Liberals can win with Trump’s foreign interference
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
172.28595
Summary
John Iveson and Lorne Gunter join us to discuss the newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mark Carney and his new team of ministers, including his tone at his swearing-in ceremony, his tone in the press conference, and what they can expect from the new government.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Ontario, the wait is over! The gold standard of online casinos has arrived! Golden Nugget Online
00:00:06.420
Casino is live, bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your
00:00:11.940
fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting, signing up is fast and simple.
00:00:17.360
And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and
00:00:22.060
top-tier table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots
00:00:27.220
that can turn any mundane moment into a golden opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino.
00:00:33.100
Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the
00:00:37.920
thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you
00:00:43.140
can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino? Gambling problem? Call ConnexOntario
00:00:49.080
1-866-531-2600. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See
00:00:56.340
goldennuggetcasino.com for details. Please play responsibly.
00:00:59.720
Bank more encores when you switch to a Scotiabank banking package. Learn more at
00:01:08.120
scotiabank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotiabank. You're richer than you think.
00:01:15.100
Canada did what? A podcast from Post Media uncovered the untold stories of the Canadian
00:01:20.800
history you might think you remember with me, Tristan Hopper. From one Prime Minister's crazy
00:01:26.360
camaraderie with Communists, to the war over metric conversion, and the harrowing reality
00:01:31.220
of the October crisis. Subscribe now to Canada Did What? wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:40.740
I, Mark Carney, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that I will truly and faithfully,
00:01:48.020
and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute the powers and trust reposed in me as Prime Minister.
00:01:55.360
Well, it's official. We have a new government in Canada, and soon we will get the election that
00:02:00.700
many people have been demanding for far too long, except the outcome may not be what those people
00:02:06.280
wanted. Hello, welcome to the Full Comment Podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host,
00:02:10.880
and today we're talking about Mark Carney. He's just been sworn in as Canada's 24th Prime Minister.
00:02:16.600
We are looking at heading to the polls in less than two weeks, and voters will be voting on a wide
00:02:22.260
range of issues, or perhaps just Donald Trump. To talk about all of this, it turned to two of the
00:02:27.960
great minds in the post-media universe to get some thoughts on this, both columnists with great
00:02:34.020
experience in dissecting what is happening in the political sphere. This is our conversation with
00:02:39.900
John Iveson from National Post and Lorne Gunter from The Sun. Well, gents, what's your verdict on the
00:02:46.920
Carney government? I mean, they haven't done much yet, have they? John? Early days, as you say.
00:02:54.460
But he's making the right noises. I'd say a change in tone, though, right?
00:02:59.100
Yeah, I mean, noticeable, and as the ministers came in, you didn't get head-to-head rubbing.
00:03:05.300
Remember that famous picture of Justin and Jodie Wilson-Raybould? Not the time that he devoted her,
00:03:11.060
but the first time he appointed her as justice minister, and there's that kind of image of,
00:03:15.760
you know, they were both weeping, and there was none of that. I mean, Carney's not touchy-feely in
00:03:20.900
the same way that Trudeau is, so it was a firm handshake or a, or I guess an air kiss.
00:03:28.700
Lauren, what are your thoughts on his tone from the swearing in, you know, that first press conference?
00:03:34.480
Well, the tone is different, but I don't see how this group of ministers is going to be all that
00:03:40.560
much different when it comes to policy on the ground than the group they replaced. I like the
00:03:48.080
fact that there are only 24 ministers instead of 34 ministers. I think that the federal government,
00:03:53.580
most governments, provincial governments too, have grown far too large over the last few years,
00:03:58.580
and that's, you know, so you're, you're satisfying regional and gender and all sorts of other
00:04:04.720
constituencies, but, but I think 24 is good. There are two ministers, if I read the list correctly,
00:04:13.420
two ministers from west of Ontario. Is that, is a very Toronto GTA heavy list. It is, it is,
00:04:23.260
and Carney has appointed himself the minister responsible for Alberta and the north. He hasn't
00:04:32.520
lived here since the early eighties. I cannot imagine a prime minister appointing himself the
00:04:38.900
minister for Quebec had he never lived there or hadn't lived there for the last 40 years. So
00:04:44.280
there's a lot of stuff that, that bothers me about this, but, but you and John are right. The tone
00:04:49.720
was better. There wasn't that, I don't know. Trudeau just had that sort of wishy-washy smarmy kind of
00:04:56.360
way of, of touchy feely talking and, and Carney doesn't have that. Now I'll, I'll say this. I thought
00:05:04.000
he did well with his questions that were put to him. They weren't softball, but they weren't, it wasn't
00:05:10.320
an aggressive encounter with the gallery. They had serious questions to ask. They asked serious
00:05:16.720
questions, but they were all questions he would have expected. You know, when will you meet with
00:05:20.980
president Trump? Why are you going to Europe? Um, things like that. Uh, but you know, I thought his
00:05:26.940
answers did okay. If he hadn't gone, I'd been asked about this on radio prior to the swearing in.
00:05:34.320
I said, well, what if he, the host said, what if he doesn't answer questions from the media? I said,
00:05:39.900
then his next encounter is going to be a very grumpy one with a gallery that already feels like he hasn't
00:05:45.660
been paying them much attention. Uh, John, this, um, new iteration, uh, of Mark Carney, uh, was
00:05:53.240
trying to explain to people the national press gallery that covers a politician is very different
00:05:58.320
than the people that show up to cover a bank governor's, um, news conference. The interactions
00:06:03.060
are very different. Do you want to take a run at that? Because you've done like me, you've done both
00:06:08.720
where you're in there and all the financial reporters are like our headwinds, blah, blah. And they just
00:06:12.880
write down all this jargon that the rest of us don't understand. And they have a nice back and
00:06:17.300
forth as opposed to with a prime minister at times, you can be hammer and tawn between the two.
