Juno News - Carney refuses to condemn China's election meddling on his behalf

00:00:00.000 Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined Conservative leader Pierre Polyev in Edmonton

00:00:09.460 to offer his official endorsement ahead of the 2025 federal election.

00:00:14.160 Liberal leader Mark Carney dodged questions from reporters on what a Chinese foreign

00:00:18.520 interference operation was boosting him to the Chinese diaspora in Canada.

00:00:23.020 A new poll shows that should the Liberals win the federal election, Canadian unity may be at stake.

00:00:30.500 Hello Canada, it's Wednesday, April 9th, and this is the True North Daily Brief.

00:00:35.040 I'm Cosmin Georgia.

00:00:36.300 And I'm Alex Soltan.

00:00:37.320 We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.

00:00:40.200 Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:00:45.540 Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper has pledged his full confidence in Conservative leader Pierre Polyev.

00:00:55.820 Harper officially endorsed Polyev to become Canada's next Prime Minister without a shadow of a doubt.

00:01:02.440 Harper cited his unique relationship with Polyev, having once employed both him and Liberal leader Mark Carney during his time as leader.

00:01:10.960 Harper said that he's watched Polyev's career as a politician evolve for over 25 years,

00:01:17.300 following his ascent from a backbencher to a cabinet minister and ultimately Conservative Party leader.

00:01:23.820 Harper also wanted to set the record straight on the 2008 financial crisis,

00:01:28.820 which Carney has regularly taken credit for during his campaign.

00:01:33.060 He wanted the over 10,000 supporters who showed up to know that this endorsement was coming from

00:01:39.960 quote, the guy who actually did lead Canada through the global financial crisis.

00:01:45.740 Don't let anyone tell you that he was born to be Prime Minister or that he can just somehow parachute into the job fully prepared.

00:01:58.740 Political experience, elected, accountable political experience,

00:02:05.200 and the capacity for growth with that political experience,

00:02:08.980 that is what Pierre has demonstrated for two decades,

00:02:12.620 and that is the single most important characteristic a Prime Minister needs.

00:02:17.020 And by the way, I say that as the guy who actually did lead Canada through the global financial crisis.

00:02:38.220 I hear there's someone else claiming it was him.

00:02:56.000 It was, of course, our government, the late, great Jim Flaherty.

00:03:08.220 And our Conservative team were responsible for the day-to-day macroeconomic management during that challenging time.

00:03:17.960 Monday's rally marked the 11th campaign stop for Polyev and his largest attendance to date,

00:03:23.820 with over 10,000 people registered for the event.

00:03:27.160 Harper acknowledged the economic challenges posed by the Trump administration and its tariffs,

00:03:33.040 but said they were not the root cause of Canada's current struggles.

00:03:36.360 Instead, he placed the blame on a decade of Liberal policies.

00:03:40.960 So, Alex, I haven't heard Mark Carney take credit for the 2008 financial crisis recently.

00:03:48.840 I know he's done it a few times in the past.

00:03:52.500 But if you could refresh the memories of our listeners,

00:03:55.740 how exactly did Carney take credit,

00:03:59.500 and what was his actual role in that crisis?

00:04:02.420 Absolutely, Cosman.

00:04:04.020 This is a really interesting and often misunderstood point about central bankers generally.

00:04:09.840 And, of course, it applies to Mark Carney as well.

00:04:12.420 Jim Flaherty was the finance minister under Stephen Harper.

00:04:16.400 And the perception is that central bankers like Mark Carney hold the levers of the economy,

00:04:21.280 but in practice, their influence is often very limited and more reactive than proactive.

00:04:26.420 Carney, like other central bankers, was often portrayed as a kind of technocrat savior during the crisis,

00:04:33.140 especially after 2008.

00:04:35.080 But in reality, central bankers operate within a very strict institutional, political, and market constraint.

00:04:41.460 Monetary policy can't fix structural issues like productivity, stagnation, inequality, or supply chain disruptions.

00:04:47.420 So those are really the mandate of elected officials, such as Stephen Harper in 2008 as the prime minister,

00:04:55.080 and Jim Flaherty as the finance minister.

00:04:57.400 Much of his decisive action, which would be cutting rates or providing liquidity,

00:05:01.620 was in response to global events.

00:05:03.800 But he didn't shape the recovery as much as he responded to forces that were already in motion.

00:05:08.820 Central bankers have a very narrow set of tools, such as interest rates, quantitative easing, and moral suasion.

00:05:13.980 But expectations around them are still massive.

00:05:16.940 During Carney's time, he faced the zero lower bound of interest rates,

00:05:20.100 which meant there wasn't much room to maneuver anyway.

00:05:22.340 The real economic drivers, which is government spending, taxation, and regulation,

00:05:26.360 lies within the hands of elected officials.

