Juno News - January 22, 2025


Ditch Mexico and Deal Directly with America (with JJ McCullough)


Episode Stats

Length

59 minutes

Words per Minute

205.18726

Word Count

12,207

Sentence Count

517


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and welcome to the Candice Malcolm Show. We have a great show
00:00:11.840 for you today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to like this video, subscribe to
00:00:15.980 the channel. If you're listening to the podcast and you enjoy it, please consider leaving us a
00:00:19.680 five-star review. And don't forget to head on over to our website, tnc.news, where you can sign up
00:00:24.680 for a newsletter and never miss a story. Okay, we've got a lot to talk about. We're going to
00:00:29.080 continue on with the discussion of what is happening down in Washington with Trump's
00:00:34.080 inauguration, the sort of big news coming out, the executive orders are still coming in fast and
00:00:38.700 furious, and we'll give you the latest on the Canada-U.S. trade tariff discussions. Before we
00:00:45.880 get into it, I want to welcome a guest that we have on the program today, my friend JJ McCullough. JJ is
00:00:51.540 a Canadian commentator, and he hosts one of the largest YouTube channels in the country focusing
00:00:56.760 on politics and culture. He also publishes his own sub stack, JJ McCullough's short stack. So go
00:01:02.360 check that out and don't forget to subscribe to him as well. JJ, welcome to the show. Thanks for
00:01:06.940 joining us. Thanks for having me. Okay, so let's get right into it. So it seems that Danielle Smith
00:01:12.620 was the only Canadian representative that was really visible at the inauguration. I didn't really
00:01:19.340 see anyone from Team Trudeau down there. And because she was there, because she was making the case to
00:01:25.880 not have the tariffs and oppose the idea of Canada having countervailing tariffs. We heard a lot of
00:01:31.580 people kind of accusing her of putting Alberta before the rest of the country, being selfish.
00:01:37.460 Some people going so far as calling her an appeaser or a traitor or talking about treason. We talked
00:01:43.140 about that yesterday on the show. So just before we get into what's happening today, JJ, what is your
00:01:48.700 take on sort of Danielle Smith, the diplomat, going down to Washington to try to try to calm Trump down?
00:01:55.880 Yeah, well, I mean, well, I think that you're right, that that was sort of how she was characterized on
00:01:59.860 sort of the broad sort of left side of the Canadian commentariat. On the right end, it was
00:02:05.400 the complete opposite story. You know, I think that she's been portrayed as quite a hero, right? A lot
00:02:09.760 of I saw, you know, people saying things to the effect of like, you know, Danielle Smith saved the
00:02:14.400 Canadian economy, right? Like that, the fact that there were not tariffs on day one, as Trump had often
00:02:19.400 loudly promised, you know, some people have been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt,
00:02:24.520 as far as that goes, that her sort of one woman diplomacy, you know, maybe softened him up a
00:02:29.740 little bit. I mean, we know that the president has sort of suggested that maybe it will be happening
00:02:34.660 on February 1. So I mean, if she bought us some time, I guess that's better than nothing. But you
00:02:40.420 know, I think it does sort of show, though, that one thing that we know about Trump and the Trump
00:02:45.060 administration is that, you know, it is it is ideological, it is sympathetic to conservative
00:02:49.560 people, it's sympathetic to people that can speak the conservative language. And I think that
00:02:53.360 that is a case for why, you know, people are rational to assume that Pierre Polyev could have
00:02:59.440 a better relationship with this particular president and this particular administration,
00:03:02.880 then, you know, people that I think the Trump inner circle increasingly identifies as being sort
00:03:09.120 of contiguous with the American left, which is to sort of say people from the sort of the Trudeau
00:03:13.540 orbit. Well, you remember when Justin Trudeau was first elected, it was a very tail end of
00:03:18.920 Barack Obama, and they kind of painted them as these two kind of similar politicians coming from
00:03:24.440 the same sort of place in the ideological spectrum. And they had this great relationship. And then Trump
00:03:29.680 came in. It's interesting that you mentioned all that, because Danielle Smith was talking to
00:03:33.440 reporters yesterday, and she talked about how Canadians have to be non ideological when they are
00:03:39.440 down dealing in Washington, it doesn't matter if it's a Republican, or a Democrat, you have to get
00:03:44.240 along. And, you know, I think back to Harper and how he had to work alongside Barack Obama, you know,
00:03:49.340 they were on opposite ends of the spectrum. You know, you had Trudeau and Trump really struggling
00:03:54.080 in their relationship. First, let's let's play this clip of Danielle yesterday.
00:03:58.280 Let's be super clear about why we find ourselves in the situation that we're in today. It lands 100% at
00:04:06.140 the feet of Justin Trudeau, who even just a few weeks ago, gave a speech where he thought it was an
00:04:13.460 affront to women that Kamala Harris didn't win. We're in a trade negotiation with a brand new
00:04:19.560 administration. And we have a prime minister who keeps on poking his finger in the eye of the
00:04:26.660 current administration and has damaged that relationship. So if there's a failure, it lands
00:04:32.020 at his feet, which is why I'm counting down the days to when he's gone, and we can have a reset. It's
00:04:36.780 47 days to go. And I hope he doesn't continue torching the relationship in the meantime.
00:04:41.420 All I can do is is try to repair and build relationships that should have been repaired
00:04:49.640 and built over the last four years. That is what we do by having our office in Washington.
00:04:54.620 We have good relationships with people on both sides of the aisle because that is what diplomacy
00:05:00.920 is. You have to be able to work with both Democrats and Republicans, and you have to refrain
00:05:07.340 from expressing a preference for who you would like in the White House. And so if there's a failure of
00:05:13.220 leadership, and if there's a damage to the relationship, it's 100% at the feet of Justin
00:05:18.500 Trudeau.
00:05:18.900 Two sort of major points that she made there. One, it's 100% Justin Trudeau's fault. This isn't Trump,
00:05:25.620 this is Trudeau that's causing this. And then that second point about how it doesn't matter which
00:05:29.580 political parties in office, you have to be able to deal with both of them. So what's your response
00:05:33.180 to that, JJ?
00:05:34.500 I mean, she's not being very diplomatic within a Canadian domestic context, is it? Sort of saying
00:05:39.940 that I can't wait to see the backside of Justin Trudeau, right? So I mean, like, you know, I get what
00:05:45.060 she's saying, and I think that we can all agree in theory that that is true, you know, in theory,
00:05:49.280 yes, what do they say, politics stops at the water's edge, right? Like when you're in the realm
00:05:53.340 of foreign policy, yeah, you're supposed to put your national interest above your partisan domestic
00:05:57.580 interest. That's all well and good to say. But I do think we are in a bit of a different world these
00:06:02.200 days. I think that, and you saw this in terms of like the international characters that were at
00:06:06.920 Trump's inauguration parties, you know, you have people, you know, representing, you know, sort of the
00:06:11.840 European right, the British right, you know, people are much more comfortable, I think,
00:06:16.800 identifying with their ideological tribe in a global context than they used to be. And I think
00:06:21.960 there are a lot of people, you know, in this country, elsewhere in the world, who identifies
00:06:26.060 being on the political right and see Trump as a sort of sympathetic figure and a figure whose,
00:06:30.620 you know, motives are perhaps, you know, more relatable than even some of the motives of their,
00:06:35.840 of the left wing domestic politicians in their own country. So I do think that, yeah,
00:06:41.340 Danielle Smith can hold herself up as a sort of great diplomat in a kind of, you know,
00:06:45.380 objective sense. But, you know, if we're being honest, if we're engaging in plain talk here,
00:06:49.440 I think it's pretty clear that a conservative Canadian politician will have an easier time
00:06:53.620 making deals with Trump's Washington than the one on the left would.
