Juno News - December 21, 2025Carney’s tiny $11 tax cut
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Summary
Isaac, Chris, and Waleed talk about the weather in Canada and the impact of the Bank of Canada's latest tax cut. Plus, a look at the pros and cons of the proposed tax cut from the Prime Minister's Office.
Transcript
00:00:00.120
So I just finished picking up my daughter here in Lethbridge and it's like plus nine.
00:00:04.300
I went out in a t-shirt and I almost got blown away though.
00:00:14.260
And we're getting between three and five centimeters of snow per hour all day.
00:00:18.620
So yeah, because initially they were calling for like, I don't even know.
00:00:22.000
It's going to be 10, 20, 30, 40, who knows, 50 centimeters of snow.
00:00:27.180
So that's why I thought, Chris, because you were running a few minutes behind.
00:00:29.800
I was like, maybe she's in Edmonton and the roads are terrible.
00:00:31.660
But no, you're living in some sort of sunny spring paradise while I'm in the depths of Antarctica.
00:00:47.040
You know, I was running a bit behind because the wind is crazy.
00:00:49.600
Like there's stuff like blowing all over the place here in Lethbridge, actually.
00:00:53.200
Waleed, you are in a slightly warmer, nicer place right now.
00:00:57.020
Are we allowed to disclose your location or are you on a top secret mission?
00:01:00.680
Well, for now, you can still say I'm in Brazil as I was during the Comp 30 processions here in the country.
00:01:07.140
It's around 20 degrees day to day, some days up to 30.
00:01:12.940
As you know, in this part of the world, we're in the summer season.
00:01:15.500
But while I'm in Sao Paulo specifically, it's a summer rainy season with the humid days two to three in a row.
00:01:22.060
There's always a follow up of two or three days of rain.
00:01:25.360
So to admit, it isn't as warm and tropical as everyone can imagine.
00:01:28.400
However, again, for my preferences personally, it comes quite close to room temperature on most days.
00:01:35.100
Do you actually see parrots like flying around?
00:01:40.660
I mean, Sao Paulo is the seventh largest city by population, very densely open populated area in space.
00:01:45.460
But I'm sure if I stepped outside the city, I would definitely see much more biodiversity for sure.
00:01:51.160
I'm not going to bird nerd out on everybody here.
00:02:01.500
We have some good and bad when it comes to tax cuts with what the government give it that also take it away.
00:02:07.660
So we're going to be saving around 200 bucks with Carney's income tax cut out of our right pocket.
00:02:14.480
But unfortunately, as we pointed out there with Franco Garisano, the payroll taxes are eating that, taking that out of our left pocket.
00:02:31.380
Which is interesting because I remember a story one of my colleagues, Quinn, I think published two weeks ago or so, showing that the liberal tax cut, which of course was one of, I would argue, Carney's biggest campaign promises outside of Trump and U.S.
00:02:44.480
and tariff negotiations, will save the poorest Canadians just $11 per year.
00:02:53.120
Like, sorry, you're going to the grocery store.
00:02:58.540
Like, that's going to make some sort of monumental change.
00:03:02.100
Like, realistically, for some, I would say, a substantial change, that would need to be $1,100.
00:03:12.520
You know, it's funny, Chris, thinking back to when I was a kid, you could buy so much with $11, and now $11, you can literally buy one small thing.
00:03:22.380
I mean, everything has become drastically, drastically more expensive.
00:03:26.920
The cost of living is increasing at unprecedented rates.
00:03:30.840
And, I mean, $11 a year for this tax cut is, it might as well be zero because it is essentially meaningless.
00:03:39.840
I couldn't buy two jugs of milk for that because my milk is, like, I think it's $6.27 for one of those gallon jugs.
00:03:46.320
For folks who are watching in Ontario, those are plastic containers that contain four litres of fluid milk instead of putting them in bags like psychopaths, like you do in Ontario.
00:04:01.540
Waleed, you sometimes live in Ontario, so you know what I'm talking about with the bagged milk.
00:04:06.260
What did you think about this whopping tax cut that then turns around and we're losing out on our payroll taxes?
00:04:16.760
Well, as you said, I mean, I've lived in Ottawa for most of the year, and back in Ottawa, I'm thinking to myself, my local superstore only has so much for $11 or less.
00:04:27.360
I mean, thinking about my favourite bag of chips, like Isaac mentioned, the Sun chips, those cheddar-flavoured chips, I believe they come at the average cost of around $6 a bag.
00:04:38.300
So I'm getting a bag and a bit if I added a dollar on top, and then, of course, there's tax on top of that as well.
00:04:44.460
So, I mean, I'm getting the sense of this is even too small to be symbolic because a $200 increase, you could say, or a decrease in taxes, sorry.
00:04:52.780
I think there is going to be an increase of taxes somewhere else, frankly.
00:04:55.340
But in terms of this tax cut, I really think it would be better off without it.
00:05:00.100
In terms of the grand scheme of government revenue, I think the government's looking to – the interesting situation about the budget for me since day one with Mark Carney has been,
00:05:09.300
how would you manage to do anything but worse in the deficit and debt situation?
00:05:14.300
If you are keeping on, you know, these burdensome costs, you know, measures when it comes to government services,
00:05:22.840
looking to make unprecedented investments and possibly, of course, needed and necessary investments in the military,
00:05:29.700
while not seeing any proportional, you know, negation of spending elsewhere,
00:05:34.660
it's just impossible to see things headed in any direction but red.
00:05:38.780
So, I guess the tax cut isn't really helping even his constituents, you know, voter base or –
00:05:46.800
because, you know, tax cuts always have a bit of a public appeal to them.
