Candice Malan is joined by Preston Manning to talk about Canada and the future of North America. Before we get to that, Candice talks about an unbelievable story that is breaking overnight and has been uncovered by the internet that exposes one thing, that our government is lying to us. They re taxing Canadians, they re taxing more than ever, taking more and more of our hard earned money away, and they re wasting it on programs that are patently ridiculous and woke, even for this liberal government.
00:07:41.440Just look at some of the things that they are doing.
00:07:44.800Canada's, the most requested right here on the right-hand side, you can see it.
00:07:48.900Canada's feminist international assistance policy.
00:07:53.560i mean is anybody else sick and tired of this stuff this is not how i want to be represented
00:08:00.700this is not how i want people to think about canadians that we're pushing woke intersectional
00:08:06.920feminist nonsense enough is enough we really need to defund this entire department um and i hope
00:08:13.760you'll sign my petition so we can so we can send this message to the elites to the conservatives
00:08:18.680to the liberals whoever's going to be the next prime minister whoever's going to win the next
00:08:22.340election, they need to put this in their sights and just get rid of it. Enough is enough. Just
00:08:28.560pull the plug. Do what Elon Musk is doing. They're creating a perfect model and example for us, and
00:08:34.060we should do the exact same thing. So I want to highlight some of these wonderful sleuths, the
00:08:39.680citizen journalists, the independent journalists on X. So there's one account here called vote
00:08:45.220canada.com and they shared an archive snapshot of the database giving plenty of examples 75
00:08:53.780million dollars for an inclusive economic recovery uh 751 000 for a community approach
00:09:02.560to gender equitable education 7.2 million dollars for those gender reassignment surgeries in the
00:09:08.580philippines another wonderful account here called freedom of goose you got to follow this guy he is
00:09:13.940hilarious. He writes, you dumbasses think you are smart by deleting access to the international
00:09:18.880funds section on Canada.ca. Well, you're not that bright. I got the whole data dump into a
00:09:25.280spreadsheet, be quick and smart next time. And so that account continues to give more information
00:09:32.060of just the kind of things that we have seen. There's a 91% spending increase in international
00:09:38.920assistance between 2021 and 2023. So help me understand why they're doubling their budget
00:09:46.580at a time where Canadians are struggling. Canadians are using the food bank at record
00:09:52.040numbers. Canadians, more and more Canadians, more than half the country is less than $200 away from
00:09:57.340not being able to pay their bills. And we have something like 40% of Canadians are worried that
00:10:03.620if there's an interest rate hike increase, interest rate increase at the banks, they won't be able to
00:10:08.400before their mortgage is anymore, and they might lose their house. And meanwhile, we have our
00:10:12.200foreign aid budget doubling in that exact same time. It makes no sense. I'll continue reading
00:10:17.520here. Ukraine has received the most of any country with $5.8 billion in funds, $5.8 billion
00:10:25.040between 2017 and 2023, $18 billion going to Africa during that same time. Another one of these
00:10:33.420great YouTube, or sorry, X accounts, you should follow, TableSalt13, writes that there has been
00:10:40.620a $10 million contribution for something called Actions Buy-in for Women to Adapt Climate Change
00:10:48.500from Global Affairs Canada, that $44,000 climate fund in Luxembourg. And Ryan Gerritsen, another
00:10:55.300great X account to follow, writes that our government has given Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
00:11:01.340founded by the Gates Foundation, almost a billion dollars. It truly, truly is unbelievable.
00:11:08.460And, you know, you look down at what's happening with Trump in the States and Elon Musk, sorry,
00:11:12.720with President Trump, President Trump and his efforts to basically just get rid of so much
00:11:19.000wasteful spending that's happening in the United States and see and seeing what Elon Musk has come
00:11:23.800up with. Elon Musk has basically recommended that they completely defund USAID. Like he said,
00:11:29.740you know, you're looking for a few worms in a bad apple, and then you open it up and it's all
00:11:34.660worms. There's no apple. It's just all worms. And you have to get rid of all of it. So there's been
00:11:38.860a lot of really funny stories that have been making the rounds. In the US, you know, you had
00:11:44.360$15 million for condoms to the Taliban. This is through USAID. $400,000 to promote atheism in
00:11:53.100Nepal, uh, $47,000 transgender opera to Columbia from the state department, $32,000 LGBTQ comic
00:12:02.940book in Peru, $70,000 for an Irish musical promoting DEI, um, and, uh, not to be outdone
00:12:11.340has $7 million for a BIPOC speaker series in Canada. That was all funded by the Americans.