00:06:58.400 Well, and I think that just given Trudeau's history, so, I mean, even the comments that Danielle
00:07:04.340 alluded to there, that he said that it was disappointing for all women and for the feminist
00:07:08.720 movements, something along those lines that Kamala Harris wasn't elected. Like, I find that
00:07:13.940 insulting to women. I mean, the idea that we would vote for a candidate who is wildly unprepared and
00:07:20.720 like very, not very bright, like not, not showing good leadership, but just because she's a woman,
00:07:25.660 we have to vote for her. And if we don't, it's because we hate, we're like deeply misogynistic or
00:07:29.680 something like that. Like that, that first of all, it's none of Justin Trudeau's business and he
00:07:33.340 shouldn't be talking like editorializing about a U S election when he's the one that has to deal
00:07:38.060 with the incoming president. Um, and second, the point about how women should vote for women and
00:07:41.880 feminist men should vote for women was, was, was just abhorrent. And then you have Chrystia Freeland
00:07:46.620 as well, who, when she was the trade minister during the first NAFTA, which remember the NAFTA trade
00:07:53.140 deals originally went off the rails, like Trump uninvited Canada to it and said, I'm just going to
00:07:58.220 negotiate directly with Mexico because I don't want to put up with the Canadians. And then the Canadians
00:08:02.240 kind of had to plea to get back into it. Um, and Chrystia Freeland was out there. She accepted,
00:08:07.460 I mentioned this on the show the other day, she accepted an award from foreign policy magazine,
00:08:11.340 um, called diplomat of the year. And she went and gave this like speech about how like tyranny and
00:08:17.300 authoritarianism is on the rise. And she made a whole bunch of references to Trump. She had also sat on a
00:08:22.300 very anti-Trump panel in Washington, DC during one of the meetings, one of the trade negotiations,
00:08:27.580 like she, she wasn't trying at all to be diplomatic towards Trump whilst negotiating with him. She was
00:08:33.540 doing everything she could to sort of promote her own brand and her own, her own ideas on the world
00:08:38.400 stage. Uh, Trudeau did the same thing. Like, you know, he's the liberal's last best hope or whatever.
00:08:43.800 Yeah. So I, I mean, I, I think that there's just really something there that, that it, it isn't just
00:08:49.720 that conservatives like getting along with other conservatives. Yeah, that's great. But there's also
00:08:53.800 something uniquely awful about how Trudeau has, has, has undertaken his relationship with Trump
00:09:02.180 from day one. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that kind of goes to what I'm saying though, it's that,
00:09:06.540 you know, Trudeau and the liberal party and the liberal base sort of see themselves as contiguous
00:09:12.780 with, with the American left and with the democratic sort of left. Right. And so that there's a kind of
00:09:17.480 sense that, uh, you know, there's a large sort of constituency in this country on the left, you know,
00:09:22.900 broadly speaking, who want to see, uh, their prime minister engage with Republicans in a kind of
00:09:30.200 partisan kind of American way. Right. So there's kind of a sense that like, you know, people on the
00:09:35.840 left in this country cannot really sort of compartmentalize the idea that like Trump and
00:09:40.560 the Republicans are like a foreign government and represent, you know, uh, a party that Canada has
00:09:46.060 to deal with. There is a kind of sense that we have to engage with them as if they are domestic,
00:09:49.920 uh, Canadian political characters as well. And thus in the same way that Trudeau has to maintain,
00:09:55.460 you know, a strong posture of opposition to Pierre Polyev and the conservative party and so forth in
00:10:00.120 order to appease his base. So too, does he have to maintain something approximating a similar posture
00:10:05.940 to the Republicans in the U S you know, obviously not going quite as far because I think even Trudeau
00:10:11.460 realizes that there's a limit that you can push those kinds of things, but he has to throw bones to
00:10:16.480 his own domestic political base. He has to show that, no, I'm not completely buddy, buddy with
00:10:21.220 Trump. I do understand that he's bad when it comes to women and all this kind of thing. Right.
00:10:25.480 Like that is part of sort of the fusion of the domestic and the international that we all sort
00:10:29.680 of now have to deal with. And, uh, you know, uh, Christia Freeland in her, her, um, her campaign
00:10:36.860 launch video, you know, makes a big deal about this. Like Donald Trump doesn't like me. Right.
00:10:41.080 Which is again, like, is that a message that says anything about her, her competence or her
00:10:46.040 skillset as a prime minister or as a diplomat? Not really. It suggests that that's going to be a
00:10:50.800 source of tension, but that is a message that will be attractive to many liberals who don't like
00:10:55.800 Donald Trump as a kind of partisan figure and sort of view a candidate that is adversarial towards him
00:11:02.120 in just a kind of like purely, you know, aesthetic sense or, or, or, you know, whatever,
00:11:07.280 like that is a, that is a benefit. And I don't know to what extent you can ever fully transcend
00:11:12.200 this because it's not, it's not entirely irrational, right? Like, I mean, people on the
00:11:16.700 right in this country, like I said before, we'll look at Democrats and see them as flawed and bad
00:11:21.620 in all sorts of ways. So it is like, I do have sympathy for the challenge of being able to sort
00:11:26.720 of completely compartmentalize domestic politics from international politics.
