Juno News - Canada ESCALATES the trade war

00:00:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 The high-stakes meeting between President-elect Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

00:01:37.780 It is a significant meeting at a significant moment for this country.

00:01:41.740 Prime Minister, was there a progressive meeting with President-elect?

00:01:45.280 It was a nice conversation.

00:01:47.260 It's been a very challenging week for the Prime Minister, for the country, for businesses, for premiers,

00:01:51.880 who all got this social media post from Donald Trump on Monday,

00:01:55.240 and kind of panicked, frankly, about the reality and the crushing impact this would have on Canada's economy.

00:02:01.920 President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on Canada haven't even got into effect,

00:02:05.880 and it's already plunged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government into turmoil.

00:02:09.880 On Monday, Trudeau's one-time ally, the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland,

00:02:14.680 resigned in the most un-Canadian way.

00:02:17.160 Justin Trudeau has announced he's stepping down as the Prime Minister of Canada and as the leader of his party.

00:02:22.840 I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader.

00:02:31.720 When you threatened tariffs on Canada, Justin Trudeau rushed down here.

00:02:35.900 He wanted to make nice.

00:02:37.280 Now he's on the way out.

00:02:38.800 Is that what you wanted?

00:02:40.560 I didn't think he was going to quit.

00:02:44.420 I spoke to Governor Trudeau on numerous occasions, and we'll see what happens.

00:02:49.820 So we'll be announcing the tariffs on Canada and Mexico of 25% on Canada and separately 25% on Mexico.

00:03:00.760 Canadians brace for economic turmoil as the reality of a full-blown trade war with the U.S. sinks in.

00:03:07.540 They owe us a lot of money and I'm sure they're going to pay.

00:03:10.980 We didn't ask for this, but we will not back down.

00:03:14.840 The real fear about what comes next for crucial Canadian industries.

00:03:18.460 It's devastating. It'll devastate us, and it'll impact quickly.

00:03:21.980 And the anger growing across the country.

00:03:27.400 You announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

00:03:30.280 You immediately got action from both of them on border security and drug interdiction.

00:03:34.540 A lot of action.

00:03:35.400 Is that good enough?

00:03:36.280 Is that good enough?

00:03:36.940 No, it's not good enough.

00:03:37.720 So more needed in 30 days.

00:03:39.980 Something has to happen. It's not sustainable.

00:03:41.980 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his proposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will go into effect on March 4th's schedule.

00:03:53.020 But very importantly, tomorrow tariffs, 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico, and that'll start.

00:04:00.280 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday.

00:04:08.940 On the tariffs, is there any room left for Canada and Mexico to make a deal before midnight?

00:04:13.260 No room left.

00:04:14.680 This is a policy decision by the American government designed to go after the Canadian economy.

00:04:21.280 This is a trade war.

00:04:23.540 Yes, Canadians are hurt.

00:04:26.300 Canadians are angry.

00:04:27.720 We're going to choose to not go on vacation.

00:04:30.560 We're going to choose to try to buy Canadian products.

00:04:33.980 And yeah, we're probably going to keep booing the American anthem.

00:04:38.220 The torment. 0.99

00:04:38.940 That even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do. 0.96

00:05:08.940 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. 0.98

00:05:14.800 Wow, what a news day.

00:05:16.420 What an incredible story.

00:05:18.240 And we are here.

00:05:19.280 We are facing a trade war with our closest friend and ally.

00:05:23.340 You can see the escalation happen over the past three months.

00:05:27.540 How did we get here and how are leaders responding?

00:05:30.200 We're going to get to it all today.

00:05:31.780 We've got a great show lined up.

00:05:33.400 And at the end of the show, pleased to be joined by independent MPP, Bobby and Brady.

00:05:38.480 So let's get right into the show. Today I am joined by Clyde Nichols. Clyde is known as Clyde Do

00:05:44.080 Something Online. He's an auto mechanic during his day job and a political commentator and content

00:05:49.920 creator who posts daily videos on news and politics about Canada. Clyde, thank you so much

00:05:54.340 for joining the show today. Well, thanks for having me. So what an incredible series of events that we

00:05:59.380 have just lived through and has unfolded over the last few months. And everything kind of came to

00:06:05.160 an ad yesterday where the the tariffs were introduced and Justin Trudeau came out and

00:06:11.480 hit right back. So we did the show yesterday with Hamish Marshall. We covered that press

00:06:15.480 conference live, but I want to just highlight a few things that happened yesterday. So at that

00:06:21.100 press conference, Justin Trudeau announced the retaliatory tariffs and vowed that they will

00:06:26.240 remain until the U.S. tariffs are lifted. Let's play that clip. Canada will be implementing 25%

00:06:34.580 tariffs against $155 billion worth of American goods, starting with tariffs on $30 billion worth

00:06:44.360 of goods immediately and tariffs on the remaining $125 billion of American products in 21 days' time.

00:06:54.040 Those are the taxes that Canadians will pay, right? Trump's tariffs are going to impact 0.63

00:06:58.680 Americans. Trudeau's tariffs are going to impact Canadians. And Trudeau took it one level further,

00:07:04.000 right like this to me seems like a personality feud between trump and trudeau they don't like

00:07:08.080 each other and they're just ramping up the ante here and here is prime minister trudeau this was

00:07:13.360 sort of the the one clip that went viral the most viral yesterday from his press conference speaking 0.99

00:07:18.080 directly to the american president calling him by his first name and saying that this is a very dumb

00:07:23.360 thing to do let's play that clip now it's not in my habit to agree with the wall street journal 0.96

00:07:29.600 But Donald, they point out that even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.

00:07:40.020 And he went on by saying that Canadians were not going to go to Florida on vacation 0.91

00:07:43.840 and that we're going to continue to boo their national anthem.

00:07:46.260 Let's play that clip.

00:07:48.080 We're going to choose to not go on vacation in Florida or Old Orchard Beach or wherever.

00:07:55.000 we're going to choose to try to buy Canadian products and forego bourbon and other classic

00:08:04.580 American products. And yeah, we're probably going to keep booing the American anthem.

00:08:13.040 So Clyde, I want to hear your thoughts on this. Look, I don't think that Trump has been very

00:08:17.980 clear, as you can see from that intro, of all the different things back and forth,

00:08:21.380 his demands, what the issue is. We don't even really know if the issue is fentanyl and the

00:08:26.940 border, which is what he originally said, or if it's something more like Trump wanting to

00:08:32.020 fund the U.S. government with tariffs rather than income taxes and whether it's just like a general

00:08:37.600 trade strategy. But I want to get your opinion on Trudeau and how you think he's been handling all

00:08:44.700 of this and whether you think that anything that he said yesterday was something that would

00:08:49.120 benefit Canadians? Oh, I think he's been handling it terribly, obviously. And that's the case. I

00:08:54.160 want to address one thing. When he says that Canadians are forgoing anything, like vacations

00:08:59.760 or certain products, it's because they can't afford it. It's not because they're doing some

00:09:06.940 trade war thing. And I'd like to say that this is not a trade war. In fact, what a lot of people

00:09:13.480 are in the media are saying is confusing is is is a confusion of their own i think donald trump is

00:09:18.840 not saying something that's very confusing he said specifically that he's he's got two sets

00:09:25.160 of uh tariffs that are going to be coming on the first set is a punitive set of tariffs and those

00:09:30.280 punitive tariffs are because of canada's behavior it's because of the border it's because of the

00:09:35.720 the fentanyl crisis it's because of what we've been allowing in our country and allowing to flow

00:09:41.880 across the border. Now, the second set of tariffs, they'll be coming in on April 2nd,

00:09:47.060 and those are reciprocal tariffs. We hear a lot about reciprocal tariffs, but this is what this

00:09:53.020 is going to be about. Canada has had a tremendous amount of trade restrictions, trade barriers

00:09:58.680 for a very long time. And I think Donald Trump is really just addressing this.

