Juno News - January 15, 2025


Danielle Smith prepares for the worst

Topics
tariffs Alberta Premier Smith tariffs negotiations trudeau inauguration negotiation Harper's criticism of Trudeau's policies
Hosted by
Rachel Parker
Mentioned
Justin Trudeau Danielle Smith Stephen Harper Donald Trump Melanie Jolie Isaac Lamoureux Doug Ford Gabriel Garcia Pierre Poilievre Joe Biden Polyefra Poilèvre
Banker Mark Carney will be Canada’s next PM Is it inevitable？

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

165.81

Word count

3,254

Sentence count

222

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The threat of 25% tariffs continues to loom over Alberta. Over the weekend, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith went down to Mar-A-Lago where she visited with the incoming president. But she s warning that there s no sign Alberta will be granted an exemption from the tariffs. Today, reporter Isaac Lamoureux is here to discuss.

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 We're five days away from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, and the threat of 25% tariffs continues to loom over Alberta.
00:00:10.040 Over the weekend, Alberta Premier Daniel Smith went down to Mar-a-Lago, where she visited with the incoming president.
00:00:16.220 But she's warning that there's no sign Alberta will be granted an exemption from the tariffs.
00:00:22.260 Joining me today to discuss is True Norse Alberta reporter Isaac Lamoureux.
00:00:27.160 I'm Rachel Parker. Welcome back to The Rachel Parker Show.
00:00:30.000 Hey, everyone. I'm Rachel Parker. Welcome back to The Rachel Parker Show.
00:00:49.440 We are going to be diving into U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's looming threat of 25% tariffs and all the latest that Alberta Premier Daniel Smith has said about it.
00:01:01.020 My colleague Isaac Lamoureux, who has taken over the Alberta beat and is doing an excellent job of it, is here to break it all down for us.
00:01:09.060 So hello, Isaac. Thank you for being here.
00:01:10.820 I want to start right off the hop. Obviously, we've known that Trump has been promising these tariffs for about two months now.
00:01:18.000 How is Alberta Premier Daniel Smith positioning Alberta?
00:01:21.280 What's the latest that she said in her hopes of trying to secure an energy exemption from those tariffs for the province?
00:01:27.300 Yeah. So following Smith's meeting with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, what took me most by surprise, because I expected Smith to come back and say,
00:01:37.900 hey, we talked about this, maybe we can make this happen.
00:01:39.740 But no, she essentially said, look, these tariffs are coming, whether we like them or not, how are we going to deal with them once we see that they are implemented?
00:01:48.920 And we're paying 25% tariffs on all the goods, which obviously will decimate our economy.
00:01:55.700 But Smith's really tried to position not only Alberta, but Canada as an energy behemoth.
00:02:02.580 And it's like she keeps talking about how much energy Canada supplies the United States at a discounted price, I might add.
00:02:09.380 And we've seen other premiers not take that position initially.
00:02:14.400 But I think they're starting to follow suit because we saw, for example, Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently with his Can-Am proposal,
00:02:21.260 which is along the same lines of improving the current existing electricity and energy grids between Ontario and the United States.
00:02:31.040 So positioning ourselves as a supplier to the United States to avoid the tariffs.
00:02:37.940 We know that Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie was asked if she would consider cutting off the energy supply to the United States.
00:02:46.220 And she said that nothing is off the table.
00:02:49.300 How did Danielle Smith respond to this? 1.00
00:02:51.840 Yeah, I mean, Smith basically positioned this statement from Jolie as ridiculous, as you might imagine.
00:02:56.920 And she said, Smith did, quote, you should never threaten something you can't do.
00:03:02.320 Because, look, she said to Jolie, Jolie, pick up a map and look where line five goes.
00:03:07.080 If you cut off the United States, you're cutting off Ontario and Quebec.
00:03:10.640 I mean, obviously, you can't do that. 0.96
00:03:12.740 It's a ridiculous statement to begin with. 0.82
