Juno News - Carney calls Apr. 28 election

00:00:00.000 The federal election is underway and Canadians can expect to head to the polls on April 28th

00:00:09.600 to elect the next Prime Minister of Canada. Canada's border agency said $68 million worth

00:00:14.800 of drugs were blocked from entering Canada. A True North article investigates why Canada

00:00:19.700 joining the European Union may not be such a great idea as some politicians and pundits have

00:00:24.520 proposed. Hello Canada, it's Monday, March 24th, and this is the True North Daily Brief.

00:00:29.340 I'm Isaac Lamoureux. And I'm Noah Jarvis. We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.

00:00:35.280 Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:00:44.520 Prime Minister Mark Carney has officially asked Governor General Mary Simon to dissolve

00:00:48.960 Parliament and trigger a federal election set for April 28th, 2025. This means federal parties will

00:00:55.120 have just 37 days to campaign, the minimum time required by law, as the Liberal Party seeks a

00:01:00.580 contentious fourth term without former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the helm.

00:01:04.960 Conservative leader Pierre Polievre spoke in Gatineau, Quebec, just before the election call

00:01:09.460 on Sunday. Polievre said, quote,

00:01:11.540 Today, the Liberals are asking for a fourth term in power after swapping Justin Trudeau for his

00:01:16.800 economic advisor and his handpicked successor, Mark Carney. But after a lost liberal decade,

00:01:23.220 the question is whether Canadians can't afford a fourth liberal term. Polievre accused the Liberals

00:01:29.260 of inflating housing costs, pushing Canadians to resort to food banks, wrecking Canada's immigration

00:01:34.960 system, and making Canada's economy over-reliant on the U.S. Carney held a press conference soon after

00:01:41.380 he met with Governor General Simon at Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

00:01:44.460 That's why I'm asking for a strong, positive mandate from my fellow Canadians. I've just requested

00:01:52.800 that the Governor General dissolve Parliament and call an election for April 28th. She has agreed.

00:02:03.940 We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump's unjustified

00:02:10.840 trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty. Our response must be to build a strong economy

00:02:18.760 and a more secure Canada. Carney took office on March 14th, just a week after winning the

00:02:24.120 Liberal leadership in a vote that saw fewer than half of registered party members participate.

00:02:28.920 He was Canada's first Prime Minister to have never held elected office before. According to a Liberal

00:02:34.540 Party of Canada social media post, Carney will be running in the Ottawa riding of Nipine.

00:02:39.380 Liberal MP Chandra Arya has held the riding, but the party recently denied his candidacy for

00:02:45.300 re-election and disqualified his bid for the party leadership before that.

00:02:49.560 The leadership race itself, and subsequently Carney's ascent to power, was decided by only

00:02:54.200 around 150,000 Liberal Party members. The timing of the election call has raised eyebrows with it

00:02:59.980 occurring just one day before Parliament was set to resume and the Liberals gaining territory in the

00:03:04.940 polls. Trudeau had previously asked to prorogue Parliament, delaying its return.

00:03:10.380 So Noah, what sort of problems might Carney encounter going into his first ever election for

00:03:14.880 public office?

00:03:15.700 Well, as someone without political experience, he's going to have to deal with, you know, the problems

00:03:21.120 that certain politicians have to deal with, being asked questions, tough questions that, you know,

00:03:25.780 sure they might have prepped with his team, but, you know, there's going to be certain questions

00:03:29.800 he's going to be asked that he hasn't been expected he's going to be asked. And we've seen

00:03:34.080 Mark Carney struggle being able to ask certain questions in a polite and respectful manner before

00:03:39.820 when he was asked about his personal finances and placing his assets in a blind trust. When he was asked

00:03:47.300 about that by Stephanie Levitz and Rosemary Barton, he had a very shrill sort of defensive attitude to being

00:03:55.860 asked that question and almost appeared as if it was an insult that he had to even answer certain

00:04:02.020 questions. I think Carney is also going to encounter the fact that campaigning is a, you know, a tiring task. And if you

00:04:10.120 are not on your A game every single day, and you are, you know, going to campaign events, you know, just tired or

00:04:16.540 mentally exhausted, you're prone to make certain mistakes that is going to be captured on a mic,

00:04:22.780 on camera, and it's going to be played on the TVs of Canadians. And he's also going to have to deal

00:04:28.720 with the fact that the Conservatives are, you know, really going into this election hungry. To just use