00:10:03.420 You're right. I think that a lot of Canadians are sort of like clutching their pearls and

00:10:08.320 jumping to this canadian nationalism movement that we have to like fight fire with fire and i

00:10:13.840 don't see a lot of internal like retrospective like look at our own policies in fact what we do

00:10:19.760 do see is kind of like gaslighting saying that canada doesn't have tariffs or that we don't

00:10:25.440 ban uh american businesses which is just obviously not true canada's economy is incredibly

00:10:30.560 protectionist we have so many limitations on what you can like what what kind of american businesses

00:10:36.560 can open here, the competition, so much of it is restrictive. We'll get to that a bit later in the

00:10:42.760 show. That specific point, though, about how Canadians shouldn't go down and visit the states,

00:10:48.600 I think you're right that a lot of Canadians can't afford those kind of things. But it's also true 1.00

00:10:52.960 that a lot of Canadians spend a lot of their time in the US. Like there's a whole category of

00:10:57.960 Canadians called snowbirds that basically live in southern American states for the winter months.

00:11:04.240 And in many ways, it's cheaper for them, right?

00:11:06.560 If you go down to parts of Florida, you know, it's much, the cost of living is so much lower

00:11:11.400 down there.

00:11:12.000 Same with places like Arizona or New Mexico.

00:11:15.000 I, you know, depending on where in Canada you live, I know so many people whose parents

00:11:19.100 like basically live in the U.S. for half the year, and then they come back, you know, in

00:11:24.320 order to collect their benefits or whatever.

00:11:25.760 So we had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis saying this.

00:11:29.580 here's a clip of him yesterday saying that 3.3 million people from Canada come to Florida

00:11:34.620 every year. Let's play that clip. We continue to set tourism records. 2024 saw more than 142

00:11:41.980 million visitors come to the state of Florida. This includes 3.3 million visitors from Canada.

00:11:48.760 That's not much of a boycott in my book. Maybe they wanted to get a glimpse of what a Stanley

00:11:53.580 cup winning hockey team actually looks like well that that hurts that that was that was unnecessary

00:12:00.940 uh their governor de santis but aside from the hockey comment i mean he's right like canadians

00:12:05.580 aren't going to just all of a sudden stop going to the states i think that there is a contingent

00:12:09.660 of people who are you know putting on their canadian nationalism hat right now and saying

00:12:13.260 like let's fight fire with fire and kind of leaning into this it's a good political message

00:12:17.340 particularly for the liberal party but i i just can't imagine canadians a keeping up a boycott

00:12:22.540 like how can you boycott you know so much so much of our goods come from the united states like

00:12:27.740 unless we're going to start closing down like walmart and mcdonald's and all these major

00:12:31.740 american brands in our country i don't see that really having any impact i don't think that

00:12:35.100 canadians are going to stop traveling to united states what do you think well i think there's a

00:12:39.020 bit of like a nationalistic fervor that's rap people are wrapping themselves in the flag but

00:12:43.980 It's very reminiscent of like early 2020 COVID era, you know, let's rally together two weeks

00:12:52.640 to flatten the tariffs.

00:12:54.120 It really is sad to see our fellow Canadians going down this exact same path.

00:13:00.940 Now, on this whole tariff, you know, the reciprocal tariffs coming from the Canadian

00:13:08.980 side, this is only going to hurt Canadians at the end of the day.

00:13:11.720 It's only going to hurt Canadians and it's only going to hurt trade or relations within Canada.

00:13:18.280 As we see right now, there's moves from people in Alberta to distance themselves from Ottawa.

00:13:24.260 And what is that going to end up looking like?

00:13:27.380 Well, only the future can tell because I don't see any politicians at the same time talking about hard times for Canadians easing up on the restrictions that they have.

00:13:37.800 like, for example, the transfer payments that Alberta has to make to the other provinces,

00:13:43.900 those aren't on the table. While everything is on the table and no cost is too high to go against

00:13:51.600 the United States, the political class is really not considering any of these things, including

00:13:56.660 the dairy cartel. Well, it's so interesting because Canada is already facing a cost of

00:14:01.820 living crisis. When you look at the polls and you ask Canadians, what is the top issue facing you

00:14:06.840 your family what is the main thing that's going to motivate you to vote in the next election

00:14:09.960 it's the cost of living and how incredibly unaffordable everything from housing to food

00:14:14.520 to gasoline is i mean even just the the idea of food security like having access to fresh fruit

00:14:20.120 and vegetables in your grocery store uh that was already a concern for canadians and then on top

00:14:25.800 of that now you're telling us that for everything that's been imported from the united states we

00:14:29.880 have to pay an additional 25 tax on uh in in hopes that maybe it'll change trump's mind

00:14:36.600 like i i just i think it's such a bad sell to canadians and the fact that every single political

00:14:41.240 party has the same view on this and has the same opinion it's it's frustrating so i want to move

00:14:46.440 over to pier poliev and the conservatives and his response because even though fundamentally i don't

00:14:52.040 agree that canada should be retaliating with uh these tariffs i think that a better path would be

00:14:58.840 let's just like try to negotiate a deal with trump however that may look um regardless i

00:15:03.880 I disagree with the idea of the tariffs, but I felt like Pierre Polyev's message yesterday was really strong.

00:15:10.600 I felt like this was the best Polyev that we've seen on this topic.

00:15:14.000 So I'm going to play a few clips for you here.

00:15:15.980 So this was Polyev announcing what happened and talking about how the Americans have stabbed their best friends in the back.

00:15:25.160 Let's play that clip.

00:15:27.080 At 12.01 a.m., President Trump stabbed America's best friend in the back.

00:15:33.880 My message to the president is this. Canada will fight back. We will defend our people

00:15:40.580 and our economy, and we will put Canada first. And strong message, very firm. And then he also

00:15:51.300 notes that the fact that we're in this mess isn't necessarily just because of Donald Trump. It's

00:15:56.940 because the liberals have abdicated their responsibilities. They've let Canadians down.

00:16:00.860 They haven't secured the border. They've allowed the drug crisis to spiral out of control. The idea that we have fentanyl labs, like super labs operating in Canada by foreign nationals, by the way, by foreign gangs. We know this is happening and it has been allowed to go unchecked. Maybe they're cracking down on it now, but it's too little, too late. So here is Pierre Polyev saying that the Liberals have simply not done enough.