00:11:31.400 Well, especially in North America, where our politics, as much as we try to pretend that we have
00:11:35.340 a completely different and distinct political culture. There's so much overlap. We can get to
00:11:40.980 that a little more. I know it's one of our topics to talk about. But when it comes to, well, I, first
00:11:46.300 of all, I didn't understand Chrystia Freeland's pitch. Like even if you were a liberal, it's not 2016
00:11:51.580 anymore, right? Like the whole point isn't just to be the anti-Trump. Like we're actually in a situation
00:11:55.500 where our economy is like completely reliant upon American trade. And if they cut us off, or if they
00:12:01.560 do this 25% tariff, it will be terrible for the country. So sending someone to Washington that
00:12:07.420 doesn't like Trump, I don't get that pitch. I don't understand that. But again, I'm not a Canadian
00:12:13.080 liberal. So maybe that's why I don't understand. Danielle Smith, though, it's kind of interesting
00:12:19.040 because she's sort of stepped up. I mean, when I watch her and when I listen to her, when I read her,
00:12:23.160 completely like my honest opinion, my personal opinion is like she is representing what I want
00:12:29.700 better than any other Canadian politician, including Pierre Polyev. Like she has come out
00:12:33.800 much more stronger. It's interesting because Kevin O'Leary, who's, you know, the investor and
00:12:39.260 businessman who's sort of facilitating the relationship, the friendship between Trump
00:12:43.420 and Danielle Smith, reportedly she was the one that, he was the one that invited Smith down to
00:12:48.100 Mar-a-Lago. He initially said that he wanted Pierre Polyev to come down and meet Donald Trump and go
00:12:54.500 to Mar-a-Lago. I found it of note that Polyev didn't do that. I'm sure it would be a sort of
00:12:59.620 political suicide to be down there, you know, being photographed in Trump's home turf and being
00:13:05.260 seen as inserting himself in there. But I wonder what your thoughts are on Polyev and how he's
00:13:12.200 handling this. He's kind of not getting involved and allowing the premiers to play a bigger role
00:13:16.580 and sort of staying out of it. Yeah, I think that your basic analysis is right. We might remember
00:13:23.540 that when Danielle Smith hosted that big gathering of sort of conservative luminaries in, I think,
00:13:30.820 in Calgary and in Alberta with, you know, Jordan Peterson and Conrad Black and Tucker Carlson and,
00:13:36.400 you know, like there was a lot of conservative politicians there from both the federal and
00:13:39.800 provincial level. But Pierre Polyev was very conspicuously not there. And I think that that
00:13:44.820 sort of says something about his desire to kind of maintain a certain distance from, you know,
00:13:51.440 I guess what we could call the sort of more Trumpy sort of right, which I think Danielle Smith has
00:13:56.100 been associated with. Like, it is interesting that she and Pierre Polyev in general kind of feel like
00:14:01.440 two ships passing in the night. Like, has she done like rallies alongside him? I mean, it doesn't,
00:14:07.100 I don't know, maybe she has, but it certainly doesn't seem like they're people that we think of
00:14:12.260 as being sort of joined at the hip in any sort of meaningful sort of partisan sense. And I think that,
00:14:16.960 you know, Pierre, as much as he is, you know, much more sort of combative sort of figure than
00:14:22.320 some of the previous conservative leaders we've had, you still do see that kind of instinct of
00:14:27.240 caution that always sort of defines conservative national campaigns, you know, the idea that we
00:14:31.620 can play with certain issues, but there's certain lines that we just don't cross. And I think in some
00:14:37.700 ways it actually works to Pierre's advantage to have someone who, you know, is so identifiably a
00:14:43.040 conservative as Danielle Smith to do some of these things that would be more sort of possibly
00:14:48.340 political domestic liabilities for Pierre to do. So, yeah, even if they're not necessarily,
00:14:55.240 you know, joined at the hip, I do think that they, there's a sense in which they're working as an
00:14:59.680 effective tandem team to serve the larger interests of the goal of a conservative victory, which as
00:15:06.920 Danielle Smith said in that clip you just showed, remains very much her big goal.
00:15:11.580 Yeah, and Pierre's just so skillful at it that you don't really notice it, but he is
00:15:15.980 completely cautious. Like, even when he was asked about, you know, the export tariffs and
00:15:21.640 whether there should be any kind of measures blocking Canadian oil, you know, he just pivoted
00:15:26.740 right back to, you know, this is all Trudeau's fault, and look at all these pipelines we could
00:15:29.780 have built, and we could have actually diversified markets. Like, he doesn't engage in the politics
00:15:34.840 of it at all. He just goes right back to the policy, whereas Danielle will be the one saying,
00:15:38.900 I agree with Pierre 100%, but you're right, you don't necessarily see it back. Well, you know,
00:15:43.720 there was a lot of consternation about Danielle Smith and the idea that she didn't want to sign
00:15:49.540 that Premier's, the meeting of the Premier, she didn't want to sign the statement that they all
00:15:55.600 put out together, that she said that cutting off energy should be off the table. Interesting that
00:16:00.760 the Bloc Quebecois leader, Yves-Francois Blanchet, came out basically in support of
00:16:06.500 Danielle Smith. Here's an article from the Canadian Press yesterday. He says that cutting
00:16:11.220 off energy exports to the United States is absurd. And so you don't usually have this alignment,
00:16:18.180 JJ, where you have the, you know, hard right conservatives in Alberta in agreement with the
00:16:23.560 federal Bloc. This is a map that Danielle Smith has talked about, and it's just, it needs to be shown,
00:16:30.320 because if you look at how central Canada gets its oil, it comes from Alberta, but it goes via the
00:16:36.820 United States. You can see line five and line nine cut through Michigan, down to Sarnia and back in.
00:16:43.900 So if you cut off oil to the United States, or even if you put in some kind of a levy, anything,
00:16:51.040 you would be cutting off energy to central Canada. So it is absurd. It is completely absurd on its face,
00:16:56.940 but just interesting to hear sort of more of a traditionally left-wing politician from Quebec in
00:17:02.620 agreement. What's your take on this?
00:17:05.360 Yeah, I mean, that is interesting, because, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, but a lot of Quebec
00:17:10.540 politicians often have quite a demagogic position when it comes to Albertan oil, which, you know, they do
00:17:16.240 often, again, for like domestic Quebec political consumption. It's often sort of a very fashionable
00:17:21.440 thing to rally against, perhaps in the abstract. But, you know, what you're seeing now is that sort
00:17:27.460 of when push comes to shove, a lot of people, you know, on the political left are willing to concede
00:17:32.880 that there are certain economic realities about this continent that you don't really want to
00:17:38.960 fiddle with. Like, we've seen the same thing here in British Columbia, where, you know, some of the
00:17:42.980 First Nations leaders who had previously been opposed to all pipelines and this sort of thing are now
00:17:48.000 abruptly changing their tune, because they're like, well, actually, maybe this stuff actually
00:17:52.020 matters. Maybe, you know, the ensuring the flow of oil and ensuring sort of Canada's energy, you
00:17:58.340 know, livelihood is actually something that matters a great deal. So it is interesting to see sort of
00:18:02.920 people, you know, to put some of their ideological priors aside, and actually, for the first time,
00:18:08.180 kind of think in a kind of self-interested national interest kind of way, instead of just always
00:18:13.440 kind of playing to sort of domestic ideological abstractions. And, you know, that's, that's a
00:18:19.720 good thing, because I do think that as one of the things that's held Canada back, as a as a nation is
00:18:24.980 not being able to think in these kind of like rational self-interested what is good for the
00:18:29.340 country, what is good for the people of this country, what is good for the economy of this
00:18:32.780 country, as opposed to sort of chasing, yeah, again, sort of more ideological flights of fancy,
00:18:37.920 which can seem like the, the privileges of, of a society in which everything is just, you know,
00:18:43.660 stable, and there's never any sort of threat of fundamental disruption.
00:18:47.700 Right. I was just thinking, as you're saying that they're kind of luxury beliefs. And I do think
00:18:50.880 that the sort of like green era that Trudeau sort of became the face of is over. I mean, if you just
00:18:56.400 even look at like, the very first executive order Trump signed yesterday was getting rid of the or
00:19:01.600 exiting the Paris Accord, like, like the Paris Agreement on Climate, that's over, right? That the whole idea
00:19:06.720 that we can, like, tie up different pipelines, because we want to send a message. It's like,
00:19:13.680 you know, there's a cost of living crisis in Canada, like one in four Canadians use a food bank,
00:19:18.900 right? Like, we have total spiraling, when it comes to things like crime. I mean, Canada's in pretty rough
00:19:25.980 shape right now. I don't know how much you're feeling it out there in British Columbia. I mean,
00:19:30.420 in my mind, JJ, I feel like there's always been a certain subset of problems in Vancouver.
00:19:35.940 And rather than fixing those, they've just now spread across the entire country, right?
00:19:40.140 Like, when I was growing up, we had like the Lower East Side of Vancouver, which was just like an
00:19:44.480 ungodly, like, undignified place where people were just treated in the worst possible way imaginable.
