00:05:15.240Or maybe he's just going to continue to ignore Doug Ford.
00:05:17.940but he did not get any opportunities to meet with anybody remotely associated with the Trump
00:05:25.020administration. Now, he said, well, no, I'm leaving that up to the feds. You know, I'll let
00:05:29.740Carney and his people meet with the Trump administration. But the fact is nobody in
00:05:36.500Trump's entourage or close to him had any interest in talking to Doug Ford at all.
00:05:42.240No, no, not in the slightest. And, you know, ultimately, I think there's a lot of Canadian
00:05:47.140citizens and politicians alike who I think perhaps they they are of the belief that because
00:05:53.940Canada's media media system is so isolated from the rest of the world that the rest of the world
00:05:59.780is also isolated from what's happening in Canada and that could not be further from the truth
00:06:04.020um one thing I hear constantly whenever I interview or or have off the records and chat with
00:06:09.600U.S. officials because the Canada-U.S. relationship is so it's so imperative for our growth and
00:06:15.200success. Not to say that we shouldn't diversify. We should have been doing that for many years.
00:06:19.560But at the end of the day, geography does matter. And I always hear from everybody I talk to that
00:06:25.140Trump watches CBC News. He watches CTV News. His team is briefing him on everything that's being
00:06:31.840said about him all the time. So are other people from the administration. They are keeping a close
00:06:36.980eye on what's being said. And I think in part as well, due to Justin Trudeau and how he was with
00:06:42.020being incredibly two-faced, as Trump put it himself, in saying one thing to his face,
00:06:46.880another behind his back. And he sees the exact same thing from this new liberal government as
00:06:52.000well. And so, you know, you got to be careful, especially when you are truly the dependent one
00:06:58.140in this situation. And that's not to say that Canada doesn't offer anything to the U.S. It
00:07:02.400absolutely does. But the way that I view it, if I'm trying to look for the signal and the message
00:07:08.600beyond the rhetoric is that Donald Trump is well aware of just how important Canada is with America
00:07:15.440and how much would be impacted if USMCA was not renegotiated or there were some really big issues
00:07:22.860in that regard. But Donald Trump also knows that as an American, as America, as their economy is,
00:07:29.480with the way that they are building industry and infrastructure right now, that if Canada
00:07:33.940were to completely shift all the way over to China or the EU, America would figure it out.
00:07:39.600So it's not a matter of they don't need us. They do. But if something happens where we are no
00:07:44.380longer an option, they will figure it out and they and they will move on without us one way
00:07:49.540or another. That is the American imperative. Yeah. I mean, the reality is we do need the
00:07:55.900American market more than it needs us. Yeah, there's mutual gain, but it's existential for us.
00:08:02.780And the idea that somehow we're going to offset any losses in American trade with China or Europe, that's a non-starter.
00:08:12.640We're never going to have as great and as close a market to enjoy, you know, as we now have with the Americans.
00:08:21.860So maybe that was one of the things that factors into this attitude change.
00:08:26.980I just hope that it gets the attention of some people in the Trump administration and maybe they soften towards us.
00:08:33.500Right now, we're getting nowhere. We're just spinning our wheels.
00:08:36.280We know the Americans are talking with the Mexicans that have been for months and maybe are getting closer to a deal where Canada is completely shut out.0.83
00:08:43.780And so I guess after weeks of just getting nowhere with the Americans, this seems like maybe a last ditch effort.
00:08:52.140Yeah. You know, if there's anything I've learned from covering politics and analyzing Donald Trump quite a lot, as it does have a huge impact on what's happening here in Canada in many ways, the fact that he has recently forgiven Elon Musk and said that they're friends again after what Elon posted on X when they were fighting a while back, I think Trump is a pretty forgiving person so long as you're coming at it in good faith.
00:09:18.180And, you know, trade talks are never fun.
00:09:21.140And genuinely, I may have disagreed with a lot of what was coming out of the Ford government and the Kearney Liberals, but I want them to succeed.
00:09:28.180I want them to do an incredible job and get us a great deal.
00:09:30.840And I hope that that does end up happening.
00:09:34.600I also want to ask you about the surge in NDP support lately.
00:09:39.820I mean, it's about nine polls that have come out in the last little while, and suddenly the NDP is in double digits and getting stronger at about the same rate that the liberals are losing support.
00:09:51.780So in the last abacus poll, liberals were down three, NDP was up three, and some have come out, like Iverson over at the National Post, and suggested that there is an appeal amongst younger voters towards some of the radical left policies that the NDP has put forward.
