Juno News - October 07, 2025Carney coming home from DC empty-handed？ + Freedom Convoy organizers sentenced
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Summary
Tamara Leach and Chris Barber have been sentenced for their role in organizing the trucker convoy. They will serve house arrest for 18 months each, and because Leach had already served weeks behind bars after her arrest, she has 15 months left to serve in house arrest.
Transcript
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Welcome to this edition of Straight Up. I'm your host, Mark Petrone. After a trial lasting
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over two years, convoy leaders Tamara Leach and Chris Barber have been sentenced for their role
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in organizing the trucker convoy. Now, the Crown was initially asking for seven years prison time
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for Leach, eight years for Chris Barber. What the two got today fell far short of that. They will
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serve house arrest for 18 months each. And because Leach had already served weeks behind bars after
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her arrest, she has now 15 months left to serve in house arrest. Now, the fact that these people
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will serve no jail time is certainly good news, considering the convoy protest was largely peaceful.
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But the fact that these two have been subjected to more than two years through the legal ringer
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is a disgrace. Will it have a chilling effect on Canadians protesting their government in the
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future? Sadly, it may. And the government may well have succeeded in making an example of these two
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people. Also, when you consider the protests waged by pro-Hamas demonstrators for weeks, months,
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the vast majority of whom were not arrested. It certainly feels like we have two-tier justice
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in Canada right now. Well, let's make a deal, says Donald Trump in his meeting with Prime Minister
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Mark Carney in the Oval Office. Trump is hosting the PM, and there's plenty at stake here, not only for
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Canada's economy, which is all but flatlined this year, but also for Prime Minister Carney, who's
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desperate for a win, having promised voters back in April that he'd get a deal done by July the 21st.
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Here we are in October, and still no deal. Are Canadians losing their patience? Well,
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the polling numbers suggest that support for the Liberals is beginning to soften,
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with Nanos now, the second poll in as many days, suggesting the Liberals and Conservatives
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are in a virtual tie. This post by Wyatt Claypool, Nanos has been the most Liberal-friendly pollster,
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Ecos and Spark don't count over the last several months, but even they now show the popular vote
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so close that Pierre Polyev's Conservatives could win the most seats if there was an election.
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So Carney needs to come away with more than just a photo op. At one point during a long,
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rambling news conference today in the Oval Office, Trump jokingly pitched a merger between Canada and the
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United States. Peace from India, Pakistan, through to Azerbaijan, Armenia, disabling Iran as a force
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of terror. And now, and I'm running out of time, but this is, in many respects, the most important.
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The merger of Canada and the United States. That wasn't where I was going.
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He couldn't resist, I guess. There's Trump pitching once again some kind of marriage between
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the United States and Canada. He also said, hey, never say never, Mark Carney. Trump also,
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interestingly enough, predicted that Canada will walk away very happy following the talks.
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Could that mean a lowering of tariffs on aluminum and steel? Let's listen.
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What would it take for you to draw or lower your tariffs on Canadian sectors, including aluminum and steel?
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Well, we're going to be talking about that with the Prime Minister. We'll be talking about tariffs.
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We'll be talking about a lot of that, but that's for a little bit later on.
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Why has Canada and the United States failed to reach an agreement up until now?
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Well, it's a complicated agreement, more complicated maybe than any other agreement we have on trade,
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because, you know, we have natural conflict. We also have mutual love. You know, we have great love
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for each other. I love this. I love Canada and the people of Canada. And Mark feels the same way about
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here. The problem we have is that they want a car company and I want a car company, meaning the U.S.
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wants a car company. And they want steel and we want steel. You know, so in other countries,
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they're very far away. And there's no problem. You can compete and you can do. We don't like to
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compete because we sort of hurt each other when we compete. And so we have a natural conflict.
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It's an actual business conflict. Nothing wrong with it. And I think we've come a long way over
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the last few months, actually, in terms of that relationship.
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So there you go. It's a complicated relationship between Canada and the United States. We both want
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the same things. We want to build cars, assemble cars. And there's always the agriculture issue as
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well. Let's listen to another clip from that news conference.
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Canada has offered a lot of compromise this summer. Are you willing today to offer some
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compromise to Canada, maybe on steel and then the United States?
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Well, we've made compromise and we've made some compromise even on steel. You know, we have the
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same basic authority and the same basic. This could be also a little bit of a conflict with other
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countries all over the world on steel because we want to make our own steel. We don't want to bring
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steel in for the most part, but we will bring it in and we do bring it in. We continue to bring it in
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from Canada, but there is a tariff to pay. And I think that would be a normal thing to say, but
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we've come. Well, as you've probably gathered by now, Carney didn't have a whole lot to say.