00:05:51.060
I think this one's too small to get that political reward, but it still negates government revenue,
00:05:57.140
and I think that might just worsen the deficit situation going forward.
00:06:01.220
And what I mean by taxes in the new year, just real quick there, Isaac.
00:06:04.500
Folks, when you're looking at your paycheck, you'll notice in 2026,
00:06:09.740
Payroll taxes are things like the Canada Pension Plan, the EI premiums, all that stuff,
00:06:14.820
that are automatically taken off by force from your paycheck.
00:06:18.220
You can't opt out of them, and it is the federal government that is imposing that.
00:06:21.820
And even they call them payroll taxes on their website.
00:06:29.660
So, you may not see it as an employee, but since your employer is paying that higher payroll tax amount,
00:06:35.740
that means that's less money they can give you in a raise.
00:06:38.700
That's perhaps less money they have kicking around to, say, hire a brand new person as an intern, right?
00:06:43.920
That's less money they have to spend on their employees because they're paying those payroll taxes.
00:06:49.900
Yeah, no, I just wanted to cover a few things there because Waleed briefly mentioned, I guess, the cost of the tax cut
00:06:56.680
because, of course, the senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, David MacDonald,
00:07:03.620
he testified in the Senate on this tax cut, highlighting that it will cost $5.8 billion, interestingly,
00:07:10.280
because this, of course, as you mentioned, Waleed, a tax cut, obviously, you're cutting from the government revenues,
00:07:18.920
But this tax cut, of course, reduces the first just under $60,000 of income from 15% to 14%.
00:07:26.640
But what MacDonald highlighted, which I wanted to say, Chris, which is so interesting,
00:07:30.880
is the $6 billion price tag for this tax cut, he said,
00:07:34.140
could have been used to increase the Canada disability benefit to $7,000 a year
00:07:39.200
and lift over 200,000 people with disabilities out of poverty.
00:07:43.660
So that is really a big number when we're thinking about, alternatively,
00:07:46.800
we're saving the poorest Canadians $11 a month.
00:07:49.840
So it really comes down, again, Waleed, as you mentioned,
00:07:52.900
how can Carney be worse than Trudeau when it comes to budgeting?
00:07:55.660
But you just have to be left shaking your head with some of the decisions that are being made.
00:08:00.260
Speaking of shaking your head, a lot of folks were shaking their head
00:08:06.480
So right now, as of tape time, we see Member of Parliament Michael Ma,
00:08:12.100
okay, he crossed the floor, and he is now a member of Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal government.
00:08:19.720
Now, I know this has rattled a lot of people, especially in the Markham area,
00:08:23.920
because we're relatively so fresh off of a federal election.
00:08:27.160
We're within the calendar year of a federal election.
00:08:30.360
And I know that that seems to annoy people the most.
00:08:32.880
At the Taxpayers' Federation, we have long been advocates for recall legislation.
00:08:39.720
So here in our beautiful province of Alberta, Isaac,
00:08:42.660
we have recall legislation at the provincial, municipal, and school board level.
00:08:47.920
Now, it doesn't always work exactly as planned, but I'll give you an example.
00:08:51.620
They tried to recall Calgary Mayor Jody Gondek, and it didn't work then, but she lost big time as an incumbent when she ran for mayor again.
00:09:02.900
And that's the first time an incumbent mayor running for the job again in Calgary has lost in, I think, like 30 years.
00:09:14.120
So at the Taxpayers' Federation, our answer to this is, hey, we should have recall legislation at the federal level.
00:09:20.280
So if enough people in the Markham area are ticked off enough, they could then force a by-election.
00:09:31.340
If you just have recall legislation, I think that would solve some of these problems.
00:09:38.820
Firstly, with the Gondek thing, that was interesting because, of course,
00:09:42.200
that situation where Gondek was being recalled forced,
00:09:45.700
it convinced Smith to change the recall legislation,
00:09:48.880
and we've seen that sense change because, more or less,
00:09:51.260
it was 100% impossible to fulfill the requirements for recall legislation
00:09:55.740
because it was based on the total elector's number instead of the total voter's number.
00:10:00.780
So, of course, and we see these municipal elections, like 30% vote participation,
00:10:06.280
So I don't know if Johnston, who now is a Calgary City Councillor, by the way,
00:10:10.580
I don't know if his recall petition would have passed with the new rules,
00:10:14.040
As for the Michael Ma situation, I mean, I think it's even simpler than recall legislation, Chris.
00:10:20.300
Force a by-election when people cross the floor.
00:10:23.740
I looked at the polling when he crossed the floor.
00:10:28.400
The Conservatives are projected to win the riding.
00:10:30.340
You think this guy's going to cross the floor and lose his seat and lose his job?
00:10:35.400
So if a by-election were forced, and it's as close as it is in this riding,
00:10:39.520
there's no way he would have crossed the floor.
00:10:40.860
And he said he talked to constituents, and we're seeing that that may not be the case
00:10:46.500
because, of course, this Saturday, and True North will be there at his constituency office.
00:10:51.660
There is a protest plan, so very interested to see what that turns out.
00:10:55.240
But what Michael Ma is saying about what he's hearing from constituents and reality may not be very in line.
00:11:01.700
Yeah, he talked to the voters while he was on the doorstep campaigning for the seat
00:11:10.100
So did you just say, like, True North, will they have a camera there at this protest?
00:11:14.280
Yeah, no, I think we're headed out on Saturday.
00:11:16.320
I think that'll be Clayton who's going, not me.
00:11:18.700
But I'll definitely be looking forward to watching that myself.
00:11:22.240
See, folks, it's really important for you to sign up for Juno News
00:11:25.120
because that's where you're going to see the firsthand reporting on the ground in situations like this.