00:19:51.220 And it was a little pocket, and you could kind of ignore it. And now you have those little pockets,
00:19:55.780 like in cities and even towns all over the country with like, out of control drug use. And,
00:20:02.480 you know, that when I graduated from university, I couldn't afford an apartment in Vancouver. So I
00:20:07.580 lived with my parents while I had my first job. And the idea of home ownership in Vancouver in the
00:20:12.700 neighborhood that I grew up in was like, totally, I couldn't even fathom it, right? Like, I think the
00:20:17.000 average house in Vancouver, even back then in like the early 2000s was like millions of dollars.
00:20:21.160 And that was like a Vancouver problem. And now it's like, everywhere in the entire country. So
00:20:26.080 like the problems that have been happening in Vancouver, have kind of exploded. But I just I
00:20:32.120 can't imagine that, that the political beliefs, especially the environmentalism is going to
00:20:37.900 continue to lead the charge. And you can see this because the liberal candidates, I don't think any of
00:20:43.880 them are running on a carbon tax. I think they've all flipped like Mark Carney's doing away with it.
00:20:48.660 Christia Freeland said that she's not going to go for it. I think that like the carbon tax is
00:20:53.460 basically done, which is a victory for Canadians, victory for those of us who have said that
00:20:58.500 we don't need another tax in this country. What's your take on all that?
00:21:02.800 Yeah, I mean, I agree that it's like, it's the good policy outcome. It is a little bit
00:21:08.740 of a worrying development, I think, as far as the conservative national campaign goes,
00:21:14.340 though, because Pierre has put a lot of eggs in the axe the tax basket, right? We know that like,
00:21:20.600 all of the branding of the campaign is based around the idea that this is going to be a carbon
00:21:24.460 tax election. And there's, you know, carbon tax Carney and carbon tax Christia. I remember when
00:21:29.480 Christy Clark was running is like the queen of the carbon tax. It's like a very sort of, you know,
00:21:33.540 like one note campaign to date, because I think, you know, Pierre, again, then this gets to sort of the
00:21:39.460 inherent cautiousness of the conservative party, which is there's like, this was like an objectively
00:21:44.300 safe issue to run on. Everyone hated the carbon tax, it was bad on the merits, it wasn't even good
00:21:49.760 as a tool of environmental policy, like no one could be pro carbon tax. And therefore, it was the
00:21:55.360 safest, most focused tested sort of issue to run on. But you're right, like, if we're now in a kind
00:21:59.880 of like new political paradigm, in which sort of not just the carbon tax, but kind of like green
00:22:04.440 policy stuff in general is sort of fallen out of fashion, you know, then the conservatives do need
00:22:10.360 to be kind of nimble and sort of adapt a message as opposed to just kind of saying, well, I don't
00:22:16.020 believe you. I mean, maybe that works as a political message, maybe you can still fight an issue an
00:22:21.180 election over a carbon tax when all the candidates claim to be opposed to it. But, you know, it definitely
00:22:26.640 makes their political game a little bit a little bit harder. I mean, it's not to say that there's no other
00:22:31.120 issues that they could run on, certainly. But, but yeah, there's, you know, it's not entirely good
00:22:36.780 news for the for the CPC. Well, I think that there's multiple like ballot box questions, right?
00:22:42.540 Like, I think that the liberals want to make the election about who can best defend Canadian
00:22:46.840 interests to Donald Trump. And I think that's valid, like that is the most important. I mean,
00:22:52.780 if the tariffs go through, they'll destroy our economy, what's left of it. So having a strong
00:22:57.480 position there is important. The conservatives, it's not just the tax, right? It's cost of living,
00:23:02.460 like the entire system of everything from housing to immigration to like all the taxes. And just the
00:23:10.560 lack of, you know, just not competitive, like we don't have competitive policies, we're driving away
00:23:16.240 entrepreneurs. I had Max and Bernie on the podcast yesterday. And he believes the ballot box question
00:23:22.280 should be about mass deportations and mass immigration. I mean, when I asked him about
00:23:27.720 deportations, he didn't really have an answer about what, like who he would deport and how many
00:23:32.840 and all that kind of stuff. But he did say that he would put a total moratorium on immigration if he
00:23:37.400 was prime minister, which won't happen. But I, you know, it's interesting to imagine which of these
00:23:42.720 three would be the main issue in an election. Because any of them would be a valid question. I think,
00:23:49.300 I think the immigration question specifically, it's flipped, like majority of Canadians now say,
00:23:55.520 we need to stop, we have too many immigrants, and we need to have mass deportations. So what's your
00:24:01.720 thoughts on all that? Yeah, no, I mean, I've witnessed that as well. I mean, I've, this is an
00:24:06.880 issue that I've been writing about for a while, in the sense that I think that, you know, because the
00:24:11.380 line that you always hear is that there was a consensus about immigration in this country. And I very
00:24:16.100 much disagree with that narrative. I don't think there ever really was a consensus. I think
00:24:19.280 you always kind of had like a third of Canadians, who basically wanted immigration to stop a third
00:24:24.080 of Canadians who wanted the immigration rate to freeze. And then you know, a third of Canadians
00:24:27.600 who wanted the immigration system to stay status quo or increase, right. So it's always been a very
00:24:33.020 divisive issue in this country. And I think what's happening now is just that that faction of the pie
00:24:39.340 chart, who are in favor of, you know, ending or like, dramatically limiting immigration or freezing
00:24:45.100 immigration rates, that group is just much more ascendant. And I think that they've gotten a much
00:24:49.260 more sympathetic ear from the press than they used to. And that that opinion, which has so long been
00:24:54.360 sort of stigmatized as being, you know, un-Canadian and bad and all the rest of it, is now something
00:24:58.980 that people talk about openly, read about in the Globe and Mail editorial page, you know, and politicians
00:25:03.660 speak about it openly. Because yeah, there is a sense that, you know, immigration has some
00:25:08.060 responsibility for the cost of living, for the housing crisis, you know, just for the taxing on resources in
00:25:14.140 general, whether that's, you know, the medical system or public transportation or whatever else,
00:25:19.600 right. So there is a kind of a sense where this is a clear opportunity, I think, for a political party
00:25:25.300 that has the courage to capitalize on it. And obviously, you don't have to go full PPC about
00:25:29.860 it and be a real sort of demagogue and zero immigration and this kind of thing. But it seems
00:25:34.400 very obvious to me that there is a moment now where the public and the media and the political class
00:25:40.260 are receptive to the idea of some level of immigration cuts. I mean, we've seen that the
00:25:44.440 Trudeau government itself has introduced immigration cuts and is musing about, you know, deporting people
00:25:49.200 who are overstaying their visas when the time for that comes. So I know that, again, this is an issue
00:25:54.460 that the conservatives are very cautious about, you know, I think that there still is this kind of
00:25:59.680 legacy of Jason Kenney, which I think is not entirely justified, that sort of like the immigrants
00:26:04.200 are now voting for the conservatives, and these are our people, and we can't dare sort of offend them in
00:26:09.060 any possible way, even though I think when you actually poll immigrants, a lot of them have
00:26:12.660 sort of, you know, quote, unquote, surprisingly, sort of adversarial opinions of the immigration
00:26:19.380 system in this country. So it'll be interesting to see if Pierre goes for it, if he seizes this as
00:26:25.540 an issue that he can talk about in any sort of forceful way, as opposed to just, you know,
00:26:30.680 Trudeau has made a mess of things, kind of, you know, sort of deflecting it into a kind of partisan way.
00:26:34.920 But yeah, I agree with you. I think that it certainly deserves to be one of the big three
00:26:39.240 issues that Canadians are voting on in the next, in the next federal election.