00:16:22.100 the question was have the liberals done enough on fentanyl and is that a good justification for

00:16:29.700 trump's tariffs and the answer to both questions is no and no no the liberals have not done enough

00:16:34.620 on fentanyl but not because they should have been doing it for trump they should have been doing it

00:16:38.880 for canadians so that's absolutely right but then he goes on to say that's still not justification

00:16:44.140 for these kinds of tariffs so what what do you think of polyev's response there and how do you

00:16:49.820 think he's handling this? Well, I think the gravitas towards Pierre Polyev was this common

00:16:56.320 sense narrative, speaking truth to power, talk about what's actually happening. What I hear

00:17:02.900 coming out of him right now, I don't really buy that. I hear him saying a lot of platitudes,

00:17:08.140 things that people want to hear, but not really the truth. We're not in a strong position as

00:17:13.500 Canada. And yes, it is the Liberals' fault, but we can't go to the table negotiating as if we're

00:17:19.240 in a strong position. We have to be honest about this. And we have to say, listen, we're going to

00:17:24.760 have to capitulate to some of these demands. And I don't think that they're being realistic about

00:17:30.260 the actual crackdown on the fentanyl crisis. When we see super labs getting taken down by the RCMP

00:17:37.380 and only the janitor is being apprehended in those cases, the case that happened in British

00:17:43.180 Colombia just recently. Only one man was apprehended, arrested, and is being charged.

00:17:50.240 An Indian guy, when they say it's Mexican cartels that were operating it, it doesn't lend to a good

00:17:56.900 sense of Canada is cracking down on these things. It lends to more of the corruption that we've seen

00:18:03.480 throughout the past 10 years or even longer in Canada. And I think this is part of what

00:18:09.580 Donald Trump wants to crack down on. And again, I'm going to go back to the, you know, stick to

00:18:15.360 my guns here. The first round of tariffs, the blanket 25% tariffs on Canada are punitive. And

00:18:22.080 it's been very clear that this is about the border. It's about fentanyl. It's about terrorists

00:18:25.980 in Canada because of our lax immigration being able to enter the United States. The second round

00:18:31.700 of tariffs that hasn't even come into play, that would be trade war territory. We haven't even

00:18:36.860 entered that market yet. Well, I want to jump to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his

00:18:42.960 response. So in an interview on Fox News Business, Lutnick said that Canada and Mexico were on the

00:18:48.600 phone all day yesterday with the Trump administration and that there may be a deal yet to

00:18:54.240 come. So, you know, this might not be here to stay. It might have just been a warning. Hard to make

00:19:00.000 out again, but let's play that clip. Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone

00:19:05.760 with me all day today trying to show that they'll do better and the president's listening because

00:19:10.180 you know he's very very fair and very reasonable so i think he's going to work something out with

00:19:15.240 them it's not going to be a pause none of that pause stuff but i think he's going to figure out

00:19:20.180 you do more and i'll meet you in the middle some way and we're going to probably be announcing

00:19:24.460 that tomorrow so somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome the president moving with

00:19:29.700 the canadians and mexicans but not all the way that's interesting i want to stick with lightning

00:19:35.280 because he also criticized Justin Trudeau saying that hopefully Canadians will select a new leader

00:19:41.500 and adding that the Canadians like to cheat. Let's play that clip. 0.99

00:19:46.840 Trudeau was about to leave the government and obviously he should leave the government with

00:19:51.040 his kind of talking. You know, he's leaving the government. Hopefully they'll elect someone who's

00:19:55.180 clever, who comes down and says to Donald Trump, we want to do business with you. We want to do

00:20:00.440 business fairly and we're going to get rid of all this nonsense they got a digital tax in canada

00:20:05.140 they try to tax our tech companies what happened to usmca i'll tell you what happened to it the

00:20:10.180 canadians like to cheat so it's really interesting because there's these two dynamics right it's like

00:20:17.060 yes there's the fentanyl and and drug issue and the border issue that's something that trudeau

00:20:21.380 has been weak on from the very beginning of his administration and that is the area it seems that

00:20:26.140 lutnik is saying that they're on the phones and they might be able to reach a deal on those and

00:20:29.780 to your point that you made about the second round of tariffs coming in april that will be more to do

00:20:34.180 with like evening the playing field and noting that canadians cheat this is something that we

00:20:38.900 don't really like to admit to ourselves that canadians cheat but i mean the whole concept

00:20:42.900 of reciprocity and international trade is that you have equal access to one another's markets

00:20:48.580 and it's just not the case that the americans have equal access to the canadian market because

00:20:53.140 we have so many different taxes that we put i mean he mentioned the digital sales tax

00:20:56.820 But then we also have all kinds of subsidies, we have all kinds of regulations that prevent

00:21:00.660 foreign entities from operating in federally regulated spaces, be it banking, digital like

00:21:06.580 telecommunication companies, airlines, there's no shortage of areas where Canada just doesn't

00:21:12.180 open up its market to the Americans. And yet we expect that they should open their market to us

00:21:17.380 and allow us to have access. I'll just preface this all by saying, I don't agree with what Trump

00:21:24.340 is doing i think it's terrible i don't think it's a good idea for the americans to have an unstable

00:21:28.180 north america i think that the americans would benefit from a better agreement leveling the

00:21:33.220 playing field maybe this is just how trump wants to get there um but i you know it there there's a

00:21:38.740 lot of a lot of issues that play a lot of moving parts and i think you know suggesting that maybe

00:21:43.860 we'll get some relief from these tariffs uh today might be a little bit of a silver lining what do

00:21:47.700 you think well first off i i want to say that this clip is indicative it really is indicative of how

00:21:54.740 our government operates and how they speak out of both sides of their mouth justin trudeau comes to

00:21:59.300 the canadian populace and he says listen i'm being super tough look listen to me talk about donald

00:22:05.300 trump by his first name and then they get on the phone with the americans and they say listen can

00:22:12.500 we can we can we fix that can we can what can we do what can we get done it they're not working

00:22:18.740 on getting these things done because there's a whole structure of of of

00:22:26.420 it is really corrupt here in canada and i think a lot of canadians don't want to

00:22:30.340 really come to grips with that a lot of the corruption runs very deep and it would be it

00:22:34.100 would expose a lot of them and this is this is why there's so much reluctance on uh on actually

00:22:39.940 airing this. I mean, Sam Cooper has been bringing so much of this stuff to light and it goes to the

00:22:45.500 highest levels of government. So yeah, of course, they're reluctant to make any moves on the

00:22:50.060 fentanyl issue. But of course, they're going to speak different language out of both sides of

00:22:56.940 their mouth, one to one audience and another to another. Well, let's move on to Donald Trump's

00:23:02.860 response to all of this because, I mean, in some ways he's pouring gas on the fire by just

00:23:09.100 continuing to poke and prod Trudeau. And I think every time he does this, to your point about like

00:23:14.900 the 2020 panic, like it strikes fear in Canadians, and they don't like it. And it seems like that's

00:23:21.140 helping the liberals in the polls. So it's almost like it's a song and dance now. But posting on

00:23:26.280 True Social yesterday, President Trump said the following, he said, please explain to Governor

00:23:31.900 Trudeau of Canada, that when he puts retaliatory tariff on the US, a reciprocal tariff will

00:23:37.920 immediately increase by a like amount. And then he also wrote that Canada doesn't allow American

00:23:45.960 banks to do business in Canada, but their banks flood the American market. Oh, that seems fair

00:23:52.180 to me, doesn't it? And so first of all, just say that when it comes to Canada putting in our own

00:24:00.520 reciprocal tariffs, and then Trump saying we're going to come back even harder, but then you have

00:24:04.980 Howard Lucknick on the other side saying, we're going to strike a deal. It's not going to be a

00:24:07.940 pause, but we're going to come to some kind of agreement. You're seeing two different messages.