00:11:31.360
Because that you're talking, you know, power to the people and speaking truth to power grassroots.
00:11:36.500
You're going to have a protest right there at the local riding.
00:11:39.080
You've got to have cameras there and you need independent media.
00:11:42.660
I'll get into the whole terrarium of the, you know, kept folks in the press gallery in a second.
00:11:51.300
Do you think that the answer is to just have recall legislation across the board?
00:11:56.300
Well, I'm kind of close to Isaac's point and I kind of see your logic as well, Chris,
00:12:01.180
is because, I mean, the voters ultimately are the ones who choose the candidate
00:12:04.700
and they are, along with the candidate themselves, they normally also put on party lines.
00:12:09.960
There's, of course, a mix here as well because, you know, according to our problem with the system,
00:12:13.640
it is perfectly fine for NPAs to cross the floor.
00:12:16.840
But I look at my own situation a little bit differently than Chris Daltremont's.
00:12:20.660
Although I see both as a little bit puzzling to myself, in the case of Chris Daltremont,
00:12:25.200
I mean, he's had a successful career as a conservative politician for a while.
00:12:28.560
I mean, he's got, I think, three or four provincial elections in Nova Scotia as a PC
00:12:31.920
and three elections under the conservatives at the federal level, at least,
00:12:35.660
including most recently under Pierre Paliab and his leadership.
00:12:39.720
But, of course, there is a reality with the Conservative Party where you do have,
00:12:43.940
you know, your liberal lights included or what you call your red Tories.
00:12:47.740
I think that's most likely the case for Chris Daltremont and perhaps other MPs from out east
00:12:54.220
in Atlantic Canada and even in Quebec where there have been, you know, MPs sometimes
00:12:58.900
that have, you know, endorsed Jean Charest during the 2022 race, have said something or
00:13:03.780
two to the media that isn't so much aligned with Pierre's vision.
00:13:06.980
But again, the fact of the matter is it's a very wide-hand party and you have this demographic
00:13:11.580
I think Chris Daltremont was part of that demographic.
00:13:13.900
In Michael Maul's case, I think it's a little bit different.
00:13:16.260
I find his letter to be a little bit misleading.
00:13:18.220
The letter that he published, which was given off to the Liberal Party and sent off into
00:13:22.800
a news blast, was the, you know, the fact that his constituents himself reached out to
00:13:28.720
them and kind of, you know, gave him the idea that crossing the floor made a lot of sense.
00:13:33.840
And I'm confused because, you know, pulling even to this day suggests that he would win
00:13:37.480
as a Conservative or a Conservative candidate of choice would probably win an election today.
00:13:42.140
So it's kind of, it's very disrespectful to the voters that have not only supported
00:13:46.760
them, but even the ones that remain, you know, inclined in their political vision.
00:13:54.140
So those that maybe don't remember back in April, but there was a candidate who was running
00:14:03.820
And he was running and he made a comment to Chinese state media or state-linked media,
00:14:08.940
of course, where he suggested that another candidate in a different writing, I think
00:14:12.520
it was Don Valley East, Joe Tay, who by the way, will be at this protest on Saturday, should
00:14:17.760
be taken into a Chinese consulate to get a bounty collected from his head.
00:14:28.380
I mean, he technically did not defeat Paul Chiang.
00:14:30.960
He defeated Peter Yuen, who stepped in and placed Paul Chiang after he withdrew his candidacy.
00:14:35.720
Peter Yuen was well known for his love of the Chinese regime, essentially, vis-a-vis his
00:14:43.820
singing a few songs of glorifying the Chinese revolution, the Chinese Communist Party, while,
00:14:50.260
by the way, in Toronto police uniform at cultural events for Chinese New Year.
00:14:55.020
It's a very interesting story where you just, you can't de-link from a certain demographic
00:14:59.320
and specifically from a political regime that is exploiting actors within that demographic.
00:15:04.140
Of course, there are dissidents and there are regime puppets within that same crowd.
00:15:09.840
And again, Joe Tay himself is a well-known dissident, of course, and having that kind of comment
00:15:14.320
come out from a liberal candidate in a different writing was shameful and probably provided
00:15:18.880
conservatives a little bit of a boost coming from the, you know, CCP critical voter base
00:15:24.080
in that writing as well. But again, I'm looking at Michael Ma, you know, this is a first-time
00:15:29.840
politician at the federal level. This guy ran under Pierre, got his first seat. This was eight and a
00:15:35.820
half months ago, not even. And I don't think he was well-vetted enough, though, in terms of his
00:15:41.020
ideological meanings. I mean, frankly, he's a former Lenovo executive in Canada. I mean, he has
00:15:48.120
probably a great career, decent intellect. But again, you know, when you're running for a political
00:15:52.940
party, I think you definitely have to show what it is that makes you want to be part of
00:15:57.540
that fold. I'm not doubting that Michael Ma doesn't have conservative views on one or two
00:16:01.860
issues, but I'm really curious if you're willing to enter and exit a party within a span of eight
00:16:07.880
months after making the most consequential decision, which is joining in a party, joining
00:16:12.500
and putting your name on the ballot, getting yourself elected as an MP. And, you know, if in
00:16:16.820
the case of Carney lasting a majority, I mean, this guy can get a full term of four or five
00:16:22.000
years out of the situation where I don't think he would actually be elected as a liberal in
00:16:26.600
the first place, nor reelected as a liberal in the case of your reforms coming through.
00:16:31.600
I wonder if, and I should know the answer to this question, but I'm a little rusty on
00:16:36.460
doing FOI federally for local writing offices. I don't know if you can FOIP a local member of
00:16:44.220
parliament's email to see indeed where the tsunami of emails were coming from, from his constituents.