00:12:18.360no wonder they're getting rid of their program. And, you know, it really is more than enough
00:12:24.980evidence that we need to do the same. Say it one final time, head on over to my website,
00:12:28.920CandiceMalcolm.com, sign that petition, help me send the message that we need to defund foreign
00:12:34.000aid in our country. Okay, I want to show one clip before I get to Preston Manning. And this is of
00:12:40.140Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau was speaking at a Black History Month reception in Ottawa,
00:12:45.500And things got a little weird. This is this is Justin Trudeau, I guess, letting his hair down in his last few days of work as prime minister of this country. And let's play that clip.
00:12:55.980One of the things that comes with knowing that you're on a countdown clock to your last day means you get to be really ruthless about the things you want to do and the things that you don't want to do.
00:13:11.240so there it is folks i guess be prepared uh trudeau is going to get ruthless i wonder what
00:13:20.460uh he thinks the last nine years have been like now i guess he's going to show us what he really
00:13:25.060believes what he really wants to do uh probably won't be defunding foreign aid but that's okay
00:13:29.640because he'll be gone soon enough and hopefully the next government uh will listen okay let's get
00:13:35.020to the big interview i recorded this earlier uh with preston manning um and for those of you who
00:13:40.640don't know, Preston Manning is the founder and leader of the Reform Party, which was active in
00:13:45.860Canada from 1987 to 2000. He represented the constituency of Calgary Southwest in the House
00:13:51.960of Commons from 1993 until 2002. He served as the leader of the opposition from 1997 to 2000,
00:14:00.500and then he founded the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education. He's really just an
00:14:06.900absolutely incredible leader in Canada. We have so much that we can learn from him. And even,
00:14:11.860you know, in his retirement, he's still active in government. He recently chaired
00:14:15.500the review of Alberta's COVID-19 response and the National Citizens Inquiry. Did an incredible job.
00:14:22.720We get to all of it. This is really a wonderful interview. We talk about North America, about
00:14:27.140Trump. We talk about energy security and national security, the things that Canada needs to do if
00:14:32.300we're a serious country, if we wanted to take seriously our sovereignty and our independence,
00:14:37.640these are the things we need to do. And then later in the interview, we talk about the COVID
00:14:42.320response, how it diminished trust in institutions, and what Preston thinks that Canadians can do
00:14:47.620to fight back and to restore faith in our institutions. It's a great interview,
00:14:51.580and it was really my pleasure to conduct it. So without further delay,
00:14:55.840I will show you this interview now with myself and Preston Menn.
00:15:02.300Preston, thank you so much for joining the podcast.
00:15:07.620It's great to see you and really looking forward to this conversation.
00:15:11.280So first of all, let's start with Donald Trump and the tariffs that he threatened and then reversed.
00:15:17.700So, you know, right off the top, what is your takeaway on all of this?
00:15:21.300Well, I think it's necessary to go back to square one.
00:15:25.460And what was the first instance in which he even mentioned tariffs on Canada and Mexico?
00:15:33.160This goes back to November 2019 when he was president the first time.
00:15:39.260And he mentioned tariffs as a threat to try to get Canada and Mexico to be serious about stopping the illegal movement of people and drugs across the border into the United States,
00:15:54.980from canada and mexico that was what the threat was linked to so it seems to me the starting point
00:16:02.340and premier smith has made this point over and over again would be to tighten up the border and
00:16:08.660stop illegal movement of drugs and people across that border from canada or anything connected
00:16:15.060with it and if the prime minister and the premiers are getting together the first thing on their
00:16:20.100agenda should not be talking about tariffs it should be talk here's what we are going to do
00:16:26.180here's what we are doing to stop that illegal movement of of drugs and people and i think this
00:16:34.580business of getting off onto the tariff thing when when the it was the illegal movement of drugs and
00:16:39.780people that was the thing that triggered this is a big mistake well certainly and i mean we saw
00:16:46.180everybody jump into action. So going back to last Saturday, when Trump came out and said, yes,
00:16:51.880it's going to be a 25% tariff, 10% on energy, which I think you can credit that to Danielle
00:16:57.420Smith and the advocacy diplomacy that she did, that oil was only going to be 10%, everything
00:17:04.020else was 25%. Trudeau instantly jumped in and said that they were going to retaliate with our own
00:17:09.28025%. Now, luckily, we avoided all that, or at least for now, because Trump did just say that
00:17:13.920it's a 30-day pause, and that we'll be revisiting it in March. By then, I think we'll have a new
00:17:20.260Prime Minister, Preston. But I want to point to your essay that you wrote in the National Post
00:17:26.440on January 30th, where you said Canada's response to Trump needs common sense, not mindless hysterics.
