold and is so far under delivering that major projects list was they're all good projects, but they were all going ahead regardless.

00:04:25.120 And when he said throughout the campaign and on election night, we need to think big, act bigger, and move at speeds we've never seen before, I was like, yeah, yeah, go for it.

00:04:38.060 And then that list came out and I was like, well, the copper mine's almost done.

00:04:43.180 Darlington's going ahead anyway.

00:04:45.400 The port of Montreal is being expanded.

00:04:46.960 This was not the list that I was expecting.

00:04:49.920 And I want them to go faster.

00:04:52.160 I want them to do more.

00:04:55.880 You're shaking your head, Tasha.

00:04:57.500 Yeah.

00:04:57.920 I think actually what he's done is he hasn't given, for a lot of these things, actual benchmarks.

00:05:05.380 There's no dates.

00:05:06.940 There's no schedule.

00:05:08.220 There's no how many jobs will this create.

00:05:09.880 Another art.

00:05:10.720 Grey Cup, Stanley Cup, World Cup.

00:05:12.960 He's using all the sports dates.

00:05:15.940 Well, yeah.

00:05:17.160 Sports metaphors are his thing.

00:05:19.100 Yeah, I get a little fatigued with the hockey stuff personally.

00:05:21.300 But the point is that he's not tied himself to specific metrics that the conservatives can come back and say, you said that there would be, you know, this many houses built by this time.

00:05:32.620 And they're not.

00:05:33.400 He said, oh, we're going to be 4,000 houses.

00:05:35.180 The shovels are going in the ground basically next year.

00:05:37.240 Well, this means that by the time the election rolls around, I don't know if those houses are going to be built.

00:05:41.300 But the point is that I don't think people are going to be measuring specifics.

00:05:45.860 They're not going to be looking at the port of Montreal and going, or the port in Quebec, it's actually not in Montreal, but going, oh, wow, is that, look how great that is.

00:05:52.460 Carney built that.

00:05:53.000 Or the LNG terminal at the other end going, oh, yeah, look, it's great.

00:05:55.740 Isn't that Carney built that?

00:05:58.560 People are going to care about what's in their pocket.

00:06:00.420 They're going to care whether they can afford a home.

00:06:02.180 They can afford whether their kids are, you know, able to move out of the basement.

00:06:05.580 They're going to care about the groceries price.

00:06:07.160 They're going to care about very basic things.

00:06:09.440 Those are the things they will care about.

00:06:10.800 Those are the metrics Carney has to worry about.

00:06:12.680 Unemployment, inflation, interest rate, that stuff.

00:06:15.280 If I can stay with you for a second and then get Stuart.

00:06:18.000 On that measure, the Conservatives on Monday, before the new inflation numbers came out, before the Food Banks Canada report came out, they were saying, Mark Carney said, judge me by your experience at the grocery store.

00:06:34.020 And they kept using that line in several questions.

00:06:36.060 And then they brought it back Tuesday.

00:06:37.400 I was like, where is that line from?

00:06:39.700 And I said, I can't find this line.

00:06:42.080 Where are you guys finding this quote?

00:06:43.840 I only find you guys quoting it.

00:06:45.640 So they sent me the video of Mark Carney saying, a reporter on May 13th at the Swearing Inn at Rideau Hall, they said, how should we, how should you be held accountable?

00:06:57.620 And he said, well, judge me by the experience at the grocery store.

00:07:00.020 And then, of course, food inflation is, is still up.

00:07:04.200 And part of it is the tariffs that we put on things like coffee.

00:07:08.700 So, I mean, he's got the, there are potentials for, you know, this strategy of the Conservatives using his own words against them working.

00:07:18.100 And I think that's an example.

00:07:19.440 Yeah, he hasn't repeated that line ever since.

00:07:20.940 I haven't heard it anywhere for that exact reason.

00:07:23.800 I think so much hinges on what happens with the U.S.

00:07:26.220 All these things, our steel industry, the price of the food, like you said, anything that's brought into this country and it's tariffed.

00:07:32.100 Also, just, you know, issues of trade with China, canola, seafood, like there's all these big picture issues that are affecting our economy that Carney's trying to juggle and manage.

00:07:42.100 And who knows if he will succeed?

00:07:43.940 He sold himself as the manager.

00:07:45.660 That was his job.

00:07:46.420 He was going to manage Trump.

00:07:47.400 He was going to get the results.

00:07:49.200 That people will hold him to because that is a concrete thing.

00:07:51.660 Do we have a trade deal?

00:07:52.880 Do we still have tariffs?

00:07:54.680 That's, you can measure that.

00:07:56.040 But the rest of it, again, it's, you know, all those projects and stuff.

00:08:00.580 I don't think that's going to be the metric.

00:08:01.740 The metric is going to be the very basic things that touch people's lives directly.

00:08:05.460 Your view on the groceries comment and how the conservatives and the liberal government have been doing in question period, because I know you watch it closely, Stuart.

00:08:17.420 Yeah.

00:08:17.960 I mean, I was there on Monday, deeply disappointed at how tame and collegial it was.

00:08:23.260 I was really hoping for some blood.

00:08:25.060 But, yeah, I think this is such an interesting part of Mark Carney, because I think we're still in the honeymoon right now where it's not being evaluated in the way that it might be in the future.

00:08:36.760 Same with Trudeau. 0.89

00:08:37.660 We all knew that Trudeau was a little bit silly in 2014. 0.99

00:08:41.560 But by the time it was 2020, I think we had a different impression of his silliness. 0.97

00:08:47.200 Like, we were less willing to forgive it.

00:08:50.100 With Carney, there is a little bit of sort of casual arrogance.

00:08:53.540 And he's one of those guys.

00:08:55.520 Really?

00:08:56.700 Yeah.

00:08:57.420 Yeah.

00:08:57.840 You have to look really close to seeing him.

00:09:00.200 But he's one of those guys.

00:09:01.100 Look inside yourself, Rosemary.

00:09:03.760 I will never forget that line when he took Rosemary Barton.

00:09:06.640 I see it at certain points, but I don't see it in his performance in the house.

00:09:10.340 I see a guy who's having more fun than I ever thought he would.

00:09:13.740 I thought he would dread question period, because quite frankly, it's dreadful.

00:09:18.120 I agree with that.

00:09:18.980 I'm not picking up the arrogance.

00:09:20.320 I'm picking up a very light guy.

00:09:22.600 So there is a line here.

00:09:24.540 I think Carney's sense of humor, this is what happened to Trudeau, is his sense of humor

00:09:29.420 became less enjoyable to Canadians.

00:09:32.340 And yesterday, Carney made a joke, picking up on something Pierre Polyev said.

00:09:37.400 Polyev said, well, I know you're such a great fiscal expert.

00:09:41.160 Shouldn't you be able to tell us the deficit?

00:09:43.620 And Carney said, well, I am a great economist, and I am a fiscal expert.

00:09:47.740 And he was clearly joking, but he wasn't fully joking.

00:09:51.980 I think Carney actually does think of himself that way.

00:09:54.940 And we see this as reporters every now and then.

00:09:58.140 There's a little kind of flare of condescension or arrogance.

00:10:02.340 Yeah, I see it more with speaking to journalists, in particular, female journalists. 0.82

00:10:06.680 But I see it there more than the house. 0.99

00:10:10.300 And that could be something that bites him in the butt. 0.97

00:10:12.980 But I think we're still seeing it through the lens of the honeymoon right now, where we're 0.97

00:10:16.780 sort of like giving him the benefit of the doubt on those comments, whereas two years

00:10:20.600 from now, they may take on a different light.

00:10:22.720 Or if the economic situation gets worse, and we're hearing this kind of stuff, we just are

00:10:27.360 less willing to laugh along with Carney.

00:10:29.760 So I agree with you.

00:10:31.180 I especially in the first couple of days of Carney being in the house earlier in the spring,

00:10:35.480 I was really surprised by how well he took to it, especially because, for example, Tim

00:10:39.880 Hodgson, who was also new at it, looked terrified when he got up to talk.

00:10:44.760 I think Tim Hodgson still looks terrified in the house.

00:10:47.940 It is hard.

00:10:49.220 It's a hard thing to do.

00:10:50.140 And Carney took to it right away, which surprised me.

00:10:53.760 I'll ask you about this then.

00:10:55.340 Um, I appreciated that the excessively combative tone from both sides was not there between

00:11:04.840 the leaders.

