Juno News - December 20, 2024Canadians want an election NOW
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Summary
In this week's Off The Record, we talk about the Canada Post strike, the fall economic update, and the sudden resignation of Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Finance Minister. We also hear from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's Director of Press and Communications, Chris Sims.
Transcript
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Have you guys got your Christmas shopping for the year done?
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Even with the GST, HST, easy to understand tax break,
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you haven't rushed right out to get your shopping done?
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You know, the other thing that the government completely screwed up on
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that has totally screwed up my Christmas shopping
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So, number one, the whole idea of doing back-to-work legislation
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You eat that unpopularity of saying, get back to work.
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But only this government, William, could manage to pull off of,
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By the way, Christmas is still screwed for everyone.
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So, yeah, needless to say, this mom who has, like, relatives across Canada,
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y'all are getting your presents around, I don't know, Valentine's Day.
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It was like, oh, yeah, well, we're going to put you back to work,
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so we're going to piss off the unions, but we're going to delay it
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so that all Canadians can, you know, equally feel the pain, you know.
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It was just like, at this point, Trudeau's not even trying.
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William, are you one of those dudes that goes out on, like, Christmas Eve day
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No, I did my shopping mostly on Black Friday, but unfortunately, with the post-strike for
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Christmas, technically, everybody's going to get the drill count of posts, sorry, we missed
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you, we'll let you pick up your package at a deeply inconvenient location slips.
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I think that's what everybody's going to get this year.
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I'm buying people and I'm printing them as pictures and I'm sticking them under the tree.
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Whatever, they're not here, you're stuck in a truck somewhere.
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I'm the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, pinch hitting this week,
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so thank you so much for listening to me, along with my friends, William and Noah.
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Gentlemen, this week feels like it's been about three weeks long, and I think that's because
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a lot of people got what would be a surprise resignation from the Finance Minister this week.
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So for folks who've been asleep and didn't know, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was
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What that means in normal people talk is like a baby budget, like a mini budget, where you
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update the numbers, and that was supposed to be done like weeks ago, but it was going to then
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They blew through their so-called fiscal guardrail, which, by the way, was a $40 billion deficit,
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which is a crazy, terrible fail, okay, from this government.
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But they blew through that, and it's about a $62 billion deficit.
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But apparently, Freeland didn't want to polish that one for Trudeau, and she resigned before
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So I just wanted to go around the horn before we get to our clips and all the fun that happened
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What was your guys' reaction to that when you saw the wheels falling off there on Monday?
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My favorite part was when the speaker stood up at 4 o'clock.
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He's like, well, it's 4 o'clock, and technically I'm supposed to stand up and get the finance
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minister to talk, but there's no finance minister.
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You know, I woke up on a Monday thinking, oh, well, it's going to be another day, maybe
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the fall economic statement provides some news.
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But I did not have this one on my bingo card, and I'm pretty sure most people didn't either.
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I mean, it's understandable from Chrysler Freeland's perspective as someone who wants to run for
00:04:00.320
the liberal leadership after Trudeau and someone who doesn't want to have their reputation tarnished
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You know, it's not like her reputation is, you know, extremely clean.
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You know, she's widely beloved by all Canadians.
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But tabling a fall economic statement in which you blow past your fiscal guardrail, it really
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does not help if you're trying to, you know, appeal to Canadians and try and convince them
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that you are going to be able to adequately manage the country's finances if you become
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And she also has a book coming out, which is interesting.
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So, you know, I think, you know, this was probably, you know, more or less planned by
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She, you know, came to this conclusion probably a while ago.
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And it also seems that this was like a bit of an interpersonal dispute between Trudeau and
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Freeland has been very loyal to Trudeau, one of Trudeau's most valiant soldiers.
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And she has taken a lot of blows on behalf of the prime minister.
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But after the prime minister said, yeah, I want you out of the finance ministry, I'm going
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to put you in a role with where you get no staff and no additional resources, you're
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basically just going to have a nameplate on a door and that's about it.
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She's like, no, I'm not going to deal with this.
