00:00:00.000Liberal leader Mark Carney won't fire staff behind a secret scheme to brand conservatives
00:00:10.740as election deniers. He's apologized and quietly reassigned them instead.
00:00:17.020Preston Manning has asked Canada's ethics commissioner to review Mark Carney's campaign
00:00:22.480promises, calling them, quote, unethical bribes tied to CBC funding boosts and taxpayer rebates.
00:00:30.000Before the election, 33 top Canadian business leaders have thrown their support behind Pierre
00:00:35.320Polyev backing his economic plan in a joint letter under the banner of Friends of Free
00:00:41.460Enterprise Canada. Hello, Canada. It's Tuesday, April 15th, and this is the True North Daily
00:00:46.960Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Clayton Demain. We've got you covered with all the news you need
00:00:53.000to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear
00:00:58.440anywhere else. Liberal leader Mark Carney indicated he won't be firing campaign staff responsible for
00:01:07.480a covert operation to plant campaign buttons meant to portray the conservatives as election deniers
00:01:14.280at a recent conference in Ottawa. Instead, Carney has apologized for the incident and said he has
00:01:20.320shuffled the responsible individuals into different roles. Carney was asked by a reporter how much such a
00:01:27.440trick might, quote, undermine the trust in the way that the Liberals operate and what he's done since
00:01:34.020to reprimand his staff. The incident took place at the Canada Strong and Free Network Conference at the
00:01:40.220West End Hotel in Ottawa last week. Members of the Liberal War Room, so the central campaign,
00:01:45.340distributed stop the steal buttons at a conservative event. Given the anti-democratic implications of
00:01:50.540this phrase, how much does this event undermine the trust in the way that the Liberals operate? And what have you
00:01:55.780done in response to these revelations? Thanks for the question. Look, this is totally unacceptable, to be
00:02:02.680absolutely clear. And I on behalf of my campaign, I'm I was unaware of this behavior. But on behalf of my campaign, I apologize
00:02:12.400for it unreservedly. Okay. I've made it absolutely clear to my campaign that this behavior or anything
00:02:18.980approximating it or in that in that spirit is is unacceptable, cannot happen, cannot happen again.
00:02:25.540Carney went on to say that he's made it, quote, clear to his campaign that such behavior was unacceptable
00:02:31.960and cannot happen again. Carney then indicated that staffers involved had been, quote, reassigned.
00:02:39.080The plot was first reported by CBC News. Two Liberal Party staffers planted campaign buttons designed to echo
00:02:47.300controversial slogans by U.S. President Donald Trump at a conservative rally to tarnish the party's image
00:02:54.500by linking it to MAGA-style politics. Several attendees noticed the buttons appearing during the event,
00:03:02.020which said things like, quote, stop the steal, a reference to Trump's claims that the 2020 U.S.
00:03:09.080presidential election was stolen from him by the Democrats. Another button read, quote,
00:03:15.300lock Justin up, referencing a popular Trump campaign chant, lock her up, from the 2016 election about
00:03:23.660former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In comments given to the CBC conference,
00:03:30.420spokesperson Alex Spence called the scandal, quote, unfortunate, but said it wasn't surprising
00:03:37.040that the liberals would seek to misrepresent the views of attendees of the conference. Spence said,
00:03:43.720quote, these divisive gimmicky tactics say more about the liberals than they do of the united and
00:03:50.500growing conservative movement. So I wonder if Carney would be singing a different tune had the liberal
00:03:57.480operatives not been caught by boasting about this plot, so to speak, at a bar in Ottawa where journalists
00:04:06.540were present. But Clayton, how have the conservatives responded to this incident? Has Pierre Polyev commented
00:04:15.280on it yet? Well, Polyev hasn't posted anything on X as of yet about the incident. But Michelle
00:04:22.820Rempelgardner, a conservative candidate, took to X calling out the liberals and saying the incident was
00:04:30.220just one example of the decades long liberal party approach to divide Canadians in an attempt to make them fight
00:04:37.960each other for their own political gain. She also noted that the liberal staffers were so cocky about their deceitful tactics that
00:04:45.360they bragged about it in a bar with an earshot of a CBC journalist. I believe that they knew the journalist was there and
00:04:52.440everything. If you read the article there, another conservative candidate, Chris Warkington, said that the incident shows the
00:05:00.180lengths that the liberals are willing to go to for their own partisan ends. And he noted that the blame can't be laid solely on those two liberal
00:05:08.180staffers that Carney decided to move to another department rather than fire because the distribution of the buttons also would have involved planning, designing, and manufacturing the false flag buttons.
00:05:21.440Dan Mazur, another conservative candidate, called the incident a calculated smear campaign. And the incident showed the hypocrisy of the
00:05:31.120liberal party who often lecture Canadians about the dangers of disinformation. He also called on Carney to apologize and denounce his team for, quote,
00:05:41.260importing American style politics into Canada. And I would assume there's other, those were just the ones I found, but I'm sure the
00:05:49.740conservatives will continue to seize on this. In a memo written to Canada's ethics watchdog, former reform party leader Preston Manning accused liberal
00:06:02.760leader Mark Carney of offering unethical bribes in the form of boosts to CBC's funding and taxpayer rebates while on the campaign trail.
00:06:12.420Manning wrote to conflict of interest and ethics commissioner Conrad von Finkenstein asking for an official opinion on two of Carney's latest spending promises. The first issue raised was Carney's pledge to increase CBC's annual budget by $150 million.