00:11:05.620 And then, um, I think it was Tuesday, Carney was gone.

00:11:10.760 And then it was Wednesday.

00:11:12.700 He wasn't answering as many questions.

00:11:15.300 Guys like Champagne, Frankie Bubbles, getting super aggressive and dismissive in their responses.

00:11:23.240 And I was like, Ooh, this is the ugly side I didn't want back from, uh, you know, last

00:11:28.540 year.

00:11:29.220 Uh, yeah.

00:11:29.720 The nature of the house is that the more time you're in there, the more irritable and partisan

00:11:34.620 you get.

00:11:35.180 And we noticed this on the sort of month to month scale, where if there's a three month

00:11:39.620 sitting, they're pretty raw by the end of it and nobody gets along and the heckles get

00:11:44.860 more vicious.

00:11:46.000 And that's, I think just human nature, but the people who've been there for 10 years, looking

00:11:50.820 at basically the same people and hearing the same insults back and forth, I think that

00:11:55.980 they are in that same spot where they just, they're sort of done with this.

00:11:59.840 And you can see it on the conservative side too.

00:12:02.100 Steve McKinnon got up on Monday, a long time liberal.

00:12:05.480 Um, and he was surprisingly partisan.

00:12:08.160 I thought, um, in his press conference with reporters sort of kicking off the house sitting.

00:12:12.800 Uh, so I think that's right.

00:12:14.860 Carney's new.

00:12:15.440 He doesn't have this sort of built up, um, irritability or sort of partisan angst.

00:12:21.460 And, uh, it is refreshing when you see Carney and it is jarring when you see someone like

00:12:25.900 Champagne.

00:12:26.440 So it's something that will be noticeable.

00:12:28.180 Well, it also is a bit of a good cop, bad cop routine.

00:12:31.100 I think that Carney, um, doesn't want, like you said, we discussed earlier is this, you

00:12:35.960 know, he, he has a sort of dry wit.

00:12:37.860 He can slip into condescension sometimes, but he is so much more pleasant to listen to than

00:12:43.040 Trudeau.

00:12:43.480 Like I cannot, you know, I, I just, he's, he's got intellect.

00:12:47.060 He knows what he's talking about.

00:12:48.960 He, uh, will make comments and, and humor that doesn't, you know, drive me up the wall

00:12:54.440 usually.

00:12:55.040 So it's a nice change.

00:12:56.880 The rest of them though, like you said, they've been there, right?

00:12:59.060 But they also have a function and the prime minister, if he wants to be above the fray,

00:13:03.080 um, knowing that the other side is going to punch at some level, he needs, he needs some,

00:13:07.380 you know, I won't hockey metaphor here, but he needs a big goons on the, on the ice too.

00:13:11.540 Right.

00:13:11.900 So there we go.

00:13:12.660 I made it hockey pun.

00:13:13.920 I'm proud of myself.

00:13:14.900 Um, but that's the enforcers and he has to have some.

00:13:17.980 And if Sean Biden wants to do that, it's, you know, he's a bit of a, he's a smooth guy.

00:13:20.960 It's a bit surprising.

00:13:21.680 I agree.

00:13:22.120 A bit surprising.

00:13:22.800 He's, he was that hostile this week, but I think he's also going to be wearing a lot

00:13:26.760 of, um, of big files.

00:13:28.480 Right.

00:13:28.920 And, uh, sort of stealing himself maybe for what a lot of the stuff that's going to come

00:13:32.540 his way.

00:13:33.660 Oh yeah.

00:13:34.460 Yeah.

00:13:34.720 Lots of questions about the budget.

00:13:36.020 But before we move on to all the people that left, uh, as one person, uh, said it to me,

00:13:41.360 it's not rats leaving a sinking ship.

00:13:42.960 It's rats leaving before the ship gets afloat.

00:13:45.400 Um, before we get to that, let me ask you about quick thoughts on Polly. 0.63

00:13:49.320 Cause we, we kind of brushed by him.

00:13:51.200 Uh, how's this rookie MP from, uh, from Alberta doing in his first week back?

00:13:57.460 Tasha, go ahead.

00:13:59.460 You know, he started off saying, oh, I'm late.

00:14:01.280 And, you know, and he's trying to be more pleasant.

00:14:03.200 I thought, um, like I said, I thought he was more serious.

00:14:05.920 He, he seems to be adopting more of a gravitas, serious kind of tone because he doesn't have

00:14:10.420 the same punching bag either.

00:14:11.660 The routine he did with Trudeau wouldn't work on Carney.

00:14:13.800 And he knows that.

00:14:14.460 And if he's going to position himself as I am not just the opposer, but the proposer, which

00:14:19.120 is something Scheer said that the party would do too, um, then he can't comport himself

00:14:24.140 in that way.

00:14:24.540 So I think, I think he did okay.

00:14:25.980 I think, um, we're waiting to see if he, if the other Polyev comes back because maybe 1.00

00:14:30.940 he can only be so nice for so long.

00:14:32.640 Um, but generally the tone was, uh, was more civil, let's just say.

00:14:36.420 And, uh, I think that's, that's a good thing.

00:14:38.380 I, I've, you know, we'd like to turn the temperature down and it's the leaders who do set the example

00:14:42.160 and maybe not everyone follows it, but at least they are setting an example this week.

00:14:46.420 Stuart.

00:14:46.780 Yeah, I agree with all that.

00:14:49.940 Um, it was less exciting for journalists, but probably better for Pierre Polyev politically.

00:14:55.820 And I, I know that he has to actually, his muscle memory is to be combative in the house.

00:15:01.760 It's where he likes to be.

00:15:02.980 It's what he likes to do.

00:15:04.300 He thinks that's how you hold a government to account is you ask them really strong prosecutorial

00:15:09.920 questions.

00:15:10.560 And it is, you can still do that, I think.

00:15:13.520 And I think that it wasn't like he was pulling punches, but it is just the tenor of the questions

00:15:18.360 and it's how you comport yourself.

00:15:19.740 And I think that's something that Polyev is getting better at and it was on display this

00:15:25.520 week, but, um, who knows?

00:15:27.140 I know his muscle memory is to be strong, so he might go back to it.

00:15:30.120 I mean, the difference, uh, as someone put it to me, um, about a year ago is that by the

00:15:36.280 time Justin Trudeau was done, the public was done with Justin Trudeau and you could not

00:15:41.140 punch him hard enough to make Canadians satisfied.

00:15:43.700 Um, so, uh, in, you know, it's not like that with, with Carney, but he oddly is having a

00:15:52.360 bunch of people leave and I'm not shocked by Christy Freeland in part because I guess

00:15:59.200 it was 2023.

00:16:00.200 The first time I heard that she was looking for a diplomatic appointment and trying to 0.99

00:16:03.880 leave, I was surprised she ran in the last election because of that. 1.00

00:16:07.140 Um, so I'm, I'm not shocked that she's leaving, um, cabinet anyway, she's not leaving as an

00:16:14.700 MP until the next election, but she'll be Canada's special envoy, uh, on the rebuilding

00:16:20.420 of Ukraine.

00:16:21.480 But, uh, Bill Blair, Jonathan Wilkinson, David Lamedi, uh, potentially Stephen Guibault

00:16:30.200 we're hearing.

00:16:31.060 Does this surprise all of you guys?

00:16:34.360 Uh, Bob, uh, yes and no.

00:16:36.260 I mean, Christia Freeland, I wasn't surprised at all because her career is like, she's gone

00:16:40.820 as far as she can in this world, right?

00:16:42.620 She, she's, she was demoted, uh, she didn't win the leadership. 0.87

00:16:46.420 So if she wants another kick at the can, she may well, she figures, okay, I'll go and cool

00:16:49.960 my heels in Ukraine for a bit and then maybe come back in someday when Carney's no longer

00:16:55.040 there, uh, or on his way out.

00:16:56.960 Um, the rest of them, I think it was a question of, uh, also feeling that they didn't have the

00:17:01.620 space here.

00:17:02.800 Uh, Blair, definitely not.

00:17:04.320 Um, Gilbo, definitely not.

00:17:05.920 Also moved out of his favorite space.

00:17:07.840 Um, he's no longer environment minister.

00:17:10.280 That was his, I mean, this is a guy who, you know, jumped off a CN tower to protest, uh,

00:17:16.480 Greenpeace stuff, like in his earlier youth.

00:17:19.660 That's the, he's, that's his thing.

00:17:21.140 And he, he's stuck now in heritage.