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And it looks as if a lot of liberals are, you know, looking up there as like a folk hero
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of sorts, but it's definitely a lot, all the more pressure for the prime minister to
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William, what did you think about Freeland's JetBlue performance?
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Well, look, I think I figured out what happened.
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And it's that Justin Trudeau went to the new finance minister store and he ordered himself
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But unfortunately, because of the Canada Post strike, the new finance minister didn't show
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Mark Carney's probably stuck in a Canada Post warehouse right now, waiting for Canada Post
00:06:03.960
So the fact that he already fired his former finance minister without actually getting a
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replacement left him into a really embarrassing situation on Monday, where Chrystia Freeland,
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after being put upon by this prime minister, oh, so much over the past few months, finally
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I'm not going to defend an economic update with measures in it that I don't believe in.
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And I'm certainly not going to do it knowing that you've tried to boot me or have booted
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By the way, someone else who didn't want to even join Mr. Trudeau's government.
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You couldn't have planned a better set of circumstances, I think, for all of this to
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For those of you who are a little older, you may remember there was another finance minister
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And he was fired by John Krekshan because Krekshan decided he didn't want him anymore.
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He wasn't being loyal, didn't have his confidence, whatever the case is.
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Well, you know, if you looked what happened after that, Mr. Krekshan was not long for his
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In fact, some would say it was the incident that finally brought Mr. Krekshan tumbling
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But certainly everything is not happy in liberal land right now.
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I was working on Parliament Hill when that happened.
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And I remember distinctly Paul Martin was in a press conference and he was asked something
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along the lines of, do you have confidence in the prime minister?
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And he hesitated a little tiny smidge too long.
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I will point out from a taxpayer's perspective, this is a totally different liberal government.
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And Chrystia Freeland, as finance minister, helped Trudeau double the national debt.
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She loved hiking up the capital gains tax on people's properties and assets.
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She froze Canadians' bank accounts when they had the temerity to disagree with her government
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So yeah, she's one of the worst finance ministers I've ever known in Canadian history.
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And I'm saying one of the to hedge my bets because I'm always scared there's some alternate
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dimension way back in the 1800s that I'm not aware of where there was a worse finance minister.
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So as far as the Parliamentary Press Gallery goes, they can save the sonnets, okay, when it
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All that said, William and Noah, I did enjoy the circus that happened afterwards, and it
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We've got this clip, and it is a clip, it's a long one, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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And I've been told to say this, warning, it's a clip from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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So please stay with us, listen to the entire thing.
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But this is fascinating, because this is, keep in mind, after Freeland quits, after they
00:09:08.000
have no finance minister to deliver a terrible fall economic statement, after a massive caucus
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meeting that went on and on, where Freeland apparently got a standing ovation, and he did
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So imagine all of this going up to your annual holiday party.
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It has been an eventful couple of days, it hasn't been easy, and that's why I'm so happy
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You know, it's hard not to feel happy when we're like this, among liberals, among family,
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because that's what we really are, a big family.
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Now, like, like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays.
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But of course, like most families, we find our way through it.
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I've talked to that prime minister probably three dozen times.
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He was basically talking through gritted teeth there.
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What was your take on it quickly there, guys, William and Noah?
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And I thought, yeah, you know, the Manson family called themselves a family, too.
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That what has happened in the real world doesn't even go through his head.
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That he, you know, I kind of want a vacation where Mr. Trudeau's, you know, mind is at.
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Because it seems like a happy, warm, and fun place.
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Because it's definitely not the reality the rest of us are sitting in.
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I think, you know, for him to go to a very high-end liberal fundraiser following his terrible day,
00:11:27.880
not to talk to reporters, not to talk to Canadians about the fact that their elected government
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But boy, he always has time for liberal donors who paid a lot of money to the Liberal Party.
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I think really just sums up this prime minister.
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Party before country and self before anyone else.
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Well, you hit it right on the head of the nail there, William.
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Because instead of addressing the Canadian people after that tumultuous day,
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We saw our dollar drop below $0.70 per dollar of value to the American dollar.
