Juno News - March 31, 2026


Carney STANDS BY controversial floor-crosser as protests grow


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Length

21 minutes

Words per minute

145.96024

Word count

3,203

Sentence count

168

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Well, you might forgive some liberals if they are starting to wonder if former conservative MP Michael Ma is more trouble than he's worth. Two dozen protesters upset with Ma greeted the Prime Minister s motorcade as he attended a fundraiser in Markham this week.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, you might forgive some liberals if they are starting to wonder if former conservative
00:00:10.320 Michael Ma is more trouble than he's worth. Two dozen protesters upset with Ma greeted the
00:00:16.020 Prime Minister's motorcade as he attended a fundraiser in Markham this week. 1.00
00:00:19.780 You're such a coward. Coward, Mark. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Now Ma crossed the floor to join the liberals last December and controversy has dogged him ever since. And some of it has rubbed off on Carney. This headline on the pages of the Globe and Mail, Carney attends fundraiser co-hosted by MP who cast doubt on Chinese human rights abuses. 1.00
00:00:49.780 residents who voted conservative just a year ago, posted signs like these,
00:00:55.100 calling Ma a traitor and demanding he resign.
00:00:59.020 Ma landed in hot water after casting doubts on reports of slave labor camps
00:01:04.100 and other humanitarian abuses in China.
00:01:07.420 Prime Minister Carney was forced to address the matter. Let's listen.
00:01:10.200 Mr. Ma has apologized for his comments and directly and unequivocally
00:01:17.540 recognize the seriousness of the issue continues to be a member of our caucus and I'll continue to
00:01:24.500 work with him including in the issue that you referenced in the second part of your question
00:01:31.040 this is a government event though so I don't want to speak about party specific things around
00:01:35.940 fundraising thank you our guest today is Brian Lilly longtime columnist with the Toronto Sun
00:01:40.980 welcome Brian thanks for having me Mark we've been talking a little bit about Michael Ma who
00:01:45.520 as you know, landed in hot water after casting doubts on reports of slave labor camps. He
00:01:51.340 crossed the floor and drawing the ire of many people in his riding. I guess my question is,
00:01:59.200 and I realize it's a numbers game with the liberals, but is Michael Ma more trouble than
00:02:03.260 he's worth? If you're Mark Carney, probably not, because Michael Ma helps give you that majority
00:02:11.160 that you want. And on April 13th, look, I think Mark Carney effectively has his majority already.
00:02:18.280 He'll officially get it on April 13th with those by-elections. I think he's going to win all three.
00:02:25.620 But without Michael Ma, it becomes a bit more difficult. So he'll have a two-seat majority
00:02:30.920 if he wins all three on April 13th. And Michael Ma is part of that. What Ma said
00:02:39.860 in relation to the issue of forced labor in China and insulting Margaret McQuaig-Johnson,
00:02:48.140 a woman who, by the way, started her federal career as a public servant working in the 0.97
00:02:55.900 Pierre Trudeau government, then worked for the Mulroney government, then worked for the
00:03:00.900 Khrushchev government, the Martin government, the Harper government before retiring,
00:03:04.900 and who is considered an expert in China, you know, he attacked her. There was no need to do
00:03:14.660 that. But that shows the direction that the Carney government is going when it comes to China.
00:03:19.820 They are going to be friends of China, even as the rest of the Western world kind of cast a
00:03:28.620 John Desai. You know, I remember 10, 15 years ago being in Washington, D.C., and the consensus at
00:03:37.860 that point was still China is a good and stable ally. And if we just keep trading with China,
00:03:44.240 things are going to change in China. Things are going to be better in China. They will 1.00
00:03:49.200 move towards democracy. They will not be as authoritarian. That hasn't happened. And you
00:03:55.820 know what has happened is that in Washington, D.C. now, the bipartisan consensus is that China is a
00:04:05.700 threat. It's not just Donald Trump saying this, it's the Democrats as well. Joe Biden was not a
00:04:11.820 great friend of China. In Canada, we should be heading in that same direction, but the liberals
00:04:18.440 have been so beholden to China for so long that they can't shake it off. And so they'll look at
00:04:25.500 Michael Ma's comments and say, oh, well, so what? And to what degree is that going to undermine,
00:04:33.880 further undermine our relationship with the Americans heading into those all-important
00:04:38.620 negotiations for Kuzma? So one of the parts of Kuzma is that we have to stop shipment of goods
00:04:49.520 that are produced with forced or slave labor, including child labor. Now, we have stopped over