00:10:10.640And it has dawned on me that as Carney tries to inch closer to the center after 10 years of Justin Trudeau, tries to move to the center, he's alienating some people in his caucus, people like Steve Gilboa, of course, who said he's leaving, and others, the radical environmental wing of the Liberal Party.
00:10:33.380and some of the hardcore leftists there are starting to get a little grumpy about the direction
00:10:39.720that Carney is going. And it's being reflected in some of the polling which suggests that the NDP
00:10:46.580is gaining back some of the votes that they lost to the Liberals at the last election.
00:10:52.080Is this a trend, do you think, could continue? I think it's very plausible for sure. I mean,
00:10:57.420you would naturally expect to see a bit of a bump once a new leader is selected. That's
00:11:01.800pretty common for the most part. But I also think it's important to recognize a series of patterns
00:11:08.260that have taken place. And, you know, not just in the education system with various institutions,
00:11:13.120as well as just messaging and communications in general. But there are a lot of particularly
00:11:17.920younger Canadians who have grown up with the liberal government, right, where they have grown
00:11:23.480up with the government should just kind of take care of everything, the government should be very
00:11:27.040involved in your life. And so for them, that's normal. And they're trained and taught very well
00:11:32.780that, you know, anything opposing this ideology is a scary bad guy. And you don't even want to
00:11:37.340consider it because then that makes you a scary bad guy, which is some of the most brilliant
00:11:41.580messaging I've ever seen in political communications, for sure. But I think that you do have a lot of
00:11:47.720other young people. And I wouldn't I wouldn't put this solely at them either. But ultimately,
00:11:52.700Avi Lewis is somebody where he may have some very far left socialism, socialistic ideas that have
00:12:01.960proven to fail everywhere they've ever been applied. But ultimately, he is he is naming the
00:12:08.200villain very clearly. And I don't necessarily think that there are a whole bunch of Canadians
00:12:14.240who suddenly are embracing socialism, right, or anything like that, per se. But what they are
00:12:21.240embracing is somebody who's speaking to them about the things that really matter and you know
00:12:25.720you need a villain give me a name and and I think that Avi Lewis has done a really good job at at
00:12:31.860doing that and speaking to their pain in a way that's thoughtful and articulate um and it seems
00:12:36.720very very genuine and he seems very compassionate and I think I think it's just more so of that
00:12:42.860side of things where where people are really hurting and he's calling it out right and it's
00:12:47.080a lot easier to hurt. And, you know, you may still have a lot of liberal ideology, right? So
00:12:53.200you're not going to go conservative in some of these cases, but going NDP, well, that's socially
00:12:59.000acceptable to do. So I think you're seeing a bit of that for sure. But I don't know. I think it's
00:13:07.500an interesting, it's an interesting idea, a lot of what he has. And I think that it's beneficial
00:13:13.900overall for elections if you want to say that because you know a lot of people will fault
00:13:19.060various things for the conservative loss and many of them it's all part of the same story so
00:13:23.620you're not wrong for faulting various things but one of the big things that I noticed at least when
00:13:29.380looking at the the demographics and their voting was was solely the complete destruction of the
00:13:34.940NDP and so it is helpful to for conservatives at the very least to to have that changed yeah I think
00:13:41.540if you're going to get 43 percent of the popular vote, which the liberals got last time, you know,
00:13:47.820you get that by pretending to be all things to all people. Yeah. So the left saw somebody who,
00:13:55.620oh, yeah, this guy's on our side, you know, given his book Values and his radical environmentalism,
00:14:02.540his views about DEI and all these types of policies. This is our guy. And besides,
00:14:08.060We've got to keep Kier Paliyev from becoming prime minister.
00:14:35.240You know, he's not a nut job on the far left.
00:14:38.060You know, so this is a reasonable person. So out of that, you get somebody who can be all things to both sides of the political spectrum. And now what we're seeing slowly the realization that no, he's not, you know, that in fact, he may not make the leftist happy or they may not make conservatives happy, you know.
00:14:57.560So, you know, it wouldn't surprise me to see the walls starting to close in on these liberal numbers more and more as people realize that this is this is not a guy who's going to do all things to to everybody.
00:15:11.900You know, he's not going to be possible. He's not going to be a savior of the nation.
00:15:16.120He's had over a year now to make good on those promises that he made during the election campaign.
00:15:20.760And it still hasn't happened. And the economy continues to languish.
00:15:23.940all he's got really is people in the media saying, it's not really a recession, you know.