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So, like, this had an implication when it came to the financial markets,
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hey, like, can we really trust Canadian bonds and buy these bonds
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when Canada looks like it's going to have even a harder and harder time paying back their debt?
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And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would rather go in front of a friendly crowd of liberals,
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And not only did he do that, but he canceled all of his year-end interviews.
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The prime minister usually gives at least one, a few year-end interviews generally.
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And he decided, hey, I'm not even going to just cancel all of them,
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except for one, maybe with his favorite reporter at the Global Mail or Global News or CBC or whatever.
00:13:02.980
And it really shows, like, it really looks like he's trying to avoid political accountability.
00:13:07.240
He's not trying to face the Canadian people because he's probably just trying to—
00:13:14.080
he probably feels that if he can reconstitute a plan to regain his support.
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He's delusional if he thinks that's a possibility.
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And it's a shame that in a democracy like ours, the prime minister doesn't want to face the people.
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I find it very interesting that after nine years of puffball interviews that he's been given by the mainstream media
00:13:40.800
and largely directly from the press gallery to zero in on them,
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I hold them responsible for the fact that they've given this guy carte blanche free reign for the last nine years.
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And the moment that he might get an uncomfortable question at the year-end interview, he's not showing up.
00:14:04.040
So it just speaks, you know, frankly, it just speaks to the fact that he's never had to be accountable.
00:14:12.560
That's why it's so, frankly, disgusting when he jets down to places like Brazil to some Up With People conference
00:14:18.380
and scolds all the rest of us, saying that we should value paying his carbon tax over feeding our kids and paying rent
00:14:26.820
as if he knows the first thing about either of those two things.
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It's the same guy who wanted the budget to balance itself, right?
00:14:36.720
And said, forgive me if I don't think about monetary policy.
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If you started counting right now, it would take you 30,000 years to count to $1 trillion.
00:15:02.800
So that's where we are after this Trudeau government.
00:15:05.380
Speaking of delusional, did we want to move on to the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh?
00:15:11.400
And I will give some credit to my old colleagues at the Parliamentary Press Gallery here,
00:15:16.700
because you can hear them, William, getting exasperated, finally, finally, with this NDP leader,
00:15:25.740
because amid all of this stuff, finance minister quitting, having to rush down to governor general,
00:15:32.060
begging, you know, his old babysitter to become finance minister, all this stuff happening,
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Jagmeet Singh comes out and speaks to reporters and again says exactly nothing.
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Yeah, you know, Jagmeet Singh, that paragon of political strategy and effectiveness in the House of Commons
00:15:50.760
has, you know, just become such a laughingstock for all of us who follow Canadian politics.
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You know, this is a guy who said he was ripping up the Supply and Confidence Agreement,
00:16:02.220
proceeded to continue to vote to keep Trudeau and the Trudeau government in power.
00:16:06.760
Well, you would think out of any time that this would be the moment he would summon himself
00:16:14.780
We're going to vote no confidence in this government.
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But of course, never one to miss an opportunity.
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Jagmeet Singh completely missed the opportunity.
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And instead, to a yes, no question, gave this incredible, well thought out and concise answer.
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Right now, Canadians are struggling with the cost of living.
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People cannot find a home that they can afford.
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And on top of that, we have Trump threatening tariffs at 25 percent, which put hundreds and
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And instead of focusing on these issues, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are focused on themselves.
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They're fighting themselves instead of fighting for Canadians.
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And for that reason, today, I'm calling on Justin Trudeau to resign.
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Will you declare no confidence in the Liberal government as soon as possible?
00:17:20.940
But what is clear, given what we have seen, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government that
00:17:27.000
They are infighting at a time when people cannot even do their groceries.
00:17:30.960
They can't even find homes that are affordable.
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And we've got the threat of Donald Trump and 25 percent tariffs that mean hundreds of thousands
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Because of that, I'm saying very clearly that Justin Trudeau has to resign.
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The I feel like the equivocation in my soul touch.