00:17:22.660 That's not very exciting.

00:17:24.180 Um, and as for Lamedi, um, yeah, that, that was a bit surprising.

00:17:28.000 Um, you know, I thought he would be around longer.

00:17:29.420 I thought that this was something that, you know, that, that was a role he was moving

00:17:33.040 into.

00:17:33.380 That would be the Aminos Gris advisor, that sort of, you know, uh, that sort of behind

00:17:38.420 the scenes, but maybe he doesn't want to be behind the scenes.

00:17:40.560 Maybe that's not his thing.

00:17:41.920 So there's a variety of reasons that people are, are either leaving or thinking of leaving

00:17:46.300 in this, in this thing.

00:17:47.300 And I think it's a lot to do is their personal ambitions and what they feel they want to

00:17:50.160 do right now.

00:17:50.980 So on Lamedi, I was speaking to, um, a plugged in liberal in Ottawa who said, um, that the

00:17:58.040 fighting between, so Lamedi's leaving, according to the reporting, shout out to Bob Fyfe and

00:18:05.100 the Globe and Mail.

00:18:05.740 I'm going to, you know, criticize Bob Fyfe and the Globe and Mail in a minute.

00:18:09.360 They got good reporting on why Lamedi's leaving, uh, and, and talking about the infighting

00:18:15.340 with Tom Pitfield, who they had two principal secretaries on no planet.

00:18:19.820 Is that ever going to work? 0.94

00:18:21.200 Uh, it's a ridiculous idea.

00:18:23.580 Um, and so they were constantly battling for the right to be top dog. 0.90

00:18:29.420 Apparently this goes back to the election campaign is what this liberal was telling

00:18:33.300 me, uh, just after the story broke.

00:18:35.900 Uh, but I, I did a post where the headline was Tom Pitfield smokes David Lamedi.

00:18:41.880 And the reason I put it in those terms is that, do you guys remember about two, three

00:18:47.200 weeks ago, the Globe had another story and it was a really weak, crappy one that said

00:18:53.120 Tom Pitfield's former, or his company used to work at before he went into government data

00:18:58.180 sciences had Philip, uh, Morris, a tobacco company, uh, as a client.

00:19:03.480 And they try to, you know, get Carney to say, oh, he, you know, that, that should disqualify

00:19:09.040 him for being in government.

00:19:11.880 It's clear now that David Lamedi planted that story to try and get Tom Pitfield out.

00:19:18.000 And now Pitfield's still there and Lamedi's out.

00:19:20.320 That's, that's my view on it, Stuart.

00:19:22.320 And I don't know if you rolled your eyes when you saw that, uh, tobacco story a few weeks

00:19:27.120 ago.

00:19:27.360 This is my favorite thing about this world is I do remember three weeks ago going, why

00:19:33.480 would we care about connections to big tobacco?

00:19:37.360 Like, like what year is this?

00:19:40.020 Yeah.

00:19:40.700 So it is, it was an odd one.

00:19:42.760 And, um, that is, that is a weird thing because Pitfield was originally supposed to be interim

00:19:47.280 principal secretary and then Lamedi was supposed to come in.

00:19:49.820 And then, you know, you can only imagine what was happening in the meantime with the fighting

00:19:53.960 going on there.

00:19:54.560 So, um, I, I think this is pretty the, like the Freeland one and some of the other ministerial

00:20:00.160 ones that may happen in the future, pretty normal stuff.

00:20:03.520 Um, you have people who maybe aren't as on board with the new era, uh, as others.

00:20:08.560 And then you have people who like, yeah.

00:20:11.320 And then you have people like Freeland who, you know, basically you've hit your ceiling

00:20:15.060 and there's not a lot of use and just sort of, uh, hanging around.

00:20:19.640 Um, the interesting thing is that we had been hearing that Freeland was angling for the

00:20:24.540 UN ambassador job once Bob Bray gives that up.

00:20:28.160 And, um, that is the job that Lamedi seems to be going to.

00:20:31.900 So, um, it is that, that just shows you who really has Mark Carney's heart in this world.

00:20:37.380 Uh, well, they, they, they've been buddies since Harvard, uh, and then Oxford.

00:20:41.560 So I want to read to you part of my column on all of these changes, just the part about

00:20:47.580 Bill Blair going to replace Ralph Goodale as Canada's high commissioner in London, Ralph

00:20:53.420 Goodale, you know, he's an easy to get along with guys.

00:20:56.500 So I wrote whatever one thinks of Ralph Goodale, no one can ever say the former cabinet minister

00:21:01.040 wasn't jovial, that he had the gift of the gab and could ensure people who might be hostile

00:21:05.880 would eventually warm up to him.

00:21:07.920 Goodale was a liberal, but a happy warrior.

00:21:09.880 He was well-suited for the role of diplomat.

00:21:12.480 Blair by contrast is a gruff, grumpy, do it my way, old police officer who's

00:21:17.520 unlikely to succeed in one of Canada's top diplomatic posts.

00:21:21.280 You don't win friends and influence people by barking orders at them.

00:21:25.080 And Blair has the bedside manner of a drill sergeant with a bad temper.

00:21:29.540 That's who we're going to make our high commissioner.

00:21:31.840 Ralph Goodale always made sense to me.

00:21:35.240 Yeah.

00:21:36.060 Bill Blair, he's grumpy.

00:21:37.740 That's a very good point.

00:21:39.080 I mean, the Brits are not, you know, they can be grumpy too, but they do, they, they

00:21:43.520 don't like someone from the colonies being grumpy at them probably, you know, they, they

00:21:48.760 want to be the ones, if they're going to, anyone's going to be grumpy in the room, it's

00:21:50.800 going to be them, not, not us Canadians here.

00:21:53.000 So I think you're right.

00:21:54.140 I think that is not the best fit.

00:21:57.760 Was it a question of, you know, figuring out just the chess pieces and where they could

00:22:01.960 go and what's available and how do you get people out?

00:22:04.280 Maybe, but, um, yeah, I know I, I think, I think of John Baird in the UK, right?

00:22:10.000 I think of smiles and joviality.

00:22:12.080 I think to your point, um, Goodale, smiley, jovial, uh, it's a totally different look.

00:22:17.280 And I think it probably definitely a better fit for a diplomatic post, which is what this

00:22:20.940 is.

00:22:22.060 Yeah, it's, oh, by the way, quick, fun story.

00:22:26.080 After I posted, um, that column, I heard from senior Harper person who said, you should

00:22:32.360 have seen, they, they described Blair in less than favorable terms and then said, you should

00:22:37.900 have seen how much she begged us to let him run for them before the liberals took him in

00:22:43.040 2015.

00:22:44.060 And they just looked at him and said, no, we don't think you're a good fit.

00:22:48.660 So that's why in my column, I'd actually consciously not said, I said, Goodale was a liberal.

00:22:53.700 I never said Blair was, he was just someone looking for a place to, to perch since we're

00:22:59.820 talking about ambassadors, apparently the, uh, Canadian and American negotiating, uh, teams,

00:23:06.900 this is something out of your shop, Stuart.

00:23:08.780 Um, they haven't been talking about a trade deal in quite a while.

00:23:13.600 Um, can, uh, the American ambassador to Canada the other day, Pete Hoekstra was saying, well,

00:23:19.580 we were hoping for a grand bargain.

00:23:21.060 That's clearly not going to happen.

00:23:22.720 We're just going to, you know, move forward on public consultations on renegotiating Kuzma.

00:23:27.820 Um, I, I've been saying for a while that we've got the Rana ambassador in Washington again,

00:23:35.500 smart person.

00:23:36.420 Well, unlike Bill Blair, I'd say Kristen Hillman's a smart person. 1.00

00:23:39.760 Um, and, but she's not the, the diplomat that you need to move the goalposts, good trade 1.00

00:23:47.100 negotiator apparently, but we need a diplomat there.

00:23:50.420 Are, are we, are we taking the U S seriously or what are we doing with the Americans right now?

00:23:56.220 I, I, I'm trying to understand the strategy of saying we've got a great relationship and

00:24:01.820 we've got the, uh, best deal when a little while ago it was, they want to break us so

00:24:06.940 they can own us.

00:24:07.820 Uh, I'm like, what's happening here?

00:24:10.940 Well, Carney did say recently that he texts all the time with Trump and Trump's a modern

00:24:16.700 man.

00:24:16.940 How much would you pay to see that text thread?