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I mean, if you're in the same room as Trump, there's a good chance that he's going to do most
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of the talking. But in one of the few statements that Carney did make during the news conference,
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he said that Canada is the second biggest trade partner for the United States, the second biggest,
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he said, and the biggest foreign investor in the United States, an amount worth half a trillion
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dollars. He admits that we do compete with the United States as well as Trump admitting that.
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And that's an area that they're going to have to work on and they're going to have to simply
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negotiate through. On the thorny issue of why Canadians have lately cut back on their travel to
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the United States, here's what Trump had to say. Canadians are refusing to go to the U.S.
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The numbers are down like 23 percent in the first seven months of the year. What do you
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say to Canadians that don't want to go to the U.S. now because of your 51st state talk,
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because of the trade war, the tariffs, and the fear of also being to take that to border?
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Look, I understand that. And Americans don't want to buy cars that are made in Canada.
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You know, I mean, we have the same conflict. So there isn't, it's something that will get
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worked out. There's still great love between the two countries. But, you know, American
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people want product here. They want to make it here. Detroit was emptied out and moved to
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Canada, moved to Mexico, moved to other places, not just Canada. And now they're all moving
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Well, there you go. What I want to know is, is supply management a deal breaker here? Because
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we've had Dominic LeBlanc come out, the industry minister and say, no, we're not going to negotiate
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away those protections for our dairy farmers. Love to have Jocelyn Bamford on the show. She
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is founder of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada. She's been keeping
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a close eye on these negotiations. She's down in Virginia where she has a plant. She's a Canadian
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and she has a terrific plant in Scarborough. But when it came time to expanding that operation,
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well, she ended up south of the border in Virginia. Welcome, Jocelyn.
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Well, you heard some of the clips there of the president speaking. You didn't hear from Mark
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Carney. But what do you make of all of this right now? I mean, what does Mark Carney really need to
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do here to walk away with some kind of a trade deal with Trump?
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Well, I just want to bring up one point that Mark Carney himself brought up. And he's
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talked about Canada being a huge source of direct foreign investment to the United States.
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And what you got to ask yourself, is that because Canadian small to medium-sized business are fleeing
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to the United States instead of growing in Canada? And I would argue that's the case. There are many
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Canadians that instead of growing in Canada have opted to grow in the United States. And why did they
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do it? Because it's easier to grow here because of the welcoming environment that you encounter when
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you come down to the United States. They want jobs here. Canada can't get rid of us fast enough.
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So while Mark Carney uses that as a badge of honor, he really should be looking at why so many Canadians
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are investing in the United States as opposed to Canada.
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Yeah, you make such a great point. We should be investing at home. And instead, Canadian money
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is hemorrhaging south of the border. And in fact, Trump even made that point. I think it was yesterday
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when he was asked. He said, well, a lot of companies from Canada are moving south of the border. And in
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saying that, he was justifying the fact that these tariffs are doing what they were intended to do.
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It may be hurting us here in Canada, but, you know, he's representing his country.
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I wish we had a government in Canada that was as bullish on Canada as Trump is on the United States.
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Yeah. And one point on that, Mark, you know, let's talk about steel and aluminum. What are the
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reasons the tariffs were in the first place? And one of the reasons is because we're allowing,
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Canada is allowing so much steel and aluminum to be dumped in Canada, which is subsidized by the
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Chinese Communist Party. We did nothing to prevent that at the detriment of our Canadian manufacturers.
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When you look at LNG Canada project, that entire terminal and modular module for LNG Canada was made
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in China by a company owned by the communist Chinese government and then put on a barge and brought to
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Canada. Canadian fabricators, manufacturers did not participate in the building of that terminal,
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that LNG terminal. And the second largest LNG terminal manufacturing country is the U.S.
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And there's nothing that the U.S. has that Canadian fabricators can't. But we continue to have a
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government that doesn't protect manufacturing and that allows Chinese steel to be dumped in Canada.
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And we should be addressing that concern. That's as much of a concern as the cars being built in Canada
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to the United States. And I haven't seen that we've moved the yardsticks on that a lot under Kearney.
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Do you think supply management will be a deal breaker? Because there's been many occasions when
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Trump has spoken about U.S. farmers getting ripped off, essentially being unable to sell their milk
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and cheese products, other dairy products in Canada, because, of course, we protect our dairy farmers
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up here. They're a very powerful political lobby in Canada. But Trump has raised this. And if we're not
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prepared to move on supply management, isn't it possible that Trump says, look, if you're not prepared to
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move on that, then I certainly won't move on cars or steel or anything else.