00:18:01.340
Just from watching that, you can just sense all the political cynicism just emanating
00:18:10.660
Like, it's really, it's really, like, just annoying that he won't come out and just say
00:18:17.960
He's keeping the Trudeau government in power because he sees that the NDP are down in the
00:18:22.680
polls and he doesn't want to go to an election where they're probably going to lose seats
00:18:26.320
in an election where they should easily win seats as an opposition party when the government
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That and also because he wants to get his pension, you know, like, like, you have a lot of money
00:18:37.860
Like, we see the Prada bags and the Maseratis and the Rolexes and the $2,000 suits, you know,
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like, now he wants even more money on the back of taxpayers.
00:18:49.140
Like, he's a hustler, you know, and I would be able to respect that if he was hustling to
00:18:57.520
But instead, he's just hustling to, you know, line his pockets and to, you know, keep a very,
00:19:05.920
If he decided to not, you know, sign this confidence and supply and confidence agreement,
00:19:12.100
then he would have been able to position his party as a true opposition party to a prime
00:19:18.280
And then he decided to, you know, take the supply and confidence agreement and rip it
00:19:23.800
So, and then he still is supplying them with confidence.
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It's actually, like, really, really annoying as an observer of Canadian politics.
00:19:33.760
And I think most Canadians are annoyed because polls show 58% of Canadians want to go to an
00:19:40.300
A majority of NDP voters want to go to an election.
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So, it's not as if he is, you know, fighting against this demand from the Conservatives for
00:19:54.900
an election that is going to be unpopular like the 2021 election.
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This is probably the election that Canadians have wanted the most in years, in decades even.
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And I apologize for not knowing if it was either Chris Sully or Matt Gurney.
00:20:17.120
And it was about Justin Trudeau basically carrying a sword, slipping, falling on the sword,
00:20:24.560
having a spill of oil on himself, lighting himself on fire at the same time as scabbing
00:20:30.320
And he says, Jagmeet Singh looking on, eyes narrow, thinking closely and saying, not yet.
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And I mean, I think, you know, there's been a lot of speculation.
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And one of the theories that has been put forward is, is because if he waits just a little
00:20:52.820
bit longer, another two months, he becomes eligible for his government taxpayer funded index
00:21:01.260
And New Democrats have been very quick and ardent in denying that this is the reason, except
00:21:07.240
they have yet to provide a convincing alternative reason for why they're actually not voting to
00:21:16.660
And until they do, I think all of us are going to believe that this is really just a crass
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exercise on the part of Jagmeet Singh and the New Democrats in order to make Mr. Singh have a have a soft
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feather MP pension landing rather than the best interest of Canadians at heart.
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I think that most people who've been observers long enough figure that as well.
00:21:41.480
And you know what, to your point exactly, William, the NDP is not doing itself any favors.
00:21:48.360
I think it was Peter Julian that's like answering, I'm paraphrasing, answering the question of,
00:21:52.820
okay, well, when do you see this government falling?
00:22:01.360
That's after this big pension date, which I think is the 25th or 26th of February.
00:22:10.180
And for folks who are watching this, who are big supporters of the Dippers and you're offended,
00:22:20.740
They brought them down as soon as they possibly could.
00:22:22.960
And I wanted to point out something kind of procedural and nerdy for folks who are watching,
00:22:27.640
who listened to Mr. Singh say that Trudeau should resign.
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That sounds like, okay, that means the plug is pulled.
00:22:38.640
He very specifically said, Trudeau needs to resign.
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He didn't say, I'm withdrawing my confidence in this government at the earliest possible
00:22:47.760
Because what that would do is the leader of the party that happens to be in power would
00:22:55.440
So then that party would muddle through and put in an interim leader in the middle of it.
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So somebody, anybody, frankly, would be interim leader, and they'd have to have a little,
00:23:10.000
And that would muddle them through until at least, what would you say, William?
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You could definitely survive until the government was about to run out of money again.
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That buys you many weeks by him saying that exact answer, which is why I think that was
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Marika Walsh from the Globe and Mail who was yelling at him saying, is that really a
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Channel that to all of the reporters on Parliament Hill who are part of the press gallery.
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So channel that anger and keep asking these folks hard questions of all political parties.