00:24:11.560 So I don't know if they're playing this game intentionally, like good cop, bad cop. But then

00:24:16.160 Trump makes that point about how Canada doesn't allow American banks to do business. And I want

00:24:21.720 to kind of zero in on that a little bit because Elon Musk jumped in on X and wrote, it's a valid

00:24:27.360 point. The rules are asymmetric. And so pointing out this idea that Americans have, that Canada

00:24:34.460 has access to the American banks and not vice versa. And then it's interesting, if we can show

00:24:38.520 that Elon Musk ex post, he says it's a valid point, the rules are asymmetric. The community

00:24:45.660 notes jumped in and slapped a community note on there, basically just saying that this is wrong.

00:24:51.580 And then later they had to correct their community note. And it says clarification, American banks

00:24:56.820 do business in Canada, but with restrictions, Canadian banks do not have in America. And then

00:25:03.800 You can see there's a couple of links there.

00:25:06.120 And so if you click on the CBC link, it says that this, that Trump falsely claims that

00:25:13.380 U.S. banks aren't allowed to do business in Canada.

00:25:16.460 What does he mean?

00:25:18.060 Trump's claim isn't true, but foreign entry into Canadian bank sector is challenging.

00:25:23.740 And this is supposedly a fact check on whether or not American banks are allowed to do business.

00:25:29.260 This is an example, Clyde, of the CBC gaslighting Canadians, right?

00:25:33.560 They say right here that they're fact-checking Donald Trump and he is false, he is wrong, that American banks are allowed to do business in Canada.

00:25:42.420 But the problem is when you read the article and it explains the different rules, you can see that it's true that you don't have commercial banks in Canada.

00:25:52.940 Like you can't just walk into a Wells Fargo or a Bank of America branch in Canada.

00:25:57.720 They don't exist.

00:25:58.260 The opposite is true, though. If you are in the United States, in many states, you can walk into a TD or an RBC, they have branches, you can open up a checking account, you can go and do business at a Canadian bank. In Canada, they have two different sort of types of banks. And so they're kind of making an argument that they can do that they can do business in Canada if they want to, they just have to get a different license, and it would require them to like, buy a Canadian bank, and that there is this kind of like obscure pathway for American banks to do business in Canada, they just don't want to, which is just not true.

00:26:26.160 it's like we can we can walk around the country and just see that there aren't

00:26:29.760 American banks here there you know you can walk into a CIBC and RBC but you

00:26:34.440 can't walk into one of these American brands so to me just seems like we're

00:26:38.220 not being honest about the situation we're pretending that things are there

00:26:41.700 that aren't and it's just this is this is part of the problem with Canada in

00:26:45.240 general we have a super protectionist country we don't allow a lot of

00:26:49.020 outsiders to come in to do business we have a lot of restrictions even on

00:26:52.260 Canadian businesses and then we go and pretend like we're completely innocent 0.96

00:26:55.680 and it's just entirely Donald Trump and Elon Musk being crazy. 0.51

00:26:59.600 What do you think? 0.98

00:27:00.380 Well, you beat me to the punch.

00:27:01.580 I mean, I was going to say, you don't have to listen to CBC News.

00:27:05.240 You just walk out your door and go to the Wells Fargo and try to,

00:27:08.460 oh, you can't go to Bank of America.

00:27:10.820 Oh, you can't because they're not allowed to operate in Canada.

00:27:14.400 Now, there is some truth to it.

00:27:16.140 There are banks that are operating in Canada for limited access.

00:27:20.920 So that's a thing.

00:27:22.840 Canadian banks can operate in America.

00:27:24.720 it's absolutely open to them and what happens when they operate in america well td bank was

00:27:30.100 fined billions of dollars for for money laundering in the united states so obviously the united

00:27:36.840 states is looking at canada and going hold on a second are you a good neighbor we we've always

00:27:42.260 loved you we always thought of you we thought of you as quaint innocent neighbors that are always

00:27:47.200 kind and polite and as soon as we raise a little bit of a stink about what's going on you freak

00:27:53.460 out on us. You lose your mind. And really, I hate to say this, but when it comes to the Canadian 1.00

00:28:00.400 market, we're in such a bad position to be coming at the United States with demands. We're in a bad

00:28:07.540 position to do all of this. But then when we doubly go to sporting events and we boo the

00:28:13.320 national anthem when a veteran is singing and we do all of these things and we say on social media

00:28:18.860 some pretty nasty things that I wouldn't even repeat on this show. What it does is it's fueling

00:28:24.500 the American side. Donald Trump can come to the table and he's saying, I have the popularity

00:28:28.880 right now. And with the Canadians and what they're doing, they'll allow me to make these

00:28:34.340 punitive measures now. We don't even feel bad about it anymore. And that's not a position we

00:28:39.920 want to be in as Canadians. And we don't want our politicians coming to the table like this.

00:28:45.080 And I think Pierre Polyev, if he switched back to what his original rhetoric was, and perhaps even go down unilaterally, why the liberals can break all the rules and conservatives can't go down, go talk to Donald Trump and start talking a better game. Stop talking. Stop talking from your PR outfit out of Ottawa. We're tired of hearing it. People are sick of it. Go down there, make some moves and take the risk of upsetting people with Trump derangement syndrome.

00:29:12.860 because i guarantee you when it comes down to a general election if you sound like liberal light

00:29:17.980 you're going to get voted on like liberal light and it's not going to do well in the polls i agree

00:29:23.340 that should be the takeaway from the last election like we tried that in 2021 and it turns out that

00:29:27.520 if canadians want to elect a liberal they'll just select a liberal they won't elect a conservative

00:29:31.180 talking like a liberal i do worry that trump derangement syndrome is so widespread in canada

00:29:36.560 and particularly for people who watch the cbc or still get their media from the legacy media that

00:29:42.140 the optics of poly of going down to try to strike a deal uh for canadians would end up costing him

00:29:48.940 a chance at becoming prime minister i might be wrong on that and i think i doubt it i honestly

00:29:53.140 i doubt it and the reason why i i say this like the reason why it doesn't work is because we're

00:29:58.780 told it doesn't work donald trump being elected twice was said to not work and he did and he did

00:30:05.600 it because he spoke truth to power he spoke truth all of the things that that americans had brewing

00:30:11.860 and they were thinking, but they knew it was politically incorrect and couldn't say out loud.

00:30:16.120 He came out and he said it and it was relief. It was relieving to hear somebody come out and say it.