00:26:43.920 Well, one of the things I found interesting, just as a juxtaposition with the Americans is,
00:26:48.240 I think Donald Trump did very well among minorities. I don't have the stats in front of me.
00:26:52.460 He did, yes.
00:26:52.760 I think he did really well, especially among sort of like people, Americans that are originally from
00:26:58.000 India, and even among Muslims, which doesn't, you know, that doesn't sound like that would be
00:27:04.740 correct, given Trump's first term in office in the so-called Muslim ban. But I think that a lot of
00:27:10.520 people just vote for him because they agree with his values, and they agree with his sort of strong
00:27:14.520 position on America. But you don't see pandering from Trump to ethnic minorities, you don't see the
00:27:21.820 kind of vote bank politics, you don't see him, you know, showing up and wearing Indian garb or
00:27:27.080 dressing in the, that seems like a distinctly Canadian thing. And it's not just a liberal
00:27:32.400 thing. It's not just Trudeau that does it. You mentioned Jason Kenney. Conservatives do it as well.
00:27:37.460 Do you think that's just like a permanent part of Canadian public life now? Or do you think that
00:27:40.960 there's any chance that we'd get away from that?
00:27:43.400 Well, it's interesting. I mean, Pierre has sort of recently made the quip about how he doesn't want to
00:27:49.720 see sort of hyphenated Canadians that we're all Canadians and this kind of thing. You know,
00:27:53.520 I think that's a line that Diefenbaker used a million years ago. So I mean, I don't know,
00:27:57.540 maybe he's making sort of soft gestures in that direction. But you're right, though, like this is
00:28:01.320 a very entrenched aspect of not just sort of conservative politics, but Canadian politics in
00:28:05.680 general, that like the way that you win immigrant votes is by basically sort of pandering to them on a
00:28:11.680 sort of cultural level. It's like you, you send out the Instagram post that says you, you know,
00:28:16.920 happy whatever holiday to them and this kind of thing. Like, you know, and like you say,
00:28:21.420 you show up at the festivals, you wear the clothing and that kind of stuff. And you know,
00:28:24.940 that is what the Democrats tried as well in the States. And I think that there is an attitude among
00:28:29.400 a lot of immigrant communities that that stuff does become a bit cringe, it does become a bit
00:28:33.700 condescending, it becomes a bit one note, because it sort of suggests that like, no matter how long
00:28:37.720 you've been in this country, you're still sort of fundamentally of that other place and that your
00:28:43.020 mind doesn't resonate with issues of crime and affordability and whatever else.
00:28:47.520 No, you're only care about cultural issues and the immigration system itself. Like those are your
00:28:52.880 two issues. And you know, Trump's victory, I think disproves that thesis in quite dramatic ways,
00:28:59.620 right? Like not only did Trump was sort of not interested in that kind of stuff, he ran a very
00:29:04.100 hard anti-immigration platform, as he always does. And a lot of immigrants are sympathetic to that,
00:29:08.960 because, you know, again, immigrants are people just like you and me. And they can have, you know,
00:29:13.700 sometimes this is deeply hypocritical, but nevertheless, sometimes they can have very harsh
00:29:18.820 attitudes towards other immigrants and a very different standard for their own family. I mean,
00:29:23.440 there's been some stories that suggest that even illegal immigrants were more pro-Trump this time
00:29:28.880 around. And a lot of illegal immigrants, you know, were happy to support him because they don't sort of
00:29:33.420 conceptualize themselves as being part of the bad ones. They think of themselves as being part of the good
00:29:37.880 ones. So yeah, I mean, it's a much more sort of like nuanced issue. And I don't think that the
00:29:44.320 Jason Kenney sort of thesis of it is really being borne out much by new facts that we're seeing.
00:29:51.880 Well, I think Jason was right when he was talking about the fact that conservative values are prevalent
00:29:56.220 in immigration, in immigrant communities. Like talk to them about issues that we care about,
00:30:01.140 like faith and freedom and all these kinds of things, family. And you can connect with them on that.
00:30:06.400 I think that he was correct on that. But when it came to, you know, yeah, some of the more pandering
00:30:12.440 things, that's I think where it's gone off track. And, you know, here we are a decade later,
00:30:16.820 and not much has changed in terms of conservatives still doing that. I want to get back to the news
00:30:22.620 here, JJ, because let's talk about Trump and basically what he's doing with these tariffs. So
00:30:29.000 yesterday, he was signing executive orders. I love how he has the press in there, like in his office
00:30:34.440 while he's working and he's shouting questions. That's just like, I love it. But here he is,
00:30:39.020 he's asked a question about whether the tariff threat against Canada is really just a renegotiation
00:30:44.860 tactic for the USMCA, which is the new NAFTA trade agreement. And Trump says, no, it's all about
00:30:52.260 drugs. It's all about fentanyl and Canada sending millions and millions of people into the country.
00:30:56.980 So let's play that clip. Are you able to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico in an effort to force
00:31:02.740 negotiations sooner on USMCA? No, it's really not on USMCA. It has nothing to do with that.
00:31:11.480 They've allowed both of them, Canada very much so. They've allowed millions and millions of people
00:31:17.860 to come into our country that shouldn't be here. They could have stopped them, and they didn't.
00:31:22.220 And they've killed 300,000 people last year, my opinion, have been destroyed by drugs, by fentanyl.
00:31:31.980 The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive.
00:31:38.840 And people are getting killed and families are being destroyed.
00:31:43.280 So sorry, that wasn't him at his desk. That was him at a press conference later. But the same,
00:31:47.400 he says that Canada's let millions and millions of people. And I'm not sure exactly what he's
00:31:52.700 talking about there or the idea that fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. That's probably
00:31:56.560 true. Let's play this other clip as well, because here he's asked specifically about
00:32:00.580 the percentage of the tariffs. And he says 10% for China, 25% for Mexico. I don't know why China's
00:32:08.860 getting a better deal, getting off easier than we are. I don't know if he misspoke here too,
00:32:13.180 because when he says 25, he actually says Mexico and China. I think he meant Mexico and Canada, but
00:32:17.420 I'll get your thoughts on it. Let's just play this clip first.
00:32:21.280 About that too. We're talking about a tariff of 10% on China based on the fact that they're sending
00:32:26.920 fentanyl to Mexico and Canada.
00:32:29.180 How soon on those tariffs?
00:32:33.380 Probably February 1st is the date we're looking at.
00:32:35.960 For Mexico and China, we're talking about approximately 25%.
00:32:44.200 I don't know if that was a Freudian slip where he was thinking of Canada, but he said China.
00:32:49.640 What are your thoughts on that, JJ?
00:32:52.140 Well, I mean, I have a few sort of thoughts. One of the thoughts, and this is sort of like a
00:32:57.960 contrarian opinion I have that I wish would sort of become a little bit more mainstream,
00:33:01.340 is that I do think some of this is just rooted in what I think was a historic mistake for Canada
00:33:07.000 to tie its sort of diplomatic identity to Mexico in the American mind, right? I don't know if we
00:33:13.740 would necessarily be in this place today if we were not, you know, several decades ago, so determined
00:33:19.480 to make Mexico and Canada sort of linked together as one sort of diplomatic unit in the eyes of the
00:33:26.440 Americans. Because I do think that Trump's sort of negative attitude towards Mexico is being sort of
00:33:32.260 projected on to Canada. And this idea that these are like sort of the two nations on both sides of the
00:33:38.200 U.S. and, you know, they both sort of operate in tandem and the problems of one are the problems of the
00:33:42.800 other. You know, Mexico has a drug problem, therefore Canada has a drug problem. And I think there's even
00:33:47.360 kind of a sense that like when you speak of both of these countries, it sort of protects you a little bit from
00:33:52.160 the prejudice of sort of singling out Mexico. But I do think that this is definitely something that
00:33:57.540 Canadians have to think a lot about going forward is the degree to which we do, I think, need to
00:34:02.540 sever the relationship with Mexico and have a bilateral relationship with the U.S. when it comes
00:34:07.420 to all of these important, you know, questions about the economy and the border and drugs and the
00:34:12.560 migration of people and all that kind of stuff. Because it just seems to me pretty obvious that we are
00:34:16.700 being dramatically held back through our association with Mexico, even if it's just that sort of the
00:34:21.480 rhetorical level that you see Trump lapse into so easily. The other thing I would think of it as
00:34:27.140 well is that it is kind of remarkable how during the Trump's first term, the big sort of panic that
00:34:34.100 people in this country in sort of the commentariat were having was this idea that like, oh, all of
00:34:39.140 these migrants are sort of leaving Trump's America and flowing into Canada, right? Like that was very
00:34:45.180 much the issue that dominated the editorial pages for years. And it's interesting now that like Trump
00:34:50.900 perceives the problem in a completely opposite way. It's that Canadian people are sort of flooding
00:34:55.000 into Canada, which then sort of makes it seem like, you know, it's much more sort of Canada's
00:34:59.680 responsibility to control its flow of people as opposed to the way it was previously, which was
00:35:03.480 that all of the blame was on America for not controlling its flow of people into this country.
00:35:08.240 So that's interesting to the extent that it signals that there is now kind of a bipartisan or not
00:35:13.880 bipartisan sort of transnational consensus that the border is something that matters and that border
00:35:19.600 security is something that matters quite a bit. And I guess that's a positive development. I mean,
00:35:25.960 I feel I have sort of mixed feelings about that just because I do want to see a much sort of more
00:35:30.560 integrated and sort of more seamless sort of passage of people between Canada and the US. I mean,
00:35:37.340 I think the Mexico border is obviously a whole other sort of issue. And I, again, like it goes back to what I was
00:35:43.380 saying before, it's like, I would not like to see the Canadian US border sort of thicken in this dramatic
00:35:51.000 and vindictive way simply to appease Trump's anxieties about the Mexican border, which I think
00:35:57.200 are much more, you know, valid. I completely agree with you. I hadn't, to be honest, I hadn't heard that
00:36:02.680 perspective before about how Canada's tied its ship too much to Mexico. But you're absolutely right.
00:36:08.460 Like I hear, this is what I hear in reaction to the Trump thing from a lot of conservatives and
00:36:13.980 people who I usually agree with and respect, but they basically say, Canada needs to stand on its
00:36:18.740 own two feet. We need to beef up our military. We can't rely on the United States anymore. We need
00:36:23.940 to thicken that border, like kind of some of the things you say there. And I just, I just don't
00:36:28.980 agree with that. I don't think it's a good use of our resources. Like, yes, I think we should get to
00:36:32.840 the 2%. I think that, um, I like I've advocated in the past for some kind of a national service
00:36:38.360 that like young Canadians should go and like work in the military for two years and get some skills
00:36:43.560 and toughen up and have some unity amongst them. Um, and that would help get to the 2%, but that's
00:36:49.540 another conversation. Um, but the idea that, that somehow we need to like build up and become our own
00:36:55.640 superpower, basically to rival the Americans, it's just, it's not going to happen. Right. And so the way
00:37:00.020 that I see it, if you're just being completely realistic and completely honest is imagine 50
00:37:04.360 years from now, or a hundred years from now where China, possibly Russia, possibly Iran are actual
00:37:11.000 adversaries, adversarial like aggressors, and they want the Arctic, they want the North, like they're
00:37:16.560 going to take it. Right. And Canada's only chance for that not happening is an alliance with the
00:37:22.420 United States in some shape or form. And so whether that is Canada becoming the United States, which is
00:37:27.560 now the meme that's floating around and seems to be Trump's preferred statement, or if we just kind
00:37:32.300 of continue the relationship that we had up until like 10 years ago, where we have, we, we, we are in
00:37:39.220 deep agreement about our, our, our borders, that, that, that it's like a continental shield around the
00:37:45.340 North America, not a thick line between Canada and the U S I would much rather have that. And I think
00:37:52.880 you're right that the idea that we use Mexico as, as sort of like a bargaining chip so that we have
00:37:57.860 more equal power with the United States, like we can get a better deal if there, if it's two against
00:38:02.040 one, just given that we're both so much smaller in the United States, uh, doesn't, doesn't actually
00:38:06.240 serve Canada's interest in this moment. Um, what do you, what, what do you think about Canada's like
00:38:11.060 long-term future? Like I, you know, if, if, if, if the, if the question is become a vassal state
00:38:17.240 of China or, or of the United States, I think we would probably both be in agreement that it would
00:38:22.160 be much, much better to be aligned with the United States, but it seems like there's so much resistance
00:38:26.300 to that. Yeah, no, I mean, I agree with everything you, you just said. I mean, and I think that actually
00:38:31.680 the, the, the, the man who's been sort of the most kind of objective and forward thinking about this
00:38:36.580 has been Kevin O'Leary, honestly, like he's the only guy that's like pursuing big ideas for sort
00:38:42.160 of integrating Canada in the U S in a sort of productive way, a way that's, you know, fair
00:38:45.700 and respects Canada's interests and, and, and all the rest of that. But, you know, realizes that this
00:38:51.480 is obviously the inevitable sort of destiny of, of the two countries is closer and closer integration
00:38:56.080 as it always has been. And that, that will be ultimately in the economic interests of both
00:39:00.080 countries. It will help the U S sort of maintain a stronger posture via these other sort of hostile
00:39:05.400 nations, you know, and that's, I think what is the tragedy of this whole sort of situation right
00:39:10.120 now is that I think that Trump is, has, because of some of the provocative things that he said and
00:39:15.940 done, like he is not, I think, valuing how much Canada has to offer to the U S and to what extent
00:39:22.960 that the two of us will be, you know, much, much stronger together. But again, like Trump is also
00:39:28.060 egged on, you know, not explicitly, but, you know, there are obviously tons of anti-American people in
00:39:34.200 this country and tons of people in this country that have always, always, always fantasized about
00:39:39.200 this idea of not needing the U S and sort of cutting the U S away and we'll diversify our trade and we'll
00:39:44.200 have more to do with Europe and China. And like, you've heard these kinds of lines for, for literally
00:39:48.240 centuries in some form or another. And that's also something that bothers me a lot is the degree to
00:39:53.380 which sort of Trump's rhetoric has now kind of like enabled a certain kind of left-wing anti-American
00:39:59.100 in this country that has always hated the U S has always sort of fantasized either about,
00:40:03.920 you know, ditching the U S or in some cases not to be too sort of a right wing about this,
00:40:09.100 but have fantasized about a sort of like more sort of socialistic economy in which sort of the
00:40:13.240 Canadian state dictates all of our economic sort of needs and developments. And we don't need to
00:40:17.960 trade at all because trade is sort of seen as, you know, kind of vulgar and capitalistic in a way
00:40:23.180 that, you know, a completely sort of a state-driven economy is not. So yeah, it's, it's, it's a bad
00:40:28.740 moment. And, but again, like, this is another reason why I just have no faith in, in the Trudeau
00:40:35.000 liberals to deal with this kind of thing, because I think they're not big thinkers. I think they have
00:40:39.200 an American or an anti-American base that needs to be appeased. I think that the idea of like
00:40:43.940 protecting Canadian sovereignty first and foremost, and even when that's against Canadian interests is,
00:40:49.460 I think sort of just the conventional wisdom of, of their, of their scene. So I really do hope that
00:40:54.260 when Pierre gets in and he is talking with Trump, that I hope that like, A, they can think about
00:40:59.040 sort of cutting Mexico out, frankly, and that once that's done, that they can think about what would
00:41:03.640 be a productive 21st century U S Canada bilateral relationship. And I think that's one with much
00:41:09.320 freer exchanging of goods and much freer exchange of, of labor and migration of peoples across the,
00:41:14.380 across the 49th parallel. I do think that that is just so objectively in America's interest,
00:41:18.900 so objectively in Canada's interest. And I just think so objectively, just like the path that our
00:41:24.240 combined histories have been leading us. And so I really hope that we don't blow this moment,
00:41:29.440 because as much as it's a moment of, of stress and tension, it's also a moment of great opportunity,
00:41:33.720 just because people just don't talk about these kinds of things that often, these big ideas of,
00:41:38.660 of what kind of relationship Canada and the U S should have.