00:16:53.020
I'd have to check. It's been a while since I've tried to FOIP a local writing office, but I'd be
00:16:57.500
curious to know what our viewers think in the comments. I wanted to kind of touch on this a
00:17:02.220
little bit because I've, this is usually a bee in my bonnet. I'm noticing that the terrarium of the
00:17:09.740
parliamentary press gallery gaggle are all talking about, oh, Pierre Polyev needs to change. And,
00:17:15.340
you know, he needs to change his personality. He needs to change his policies. I don't think
00:17:18.620
they got, they like the guy's socks. Okay. It's ridiculous. I will point out that the Canadian
00:17:23.660
taxpayers federation through a major polling firm today showed the majority of Canadians believe that
00:17:31.500
Carney's hidden industrial carbon tax is going to be passed on to us, onto everyday working people.
00:17:38.540
And that is something Pierre Polyev to his credit has dug his heels in on. He said no carbon taxes,
00:17:45.020
zero carbon taxes. And so in my opinion, he's right to do that because he's fighting one of the biggest
00:17:51.980
drains on affordability in Canada. And that is things like hidden carbon taxes. And frankly, I think
00:17:59.340
that's why you're seeing polls right now that are keeping steady for the blue team because they keep
00:18:05.340
talking about things like hidden carbon taxes and affordability. Outside that little Ottawa terrarium,
00:18:13.660
like you guys were just mentioning, life is still bloody too expensive. And people aren't seeing the
00:18:19.260
changes that they want to see. Some changes we are seeing here, I want to shift gears here, no pun
00:18:23.820
intended. To battery powered vehicles. Let's go down to EVs. We are seeing some movement here. Last
00:18:31.260
time we saw so you can see here the headline, you can check it out also at True North and Juneau,
00:18:35.740
Conservatives blasts EV subsidies as sales are collapsing nationwide. So what they're talking
00:18:41.660
about there is of course billions of dollars being handed out in corporate welfare, like a big stew,
00:18:47.100
from the federal pot and frankly in Ontario. Big old Premier Doug Ford of Ontario is ladling out the
00:18:53.820
corporate welfare as well. Now we're seeing slumping demand. The marketplace is slumping for demand,
00:19:00.780
natural demand for electric powered vehicles. As of right now, we're delaying our ban on the sale
00:19:09.020
of gas and diesel powered vehicles by one year. Carney's kicked a can on this for one year.
00:19:14.620
I don't know if that means the death knell to this dumb plan, or if he's just ragging the puck so
00:19:20.540
he can do something else that's bad. What do you guys think? Go ahead, Waleed.
00:19:26.300
Okay, Waleed can go, yeah. You went first last time. Go, Waleed.
00:19:29.740
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the refereeing, Chris. I appreciate the fact on your part.
00:19:35.740
No, but jokingly, this entire story, by the way, was triggered
00:19:39.660
triggered by a federal announcement on, I think it was on that same week, Friday last week,
00:19:47.420
of a $2.5 million investment to establish an electric vehicle innovation on, to establish
00:19:54.060
electric vehicle innovation in Ontario. Essentially, a program led by the University of Toronto,
00:19:58.940
in partnership with a few other universities in the province, funded by the Federal Economic Development
00:20:03.900
Agency, yet another bureaucracy for God knows what else. And it essentially aims to support research
00:20:10.860
and what they call workforce development in the EV and battery sector. So essentially,
00:20:15.740
they're looking to create a bureaucracy, which will advertise itself as able to create jobs and to
00:20:23.980
create development in the workforce towards the EV sector, which they still believe, whether it's
00:20:30.700
ideological or based on misguided economic assessments, that they believe that is the
00:20:35.260
ultimate future that they have to rush with our tax dollars in all avenues. So while that's happening,
00:20:42.220
again, this multimillion dollar project from both the federal government onto the province of Ontario
00:20:48.460
is yet another example of this regurgitating trend of dumping in money to an industry that is not
00:20:55.100
pumping back the same kind of economic yield, whether in terms of jobs, whether in terms of the
00:21:00.380
actual authentic consumer interest in electric vehicles, the best to be in the Canadian market,
00:21:05.580
which as we have covered multiple times, is in decline, I believe, the numbers I'm looking at was
00:21:11.500
the sales figures that accounted for 8.9% of new vehicles were correct in October of this year,
00:21:18.940
which was a year over year decline of nearly 42% from October 2024. So again, looking at the trends of
00:21:26.300
consumer interest, looking at the trends of whether Norfolk in Quebec and a number of other plants
00:21:31.900
across the country that have closed down both to do with tariffs, but also to do with EV specific
00:21:37.340
shortages of demand and activity, even with our Canadian taxpayer dollars, those subsidies are still
00:21:44.060
yielding dead companies, dead projects, and very little return, if any at all. So it's just one more
00:21:50.780
story, but it seems like you could at least say with this story, what this tells me is that Doug Ford
00:21:55.260
is still completely invested in this regime of EV subsidies. Huge waste of money. I like how you said
00:22:05.420
it's yielding dead projects. That is just so true. Isaac, what's your take on this? I'm trying to stay
00:22:11.580
hopeful. It is the holiday season and the Christmas season after all. I'm hoping that the delay of a year
00:22:17.420
means that Carney is going to stick a pin in it, but I can't help it. He did write this book where
00:22:22.060
he's talking about, you know, how much he loves electric vehicles, right? Like, I don't know what
00:22:27.260
to think. What do you, what's your take on this? Yeah, Chris, there's so much, so much to talk about
00:22:32.060
here. And we've been reporting on this for years now that if the federal government does not subsidize
00:22:37.100
EVs, no one buys them. They don't sell. People don't want them. They don't work in the winter. I mean,
00:22:41.820
the list I could go on and on. It's minus 30 here today in December. You think I want to be driving an EV,
00:22:47.020
which we've seen the data on that too. Like the range plummets in the winter. It's terrible.
