Juno News - February 17, 2026


Carney puts Emergencies Act INSIDER in charge of U.S. trade talks


Episode Stats

Length

20 minutes

Words per Minute

173.40343

Word Count

3,595

Sentence Count

242

Misogynist Sentences

8

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 A liberal insider and podcaster has apologized for saying conservative Jamil Giovanni is
00:00:11.440 too unattractive to succeed in politics. David Hurley admits he made his original
00:00:17.060 comments in a clumsy and awkward way. I've got something I want to say.
00:00:22.540 There's been a strong and negative reaction to some comments I made last week about the impact
00:00:29.120 that Jamil Giovanni's appearance would have on his ambitions for political leadership.
00:00:35.360 I want to say a couple things about it. The first thing is that I think many people that saw those
00:00:39.580 comments are not familiar with this podcast and what it is. Curse to politics is not a civics lesson.
00:00:45.640 If you're looking for that, go over to the Hurley-Burley. This is a brutally frank conversation
00:00:50.560 among senior political strategists about what those kind of people talk about in the backest
00:00:55.020 of backrooms. And appearance is one of those things, and we've talked about it on this show
00:01:00.780 many, many times before. Having said that, I think I made my remarks in a particularly
00:01:07.140 clumsy and awkward way. I've been flip and glib my whole life, and this isn't the first time that's
00:01:13.080 landed me in some hot water. Many people interpreted my remarks as a comment on Mr. Giovanni as a cancer
00:01:20.100 survivor, and that was certainly not on my mind at the time that I made those remarks. And in any
00:01:25.980 event, I could have made my point much more gracefully and appropriately. And Mr. Giovanni,
00:01:30.860 I apologize. Giovanni was asked about the personal attacks directed against him since his diplomatic
00:01:37.720 mission to Washington. Here's what he told the Toronto Sun's Brian Lilly.
00:01:41.400 I am trying to get something very serious done for our country. And I think it's unfortunate that some
00:01:51.060 of the responses have been trying to kind of drag this down in the mud. I mean, the reality is we have
00:01:58.760 a July 1st deadline to complete the review of Kuzma, a trade agreement that governs three quarters
00:02:08.680 of our exports. And like, I think that's pretty important. And I think it's entirely reasonable
00:02:16.820 for every one of the 343 members of parliament that serve this country to do whatever they can
00:02:23.900 to try to help avoid further economic issues in Canada. And I think I also conducted myself in a
00:02:33.800 really respectful way. I mean, you can look and see, I've not been pointing fingers at the prime
00:02:39.180 minister. I've not been criticizing him. In fact, I've been offering to work with him.
00:02:44.600 Giovanni also spoke about the poor state of relations between Canada and the United States and the need to
00:02:50.180 cut down on attacks on our biggest trade partner. Let's listen.
00:02:55.400 We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue this anti-America, you know, hissy fit. And this is
00:03:02.580 the kind of reason I'm trying to talk into our government and some of the liberals who have
00:03:07.100 just gone way off the reservation on this. And, you know, the ball is in Prime Minister Mark Carney's
00:03:11.620 court. Like, I've offered to help him. I think it'd be awesome if we went down there together. I think
00:03:16.260 we'd get a lot done working together. But he's got to decide whether that's something he wants to do
00:03:20.820 or not. Prime Minister Carney has appointed career bureaucrat Janice Charette to the role of Canada's
00:03:26.960 chief trade negotiator to the United States. Now, during her time as head of the public
00:03:31.480 service, Janice Charette urged government to take an iron fist approach in dealing with the Freedom
00:03:37.680 Convoy back in 2022. She advised the Trudeau government at the time to crush the trucker
00:03:43.600 protest by any means necessary. Blacklock's reporter quotes Charette in a secret memo from the time,
00:03:50.080 saying, all hands on deck. No idea. Too crazy. Let's look at absolutely everything, said Charette.
00:03:57.600 Let's look at every law we have. Ultimately, the government opted to accept Charette's advice