00:04:56.900 the last several years exactly two shipments. The Americans have stopped thousands. We're both
00:05:03.140 trading with China to a great degree. Do you really think that there's only been two shipments
00:05:09.280 of goods produced by forced or slave labor in China that have been sent to Canada? Or do you
00:05:17.020 think you know maybe you say well the americans are being too vigilant and they're being too
00:05:22.220 strong on this so it's not really thousands okay well it's at least hundreds and we've stopped too
00:05:30.220 so we are not living up to our own uh commitments that we made as part of kuzma or usmca whatever
00:05:38.300 you want to call it we're not living up to our own commitments on this they there are canadian
00:05:46.220 industry leaders whether you're talking about steel automotive aluminum who are saying look
00:05:51.580 start enforcing this because if you don't it hurts us they know that uh chinese steel coming in um
00:06:00.540 under undercuts our market they know that chinese aluminum they know that
00:06:06.300 even with chinese evs there are aluminum parts that are made using slave or forced labor that 0.52
00:06:14.380 go into the supply chain on the automotive front. So Michael Ma can say what he wants. He can make
00:06:23.220 his false apologies. He can say, oh, I was talking about a different place. I wasn't talking about
00:06:27.180 that place. Nobody's going to believe that. But unfortunately, right now, Canadians seem to be 1.00
00:06:35.120 in a forgiving mood with Mark Carney. And as long as he is standing up to Donald Trump and yelling
00:06:41.380 about donald trump it doesn't matter what he does it doesn't matter if his actions are helpful
00:06:48.820 if they are hurtful it doesn't matter if they bring about economic growth or economic decline
00:06:56.020 what canadians want is someone who will stand up and yell about donald trump
00:07:02.420 well yeah i mean unless the economic pain that you feel as a result of
00:07:07.460 trade that doesn't happen starts to get i i don't i don't think people care about that mark
00:07:12.900 or at least not the majority of people that will vote for the liberals and look i know we've all
00:07:18.820 talked about this before that carney was elected by boomers who were retired living off their um 0.98
00:07:26.260 investments in the s p 500 index fund which is based in the united states and living off
00:07:33.540 tech stocks based in the United States. But, you know, recent polling would show that it goes
00:07:39.320 deeper than that. It goes beyond that, that younger voters are also going towards that,
00:07:44.480 not just people who are retired. So, you know, we have to get serious as a country. I'm not sure
00:07:52.140 that we are. I think, you know, watch the Junos this past weekend. Watch the NDP conference this
00:07:58.200 past weekend. You know, watch the fact that we just canceled the CEO of Air Canada because he
00:08:06.620 gave a condolence message over two pilots dying and dozens of people being injured in a crash that
00:08:13.360 wasn't the fault of his airline. And he's canceled because he didn't put out the message in English
00:08:20.100 and French. We're not being a serious country here. Speaking of the NDP, Avi Lewis, of course,
00:08:27.080 as you know, is the new leader of that party, and I have argued that he will, to some degree,
00:08:34.700 reinvigorate the party, bring back, repatriate some of the votes that went over to the liberals
00:08:42.420 a year ago. He's a firebrand. He's a good speaker. You can say what you want about his policies.
00:08:50.460 In fact, as you know, some of the provincial New Democrats are not too thrilled with him.
00:08:57.080 But I think he'll bring some of the people back.
00:08:59.320 I guess the question is, you know, will the Conservatives benefit from the fact that some of those new Democrats go back home from whence they came, if in fact you think they will?
00:09:12.140 Where are you on that?
00:09:13.900 Yeah, last election in Ontario, which is the ultimate battleground for federal politics, the federal NDP went below 5%.
00:09:24.680 Now, that benefited the Conservatives in some ridings, like Windsor, Timmons, Hamilton, several areas where the NDP had been the incumbents, the Conservatives won.
00:09:36.960 And so that helped the Conservatives to a degree. But in other ridings where the NDP could have won, would have won, would have been a solid second, they completely disappeared and went right into the Liberal fold. And so that hurt them.
00:09:54.260 What will Avi Lulis do?
00:09:55.600 I don't know.
00:09:56.080 He's had a rough first week.
00:09:58.000 You know, he's elected on Sunday.
00:10:00.580 Naheed Nenshi, the leader of the Alberta NDP, comes out against them right away.
00:10:05.180 Carla Beck, the leader of the Saskatchewan NDP, comes out against them right away.
00:10:10.980 Why does that matter?
00:10:12.100 The NDP was founded on the prairies.
00:10:14.520 You know, their first meeting was in Calgary in 1932.
00:10:18.780 Then they had the Regina Convention in 1933.