00:22:51.020
Alberta's grid is on already on the verge of failure. And now you want everyone to plug in EVs?
00:22:55.500
What do you think is going to happen? I mean, it's ridiculous. And even more importantly than
00:23:00.780
that, just at the baseline level, why is the federal government subsidizing private industry?
00:23:05.580
It makes no sense. If, if people wanted to buy it, the government doesn't need to be subsidizing it.
00:23:11.020
And then consumers should be asking, why does the federal government want this subsidized?
00:23:16.300
pretty, pretty poignant question there. Like, why do they want it subsidized? What, what do they have
00:23:21.180
to gain from everyone driving EVs aside from the fact that none of our electrical grids would work?
00:23:27.260
I mean, that's pretty terrible. But yeah, no, Chris, I mean, as for the actual ban, the year ban, I mean,
00:23:35.020
look, Smith has celebrated it because of course they had a nationwide nationwide campaign against the
00:23:40.620
EV ban against the production cap, the emissions cap. And, and she did get both of those to her
00:23:45.980
credit in the MOU as critical of that people have been just because of the pipeline. There are things
00:23:51.180
in there that are very beneficial, but look, what was it by, by 2035, the liberals initially had planned
00:23:57.900
to stop ICE vehicles, gas vehicles altogether. I mean, this is ridiculous. And then at the same
00:24:05.260
time at which we've discussed prior as well, we're tariffing Chinese EVs. So it's like, we, we don't
00:24:12.460
want cheap EVs obviously because we're tariffing them, but we are still going to ban gas cars. So
00:24:19.740
we don't want affordable EVs. I mean, they're ridiculously priced as well. Like I see people
00:24:24.460
driving new Teslas and it's like, that's a hundred thousand dollar car, if not more, like who can afford
00:24:28.540
this stuff? We're talking about the liberals celebrating their tax cut, which gives people
00:24:35.500
11 bucks a year. And we're talking about a hundred thousand dollar cars. I mean, come on, man, this is
00:24:39.340
crazy, but yeah, no, it is a terrible story. I mean, it is really that simple to me though. The,
00:24:43.580
the federal government should in no way, shape or form be subsidizing, um, private industry. I don't
00:24:47.500
know why they're involved in any private industry. Uh, the, the government getting involved in anything
00:24:52.700
just makes it worse. Of course, uh, the free market and private industry always, always, always does it
00:24:57.900
better. So I, I just want the federal government with their hands and nothing at all. Uh, they, they,
00:25:03.500
they seem to want their hands in everything. Amen. Willie, do you want to do jump in there?
00:25:07.980
Yes. I wanted to mention that two of the top five highest selling, and these two, by the way,
00:25:13.820
are our neck and shoulders over the rest of the pack, but two of the top five most sold EVs,
00:25:21.100
most popular EVs in Canada's marketplace are each over 70, well into the seventies, $80,000. It's
00:25:28.780
Tesla model Y and model three, both Teslas, both coming from Elon Musk. Of course, not all Canadians
00:25:34.700
may be happy that given political inclinations in the past. I love free speech. I'm really happy
00:25:39.180
Elon Musk did that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you have that story as well. While at the same time,
00:25:43.580
again, you have this tariff regime against Chinese EVs. Here in Brazil, we have the, uh,
00:25:49.580
most popular Chinese EV maker available. I actually, when I order Ubers very often, I'm
00:25:54.540
often picked up in a BYD. I think it stands for build your dreams. Now I'm not by any means endorsing
00:26:00.060
this company or endorsing their product, but I am saying, I mean, the retail price in China is
00:26:04.540
around 12 to 16,000 us dollars for this kind of a simple car. I can't tell you exactly the model
00:26:10.620
make, but the make is BYD. And it's a very popular car among Uber drivers in this country. Uh, you know,
00:26:16.860
it gets the job done for the most part. Uh, but when you're doing that kind of exchange and you're kind
00:26:22.220
of borrowing from, uh, you know, a major player for playing in your market, I guess the priority really
00:26:27.740
isn't absolute EVs at that point as well. Now it's nice to see Carney moving back a little bit,
00:26:32.780
but, uh, I spoke to one of perhaps his friends, if not his future, best friend and a great friend
00:26:38.780
of Canada, as he said himself, uh, California governor Gavin Newsom. I, I caught up with him
00:26:43.100
towards the end of COP30. I don't know if I, um, published much on it in the past, but I actually
00:26:48.860
asked him on the record about his EV menu because California has, you know, has the same exact 2035
00:26:54.380
rule, no new vehicle sales, anything besides, uh, zero EV, uh, or zero emissions vehicles.
00:27:01.500
Right. Uh, and I asked him if he would be willing to push that back and given the pressures he's
00:27:05.900
seeing, uh, both economically in California, as well as other places as well. And, uh, you know,
00:27:10.860
he, he, he didn't seem open to that notion at all. I think he seemed very, uh, much of the spirit
00:27:16.460
of doubling down on that. And I definitely think in the case of Mark Carney, unless we get, you know,
00:27:21.660
a few years closer to 2035, I don't think he will be, you know, maybe bluntly throwing a decade
00:27:28.380
further or, you know, tarnishing the policy as a whole. I do believe there is this ideological
00:27:34.860
elite mindset, which by the way, Gavin Newsom is a perfect poster boy for this, you know, high income,
00:27:40.700
California, uh, you know, high carbon hypocrite elite, where you have a person who I generally
00:27:47.100
believe. And I talked to him, you know, personally, even off the record, he seems to me like someone
00:27:51.660
that celebrates the fact that him and a lot of his buddies and Californians are at least seen as rich
00:27:58.140
or high income and they can afford it. Now, of course, not every one person from California is rich.