00:04:03.920 and impose the Emergencies Act, later found to be illegal by the federal court. Now, critics of her
00:04:10.480 appointment say Charette is a bureaucrat with little experience in trade or negotiations. This post by
00:04:17.680 George Ann Burke. She's the polar opposite of the person to cut a trade deal with the Trump
00:04:24.160 administration. But then, I don't believe that's Carney's goal. He wants to be king of the middle
00:04:29.760 powers. He's running around the world, organizing them against the United States. That will not end
00:04:36.080 well. And George Ann Burke joins us from Florida. Welcome, George Ann. Thank you, Mark. Good to see you.
00:04:42.960 George Ann, of course, a communications expert and political strategist. And I know she's got some
00:04:48.800 thoughts on this latest appointment by the Carney government, a lady who I think is a rather
00:04:56.160 controversial choice. Given her lack of negotiating experience, I don't see anything or much in her
00:05:04.080 resume that says she'd be good at that particular job. What do you think, George Ann?
00:05:07.760 So I'm watching the comments coming from, in fact, conservatives who are all like,
00:05:16.080 oh, she's so wonderful. She's this, she's that, because she did work for Harper at one point in his
00:05:21.760 PCO, his pretty council office. She's a, she is classic Mandarin, you know, that term applied to civil
00:05:29.440 servants, bureaucrats who've been around forever. That is who she is. She's the top, top of the top of the
00:05:36.080 bureaucratic chain. She left the bureaucracy, she actually retired, I think a couple years ago,
00:05:42.000 and he's pulling her back in to do this. I don't think he actually cares about the negotiations with
00:05:48.400 the US. He has not made any effort in a serious way to negotiate with Trump. He's going to show the
00:05:55.600 world that he is going to be, as I said publicly, just not very long ago, and minutes ago, he wants to
00:06:03.920 be the king of the middle powers. He is going around the world talking to Japan and the European
00:06:09.680 countries and all of those places that are not, you know, the top of the top and, and convincing them
00:06:18.080 to band together against the big evil, bad, bad man, orange, and the ugly Americans, and to create their
00:06:26.960 own, um, supply chain and trade chain and all that. Now, in theory, um, should have been done 20 years
00:06:35.040 ago. Those relationships should have been built. Harper was trying hard to do it. Um, he did make
00:06:39.920 some progress, but, uh, Trudeau in his 10 years just destroyed all of that and, uh, let all of it go.
00:06:45.760 Um, but the fact is that, uh, this will not end well for Canada or for those middle countries. Uh, the
00:06:52.640 pressure that will be brought to bear, um, I think will be a very interesting thing. And I don't know
00:06:57.120 if it'll be out in public, although with Trump, pretty much everything gets out in public, um,
00:07:01.840 his feelings about things. And, uh, I suspect he will respond in kind if he sees this going the way
00:07:07.680 I think it's going. She, um, for me is controversial for another reason. She was the actual, uh, force
00:07:16.640 behind enacting the emergencies act during COVID. And, um, we have already had a court decision that
00:07:23.600 says it was illegal. Government probably is going to go back and try to take that to the Supreme
00:07:28.880 Court. Um, it was a federal court that said it was illegal, that it was unnecessary and, uh, she
00:07:36.560 pushed it. So that tells me all I really need to know about her. Yeah. I mean, the appeals court already
00:07:41.200 backed up the federal court decision. So that's over. I mean, that battle is on the other matter
00:07:47.520 as well. I mean, it's interesting, uh, you know, Carney, if he thinks he's going to get middle powers
00:07:52.240 on side, like Japan, you mentioned, I mean, Japan needs the United States a lot more than they need
00:07:57.440 Canada. They need America's military might in that part of the world with, with China, of course,
00:08:05.600 yeah. Close by you've got other countries like Mexico, maybe another, you know, middle power,
00:08:11.680 so to speak. They want access to the American market. So, I mean, Carney can talk to these
00:08:17.760 countries as much as he wants at the end of the day, they're not stupid. They know where their