00:03:14.740 And Smith kind of laughed it off because, obviously, Jolie has no idea what she's talking about when she made such a claim.
00:03:21.100 I think we actually have the Premier's very fulsome response to this question.
00:03:27.080 Take a look at Alberta Premier Daniel Smith responding to Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie's suggestion that Canada should cut off the energy supply to the United States.
00:03:35.640 Take a look.
00:03:36.040 Yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolie talked about, she was asked specifically, if in negotiations with Trump, Canada would consider an energy embargo on the United States.
00:03:53.400 And I want to, as leverage, what do you think, what do you make of what she said?
00:03:59.240 Well, first of all, it's oil and gas that's owned by the provinces, principally Alberta, and we won't stand for that.
00:04:09.300 And you should never, ever threaten something you cannot do.
00:04:14.160 And I would encourage the minister to look at a map of where line five goes.
00:04:21.020 Line five comes down through Michigan to get to Sarnia, and then that feeds the bulk of the supply needed for Ontario and connects with line nine, which feeds the bulk of the product needed for Quebec.
00:04:38.120 And so if you cut off that line, you are cutting off Ontario and Quebec.
00:04:43.800 So I would encourage the ministers to either understand how our integrated pipeline system works and start looking at ways that we would be able to practically respond, because there's no point in making empty threats that cannot be executed on.
00:05:04.640 So there are other things, I'm sure, that we'll all talk about collectively, but let's just remember how integrated our markets are with the Enbridge system, the TC Energy system, that we have a product going back and forth across the border every single day.
00:05:24.880 And we cannot do anything that harms Canadians in such a substantial way.
00:05:31.120 So I just don't take that as a credible threat.
00:05:33.720 I'm sure that the U.S. administration won't either.
00:05:36.300 So we should talk about things that we actually can do as opposed to empty threats.
00:05:40.940 So in that clip, you hear the premier say a couple of times, we should focus on practical solutions, things that we actually can do to respond to the Trump administration and the incoming tariffs.
00:05:55.160 As you've said, Isaac, Daniel Smith is saying it seems pretty likely that we are going to see these tariffs come into effect on January 20th.
00:06:03.360 So what are some of those practical things, those actual solutions and responses that she's talking about?
00:06:09.800 What are some of those things that she's suggested that Alberta can do?
00:06:12.780 Is she looking at retaliatory measures?
00:06:16.920 No.
00:06:17.360 And I kind of alluded to that earlier, wherein Ontario premier Doug Ford was, of course, the first premier to call for retaliatory measures.
00:06:26.240 And at the time, Smith said, in no way, shape or form are we considering that.
00:06:30.880 She was really trying to emphasize collaboration over retaliation.
00:06:36.840 A few things I wanted to add based on the stuff you said there, which first, this one's interesting.
00:06:41.580 Obviously, Trudeau has announced his resignation.
00:06:45.220 So he is still prime minister, but he will resign once a leader is chosen in the leadership election.
00:06:50.580 So Smith has said that she's been actually negotiating and speaking with U.S. administration independently because Trudeau really has no public mandate.
00:07:00.380 To govern.
00:07:01.720 So she's kind of been doing it herself.
00:07:03.880 And another thing is the premiers are meeting today with Trudeau to discuss the tariff threats.
00:07:09.240 So some stuff might come of that.
00:07:12.280 We'll have to see.
00:07:12.920 And they're also planning to meet roughly a month after Trump is inaugurated in Washington, D.C. to discuss how the tariffs are affecting all Canadians, which, I mean, it won't be no surprise.
00:07:27.980 They're going to be terrible for our economy and the United States is in theory if they do come to be.
00:07:34.980 So, I mean, I mean, that's a month after the tariffs are supposed to be implemented.
00:07:37.840 So we'll see what even happens there.
00:07:40.540 I want to talk a little bit about a little bit more about Justin Trudeau in a second.