00:10:21.760 I mean, this is a prairie populist movement. And you've got the two main prairie populist
00:10:28.720 leaders for the NDP saying, we don't want anything to do with you. The Alberta NDP may actually
00:10:39.600 change their name as a result of this. The leader of Saskatchewan NDP says, I'm not going to meet
00:10:46.560 with you until you fix your policies on oil and gas. And then to add to this, and this is just
00:10:52.020 personal tragedy for Abby Lewis, two days after he wins the leadership, his father, Stephen Lewis,
00:10:58.800 who had previously been leader of the Ontario NDP back in the 70s, passed away. So my condolences
00:11:05.080 to him on that. We all deal with the passing of parents. That is not a partisan thing. It's just
00:11:12.780 painful and and we all have to go through it at some point not a great week for him to start off
00:11:18.300 though and but i i agree with you that he could reinvigorate this party mark when i was watching
00:11:28.000 the leadership race i kept saying ah nothing's gonna come of this this is like gold for the
00:11:34.740 liberals uh you know they're so radical it's just gonna be uh the um you know like audrew
00:11:42.020 McLaughlin-level energy. They'll get 7% of the vote. And then I'm watching them on Sunday
00:11:48.100 morning. I was in Ottawa as they announced it. I'm sitting in my hotel, looking across
00:11:55.740 the street at Parliament Hill, listening to Abby Lewis, and I thought,
00:12:02.280 he's not going to become PM ever. But this message of cheaper groceries,
00:12:10.600 We'll do a government grocery store, which, by the way, we've already got a not-for-profit grocery store across much of Western Canada.
00:12:18.560 It's called Co-op, and their prices are higher than everyone else.
00:12:23.780 You know, come at me if you want, but if you live in Western Canada, you know Co-op charges more than everyone else.
00:12:31.360 And so he wants to do the government grocery store.
00:12:34.040 He wants to do the government cell phone company, the government internet company.
00:12:37.660 He wants to do a government bank through Canada Post.
00:12:40.600 those policies are completely economically illiterate. And yet, they could actually boost
00:12:48.900 him. He could end up going back up to the 19, 20, 20 plus percent that the NDP has gotten in the
00:12:57.720 past with those policies. Because people, you know, the conservatives have ridden the affordability
00:13:05.540 crisis, the cost of living crisis, to do very good numbers. Look, they didn't win in the last
00:13:12.200 election, but they got the second highest vote count ever of any party by a wide margin. It's
00:13:19.660 just unfortunate for those of us that like sane policies that the biggest collection of votes
00:13:26.620 ever for any party went to the liberals in the last election. But Pierre Polyev and the
00:13:31.580 Conservatives got the second highest ever. Avie Lewis and the NDP could do quite well with this.
00:13:38.700 These are policies that will not work, but a lot of people, I think, will be attracted to them.
00:13:45.580 And you've been watching politics for a very long time, and you know that
00:13:50.120 in the average election where the NDP gets, I don't know, I want to say 12 to 18 percent,
00:13:57.200 if that had happened a year ago, I think we'd be looking at Prime Minister Pierre Polyev
00:14:03.460 because the splits would have worked in the Conservatives' favor. Could we be looking at
00:14:10.240 an election, possibly even this year, in which a reinvigorated NDP pulls a substantial number
00:14:18.740 of votes from the Liberals and brings back the kind of split, maybe not like we saw in 2011,
00:14:25.560 11 but uh something enough to to see the conservatives come up the middle and win
00:14:33.720 i don't see us going to the polls so i as i said earlier i think mark carney is going to get his
00:14:39.560 majority on april 13th with those by elections and if i'm mark carney i don't go to the polls
00:14:45.720 i i do not call an early election i know there was all this talk about carney asking doug ford
00:14:51.560 about what it was like to call an early election and why he did it um and those are the types of
00:14:57.400 things that politicians talk about regardless of party stride you get together though you know
00:15:02.440 that's the conversation but why would mark carney call an election unlike justin trudeau he doesn't
00:15:09.080 like campaigning justin trudeau loved campaigning and whatever you think of him he was good at it
00:15:16.200 Now, he was horrible at governing, but he was good at campaigning.
00:15:21.640 He knew what to do.
00:15:23.000 He knew how to sound.
00:15:24.200 He knew what to say.
00:15:26.280 Mark Carney, you know, I think the jury's out on whether he's good at governing.
00:15:33.080 I would say no at this point.
00:15:35.960 Maybe I'll be proven wrong at some point.
00:15:38.520 But at this point, I'd say no.
00:15:40.440 But he doesn't like campaigning.
00:15:43.480 so why would mark carney call an election before 2029 if he doesn't have to