00:06:23.000
Yeah. Much more genteel, um, on the financial side, I've been, I've done both. I covered finance
00:06:28.560
for 12 years. Um, yeah, I think he's going to have to get used to that. I mean, it doesn't surprise me
00:06:35.560
that he didn't hold regular press conferences during the, during the leadership. It was clear he was the
00:06:40.760
front runner. And if you're the front runner, why would you invite the prospect of falling flat
00:06:45.340
in your face? So, um, and I think, I do think that the, the big unanswered question still remains
00:06:51.600
this move by Brookfield South from Toronto, which he almost disowned, even though he was the chair
00:06:58.920
and clearly recommended it. Um, he doesn't want to talk about that. I mean, it had nothing to do
00:07:02.680
with it other than voting for it and asking shareholders. Yeah. So, um, so that doesn't
00:07:09.640
surprise me. The fact he's now taken them even, you, you kind of have to, do I think he'll do okay?
00:07:14.980
I do. Um, he was the bank of Canada governor, a bank of England governor during Brexit. And I've
00:07:20.940
also worked in the UK and the tabloids, particularly the tabloids that were pro Brexit are
00:07:26.640
merciless in a way that the parliamentary press gallery is not. And he had to, he had to
00:07:32.380
weather that. He was the, the kind of most hated man in England for a little while when
00:07:36.280
he, when he had come out against Brexit. So he's got some sense of what's in store for
00:07:43.200
Lauren, the, uh, decision to go to Europe instead of going to Washington first, I think that's
00:07:49.860
a mistake. I know that there are hazards in going down and meeting with Donald Trump.
00:07:55.460
You never know what he's going to say, but you have to meet with him and deal with him at
00:07:58.260
some point. To me, it looks like Carney's going to Europe to collect allies for his rebel alliance
00:08:06.980
in his fight with Darth Vader. Uh, you know, he needs a Han Solo to go to with his, his Luke
00:08:11.160
Skywalker. Macron, Macron and Starmer have already been to the white house, bent the knee and, uh,
00:08:16.620
had very good meetings. In fact, Starmer was asked to stick up for Canada at the white house
00:08:21.680
and refused. So I'm not sure what he's trying to do. Yeah. You know, I, I, I don't think there's
00:08:27.860
any harm in him talking to other leaders first, uh, before he goes to meet Trump, but you can do that
00:08:37.400
on video conferences. You can pick up the phone. There's all sorts of ways. I think it's smart of
00:08:44.540
him to talk to Macron. Uh, I think it's smart of him to talk to Starmer if Starmer will talk to him.
00:08:51.280
Uh, I believe he's had an invite already. Yeah. Okay. So here you go. Let's talk to these guys who
00:08:57.460
have some experience with Trump and who are politicians because Carney is not yet fully a
00:09:04.900
politician. And so talk to them and then go see Trump. But to, to have a showy trip to Europe,
00:09:12.480
um, and, and I sort of kidded there a minute ago that he's going to renew his passports because he
00:09:17.640
has two European. Well, speaking as a European, as he once famously said, that that line will come
00:09:23.720
back to haunt him. Oh, I know that the ads have already been, been drawn up. Um, but yeah, I think,
00:09:31.160
I think it's okay to talk to these people before you go see Trump, but in the middle of this trade war,
00:09:37.180
which is fixating everyone in the country and rightly so, you maybe should go see Trump first.
00:09:45.120
Can I disagree with that? Yeah. I'll tell you why. Um, Trudeau went down to see Trump in Mar-a-Lago
00:09:51.620
before he was, for January 21st. And, um, I thought it was a smart move at the time. It seemed to be a
00:09:59.960
way to get in and get, get to know them. And LeBlanc was there and so on. But it was at that meeting,
00:10:05.580
if you remember that, um, they resurrected the 51st state line, which had never been mentioned in
00:10:13.240
the whole election campaign, the U S election campaign. And when it was Trudeau's response
00:10:18.140
that Canada would be devastated if, uh, if Trump put on tariffs, that I think fired his imagination
00:10:26.640
that this could be something that could happen. Do you think that that's what actually happened?
00:10:31.160
Yeah, I do. I do. That was, cause I've only, I've only heard that from the American side. Um,
00:10:36.720
I could see that being the answer. That would be a horrible answer for a Canadian prime minister to
00:10:40.900
give. Right. I mean, he basically should have kept his mouth shut. So, uh, I mean, I think the 51st
00:10:45.000
state thing was mentioned in the first Trump administration, but only as a joke, but I think
00:10:50.700
what sparked it was Trudeau saying we'd be screwed if this, if you did this.
00:10:55.580
Well, what, what's the old line? Many a true thing is said in jest. Right. Um, I think this
00:11:00.380
started off as a joke. Trudeau lost his freaking mind and Trump is a bully. So he sees that there's
00:11:07.720
a weakness there. He pokes and he pokes and he pokes and he pokes and he's kind of does it as
00:11:12.440
sort of a blowhard 19th hole, uh, old timey kind of golfer kind of thing. And he does it partly
00:11:19.240
because he's a bully. Uh, and it has grown into a real thing. When Trudeau said it was
00:11:24.580
a real thing back at that, uh, Canada, us, uh, summit thing he had in Toronto, I think
00:11:31.800
he was right. I think it has grown with Trump into a real thing, but it, it started off as
00:11:36.520
a joke three months ago and Trump has let it morph.
00:11:40.180
But my point was that, though, that, that, that, do we really want Carly to walk into the
00:11:44.680
same environment where he, I mean, to me, he demand some respect, hold out. And there
00:11:51.220
are already signs in the U S that, um, that the internal pressures are going to sort this
00:11:56.660
thing out. There was a good, there was a good tweet this morning from a Fox business correspondent,
00:12:00.480
Charles Gasparini. And he says, there's a lot of talk in Trump circles about the need for,
00:12:06.700
for a grand plan to resolve this tariff dispute with Mexico, Canada and Europe. Um, some kind
00:12:12.100
of deal that would, uh, a universal settlement that would act as a compromise and really as
00:12:16.960
a face-saving measure for Trump. I mean, I think at the moment the pressures will come
00:12:21.500
from down South and we need to be able to be flexible to give him that face-saving, face-saving
00:12:27.500
opportunity where he can, where he can just say, oh, it was all a joke.
00:12:30.080
And I think that that is part of what the meeting between Doug Ford, uh, Howard Lutnick
00:12:37.000
and the two federal ministers, Francois-Philippe Champagne and Dominic LeBlanc was about, they
00:12:42.640
were offering him an off-ramp and perhaps they got that meeting because of Ford escalating
00:12:49.300
it, which I, I'm always careful. You've got to be careful about when you escalate, when
00:12:54.680
you don't. But clearly they caught the attention of like, wait a minute, this is spiraling out
00:13:00.080
of control. The stock market's tanking. These guys are going to put the, uh, a hundred bucks
00:13:04.720
a month on people's power bills extra. We, we got to haul them down here and sure there's
00:13:10.740
some smack talk, but I think they've, they gave him the off-ramp there.
00:13:14.300
If you look at the stock market indices, the three major indices in the United States for
00:13:19.420
the first 50 days of every president's term since George Bush won in 2000, uh, there's
00:13:26.500
only one time that the stock market has done as badly as it has done under Trump. And that
00:13:32.160
was Obama and Obama came to power during the financial crisis. That wasn't stuff he did.
00:13:37.300
It was already in motion when Obama got sworn in and it just kept going down for the first
00:13:42.620
three months. Trump has done all of this on his own. He couldn't, he could, he could have
00:13:48.820
avoided every single percentage point lost off of the S&P 500, the Dow Jones, the NASDAQ, if
00:13:57.240
he had simply not started this irrational, unprovoked war, but he has got it in his head
00:14:03.580
now that, that we, everyone else outside of the United States has stolen everything from
00:14:10.760
He was sitting with the, he was sitting with the Irish prime minister the other day celebrating
00:14:15.140
St. Patrick's day and they said, is Ireland ripping you off? Yeah, they're ripping us off.
00:14:20.860
I've got the numbers for what Lauren's just mentioned. S&P down 8.18% in the past month.
00:14:27.000
The Dow Jones down 7.19%. The S&P TSX is only down 3.72%.
00:14:32.620
The NASDAQ is down close to 12 last time I looked.
00:14:35.800
I mean, it's, it's, the pain is being felt not in Toronto, but in New York.
00:14:42.600
So to get back to when Mark Carney should go visit him, does he visit him before or after
00:14:47.160
calling an election? Because I think we're all hearing the same thing. Election call by
00:14:52.120
March 23rd, voting at the end of April or first week of May.
00:14:56.300
Yeah. Well, I think he doesn't, he doesn't go down and he has the election when he goes
00:14:59.840
down with a mandate when the internal pressures have forced Trump to stop. Talking all this crap.
00:15:08.820
Yeah. I don't see how he can go down during an election. He has to call an election soon
00:15:16.220
or he has to face parliament, which he can't do because he's not an MP. But you know what
00:15:21.680
I mean? There's going to be opposition. They're going to be, they're going to be assembled.
00:15:25.020
They're going to be asking questions. The gallery will all be there. And, and there'll be a kind
00:15:31.200
of scrutiny he's not probably used to yet. So I think he calls the election within the next,
00:15:36.460
whatever, 10 days where we were, the 24th is when they're supposed to come back. Today's the 14th.
00:15:41.680
So within the next 10 days, I think we're into an election. The Ritz get dropped and away we go.
00:15:46.840
And I don't think once he's done that, that he can go down and see Trump. But, but who knows?
00:15:53.860
I mean, Doug Ford did in the middle of an election campaign, different circumstances. He already had
00:15:59.280
a mandate and was seeking another mandate early. It worked for him. Do the liberals
00:16:06.220
just copy and paste Doug Ford's Ontario election campaign strategy into their own binder and say,
00:16:13.280
here's what we're going to do. We, we need a mandate to deal with Donald Trump.
00:16:18.780
Well, I think all they'll talk about, if he's got, if he's smart, I mean, Carney, if he starts
00:16:22.620
talking about clean energy or, or, you know, the military, his military plan, it sucks. It needs to be
00:16:30.300
updated and everything moving a lot faster. But if he starts, but if he talks about Trump
00:16:34.580
all the time, I mean, I think the conservatives have been caught on the back foot. They're,
00:16:39.520
they're talking about, they've got a 2024 campaign. It's basically about the carbon tax
00:16:44.300
and about, basically about Trudeau and things have moved on. We're in 2025. And when you talk
00:16:51.640
up when people are polled about Trump and who's more likely to roll over to Trump, um, between
00:16:58.520
Kualiev and Carney, Carney wins every time. Well, he wasn't recently in a Leger poll that they did
00:17:04.660
for us at Postmedia, but the most recent Abacus data one and Abacus, uh, released this on Friday.
00:17:12.380
Uh, their vote intention numbers are 38% for the conservatives, 34% for the liberals, NDP down at 15.
00:17:20.620
And when you look at who's moving over, uh, it's Atlantic Canada, uh, Quebec and Ontario. So
00:17:29.440
ahead in Quebec, uh, pretty much, um, tied in Atlantic Canada and Ontario with the conservatives.
00:17:38.480
And then the liberals losing everything West. We'll get to your, uh, grumpy self about that in a few
00:17:43.860
minutes, Lauren, but, um, uh, but it's also older voter, older, uh, voters, boomers are, are moving
00:17:51.300
over in larger numbers to, uh, uh, to the liberal. People are nostalgic for the economic nationalism of
00:17:57.820
his daddy. But on, uh, who, who is best, they asked who's best to deal with Trump. 42% said Mark
00:18:06.280
Carney and the liberals to 28% Pierre Polyev and the conservatives. And then on every other issue,
00:18:12.160
except climate change, the, the conservatives are in the lead, even on healthcare. It's 30%
00:18:18.320
for the conservatives, 29% for, uh, the liberals, but on housing, cost of living, immigration,
00:18:25.760
uh, crime, uh, security and employment that the conservatives have a decent lead on every issue.
00:18:32.440
But none of that matters. I don't think any of that matters. I think we've gone from the politics
00:18:36.260
of anger to the politics of reassurers. People want to be reassured that somebody who knows how
00:18:42.260
these great machines of trade and commerce work is in charge. And I don't think that probably,
00:18:49.420
I mean, he may, if they can get Carney's negatives up, then it's a whole new ball game. But at the
00:18:56.000
moment, the trajectory is all in favor of Carney.