00:24:21.740 I would kill to see that, um, and on all the capitalizations, like in Trump's true social

00:24:27.260 posts.

00:24:27.740 Yeah.

00:24:28.220 And I'm sure Mark Carney's, I bet he's got impeccable grammar in his texts.

00:24:32.060 I bet he's one of those guys that perfect punctuation, no emojis and would confuse Trump

00:24:38.060 with all the British spelling, which apparently he told his staff he's demanding.

00:24:41.420 Um, so I, there's a couple of theories on this.

00:24:45.740 One is that, um, you know, there's just nothing to talk about at this point.

00:24:50.700 Like this is Carney's turning to Mexico and maybe they're trying to team up with Mexico

00:24:56.460 to put pressure on the U S which, you know, given the relative sizes, I don't think is going

00:25:00.780 to be hugely successful.

00:25:02.860 Um, but I'll give you the contrarian perspective, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago and

00:25:07.980 I think is interesting enough to put out there, which is that Tim Sargent, who's an economist

00:25:12.540 at the McDonnell Laurie Institute wrote this piece and I chatted to him about it.

00:25:16.380 Um, he made the case that with every week that goes by, it gets, the pressure is on Trump,

00:25:23.340 not on Canada because we're so covered by Kuzma, uh, except on steel and aluminum and some auto

00:25:28.620 parts.

00:25:29.580 Um, but with Trump having all of these tariffs globally, the economics of it are going to start

00:25:36.540 biting soon and he's got midterms coming in a year.

00:25:40.140 It's going to start to get harder and harder for Trump to push the tariff thing.

00:25:44.620 And he will be more inclined to negotiate with Canada as time goes on.

00:25:48.700 So in pure game theory terms, it might be better for Canada to rag the puck and just

00:25:55.180 wait and see if they can get a better deal out of the U S the other side of that though,

00:25:59.500 is the politics of it, which is that if Canadians start to look at Carney and go,

00:26:03.180 what are you doing?

00:26:03.820 Like we're hearing you haven't spoken in weeks.

00:26:06.700 Are you the guy that's going to solve this problem?

00:26:08.780 Are you the guy who's going to text them and then fly off to Mexico and fly off to the UK

00:26:13.580 and not really actually do anything?

00:26:14.860 So I think there's competing, um, interest here for Carney because the politics of it might

00:26:20.860 get harder, but there is a case to be made to be made that the longer you wait, the better

00:26:25.020 deal you get.

00:26:26.700 Tasha?

00:26:27.100 Well, I think, um, I think there's too many cooks in there too.

00:26:29.820 Uh, Kirsten Hillman, um, was the ambassador for, she's been the ambassador for,

00:26:33.660 for a long time now.

00:26:34.540 Uh, and, um, is, as you said, very capable, very smart.

00:26:38.220 Uh, she's not an insider type.

00:26:39.740 Uh, that's not what she went there to do initially.

00:26:42.140 Um, but Dominic LeBlanc, it's taken up a lot of space in this file.

00:26:46.780 And I got the, I always got the sense that the reason they didn't replace her, I had

00:26:50.060 heard rumors.

00:26:50.460 I had heard Joshua Ray was up for the ambassadorship to, uh, to the U S, um, that they were going

00:26:55.500 to put someone in there with political gravitas.

00:26:57.340 Like you said, but with LeBlanc in the new year, well, seriously, that that's the, that's

00:27:03.980 the latest is that in the new year, they will maybe, maybe it's delayed then.

00:27:08.140 I don't know.

00:27:08.460 I heard this from like right after around the election that as, as the things were,

00:27:12.540 but then LeBlanc came on the scene and LeBlanc takes up a lot of room.

00:27:15.740 Does he want to have a strong ambassador?

00:27:18.140 Like, you know, if he's the one leading this file, now he's going to be internal trade

00:27:22.300 minister because Christian Freeland is skipping off to Ukraine.

00:27:24.860 So he's going to have more responsibilities at home.

00:27:26.940 So maybe it is time to say, okay, we need to have the heavy political, like the smooth

00:27:32.300 person to your point, the non Bill Blair in this kind of role.

00:27:35.420 Someone who's got a lot of connections, a lot of weight knows the players gets along

00:27:39.340 works a room, like, you know, has experience in politics as sure.

00:27:43.180 He would, for example, I, I'm not, I'm not sure if that's the strategy here or if it's

00:27:47.260 just accidentally the dominoes are falling this way.

00:27:49.340 Um, but I, like I said, I always felt that LeBlanc, you know, that, that he didn't want

00:27:54.540 to necessarily be big footed by someone, a superstar in that space.

00:27:57.500 Um, but now maybe it's the time to do it because things are not moving.

00:28:00.700 Things are not like, there's no success here.

00:28:02.620 Things are not advancing.

00:28:04.060 We're not talking.

00:28:04.620 Uh, I moderated a fireside chat with Danielle Smith, uh, a couple of weeks back in Calgary.

00:28:10.860 And, and she straight up told me because they have a trade representative in that office

00:28:15.340 as well, as do many other provinces.

00:28:17.020 And she just said that the, the current team made no inroads and no attempt to meet with

00:28:23.980 or establish relationships with Republicans before Trump won.

00:28:27.260 And she said, that's your job.

00:28:30.540 Um, like the whole job is to constantly have relationships with both sides so that when

00:28:35.740 there is a turnover, you are able to call them up.

00:28:39.100 And then after the election, they were calling them up and I, uh, you didn't want to talk to

00:28:43.580 us before you wouldn't invite us to things.

00:28:45.740 Now you want to be besties.

00:28:47.100 Um, no, so it's a horrible thing.

00:28:50.140 Let's take a quick break.

00:28:51.180 Now we're late for that.

00:28:52.140 And when we come back, we'll talk about Mexico, EV tariffs and more.

00:28:55.660 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What?, where we unpack the biggest, weirdest,

00:29:00.860 and wildest political moments in Canadian history.

00:29:03.420 You thought you knew and tell you what really happened.

00:29:07.180 Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes.

00:29:11.500 If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?

00:29:15.900 everywhere you get podcasts.

00:29:17.820 Is the Mexican pivot a good strategy? 0.87

00:29:21.260 Last time we were renegotiating NAFTA, we tried playing silly games with Mexico. 0.96

00:29:25.500 And it didn't work out too well for us.

00:29:27.660 If you remember, we got frozen out and, um, and, and then the Americans were signing a deal

00:29:33.580 with Mexico and leaving us on the sideline.

00:29:36.220 One of the things that I've been hearing about trying to get a trade deal with the U.S. is

00:29:39.340 we're using the same playbook as the last time and we irritated them so much.

00:29:44.220 They froze us out last time.

00:29:46.060 Are we just making the same mistakes again, Tasha?

00:29:48.700 Well, I hope not.

00:29:50.540 Um, I mean, I think the idea of, you know, don't, don't let the Americans divide and conquer.

00:29:55.420 Let's make a strategy with Mexico and we're all at the table. 0.99

00:29:58.300 We're on the same page is nice in theory, but we are very different interests, you know,

00:30:03.180 um, and very different bargaining chips vis-a-vis the U.S.

00:30:06.940 Um, I get, always get the sense with Scheinbaum that she's actually in some way happy that

00:30:13.740 Trump is, is, is forcing Mexico or enabling Mexico to deal with its crime problem.

00:30:19.660 Um, it's internal gang problem.

00:30:21.180 She has so much social license now to deal with this because if she doesn't, the U.S.

00:30:25.820 will not play ball with Mexico. 0.70

00:30:27.100 Then that's what they, you know, they hold over their heads.

00:30:29.180 Um, Mexico has a huge- 0.68

00:30:30.460 And there's several states in the northern part of the country that the government

00:30:33.820 had effectively lost control.

00:30:35.820 Yes.

00:30:36.700 And people were being killed.

00:30:38.060 Politicians were being killed.

00:30:39.180 I mean, the people were disappearing, thousands of people.

00:30:41.740 This was a huge problem.

00:30:43.420 But the hold was so strong, uh, there was no political will.

00:30:46.780 There was no, you know, there was no cooperation with police that people were on the take.

00:30:51.180 Now it's okay.

00:30:52.460 It's Trump's way or the highway folks.

00:30:54.060 We got to get going.

00:30:55.180 And so that's been what Trump's quid pro quo is he wants them to clean up their act on

00:30:59.180 fentanyl and crime and organized crime and crime coming across the borders.