00:41:41.820 Yeah. Well, it's funny because I had Diane Francis on my show last week and she wrote a book 12 years ago
00:41:47.680 called merger of the century. And I remember that book came out. I thought it was so interesting
00:41:51.520 and it piqued my interest. And I was like, this is such a fantasy. It would just never happen as much
00:41:55.600 as like, even it would be in Canada's best interest in many ways to have this relationship. It would
00:42:00.400 never happen. And then I, you know, I had her on and it's like, I can't believe it. We're talking about
00:42:03.600 it because it's actually on the table. And it's because of Trump, you mentioned, uh, Justin Trudeau and
00:42:08.800 the sort of knee jerk anti-Americanism. I, I kind of grew up, um, you know, it's interesting because
00:42:15.520 I think when I was a little kid, um, I loved America. Cause it was just like USA, USA. And
00:42:21.200 it was like something like, like I kind of just admired the culture. This is like in the nineties,
00:42:24.800 when America was still like seen as sort of cultural exporter of like all the coolest things.
00:42:30.400 And then it kind of shifted. Like I would say probably after like nine 11 and, you know,
00:42:35.360 Rick Mercer is like talking to Americans, there's like this perception that came out that Americans
00:42:39.280 are dumb and ignorant and uninformed. And there started to be this sense that like Canadian
00:42:45.440 identity is that we're not them, right? Like America, like we're more sophisticated. We're
00:42:50.080 more European or more worldly. We care about each other. We're more sympathetic. Uh, we have our
00:42:54.720 government healthcare or like free healthcare, free university, like women's rights, all this stuff.
00:43:00.800 It's, it's all defined on like left-wing political issues. Um, and I don't like, I don't identify
00:43:07.280 with those at all. Like, I don't think those are good things. I don't think that those are good
00:43:10.080 attributes of Canada. I think that the Canadian identity that I see is different. I want to play
00:43:14.720 this clip. This is Justin Trudeau. Just as recently as two weekends ago, he was on American television
00:43:20.000 making the case, uh, that Canadian identity, he, he, he just, he defines Canadian as being just not American.
00:43:25.760 Uh, let's play that clip.
00:43:27.760 Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. Uh, one of the ways we define ourselves
00:43:32.560 most easily is, well, we're not American. If you talk to any Canadian, you ask them to define
00:43:37.680 what it is to be a Canadian. They'll talk about all sorts of different things. But one of the things
00:43:41.360 we will point out is, and we're not Americans. Like, I know he's trying to do like a charm offense
00:43:47.040 there. He was on with, uh, Jake Tapper on CNN and then Jen Psaki on MSNBC. I, if I were an American,
00:43:52.160 I would be offended by that. Like, wait, you're so proud and so pleased that like the way that you
00:43:56.560 consider yourself is just like, not you guys. Um, I, I know you'll have strong opinions on this,
00:44:01.360 but what do you think of the whole Canada is defined as just not being American thing?
00:44:05.200 Yeah. I mean, I find it offensive and off-putting and I also, but I also find it just like on some
00:44:10.640 level it's, it's not even, uh, sorry, I dropped my headphone. That's fine. On some level, it's not
00:44:16.400 even true though, because it's like Canadians and Americans have always been part of a shared cultural
00:44:21.120 identity. And, you know, on my YouTube channel and all that, I make a big fuss about this. Like I,
00:44:25.520 I try to emphasize the degree to which Canadians and Americans have always been part of a shared
00:44:30.320 cultural continental space. Always. You can go back hundreds and hundreds of years. Like this
00:44:34.800 has always been the case that, you know, Canadians and Americans, you know, we watch the same movies,
00:44:38.880 we listen to the same music, you know, we speak the same way, we have the same vocabulary,
00:44:43.200 like just on any sort of like metrics. And even like, as we were talking about, uh, in the first
00:44:47.040 segment, right? Like, uh, even our politics is just deeply intertwined, like to be left-wing in,
00:44:52.560 in America, to be left-wing in Canada, to be right-wing and vice versa. Like there's far more
00:44:57.280 similarities than differences in terms of just basic philosophy and how we have, uh, how we
00:45:01.680 conceptualize our values and all of this kind of stuff. Right. So to say that like, we're not American,
00:45:08.080 uh, in some level, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's really sort of like
00:45:12.320 overstating things. And it creates this kind of perpetual anxiety on the part of the Canadian
00:45:17.920 people that like, we're kind of failing as a nation, right? Like that, because we can't
00:45:22.960 acknowledge the sort of American realities that define our actual lived culture that we all see
00:45:27.600 and experience every day, we have to have this kind of like constant sort of shame and guilt about
00:45:33.200 it. Like the idea that we're like failing, we're a weak nation, we're a bad nation, you know, that we're
00:45:38.000 not really a real nation and that we don't really have an identity and this kind of thing where it's
00:45:43.120 like, there's other countries in the world where they have a very similar identity to their neighbors.
00:45:47.440 I think of like, say Germany and Austria, right. And they don't have the same kind of anxiety.
00:45:51.760 Like you talk to an Austrian person, it's like, yeah, German culture. Yeah. We're part of German
00:45:55.120 culture. It's fine. Like we speak the German language and you know, we're, we're Austrian, which is,
00:45:59.200 you know, a regional variation of a sort of German identity, you know, like, and then there's, there's,
00:46:04.000 I mean, I even sometimes when I talk to people from Pakistan and India, they say the same sort
00:46:09.280 of thing. It's like, you know, like these identities are, are fundamentally sort of like regional,
00:46:14.000 like you're a regional offshoot of a sort of larger kind of like continental, uh, civilization.