00:07:44.900 I just have sort of one last tidbit on Daniel Smith.
00:07:48.520 You know, she's also warning that if Ottawa sought to do this, it would create a national unity crisis.
00:07:53.240 And to me, living here in Alberta, I know you live up in Edmonton, it often feels like we are on the bit of the cusp of a national unity crisis with the Trudeau government and Albertans being so frustrated, feeling so targeted.
00:08:06.220 I remember growing up and learning about, you know, the West wants in, the movement of Western provinces saying that they felt left behind.
00:08:13.640 And I feel like we're feeling a lot of those sentiments right now.
00:08:16.400 So here's Danielle Smith saying what the impact of a cutting off the energy supply would be.
00:08:22.460 Take a look.
00:08:23.260 Well, they will have a national unity crisis on their hands at the same time as having a crisis with our U.S. trade partners.
00:08:31.120 We just won't stand for that.
00:08:33.020 And I don't think Ontarians in Quebec should stand for that as well.
00:08:35.660 They shouldn't be standing by and listening while a federal minister talks about cutting off their energy supply.
00:08:42.880 That's just not on.
00:08:44.260 That makes no sense.
00:08:45.160 It's interesting seeing this clip as we're in the midst, as you mentioned, of a liberal leadership race.
00:08:49.560 How much more difficult, if the federal government chooses to go ahead with this, how much more difficult would that make the task of the next liberal leader and prime minister at a point when Alberta specifically and other Western provinces, but I think Alberta at the helm of that, feels so frustrated with Ottawa.
00:09:08.400 Yeah, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford has touched on this briefly.
00:09:13.020 Obviously, he's the chair of the Council of the Federation, informally known as Canada's premiers.
00:09:17.520 And he said, look, we know this leadership race is going on, which is a huge distraction for the prime minister and all liberal MPs.
00:09:25.000 But the number one focus of Trudeau needs to be on these tariffs.
00:09:29.320 This is the biggest threat to our country right now.
00:09:32.260 The leadership election is kind of just some distraction.
00:09:34.980 Yeah, it's funny.
00:09:39.780 Harper, in a recent podcast interview, he mentioned something along those lines.
00:09:45.080 He was saying that the new liberal PM, whoever that may be, is going to be in an untenable position wherein they're going to have to support the Liberal Party's platform and say how good it is during the election, evidently.
00:10:01.480 And then only have a few weeks until a federal election takes place where they've just presented themselves as this liberal bastion.
00:10:09.240 But Canadians are done with the Liberal Party and their platform.
00:10:12.420 So he basically said, look, they're going to need a miracle to win.
00:10:16.120 They're in an impossible situation where they're obviously not going to win.
00:10:20.520 You're talking about how everyone's saying this really needs to be Trudeau's focus, even though he is a lame duck prime minister.
00:10:29.000 And yet you reported this week that Justin Rudeau is actually planning on holding his final caucus retreat over Trump's inauguration.
00:10:37.600 So is Justin Rudeau even going to be attending the inauguration?
00:10:41.520 Yeah, so I reached out to the prime minister's office because they're holding this retreat in Quebec the day of Donald Trump's inauguration.
00:10:49.380 So I thought to myself, well, it's very unlikely that Trudeau will be there.
00:10:53.460 I guess there's some small possibility where he could jet away from this retreat quickly to be at the inauguration, though extremely unlikely.
00:11:01.320 So I reached out to the PMO and they didn't get back to me.
00:11:04.160 Of course, we've been talking about Danielle Smith.
00:11:06.340 She is attending the inauguration in person after being personally invited.
00:11:10.520 So I also asked whether Trudeau had even been invited.
00:11:13.280 Some people on X have suggested that he hasn't.
00:11:15.840 But interestingly, also, Conservative leader Pierre Polyèvre, he won't be attending.
00:11:20.800 So I don't know if in the past opposition leaders have attended inaugurations, but he won't be going.