00:31:02.300 So, okay, she's tackling that.

00:31:04.060 Canada, we've been told, oh, your, the problem is fentanyl.

00:31:06.540 We keep hearing this.

00:31:07.740 It's fentanyl.

00:31:08.780 Uh, it's also things like, you know, we're not, we're not pulling our way to NATO when

00:31:11.980 we are abusing them in trade, but fentanyl has been thrown at us repeatedly over and

00:31:15.420 over and over.

00:31:15.980 So we've done strong borders.

00:31:17.420 Um, you know, we've cracked down, we've had more seizures, we've done things.

00:31:20.940 It's not enough.

00:31:21.980 Um, I'm not sure, like we, we have different issues because dealing with fentanyl for us

00:31:27.500 is actually dealing with China.

00:31:29.020 And that's the elephant in the room.

00:31:30.220 No one's talking about, right?

00:31:31.900 Our fentanyl problem is a Chinese fentanyl problem. 1.00

00:31:34.700 It's an infiltration problem.

00:31:36.140 It is a, a problem.

00:31:37.340 Money laundering program.

00:31:38.620 Yes, exactly.

00:31:39.500 It's, it's at that level.

00:31:40.540 And our banks have already been fined in the U S for this.

00:31:42.700 Like that's what our problem is that we have to deal with.

00:31:44.860 So when Trump says fentanyl, he really means all those things.

00:31:47.900 Um, so it's very different than what the, what the Mexicans have to deal 1.00

00:31:50.780 with.

00:31:51.180 It's like theirs is a domestic crime problem.

00:31:53.260 Yeah.

00:31:53.500 China's affecting it too, but it's a domestic crime problem with us is a foreign interference 0.89

00:31:57.180 problem.

00:31:57.740 So, um, you know, can we tackle that?

00:32:00.220 Is that, are we, are we tackling it?

00:32:01.980 No, I think it's getting short shrift compared to a lot of other stuff that, that is being

00:32:05.980 talked about.

00:32:06.940 But I think that, you know, I don't think that a common strategy, I think it'll fall

00:32:11.820 apart.

00:32:12.220 Like you said, like, I don't think, I think we can sign all we want to trade with each

00:32:15.980 other.

00:32:16.540 But at the end of the day, Mexico wants to deal with the U S it's more important than 0.84

00:32:20.700 a deal with Canada.

00:32:21.260 Now, by the way, just, uh, for next time you're at the grocery store, uh, I interviewed, uh,

00:32:26.700 the food professor, Sylvain Charlebois the other day.

00:32:28.780 And I said, what's this ungraded beef?

00:32:30.940 We were talking about food inflation and, uh, how high the price of beef is.

00:32:35.340 And apparently when you see ungraded beef, he says, it doesn't mean it isn't safe.

00:32:39.260 It just comes from Mexico and it's not very good. 1.00

00:32:41.980 So it's tough.

00:32:43.420 It's very tough.

00:32:44.060 Just an aside.

00:32:44.700 Yes.

00:32:45.020 Very tough beef.

00:32:47.180 Stuart, are we making the same mistake before we move on to Chinese EVs?

00:32:51.580 Yeah, I actually am glad you mentioned that because as soon as I saw Mexico on the itinerary,

00:32:55.580 I thought I just had a wave of flashbacks to those days in the NAFTA renegotiation.

00:32:59.980 And, you know, we were talking about Christia Freeland's legacy, and she will tell you she

00:33:05.420 was instrumental in renegotiating NAFTA with the Trump administration the first time around.

00:33:10.300 Trump will tell you that she was so annoying that she delayed the renegotiation of NAFTA

00:33:15.740 longer than it should have taken.

00:33:16.780 And Jameson Greer, who is his trade representative now and was Robert Lighthizer's number two,

00:33:22.780 will tell you the same thing.

00:33:23.980 Yeah.

00:33:24.540 Yeah.

00:33:25.020 And, you know, this is what you were saying about Canada's diplomatic teams, too, which

00:33:29.020 is that, you know, even if you are sympathetic to the sort of anti-Trump, the sort of Trump

00:33:34.300 resistant resistance forces in the US, you still have to do your job as a diplomat and

00:33:40.140 talk to those people and treat them neutrally.

00:33:43.260 But I think especially in the Trudeau years, there was too much of that, you know, we just

00:33:47.820 can't abide these guys to talk to them normally.

00:33:50.700 And I think Canada has to be really careful with that.

00:33:53.180 I don't think Carney has that in him.

00:33:55.980 I don't think that's his MO, but some of the remnants of this government and some of

00:34:00.060 the remnants of the diplomatic teams probably do.

00:34:02.620 And I think that is our biggest fear right now.

00:34:05.660 Let me tell you what the diplomatic team is like, whether it's at Fort Pearson in Ottawa

00:34:11.180 or down at the embassy in D.C.

00:34:13.660 They had a cardboard cutout of Trudeau for all the staff to go take selfies with just after

00:34:19.980 Trudeau was selected.

00:34:21.660 They ordered one off Amazon and had it delivered.

00:34:25.100 The issue of Chinese EVs back in the news, Premier Scott Moe of Saskatchewan went to China along

00:34:31.740 with Mark Carney's parliamentary secretary, Cody Bois.

00:34:36.140 They had meetings in China.

00:34:38.140 Moe came back to Canada, was in Ottawa last week, had meetings with Carney, industry leaders,

00:34:42.940 a bunch of ministers.

00:34:45.420 And the simple answer is lift the EV tariffs that we have placed on Chinese electric vehicles,

00:34:51.580 and they'll, you know, take away the canola tariffs.

00:34:55.180 Even Moe has told me and others, it's not that simple.

00:34:59.580 But where's the Canadian public at?

00:35:01.980 Angus Reid Paul, just out the other day, 57% of Canadians say lower the tariff on Chinese EVs

00:35:09.700 to secure lower tariffs on Canadian canola, 57%.

00:35:14.060 Only 24% say no, Stan Pat, and 19% aren't sure.

00:35:18.420 That goes a majority in every region of the country and in every party.

00:35:24.560 I think that's the wrong move because China is an unreliable partner on canola.

00:35:30.760 And every time there is an issue, they're just going to slap tariffs on canola.

00:35:34.280 It's not about security.

00:35:35.780 It's national security. 1.00

00:35:36.460 The government is too stupid to be nakedly telling Canadians that this is about national 1.00

00:35:40.900 security and spyware. 1.00

00:35:42.280 And that's where this came from.

00:35:43.300 The reason we put tariffs on EVs and it was to follow the United States, they did it for

00:35:50.360 security reasons after a lot of investigation.

00:35:52.700 So we followed their lead.

00:35:53.740 And this is before Trump came in.

00:35:55.600 This is under Biden.

00:35:56.720 Yeah.

00:35:57.220 This is the reason is because there is a security threat.

00:36:00.580 If you want to have a car with, I mean, it's bad enough we have TikTok.

00:36:04.120 You want to have a car with Chinese software in it that tracks your every movement because

00:36:08.180 it can, because you're driving around.

00:36:09.520 Um, you know, we want millions of these on the road would be crazy.

00:36:13.960 It would be absolutely crazy, to be honest.

00:36:16.000 And in these cars, by the way, they've got cameras everywhere.

00:36:19.840 Well, that's my point.

00:36:22.460 Computers in it, tracking you, whatever.

00:36:24.000 It knows what you're doing.

00:36:24.880 It knows what you're buying.

00:36:25.660 It knows where you're going.

00:36:26.320 Like, you know, you want to know what Canadians do with their time.

00:36:28.640 Just put put a bug in their car.

00:36:30.580 Like, it's like, why would you buy this?

00:36:32.560 Why?

00:36:33.040 Canadians shouldn't be buying them.

00:36:34.500 It is a security issue.

00:36:35.660 And the government's not saying that.

00:36:37.200 If you put it in those terms, maybe people wouldn't be answering the way they are.

00:36:42.040 They just look at an economic thing.

00:36:43.380 What the government did do was get rid of the EV mandate or push it off anyway by a year

00:36:48.200 and who knows how much more.

00:36:50.520 So there's less pressure.

00:36:51.960 Well, let's, you know, need to buy EVs now.

00:36:53.780 So really, would we all be buying them anyway?

00:36:56.780 The uptake for EVs isn't as fast as people thought.

00:37:00.360 But they're not willing to go hardcore and say what this is really about.