00:04:34.000 a sports analogy, for teams that won, you know, a championship the year before, trying to win two,

00:04:40.240 three, four times in a row is a lot harder than the first time. And now your opponent is going to be

00:04:44.920 hungry to take you down. A similar thing can be seen in politics where the Conservatives have

00:04:49.880 lost the federal election three times in a row to Justin Trudeau, and they don't want to lose

00:04:55.600 a fourth election. They're going to be very hungry, very motivated, ambitious in trying to win this

00:05:01.540 election. While the Liberals, they might feel as if they take this election for granted and they take

00:05:07.600 the electorate for granted, that their election victory is sort of inevitable, that the Liberals are

00:05:13.760 the natural governing party. And therefore, they shouldn't be too concerned that the Conservatives

00:05:19.080 will overtake them. I think that that would be a mistake for the Liberals to make, especially when

00:05:25.320 Pierre Polyev has shown himself to be adept at debating. And many Canadians will be tuning in

00:05:31.080 to the English and French language debates to see whether or not these leaders can stand up

00:05:37.440 to one another in a debate and potentially stand up to Donald Trump when negotiating free trade and

00:05:45.120 getting rid of certain tariff restrictions on Canadian goods flowing into the United States.

00:05:51.000 So it remains to be seen whether or not Carney is actually cut out for politics and whether he is

00:05:57.200 actually going to be skilled in rhetoric in the ways that, you know, Pierre Polyev and even Prime Minister

00:06:03.820 Justin Trudeau were, or whether he's going to collapse under that weight and is going to be

00:06:09.260 pushed to making some mistakes by Pierre Polyev, by Jagmeet Singh, and by the media.

00:06:15.340 And just one thing I wanted to add, Noah, is how much Carney struggles with the French language.

00:06:21.260 We saw him, of course, say that he agrees with Hamas, which, of course, was a mistake. One would assume

00:06:25.980 he has a very poor understanding of the French language compared to Pierre Polyev. And for anyone

00:06:31.780 who's paid attention to any of Canada's elections in the past, we all know the immense importance

00:06:37.380 Quebec has on determining the winner of that election, along with the Maritimes, which have

00:06:42.980 very strong French communities like Acadie, for example.

00:06:49.620 Canadian border officials have made a massive drug bust after discovering over $11 million worth of

00:06:55.220 cocaine on two transport trucks headed for Canada. This year alone, the Canada Border Services Agency's

00:07:00.900 Southern Ontario arm has prevented narcotics worth over $68 million from being trafficked

00:07:06.660 into the country from the United States. The seizures contradict US President Donald Trump's

00:07:10.900 claim that the bulk of drugs being smuggled across the border were headed towards America from Canada.

00:07:16.900 CBSA's Southern Ontario Regional Director General Michael Prozia said of the seizures,

00:07:22.660 quote,

00:07:23.300 I want to thank our border services officers, our intelligence team and the National Targeting Centre

00:07:28.260 and our RCMP partners who have been ever vigilant in detecting and stopping illegal drugs from

00:07:33.700 entering our country. Since the start of 2025, the CBSA in the Southern Ontario region has seized over

00:07:40.740 $68 million worth of narcotics from coming from the United States. The latest CBSA seizure was announced

00:07:46.740 this week after preventing over $11 million worth of cocaine from entering Canada at the Blue Water

00:07:52.500 Bridge crossing in Point Edward, Ontario. According to the CBSA, the cocaine was concealed in two

00:07:58.100 commercial transport trucks. The first seizure occurred on February 27th when a commercial truck

00:08:03.540 coming from the United States was referred for a secondary examination. During the inspection,

00:08:08.740 officers say they found 86 kilograms of suspected cocaine. The RCMP has charged a

00:08:14.180 Pauwandeep Dhillon, who's 34 years old, of Innisfil, Ontario, under the Controlled Drugs and Substances

00:08:19.860 Act with importation of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for the

00:08:25.140 purpose of trafficking. A week later, on March 6th, the CBSA referred another tractor trailer coming from

00:08:30.340 the United States for a secondary examination and seized another 333 kilograms of cocaine from the

00:08:36.020 trailer of the commercial load. The RCMP has charged Ravan Debir Singh, 23 years old, of Brampton,

00:08:41.940 Ontario under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act with importation of a controlled substance and

00:08:47.140 possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking. The seizure highlights a growing