00:15:48.760 so that's that's not going to help just like joe rogan you know pierre paulia went on joe rogan
00:15:55.480 i think it went well i think it will help him medium term long term but he's not going to see
00:16:03.160 any benefit for years due to that because we're not going to the polls the the simple like would
00:16:11.640 you go to the polls if you're mark carney and you've got a majority and the one thing you hate
00:16:16.040 doing is campaigning but you like governing would you say oh why not let's throw the dice and see
00:16:23.720 what happens like you're gonna say no let's let's stick with the majority as long as i possibly can
00:16:31.160 things could happen and he could go before 2029 but i don't see what that is yet at this point
00:16:38.840 And so I'm going to say at this point, I don't see an election before 2029.
00:16:44.560 A lot can happen.
00:16:45.820 I mean, we're talking about the razor thin margin here.
00:16:51.480 And so anybody gets sick, you know, fails to show up for some reason.
00:16:57.620 Or you're like Joe Clark and you can't count.
00:16:59.920 yeah what's this i mean with a lot of liberals thinking that mark carney is like the second
00:17:08.200 coming of joe clark he's governing like a pc guy you know and that that is drawing conservatives
00:17:14.560 over i mean have you seen any evidence of that so look i you know i've talked to conservatives
00:17:21.360 who say that they appreciate mark carney that they like him i think it's more vibes than reality at
00:17:29.160 this point. So he will give off the vibe that he's somewhat conservative. But he's not. He's
00:17:36.060 not at all. He is as much of a left-wing liberal as Justin Trudeau is. On foreign affairs,
00:17:45.040 especially when it comes to the Middle East, he's to the left of Justin Trudeau. So we've got all
00:17:53.740 these claims that he's governing like an old progressive conservative. Let me remind people
00:18:01.460 that Brian Mulroney, the last progressive conservative, okay, Kim Campbell, but let's
00:18:09.340 forget about her because that was a summer job. The last real progressive conservative prime 0.94
00:18:16.200 minister to govern for any length of time was Brian Mulroney. How was he described at the time?
00:18:22.700 Attila the Hun. He was far right. He was crazy. And now it's like, oh, like if we just had leaders
00:18:33.360 like Brian Mulrooney, who were progressive conservatives. Oh, okay. I've talked to people
00:18:39.980 who were in Ottawa when Mulrooney was in and when Harper was in. And some of them would argue
00:18:48.400 that Mulroney's caucus was more right-wing than Harper's. And Harper's came out of the merger of
00:18:56.340 the Reform slash Canadian Alliance and the PC party. And yet, you know, these are people I
00:19:05.420 know and trust. And you can also look at some of the historical facts on that, on what Mulroney
00:19:11.780 he did in terms of privatizing air canada in 30 i believe 38 other crown corporations
00:19:17.860 you know he ran a very conservative government but the the mainstream media and the laurentian
00:19:26.620 elites will say that you are a good person as a conservative when you no longer threaten to take
00:19:33.160 power uh if you are threatening to take power you are far right you are awful you you should not be
00:19:40.520 allowed near anything. But, you know, Brian Mulroney is dead, God rest his soul. And so they
00:19:47.980 can say nice things about him now. You know, if it was, you know, in a couple of years, Aaron O'Toole
00:19:55.100 will be the guy they point to, or Andrew Scheer will be the guy they point to. Eventually, it'll
00:20:00.300 be like, why can't we have nice moderate leaders like Pierre Polyev? And it's the same thing in
00:20:06.500 the United States. Mitt Romney, who was one of the most moderate Republicans that was ever put
00:20:12.820 forward, the Obama campaign and its surrogates put out ads showing Romney literally throwing
00:20:20.500 granny in a wheelchair off of a cliff. This was one of the ads. Granny in a wheelchair, 1.00
00:20:26.680 and he would throw her off a cliff and say, do you want this to happen to your grandmother?
00:20:30.840 all right so you know they're always going to portray conservatives as evil and beyond the
00:20:38.100 pale and then after they're no longer a threat to power say oh well if we just had conservatives
00:20:43.160 like those everything would be fine brian thank you so much for doing this how do people find
00:20:49.400 you online uh you can find me brianlily.com torontosun.com um just search my name on x
00:20:56.680 or Facebook. And yeah, join me on Facebook. It's a lot of fun. You can post about politics there
00:21:03.000 again. How about that? Thanks again. Brian Lilly, Toronto Sun. If you enjoyed this show, consider
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00:21:14.760 Go to junonews.com backslash straight up. You can find the link below. It helps us do what we do.
00:21:21.800 Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
00:21:26.680 Thank you.