00:37:03.260 And until they do, it's their own fault then that this is, I mean, sure, that would blow

00:37:06.420 up probably negotiations on canola and seafood.

00:37:08.600 But like you said, the Chinese are not reliable partners on that anyway.

00:37:13.720 And if you're going to be blackmailed into putting spyware into your nation's cars, really,

00:37:18.360 do we want to be playing that game?

00:37:19.900 I don't think so.

00:37:20.780 Stuart, between 2020 and 2022, China banned all Canadian exports of canola or canola products.

00:37:29.420 Complete ban.

00:37:30.260 Again, 2017, there was a mixture of tariffs and non-tariff barriers on canola.

00:37:36.120 Same in 2013-14.

00:37:38.960 Premier Mo said to me the other day, yeah, every five or six years, they come after us

00:37:43.140 and they come after canola because it's the biggest crop.

00:37:46.100 Should we be lifting the EV tariffs?

00:37:49.240 I mean, I would outright ban them.

00:37:51.380 But I would also not do much trade with China.

00:37:53.560 Yeah, I am sympathetic to Tasha's argument on this one.

00:37:56.440 And I think the last thing I need is the Chinese government knowing how many times I hit up

00:38:00.720 the Wendy's drive-thru.

00:38:01.740 It's like information I need to keep to myself.

00:38:04.260 But just in general, it's something to be concerned about increasingly.

00:38:08.300 Like when you have adversary countries like that, as Tasha says, TikTok is bad enough.

00:38:13.340 And there is an element of the Dane geld here where as soon as you do something with this

00:38:19.400 kind of blackmail, then it makes people think that you are submissive to it.

00:38:23.720 It's going to work next time.

00:38:24.680 Next time this happens, all we have to do is put some tariffs on the canola.

00:38:28.420 And I think Tasha raised a great point, which is the EV mandate was one of the big issues here.

00:38:34.320 And there were environmental voices saying we need to remove that tariff on Chinese EVs

00:38:41.320 because we're not going to hit our mandate if we don't get there.

00:38:44.540 But I've looked at some of those guys and they would say that whether there was an EV mandate or

00:38:49.860 not, they just want cheap EVs and like it could be an armed EV that would shoot at us.

00:38:56.340 And they would be like, yeah, but it's electric.

00:38:58.220 Or just blow you up. 0.71

00:38:59.260 There you go.

00:39:00.460 But that's environmentally friendly.

00:39:02.380 I mean, those are the extreme activists.

00:39:04.720 Are you surprised at how well Scott Moe and Danielle Smith are getting along with Mark Carney?

00:39:12.140 I mean, after the major projects list came out and there was no pipeline, I would have

00:39:16.800 thought, you know, based on my conversation just days earlier with Premier Smith, that she

00:39:22.580 would have, you know, had some stern words.

00:39:25.620 Not nasty, but stern.

00:39:27.640 And she just said, have patience, guys.

00:39:29.960 Have patience.

00:39:32.360 Yeah, she did.

00:39:33.300 I mean, I think the issue is a private partner, right?

00:39:35.820 Which is why that pipeline hasn't been built at all in the first place.

00:39:38.780 They can't find someone to help them build it.

00:39:40.500 You've got to fix the regulation to get there.

00:39:42.580 Yes, but the point is private partners won't come in unless you have someone in the wings.

00:39:47.660 It's not going to be on the list of the first cut of things.

00:39:50.320 It's not even on the second.

00:39:51.160 The second is the pathways plus, as they're calling it, of carbon capture and sequestration.

00:39:55.420 And so I don't know if she's taking an incremental approach to this or if she knows something

00:40:00.240 we don't know, that maybe there is a private partner that is being courted and she's confident

00:40:04.500 there'll be, you know, by the time the next election rolls around for her or of a referendum 0.68

00:40:07.960 on Alberta Sovereignty, that project will be on a go and they'll be able to announce

00:40:12.280 it then because, you know, if they announce it then, imagine Alberta Sovereignty Act and

00:40:16.160 then just before the vote, not Sovereignty Act, but the referendum, and just before the vote,

00:40:20.880 boom, Ottawa drops.

00:40:22.020 There's going to be a pipeline, guys.

00:40:23.500 Gee, maybe it's better to be part of Canada so you don't have to, you know, there's no

00:40:27.540 borders between you and BC and who knows, right?

00:40:30.340 It's all it's all politics on that score.

00:40:32.020 That could be part of a strategy.

00:40:33.260 We don't know.

00:40:34.720 Stuart?

00:40:35.140 Yeah, well, I'll just say that I did not expect to see Danielle Smith tweeting in all

00:40:39.520 caps about how much she likes Mark Carney.

00:40:41.560 That was like not on my bingo card.

00:40:43.740 And I so there I think there was a very under read Reuters piece about negotiations about

00:40:51.760 the emissions cap ongoing right now.

00:40:53.600 And it seems like this happened around that time that there will be some grand bargain

00:40:59.940 on the emissions cap where if Alberta puts in place certain measures, the feds will remove

00:41:05.820 the emissions cap.

00:41:06.520 And, you know, we're talking about a private partner in a pipeline.

00:41:09.260 That's the thing I think that would draw somebody in is removing that policy.

00:41:14.080 So if I were guessing what made Danielle Smith so giddy that day when she was tweeting in

00:41:19.740 all caps, it's that she had gotten some pretty reliable signs from Carney that that policy

00:41:24.520 is on the chopping block.

00:41:25.680 I think the province will have to meet them halfway.

00:41:28.140 I think they'll have to do something.

00:41:29.360 But I think that would solve all those problems and maybe put a pipeline in the future.

00:41:36.720 As someone that's known Premier Smith a long time and has met her several times since the

00:41:41.700 election, what's fascinating to me is she's saying the same thing in public as she does

00:41:46.140 in private.

00:41:47.060 She's not saying nice things about Mark Carney in public and then saying that SOB is just

00:41:52.440 not doing anything.

00:41:53.340 She's still singing his praises and saying he's good to work with.

00:41:56.960 You know, I'll give you a comparison of how various Premiers have described working with

00:42:04.000 Justin Trudeau compared to Carney.

00:42:06.580 Trudeau would show up late, lecture them for the first 20 minutes, not pay attention if the

00:42:11.860 Premiers were talking, not take notes, not ask follow-up questions, and leave early.

00:42:16.600 Mark Carney shows up on time.

00:42:18.620 He listens.

00:42:19.780 He engages.

00:42:20.720 He takes notes.

00:42:21.680 He asks follow-up questions.

00:42:23.060 He looks for ways to work together.

00:42:25.000 That's a world of difference.

00:42:26.080 You're going to be happy if you dealt with the other guy for 10 years.

00:42:29.860 Is that our baseline now, just that you act like a normal professional and that's amazing?

00:42:34.480 That's what Trudeau's brought us to?

00:42:36.540 Okay.

00:42:37.200 In so many ways, yes, unfortunately.

00:42:40.120 I mean, you know, I think Carney does raise the bar to where it should have been all the

00:42:44.820 time on that score.

00:42:46.280 I think there might also be some, you know, conservative politics going on, too.

00:42:51.620 You know, Daniel Smith, Pierre Polyev, not always, always on the best of terms.

00:42:56.480 So I'm wondering, I'm wondering if there's some rivalry there, too.

00:42:59.060 It's like Doug Ford.

00:42:59.840 Doug Ford is, you know, buds with Carney.

00:43:02.020 He thinks he's great.

00:43:02.640 What ambitions do they have down the line someday?

00:43:06.680 Who knows?

00:43:07.860 What powder, what bases are they keeping, you know, stoked?

00:43:11.620 You could speculate all you want, but I don't think it's wrong to think about those things

00:43:15.040 because people do think about those things and relationships and getting stuff done.

00:43:18.620 Daniel Smith wants, her interest is to get stuff done.

00:43:22.260 So she has to work with Ottawa.

00:43:24.040 She's not in an oppositional frame.

00:43:25.440 She's not going to be the Parti Québécois if they get elected in Quebec and say, hey, you 1.00

00:43:29.160 know what, it's our advantage to not get things done because we want to separate.

00:43:32.520 She doesn't want to.

00:43:34.100 So her interest is, let's work together.

00:43:36.660 And then who knows what's in it for Alberta and for me.

00:43:39.920 I'll get reelected.

00:43:40.960 Same thing.

00:43:41.640 Same thinking of Ford, who people all think has some greater designs eventually, potentially

00:43:46.300 on other levels of politics in Canada.