00:17:33.280So I think you said that the political and media establishment got off on the wrong foot
00:17:39.580by responding foolishly rather than sensibly now I just want to read a
00:17:44.020little bit from this because I think you make such a good point here that is not
00:17:47.200being made elsewhere you wrote that Trump is a businessman and a dealmaker
00:17:51.280common sense further suggests bringing a positive response to an item which
00:17:56.140clearly is on Trump's agenda which also happens to be very much in Canada's
00:18:00.500interest energy security this is a subject dear to Trump's heart referenced
00:18:05.320his inaugural address and a front on which canada can lead with its strengths not its fears and
00:18:11.480then you go on to say um thus surely common sense suggests that the most important component of
00:18:16.600canada's response to trump to the trump administration should be making north america
00:18:21.080more self-sufficient especially with respect to energy i didn't hear very many people making this
00:18:26.840case in this point um but it's it's so obvious that canada and the united states need to be
00:18:32.280energy secure so why don't you elaborate on that a little more and yes from Canada's standpoint
00:18:37.280what is the one front on which we are stronger and bigger than the United States it's not
00:18:43.860population that we they got a bigger population than us it's not financial resources they got
00:18:49.320more financial resources than us it's not we don't have the smartest government that's certainly the
00:18:54.000case but what we do have because we're the second largest nation on the face of the earth area wise
00:19:01.820We have the largest or second largest stock of natural resources.
00:19:10.280And it seems to me the second item on any agenda in dealing with the United States after cleaning up this border question is to say,
00:19:20.000what can we do to make North America more sufficient, self-sufficient, which is what Trump has talked about, and particularly self-sufficient in energy.
00:19:31.120And that's an area where we lead with our strengths, not our weaknesses.
00:19:36.880Ontario, Quebec and BC particularly have a capacity to export much more electricity to the United States.
00:19:44.720Alberta and Saskatchewan, of course, have the petroleum resources.
00:19:49.040Ultimately, no matter what Trump says, North America will not be self-sufficient in petroleum without the exploitation of the Athabasca oil sands.
00:19:58.640So that's our strength. And so it seems to me if we're developing an agenda for talking to Trump, and you notice in his interviews, he uses the word deal about every five minutes. Let's make a deal. Let's make a deal on Gaza. Let's make a deal in the Ukraine. Let's make a deal. He's a deal maker.
00:20:18.620So our second item, if we want to lead with our strengths, seems to me to be on this area of energy self-sufficiency in which Canada's got a great deal to offer.
00:20:31.040Let's talk about how to make this continent energy self-sufficient.
00:20:34.540This is getting, I'm showing my age on this, but the first time I heard the phrase continental energy security was from J. Howard Pugh with the Sun Oil Company back in the early 1960s.
00:20:49.280Pugh developed that first oil sands plant in Fort McMurray.
00:21:33.240was going to go let the Texan boys go and find the conventional oil. He was going to go find the
00:21:38.120unconventional oil and develop it. So this is a subject that's been around for a long, long time
00:21:44.280and it seems to me it's very much in Trump's mind and it's something that Canada should cater to.
00:21:49.400It ought to be the second item on our agenda in talking with them.
00:21:52.520Well, I agree that the most important issue is immigration and cleaning up the drugs. I know
00:21:58.280I know that Pierre Polyev has tried to hit that straight on with declaring that he would impose life sentences upon fentanyl dealers and kingpins in the drug war.
00:22:09.660But when it comes to energy security, Preston, I want to ask you, because if it was an easy solution, I think we would have done it already.