00:08:21.200 interests lie and it is with, you know, fostering as positive a relationship with this, with the
00:08:28.560 world's number one power economic and military as possible. So I can't just, I can't disagree.
00:08:35.120 I don't know what he's thinking. And especially, you know, I think about, uh, Mexico, Trump is
00:08:40.320 already negotiating a separate deal with Mexico. So sure. Canada can negotiate a deal with Mexico
00:08:46.320 if they want to, nobody's stopping them. He isn't even stopping them. He said, go ahead and do what
00:08:49.520 you want, you know? But, um, the problem here is that Canada is going to end up isolating itself
00:08:55.760 and the other countries are going to look around and they're going to say, well, let me see 40 million
00:09:00.000 Canadians or almost 400 million Americans. Hmm. Let's see the comparable market. Where is the
00:09:07.200 economy growing at 4% and where is it growing at 0.4%. Hmm. Let me think about that for about a
00:09:14.400 second. I think that he is over, you know, he's over his skis, as they say, or shooting over the mark
00:09:21.520 or jumping the shark or whatever the phrases you want to use. He's going to, I think, fail miserably at this.
00:09:29.280 I've been warning people for a year that I don't think that he actually, ever since he's been
00:09:33.600 prime minister close to a year, that he doesn't really want a deal with the US. Um, and that's
00:09:38.880 obvious by his behavior. So, okay, fine. You know, like that Canadians want to ditch the closest
00:09:46.400 relationship from the closest physical country to them. That is that relationship, which has existed
00:09:51.760 for decades and decades and decades and has been successful in many ways, more successful in fact,
00:09:57.120 for Canada than probably the US. Um, go ahead, do it. See how well you do.
00:10:03.120 Yeah. Which also ties in nicely with our discussion around Jamil Javani, who by all
00:10:09.920 rights, I mean, it seems to have had a successful visit to Washington, having
00:10:14.160 high level meetings with Trump himself, uh, Marco Rubio, JD Vance, his close friend and others,
00:10:21.600 including of course, the trade rep. Um, and so he took attacks. I mean, that's,
00:10:29.680 liberals seem to have attacked him because of that success that they had. They were,
00:10:33.200 they seem to have gotten triggered by the fact that he was able to get these meetings
00:10:37.440 and have these high level talks. And of course, then we saw the, uh, the Hurley Burley podcast
00:10:43.200 comments, David Hurley, uh, now admitting that his comments were clumsy and awkward.
00:10:48.800 You know, he doesn't really apologize for the substance of what he said, though, if you've
00:10:52.720 listened. No, he says, sorry, not sorry. That's what he said. I listened very carefully to what he said,
00:10:58.080 waiting for him to say, I was completely wrong to criticize someone's physical appearance and equate
00:11:03.440 that to their capability of doing anything that was incorrect of me. That would have been the right
00:11:07.600 thing to say, but that's not what he said. So I'm sorry. He was the, um, I'm sorry if she perceived
00:11:12.320 it that way, you know, that all liberals seem to have. Um, and, uh, you know, he didn't, he didn't
00:11:18.240 mean to say something that, that would be perceived as being anti-cancer patient. What? I mean, like, come on.
00:11:27.200 So, uh, you know, and of course then the sad part of it is then you see people now getting on with
00:11:33.520 the horrible pictures of Janice Charette, um, you know, mocking her appearance. And honestly,
00:11:40.080 I don't care what somebody looks like. I actually care what they can do. Uh, Jamil went down there.
00:11:46.400 Of course, now they're trying to create a division in the conservative ranks by implying that
00:11:51.200 he went down on his own. He didn't have the support of the leader of the party. I am pretty sure
00:11:56.400 he wouldn't have done this without the leader of the party saying, yeah, go ahead and do it if you
00:11:59.840 want to. Um, he didn't see any harm in it. Um, it was successful in the sense that he did get to
00:12:05.360 speak to very high level people. He got a chance to feel out where they were, um, what they were
00:12:10.160 thinking. And I'm hopeful, hopeful that he brought back good intel to share with the conservative, uh,