00:28:02.220
A lot of them are leaving California as they haven't been able to afford life there on basis.
00:28:07.100
The most expensive city in the whole country is San Francisco, but not to talk about the U S too much,
00:28:11.660
but I definitely think the, the marketplace of buyers that are looking to buy these kinds of
00:28:17.420
vehicles, like a Tesla model three model Y or people that are already in a pretty sound economic
00:28:22.220
situation where they can look at their car that is retailing above $70,000. And that doesn't include
00:28:27.980
expenses to do with the day-to-day repairs or to do with any additional resources, winter tires,
00:28:33.180
by the way, Isaac and I were catching up on the whole winter situation of driving before the show
00:28:37.420
was starting because Edmonton is seeing yet another soul storm, I'm assuming. But, you know,
00:28:41.740
with all this going on, I really feel like that $1,000 partial EV, or I think it was $2,500 and the
00:28:50.620
5,000 full EV rebates as much as big as they are and as high cost as they are as a program. I don't
00:28:56.620
think it's making the yes or no difference as often as people think, because at the end of the day,
00:29:01.580
these are people that have a pretty decent income and a decent economic background that are looking to
00:29:06.540
even buy it in this market in the first place. One thing I just wanted to add, sorry, yeah, no,
00:29:12.540
just in defense, and I have no love for Newsom, but in his defense, the EVs in California are much more
00:29:18.620
feasible than in Canada. As I said, the data on this are very clear. They are terrible in the winter.
00:29:24.860
If you have an EV and you live in Edmonton, for example, you need a second car. Like, you just aren't
00:29:29.740
driving that thing in the winter. You need a summer and a winter car. So yeah, I'd say you're pretty rich.
00:29:33.500
If you've got a summer and a winter car, you know, you're doing all right.
00:29:39.100
So I just wanted to say that, because Canadians can see these data, like it's public information.
00:29:43.580
They know that these cars are terrible in the winter. People aren't thinking, oh, it's minus 40.
00:29:47.180
Let's fire up the Tesla. So I just wanted to say that, because obviously California EVs,
00:29:54.220
I don't know their electrical grid situation. But again, I assume it's not as trained as ours,
00:29:57.900
because one of the biggest problems in winter is people plugging in heaters. Because of the high
00:30:02.700
amperage and voltage on those, it uses a ton of power. But having electric vehicles at every
00:30:08.620
house will obviously amplify that strain greatly. Yeah, we get alerts coming through our phones
00:30:13.900
in winter in the morning saying, everybody don't use your hair dryer. You know, beware of plugging in
00:30:19.180
your toaster. But we're all supposed to have an electric powered battery, a battery powered vehicle
00:30:25.340
plugged in outside in minus 30. That's super weird. You know, between the fact that we do not have the
00:30:33.260
energy for this that I just pointed out, and we do not have the money to build the infrastructure to
00:30:39.820
create the energy for this, for example, if we changed all of our personal vehicles that we own right
00:30:45.820
now, I'm not talking trucking, I'm just talking personal vehicles, we would need 13 new can do
00:30:52.860
reactors, those big ones that you see in Pickering in Ontario, okay, I'm not talking the little modular
00:30:59.420
ones. No, the big ones, okay, the can do's 13 of them. Those things cost like $15 billion each, they take
00:31:08.460
like 10 years to build like, I know, right? So that's crazy pants, we do not have the money, or the
00:31:17.260
infrastructure to do this. And it's almost as if the government doesn't care. And they just want fewer
00:31:27.100
people, I don't know, to own personal vehicles, for whatever reason, you know, going out on a limb
00:31:34.460
there doesn't make any sense to me. I'm hoping that if enough people keep on screaming and yelling at
00:31:39.580
the government, that they will just shy away from this and drop this mandate altogether. I will quickly
00:31:44.300
point out last thing on the ban on gasoline and diesel powered vehicles. Oh, I will also point out,
00:31:49.340
we have a t shirt. Look at my t shirt. Look how awesome that is. It's like you knew what we were
00:31:55.100
talking about today. Right? This is great. And I love the muscle car. I will also point out that yes,
00:32:04.300
the total ban was supposed to kick in in 2035. But the incremental ban was supposed to start in like
00:32:11.180
two weeks. So that means that all vehicle dealerships were going to have to sell more
00:32:15.900
than 20% of their new stock was gonna have to be battery powered vehicles. It doesn't include hybrids,
00:32:22.300
folks. If your vehicles using gas, it does not count. Okay, for this ridiculous mandate. So they really
00:32:29.260
dodged one here, but they got to get rid of it all together. All right. One more thing. Sorry,
00:32:33.020
Chris, I just wanted to add quick because I just came to me while you were talking. And I think it's
00:32:36.380
a very, very important thing to note. I don't know entirely how involved Stephen Guibo was at the
00:32:43.420
jump getting this going. But of course, we know he resigned. So the biggest proponent of the gas ban
00:32:49.260
may have just left the Liberal Caucus. And I do want to say that that certainly works in Carney's favor
00:32:55.020
as to whether he will press the brakes on this going forward. So I see what you did there.
00:33:01.980
Yeah, I'm so happy Guibo's gone. I could do like a little Muppet dance about it. This is such good
00:33:06.060
news. All right, let's quickly wrap up on groceries. Sorry to end on a downer. But it looks like
00:33:11.260
groceries are going to cost us even more in the new year. It's saying grocery prices are going to post
00:33:16.380
the biggest monthly jump since January of 2023. So this is right now, this is a combination of a lot of
00:33:22.940
things. In Canada, it's typically inflation. And then in some rare instances, there was something weird
00:33:29.020
happening more of where you're sitting there will lead when it came to coffee prices and stuff.