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Speaking of political parties, Noah, did you want to chat about, there was a big, there
00:23:56.920
It was in Cloverdale, Langley in BC, and it was a gain for the Conservatives?
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So in British Columbia on Monday, to cap off the disastrous day that Trudeau had on Monday,
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there was a by-election in British Columbia, and this seat was held by the Liberals.
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The Liberals won the seat in 2021, and I believe also in 2019.
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And the Conservatives, they put up a candidate named Tamara Jensen.
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Now, the Conservatives, they've tried to move away from their stance on abortion issues,
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just try not to talk about it, and probably have said he's pro-choice, but this candidate
00:24:35.680
So you would think that this is an easy candidate for the Liberals to attack the Conservatives
00:24:41.460
The Liberals, they love harping on the abortion issue.
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But instead, the Liberals, they got decimated in this by-election.
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Remember how I said the Liberals won the last election in Cloverdale-Langley?
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Instead, the Conservatives won this by-election with 66.3% of the vote, with the Liberals at
00:25:09.500
We never see this in politics, from one election to another.
00:25:13.220
If you extrapolate a 50-point win nationally, that means that the Conservatives would win
00:25:23.160
But a 50-point swing in British Columbia province that the Liberals are supposed to be competitive
00:25:29.680
in, this is not like in Alberta, where the Conservatives win 66.3% of the vote if they
00:25:37.940
But instead, they lost a by-election that they were supposed to be competitive in.
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Now, going into the election day, we thought that the Conservatives would win.
00:25:51.300
This probably had something to do with an announcement earlier in the day that Christian
00:25:57.640
A lot of Liberal voters probably said, well, what's the point of even going to the polls?
00:26:03.300
But it looks as if the Liberals are digging themselves in a deeper and deeper hole.
00:26:09.400
These by-elections are getting worse and worse for Trudeau and the Liberals.
00:26:12.900
And it doesn't seem as if they're going to be able to save very much furniture in that
00:26:19.380
What do you guys think of this by-election result?
00:26:24.960
I always say, don't ever read too, too much into any one by-election.
00:26:30.200
There can be weird things happening in by-elections, lower turnout, and rarely does a future of
00:26:37.640
a government hang on the outcome of a single by-election.
00:26:40.580
All of that being said, I think you have to look at the series of by-elections that have
00:26:44.500
happened over the past eight or so months, past year.
00:26:49.220
And the fact that the Liberals are now consistently losing what had been described as safe Liberal
00:26:53.600
seats, to the Conservatives, and in one case to the Bloc, I think is painting a very worrying
00:26:59.780
picture for what this means to the Liberal Party.
00:27:03.240
Now, if you look at other advanced democracies, the Liberal Party is a bit of an anomaly.
00:27:13.900
It's moved quite far to the left, I would say, under the leadership of Mr. Trudeau and
00:27:26.480
It was his wedding party and college women.
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But having this centrist party exist sort of between a left-wing opposition and a right-wing
00:27:39.340
And in many places, centrist parties just have been unable to continue existing after
00:27:46.680
And, you know, you look at Ontario and the Kathleen Wynne Liberals, well, the Liberal Party
00:27:52.400
has disappeared virtually or become, you know, a very much less of a factor.
00:27:57.980
Alberta, we don't have a Liberal Party anymore.
00:27:59.820
I mean, maybe we do on paper, but it doesn't say or do anything.
00:28:03.160
It's either the United Conservative Party or the New Democrats.
00:28:10.000
So the real worry for the Liberal Party isn't just losing this upcoming election to Pierre
00:28:14.700
It could be losing the Liberal Party as a political force, as a viable alternative in
00:28:22.700
The only saving grace, I would say, for the Liberal Party is the fact that the New
00:28:27.440
Democrats are being led by Jag Eatsingh, who is just so incompetent as a political party
00:28:33.760
If the New Democrats had a competent leader who was politically astute, who was good on
00:28:39.980
policy, leading an energized United caucus, I bet that the amount of space between, you
00:28:46.200
know, popular support, they would just be crushing those Liberals in between them and
00:28:51.420
And a bag showing for the Liberal Party now could send them into the wilderness, maybe for
00:28:59.320
We should only be so lucky, I should say, maybe letting my political, partisan political
00:29:07.580
Well, you bring up a great point, because even in Canada, you see this consolidation of the
00:29:14.800
In British Columbia, you have the NDP, and, you know, there was a nominally center-right
00:29:19.860
party, the BC Liberals, they renamed to the BC United, but they got outshined by a center-right
00:29:28.220
party that is, you know, unafraid to say that they're conservatives, the BC Conservative.