00:11:28.060 But yeah, no, the interesting thing about Trudeau's retreat is he said he's holding this retreat to figure out how to deal with the tariff threats and how to deal with that.
00:11:36.380 But I was thinking to myself, would going to the inauguration and speaking with Trump, which he'd no doubt be able to do at some point, not be the best way to address the tariff threats?
00:11:46.120 Say, hey, man, how can we work this out?
00:11:47.540 I'm seeing you eye to eye, man to man and negotiate right there.
00:11:52.260 I don't know what him being in Quebec with a bunch of his close friends or MPs is going to accomplish.
00:11:58.080 That seems a little bit like they're just trying to, you know, get while the going is good.
00:12:03.800 One last nice big holiday vacation for them that taxpayers will put the bill for, of course.
00:12:10.560 You mentioned former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
00:12:14.200 He has been pretty quiet since he left office.
00:12:17.320 But he did a fulsome interview this week covering some of the trade war and Donald Trump's jokes about making Canada the 51st state in a fulsome interview this week.
00:12:27.960 I think Canadians were, you know, happy and pleased to hear from him.
00:12:31.180 I have a clip that I want to play for you guys where he's talking a little bit about the fault of Justin Trudeau.
00:12:36.420 Take a look.
00:12:37.180 Yeah, look, I have no doubt that there's there's clearly animosity there.
00:12:41.620 And for good reason.
00:12:42.440 I mean, Mr. Trudeau's conduct with Mr. Trump on numerous occasions when they were in office together was was not was not professional.
00:12:52.000 And I can understand why there's some animosity.
00:12:54.720 But look, whether or not we have Mr. Trudeau as our prime minister is is is our choice as Canadians.
00:13:00.160 You know, we don't tell you who to elect as president of the United States.
00:13:03.900 And so as as much as I'm glad to see Mr. Trudeau leaving, this is not Mr. Trump's decision.
00:13:08.600 It's the decision of Canadians ultimately was the decision of Mr. Trudeau's own party.
00:13:12.960 So it's certainly nice to hear from somebody who is, you know, so well reasoned there.
00:13:16.860 I think that's really lost in politics.
00:13:18.860 You hear a lot more inflammatory rhetoric.
00:13:20.580 But what Harper's saying is ultimately very true and wise.
00:13:24.220 He's saying, you know, Justin Trudeau has not helped the situation with Donald Trump.
00:13:28.760 But unlike as we're seeing especially a lot of outlets in the state say Trudeau is not leaving because of Trump.
00:13:35.160 Sure, it was another stressor on an already failing prime minister.
00:13:39.920 But Canadians and ultimately liberals finally, you know, found found the strength, if you want to say.
00:13:48.420 They finally had enough and said that they probably it was mostly fear when they saw the poll numbers for their party.
00:13:53.800 But, you know, they were finally able to tell Trudeau it's over.
00:13:56.660 And he got the boot from that.
00:13:57.980 So ultimately, you know, you listen to this interview with Stephen Harper and you reported on it.
00:14:02.580 Who is he blaming for the trade war that's breaking out?
00:14:06.980 Yeah, no, this was a very interesting interview.
00:14:10.320 Obviously, Harper sat down with Gabriel Groisman for about 30 minutes.
00:14:14.920 So and he said a lot, a lot of things.
00:14:17.460 So when I was writing my article, it was hard to even fit it into one.
00:14:20.620 I could have arguably done three separate articles on the things that Harper mentioned.
00:14:24.380 And that's how many salient things he brought up.
00:14:27.940 But in the short, he essentially broke down all the recent statements by Trump, rebuking a lot of them, but also noting where some had value.
00:14:38.640 So, for example, Harper said, quote, I must admit to being shocked by some of the things he said.
00:14:44.740 I have a real problem with some of the things Donald Trump is saying doesn't sound to me like the pronouncements of somebody who's a friend, a partner and an ally, which is what I've always thought the United States is for our country.
00:14:57.860 And interestingly, Harper positioned himself as the most pro-American prime minister in Canada's history.
00:15:04.100 I don't know how people feel about that necessarily, but I did find that pretty intense of a statement.
00:15:11.200 But where Harper agreed with Trump was, of course, the border crisis, which he called a, quote, enormous problem.