00:30:21.860 We need somebody like that in Canada. And who's it going to be? Like, obviously, we have we have

00:30:27.180 Maxime Bernier saying a bunch of I don't think I don't think that that's a viable thing. I think

00:30:33.580 a mainstream political candidate needs to start saying the truth. Well, I want to touch back on

00:30:39.640 point that you're making about how trump has a huge mandate and right now he has the popularity

00:30:45.080 and his agenda is incredibly popular so i watched last night he addressed a joint session of

00:30:51.000 congress which is sort of like the state of the union for the first year in office and hearing

00:30:56.440 him talk about his policy objectives and his early wins like he's already drastically reduced the

00:31:03.000 number of illegal uh people walking across the border in the south i think it's down 92 percent

00:31:08.120 in the first month which is just absolutely incredible um it shows you that all it really

00:31:12.040 does take is political will um this idea of completely banning men from competing in women's

00:31:18.440 sports and that if a school allows a man to play on a girl's team they no longer get any federal

00:31:23.800 funding like really putting putting forth this agenda that that is incredibly popular that is

00:31:29.640 incredibly needed and frankly so many of these policies would be happily welcomed in canada

00:31:35.320 as well i think that even people in in like even americans republicans that believe in free trade

00:31:40.520 and they believe in limited restrictions they're going to give trump time to see if this works

00:31:45.080 like they're going to allow him to have a long long rope when it comes to tariffs even if they

00:31:49.080 philosophically don't agree with terror so they don't know if this is right direction i mean the

00:31:52.600 stock market is taking a real hit uh from these policies but i think that that people are are

00:31:58.760 open to hearing and waiting so i want to play a few clips of president trump speaking last night

00:32:03.240 addressing congress and particularly the ones that relate to canada so here is trump

00:32:08.120 saying that other countries have used tariffs against us for decades and now it's our turn

00:32:13.560 and i think i think this is right i think that canada does have restrictions and you know we're

00:32:18.840 not we're not an innocent party here so let's play that clip if you don't make your product

00:32:25.240 in america however under the trump administration you will pay a tariff and in some cases a rather

00:32:31.480 large one other countries have used tariffs against us for decades and now it's our turn to

00:32:37.400 start using them against those other countries and here is trump again talking about reciprocal

00:32:45.240 tariffs coming into effect on april 2nd april 2nd reciprocal tariffs kick in and whatever they

00:32:54.920 tariff us other countries we will tariff them that's reciprocal back and forth whatever they

00:33:02.200 tax us we will tax them so that's that's his philosophy that's his idea that that is how

00:33:11.080 he's going to run the government and i don't personally agree with it i don't like it i don't

00:33:15.080 think it's good for canada at all but i think that you know again people are going to give him

00:33:20.600 the opportunity to to try and see how it works for the american economy what do you think

00:33:25.560 what's the rule of you know mutual assured destruction you know and the americans have

00:33:31.800 have the ability to use this they they have a bigger weapon they have the bigger economy

00:33:36.520 and to say we'll we'll put on reciprocal tariffs and the the goal in that is to remove all tariffs

00:33:44.360 well that's good that that's that means easing up restrictions that means easing up so i've heard

00:33:50.200 I hear a lot of people saying that this is about protectionism. This is about protectionism. This

00:33:54.440 is about ending protectionism. A lot of states are a lot of like not United States, but states

00:33:59.520 governments around the world have their own protectionist measures that are just ridiculous.

00:34:03.940 I mean, look at Canada in 2024. We went to the British. We went to to talk with the Brits about

00:34:12.320 trade negotiation, and they told us to come back when we've put our big boy pants on because we

00:34:17.720 wouldn't walk away from the dairy lobby and 250% tariffs on dairy products. It's ridiculous the

00:34:25.300 position that we're coming from. And yeah, we're going to get spanked now. We're in a situation 0.99

00:34:29.760 where Donald Trump is coming in and he's saying, we want the same deal you got. We want things to

00:34:35.340 work well for us just as it works well for you. And this is how we're going to do it. We're going

00:34:40.740 to give you the same fair playing field. And if you don't like the rules that we're putting on,

00:34:46.260 we'll just restrict those rules and we'll just follow back. And that's really what that comes

00:34:50.180 down to. And I hope that that works. I think that that would be the rational response for Canada to

00:34:55.900 say, okay, let's just stop and look at ourselves. We may not like Trump, we may not like the

00:35:01.400 messenger, but some of these facts are true. And in the long run, we'd all be better off

00:35:05.420 if we just had complete open access to one another's markets. Well, it's going to be

00:35:10.540 difficult. It's going to be very difficult there because obviously they understand this. Every

00:35:15.420 single one running for government or who is in government understands this because they're saying

00:35:20.380 the same thing they're saying if you put a tariff on us we'll put a tariff back on you so it's the

00:35:25.400 same thing and they and they know that the the purpose of that is to alleviate the tariffs but

00:35:30.780 the problem in Canada is that there's not a lot of political will to talk about some serious issues

00:35:35.980 supply management is run by a lot of politically powerful people and unless it's that's confronted

00:35:42.380 we're not really going to be moving on from this story.

00:35:45.180 And it's the first time that a foreign country 1.00

00:35:48.180 has put this much pressure on an internal struggle

00:35:51.320 that we have in our political system.

00:35:53.900 We know that the dairy cartel can make or break politicians

00:35:57.340 and it's going to be the case

00:36:00.480 that it's going to make or break Canada at this point.

00:36:02.760 I completely agree.

00:36:03.920 If I were a political leader,

00:36:05.160 I would say let's use this opportunity to get rid of it.

00:36:08.160 You know, yes, there are vested interests

00:36:10.280 and there's some farmers that have come to rely on us and we'll give them a fair compensation,

00:36:15.480 but this program ends and we open up the market. I just don't see that happening from any political

00:36:21.460 party. And in fact, the opposite is happening. Rather than saying, let's start eliminating a

00:36:25.880 lot of our own barriers, our political leaders are responding back saying, we're going to add

00:36:29.000 even more. We're going to try to make it even more painful for the United States. Ontario Premier

00:36:33.440 Doug Ford is sort of leading this charge. And so yesterday he announced that he supported

00:36:38.640 that they would start banning American

00:36:40.680 alcohol, banning American businesses

00:36:42.680 from being part of Ontario's procurement

00:36:44.680 and cancelling Ontario's Starlake contract.

00:36:46.680 Let's play that clip.

00:36:48.680 To support the federal government's

00:36:50.680 efforts, Ontario will also launch

00:36:52.680 its first round of retaliation.

00:36:54.680 Starting today, LCBO,

00:36:56.680 the largest purchaser of alcohol in the

00:36:58.680 world, will begin removing

00:37:00.680 US products from its stores.

00:37:02.680 The largest purchaser of alcohol

00:37:04.680 in the world will begin removing

00:37:06.640 from its store shelves.

00:37:08.680 Also starting today,

00:37:10.680 all U.S.-based companies will be banned

00:37:12.680 from taking part in government procurement.

00:37:14.680 We're ripping up Ontario's contract

00:37:16.680 with Starlink.

00:37:18.680 It's done, it's gone.

00:37:20.680 We won't award contracts to people

00:37:22.680 who enable and encourage economic

00:37:24.700 attacks on our province and our country.

00:37:26.700 That's the reaction that we're seeing.

00:37:28.700 We saw a footage of

00:37:30.700 the people who are able to encourage

00:37:32.700 economic attacks on our province

00:37:34.700 and our country.