00:29:33.900
You see in Alberta, the Liberals get pushed out.
00:29:36.740
In Ontario, it looks like the NDP and the Liberals, they're both suffering from weak
00:29:40.420
leaders, so we'll see what party rises to the top once one of them becomes electorally
00:29:47.420
You see even in Manitoba, they have the PC-NDP divide.
00:29:51.060
It looks as if Canada is polarizing into falling into one or two distinct political identities,
00:29:59.420
either your center-right or center-left, and that's about it.
00:30:02.360
And it seems as if this consolidation would be happening on the federal level, if not
00:30:09.500
If the NDP were, as William said, a lot stronger, you'd probably see the Liberals being pushed
00:30:16.720
And you have this problem where Justin Trudeau is staying on, and his brand is very toxic
00:30:24.540
You go even in the streets of Toronto, and you talk about Justin Trudeau to the average
00:30:29.380
person, and they're not going to have great things to say about him.
00:30:32.780
So Trudeau is hastening the decline of the Liberal brand in Canada.
00:30:37.780
But as William says, Jiang Li Singh just cannot capitalize on this.
00:30:41.980
The NDP have been going down in all their by-election results, as have the Liberals.
00:30:45.780
And it's making it very easy for Pierre Poliav to pick up all the people who are frustrated
00:30:52.140
with the government as supporters and to get them to vote for the CPC in the next election.
00:30:58.120
To that point, mentioning center-left and Manitoba and by-elections, the NDP won a by-election
00:31:08.600
And I learned this week that NDP Premier Wab Kanu of Manitoba, did you know that he speaks
00:31:20.620
He speaks English, obviously, Ojibwe, and French.
00:31:24.680
And gotta say, dude's a very good communicator.
00:31:31.440
Speaking of watching with a lot of popcorn, did we want to get to President-elect Trump
00:31:48.220
Okay, so for folks, again, who haven't been following, U.S. President-elect and former
00:31:52.960
President Donald Trump, has been apparently following Canadian politics pretty closely.
00:31:57.880
As we know, he is threatening very seriously a 25% tariff on stuff that we ship in to the
00:32:08.120
Our relationship with the United States, as far as just trade goes, forget the fact that
00:32:13.160
we're neighbors and relatives and, you know, allies and all that stuff and good friends.
00:32:22.320
It is not duplicated anywhere else in the world.
00:32:24.480
It is billions and billions and billions of dollars that cross that border.
00:32:28.340
And he's apparently been watching a lot of this stuff going back and forth.
00:32:32.500
And so much so that I actually had a relative text me earlier this week, like freaked right
00:32:37.500
out, like about Manifest Destiny and aren't you worried about this?
00:32:41.520
So just off the top, I'll take my CTF hat off because tariffs are bad and we should take
00:32:49.640
But as somebody who was raised in the 80s, I've read Donald Trump's main book, Art of
00:32:56.320
the Deal, and I used to watch wrestling all the time and I would occasionally tune into
00:33:04.880
This is like somebody getting ready for an MMA fight and giving you shots beforehand.
00:33:11.240
He is trash talking you before he pulls you into the octagon.
00:33:19.640
Army is going to roll across the 49th parallel.
00:33:23.800
William, are you gathering your acorns to use them in your slingshot or what's happening
00:33:29.480
Yeah, you know, I think it's funny to watch the reaction to Mr. Trump's comments because
00:33:38.400
the hysteria we're seeing from some quarters is precisely what Mr. Trump wants to have happen.
00:33:46.940
He's saying these things precisely to elicit a response.