00:08:51.540 trend of drugs moving northward into Canada despite Trump's repeated claims that narcotics are flooding

00:08:57.140 into the United States from Canada. So Isaac, based on the information that we currently have with drug

00:09:02.820 flows in 2025, how does this reflect upon Donald Trump's claims that Canada is a large fentanyl and drug

00:09:12.100 supplier to the American market? Well, Noah, Trump has positioned the border issue as primarily one

00:09:18.020 concerning drugs coming southbound from Canada, which is perhaps unsurprising given his nationalist

00:09:23.700 mentality. Trump previously said he was unsatisfied with Canada's response to securing the border not only against

00:09:30.100 drug smuggling, but also against illegal immigration. He said at the beginning of March,

00:09:34.740 quote, Justin Trudeau of Canada called me to ask what could be done about tariffs. I told him that

00:09:39.700 many people have died from fentanyl that came through the borders of Canada and Mexico and nothing has

00:09:44.500 convinced me that it has stopped. He said that it's gotten better, but I said that's not good enough.

00:09:48.580 Illegal immigration has also been a serious concern. Between fiscal year 2022 and October 2024,

00:09:55.220 1,199 individuals on the terrorist watch list were apprehended attempting to cross into the United States

00:10:02.980 from Canada. As for drugs, Trump has focused on the issue of fentanyl pouring over the border. He said at the

00:10:08.980 end of February, quote, drugs are still pouring into our country from Mexico and Canada at very high and

00:10:14.580 unacceptable levels. A large percentage of these drugs, much of them in the form of fentanyl, are made in and supplied by

00:10:21.220 China. More than 100,000 people died last year due to the distribution of these dangerous and highly 1.00

00:10:26.980 addictive poisons. Millions of people have died over the last two decades. The families of the victims

00:10:32.340 are devastated and in many instances virtually destroyed. While Trump has used these issues to

00:10:37.860 justify his tariffs, even one of his closer provincial allies, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith,

00:10:43.460 has questioned whether Canada is worse off than the states regarding drug smuggling.

00:10:48.100 She said, quote, the issue we're facing in Alberta at our border appears to be drugs coming up from the U.S.

00:10:54.980 into Canada, whether it's cocaine or crystal meth. The issue of migrants seems to be exclusively 0.77

00:11:00.900 people coming across from the United States into Canada. And we've also seen that Mark Carney hasn't

00:11:07.620 gone out of his way to speak with U.S. President Donald Trump, and especially now with the election

00:11:12.500 having started, I don't see him doing that. Some Canadian politicians and pundits have proposed

00:11:21.460 forging closer ties with the European Union to offset Canada's ailing relationship with the U.S. due to

00:11:27.060 terrorists. But even a cursory look at the facts show that the grass is not always greener on the other

00:11:32.420 side. For starters, the EU is in an even worse situation when it comes to debt. As of early 2024,

00:11:39.220 the average government debt in the EU's Eurozone countries rose to 88% of their GDP compared to

00:11:45.860 Canada's already high rate of 76.2% debt to GDP. Some countries within the EU are heavily in debt,

00:11:53.780 including Greece at 163%, Italy at 137% and Belgium at 108% of debt to GDP. In addition to financial issues,

00:12:04.180 the EU is struggling with the refugee crisis. At the end of 2023, driven in part by those fleeing the Russia-Ukraine

00:12:10.820 war, around 23% of the world's refugee population lived in the EU. This has placed considerable pressure on

00:12:18.500 European countries, many of which are still grappling with how to handle the influx of migrants while addressing

00:12:24.260 domestic concerns over mass migration. Despite these challenges, Prime Minister Mark Carney recently visited

00:12:30.180 Europe to discuss enhancing Canada's trade and defence relationship with the UK and France. The EU is a

00:12:36.180 supranational organization formed in 1993 through the Maastricht Treaty in an effort to further integrate European countries with one another,

00:12:44.660 a goal pursued by Europe since the end of World War II. The EU currently consists of 27 member countries who have agreed to

00:12:51.220 subject themselves to a common economic, monetary and foreign policy similar to that of a confederation.

00:12:56.820 While European countries join the EU to gain benefits otherwise unavailable to them, Canada is

00:13:01.860 already a G7 country with a highly developed economy. Also, the EU is plagued by internal problems that

00:13:07.620 threaten the future of the supranational system, with the biggest cracks being made evident when the UK

00:13:12.820 departed the Union in 2020. One key issue is the limited power of the European Parliament, the EU's elected

00:13:19.300 legislative body, which can only approve or reject laws proposed by the unelected European Commission.

00:13:24.900 This centralized system of governance is a departure from Canada's system, where in practice,

00:13:29.540 elected representatives have more control over legislation and not unelected bureaucrats.

00:13:34.740 So Noah, what are some other reasons why joining the EU would be a bad idea? And how much do Canadians support the idea?

00:13:41.700 Well, a recent poll showed that about 44% of Canadians would be open to joining the European Union,

00:13:48.500 which is above the 34% of Canadians who definitively said that they are against joining the European Union.

00:13:55.060 So a plurality of Canadians do believe that joining the European Union is a good idea.

00:13:59.860 But I suspect that once Canadians learn of the many things that joining the European Union would entail,

00:14:06.900 I think that they would change their minds. You already mentioned some of the problems that the European Union has,

00:14:12.900 but the European Union also has problems with a democratic deficit, as political scientists may call it,

00:14:19.460 where the European Union is governed by a basically an unelected commission.

00:14:25.300 This commission is selected by many of the governments of the countries that are members of the commission,

00:14:31.700 but the people of the European Union do not elect the members of this commission.

00:14:36.660 They only elect members to the European Parliament, which only has the power to vote yes and no on legislation.

00:14:44.660 They do not have the power to introduce new bills into the European Parliament,

00:14:50.100 and they also have no executive authority.

00:14:52.260 This is unlike Canada's Westminster parliamentary system, where the legislative and the executive branches

00:14:58.340 are fused, and which any parliamentarian can introduce legislation in the House of Commons or the Senate.

00:15:06.500 They also have had significant problems with debt and the Euro.

00:15:12.500 In 2008, the European Union suffered a crisis where many of the weaker countries, that being Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Spain,

00:15:22.660 many of their weaker economies caused the Eurozone countries to spiral into a debt crisis,

00:15:29.700 because their countries had accumulated such high levels of debt without the ability to pay back that debt,

00:15:36.580 that it required bailouts from their fellow European Union countries and from also the International Monetary Fund.

00:15:44.340 I'm pretty sure that Canadians don't want to be on the hook and paying for bailout packages for fellow European Union members

00:15:52.820 who might, you know, have problems managing their domestic fiscal policy.

00:15:59.460 And there's also problems with wokeness.

00:16:02.180 The European Union, for example, has been criticized for imposing policies that promote, quote-unquote,

00:16:07.700 gender and diversity, equity, inclusion, and certain things that are favorable for, say, the LGBTQ community,

00:16:15.300 such as the LGBTIQ equality strategy that the EU passed in 2020, which has led to certain clashes with member states like Hungary and Poland.

00:16:26.900 This has also led to certain EU member nations becoming skeptical that the European Union is the way forward for their countries.

00:16:36.260 We already saw in 2016 the electorate of the United Kingdom voting to remove themselves from the EU that officially took place in 2020.

00:16:45.460 And we've also seen the rise of Euroskeptic parties in other EU member countries, specifically in Germany,

00:16:53.300 where the Alternative for Deutschland party in Germany became the second place party after German elections in their legislative elections.

00:17:04.820 And their policy is to remove Germany from the European Union, which would be a devastating blow to the European Union,

00:17:12.660 as Germany and France are two of the biggest financiers and beneficiaries of the confederation that is the European Union.

00:17:21.600 And Canada wouldn't even be able to benefit from the Schengen zone, which basically allows people of these EU member nations to travel to these other countries without having to apply for a visa.

00:17:36.160 So I think that once Canadians realize that their governance will be decided by people thousands of miles away in Brussels,

00:17:45.920 instead of being decided by the domestic politicians, they're going to look at the European Union increasingly as a bad idea,

00:17:55.520 especially for Quebecers and Albertans who already have problems asserting their sovereignty and want more freedom from Ottawa and their governance.

00:18:05.820 I think that the idea of adding another layer of governance on top of them in the European Union would be especially infuriating for people who care about provincial sovereignty.

00:18:21.500 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in.

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00:18:29.300 Also, while you're at it, make sure to hit us with a five-star rating and please leave a review.

00:18:35.820 You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by subscribing to The Daily Brief on iTunes.

Juno News - March 24, 2025

Carney calls Apr. 28 election

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