00:22:15.880Obviously, Justin Trudeau's priority and agenda was towards the environment and making sure that everything was green.
00:22:22.860But it's led to a point where Canada now imports oil from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria that were not energy sufficient, even in our own country, let alone as a continent.
00:22:34.100So what like how can we how can we fix this and how can we actually make it so that we don't have to import oil?
00:22:39.900Well, first of all, we have to permit and encourage pipeline development in this country to be able to get Western resources to eastern Canada.
00:22:48.740This has been stalled or objected to or obstructed by the Trudeau government and by the Quebec
00:22:57.780government, so getting the movement of petroleum in our own country would be an item I think that
00:23:04.500you're referring to. The other point is that the last people to make these arguments in Washington
00:23:12.420are the Trudeau gang. Trump thinks of Trudeau as a weak, narcissistic, lame duck leader. He's got no
00:23:23.700credibility there. Freeland is, in Trump's view, if he gave any thought to it, is the Canadian
00:23:30.740equivalent of Kamala Harris. Jolie, as a foreign minister, is considered a joke by our own
00:23:39.140foreign affairs people, let alone the Americans. Guibault is considered to be a climate change
00:23:47.220fanatic. These are people that ought to be sent on a cruise to Antarctica for the next six months,
00:23:55.540and don't let them get anywhere near Washington. This gets back to your point. There needs to be
00:24:02.660a change of government and get a government that is going to be credible with the Canadian people
00:24:09.560in dealing with Trump. And the sooner that can happen, the better. But even since all of this
00:24:15.280news came out and we sort of saw a newfound approach, like it seemed like all the parties
00:24:19.000suddenly wanted to break down into provincial trade barriers and everybody was suddenly all
00:24:23.540in favor of trying to figure out pipelines. Even in that scenario, the Quebec premier still came
00:24:29.280out and said no to Energy East Pipeline. So how do we get something like that approved when you
00:24:35.180have some sort of veto power by interests in Quebec? Well, I guess maybe the first place is
00:24:42.040to appeal to Quebec's own interests. Is Quebec interested in exporting more power to the United
00:24:48.920States as part of the continental energy security? If it wants cooperation from the federal government
00:24:54.320of the rest of the country with respect to that, then it's going to have to cooperate with respect
00:24:58.100movement of petroleum. The worry in Quebec is that that government is in a lot of trouble too.
00:25:05.600If there's an election, provincial election next year, you're liable to get a separatist
00:25:11.380government elected in Quebec, which is even more opposed to pipeline development. So that's going
00:25:16.760to be a real internal problem for Canada and the next government, no matter who it is.
00:25:23.140Further to this idea about resource development, it was interesting, Steve Bannon, who is
00:25:27.500used to be a close advisor to Donald Trump. He was on with global news. I want to play part of
00:25:33.640this clip because so Steve Bann, I'll set it up. He's a US media executive, political strategist,
00:25:39.760former chief strategist for Donald Trump. And he said that Canada and the Arctic has been thrust
00:25:46.760into the center of a geopolitical war between Russia, China and the United States. And so like,
00:25:52.460whether we like it or not, Canada is the center of that. And, you know, we may choose to say we
00:25:58.240don't want to align ourselves with America. But the reality is, if we don't, you know, you have
00:26:03.000China and Russia knocking at the door. So let's let's play this clip. It's a bit longer. It's 45
00:26:07.820seconds. But here he is explaining why Canada is so important. China and Russia, the great powers
00:26:15.560and the United States fighting it out over the Arctic with the vast resources of the Arctic is
00:26:22.220going to be the new great game of the 21st century canada you are thrust into the middle of that and
00:26:27.020quite frankly you are the greatest i don't know if target or prize you're you're like asking you
00:26:33.420you're the great prize of that that is that as you awaken and the geo economically he's saying hey
00:26:39.100the united states market's so lucrative you're going to have to pay a premium to get through
00:26:43.180the golden door right canada could be all part of that the geo economics of the of north america
00:26:50.220combined in the geostrategic interest of north america combined and particularly hemispheric
00:26:54.860defense all the way from argentina and brazil under bolsonaro all the way up to the canadian
00:27:00.220arctic is what the first half of the 21st century is going to be about now i think it's interesting
00:27:06.780because he's talking about it strategically he's being a realist he's not saying that he's not
00:27:11.740trolling he's not saying like oh we're going to take canada because we want it to be the 51st day
00:27:16.220He's saying whether we like it or not, this is the future. This is what the 21st century
00:27:20.460will be about. What's your take on that?
00:27:24.780Well, I think he makes a very good point. In fact, I think it's been made even more strongly by
00:27:30.700Mike Waltz, who's Trump's current national security advisor, that the Canadian Arctic,
00:27:40.140there's other interests. There's the Russian interests and the Chinese interests in that
00:27:44.460area and so canada's going to have to sharpen up its defense and its development of the arctic
00:27:49.500another area that's been completely neglected by the by the trudeau government so if we're
00:27:55.260developing an agenda for talking to the united states now we got to tighten up the borders number
00:28:00.780one we got the continental energy security and what we can contribute to it number two and number
00:28:08.140three what are we going to do to beef up our defenses of the canadian arctic i had author
00:28:13.980and sort of controversial thinker diane francis on the podcast a couple weeks ago now a decade
00:28:19.340ago she wrote a book called the merger of the century and how it was a business proposition
00:28:23.500that canada could potentially join in with the united states and what one of the things that she
00:28:28.220pointed out to me was that canada has failed to develop the north like we don't have seaports we
00:28:33.180don't even really have roads up there and if you look at the development of alaska and compare it
00:28:38.140to yukon northwest territories or none of it i mean it's just starkly different the americans
00:28:43.500have the ability to build and they focus on that and they prioritized it i'm not even talking about
00:28:47.820military i'm talking about even just communities that we don't really have a lot up there there's
00:28:52.300not really much that has been built let alone um seaports up there i i wonder like why why do you
00:28:58.060think that is uh what can canada do to to show that we do have serious sovereignty up there and
00:29:04.700maybe talk a little bit about canada's military because i know we i think it's it's the goal is
00:29:09.980supposed to be 2% of GDP to meet our NATO targets. I think Canada barely spends 1.2% of our GDP.
00:29:16.620Like our military is not a serious force and with all due respect to the men and women who
00:29:22.380serve and who wear the uniform. I think everyone admits that our military has become a little bit
00:29:28.220of a joke in recent years. Well that's a huge subject but your first point about there's a need
00:29:35.820to develop infrastructure into the Arctic, into the Northwest Territories and into the Yukon
00:29:46.220Territory. Incidentally, the province has done more of that than the federal government has been
00:29:51.100Alberta. The one big road between Yellowknife and the rest of Canada is from Alberta. It's 600 miles
00:30:00.300from Yellowknife to Edmonton, it's 3,000 miles from Yellowknife to Ottawa. I think the province
00:30:06.380has got a lot more to do with developing that infrastructure, but that ought to be a priority.
00:30:12.300And then the second point you make is very valid, that the Canadian
00:30:17.980military has been neglected, particularly by the Trudeau administration, so the next
00:30:22.780administration is going to have to beef that up. I think one lesson from the Second World War,
00:30:27.020while Canada contributed directly in terms of soldiers and equipment, its biggest contribution
00:30:35.900was basically made by C.D. Howe in organizing defense production. Canada produced a lot of
00:30:44.380the equipment and the background materials that were needed by the Allies in order to conduct
00:30:50.460activities in the second world war and whether particularly nato would accept if if canada's
00:30:58.540contribution to nato included the direct contributions that they're talking about a
00:31:03.000percentage of the defense budget but also what can canada contribute in that defense production
00:31:09.500so supporting its allies with other with equipment and things like that will that be counted as a two
00:31:15.380percent that's where canada had a strength in the second world war and could be that could be
00:31:20.320repeated. You need someone like C.D. Howe, though, to do that. And there's nobody like that in the
00:31:25.460current Liberal government at all. Well, yeah, I mean, Canada does need to focus more on building
00:31:31.600up its manufacturing base in general. I think that's something that we can take away from these
00:31:35.940trade threats. I want to go back to this Steve Bannon interview in the Global News report on it.