00:37:36.640 workers removing American alcohol, particularly bourbon from Kentucky, from the shelves,

00:37:43.620 making a big deal about it. I find this kind of funny, Clyde, because, well, we already purchased

00:37:48.560 those bottles, right? The LCBO purchased those bottles. So they're taking the alcohol that they

00:37:53.840 already paid for and saying that we're going to refuse to try to make any money off this product

00:37:58.980 that we've already sold. I don't know what they're going to do with it. Doug Ford also threatened

00:38:02.920 legislation on grocery stores. This was reported over at Juno News that they were looking to force

00:38:08.860 grocery stores to label all products as whether they're Canadian or American so that consumers

00:38:15.080 can choose to boycott the American products. And then this is the big one. Ford said that Ontario

00:38:22.080 is prepared to escalate the trade war by imposing a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the

00:38:28.840 United States and potentially even cutting off power if President Trump moves forward with more

00:38:35.180 tariffs. So this is where things get a little bit scary. Like, yes, you know, it hurts to have that

00:38:41.620 25% goods and services tax. But when you start cutting off sort of like critical infrastructure

00:38:47.920 and the ability for people to heat their homes, I mean, presumably, once you close that door,

00:38:52.820 you can't reopen it. Like, if Ford does that, the Americans will seek another source of electricity.

00:38:57.940 and even if we resolve this issue, they're never going to come back to us. And that could really

00:39:02.580 permanently hurt the relationship. What do you think? Well, it absolutely would. It absolutely

00:39:06.640 would. But I want to, I want to get people to push, put their emotions aside for a second

00:39:10.300 and listen to the things that Doug Ford's saying. Ontario, the LCBO in Ontario is the largest

00:39:15.780 purchaser of alcohol on the planet. Shouldn't that be alarming that our government is running

00:39:22.120 the alcohol business it really it's it's ridiculous that one entity could be such a

00:39:28.900 large supplier Canadians should be able to make their own choices but here's the problem

00:39:32.720 the Ontario government is jumping in and they're making the choice for you and they're not trying

00:39:37.100 to convince you of what choices you should make now it was it was famous a few a month ago a month

00:39:42.680 ago Doug Ford made the same threat about the the the Starlink contract Elon Musk responded to it

00:39:49.120 with i believe i'm paraphrasing but i think it was oh well yeah he doesn't care i mean a hundred

00:39:54.540 million dollars in the grand scheme of things for a billionaire who has a billion you know billion

00:40:00.640 dollar businesses trillion dollar businesses possibly at this point doesn't care doesn't

00:40:05.780 care and and it's he's really motivated to push people towards freer markets and really at the

00:40:12.460 end of the day it's ontario and it's ontario that's saying we don't have free markets we don't

00:40:18.380 have free markets because we don't allow businesses, grocery stores, everything to purchase

00:40:23.280 alcohol. We control all these items. So I think Ontario should take a step back and start freeing

00:40:29.640 up their own personal market within the province and then having more free markets with the other

00:40:34.160 provinces before they come to the table and start talking about what Donald Trump is doing

00:40:38.400 on the international stage. I think they have a few lessons to learn on what free trade actually

00:40:44.240 is before they start spouting off about it. I hope that that's the message they take,

00:40:48.660 but I'm not super optimistic on that one, Clyde. I want to get your thoughts on this one more

00:40:53.840 thing. You posted on X the other day, basically the polls showing how the Conservatives have

00:41:00.820 basically blown a lead. And you wrote, this is inexcusable. Obviously, the Liberal Party wants

00:41:06.840 to win, but I'm not sure when the Conservatives decided that they don't. Somebody needs to get

00:41:11.400 fired. So just real quick here, what's happened in the last three months? How did the conservatives

00:41:18.620 blow such a massive lead? Did they really blow it? Are the polls to be trusted? And who do you

00:41:23.800 think might, who should be fired? Let me ask that. Okay. So there's a bunch of factors in this whole

00:41:30.280 thing. Now, obviously the liberals, they got rid of Justin Trudeau. So they're going to climb in

00:41:34.580 the polls immediately. This has been said across the country and especially in the maritime provinces

00:41:39.060 where MPs were getting letters from their constituents saying, I like you, but I won't

00:41:44.880 vote for you if Justin Trudeau is the leader. So they were voting for, they were polling for

00:41:49.360 Pierre Polyev simply on that. So you can see a lot of the support being lost in the conservative

00:41:55.360 party just based on that. Now, of course, the conservatives have come back to, you know, show

00:42:01.840 that they're, they're very, you know, they're, they're friendly to liberal voters. And this is,

00:42:07.160 this is a this is a it's been plaguing the conservatives in canada for decades this whole

00:42:12.500 idea of is if we we have our base and we can upset our base as much as we want let's try to

00:42:19.000 capitulate and be what we said earlier liberal light and i don't think that that strategy is

00:42:23.680 strategy is working out for them they need to switch gears because it's happening again it's

00:42:30.340 happening where they had some popularity because of a bad leadership on the liberal side but they're

00:42:34.720 bringing in a new guy now if you look at it for example for the average liberal voter when when

00:42:40.320 uh the liberals under carney who's gonna get in we we all know this they they had to disqualify

00:42:46.960 a few people to make that happen but he's gonna be in and he's coming to the table with uh telling

00:42:53.360 people he's gonna get rid of the carbon tax so obviously the conservatives have lost that

00:42:57.600 messaging that was the real strong messaging that they had now they don't have that messaging because

00:43:02.720 it's the same as the liberals and and then what do we have most most people are worried about

00:43:07.480 the trade barriers the trade tariffs same messaging we're looking at uh you know all

00:43:13.620 these different scenarios situations around canada it's a lot of the same messaging we're

00:43:18.700 going to build homes we're going to do this whether the you know the liberals have taken

00:43:23.020 a lot of the the conservatives messaging and the conservatives have come to the left quite a bit

00:43:28.140 And they're kind of meeting in the middle. And with a populace that tends to generally vote left, it looks like that's the way they're going to go. Now, one thing to measure is if the two parties are looking very similar, what people are going to do at the polls, and I'm talking undecided voters, they're going to look at the resumes.

00:43:46.120 They're going to look at the resumes of Pierre Polyev and they're going to look at the resume of Mark Carney. 0.98

00:43:50.260 Now, I think Mark Carney's resume is is trash. 0.95

00:43:54.360 I almost slipped a bad word out there, but I think it's it's awful. 0.97

00:43:59.200 But for the average person, they would say, oh, Bank of Canada, Bank of the UK.

00:44:04.500 Wow. What a what a resume has been part of all these organizations.

00:44:07.320 And you have the other guy that's been a politician since he was a sophomore.

00:44:11.100 So we can see why people are leaning the other way. And you can see even on the other on the graph, you have other parties like the Bloc Québécois are losing a lot of support, which is going back to the Liberals, as well as the NDP, which is typically been the choice for Canadians as a, I guess, a protest vote against the Liberals from Liberal voters.

00:44:34.480 So this is my guess on this. I know there's going to be a little bit of skewed data in the polls

00:44:40.300 because of the pollsters writing questions in a particular way, but to see all the polls leaning

00:44:47.140 this way is too much. It's not just static. It is actually moving in that direction.