00:18:58.420
How does it feel to be a Westerner right now? And, um, looking at this happening,
00:19:02.900
Eastern Canada changing its mind again, Lauren, we were, we were absolutely convinced that we're
00:19:07.880
going to be done with those damn liberals. And, uh, it looks like Trump is going to have saddled us
00:19:14.520
with them again. Uh, and I, and I don't think there'll be an immediate national unity problem,
00:19:22.300
but as well, look, look, who's basically the second in command in the cabinet. Now it's Stephen
00:19:29.820
Giebel. He's no longer the environment minister, but he's the Quebec lieutenant. He's in charge of
00:19:34.260
heritage. He's going to do for free speech what he tried to do to the oil and gas industry. Um,
00:19:40.340
he's going to pump up the CBC. We're going to get after, after the election, all those issues that
00:19:45.520
you talked about. If they win, if they win, always remember voters are fickle, polls can change,
00:19:50.800
campaigns matter. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think, uh, Tristan Hopper, uh, a couple of months back
00:19:57.920
had a very good piece about Kim Campbell and John Turner, who took over from unpopular prime
00:20:06.740
ministers, immediately got big bumps in their, uh, in their popularity. They, they were,
00:20:13.980
Kim Campbell was, was polling as high as any leader had polled for the previous 20 years.
00:20:19.220
And yet she got wiped out. Her party ended up with two seats in the election four months later.
00:20:24.240
Um, the liberals aren't stupid. They've, they've seen this. They saw it with Turner. They've seen
00:20:29.200
it with Campbell. And they know if they even wait a couple of months and make Kearney govern,
00:20:34.840
that they run the risk that he will pan out as a dud too. Uh, and, and he will lose big time. So
00:20:42.120
they're going right in. They're going while the, the Trump stuff is hot. Like I, I, I don't fault them
00:20:47.320
for their strategy, but, uh, I don't, I never have liked Donald Trump in the last month. I've
00:20:54.200
started to hate Donald Trump. And if he foists a liberal government on us again, uh, I will really
00:21:00.920
hate that. Uh, let me ask you about something, uh, that's specific to Western Canada. Cause if I
00:21:07.900
don't, I'm sure I'll get a nasty emails. Uh, hearing a lot of frustration, uh, premier Scott
00:21:14.060
Moe, former premier, uh, Brad wall, both of out of Saskatchewan, um, saying, why is nobody talking
00:21:20.740
about the Chinese tariffs? And why is there no national unity crisis about that? I mean, I might
00:21:25.960
say, uh, China is not threatening to take us over, but they are trying to take us over. Uh, but I mean,
00:21:32.340
what do you do about those, uh, tariffs a hundred percent on canola on peace devastating for farmers?
00:21:38.840
Hopefully they can find other markets for their, uh, their product. But I mean, those tariffs came
00:21:45.400
from China as retaliation for our tariffs on Chinese goods. And if we didn't tariff those Chinese goods,
00:21:51.740
um, the Biden administration was threatening us, nevermind Donald Trump.
00:21:56.340
Yeah. And if, and if you thought Justin Trudeau was cozy with the Chinese, just wait till you see
00:22:03.920
Mark Carney. Uh, Mark Carney has spent much of the last, um, at least the last 10 years, probably
00:22:11.300
closer to 20, uh, uh, making overtures to China, uh, being appointed to, to Chinese boards. Uh, like,
00:22:19.880
I think he might be able to do something about that because he's too cozy with the Chinese.
00:22:25.560
But, uh, but yeah, these are issues that bother people in the West and are completely ignored in
00:22:35.000
Ottawa. Um, I'm not sure that there's any good way of doing it. I used to be a, a triple E Senate
00:22:40.840
advocate. You know, we had to have equal and elected Senates and that was going to change. I, I, I don't
00:22:47.040
think that would really do too much either. Um, over time it might, but you know, I, these are just
00:22:54.720
issues that we are always going to have to be disappointed on in the West because look at,
00:23:00.360
look what's happened. So I, I, I knew China was going to retaliate and I'd like both of you on
00:23:05.740
this. I thought that they would have said, Oh, well, the, the liberal government in, in Canada,
00:23:11.500
uh, relies a lot on Quebec hit them with tariffs on pork because a lot of the pork production comes
00:23:17.600
out of Quebec. Uh, they went with Western, uh, products that are specific to Western Canada. Is this
00:23:23.240
an attempt to foster, uh, um, you know, um, separatist sentiment or trigger national unity
00:23:31.320
crisis? I think they need Quebec's pork more than they need Saskatchewan's canola. I mean,
00:23:35.580
I just think it's, it's that simple. John. You know, I, I, every morning I get an email
00:23:41.920
from a, from a guy I've developed a relationship with, a farmer in Alberta. He's telling me that
00:23:46.180
canola markets are down, are up $4 a ton this morning, but $73 down or 11% since Monday.
00:23:52.880
I mean, you can imagine that causes massive resentment. I mean, the government in Ottawa
00:23:58.320
can, can say to itself, well, we're utilitarianism. We're doing the most good for the most number
00:24:03.700
of people by, by trying to save jobs in the car market. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot
00:24:09.600
of people working agriculture in agriculture and it clearly, you know, clearly one thing
00:24:16.680
led directly to another and the government did it in the full knowledge that this was likely
00:24:22.220
to happen. So yeah, I can fully appreciate and sympathize with people who are resentful
00:24:29.380
All right. Well, we'll take a quick break here. And when we come back, we want to talk
00:24:32.080
about the pending election and where each of you think things are going more in moments.
00:24:44.520
Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision?
00:24:48.880
And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and
00:24:52.420
continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?
00:24:57.860
Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from Telus for peace of mind at home
00:25:02.520
and online. Visit telus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply.
00:25:18.820
Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and
00:25:23.680
get enough points for a free donut, drink, or Timbits. With 800 points after registration,
00:25:28.360
activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more, see the Tim's app for details at participating
00:25:36.620
What are the new technologies that will change aviation?
00:25:40.940
Well, hydrogen would be one for sure if we got there. I mean, hydrogen is not just a alternative
00:25:45.960
fuel. I mean, hydrogen would change it significantly if we ever managed to break the back of that.