00:33:51.820
And the more the Canadian side flaps about, the more strength it puts his position in for
00:34:00.160
negotiating when the actual negotiation comes to pass.
00:34:04.360
We're in the pre-negotiation phase right now, you know, where he's laid out dire trade
00:34:10.080
consequences for Canada unless progress is made on several issues.
00:34:14.060
And now he is simply fanning the flames of sowing the seeds of discord or sanity on our
00:34:24.400
side in order to simply be able to put himself in a position to extract more concessions for
00:34:31.240
The best thing any people could do would be to focus on the trade issue and the specific
00:34:38.240
border issues that Mr. Trump has brought forward and ignore everything else.
00:34:44.280
Because if he tweets something and doesn't get a response, he's going to move on to something
00:34:51.680
He won't just keep saying something if there's no response to it.
00:34:54.860
If we keep responding with increasingly insane responses, then he's going to be saying it for
00:35:02.280
the next eight, 12, 18, however many years, he manages to keep himself in the White House
00:35:13.800
And, you know, should Canada, you know, ever find itself on the receiving end, there's only a few
00:35:20.420
things I can say, which is, first of all, good luck trying to afford a house up here right now for
00:35:32.280
To Mr. Trump's and Republicans' own best interests, Canada would be a blue state, I think, if it
00:35:39.780
Do you really want to give more electoral votes to the Democrats in every presidential election?
00:35:46.180
Strategically, not a great idea for President Trump and the Republicans.
00:35:50.240
So just keep that in mind, Mr. President-elect, when you're making things.
00:35:54.360
Noah, I think Polly was right when he stated in his press conference something along the lines of
00:36:07.460
And freaking out about him teasing us, saying, oh, Governor Trudeau, 51st state, just screams
00:36:18.120
Well, my general take was this kind of reminds me of when, like, a little kid makes a joke
00:36:25.260
that adults find funny and then they just keep repeating it and repeating it and it just
00:36:32.760
Like, Trump, like, he's a bit childish, in my opinion.
00:36:36.480
And he thinks it's funny, you know, prodding Canadians over this joke.
00:36:44.640
You know, we like to think of ourselves as better than Americans.
0.66
00:36:48.240
Oh, we have a better health care system than you guys.
00:37:00.900
Before, in the 1800s, they used to say we're more religious than you guys.
00:37:06.140
But, like, we always have had this insecurity since 1867 and even before.
00:37:12.020
So Trump exploiting this is kind of funny, you know, as someone who doesn't take Trump
00:37:17.060
very seriously when he says these types of things.
00:37:19.620
But as William said, we do need to take serious the trade thing.
00:37:24.100
And we need to, you know, make overtures to Trump and flatter him a little.
00:37:30.740
When Trump went to visit China, Xi Jinping, you know, fouled him with, you know, this pomp
00:37:35.900
and ceremony and, you know, probably fed him some good food, some McDonald's.
00:37:39.480
And, you know, he's like, wow, this Xi guy, you know, I really like this guy.
0.55
00:37:46.300
He's like, oh, Kim Jong-un, you know, he's not rocking that anymore.
00:37:49.060
But, you know, when he goes to visit, like, Germany or whatever and Angela Merkel's, like,
00:37:54.480
you know, giving him a scorn, like a sour face, like, you know, that doesn't help American-German
0.99
00:38:00.080
relations and it doesn't help Canadian-American relations.
00:38:02.720
So I think what Daniel Smith is doing is really smart going on Fox News, talking to American
00:38:07.280
conservatives, you know, putting forward the Canadian conservative position that a lot
00:38:15.120
I think Xi has been a great leader when it comes to trying to deal with the threat of
00:38:23.320
You know, he goes to, like, a conference and makes a speech about how the Americans should
00:38:28.760
have voted in Kamala Harris and, you know, the Americans are sexist because of it.
00:38:33.240
You know, it's not smart when you're trying to flatter, you're supposed to be trying to
00:38:39.080
flatter Trump to get him to remove these tariffs.
