Juno News - April 09, 2025


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


Episode Stats

Length

14 minutes

Words per Minute

146.59862

Word Count

2,183

Sentence Count

101

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

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