00:43:48.860 The man can't stand sleeping out of his bedroom in Etobicoke for more than a night.

00:43:53.440 Look, but Rito Connage is nice, man.

00:43:56.780 I don't know, I, you don't think he would want to, Prime Minister Ford, think about it.

00:44:01.280 Just, just think of the optics, folks, like folks.

00:44:03.360 Unless we're moving the Prime Minister's residence to his home in Etobicoke.

00:44:08.940 It could.

00:44:10.160 Why not?

00:44:11.000 Ford fast, it would be great, right?

00:44:12.860 Think about it.

00:44:13.200 Sit in the backyard and smoke with the new Prime Minister for meetings.

00:44:17.860 He also announced a housing plan just before the House of Commons came back.

00:44:23.300 They named Anna Bailau as the, I will call her the new housing czar, because I can't 1.00

00:44:29.020 remember what her title is.

00:44:30.580 She was dismissed by some as just a failed politician. 0.66

00:44:34.600 Well, one, she decided not to run last time.

00:44:38.360 So, you know, she served several terms.

00:44:41.260 But, you know, I also think that that's a bit of a bad knock against her.

00:44:45.740 She's someone who sat on the board of Toronto Community Housing, the largest social housing

00:44:50.140 agency in the country, for close to 10 years.

00:44:53.020 And for the last several years, since leaving elected office, has worked with Dream, one of

00:44:57.600 the country's biggest developers and real estate investment managers.

00:45:04.400 So, like, she's got the social housing and the private sector experience.

00:45:09.080 I wish we didn't need this thing.

00:45:11.360 I don't want another bureaucracy, but at least he's put someone in charge who has a clue.

00:45:16.580 I'd like your thoughts on that in the context of one of our colleagues describing Carney's

00:45:21.640 plan as sylviet housing.

00:45:23.860 Stuart?

00:45:25.580 Yeah, make me follow that.

00:45:28.400 Yep.

00:45:28.880 So, this is the most Trudeau-type announcement from Carney that I think we've seen, which

00:45:36.840 is $13 billion, 4,000 homes.

00:45:41.300 Like, is anybody excited about 44,000 factory-built homes?

00:45:45.240 It could be 45,000, he says.

00:45:47.360 It's going to be more than that, because that would put the price tag at $3.25 million per

00:45:51.700 home.

00:45:52.500 That's a house in Toronto.

00:45:55.920 Here's what they're promising.

00:45:56.960 And I, maybe I'll try not to be too cynical about this, but I'll read you what they're

00:46:02.540 saying.

00:46:04.060 Across the country to build 4,000 factory-built homes on federal lands, with the possibility

00:46:07.960 of adding up to 45,000 additional units on these sites.

00:46:12.000 There's a lot of words in there that don't ring with certainty.

00:46:16.160 And I think this is just the nature of the housing problem in Canada, which is it's multi-jurisdictional.

00:46:22.580 It's very hard.

00:46:23.720 It also cuts across different demographics, too, where some people aren't necessarily

00:46:28.540 excited for lots of new homes in their neighborhood, because it's going to add traffic.

00:46:32.900 It's going to be annoying.

00:46:34.360 And I think that on the housing file, the federal mission is to look busy and hope it

00:46:41.580 gets better on its own.

00:46:42.620 Just hope that immigration goes down enough that maybe it's not as big as a problem as

00:46:46.580 it used to be.

00:46:47.380 Hope that rates go down so people are less stressed about that.

00:46:50.200 And make an announcement every now and then where you stand in front of a house.

00:46:54.340 But maybe you'll call me cynical for that.

00:46:57.080 No, it's a horrible problem to deal with.

00:47:00.040 Go ahead, Tasha.

00:47:01.020 I wrote about this this week, too.

00:47:02.440 I'm going to quote you something else they said that got me.

00:47:04.780 They said that this agency, Build Canada Homes, will fight homelessness by building transitional

00:47:11.320 and supportive housing, build deeply affordable and community housing for low-income households,

00:47:17.480 and also build affordable homes for the Canadian middle class.

00:47:20.820 What is deeply affordable?

00:47:22.340 What does that even mean?

00:47:24.520 This is a boondoggle waiting to happen.

00:47:27.480 This is where Carney is vulnerable.

00:47:29.580 All these projects that are happening are not vulnerable because of the deliverables.

00:47:34.140 They're vulnerable because of corruption, graft, overspending, giving contracts to your friends,

00:47:41.080 all sorts of the stuff that gets politicians stuck, a rive can all over it.

00:47:47.460 And the amount of money that's being thrown at it for the results that they are promising,

00:47:51.520 I agree.

00:47:52.260 I mean, it's not that much per home.

00:47:54.120 But it's way more than they would spend if they just went into the market right now,

00:47:57.880 where there are 5,000 condos sitting in Toronto, unsold right now, of already built stuff,

00:48:06.740 pre-construction.

00:48:07.560 There's like another thousands of pre-construction that are being built that will come online.

00:48:13.080 You could snap this stuff up and house people tomorrow if that was your goal.

00:48:17.120 If your goal is to house the homeless, if your goal is really to...

00:48:20.080 That's not what's going to happen here.

00:48:22.900 They are going to be giving contracts and building on these parcels of land.

00:48:27.480 We don't even know where they are.

00:48:28.820 Are they where people even want to live?

00:48:30.460 Do we know this?

00:48:31.720 Usually developers choose places people want to live.

00:48:34.560 Otherwise, what's the point?

00:48:35.580 There's no infrastructure, roadways, you know, sewers, the whole deal.

00:48:43.020 It is mind-boggling that he's doing this and he's selling it like it's a new thing.

00:48:46.980 No, it's not a new thing.

00:48:47.820 It is subsidized housing, okay?

00:48:49.860 Federally subsidized.

00:48:50.660 That's Soviet, whatever you want to call it.

00:48:52.240 It's not the answer.

00:48:54.180 And interest rates are dropping.

00:48:55.220 House prices are dropping.

00:48:56.340 The government is acting against the market because developers are getting out of the market.

00:49:00.860 Why?

00:49:01.160 Because it doesn't pay.

00:49:02.000 If government's going to give them money over here, they're never going to do it on their own.

00:49:06.580 They'll say, oh, yeah, give me some money or I won't build anything.

00:49:09.100 It is a bad idea.

00:49:10.960 When I read the press release, the constant mention of affordable made me worried because

00:49:19.860 when most of us are thinking about we want to make homes more affordable, that's different than

00:49:24.740 affordable housing.

00:49:26.720 And, you know, what we want are for all of us to be able to buy a home that we can afford

00:49:33.160 or have our kids be able to enter the market.

00:49:35.340 And housing has become incredibly unaffordable.

00:49:38.980 And my worry is that the bureaucrats do not like the idea of regular people owning homes

00:49:45.480 other than them.

00:49:46.700 And so they really want this deeply affordable housing.

00:49:50.500 They want the social housing. 0.95

00:49:52.320 They want the rent geared to income housing.

00:49:54.740 And if that's all they're going to focus on, that is not going to solve the big housing problem

00:50:01.340 in Canada, which is that young people are just looking and saying, I can't even get into

00:50:05.400 the market.

00:50:06.480 Yeah, I would if I were in government, I would be extremely worried about this.

00:50:11.600 And this is the thing that's propelling Pierre Paulieff.

00:50:14.760 I was born in 1983, bought my first home in 2019.

00:50:18.980 And that is the last helicopter out of Hanoi in terms of the housing market.

00:50:24.720 And I look at anybody younger than me, anybody who's trying to get in.

00:50:28.740 And I just think, I don't know how you do it at this point.

00:50:32.660 And, you know, if people start to get hopeless about this, and then everything else starts

00:50:37.420 to get unaffordable too, then we see the political movement that it's created for Pierre

00:50:42.740 Paulieff.

00:50:43.480 The age demographics and voting have switched, like we talked about this, all through the

00:50:47.680 election campaign.

00:50:49.340 But what we don't want is just fury coming from these people who I think rightly think

00:50:55.180 that things have gotten unfair for them, and the government doesn't seem interested in

00:50:59.640 fixing it.

00:51:00.540 So if you're in government, I think it behooves you to take this seriously.

00:51:05.100 And what's Tristan Hopper's line?

00:51:06.480 They bought their home for a dozen blueberries in 1954.

00:51:10.700 Something like that.

00:51:12.460 Cute.