00:44:52.540 Well, it's interesting. I agree that Mark Carney is not the kind of leader that I want. I don't

00:44:57.020 want someone who is a career civil servant, central banker involved in the World Economic

00:45:01.640 forum a self-described elitist and a globalist but i can see how canadians could sort of be

00:45:07.240 fooled by that especially just at first glance they don't have a lot of time to get to know

00:45:11.080 them well hopefully uh you know hopefully things still change and we really appreciate

00:45:16.040 clyde you uh take the time to join us today it's been a great conversation i hope to have you

00:45:19.800 back on again that's clyde do something thanks so much for joining us absolutely thank you so much

00:45:24.440 okay so earlier today i caught up with an independent mpp named bobby ann brady she 0.98

00:45:31.460 represents the riding of haldeman nordfolk in the ontario legislative assembly i talked about her

00:45:37.900 in this sort of post-election show that i did last week about how she was uh you know a great

00:45:42.580 story in ontario of an independent fighter who was able to be re-elected so i was pleased to sit

00:45:47.920 down with her earlier and here is what that looked like bobby ann thank you so much for joining the

00:45:54.140 podcast. I said to the audience last week that I thought your victory in Haldeman Norfolk was the

00:45:59.180 silver lining of a very sort of predictable, boring election. So I want you, I want to hear

00:46:04.660 your perspective. Tell us what happened and how were you able as an independent member of the

00:46:09.840 provincial parliament, how were you able to beat the PC machine? So beating the PC machine in 2025

00:46:17.160 seemed a little bit easier than 2022. And I've told media over the past few days that

00:46:24.240 2022 was different in the sense that I spent much of the campaign explaining to people

00:46:30.840 what an independent looked like, what an independent could do. And people would say to me,

00:46:37.360 well, good luck, right? And you didn't really know what good luck meant. And so I won by over

00:46:42.940 2 000 votes in 2022 we squeaked by and i think over the past two and a half years the people

00:46:48.860 of hullum and norfolk have gotten a good taste of what an independent representative can actually do

00:46:55.100 and my the naysayers and my detractors will say oh you have no voice well we actually have a bigger

00:47:00.940 voice in the ontario legislature because no leader no party tells me what i can and cannot say

00:47:07.260 or canning or can and cannot do and the people of hullum and norfolk have really grown

00:47:11.980 to embrace that and you know the money still flows into the riding so they'll say well an

00:47:17.740 independent voice gets no money i'm no different than any other opposition member at queen's park

00:47:23.180 no different than a liberal an ndp or a green party member and money has to flow to communities

00:47:29.100 and and i said throughout this campaign you know what the best way to keep monies flowing into

00:47:33.900 haldeman norfolk is to keep doug ford hungry for your vote and he will keep trying to buy it and

00:47:39.260 And that messaging all resonated with the people of Haldim and Norfolk.

00:47:42.360 And my goodness, they sent a very, very clear message to Doug Ford on Thursday night.

00:47:48.580 Well, certainly he wasn't expecting it.

00:47:50.400 The premier himself wasn't expecting it because it was just back in April where you were doing your job.

00:47:55.520 You were doing what an opposition MPP has to do, what people want them to do, which is trying to hold the premier accountable, asking him tough questions, even asking him a question from the political right.

00:48:06.320 He wasn't having any of it.

00:48:07.460 So I'm going to play this clip.

00:48:08.460 This is from April 18th, 2024, where Doug Ford tells you that you're not going to have a job after the next election.

00:48:15.100 Let's play that clip.

00:48:16.440 In January, I launched a petition calling on this government to follow the lead of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.

00:48:23.400 No response except for carbon tax referendum legislation that does absolutely nothing to help the people of Ontario today.

00:48:30.440 It's a publicity stunt.

00:48:31.660 You call that a publicity stunt?

00:48:33.640 By the way, you won't have a job next election.

00:48:38.460 So his caucus sure liked that comment, but I'm sure he regrets saying it now because not only do you still have a job, Bobby Ann, but you won with a much stronger majority in your riding.

00:48:51.280 You got 64% of the vote to the PC's 24%.

00:48:57.020 So it wasn't even close.

00:48:58.740 The people gave you another mandate.

00:49:01.000 Have you seen Premier Ford since your victory?

00:49:03.340 And what do you think that's going to be like?

00:49:04.640 No, I likely won't see the Premier until we go back for the first day. And, you know, I'm not sure. I work really hard on keeping it classy. And sometimes when those things happen like that outburst in the Ontario legislature, it's hard not to, you know, be the hockey mom and be all over that.

00:49:23.100 But I, you know, I might just give him a little wave.

00:49:26.700 I might just, you know, smile at him.

00:49:29.020 I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that.

00:49:30.720 But I will go back to your comment that his PC caucus, you know,

00:49:34.360 seemed to like it that day in question period.

00:49:36.480 Quite honestly, a few of them came to me and told me how embarrassed they were of that comment.

00:49:42.140 Well, I'm sure he regrets it now at this point.

00:49:44.740 Now, when I was trying to walk the audience through what happened,

00:49:47.920 I was really surprised by your story.

00:49:49.600 because typically when you have an independent member of a provincial parliament or legislature

00:49:53.940 or MP, they were usually like a former member of a party that chose to step away so that they have

00:49:59.140 the name recognition and they have the support in your writing. But that's not the case with you.

00:50:03.320 You worked for the PCs and you worked for your predecessor and he endorsed you. So maybe you

00:50:08.020 can walk us through that story and tell us how it came to be that you became the independent

00:50:12.640 candidate and then MPP. Sure, Candice. So I worked for MPP Toby Barrett for over 23

00:50:19.340 years. I worked with many of the MPPs who are currently at Queen's Park for many, many years.

00:50:25.800 You know, I ruined vehicles. I missed family functions, working for the PC family. And,

00:50:31.520 you know, one of the things that Toby Barrett, he was grooming me to follow in his footsteps,

00:50:36.620 but never in a million years would we have expected an appointment. So in 2022,

00:50:42.280 I began in January. I was the PC Riding Association president. I had been for over 20 years.

00:50:47.800 and we began asking for a nomination evening and the uh the party brass kept saying well we can't

00:50:54.640 COVID has reared its ugly head once again we can't hold a meeting and I knew meetings were being held

00:51:00.060 elsewhere across the province so this didn't make sense to me so I kept going back February I went

00:51:05.680 back and March I went back and I was told the same thing and I finally said to Toby I said

00:51:10.620 something's inherently wrong here and so Toby reached out to the premier and said you know

00:51:15.760 my writing association president uh is trying to set up a nomination night and and the party brass

00:51:21.520 is you know turning her down and so it was april 9th 2022 i was i remember the day very well because

00:51:29.120 i don't cook all that often and i had cooked all day for my mom's birthday and we were just sitting

00:51:34.080 down to dinner and i got a call from toby and he said the premier is going to appoint uh the mayor

00:51:39.280 of haldeman county as the pc candidate and so we spent uh you know a week uh going back to the

00:51:44.640 the premier going back to the party saying like this is very wrong-headed and this isn't going

00:51:48.640 to work out well for you guys um you know as the pc riding association president candace how do i

00:51:55.040 attract people to come to the table raise money make decisions at the you know at the grassroots

00:52:00.480 level when the single most important decision that they can make every few years is choosing