00:15:20.180 He even went on to say that he's actually close friends with Joe Biden, but he criticized his administration's disgraceful.
00:15:28.160 That's what he said.
00:15:29.080 Open border policies.
00:15:30.200 And he even went on to say that, quote, it was a violation of his fundamental duties to the country, those open border policies.
00:15:38.220 But even with the border critique, Harper said that the migrant flow from Canada to the USA is minor compared to that of Mexico and that drugs, crime and guns are really flowing into Canada from the US, not vice versa.
00:15:52.980 And, of course, he went on and discussed the tariffs, as everyone said, that we're selling the US oil at a reduced price.
00:16:00.960 So I don't know what the problem is there.
00:16:05.180 And then he spent a lot of the interview, as you might imagine, criticizing Trudeau for waging war against Canada's resources like mining and energy.
00:16:14.120 And he said that Polyefra will turn that right around, along with Trudeau's overbearing tax regime.
00:16:21.960 So that's interesting.
00:16:24.620 He also said some pretty noteworthy things of Trudeau and left-wing governments in general.
00:16:31.440 He said that when Trudeau first took office, he really presented himself as a centrist prime minister, a centrist government.
00:16:38.980 But Harper said he quickly shifted to the far left and he said, oh, we won't we won't change Harper's policies too much.
00:16:45.460 You know, we'll just shift it a little bit.
00:16:47.040 But then, of course, when when they said they'll only tax the rich a bit and spend a little bit, Trudeau's government has, as you know, spent more than every government before it combined.
00:16:57.860 Because, of course, when Trudeau took office, the national debt was six hundred and sixteen billion dollars.
00:17:02.340 And he has since doubled it to over one point two four trillion.
00:17:07.640 So, yeah, no, Harper said, look, he spent a lot and he's taxed everyone a lot.
00:17:12.440 Another very interesting and salient point that Harper brought up, which I was shocked to hear, was that he said Trudeau, he's like, I shouldn't discredit Trudeau too much.
00:17:25.200 He won three elections, but he only did so because of the media conglomerate behind him, essentially spreading propaganda.
00:17:32.100 That's the word Harper used. 1.00
00:17:33.440 But he said, look, that's not going to work anymore because essentially the legacy media has lost their sway over Canadians, independent media, social media.
00:17:41.460 They have too much power.
00:17:42.340 The legacy media can't in its own win a prime minister in an election as it may have been able to in the past.
00:17:49.780 First, I mean, I could go through this forever, Rachel.
00:17:54.100 There's so many things that he brought up, just a few other things.
00:17:57.240 He really said that all of Trudeau's policies were terrible, bad economy.
00:18:01.420 He said the policies he implemented are anti-Canadian and that the federal government has essentially resulted in a useless public sector, which, as we know, Rachel's like half the jobs in Canada at this point.
00:18:14.640 I mean, it's so bloated.
00:18:16.020 It's insane.
00:18:16.560 And then he actually predicted that Poilèvre will be prime minister by early May.
00:18:22.420 So I don't know how Canadians are going to feel about that.
00:18:24.440 But that's obviously before the latest point the election could take place in October.
00:18:28.800 So interesting to see Harper say that. 0.99
00:18:31.720 And yeah, that pretty much covers the interview in short.
00:18:34.720 As I said, there are so many interesting things that Harper went through in this interview.
00:18:38.440 I suggest anyone listening could give it a listen.
00:18:41.680 You'd enjoy it, I imagine.
00:18:43.260 Well, I don't know if my audience needs to now because we really have all the details on what happened there.
00:18:49.060 So thank you very much for that.
00:18:50.740 Thanks for joining us today, Isaac.
00:18:52.480 That is Isaac Lamoureux, True Norse Alberta correspondent and host, of course, of the Alberta Roundup.
00:18:59.340 Okay, everyone.
00:18:59.960 That's all we have time for today.
00:19:01.680 I hope that you guys have a great week and weekend.
00:19:05.520 I'll be back next week.
00:19:06.920 God bless.
00:19:07.500 God bless.