00:51:12.760 We'll ask last question about bail reform, because Sean Fraser, the man who wanted to

00:51:20.280 spend more time with his family.

00:51:21.620 I did like that line from Chrystia Freeland in her resignation letter that she, or her

00:51:26.060 announcement that she's leaving cabinet, that she's not going to spend more time with her

00:51:29.260 family.

00:51:31.060 Sean Fraser, he of spending more time with his family, now justice minister, has no clue about

00:51:36.800 criminal justice.

00:51:37.820 He's not that type of lawyer.

00:51:38.980 He actually stood in the house as the conservatives were asking serious questions about bail reform,

00:51:44.720 because the current law says that you've got to release people as quickly as possible under

00:51:49.660 the least onerous conditions, and that you have to practice the principle of restraint when

00:51:56.780 handing out bail.

00:51:57.640 So bail is de facto automatic, except in very rare circumstances.

00:52:02.460 And they're asking him about that, because we all see the stories of so-and-so was out on

00:52:06.840 bail, committed heinous crime.

00:52:08.040 A 12-year-old, out on bail recently in Toronto, along with a 20-year-old, also out on bail,

00:52:14.000 killed a man, a homeless man.

00:52:16.340 This is horrific.

00:52:18.140 They're asking serious questions, and Sean Fraser stands up and says, oh, the law doesn't

00:52:22.140 say what you think it does.

00:52:23.480 It's like, have you read the law, Sean?

00:52:25.120 It clearly does.

00:52:26.360 I don't have hope for bail reform after hearing the comments from the justice minister this

00:52:31.320 week.

00:52:32.320 Yeah, it is disturbing.

00:52:33.820 There should be a reverse onus.

00:52:35.120 There should be that, you know, to show that bail is not an automatic, like you said, or

00:52:39.360 it's not, the judges are not looking for the easiest grounds on which to grant it and the

00:52:43.420 easiest, you know, most lenient terms.

00:52:45.920 It should be the opposite, especially for the certain crimes.

00:52:48.700 And the conservatives have enumerated those.

00:52:50.140 And I think the liberals, this is one of their weak thoughts, too.

00:52:52.700 And this was something that the Harper Conservatives did extremely well on in the election in 2004,

00:53:00.300 2005.

00:53:01.100 Sorry.

00:53:01.700 Six.

00:53:02.360 Sorry.

00:53:03.400 I'm getting old here.

00:53:04.620 But that was one of their, when Jane Creeba was killed in downtown Toronto.

00:53:07.580 And there had been a wave of other, you know, murders.

00:53:09.800 It was the year of the gun in Toronto.

00:53:11.700 And this poor girl was gunned down in the crossfire of a gang shooting just around Christmas,

00:53:15.800 just during the election.

00:53:16.720 And the conservatives said, no, this ain't enough.

00:53:20.460 And they proceeded to put into place a lot of the kind of bills that made sense.

00:53:24.900 But then some of them were not very well drafted.

00:53:27.440 They were not constitution proof.

00:53:28.720 They got overturned in the courts.

00:53:29.860 And then Trudeau undid a pile of others.

00:53:32.220 The liberals, you know, they are soft on crime.

00:53:35.120 They are, they're not the party of law and order.

00:53:37.580 And the conservatives can wear that mantle.

00:53:40.060 And I agree, Fraser is like a weak link in this chain.

00:53:43.160 He doesn't come across as somebody who's really that committed to this.

00:53:46.040 And understands this.

00:53:48.160 So that and the accountability stuff that we talked about just before with the housing

00:53:53.200 and spending lots of money and wasting it are two things the liberals have. 0.78

00:53:57.140 That is the concern to go for those jugulars because they are, people are legitimately frustrated

00:54:02.420 and angry when they see the kind of headlines you were talking about, Brian.

00:54:05.800 Stuart, your thoughts on the crime aspect?

00:54:08.380 Is that a weak point for the liberals as we head into this fall session?

00:54:12.860 Yeah.

00:54:13.160 And I meant last helicopter to Saigon.

00:54:14.920 That's before anybody emails me.

00:54:17.380 Oh, yeah, it's true.

00:54:18.400 It was out of Saigon.

00:54:19.420 I did say I was born in 83. 0.98

00:54:21.160 So that's why I'm dumb. 0.81

00:54:22.580 We could ask Peter Kent about that. 0.91

00:54:24.700 He was there, the former MP and cabinet minister.

00:54:27.080 I was there this summer.

00:54:27.960 I should have picked that up too.

00:54:29.900 Somebody's, somebody was writing an email just now.

00:54:32.120 Hopefully they've stopped now.

00:54:32.920 But yeah, I think speaking to Tory strategists, they'll tell you that Mark Carney has eaten

00:54:39.340 their lunch on a lot of things and that's a concern for pure Polyev.

00:54:42.480 But the two areas where liberals will just never, for ideological reasons, they'll just

00:54:48.640 never be able to beat the conservatives on it.

00:54:50.820 Crime and immigration, two big issues right now. 0.99

00:54:53.640 And that's why you saw Polyev go hard on the temporary foreign workers program, because

00:54:57.900 he needs to find some space on that issue to speak to his people and people who don't think

00:55:02.760 the government's going far enough.

00:55:03.980 And then on crime, something that's worth noting is that the liberals didn't win as

00:55:09.860 many seats as they thought they would in the GTA.

00:55:12.640 And they have chalked that up to messaging on crime.

00:55:16.460 The Trump thing faded in the last couple of weeks there, and they just looked soft.

00:55:22.580 And I don't think that they have the ability to not look soft on crime because they just

00:55:27.560 have competing coalitions.

00:55:29.500 And if you look at a guy like Sean Frazier, he just doesn't, he just doesn't have it.

00:55:33.980 In his vocabulary.

00:55:36.120 It's going to be a fascinating fall session.

00:55:38.640 Thank you guys for joining me.

00:55:40.280 Maybe we'll reconvene before the house leaves for the summer, maybe even for Christmas.

00:55:45.400 The budget, Brian.

00:55:46.380 Let's get me reconvening for the budget.

00:55:47.600 Come on.

00:55:48.380 November 4th, but after the budget.

00:55:51.880 Okay.

00:55:52.500 After, so we can get into the weeds.

00:55:54.400 Yes.

00:55:54.680 Thanks so much for joining us, guys.

00:55:56.500 Bye.

00:55:56.960 Thanks, Brian.

00:55:57.680 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:55:59.680 My name's Brian Lilly, your host.

00:56:01.020 This episode was produced by Andre Pru.

00:56:02.960 Theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:56:04.860 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:56:06.780 Please remember to hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

00:56:09.680 Help us out by writing a review, emailing your Aunt May and Whitby and tell her to listen

00:56:14.200 to the episode.

00:56:15.320 Thanks for listening.

00:56:16.140 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:56:17.640 Here's that clip from Canada Did What?

00:56:24.920 I promised you.

00:56:28.660 Two years later, he was still opposition leader and he lost again to the Pearson Liberals.

00:56:35.320 Despite this, Diefenbaker doesn't resign as leader of the Progressive Conservatives, which

00:56:41.000 put the party in an awkward situation that hasn't really happened before.

00:56:45.500 The typical rules of a Canadian political party were that you stayed leader until you

00:56:49.840 died or resigned.

00:56:51.560 And if you lost twice in a row, you were supposed to do the honorable thing and step aside.

00:56:56.960 But Diefenbaker just didn't.

00:56:59.820 Prompting the party to take the unprecedented step of forcing a party convention in Toronto

00:57:04.560 for the singular purpose of crowbarring Diefenbaker out of the leadership.

00:57:10.700 Diefenbaker shows up, pretends everything is fine, and gives a finger-wagging speech chastising

00:57:16.440 his fellow party members for their disloyalty.

00:57:19.120 I followed this party when I didn't agree with policies.

00:57:25.300 I gave loyalty to leader after leader.

00:57:29.700 Because I believe that there is no other way.

00:57:32.860 He's politely cheered by the assembled Conservatives, and then abjectly humiliated in their subsequent

00:57:39.360 leadership vote.

00:57:40.480 On the first ballot, Diefenbaker gets a distant fifth place, and even then he refuses to admit

00:57:46.400 defeat.

00:57:49.000 If you want to hear the rest of the story, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?

00:57:54.380 Everywhere you get your podcasts.

Full Comment - September 22, 2025

Carney’s high-flying promises come crashing back to earth

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript