John Bolton - August 27, 2026


Carney Now Has a Blank Check — Be Afraid. Be Very, Very Afraid


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

167.43

Word count

1,698

Sentence count

108

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel 503 a.m. Thursday, August the 27th. Great to have
00:00:09.160 you here today. So much discussion about the breakdown in trade talks between the United
00:00:14.840 States and Canada over the last several days. I've talked about a number of reasons why the
00:00:20.000 liberals backed out of this deal. One may be making trade deals with the communist Chinese. 0.80
00:00:24.460 It's possible the United States trade representative said no more of that in this part of the world.
00:00:31.840 Also, the French language, it seems that I was right when I brought this up a few days ago.
00:00:36.540 The Americans said that they're really not interested in having the companies in their country have to give money to the French language or having French language programs on their streaming services.
00:00:47.220 And then yesterday we talked about the fact that right now the Democrats are actually in the prime minister's office.
00:00:51.940 But there's another thing that may have broken down these trade talks that I started thinking about yesterday, and then I saw a couple of stories pop up today, and they're both related to what we're talking about here today.
00:01:03.580 You should be very, very afraid about what's going on here.
00:01:07.760 A lot of Canadians at this point have given the Liberal Party of Canada a blank check to spend.
00:01:13.960 You remember, during the election campaign, Carney's mantra was, spend less, invest more.
00:01:22.420 I have a simple rule, spend less, invest more.
00:01:25.080 A government that spends less so that Canada can invest more.
00:01:28.620 And when Carney said that over and over again during the election campaign, and I think he's said it since,
00:01:34.940 I pointed out here at this channel that the invest more part of this means more spending.
00:01:39.700 Now, I'm just thinking outside the box here, okay?
00:01:43.020 I'm just guessing. But I'm wondering if Carney and his trade negotiators, I wonder if they saw
00:01:49.960 an opportunity here. If we kill this deal, if we scuttle this deal, it gives us an opportunity to
00:01:55.940 spend unprecedented amount of money and nobody will question it other than people like me
00:02:01.680 who see through this ruse, who see the failure of the liberal government, who see the failure
00:02:07.000 of the great negotiator, Mark Carney. But you've got your elbows up, people, the people with Trump
00:02:12.760 derangement syndrome, who are backing this government and not questioning anything,
00:02:16.480 who will believe anything. And now they can spend all they want. They've got a blank check, folks.
00:02:21.680 Be very afraid. And all they have to do is wrap this up in catchphrases that are likely
00:02:27.240 focus group tested. And a lot of Canadians will buy this and they're going to buy it with their
00:02:33.120 own money. Words like, we're going to play a couple of clips for you in just a moment.
00:02:36.880 We have all we need. We can build our future. We can build Canada strong. We've heard that before.
00:02:45.080 Unprecedented challenges. We need to meet the moment. We'll do whatever it takes. We stand
00:02:50.600 together. Nothing can stop us. We choose Canada. We stand up for Canada. They're going to say that
00:02:57.260 over and over again, and in kicks the faux Canadian patriotism once again. We're going to
00:03:03.860 read a couple of articles here, just some short bits that are on this vein. In the face of tough
00:03:09.440 new tariffs, Carney doubles down on government spending. And this from Corey Morgan from the
00:03:14.020 Western Standard, he touches on this as well. So a couple of clips here, short clips. I'm not going
00:03:19.240 to punish you here. Francois-Philippe Champagne announcing these tariffs the other day. And then
00:03:23.920 Mark Carney announcing massive spending on icebreakers at a time when the Canadian economy
00:03:29.820 is in great peril this is a non-precedented challenge imposed on Canada but Canada will meet
00:03:38.820 the moment Canadians will meet the moment we will meet the moment together and as the Prime Minister
00:03:46.440 has said we will support our workers our businesses in our industry with whatever it takes for as long
00:03:54.040 as it takes that is the essence of the message this morning and that's why we are united with
00:03:59.340 you and that's why we want to present what we have to offer to Canadians.
00:04:03.420 Because when Canadians stand together, nothing can stop us. They ask too much of
00:04:09.420 Canada and offer too little in return. Accepting them would have armed our 0.83
00:04:15.420 workers, people like you see here today, weaken our industries and compromise
00:04:21.940 principles fundamental to our nation. So we stood up for our workers, we stood up
00:04:28.680 our businesses, we stood up for Canada. When the United States of America asked
00:04:34.380 too much and offered too little, we made a choice. We chose Canada. So now let's
00:04:41.340 continue to build Canada strong because we are the true north, strong and free.
00:04:45.920 That's not to say there won't be challenges in the road ahead, but we're
00:04:50.300 ready to meet them because we have all we need right here. The workers, the
00:04:56.820 the engineers, the ambition, and the right plan, the right plan for a stronger Quebec
00:05:03.340 and a stronger Canada. Building at home and diversifying our trade abroad, that's not