00:33:32.940
There was crazy stuff happening. That's why coffee is disgustingly expensive. Even if you go to Walmart
00:33:38.300
with one of the big Maxwell House tins or the folders tins, they're over 20 bucks. Now,
00:33:43.260
I used to be able to get them like for a good price for nine bucks, like year after year. So some things
00:33:48.860
have just gone crazy. Where are you guys when it comes to the grocery prices? It just looks like it's
00:33:53.500
going to keep getting worse. Yeah, I could start, I suppose. A few things, Chris, because I have the
00:34:00.700
data here. This is a monthly increase, coffee increase by almost 30%. And frozen beef, 18%. And
00:34:10.620
the coffee, whatever, I don't know the whole story there. But the beef, I mean, I've seen stories on
00:34:14.380
this. It's ridiculous. Like, for example, there was a video someone posted online, it's in Australia,
00:34:19.340
it's Canadian beef, they're paying less for it. It's like, what? How are we paying more for beef
00:34:24.700
that we made in this province where I am? Like, it just makes no sense to me. And even in the States,
00:34:29.500
like, it's the same story. They have Canadian beef in some of their stores, I'm sure that they're
00:34:33.580
literally paying less for than we are in literally miles, not even kilometers away from where the beef was
00:34:41.340
literally made. So it makes absolutely no sense why frozen beef rose 20%. I don't know why that is. But
00:34:47.100
it's funny, Chris, we talk about inflation. I was thinking about this a few days ago.
00:34:51.900
Just just as I do. These are the things that keep me up at night, Chris.
00:34:56.700
We just we just inflation has gotten to a point where it's like, oh, it's just inflation. Like,
00:35:02.700
people just say that, oh, it's just inflation as if it's a given. What do you mean? Like,
00:35:06.540
why are the prices going up? The inflation should be in the negatives. Like, I want to see the grocery
00:35:11.180
prices go down, we shouldn't be paying $500 for like a normal amount of groceries every time we go to
00:35:16.380
the store. I remember as a kid, like it would be like 150 bucks. And we're talking about inflation
00:35:21.420
in the small percentages. Like, no, it's clearly doubled, tripled, quadrupled, like in our lifetimes.
00:35:26.060
This is insanity. So I don't know how that's the problem where it gets me, Chris. I don't know what
00:35:32.700
we'd have to do to get a 200% decrease in grocery prices. Like, what can you what can actually be done?
00:35:39.260
Because it is ridiculous. And I don't I genuinely don't comprehend how a median income family, let's
00:35:45.740
say, affords to feed themselves. Like, really, that's where we're at in Canada. How do people
00:35:50.140
afford to feed themselves? It costs too much. It's why you see record demand at food banks. Yes,
00:35:55.260
I know that some people are abusing it that are brand new to Canada. But when you call the local
00:36:00.300
food banks and ask them, no, no, they say they're seeing record amounts of working Canadian families
00:36:05.740
with kids. Record amount. So yes, it's a major problem. Willita wanted to leave with you.
00:36:12.140
What is your take on groceries? What can we do to bring down the inflation? And then I'll wrap up the
00:36:17.580
show. Well, I was thinking about I was looking through my local software documented flyer and
00:36:21.820
seeing exactly what I can get with $11 if I was in that situation where $11 would be the only thing I'd
00:36:26.140
save. But I'm struggling to get a can of or a pack of eight cans of Red Bull. I mean, that's $13.99
00:36:32.700
on sale. Of course, that's a sale that takes it down by $1 because the regular price of shoppers is
00:36:38.860
$14.99. So even those flyer promos are really underwhelming, frankly. I mean, it's, it's, it's,
00:36:44.780
yeah, well, cents a dollar here and there. Again, and you know, the funny thing is, when I walk into
00:36:50.460
a shopper's drug mart or a superstore or anything under the BC optimum umbrella, I'm always seeing
00:36:55.260
people, you know, like pulling out their car, like people used to be impatient, you know, I think at the
00:36:59.580
checkout, just scan, pay and then take their stuff as they go. But now it's like pulling out the
00:37:05.180
optimum card, collecting the points, redeeming the points, taking out specific items, looking at the
00:37:10.780
flyers. I mean, the coupon geeks are now the norm because that's where people are being forced to.
00:37:16.300
So in terms of what we can do as consumers, I definitely encourage people to pick up whatever
00:37:21.260
offers they can find. But in terms of the economic equation that we have discussed, even on the show
00:37:26.060
recently, I mean, this whole industrial carbon tax has to be discussed with the same level of
00:37:31.660
scrutiny as a consumer carbon tax. Because the real difference here is not the fact that one has more
00:37:37.180
or less impact on the consumer, but more so one has a more transparent effect. And that's kind of the
00:37:41.900
problem between Ottawa and the rest of Canada's. In Ottawa, they know what they're doing, but in the
00:37:45.900
rest of Canada, we're only seeing things after the fact. So I definitely think, you know, for the
00:37:50.220
Conservative Party as an opposition party trying to move our economy in a better direction,
00:37:54.140
I would be very pleased to see them continue to hit on the carbon industrial carbon tax,
00:37:58.860
even within the whole MOEU situation in Alberta. I know pipelines are a big priority for Daniel Smith,
00:38:04.780
but I mean, you know, massive increases in industrial carbon taxes is not going to take
00:38:09.340
Albertans pocketbooks to any better place than they are right now. So definitely want to see that
00:38:14.300
ongoing scrutiny on industrial carbon tax. In terms of the trade and tariff situation, I know this
00:38:19.660
has been a topic that has divided the right in Canada. It's very interesting how we had Scott
00:38:24.140
Moe, you know, shuffle back and forth, Daniel Smith as well. And of course, Ontario Premier
00:38:28.860
Doug Ford had a completely different position in Europe as well. It's the topic of the Canola
00:38:33.500
situation relative to EV terrorists from China. Now, I don't want to go back and talk about EVs,
00:38:37.580
Chris, but I do want to say, I, for the record, as much as we might be upset with Beijing's
00:38:42.700
way of doing things and human rights record for many reasons, especially their interference on
00:38:46.940
Canadian politics as well, you know, where our system's a victim to that interference,
00:38:51.180
unfortunately. I am very in favour and I would definitely celebrate some sort of a trade progress
00:38:57.660
with China, with Beijing in terms of getting them to buy our items at zero tariffs, you know,
00:39:03.820
in the canola sector and other exportable produce. And in return, I think it would be a fair deal bringing
00:39:09.500
in, you know, some Chinese technology within the EV sector. It would be interesting to see. Of course,
00:39:14.860
Doug Ford's Ontario has a great auto sector in manufacturing. It does not want to see
00:39:19.740
increased competition coming in from a cheap lever jurisdiction. But at the same time, I definitely
00:39:24.860
think free trade is a net benefit. And I would love if free trade was the norm between every nation on
00:39:30.940
earth. And I think Canada definitely should align itself with its economic interests before its
00:39:35.820
duplical vision. And that means perhaps opening up with countries that are not the most friendly in
00:39:41.980
terms of trade and exchange. I definitely think we just we can't afford to be democracy builders at
00:39:46.540
this time. Our pocketbooks are a little bit short. And I think, you know, in terms of China's, you
00:39:51.020
know, great economic influence on us and on the rest of the world, I think it's time to embrace more
00:39:57.020
free trade. If that means, again, pulling down one or two trade barriers on a specific sector or two,
00:40:02.700
especially if it doesn't include anything to do with national security, which I actually can be in this
00:40:05.980
conversation for for a separate episode, you know, the whole civil live and this is a project. So
00:40:12.220
the fun story for the viewers is how I got myself to turn off eventually came from the democracy fund
00:40:17.420
conference in July 2024, where I presented a project in front of then journalist Andrew Lawton
00:40:23.260
and Keane Bextie with Juno news. Now, I presented them a project about the civil liberties risk
00:40:29.180
with going full EV because every EV, like modern cars that are gas powered, but especially EVs
00:40:34.860
are entirely capable of being remotely controlled given their technological privacy. So think about,
00:40:40.460
you know, a government regime where you have, you know, full population running on purely EVs and
00:40:46.220
having to control human behavior from a central authority. I think technologically it would be
00:40:50.620
very possible. And I think China would definitely be one of the leaders of embracing that, but I don't
00:40:54.700
think Canada would be entirely immune from that deteriorating situation of freedoms should
00:41:00.860
technology continue to run rampant without some sort of backlash of civil liberties focused
00:41:05.500
legislation. So it's an interesting topic. I think EVs, there's an economic angle to going against
00:41:11.420
EV mandates, but I'd also think there might be a civil liberties angle that we're not discussing
00:41:15.260
enough. Wow. That is definitely the topic for a good deep dive discussion. Wow. Folks,
00:41:20.300
thank you so much for watching that. Thank you for the inputs on this guys. To sum up,
00:41:25.020
I would say the main things that they need to do to fight things like increasing costs,
00:41:30.220
they need to do a few things. They need to balance their budget and start paying down the debt. Okay.
00:41:35.740
So slash spending, like cut, cut, cut, take a chainsaw to the number of bureaucrats that we have in
00:41:42.220
Ottawa, cut all unnecessary spending, cut all the crap that they're calling foreign aid. And by that,
00:41:48.700
I mean gender rice in Vietnam, like absolute nonsense. Okay. Cut all of that so much so that
00:41:55.020
we have a surplus and start paying down the debt. Number one, that's important because then that
00:41:59.980
means the bank of Canada is not hinting the print, print key anymore to paper over their deficits year
00:42:06.300
after year. So that will help to slow down inflation. And then when it comes to sopping up those inflated
00:42:13.420
dollars, they need to get out of the way and have people making more things, tangible items, things
00:42:21.340
like vehicles, things like homes, actual assets that people sink money into that will soak up the flood
00:42:29.660
of inflated dollars that we have around here. So that's my, you know, little thumbnail economics
00:42:34.700
lesson for now that would help fight the inflation problem that we're dealing with right now. Lastly,
00:42:40.620
I'll put it this way. The next time you're watching mainstream media and they chirp about, oh, you
00:42:46.620
know, inflation is slowing down. It's only going up this much this year. Like, aren't we all grateful
00:42:52.140
and celebratory? No, no. Imagine that you lose track of your senses and you gain a ton of weight. You gain
00:43:02.700
25 pounds a year for three years. Holy smokes, you're 75 pounds overweight. You're in a serious
00:43:10.380
health crisis right now. If you just gain an extra five pounds in the fourth year, you're not better
00:43:18.620
off. You're still 80 pounds overweight. That is what inflation is doing right now. So I just want our
00:43:25.820
viewers to remember that next time they're watching mainstream news and they hear inflation is going
00:43:29.900
less up less fast. Like, that's not good news. We need deflation. We need them to soak up those
00:43:35.740
inflated dollars and then our prices will come down. Guys, I got to run. I have to go chat with Franco
00:43:41.340
about industrial carbon taxes. I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your work all year.
00:43:46.700
Thank you for contributing to free press in Canada and I wish you all the best over the holidays.