00:12:16.880 leadership and, um, and, and the conservative, you know, staff that work on these issues, um,
00:12:23.520 to help guide them and how they're going to handle what's coming up in the next few months.
00:12:28.000 Um, so, uh, then to attack him on his personal appearance is just beyond the pale and utterly
00:12:35.440 ridiculous. What I am seeing, however, today is, um, Amanda Galbraith, who is no friend of conservatives,
00:12:43.440 um, Clint, you know, trying to imply that he's running for the leadership. Um, she said, well,
00:12:49.200 he'd only be successful if he was running for the leadership of the PPC. And it's like,
00:12:53.680 what are you even talking about? Where do you get these stupid things that you people say?
00:12:59.200 Um, he's not running for any leadership. He could be positioning himself. And I, I mean,
00:13:04.640 I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to have some, um, role in dealing with these issues coming up.
00:13:11.440 I mean, he does have that personal relationship and he has talked to the top people. So Pierre would
00:13:16.320 be wise to utilize whatever he can. Jamil is not a stupid person. He's a highly intelligent,
00:13:22.560 well-educated, uh, guy who's a self-made man. People should not forget that he came from
00:13:28.720 very poor circumstances, single parent family. Um, he went through a lot of personal tragedy in
00:13:34.800 his own life with being ill and conquering cancer. Um, he's got a family. He's, he, you know,
00:13:41.520 that's who he is. Let's, let's look at the positives here. And he went out the first time,
00:13:46.160 got himself elected. Okay. That's not always done by people who try to get elected. There
00:13:51.120 are some really great members of parliament that had to try two or three times before they got
00:13:55.120 elected. He did it on the first try. Um, so this is a guy who's very focused and determined to get
00:14:01.680 done what he needs to do. And instead they're picking on the way it looks like seriously, you guys,
00:14:06.640 you need to get a life. And the other thing, of course I said was maybe David Hurley should look
00:14:10.880 in the mirror in the morning before he goes criticizing anybody else's looks, honestly,
00:14:16.240 seriously, when you, when you're drop dead handsome, like, um, I don't know, somebody else,
00:14:21.680 anybody else, uh, you can say something maybe, but even then you shouldn't. So.
00:14:25.680 Yeah. I mean, and his long preamble to the quote unquote apology, there was talk about,
00:14:31.040 well, you know, this podcast is sort of about political strategy and, you know,
00:14:37.280 we lay it on the line. I mean, you're a political strategist. Is that the way people of your
00:14:44.400 background speak to each other? He's too ugly to run, you know, that kind of thing.
00:14:50.560 So I'll be very honest with you. What might be said behind a closed door, like jokingly
00:14:57.760 and inappropriately, somebody could say that I personally don't talk like that about people.
00:15:03.680 I really don't. Okay. But there are people that do, however, they would never say that
00:15:08.160 on the public airways. Like, what would you think of someone who said that even, and it's always done
00:15:13.760 like, I'm sure, I'm sure that he thought he was funny. I'm sure that he thought it was amusing.
00:15:19.600 I'm sure he thought it was edgy, but what it was, was obnoxious, nasty, and inappropriate for
00:15:25.920 public airways. You want to talk behind closed doors. I don't care what you say. Like, you can
00:15:29.680 say whatever you want. I can't do anything about that. But you get on the airways and you talk about
00:15:34.000 that, like someone, about that, talk like that about someone like Jamil, who is a very accomplished
00:15:38.880 guy. Like I just said, shame on you. That's all you got to say. Then obviously he's scaring you
00:15:45.600 if you're talking like that. Now, Giovanni did speak about the poor state of relations between
00:15:51.280 America and Canada right now. He did, yes. Canada basically toned down its, quote, hissy fit
00:15:58.800 as far as the Americans go. To me, that speaks straight at Doug Ford among the biggest people who
00:16:09.200 have had a, quote, unquote, hissy fit. What did you make of that? I think it said something about
00:16:16.800 the contact that he had with the United States and the discussions he had with, you know, Trump