00:25:51.200
Today, I'm speaking with Kalen Rovinescu, the former president of Air Canada and a trailblazer
00:25:58.620
in global aviation. Join me, Chris Hadfield, on the On Energy podcast.
00:26:06.880
So as we head into the election, there's a lot of interesting things happening in the background,
00:26:12.460
and that one being, Mark Carney flew to Toronto the other day, just after being elected, selected as
00:26:20.580
liberal leader, and he had breakfast with Doug Ford. And both he and Ford made sure that there were
00:26:26.240
photos and video released of this encounter that people saw that they were getting along together.
00:26:34.540
Doug Ford and Pierre Polly have, I can't say they have a bad relationship because they have no
00:26:39.320
relationship. And I had a lot of people reach out and say, is Doug Ford endorsing Mark Carney?
00:26:48.140
Now, officially, they will tell you no. Oh, no, that's not happening. But to start off the election
00:26:53.820
campaign with a guy who just won a third mandate, who's pretty popular in the most populous province,
00:27:00.140
and who should be on the blue team with Pierre Pollyev, that's bad news for Pierre.
00:27:05.720
Yeah, well, I mean, it's not only that the two leaders don't connect, but I know their teams are
00:27:13.140
not fond of each other. So, yeah, that's a kind of strange one. But, I mean, you would expect the
00:27:20.820
incoming prime minister and the premier of the biggest province to be on the same page on this
00:27:26.500
particular issue. You need them to be. And I think Ford's been terrific. I think when he went down
00:27:31.820
to Washington and made his speech there talking about, you know, let's draw the borders around
00:27:37.400
the continent, not merging countries, but, you know, become even former allies. I think he hit all
00:27:45.700
the right notes in all the right places. I mean, the number of times he's been on Fox TV, he speaks
00:27:50.280
Republican. Yeah. And he's been a great asset to Canada, I think. So, no great surprise that
00:27:57.920
anybody coming in would say, well, let's utilize this guy because he's probably our best weapon.
00:28:03.820
But I'm not sure that Pierre Pollyev and Doug Ford have even had a phone call together. I'm not sure
00:28:09.480
that they've talked to each other. And when Ford won his re-election, Michael Barrett, Eastern
00:28:15.700
Ontario MP, quite like Michael, great guy, but he was asked in a scrum or a news conference on
00:28:22.640
Parliament Hill, you guys haven't said congratulations to Ford's team, have you?
00:28:27.820
Why not? And he couldn't even bear himself then to say, well, congratulations to them. There's that
00:28:32.960
much of an animosity. The two campaign managers, Jenny Byrne in Poliev's case and Corey Tanike in
00:28:40.460
Doug Ford's case, they're actually very good friends. But it's just everything else, it's like
00:28:47.320
oil and water. Does this hurt Pierre, Lauren? Yeah, for sure it does. I mean, I think Doug Ford
00:28:55.120
meeting with Mark Carney was an awful lot like, you remember in the 2012 election, Hurricane Sandy blew
00:29:06.420
through New York and New Jersey. Yeah. And the governor of New Jersey, who was a big time Republican,
00:29:16.440
Christie, Christie, Chris Christie, met with Obama on the shore while they're talking about federal aid to
00:29:24.700
rebuild and things. And it was seen as a tacit endorsement. I don't think it was, but it turned
00:29:34.780
Obama's polls around. Obama did not have great polling numbers going into his second election.
00:29:40.280
And Christie's endorsement seemed to turn that around. I think Doug Ford has done the same thing
00:29:46.740
for Mark Carney. He's made it acceptable to people who vote for him in Ontario. And that's a broad
00:29:52.520
cross-section because he's not a particularly conservative conservative. He's made it acceptable
00:29:59.100
for people who vote for Doug Ford to think also about voting for Mark Carney. And that you add to that the fact
00:30:09.700
that Pierre Polyev's strategy was to wait quietly in the weeds for the liberals to self-destruct.
00:30:21.320
And then he would come out big time in the campaign this fall and collect on all that. That was a good
00:30:29.520
strategy when Justin Trudeau was the leader of the liberals. But as soon as Trudeau goes,
00:30:36.960
and now that Trump has thrown in the trade war, that has become a bad strategy because nobody knows
00:30:45.060
they don't know what he stands for. When the liberals or the protecting Canada ad, people say
00:30:52.920
he's just a Trump, he's just a Trump clone here in Canada. Most people don't have anything to say.
00:31:01.580
No, he's not. So he gets tarred with Trump at a time when Trump is as hated as he's ever been in
00:31:08.820
Canada. And yeah, so I think Ford was giving a tacit endorsement to Carney.
00:31:15.160
I don't think people really get the importance of these tacit endorsements. And I remember
00:31:19.340
when the, whichever campaign, was it 2019 or 2021? Because Trudeau was behind and kind of behind
00:31:30.840
But there was one where Obama came out and it was a tacit endorsement or it was an explicit
00:31:36.060
endorsement for progressives to forgive Trudeau. I think it was 2019 because it was blackface.
00:31:42.000
Yeah. And so I remember when the thing came out and they were, the Trudeau folks were delighted.
00:31:48.640
I was on the bus at the time and they were just delighted because it was like a sort of
00:31:54.000
thumbs up to progressive voters that they could go back to Trudeau. And they did. And this,
00:31:59.020
you know, I mean, Ontario voters don't need a lot of encouragement to elect a conservative at
00:32:04.280
Queen's Park and a Liberal in Ottawa. I mean, all through the Harper years, McGinty was in
00:32:10.680
power and the Liberals were in power at Queen's Park. It's, it seems to be the accepted way
00:32:18.060
I think federally we are headed for the equivalent of Ontario's McGinty-Winn election, the transition
00:32:26.580
there. Winn should never have won. She was, she was unpopular. The McGinty government was
00:32:37.000
But so Lord, just on that, you know, the history of those transitions is not great. You look
00:32:42.520
at Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, you look at Kretchen and Martin, and as you say, McGinty
00:32:48.260
and Winn. But the difference is Carney was not part of that government. And I know they keep
00:32:53.420
trying to say that he was an advisor to Trudeau. He was a very, very arm's length advisor.