00:31:41.640So I'm going to show what that looked like. Their headline says Trump's plan for hemispheric
00:31:45.400control, Steve Bannon, on why tariffs may only be the start. And they show this sort of scary,
00:31:51.420ominous picture of Donald Trump pointing to Canada, and it's labeled as MAGA land. They make
00:31:57.820it seem kind of dark. But then even if you just listen, Preston, to what Steve Bannon said, he
00:32:04.620said Canada's a prize or maybe the target. And he was talking about the golden age of America
00:32:10.440that Trump has promised and said that Canada can be part of it.
00:32:13.160I think this is complete nonsense. I think this is complete nonsense.
00:32:17.320The first time Trump mentioned this, he said, well, Canada should be the 51st state with Wayne
00:32:22.040Gretzky as the governor. It was a joke. It was one of his off-the-cuff jokes.
00:32:29.480It should have been treated as a joke, saying, haha, that is funny. Let's get on to border
00:32:33.560security and energy security, but particularly the central Canadian media, the hysteria in
00:32:41.480the Toronto Star, for example, and central Canadian politicians took this as a serious
00:32:48.580policy of the Trump government. And I think I've blown it way out of proportion. It's a ridiculous
00:32:56.220proposition. For one thing, Trump couldn't get it through the US Congress. There's no way that
00:33:03.540could happen without getting it through the American Congress. You're not going to get that
00:33:07.300through the Congress as it's formed now. Secondly, Trump's got to watch it. He's a populist leader
00:33:15.300who's got a populist base. One of those mistakes populist parties can make, and Western Canada's
00:33:21.140had more experience and knowledge about this than any other part of North America, is if you get
00:33:26.660elected as a populist government and get off the agenda that got you elected by ordinary people,
00:33:33.540You will not be the government very long.
00:33:37.140And there was nothing in Trump's platform about Canada's a 51st state.
00:34:56.800So I don't think that he means that from like a sovereignty perspective, like we're going to take Canada.
00:35:01.700I think he means that Canada can be part of the prosperity, part of the new golden age that Trump wants to build.
00:35:07.360And we can all be part of this fortress North America.
00:35:10.480We just need to get ourself in order, get our house in order, mainly with immigration, drugs.
00:35:18.540That's an interesting point, Candace, but it bothers me.
00:35:22.180why does Canada need to be told by an American president what its future is going to be?
00:35:27.360Why does Canada need some initiative from the United States to restore pride in this country?
00:35:33.280Where's the capacity to do that ourselves?
00:35:36.540And one of my concerns about this whole debate is what it says about the state of Canadian democracy.
00:35:43.880Everything on this agenda we've talked about, beating down internal barriers to trade,
00:35:49.060strengthening the protection against illegal immigration and importation of drugs, energy
00:35:58.740security, all of these things have been advocated by Canadians for years, by Canadian think tanks,
00:36:07.020by Canadian political people, including myself, years and years ago. Why is it that that gets
00:36:14.440nowhere in our democratic institutions. It does not get a reaction from the current government,
00:36:22.760it's on another agenda that 50% of the country thinks is nonsense. Why does it take some
00:36:29.640initiative by an American president to do the things that are self-evidently in our own interest
00:36:34.680and have been advocated by Canadians for years? I think we've got to pull up our own socks,
00:36:41.320restore some pride in their own country, get rid of these anti-Canadian crowd in the universities
00:36:47.800and the schools that trash Canada every opportunity they get. How are you going to get
00:36:53.260pride in the younger people in the country in a future vision? I think we've got to pull up our
00:36:58.560own socks, and we ought not to have to be told to do that by an American president, no matter who he
00:37:06.600Such a good point. And I agree. When the countermeasures were announced, when Justin Trudeau announced the new measures that he was going to take to secure the border, putting more money on, making sure that we have enough people at the border and all this stuff.
00:37:20.380It's like, why did this take 10 years? You know, this should have been happening from the beginning, not at the very, very end of his role.
00:37:27.520Well, that leads me to Justin Trudeau and his decision to resign on January 6th, or at least, Preston, that's what he told us that he was resigning, but he's still around.
00:37:36.140So he didn't actually resign. He just intended to resign.
00:37:38.380He prorogued parliament and now they're holding a liberal leadership race so that a prime minister can be selected by an elite few.
00:37:48.000I mean, I think that the leader has already been selected.
00:37:50.700I think the banks, the World Economic Forum have already given us the next prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney.