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Yeah. And if you look at the roots of the supply management, a lot of it tends to center around
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the liberals wanting to protect the boats in Quebec. So we need to have as manufacturers,
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and I can speak for the manufacturers, we need a deal with the United States. They're our largest
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customers. 76% of our business goes south. And we've been without a deal long enough. And it's time
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for us to roll up our sleeves and get down to business so we can continue to build North American
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manufacturing up as much as possible. And we're not each other's enemy. We are each other's biggest
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friends, our longest ally. And you cannot just replace the United States trade with foreign countries
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across Europe. That's an ocean to cross. That will take time. And it's not as profitable
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policy where we can trade and work to grow together.
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It is interesting to see Carney being the diplomat down there, considering how he ran throughout the
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election heading into April 28th. I mean, it was elbows up, shaking his fist at Trump. Trump's trying
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to destroy us. He goes down there and showers Trump with praise, calling him a peacemaker for spearheading
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peace talks in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinians. And you could be cynical pretty easily when you see
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the way that they carry on. And Trump, too, is saying on multiple occasions, well, we love Canada,
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you know, we have a great relationship. But it's not what we get from these politicians when they're
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talking to us, you know, on our on home turf. It's a very different story. Do you get the sense that
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there's a sincere liking for each other? I mean, the relationship between these two? How do you see that?
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Yeah, I don't see it. I think they're ideologically opposed on just about every topic from, you know,
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freedom to economics. Trump has unleashed the power of the entrepreneurs. Mark Carney is. We're going to
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pick the winners and losers. Very top down, very authoritarian. I can't see that they are ideologically
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aligned on a whole bunch of things. And I'm not sure that Mark Carney wants a trade deal because I
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think Mark Carney would rather be running a majority government rather than a minority government. And
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who did he run the last time against? He didn't run against Pierre Polyev. He ran against Donald Trump.
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So if there's a trade deal and there's that piece goes away, who's he going to run against in the next
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election? The only thing I could see is maybe he's looking at the polls and seeing that he needs a
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win somehow because those poll numbers are starting to slide. We can't keep up with not having a trade
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deal, especially in manufacturing. And let's remember, manufacturing is still the second largest GDP
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contributor to our economy. So we need a deal. I think Alberta and the West is growing tired of not
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getting pipelines through. So there's a whole lot of pain for Canada if we don't get a deal done,
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but quick. Yeah. National unity shaping up to be a bigger and bigger issue, isn't there? I mean,
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you've got Quebec now nervous about the future of supply management. And of course, Alberta inching
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towards a referendum, I believe it's going to happen sometime next year. And so, you know,
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could a guy like Mark Carney, who has so far, frankly, been underwhelming, negotiate all of that
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while trying to get a deal with Trump on trade? Seems like a tall order for a guy like Mark Carney.
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What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. And let's remember Mark Carney being a big supporter of the
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Green New Deal. Brookfield certainly has been the beneficiary of a lot of that Green New Deal grants,
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and he has demonstrated that he's going to continue to move that philosophy forward.
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The five projects of national importance, there was not one for pipeline, as many of us predicted.
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You don't suddenly change your ideology overnight. And that's going to spell trouble for the resource
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sector and the economy in Canada as a whole. Canada could be a powerhouse if we got our resources to
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market. And it's not just benefiting Alberta. Ontario manufacturing in its heyday under Stephen
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Harper had as many workers in supporting the oil and gas industry as it did in automotive. You never
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hear that story. So if we unleashed our resource sector and got our clean, liquefied natural gas to
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the world, we'd not only help support prosperity in Canada, but we'd also lead to a cleaner planet. So if
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they really did care about the environment, they would be getting our resources to market very quickly.
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Put yourself in Mark Carney's position right now. You're sitting down with Trump.
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Well, it all depends if he really wants a deal or doesn't want a deal. So that's the magic question.
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So let's say he does. If I was the prime minister and I wanted a deal, I would first find out what all
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his concerns are on the flow of fentanyl. It's not just a produced fentanyl. It's about the components
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that make fentanyl that are flowing through Canada to the United States. I talk about dumping.
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I talk about defense, how we can have a North American defense strategy to protect ourselves.
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Being a supplier to the American resource sector or the American defense sector, sorry,
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both, I have seen what's on the top mind for most of the folks running the defense industry. And that
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is that Xi Jinping has indicated that he is going to invade Taiwan at least by 2027. That's the Davidson
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window. And they are gearing up for that. And Canada and the United States are woefully unprepared
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for that to happen. We need to get our shipbuilding capacity ramped up. We need to make sure that our
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manufacturing sector is running on all cylinders. So I would make sure that we could come away with
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a deal. And I feel like Canada and the United States have been such close partners. It's almost
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unfathomable that we couldn't have a deal by now. And I believe that's because Mark
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Kearney really doesn't want a deal. I can't figure out any other rational explanation of why we haven't
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come to a deal to date and why Mark Kearney hasn't been trying harder to get us a deal.