00:05:31.780 Liberal leader Mark Carney said he has absolutely no idea why a Chinese state media outlet

00:05:37.060 was actively involved in a coordinated election interference campaign

00:05:40.700 to promote him on WeChat to the Chinese diaspora in Canada.

00:05:43.980 Notably, when confronted by reporters on the issue,

00:05:47.240 Carney did not condemn China's continued election interference.

00:05:50.560 During a press conference on Tuesday,

00:05:52.500 Carney was asked to respond to the security and intelligence threat to elections task force findings,

00:05:57.380 which revealed that a Chinese government-backed WeChat news platform

00:06:00.580 was attempting to, quote, influence views on Carney.

00:06:04.340 The report found that the People's Republic of China attempted to paint Carney as a, quote,

00:06:08.620 rock star and highlighted his pro-China views.

00:06:11.700 When asked why he thinks the PRC is interfering in Canada to get him elected,

00:06:15.780 he said he, quote,

00:06:16.940 has absolutely no idea and that he will just leave it at that.

00:06:20.140 This comes just a week after Carney defended his former Markham Unionville candidate,

00:06:23.920 Paul Chang, for suggesting an audience member kidnap a conservative candidate

00:06:27.920 and hand him over to Chinese authorities for a hefty bounty.

00:06:31.280 Carney decided to keep Chang on,

00:06:32.900 but the incumbent Liberal MP eventually dropped out of the race

00:06:36.000 after the RCMP announced it was investigating the incident.

00:06:39.300 Carney then replaced Chang this week with former Toronto Police Service Deputy Chief Peter Wen,

00:06:44.220 who has been recorded singing a pro-Chinese communist ballad while in uniform.

00:06:48.680 The song tells a story about maintaining loyalty to communist China,

00:06:52.440 even while living in a foreign land.

00:06:54.200 Chinese authorities have allegedly forced minorities in China,

00:06:57.100 such as Buddhist monks and nuns,

00:06:58.800 to sing the song and pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.

00:07:02.500 Carney said it's because of his decisions during his brief time as prime minister

00:07:05.800 that the site task force released the report to begin with.

00:07:08.580 Carney can't share much of the information found in the briefings on foreign interference

00:07:12.080 due to a law former prime minister Justin Trudeau's liberal government imposed

00:07:16.060 gagging anyone who reads an unredacted ENSA COP report.

00:07:19.780 He continued, saying he felt that transparency during the election was important.

00:07:23.520 The Hogue report on foreign interference recommended that the site task force

00:07:27.020 disclose public briefings in real time during an election.

00:07:29.940 He said the critical evaluation panel associated with the task force

00:07:33.200 gauges the level of severity of each of the findings

00:07:35.780 and did not find that the election interference was sufficient

00:07:38.880 to undermine the ability to conduct a, quote, fair and free election.

00:07:43.300 Cosman, how have the liberals approached foreign interference by China in the past?

00:07:47.280 And has Carney indicated that he will do anything different?

00:07:49.740 Yeah, to answer your question, we need to rewind back a few years.

00:07:54.780 Since before the 2019 election, we could actually go back well over, I think, two decades here,

00:08:02.320 but before the 2019 election, CSIS had been sounding alarms to the liberals,

00:08:09.660 to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself, he was getting briefings on these matters,

00:08:15.060 about Chinese interference in Canadian elections for years.

00:08:19.700 Now, we know specifically that both the 2019 and 2021 elections were meddled with,

00:08:27.920 whether it is attempts like this to influence the Chinese diaspora,

00:08:32.200 specific nomination elections,

00:08:35.320 and different portrayals of opposing candidates who might have views

00:08:41.060 that harm China's interests in the global scale.

00:08:44.360 Yet, despite these warnings, the Trudeau government downplayed or ignored them entirely

00:08:50.600 until the problem was impossible to ignore.

00:08:54.920 And it took mounting media reports and intelligent leaks for the liberal government

00:09:00.040 to even acknowledge that this was happening.

00:09:04.680 And if we recall back before the Ho Commission,

00:09:08.040 initially it was David Johnson who was supposed to investigate this issue,

00:09:12.480 but that was an entirely different disaster.

00:09:15.560 But it took them months to even want to launch a public inquiry into this.

00:09:21.380 They were ignoring the issue.

00:09:23.320 It was the opposition that forced the Trudeau government at that time

00:09:27.360 to get to the bottom of this.

00:09:29.580 And to this day, we actually haven't gotten to the bottom of it.

00:09:33.160 If you've read the Hoag report, it doesn't answer very many questions.

00:09:38.220 The N-SYCOP report still remains redacted.

00:09:41.800 We don't know the names of individuals in Parliament, elected officials,

00:09:46.460 both in the House of Commons, Senate, and elsewhere,

00:09:49.520 who are implicated in foreign interference schemes.

00:09:53.140 So throughout this time, there's been a lack of transparency.

00:09:56.820 They haven't taken action.