00:37:56.260But as someone who's been advocating for democratic reform and who's been frustrated with the Canadian political system for decades, what did you think of Trudeau's move that he pulled here in early 2025?
00:38:09.460Well, it's regrettable because it's crippled the country at the crucial time when it needs strong federal leadership.
00:38:19.740It's just left the country in limbo. You've got a lame duck prime minister, but still purporting to represent the country.
00:38:28.900And I'm sure if you could record some of the internal comments that are being made by some of these premiers with respect to whether Justin Trudeau ought to even be convening these conferences, I think it would be pretty revealing.
00:38:43.460So it's just regrettable that we've got this lame duck situation.
00:38:47.300what should have happened was they should have recalled parliament. The fact that you've got this
00:38:52.660whole crisis situation and the parliament isn't even meeting, they should have recalled parliament,
00:38:58.500the parliament would have moved a non-confidence motion, would be into an election, and that would
00:39:04.340be the process to decide who should be the next leadership of the country. And I know the leaders
00:39:10.420they're putting forward Mark Carney, you can imagine what Trump thinks of him,
00:39:15.780you know, a central banker, an elitist, a snob who has nothing but contempt for the rank and file of
00:39:25.460people that elected Trump or that will elect the next government in Canada. It's a regrettable
00:39:31.140situation and the sooner we can get to an election and get a new government, the better.
00:39:36.900So do you think that the Governor General should have said no to Justin Trudeau's request?
00:39:40.980Should she have said we're not going to throw?
00:39:43.220That should have been done. There's actually a precedent for that occurring in the British
00:39:49.780Parliament and that would have moved things along further. But of course the Governor General's
00:39:55.700Trudeau appointment with loyalties to Trudeau and just did what he said.
00:40:01.540Well, it's really unbelievable that we don't have a say. What about there's a,
00:40:05.940i don't know if it's a conspiracy theory because i think it's legal and it could happen but there's
00:40:09.700a theory going around online that there won't be an election in 2025 that there's a that the
00:40:15.940there's an act an elections canada act that says an election should happen every four years
00:40:19.780but it's not in the constitution the the law can be changed it can be amended that potentially
00:40:24.340whoever leads the liberal party presumably mark carney could strike another deal with ndp leader
00:40:28.900Jagmeet Singh to prolong their time in power, blow past that October 2025 election date,
00:40:35.620and possibly not have an election for another 18 months. What do you think of that?
00:40:39.700Well, I think if they resorted to that, it would be a desperation measure which would
00:40:46.660almost ensure that they're replaced in that election. And I would think members of parliament,
00:40:52.420particularly NDP and Liberal members that would think twice about getting part of that kind of
00:40:58.840an operation, they might be guaranteeing the loss of their own seat. I think they might be losing
00:41:04.720their own seat anyway. I think Canadians are so frustrated at Jagmeet Singh in particular for
00:41:08.860propping up this government for so long that he's going to lose his seat. So why would he trigger an
00:41:13.440election if it just means that he's going to basically get fired? I mean, I think that that's
00:41:17.140That's the concern that these people…
00:41:19.020But again, you can look at the composition of that current department, 153 Liberals,
00:41:23.940120 Conservatives, 33 Bloc members, three Independents.
00:41:31.060The Bloc members and the Independents voting together in a confidence motion would still
00:41:36.420defeat the government. It's not entirely dependent on Singh, but it's a big mess.
00:41:42.980Yes. What about this story, Preston? We learned at the end of January that Justin Trudeau is going
00:41:50.640to fill the Senate vacancies before retiring. So he's planning a final wave of appointments to
00:41:56.840fill the 10 empty seats in the Senate. The move will allow him to mark on Parliament for years
00:42:02.820to come with unelected legislatures. I know you've been a critic or at least someone who has advocated
00:42:08.740for reform when it comes to Canada's upper house, upper chamber. What do you think of this move by
00:42:14.980Trudeau? That would be regrettable too because that cripples the federal parliament even further.
00:42:21.220In the end of the day, the House of Commons would have the whip hand over the Senate.