00:52:05.920 the candidate who will represent them when that is taken out of their hands it leaves a very bad

00:52:10.800 taste. So, you know, there were a lot of tears, tears of anger, tears of frustration over those

00:52:16.600 days. And finally, you know, I walked into Toby's office one day and I said, I know what we're going

00:52:21.640 to do. We're going to stand up for democracy. And Toby says, what do you mean? And I said,

00:52:25.340 I'm going to challenge Doug Ford's candidate as an independent. And, you know, Toby said to me,

00:52:31.220 he says, I think you're crazy, but let's do this. And, you know, the party was worried. I know that

00:52:36.500 now. In retrospect, I know that they were worried because they told me, you're going to commit

00:52:41.300 political suicide. You're going to be an embarrassment. You're going to get less than 0.99

00:52:45.700 5% of the vote. And I said to them, I said, that's on me. If I want to commit political suicide,

00:52:50.740 that just means that there's something else out there for me to do after this. But I've got to

00:52:56.000 stand up for the people of Haldim Norfolk, and I have to stand up for democracy. So that's what we

00:53:00.480 And you know, I guess the rest, as they say, is history.

00:53:05.480 And so would you say that you outworked your opposition?

00:53:08.480 Like how was it that you, without a political party,

00:53:11.480 without any sort of big machine working behind you,

00:53:14.480 what do you attribute to that original victory?

00:53:18.480 The original, I think it was the fact that I have 23 years

00:53:22.480 of experience in the writing.

00:53:24.480 I think they underestimated that.

00:53:26.480 That, you know, when people called Toby Barrett's office,

00:53:28.480 office, they often got Bobby and Brady on the other end of the phone. And I, you know, I didn't

00:53:33.740 give them party lines. I was empathetic. I was sympathetic. I never blew smoke. You know, if I,

00:53:39.300 if I couldn't fix something, I would say to someone, I can't fix it. But if I thought I

00:53:43.520 could fix it, I carried their issue like a dog with a bone. And during this campaign,

00:53:48.800 more so in this campaign than in 2022, the people who came out of the woodwork and posted

00:53:54.680 testimonials online saying, hey, I remember back in, you know, 2012, I contacted Toby Barrett's

00:54:01.360 office and Bobby Ann Brady picked up the phone and she helped me. She, you know, she may not have

00:54:06.380 fixed my issue, but man, she worked hard to try and help me. There were countless testimonials

00:54:12.160 in this campaign and reminded me of the work that I did over 23 years. And my goodness,

00:54:18.820 when people remember that, it really tells, it really says what kind of people we have here in

00:54:24.520 all the Menorfolk principal. It sounds like you're the exact kind of person that we want

00:54:30.280 representing us in Canada and we want being our representative. One of the things I noticed,

00:54:34.960 Bobby Ann, was that voter turnout provincially was really quite low. It was second only to 2022,

00:54:40.080 which was also a low year. But in your writing, so I think it was 46% in Ontario, but in your

00:54:45.280 writing, it was upwards of 56%. And so, you know, do you think that that is because the conservative

00:54:52.680 base showed up for you or what do you attribute to that disparity in voter turnout so i'd say that

00:54:59.160 it was all bases and it's interesting i am a fiscal conservative and and it's no secret that

00:55:05.080 i spent 23 years in the pc family but people of all stripes in this riding they don't like their

00:55:13.160 small town girl being told she will be out of a job they also love the fact that i can go to

00:55:18.360 Queen's Park with no monopoly on a good idea. So I've supported ideas from, yes, the PCs,

00:55:24.860 but I've also supported ideas from the Greens, from the NDP, and from the Liberal caucuses.

00:55:29.700 And of course, that ended up on a smear piece of literature on me during this campaign. But

00:55:36.320 people see the benefit of that. If I can support a bill that is good for the people of Haldim

00:55:43.360 in Norfolk, who cares who brought forward the bill? If it's good for the people, then you vote

00:55:49.500 for it. And my goodness, if we could actually just run Queen's Park like that, if representatives

00:55:55.640 could stop being brand ambassadors and just truly, genuinely represent their community,

00:56:01.620 what a better province this would be. I totally agree. I feel like so many candidates,

00:56:06.380 so many members of parliaments and legislatures, they just tow the party line and you don't really

00:56:11.400 get a genuine sense of who they are, what they believe in, what they see. There's so much party

00:56:15.360 discipline in the system in Canada. So what are your priorities for this parliamentary session

00:56:22.740 and what are you going to try to accomplish? So first and foremost, I represent a very rural

00:56:29.420 riding and, you know, this is a government. The PCs have long been or supposed to be

00:56:34.780 the government of rural Ontario and of farm country. And over the past two and a half years,

00:56:40.480 nary a mention of agriculture or rural affairs in the Ontario legislature in budgets and fall

00:56:45.360 economic statements and we have to fix that. You know we are continuing to bring more and more

00:56:51.520 people to Canada many of them landing in Ontario. The more people we bring the more people we have

00:56:57.360 to feed and we have to cut red tape we've got to cut regulation and we have to allow farmers and

00:57:03.760 small business to generate you know on their in their businesses and on their farms and allow

00:57:09.040 them to stimulate Ontario's economy but we got to get out of their way so one of the very first

00:57:13.520 things I'm going to do and I worked on this prior to the election is I want to work with the Minister

00:57:18.480 of Agriculture and I'm hoping that that is Rob Flack because Rob Flack and I get along very well

00:57:25.200 and I would love to see a standing committee on agriculture and rural affairs at Queen's Park

00:57:30.960 we're one of the only jurisdictions in North America that doesn't have such a committee and

00:57:35.840 we need to we need to bring that rural voice back to queen's park and put it back on the

00:57:41.040 political map so that's first and foremost um one of the most general you know the broad broader

00:57:46.960 issues i'm going to bring forward and then we have a um locally we have what's called the

00:57:52.000 ministerial zoning order in kind of in waiting at the nanny coke industrial park there is a 0.81

00:57:57.520 proposal to build a city of upwards of 40 000 people at an industrial park at ontario's largest

00:58:04.080 industrial park and i think it's more most harebrained idea there's also an energy project

00:58:09.840 on the table for that same area so you know i really want to work with the government and make

00:58:14.400 sure that we get an energy project at an industrial park i i think that we need power uh at an

00:58:20.480 industrial park not people and so i want to work with the government to make government to make

00:58:24.960 sure that we add to the good paying jobs in our in our industrial park at nanny coke instead of 0.58

00:58:30.080 of putting people there and driving industry away.

00:58:33.020 Well, I think that the people are lucky

00:58:34.740 to have you as a representative

00:58:35.960 and it's been such a great pleasure

00:58:37.420 for me to have you on the show.

00:58:38.940 Thank you so much for me, I keep fighting.

00:58:40.180 You're such a great fighter

00:58:41.220 and I look forward to seeing what you'll do

00:58:42.720 at Queen's Park this year.

00:58:44.080 Thanks, Candice.

00:58:45.400 All right, thank you so much for tuning in to Candice Welcome

00:58:48.180 and this is the Candice Welcome Show.

00:58:49.760 Thank you.

Juno News - March 05, 2025

Canada ESCALATES the trade war

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