00:32:59.760
He was very busy moving his Brookfield headquarters from Toronto to New York at the time. He was
00:33:06.180
And making money off, making money off toll roads in Lima.
00:33:10.540
Right. So, so it's like, it's kind of a different beast, I think, than.
00:33:13.920
It is, but it's, it was one where the Conservatives thought they were going to win. They were sure
00:33:18.860
they were going to win. And in the end, they got beaten by Winn. And that flummoxed them.
00:33:26.480
I mean, they didn't know what to do. And I think that we are headed for perhaps the same
00:33:30.960
side. You know, you, when you look at the polls, the Conservatives are still slightly
00:33:34.440
ahead, most places. And, and in the big number places, I think it's head to head. But this,
00:33:44.920
like when you talk, Brian talked earlier about the abacus poll that showed Carney is way ahead
00:33:53.220
of Polyev on who would you like to deal with Trump. And then on every other issue,
00:33:58.180
the Conservatives are ahead of the Liberals. They're going to come to power. If they come
00:34:03.400
to power again, the Liberals are going to come to power. Trump is going to have to back off because
00:34:07.900
the oil industry in the States is against them. The agriculture industry is now getting to be
00:34:12.660
against them, except for the dairy industry. The, the stock market is nuts against him. And it is
00:34:19.140
purely his fault. And he'll have to back off. We'll get the trade thing settled. And then you get four
00:34:26.580
years of Trudeau redo with, with Carney, who is crazy on his policies are insane on crime. His policies
00:34:39.480
He brought in David Lamedi as an advisor. David Lamedi is the man that brought in C5, which
00:34:46.160
got rid of mandatory minimum sentences for second and third convictions on gun smuggling. And I remember
00:34:56.240
the news conference where he announced it, he portrayed it all as, well, this is to help young
00:35:01.500
men who might have a youthful indiscretion. No, by the time you've been convicted a third time for
00:35:07.640
smuggling guns across the Canada-US border. Uh, that's not a mistake. Uh, you're a criminal,
00:35:13.140
but that, you know, I, I could see that coming a mile away because when Lamedi first ran, I started
00:35:18.700
reading his academic profile and this is right. He was a law professor at McGill. This is right within
00:35:26.600
where he would be. Uh, the, if, if, if Trump backs off soon though, you know, we're talking April 28th for
00:35:36.140
the, um, election or May 5th. My understanding is it may go to May 5th because they don't have a lot
00:35:41.580
of candidates right now, the liberals, the conservatives and NDP are ahead of them in
00:35:45.440
nominating candidates. Uh, so they may, may need an extra week to have everyone in the game.
00:35:51.560
If in that time, the Trump issue is mostly settled and we're headed towards a, uh, another NAFTA
00:35:59.580
renegotiation. Does that change this equation? I mean, Trump is the only thing that has changed,
00:36:05.960
uh, since, you know, Trudeau left. Trump is the only issue. So if, if he dissipates,
00:36:13.260
what does that do to the campaign? I think you, you, you hit the nail on the head. That would
00:36:19.600
completely transform it. I think the trajectory at the moment, I can only see one outcome
00:36:24.640
if things say the way they are, but, um, yeah, I mean, as you point out, if he keeps
00:36:32.120
poking the bear, I think it helps the liberals win. Well, I don't think he's been poking the
00:36:36.760
bear to be fair to him though. I mean, I could, I could see why it might be in his interest
00:36:40.200
to do so, but I think it's, that's just too dangerous. No, if he, if he keeps up on tariff
00:36:45.720
threats and talking about 51st state, which he's been doing. Sure, sure. I thought you meant
00:36:51.220
Carly. No, no, no. I, I mean, if Trump keeps poking the bear, we're going to have a liberal
00:36:56.300
majority. Yeah. Which I, I, you know, I, I, when I was down in Washington interviewing Steve Bannon,
00:37:02.420
I told him that and he said, yeah, that could happen. I've told the Breitbart guys that, uh,
00:37:06.980
all kinds of them. And I think that's part of why you're seeing Ben Shapiro, a major conservative
00:37:11.980
commentator in the state say, Hey, hold on a minute here. Maybe we want to rethink what's going on.
00:37:18.380
Well, do they really care who's prime minister up here? I don't think they care that much as some
00:37:23.520
of them do. Yeah. I don't, yeah, I don't think that like I, I was surprised how deeply the trade
00:37:32.520
issue had pierced American voters awareness, uh, because of course we're all aware of it. Absolutely.
00:37:41.500
But I wasn't sure that Americans were, but, uh, I spent four days in the States last week
00:37:47.860
and didn't, people didn't know who I was or why I was there. But as soon as they found out that I
00:37:54.580
was a Canadian, they would say, Oh God, I'm so sorry. We're doing this to you guys. I, and I was
00:38:00.340
surprised by the level of understanding they had about what Trump was doing and they apologized for
00:38:05.500
the president. And then we moved on to other topics, but, but they know, I think, and I think
00:38:11.000
it's not just, uh, that the knowledge that they are the ones that are going to pay the tariffs. So
00:38:17.500
it's not just, uh, a self-interested, uh, economic thing. There is a sense of an acknowledgement of
00:38:25.700
Canada's relationship with, with, um, with the U S and 9 11, world war one, two Korea, Afghanistan.
00:38:35.320
And there was a great clip. Uh, I don't know if you saw it, but there was a, a, a gentleman in North
00:38:40.300
Carolina at a meet the candidate or a meet the, uh, representative meeting where he, he asked him
00:38:46.760
yes or no about Canada. And, and it was just the, the whole crowd that were there were disgusted with
00:38:55.440
what is happening to Canada. And I don't think it was an economic issue. I think it's a sense of
00:38:59.600
a fairness issue. They think fair that it's being unfair to their closest ally.
00:39:05.700
Okay. So Trump is the number one issue. Would you be able to turn that around? John earlier,
00:39:10.940
you mentioned getting negatives up on Kearney, the conservatives, uh, speaking to them the other
00:39:16.880
day, they said they've got the biggest ad buying Canadian political history going right now.