00:15:30.180You know, I want to point out too, I really do miss the days when traditional liberals
00:15:37.640were very much against central bankers and technocrats. Those were good days. Now,
00:15:43.900as a conservative who maintains that, you're called a far right extremist, which I think
00:15:47.780is quite ironic, but welcome to Canada. Yeah, absolutely. A couple of minutes. The
00:15:55.180county government is looking at age restrictions on social media for under 16-year-olds. I don't
00:16:01.280see how they're going to enforce it. It's going to be tricky, but obviously it's a safety feature.
00:16:07.340What do you make of this? I think it's ludicrous overall. I also think a lot of the polling for0.82
00:16:13.620it has been quite disingenuous um there was a poll i can't remember who is angus reed that they
00:16:19.520found that about 75 percent of canadians agreed that there should be um a full ban on social media
00:16:25.960for youth 16 and under and the thing about that that's just very disingenuous is you know it's
00:16:31.500one thing to say yeah it should be banned i guess in some very vague idea poll it's another to
00:16:36.700recognize that the implementation for that would require digital ids um some sort of verification
00:16:42.480for every Canadian, really, because you can't only target those who are underage without knowing the
00:16:49.780age of everybody else. So I think everything about this is very interesting. And I also think that
00:16:55.340once the Liberals table whatever their plan is, and Canadians are able to truly see what enforcement
00:17:01.640would actually require, you're going to see the public sentiment shift quite a lot. I do also
00:17:06.780think in general, this is the same government ideology that has said that parents shouldn't
00:17:12.940be notified about things that are happening with their children in schools. And now suddenly they
00:17:17.180want to also enforce them being on the internet. I would additionally add that Canada has a pretty
00:17:23.420bad track record of knowing of other things happening in the world and never learning from
00:17:28.160their mistakes. Australia is a really good example. They passed this very similar legislation back in
00:17:33.2402025. I think it was December of 2025. And it has proven to be a complete and total failure.
00:17:39.200There's been various reports that have come out from social media platforms showing that there
00:17:43.260still is about 70% and up of the age group that they were targeting who are utilizing those
00:17:49.060platforms because kids will be kids and they're finding ways around it. And so it's shocking to
00:17:56.320me that the liberals are essentially using the same copy and paste method to make it look like
00:18:00.720they're doing something really helpful for children I also think I'm pretty tired of them
00:18:05.360exploiting children in order to pass things because that always seems to be the game plan
00:18:09.940like oh well we're gonna install this mass surveillance on everybody but it's to help the
00:18:14.540kids stop using kids as a way to pass these things it's it's just evil it's not it's not right
00:18:20.480and truly also and this may be unpopular to me but ultimately if you're a parent and you're
00:18:27.660overwhelmed by children on the internet i get it my parents were overwhelmed by that too i was not
00:18:33.900allowed to have a computer until i was 18 moved out and could afford one on my own and i turned
00:18:38.380out pretty good for it i read lots of books growing up sure i was a bit of a loser in high
00:18:43.260school who didn't have cell phones to snapchat with all my friends but i'm actually quite grateful
00:18:48.380for that um and i think it's important for for the government to never ever get involved in private
00:18:53.180decisions private devices that parents are giving their children and as a parent if that's
00:18:58.380something that's gotten so out of control that you want the government to step in because you
00:19:02.540are so anxious about it i hear you those concerns are valid there are predators lurking in the
00:19:07.020shadows absolutely everywhere but your children are still going to find a way on social media
00:19:11.740that has been proven with the australia model and they're the bad guys are still going to be there
00:19:17.420so i i think you know be a parent and try not to be so much of a friend as you are the mom or the
00:19:25.100dad in in the relationship and sometimes that means enforcing rules that are not popular and
00:19:30.140punishing your kids when when they break those rules i was terrified of my parents growing up
00:19:35.180and that didn't stop me from having an amazing relationship with them so um i just think in
00:19:40.620general this is one of those things where the government has has no right to get involved in
00:19:45.340it and and overall if if the issue truly is just that parents are so overwhelmed by this
00:19:51.900take away your kids phones the fact that they even added in exemptions for this bill already
00:19:56.220i think is proof that or this proposed bill is proof that they know it's not going to be easily
00:20:02.380enforced so i just think in general it's it's not the government's job you know the the so what do
00:20:09.020we have in canada now the government feeds your kids a chewy bar at lunch with a national school
00:20:12.940food program takes care of your dental care in retirement and takes care of your child care and
00:20:18.220now they're also taking care of your kids being on the internet like we need some we need some
00:20:22.220responsibility accountability and autonomy back in our own lives as citizens yeah absolutely let's
00:20:28.060put some guard rails on government you know stop the overreach jasmine thank you so much for coming
00:20:33.580on the show thank you jasmine lane if you enjoyed this show consider supporting great independent
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