00:05:09.600 plan B, it's been our plan A from the start. Last week, we launched together the largest
00:05:17.860 clean energy investment in North American history. Today, we are launching the largest
00:05:24.220 shipbuilding contract in Quebec's history. No matter the headwinds, the work of building
00:05:30.800 Canada Strong goes on interrupted. No matter the circumstances,
00:05:38.540 Canadians will take charge of building our future. So you heard a lot of those phrases there. I could
00:05:43.960 have gone back to other speeches. You're going to hear a lot more of that. Anytime you see Mark
00:05:48.560 Carney or Champagne or anybody who's a liberal and they walk out and make a speech and they start
00:05:54.060 using those phrases, they're probably going to be spending more of your money. Be afraid.
00:05:58.560 Okay. So let's go over to these articles quickly. I'm not going to read a lot of them. This one
00:06:02.540 from Jesse Klein. It's excellent. Link in the description. In the face of tough new tariffs,
00:06:07.740 Carney doubles down on government spending. A week after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced
00:06:12.620 a deal to expand the Churchill Falls hydroelectric plant, he held a press conference in Levi,
00:06:18.260 Quebec on Monday to announce a contract to build six icebreakers for the Coast Guard at the
00:06:23.720 Chantier-Davie shipyards. While Canada desperately needs electricity to power its economy and
00:06:29.860 icebreakers to protect its shores, Carney is yet to demonstrate that his government is capable of
00:06:34.960 enacting economic policies beyond spending massive amounts of borrowed money. Although Monday's
00:06:41.940 announcement was years in the making, Ottawa announced plans to purchase the new icebreakers
00:06:46.160 in 2019. The prime minister did his best to tie it to the trade negotiations with the United States
00:06:52.320 that broke down on Friday. A little bit more of this for you. Noticeably absent from his remarks
00:06:58.480 was any hint that Ottawa has a strategy to attract private investment. We are uninvestable,
00:07:04.360 ladies and gentlemen. The Liberals have always been good at writing large checks,
00:07:10.020 even when the coffers are dry and programs are being financed on the backs of future generations.
00:07:16.020 But ports and icebreakers are of little use if Canadian industry isn't producing the products
00:07:21.200 that the rest of the world wants to buy.
00:07:23.440 A little bit more of this for you.
00:07:24.660 This country still needs a massive influx of private capital
00:07:29.100 to build the mines and pipelines necessary
00:07:32.020 to extract our natural resources and carry them to market,
00:07:35.640 along with a business environment that gives companies
00:07:38.180 an incentive to produce in Canada
00:07:40.580 at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump
00:07:43.060 is doing his utmost to drive them away.
00:07:46.020 As Adam Pankratz writes elsewhere in these pages,
00:07:48.880 the future of a mine looking to tap one of the world's largest undeveloped gold reserves in
00:07:54.620 British Columbia has been called into question after First Nations leaders withdrew their support.
00:08:00.380 Meanwhile, Carney's major projects office is currently reviewing 18 infrastructure projects
00:08:05.460 to see if the government deems them worthy of being fast-tracked through this country's
00:08:09.700 Byzantine approvals process. But after nearly a year in operation, none have so far been greenlit.
00:08:16.120 I can bring to your attention the Alberta to BC coast pipeline, which is going to cost upwards of $43 billion.
00:08:24.120 No investor, your money.
00:08:26.320 None of this signals to investors that Canada is a safe place to park their money. 0.98
00:08:30.920 Now we go over to Corey Morgan, lay that damn pipe, just a little bit of this article from Corey. 0.91
00:08:37.620 Mark Carney has been in power for 18 months, and he entered office as the trade war was heating up. 0.98
00:08:43.180 One would think this ostensible economic genius would recognize the vulnerable position Canada was in and would have expedited pipeline construction as one of his first acts as the prime minister.
00:08:55.620 Instead, he has led Alberta down the garden path of vague promises and MOUs while nothing has been accomplished.
00:09:03.400 Private investors won't touch the potential pipeline plans with a 10-foot pole as they have seen no real progress from Ottawa on the issue.
00:09:10.920 the only person of note who still appears to believe Carney's words on that front has been
00:09:15.880 Premier Danielle Smith. Carney could announce the lines will be constructed tomorrow. It's the
00:09:21.360 next best thing to announcing them yesterday, yet his ideological hang-ups won't let him.
00:09:27.140 Canada will continue to be pushed around like the 98-pound weakling it is because the federal
00:09:32.220 government refuses to develop resource exports. It's not only oil and gas. Saskatchewan is
00:09:38.220 exporting its potash through the USA because Canada's port development is terrible. And
00:09:43.940 mining projects in every province are mired due to a lack of will to stand up against Indigenous
00:09:49.860 claims. Ladies and gentlemen, we haven't got any investment in this country. And Mark Carney and
00:09:55.780 the Liberals, with the death of this trade deal with the United States of America, see this as
00:10:00.360 an opportunity. They see it as a blank check. They see it as an opportunity to spend massive amounts
00:10:05.600 of your money, be very afraid.