00:38:41.960
But, you know, Trudeau is stuck in this, like, now that he realizes that he's done with his
00:38:49.680
time in office, pretty much, he's going to just, you know, become a bit more ideological,
00:38:55.120
He's going to try and keep Pierre Poliev out of office as long as possible because he views
00:38:59.940
And he's going to, you know, prod and poke Donald Trump because he views Donald Trump as
00:39:06.940
Damned, you know, the terrorists, damned what that's going to do to the Canadian economy.
00:39:10.260
We got to, you know, tell Trump that he's a sexist.
00:39:13.080
So, you know, but just in general, I think the joke should not be taken seriously.
00:39:17.960
We're not going to become the 51st state guys, you know, don't worry.
00:39:21.040
And if they invade, we got Army of Moose, I think, you know, we ride them like, you know,
00:39:27.820
like horse, just instead of, you know, horse, we got the atlers to ram into the tanks.
00:39:36.120
So a nice way of putting it is that when you're trying to imagine like you're getting
00:39:42.500
married, okay, and you're melding two families together, maybe the families have their differences.
00:39:48.180
The best thing to do is to meet people where they are, find commonality and ingratiate yourselves
00:39:56.940
So to your point, Noah, on Premier Daniel Smith, she's doing the smart thing.
00:40:02.460
She's climbing into Trump's living room by going on Fox News and going on Fox Business
00:40:14.000
She's talking about facts and laying out what she's going to do to uphold her end of the bargain.
00:40:19.900
That is how you make deals with adults, is showing how you're going to uphold your end
00:40:27.040
And so it is very good that we have some premiers in Canada who can be the adults in the room.
00:40:34.140
So Premier Ford out in Ontario is getting a lot of play this way.
00:40:38.280
I would say that's largely because it's an Ontario dominated mainstream media still.
00:40:43.020
I am a little biased because I'm a Western Canadian gal.
00:40:45.760
I think Premier Smith is doing a great job of kind of doing the Captain Canada thing here
00:40:51.600
right now because she's talking about facts and dates.
00:40:56.680
And this is all leading back to the initial reason why apparently Trump said all this.
00:41:04.860
Like that generally will just benefit Canadians.
00:41:08.920
At the Taxpayers Federation, we've been railing against the gun grab, for example, here,
00:41:13.320
where the Trudeau government is trying to penalize law abiding licensed firearms owners and steal
00:41:20.240
our property from us, even though he is letting tons of illegal weapons and firearms and guns
00:41:26.460
rush across our border back and forth all the time.
00:41:29.300
So sure, he needs to be taken seriously because, of course, a tariff like that is going to damage
00:41:34.280
economies, frankly, on both sides of the border.
00:41:36.280
Because if you want to get back to Premier Ford, the auto pact, the auto industry, they're the
00:41:48.040
We just need to actually make a good deal and stop taking so much of this personally.
00:41:55.160
William and Noah, thank you so much for joining us.
00:41:57.880
Please leave your comments under the channel here on the YouTube channel.
00:42:02.260
You can always go to the True North website and send us a message there.
00:42:07.600
But until then, remember, everything we've said is off the record.
00:42:18.240
Off the record, they're posting on the internet.
00:42:21.680
I mean, I think that makes a good point, too, where she's trying to debunk that hundred
1.00
00:42:27.860
And I think that's useful saying a lot of its raw imports into the United States, oil,
00:42:33.040
gas and lumber and other things which big American companies, you know, turn into really great
00:42:39.860
products that they sell for trillions of dollars on the global market.
00:42:43.580
So, you know, why don't we look at it as we're investing in each other?
00:42:47.700
We're being part of a team that together we're both going to be successful.
00:42:51.700
So I really hope that message starts to start sneaking out there.
00:42:58.580
And he'll be so impressed that smart Daniel Smith is saying this back to him.
00:43:04.220
This is my I'm very optimistic when it comes to this stuff.
00:43:17.060
And I mean, like, you know, you're elected on a mandate of like improving things.
00:43:20.340
It's like, oh, immediately our prices are up 20% because we're the tariff on Canada.
00:43:25.060
You know, that that won't really play well in America.