00:09:58.640 You know, Mark Carney here is saying that he recommended these steps,

00:10:03.040 but actually they've been recommended before in the Hoag report.

00:10:06.420 And intelligence officials have been pushing the government to immediately announce

00:10:11.840 when there's a foreign interference attempt during an ongoing election.

00:10:16.900 So I'm hard-pressed to believe that Mark Carney takes this seriously,

00:10:21.620 given how lax his response is.

00:10:24.820 He says he has absolutely no idea why they would be actively involved

00:10:30.140 in coordinating this, when in actuality, as somebody,

00:10:35.740 the Prime Minister, who has seen the N-SYCOP report,

00:10:39.260 you would assume that he knows the most, which I think he does.

00:10:44.060 So it's sort of facetious for him to claim that he has no idea what's happening.

00:10:48.520 And additionally, also brush off the concerns as, you know, not even a worry

00:10:54.880 when Canadians are looking at this and him being a primary supporting target,

00:11:01.880 because if you look at what the briefing said the other day,

00:11:06.240 these articles that they're promoting about him

00:11:08.980 are essentially praise and glowing reviews,

00:11:12.340 pushing Carney as somebody who can stand up to Trump.

00:11:15.300 And we know Trump hasn't been good for China.

00:11:18.520 A new poll suggests that Canadian unity may be at stake in this federal election.

00:11:26.760 As Western provinces feel less and less respected by the nation,

00:11:30.920 almost a third of residents in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec

00:11:34.560 would vote for their provinces to become independent

00:11:37.600 if the Liberals win in the upcoming election, according to a recent survey.

00:11:42.140 If the Liberals don't win the next election,

00:11:44.640 almost one in three Quebecers still want to separate.

00:11:47.820 A quarter of Albertans and two in ten Saskatchewanians say the same.

00:11:52.520 Sunday poll from the Angus Reid Institute highlighted

00:11:55.780 that the eastern provinces are far less willing to separate.

00:11:59.340 Between December 2024 and March 2025,

00:12:03.600 those in Alberta and Saskatchewan who felt respected by the rest of the country declined,

00:12:08.820 with a notable 14-point drop in Saskatchewan.

00:12:11.820 The level of respect Albertans feel from the rest of the country is the lowest it's been

00:12:16.640 since the first poll was conducted in September 2016.

00:12:19.780 Those in Saskatchewan reported the lowest level of fair treatment by the federal government.

00:12:25.780 Conversely, Ontario residents feel the most fairly treated.

00:12:29.360 Despite numerous Canadians desiring separation,

00:12:32.420 the poll highlighted that the separatist movement was larger in 2019

00:12:37.020 when 6 in 10 Albertans and 53% of Saskatchewanians were open to the concept of a Western Canadian separatist movement.

00:12:46.700 Residents of Saskatchewan were most likely to feel that the only way to be heard was to threaten separation,

00:12:52.700 followed closely by those in Alberta.

00:12:54.840 Alberta Premier Daniel Smith recently made a list of demands to Liberal Party of Canada leader Mark Carney

00:13:01.040 to avoid, quote,

00:13:02.480 an unprecedented unity crisis.

00:13:05.300 Some of the demands have already been disregarded, like Carney supporting Bill C-69.

00:13:10.980 Alex, there's been some growing concern from Western leaders that if the Liberals win another term,

00:13:18.640 bringing another four years of Liberal governance federally to this country,

00:13:22.920 there will be a unity crisis.

00:13:25.380 Have other Western Premiers commented about an incoming unity crisis should the Liberals win another term in office?

00:13:34.260 Yeah, so we're seeing a lot of Western separatist sentiment gaining traction in Alberta and Saskatchewan,

00:13:41.620 less so in British Columbia.

00:13:43.820 In the legislature, Scott Moe highlighted how he believes the last decade of Justin Trudeau liberal government,

00:13:50.420 and specifically the federal carbon tax has only served to harm Saskatchewan and its interests.

00:13:57.820 I think that that's a sentiment that is shared very strongly by Danielle Smith in Alberta.

00:14:03.680 It's very difficult to know if the unity crisis will continue under Mark Carney because he has such a limited amount of time

00:14:11.040 as Liberal leader and as the Prime Minister of Canada.

00:14:14.080 And he also appears to be sort of running against the last 10 years of Trudeau policies,

00:14:19.800 even though he was a key advisor to the Trudeau government for the last several years.

00:14:24.480 So it'll be very interesting to see if the unity crisis worsens, should Mark Carney win the election?

00:14:30.540 I also find it interesting that there are less concerns amongst the Western Premiers about a Polyev government. 0.88

00:14:36.980 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in.

00:14:42.640 You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by subscribing to The Daily Brief on iTunes and Spotify.

00:14:48.980 Also, while you're at it, make sure to hit us with a five-star rating and please leave a review.

Juno News - April 09, 2025

Carney refuses to condemn China's election meddling on his behalf

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