00:39:22.760
In fact, they better get it out the door pretty quick.
00:39:25.020
They said it's already out the door. Um, and I've seen the ads on TV. Um, I I'm, I'm just
00:39:32.220
on social media to post things. So I don't necessarily see the ads. Um, but my understanding
00:39:37.980
is they're all over social media. They're on digital platforms, like all of the post media
00:39:42.140
newspapers there. Um, you know, if you're playing Xbox, you're going to see an ad if you meet
00:39:47.220
the right demographic. Can they actually turn this into being about Mark Carney saying he's just
00:39:53.280
like Justin? Um, yeah, I, I think they can. I mean, especially if, if the heat is turned down on,
00:39:58.080
uh, on, um, Trump or if Trump turns the heat down, uh, I did see an abacus poll, which suggested
00:40:05.360
that Carney's, uh, negatives are rising. He's still in plus territory as in more people, um,
00:40:12.620
liking the note like him. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that graph and it showed both the, the negatives and
00:40:17.660
the positives going up on a, a similar trajectory because nobody knew who he was. No. And you know,
00:40:24.320
to some extent he's benefited from the fact that everyone can project onto him because he's a blank
00:40:29.480
slate. Everyone can project onto him what they're hoping for in a leader at the moment. And to be
00:40:35.160
Frank, Pierre Poliev has never warmed people. He is not, uh, a warm kind of guy. And I, I would say
00:40:44.980
that, that his team's desire to, uh, have alliteration on everything or, or, uh, you know, carbon tax
00:40:56.340
carny, this cheat carny, you know, they, they try to have these catchy little phrases that this is not a
00:41:02.420
time when that, when that catchy little stuff works, you need to be serious. You need to show
00:41:07.780
that you can take over this negotiation with the United States and do at least as well as people
00:41:14.480
think carny will. The other thing though, that works for the conservatives on their favor is I
00:41:19.400
expect that a, a, a person who is an untutored, well, not untutored, but certainly an unprofessional
00:41:25.840
politician is going to have a flub or two. He's going to do something like he did where he said in
00:41:31.520
Kelowna that he would use the federal government's emergency powers to, uh, push through an East West
00:41:38.200
pipeline. Well, he made it sound like that, but he didn't actually say it. He just made it sound
00:41:43.280
like it. Okay. But that, but it's going to get analyzed. And then he went to Quebec and he said,
00:41:47.600
no, no, no, no, no, no. We'd never do that to Quebec. Well, he's just appointed Stephen Giebel
00:41:51.800
as his Quebec left hand. Do you actually imagine there's going to be a pipeline that goes across Quebec?
00:41:56.500
There will not be a pipeline. And, and if this becomes an issue, if we, you know, if, if we Canadians
00:42:03.400
are looking to have a more, uh, uh, a stronger economy internally and, and with exports to other
00:42:12.420
countries, we're going to need pipelines. If, if Poliev can make that an issue and Carney and Giebel
00:42:18.460
can be seen to be clashing on that, there are things they can do. But right now that is not where
00:42:23.780
the trajectory is going. After that breakfast with Doug Ford, Mark Carney hopped into, uh, the SUV
00:42:29.480
and drove to Hamilton for a news conference, uh, a bit of a speech, sorry, not a news conference
00:42:35.600
because he didn't take questions, but he spoke to steel workers said he would have their backs
00:42:39.000
as he was leaving. He media are there, refuse to take questions. They had the RCMP blocking them.
00:42:46.740
Those are the sorts of things that you can't do. He will face more aggressive questioning. Uh,
00:42:51.900
and then there's the question of the debates. Um, it was funny after the, uh, French language
00:42:57.460
debate, um, of course he, he's got Ottawa bureaucrat French. He can get by in a meeting,
00:43:07.140
but I was watching, uh, CBC's coverage, uh, after the French debate and they said, well,
00:43:13.600
it won't really matter because his French was good enough. And then the French reporters come
00:43:18.700
out. And the first question is, can you handle yourself in a debate with, uh, with Pierre
00:43:23.040
Paulyevre and Yves-Francois Blanchet? Is he going to be able to handle himself in either
00:43:28.500
English or French against three very professional politicians?
00:43:33.600
I would say yes. And, and here's my reasoning for that. Yeah. I mean, let's say we don't know
00:43:41.280
because we, because we haven't seen him, but my suspicion is that, uh, all that training
00:43:46.520
that he's had, particularly as the governor, the governor of the Bank of England, Bank of Canada,
00:43:49.800
you don't speak off the cuff. You don't say the wrong thing. You are very disciplined in what
00:43:55.800
you're saying. So he's got message discipline. Otherwise, you know, you're playing with,
00:44:00.780
playing with markets. And during Brexit, he got absolutely mauled by the tabloids for getting
00:44:10.340
involved. Now he was called to a parliamentary committee, so he had to answer questions,
00:44:13.780
but in doing so, he made it clear that he didn't think Brexit was a great idea. And then
00:44:18.580
he became public enemy number one and he got roasted for weeks and months. So yeah, he does
00:44:24.920
have experience. I mean, and, and both of you know, the British tabloids are not, uh, are not
00:44:31.360
delicate flowers when it comes to this stuff. So I, you know, it would really surprise me if
00:44:37.700
he flubbed it in a campaign that he just couldn't cut it in a campaign. He's been at the highest
00:44:43.560
levels of, uh, public life for the last, what, 15 years. You do learn to think before you speak.
00:44:54.500
Lauren, what do you think of him in a, in a debate, English or French?