00:42:25.300The Senate could block legislation from the House of Commons and the House of Commons could pass it
00:42:29.380again. The Senate can block that, the House of Commons can pass it again. The House of Commons
00:42:34.180in the end of the day can't have the whip hand. And if the Senate blocked a piece of legislation
00:42:39.940three times or four times, unelected people, appointed by a discredited prime minister,
00:42:46.180that would make life intolerable. I wouldn't want to be one of those senators. But again,
00:42:51.780it's a shame that it has to come to that kind of a conflict at a time when the federal
00:42:57.380parliament should be united in getting down to business. Well, especially when we face
00:43:01.700a situation where we have an unelected Governor General, soon we're going to have an unelected
00:43:07.060Prime Minister, and we have a new onslaught of unelected legislatures put into the Senate.
00:43:13.300I mean, no wonder Canadians are losing faith in these institutions.
00:43:16.900Yes, and as I come back to, our democratic institutions need to be
00:43:23.060be strengthened and this current crisis indicates the weakness of those institutions and the fact
00:43:32.520that it takes some action by an American president to get us dealing with items which our own
00:43:38.040democratic process should have brought to the top of the agenda and got action on.
00:43:43.340I want to move on and talk about the Alberta COVID response report. Before we do, I just want
00:43:48.260to ask you because we haven't really talked about it, but Daniel Smith, I think, has just
00:43:52.400been doing a tremendous job advocating for Canada. I heard Ezra Levant, he was on Rachel Parker's
00:43:57.860show the other day here on True North, and he was talking about how he met with Danielle in the midst
00:44:02.600of her basically back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings. She rented a hotel room right in
00:44:08.220Washington, had a conference room, and apparently her staff had, you know, minute-by-minute interview,
00:44:14.220interview, meeting with different officials, lawmakers, Republican insiders, Republican
00:44:18.380staffers it sounded incredible i mean just such hard work the fact that trudeau and no one from
00:44:23.380the federal government was doing that and it fell on a provincial premier uh is remarkable in and of
00:44:28.980itself um but i i wonder what what do you uh what do you think of the job that danielle's doing
00:44:34.420um and uh you know you think she's she's hitting the right marks in what oh yes no i i think she's
00:44:39.900been the strongest canadian leader on on the particular points that we should be emphasizing
00:44:45.840On the border security, she linked that to the tariff issue the way Trump did on the energy security basis.
00:44:56.840Alberta premiers have often had a good relationship with the Western governors of the United States,
00:45:02.840who tend to think a lot like we do, and she's been active on that front.
00:45:07.840So I think she's done a commendable job, and this is a job she never asked for.
00:45:12.840for. The provincial premier didn't ask to have to get involved internationally with the United
00:45:19.340States in this way. She never asked for it. But there's a vacuum. This is not being done by the
00:45:24.220current leader. Our current federal leader is discredited. And so I think she's doing an
00:45:28.800excellent job. And people should support her. And some of these other premiers ought to support her.
00:45:34.100She's providing more leadership than Tudor. And that is self-evident to them at these meetings.
00:45:39.120So I agree with the approach she's taking and believe she should be fully supported.
00:45:44.580Well, it seems like some premiers are coming around.
00:45:46.900When they first initially met with the premiers and Trudeau, they signed a joint statement.
00:45:50.660Danielle said, no, I'm not signing that.
00:46:05.280I want to talk about this report also commissioned by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
00:46:10.100So she I think she's one of the only leaders, political leaders in the world to do this sort of introspective look at what happened during COVID.
00:46:19.840So the Alberta COVID report was commissioned by Smith in 2022 with a mandate to explore the province's response to COVID.
00:46:27.600The task force included prominent medical professionals, including doctors Gary Davidson, Jay Bhattacharya, who's been appointed into the Trump administration now, and Biriam Brittle.
00:46:37.520The final report recommends the provincial government stop providing vaccines for healthy children and teenagers.
00:46:44.620The report revealed evidence to suggest it was not effective.
00:46:47.860For example, it highlighted that the original Pfizer vaccines did not prevent death compared to the placebo in their clinical trials in any group.
00:46:56.960Further, the report alleged that Alberta Health Services
00:46:59.640removed a dashboard after it showed higher hospitalization rates
00:47:03.920among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated.
00:47:07.420It also said there's a lack of reliable data
00:47:09.340that COVID-19 vaccines protect children from severe cases of COVID.
00:47:13.920The task force that published the research said
00:47:16.520that vaccines were not designed to stop transmission.