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Well, I think he probably tried to do an end run around Trump, figuring he could isolate
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the Americans by cutting deals with Mexico. And he found out pretty quickly that those countries would
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rather deal with America because it's a market of 340 million people. You would think that he would
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know that. But it is interesting, the issue of defense, because I guess we're veering away from the
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Lockheed Martin F-35s in favor of a fighter jet made someplace else, perhaps. And here's Trump
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saying, oh, by the way, you want in on the Golden Dome. That's an area that they're going to look at,
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too. Because for 10 years, for instance, the Conservative Party pushed hard for the F-35s,
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which is all well and good under Aaron O'Toole's leadership. And now I've seen tweets for him saying,
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well, we should dump the F-35 in favor of some other aircraft because of Trump. I think, well,
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if it was a good plane before, why isn't it a good plane now? It's those types of things that
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are going to put a stick in the spokes of our negotiating with Trump. That's not going to work.
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So maybe that's an area that they could fix while he's down there. It wouldn't surprise me if Trump
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raised the issue of the F-35s, because Lord knows they want to sell as many of those things as
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humanly possible. And the long game is the Iron Dome. We want to be able to participate in the
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Iron Dome. And I believe if we look elsewhere for our fighter jets, that's not going to be an option
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for us. And if you look at our participation in that, it's going to be much more profitable for us
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to be able to participate in the Iron Dome than the fighter jets.
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Let's talk about Doug Ford, because he's coming out big time, elbows up over Diageo,
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which he's now threatening to pull bottles of Crown Royal off the shelves as soon as that bottling
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plant in Amherstburg is closed, and maybe even Smirnoff. So what I suggested during my radio show
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was that's one way to keep robbers and thieves from the liquor store. You just take all the stuff
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worth stealing away and you just put whatever else you can up there that nobody wants. What do you make
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Yeah, I can't believe Ontarians have been so docile on this. We aren't able to drink California wine.
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We've been forced to have no bourbon and now he's pulling Crown off the shelves. I mean,
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how much longer are Ontarians going to tolerate this? And he should be asking, why are you leaving,
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not dumping Crown out? There is another company that just announced that they're closing in Maitland,
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Ontario, 100 high paid, high skilled workers in Vista, which makes chemicals. I mean, is he now
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going to dump the chemicals out? I mean, eventually you have to wonder and ask the question, look in
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the mirror and say, why are so many Ontario manufacturing plants closing up and moving to
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the States? And I'll tell you why, because of unbelievable taxes, high electricity. We have
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one of our coalition members that is paying four times the electricity in Ontario that they're paying
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in Indiana and they have seven outages a year. So you're paying four times as much and he's down on
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electricity because he has outages. Each outage costs him a million dollars. That's seven million
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dollars he's lost this year. Eventually you go, what am I doing? Why am I paying so much more to
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keep a plant open? And it's funny because I've reached out to a number of cabinet ministers
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to try and get this escalated. And there seems to be an unwillingness, not on the politicians,
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but on the bureaucrats, the senior bureaucrats that work for them. They could care less. I eventually sent
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an email saying, is it so difficult for you guys to pick up a phone and try and help
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a company that brings hundreds of jobs to Ontario. And apparently it's almost impossible for them
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to assist any of their business owners. But Ford doesn't have a strategy to keep manufacturing. He
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hasn't addressed high electricity. We've had tons of taxes like the carbon tax and the clean fuel
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standards. Now Ontario is bringing out new legislation that requires any employer in Ontario
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to formally address anybody that's applied to them for a job to give them a formal notice of
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why they didn't get a job. And we were only alerted to that, not by the government, but by our insurance
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companies who say, you better be prepared. You're going to be taken to the Human Rights Tribunal and to
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court if somebody applies and they decide that they don't like the reasons you didn't hire them.
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So Doug Ford, who said he was going to cut red tape, fix healthcare, fix electricity, and fix education,
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has failed on all of those points. And that's why people are leaving. And the federal government just
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piles on additional taxes and costs to us. They don't work on any projects that include
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small to medium size manufacturing. And when you combine those two together, you get a recipe for
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disaster into the open arms of the United States. Yeah, all they can do is subsidize these EV plants
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that nobody wants, that'll never make a dime. What do we put into that like $50 billion in terms of
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taxpayer investment into these plants? Just unbelievable. Jocelyn, thank you so much for
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coming on the show. We really do appreciate it. My pleasure.