00:06:28.420The second concern involved a proposed $4 billion carbon rebate payout to approximately 13 million Canadians, potentially landing in voters bank accounts just before the April 28 election. In his response, the commissioner did not denounce the programs.
00:06:46.420Von Finkenstein wrote, quote, the conflict of interest code for members of the House of Commons does not apply during an election period, as incumbents are no longer considered MPs for the purpose of the code once Parliament is dissolved.
00:07:02.060Mark Carney will be subject to the code after the election if he is elected as an MP.
00:07:07.760Manning has warned that a failure to address such political tactics could erode public trust in Canada's democratic institutions.
00:07:16.420Manning told True North, quote, unethical practices are one of the main reasons why citizens are so skeptical about elections.
00:07:25.600I doubt that the public will be willing to overlook the unethical nature of the Carney Liberals' bribes as the ethics commissioner.
00:07:33.680So, Cosman, on the subject of the ethics commissioner and conflicts of interest, has Mark Carney followed all disclosure requirements?
00:07:43.400Are there any flaws in the rules as they exist currently?
00:07:47.640Yeah, so Canada's ethics laws are not as strict and stringent as people may assume.
00:07:55.020There's actually a lot of leeway, and they're more general than you would think.
00:08:00.000As it stands, Mark Carney is technically following the rules.
00:08:04.860He's not required to disclose all of his assets publicly.
00:08:09.260Obviously, it's going through a review period, and once he becomes elected, or if he becomes elected as an MP, then that triggers that disclosure process.
00:08:20.740But as it stands, our current prime minister has not had to publicly declare what assets he holds.
00:08:27.220Now he's claimed that all of these things that he used to be invested in have entered into a blind trust.
00:08:33.000But the conservatives have pointed out that Carney probably knows exactly what's in that blind trust, and it's not like he's going to wipe his memory of what he used to own when he's making decisions as the potential next prime minister in that position of power.
00:08:49.680But the way that the ethics laws are written right now, they don't apply to a lot of government decisions that are made, because ministers can make decisions that affect entire industries and sectors.
00:09:05.760But the way that ethics laws work is that when you're making decisions that benefit specific entities or companies, then it's viewed as an ethics violation, potential corruption, insider trading, etc.
00:09:21.980But when you're making decisions that affect an entire sector, it's so general that you're not really able to pinpoint and call out an ethics violation with the way that the law is currently written.
00:09:36.460Additionally, Canada doesn't have any mandatory free office tax disclosures.
00:09:42.780So anybody running for public office, like I said earlier, does not actually have to disclose that as a candidate.
00:09:49.620They only have to disclose it when they've taken up the office and undergo that month-long or longer period of discussing with the ethics commissioner, disclosing your assets, and then eventually that gets made public.
00:10:05.580But even when it is made public in Canada, it's not a very detailed list of exactly where our elected officials are, what companies they're invested in, etc.
00:10:15.940It's sort of a summarized little blurb that's posted online or accessible by the public.
00:10:23.300Whereas in the United States, for example, it's a very detailed list of exactly what these elected officials are invested in and what investment decisions they've made while they're holding that public office.
00:10:36.640Canada's business leaders have united behind Conservative leader Pierre Polyev's economic agenda.
00:10:46.20033 current and former executives of some of Canada's largest companies under the banner Friends of Free Enterprise Canada have signed a joint letter outlining some of Canada's economic challenges and expressing their support for Polyev as the next prime minister.
00:11:02.140The letter laments stagnant productivity and slow economic growth, urging political leaders to embrace a free enterprise agenda.
00:11:10.500It also outlines five key priorities for the next Canadian government, supporting free enterprise, eliminating regulatory barriers, restoring fiscal discipline, reforming the tax system, and developing Canada's natural resources.
00:11:24.400Specifically, the signatories urged the government to reduce red tape and outdated regulations, control government spending, lower taxes to boost competitiveness and attract talent, and develop Canadian oil and gas.
00:11:39.600The letter concludes with a call for Canadians to support Polyev and his party endorsing his plan to restore Canadian prosperity in light of U.S. President Donald Trump's recent measures to impose tariffs on Canadian goods.
00:12:01.180The letter reads, that is why we are supporting Pierre Polyev and the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:12:08.000They have a clear plan to address these issues and to get Canada back on track.
00:12:12.920It's because of President Trump's threats that Pierre's plan makes so much sense.
00:12:17.720Notable signatories include Fairfax Financial's CEO and COO Prem Watsa and Peter Clark,
00:12:26.180Collier's Canada CEO Jay Hennick, former Scotiabank CEO Brian J. Porter,
00:12:33.940Sleep Country Canada CEO Stuart Schaefer,
00:12:37.860Mattamy Home CEO Peter Gilligan, and more.
00:12:40.880This is quite the endorsement for Pierre Polyev when he's running against a candidate, Mark Carney,
00:12:47.820who touts his own economic expertise being this sort of finance guy who has overseen economies, etc.,
00:12:57.880as the governor of multiple world banks.
00:13:02.100But here we have Pierre Polyev receiving the endorsement of some of Canada's largest and most successful businesses,
00:13:10.860and we don't see the same from Carney.
00:13:12.760Now, we know that Polyev has this support of business leaders now,
00:13:17.980but have any workers groups or unions endorsed the Conservative leader, Clayton?