00:16:23.360 and J.D. Vance, that he came back and said, you know what, maybe we should tone it down.
00:16:28.560 So it's interesting because I want to, I'm trying to think which of Trump's advisors,
00:16:35.520 one of his top advisors, said a few weeks ago that Canada's behavior is just inexplicable. He
00:16:42.560 doesn't understand why they're carrying on like maniacs all the time. He didn't use that exact
00:16:46.800 terminology, but basically was saying the same thing. Why are they having these hissy fits? This
00:16:51.360 is not how you want to carry on relationships between two countries. And, you know, of course,
00:16:57.440 the response of the elbows up crowd is, well, Trump this and Trump that. Okay. So you're going to tell
00:17:04.960 me that you go to the lowest common denominator. What you see is objectionable behavior and you do the
00:17:09.440 same thing. So I'm not sure what that says about you versus what it says about Trump. We know that
00:17:16.080 Trump is a bit of a troll and he likes to pick at scabs that he sees and gets people all wound up.
00:17:22.960 But the best solution to dealing with him, and I mean, like, I don't know,
00:17:26.560 maybe this comes from being a mother of six and also being a politician and cat herder of political
00:17:33.280 people. You don't poke the bear. You don't go around saying things that are going to give them
00:17:39.040 the opportunity to troll you or pick at the scab that you create was created or to do the things to
00:17:45.840 you that you don't like. Why would you do that? What's the point? How does this raise the level of
00:17:50.240 discussion? And the truth is that if they ignore most of the provocations that he has, like all of them,
00:17:57.040 he would just stop. If he doesn't get anything out of it, he doesn't do it, okay? People can't get past
00:18:04.560 it. I still see conservative politicians, long-time conservative politicians who I won't name here,
00:18:13.200 but there are two of them today that really annoyed me, people that I had regard for in the past who
00:18:19.120 are so deranged over Trump. They say crazy stuff that is, A, not helpful, B, supportive. These are
00:18:27.920 conservative politicians, supportive of the other party. I don't, and they're couching it as if it's
00:18:33.760 good for Canada, and it's neither good for Canada, nor should they be supporting the other party and
00:18:39.280 what they're doing right now, which is going to be bad for Canada in the long run. And I'm saying that,
00:18:44.240 you know, people accuse me of being a traitor because I moved back to the United States, and
00:18:49.280 you're never really a Canadian. I'll put my credentials up against anybody's for what I did
00:18:55.120 for Canada in the 38 years I lived there. And I have a love for the country and the people.
00:19:00.880 I miss my friends. I miss, I don't miss the weather, I can tell you that, but I do miss a lot of other
00:19:06.240 things about Canada. But I'm also looking at it and saying, it's heading down a very dangerous path,
00:19:11.920 and I'm very worried about it. I don't want our party to fall into the same rut that the
00:19:16.960 Liberals are in. I want them to find a different path, a different message, and a different policy
00:19:22.400 path to take to make the country strong, secure, sovereign, rich, safe, healthy. That's what I want
00:19:30.960 to see. That's what Canada was when I came there. That's what I would like it to be now.
00:19:35.680 Well, we're heading possibly to an election in the spring, maybe late spring. Yeah.
00:19:42.000 So we'll have to see what comes out of that. That'll be a very critical election as to the
00:19:47.040 future of this country. Certainly will. Yeah, it absolutely will. And I hope that
00:19:52.800 Canadians give their heads a shake and see what's happened over the last close to a year and say,
00:19:58.000 is this really where we want our country to be? Is this really how we want to be behaving?
00:20:02.000 Or should we be thinking about doing things differently?
00:20:06.400 Yeah, absolutely. Georgianne, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate that.
00:20:10.560 My pleasure. Great to speak to you.
00:20:11.920 Georgianne Burke, Pathway Group. If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting
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00:20:29.520 us a great deal. Thank you so much. See you next time.