In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canada's Prime Minister took a shot at the world's two biggest economic powers, the U.S. and China. Today's guest is Jocelyn Bamford, founder of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada.
00:09:39.980Yeah, we all warned him, Doug Ford, that is what's siding up with Carney would do.
00:09:50.980And it would destroy manufacturing in Ontario.
00:09:52.980And it looks like that's exactly what's happening.
00:09:55.980But, you know, I'm not quite convinced that this isn't all for political theatre.
00:10:01.980Remember, they also came out when Doug Ford ran those ads against the United States in the United States.
00:10:11.980And Carney came out and said, oh, he had no idea and hadn't heard anything about these ads when in fact they had just had dinner the night before.
00:10:19.980I find it impossible to believe that he didn't know.
00:10:22.980So so you wonder how much of all this is political theatre and how much is is actual reality?
00:10:29.980Because we are in crazy times, my friends.
00:10:33.980The stuff that's happening globally and in Canada is stuff that you couldn't even have imagined 10 years ago.
00:10:43.980Canadian manufacturing is second to none in the world.
00:10:47.980We have the best skilled tradesmen in the entire world.
00:10:52.980And we're not doing anything to protect Ontario manufacturing from a product coming in subsidized from China and elsewhere and landing on our market below the cost of the raw goods.
00:11:08.980And that the sole intention of doing that is to drive our our manufacturing companies out of business.
00:11:16.980And you just have to look at what's happening in Ontario to manufacturing to know that that's true.
00:11:22.980If Mark Carney really did want to develop middle economies and middle nations, he would stop the practice of dumping from from China and from other countries in Canada.
00:11:36.980He'd make sure that our manufacturing is second to none.
00:11:40.980And what do you need to have good manufacturing?
00:11:42.980You need affordable energy so that you can run your plant.
00:11:46.980You need a low regulation so that you can expand and grow in a timely manner.
00:11:52.980And I asked Mark Carney, what has he done to address any of that either affordable energy, red tape so that we can have more productivity?
00:12:02.980I haven't seen a thing in with regards to that in Canada.
00:12:07.980I've seen only worse treaties than we had before and putting Canadian manufacturing in a more vulnerable position.
00:12:45.980And Canada is stuck in kind of stagflation.
00:12:49.980Not only it's very slow growth, but we still have high inflation.
00:12:53.980I mean, we have the worst of both worlds.
00:12:55.980So I don't know why Carney thinks he can brag about Canada's economic performance on the world stage.
00:13:01.980Yesterday, we saw our inflation numbers as being the highest in the G7, you know, just ahead of Japan.
00:13:09.980I mean, I know he's telling the world one thing, and I think Canadians are feeling very differently about the state of the economy these days.
00:13:19.980Where are you getting those numbers from?
00:13:21.980Because we'd all like to take a look at them.
00:13:25.980So you think that this thing about Ford is posturing, and I'm just wondering why he would do that, why he would come out repeatedly and blast this decision to bring Chinese EVs into Canada.
00:13:39.980But you feel that it's smoke and mirrors, that it's not real.
00:13:43.980What do you think the real agenda might be?
00:13:45.980The only reason I could say that is, you know, what do you base future behavior on?
00:13:53.980Were they honest about the ads that they read?
00:13:57.980From everything we've heard from the United States, a deal with the United States was imminent.
00:14:03.980They were getting ready to do press releases until they put those ads out and totally tanked the whole deal.
00:14:10.980And the fact that they said that neither one told the other, I find that unbelievable.
00:14:17.980So, you know, what could Doug Ford's reason to go along with Carney and Carney says, I'll sign this deal with China and you come out and be irate about it.
00:14:29.980I don't know what their next plan would be, but I'm just looking at past behavior.
00:14:35.980And so there's one of two things, either Doug Ford was completely naive when everybody warned him against forming a pact with Mark Carney against the federal conservatives, that that wouldn't end well.
00:14:49.980So there's completely naive or there's something else going on, something else in play.
00:14:54.980Maybe they're sacrificing automotive or or something else.
00:14:58.980And Doug Ford will get pounded unless he goes along and and and comes out and says that he's irate.
00:15:06.980I mean, what else could it possibly be?
00:17:17.980I mean, we could be selling all sorts of oil and using that revenue to lower taxes, corporate taxes to make it as competitive as possible.
00:17:28.980You know, we have a fantastic advantage here that we, you know, we could use all that revenue to make our manufacturing super competitive with many of the U.S. states.
00:17:39.980Instead, we got high taxes, high energy costs.
00:17:42.980And we put a stick of the spokes of our resource sector every chance we get.
00:18:19.980It's not how you would run a country if you're trying to grow a country.
00:18:25.980Yeah, it doesn't make sense if you're trying to help the country.
00:18:29.980It does make sense if you're trying to wreck the place, which I suspect more and more is the real reason why they're behaving in the way they are.