00:44:58.960
He will have, um, he will have Trudeau's people, uh, who he's inherited as his campaign
00:45:05.360
types, uh, prepping him for all of this. Uh, I would never say he's a dumb guy. I think he's a
00:45:12.720
far more extremist person on environmental issues than, than he lets on, but he has a very calming
00:45:19.640
face in front of, uh, he has a very good mask in front of his environmental issues. Like for instance,
00:45:27.440
if you look at his work on the Glasgow financial alliance for net zero, GFANS, uh, it's, it is
00:45:37.420
ridiculously, uh, environmentalist and lefty. Well, yeah, I was laughing that he went to
00:45:43.500
DeFasco because he wants to increase the, uh, industrial carbon price that would move production
00:45:49.840
from Hamilton to Arcelor Mattel's, uh, plants in Detroit and Ohio. Of course it would. Of course
00:45:56.160
it would. And you know, this is completely off the topics we're on now, but one of the things I've
00:46:00.920
been wanting to mention for, for weeks now, since Trump keeps talking about how he stole all their
00:46:05.380
jobs is under Dalton McGinty, 200,000 manufacturing jobs moved to the United States because of what he was
00:46:12.880
doing with the green energy act and electricity input costs for manufacturers. Um, you know, this,
00:46:20.300
this has been happening ever since, uh, NAFTA that our manufacturers have moved elsewhere, not always
00:46:27.840
to the United States, but often to the Northern tier States because it was cheaper to work there than it
00:46:34.040
was here. And, and what, what Carney is doing is the same thing. So I don't trust Carney to go to the
00:46:41.220
United States and, and negotiate with Trump because he can't get away from what he's done for the last
00:46:47.160
10 years full time, which is all of the green initiatives, his net zero. Okay. But does any of that
00:46:54.000
matter when we're talking about swing votes? No, it doesn't matter at all. That's what, that's why it
00:46:57.640
animates me so much. You cannot sit down in Minidosa, Manitoba and explain to ordinary, intelligent,
00:47:05.080
interested voters. You can't sit down in, in a short period of time, explain why Mark Carney
00:47:10.940
is at least as green as Justin Trudeau. But why I was saying it doesn't matter is if Trump is the
00:47:19.040
issue, then none of those other campaign issues will matter. It will just flood everything out. And
00:47:24.980
that's the only thing people will vote on for the swing voters. Anyway, his public utterances so far
00:47:31.000
have, uh, have been very muted and what Lauren's talking about. And I don't disagree with him,
00:47:35.860
uh, with, with Lauren about what he, what he's just said, but thus far Carney has, you know,
00:47:42.540
when he spoke, when he won the leadership, he started talking about, uh, clean and conventional
00:47:48.180
energy. So, you know, he's keeping in there the idea that we're going to be building pipelines and,
00:47:53.860
and exporting propane and natural gas, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, Gibbo, when Gibbo was,
00:48:00.980
the environment minister, he wouldn't even support natural gas as a bridge to cleaner energies.
00:48:07.620
He, he, he saw natural gas as equally the enemy as, uh, as heavy oil, which boggles the mind.
00:48:13.740
And coal. And coal. It was all the same to him. Uh, I don't think Carney's there, but it's certainly
00:48:19.680
in his public utterances so far since he won the leadership, he has played down the environmental
00:48:25.040
side. And I think quite rightly, because we're hardly going to be, uh, boosting our emissions
00:48:30.920
if we're all driving around embedded buggies. Yeah, exactly. All right. So, uh, what's your
00:48:37.160
prediction for when the, uh, the election gets called, Jen? Well, we'll ask you each, uh, uh,
00:48:41.620
that, and then do you have a prediction for the result or is it far too fluid?
00:48:47.680
I think you've already called it on the dates. It's the 28th or the 5th, I think. I mean,
00:48:51.960
he could go back to parliament. I think the NDP would eat themselves whole to, uh, to avoid an
00:48:58.260
election right now because they are. What they've told me is that they would back him
00:49:02.440
for like passing EI reform and a package for this, but nothing else. And they, they swore
00:49:08.680
up and down. I cannot believe that. Would you, would you want to go to an election when you
00:49:12.440
look like you might not even have official party status after it? They backed him if he
00:49:16.620
wanted to get rid of the income tax. Trust me, they would back him on damn near anything
00:49:20.280
right now, just to keep working. Campaign to kill the Canadian beaver, the NDP.
00:49:24.060
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There they are. Some polls have them at 11%. It's, uh, yeah.
00:49:29.580
We haven't seen that. There'd be Jagmeet Singh saying, I've always wanted a beaver hat.
00:49:34.040
Yeah. So they could, he could negotiate with them, but he will not negotiate with them. I can
00:49:39.360
guarantee you. I, I, I don't see it. I, I don't, I don't see parliament coming back. Lorne?
00:49:44.300
No, I don't see that. I think you're, you're both right. It's either the 28th of April
00:49:48.540
or the 5th of May. Uh, and I don't think that Donald Trump can back away from what he's
00:49:54.480
done fast enough, uh, for it to affect the outcome of the election. I think we're going
00:50:00.600
to be very close to, uh, a majority for one of the parties or the other. I think it's going
00:50:07.760
to be quite tight. Uh, but, uh, but I do think at the moment, if the, if the momentum, and
00:50:16.300
I don't talk about polls, I'm talking about momentum, if the momentum keeps swinging the
00:50:19.920
way it is, you're going to end up with a liberal government. Uh, you know, if, um, if Donald
00:50:25.500
Trump does what he did for Doug Ford, which is have an explosion of statements, uh, about
00:50:29.700
tariffs every couple of days, uh, it could be a massive liberal majority government, the
00:50:35.120
way things are going. I mean, let's remember as well, if it's a conservative minority, they
00:50:41.180
probably ain't going to last very long. Well, but look at, look at Harper's, look at Harper's
00:50:45.260
first government. Nobody thought they would find a way to survive, but they survived for
00:50:49.880
over two years because Harper and his team were very masterful at carving off each one
00:50:56.940
of the opposition parties to support what they were doing just long enough to move on
00:51:01.220
to the next issue. So who knows? I was there in 06 and I had, uh, liberal MPs telling me
00:51:08.460
they'd be back in power in a couple of months and, uh, it was nine years. So we
00:51:14.100
shall see. It was great fun, uh, chatting about this with you gents. Uh, we're going
00:51:18.500
to have plenty of political fodder to, uh, write about in the months to come. Thanks
00:51:22.060
so much. Very good. Thank you. Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name is
00:51:27.020
Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced by Andre Pru. Theme music by Bryce
00:51:31.300
Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full Comment on
00:51:35.840
Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Help us out by giving
00:51:40.760
us a rating or leaving a review and tell your friends all about us. Thanks for