00:46:19.120 And that's fine. Right. We can claim a lot of American culture as our own. We can say that this
00:46:24.000 is our culture. You know, Marvel movies are part of Canadian culture because there are things that
00:46:28.560 Canadians consume, right? There are things that define the Canadian way of life. You know,
00:46:33.360 hot dogs and hamburgers or whatever, like it's Canadian, right? Because it's what we do
00:46:38.000 in this country. It's a descriptivist attitude. And I've always had a descriptivist attitude and
00:46:43.680 a descriptivist philosophy when it comes to culture is you define culture based on what the people of
00:46:48.640 that, uh, community do and value and experience. You do not define culture based on what some people
00:46:55.360 in the capital or elsewhere tell you your identity is. And I feel like that has always been the problem
00:47:01.760 of this country is that we've given too much of our sort of cultural, um, too much of our cultural
00:47:07.440 responsibility to like Ottawa and bureaucrats at the CBC and the CRTC and the national newspapers and
00:47:14.320 Lord knows what else to tell us what being Canadian is instead of allowing ourselves to define it for
00:47:19.840 ourselves and to define it based on the things that we actually like and value. So yeah, this is like a
00:47:25.680 very rich and complex topic. And, uh, and I just think that people on the left and some people on
00:47:31.680 the right in this country just refuse to accept the country that they actually have and are instead
00:47:36.320 constantly fantasizing about a way that they can invent a Canadian identity that will somehow sort of
00:47:41.760 seduce the kind of like poor ignorant middle-class people who are so seduced by, you know, their, uh,
00:47:48.080 their, uh, their, uh, their TV shows and, uh, sneakers and all of this.
00:47:53.520 Yeah. No, it really is like a hobby of the elite and the more elite that you get, like, like as young
00:47:58.880 people go into university and sort of engage with these like elite Canadian institutions, um, the more
00:48:04.240 they want to like say that Canada is, is different and Canada is unique. I, I kind of think of it, JJ,
00:48:12.000 as like if it were a Venn diagram between like Canadian elites or Laurentian elites,
00:48:16.880 like, especially the French speaking, um, Canadian population. Um, and then you had
00:48:21.280 Americans on the other side, the overlap would be Canadians, like the overlap between the elites and,
00:48:27.280 and the Americans. And that's where most, uh, Canadians lie. And yet when I look at polls, JJ,
00:48:32.000 of Canada's like openness to becoming part of the United States, um, joining America, you know,
00:48:38.320 there's been sort of a lot of things floating around. Maybe I'll, I'll, um, use my own example that I
00:48:42.640 posted on X. It caused quite a stir, but I I've heard people saying, you know, if Donald Trump
00:48:47.840 just like called you up on the phone and offered you American citizenship, would you take it?
00:48:52.080 Like, what, what if he offered to like buy out your Canadian pension plan, um, or offered to like
00:48:58.240 trade your savings account, um, from Canadian dollars into American dollars and just become
00:49:03.680 part of the United States? Like how, how many people would do it? I know there's been some polling,
00:49:07.600 I think most Canadians say no, but then younger Canadians, 18 to 34, I think the recent, uh,
00:49:13.440 poll, we have it here. Yeah. Four in 10 of Canadians aged 18 to 34 would take American citizenship.
00:49:21.520 If, um, and conversion of assets to USC, that's, that's pretty devastating. Um, as for, for young
00:49:28.000 Canadians to, to, to have like that willingness to just say like, yeah, I mean, it's an economic
00:49:32.960 question at the end of the day. Um, I put, I posted on X, um, over the Christmas holiday. So I was kind
00:49:39.360 of thinking about this, like how many Canadians would actually go. I think it's, I think it's higher
00:49:42.800 than people tell pollsters because they wouldn't want to admit it, but if push came to shove. Um,
00:49:47.520 so I, I, I wrote about how Trump could destroy Canada in three easy steps. Not that I was advocating
00:49:52.080 for this, but I was just, it was like a thought experiment. And the idea was like, you know, Trump
00:49:56.320 wouldn't have to buy Canada. He could just take it because all he would have to do was offer citizenship
00:50:01.280 and some kind of a conversion of assets. And it would just be like the most insane brain drain
00:50:06.400 ever, because we already have the best, the best people go to the United States in most fields.
00:50:11.040 Right. Like my, my brother and my husband both went to the university of Toronto law school.
00:50:14.720 That's kind of considered, I think one of the best or the best law school in the country.
00:50:18.000 And every single year, 25% of the graduates go to New York just because they pay like twice as well
00:50:22.960 as even the top paying Canadian firms. Um, it's the same thing with Waterloo and tech, I think tech, um,
00:50:28.080 engineers, um, software programmers and developers, they pretty much all go to the Silicon Valley,
00:50:33.520 like all the, like, and then you can name like any fields, right? Like sports, music, actors,
00:50:39.760 like they all end up in Hollywood or in the U S. Um, so if, if like the top people, like the top 1%
00:50:45.440 or top 0.1% already go, if it was offered to everyone with the top 10% go with the top 20% go,
00:50:51.120 whatever would happen, it would create such a void in Canada because all of the sort of
00:50:54.720 entrepreneurial productive people would leave. And what would you be left with?
00:50:59.040 Like refugees and government bureaucrats and Canada would collapse. I mean, I'm not advocating
00:51:03.600 for this, but I do think it's interesting, like how fragile our country can be. So I don't know if
00:51:08.640 you saw my post, but I wonder if you could comment on all that. No, I mean, it's, it's an interesting
00:51:13.440 take. I mean, I might, I might frame it a little bit less, perhaps apocalyptically just because I do
00:51:19.120 think that when Canadians move to the States, I mean, Canada does benefit as well, because like,
00:51:24.320 if our, the fact is like, and this is like why we have to think of, of, of North America as like
00:51:29.440 a continental civilization, rather than just these two sort of nations with narrow self-interests
00:51:34.080 that never overlap. Right. So it's like the big centers of, um, innovation and creativity and sort
00:51:41.760 of the great economic engines of, of this continent are located in the U S but again, like they're not
00:51:46.240 just located in the U S they're located in specific American cities that have developed over time and have
00:51:50.880 become centers of particular, uh, you know, industries and, and innovation. Right. So it's
00:51:56.560 like, you know, if a Canadian, if an ambitious sort of Canadian engineer, uh, moves to, uh, the U S
00:52:03.760 moves to Silicon Valley and creates, you know, the new iPhone or whatever, then that technology comes
00:52:08.400 to Canada and then it benefits Canadian lives as well. And the same way that even though it wasn't
00:52:12.160 developed in North Dakota, it comes to North Dakota eventually. Right. It's the same with, you know,
00:52:16.480 when Canadians moved to Hollywood, they create big, you know, careers that create great entertainment
00:52:20.640 products that we can all enjoy all over the world. Right. So, and this is thinking about the
00:52:26.960 civilization of this continent in that way, I think can be very liberating because then it sort of
00:52:32.080 removes the incentive to create the Canadian version of everything, which has never worked.
00:52:36.960 Right. The idea of creating Silicon Valley North, well, maybe we already have a Silicon Valley North
00:52:41.040 and it's Silicon Valley South, right? It's in the same way. There's no, there's no North Dakota,
00:52:45.440 Silicon Valley, you know, just sometimes it's just rational for economic centers to be established
00:52:50.800 in one city and be very entrenched there. And then for people that want to sort of pursue careers in
00:52:55.040 those places to go to those places. So I think, yeah, there is a brain drain effect in the same
00:53:00.800 way that there's a brain drain effect that, you know, robs the most ambitious people from, you know,
00:53:05.600 Idaho or whatever, but you know, it's, that's just kind of the nature of a free market economic system.
00:53:11.200 And I think that we can't necessarily view it in an, in an overly zero sum way, if in the final end
00:53:17.520 result that we, is that we all sort of benefit from the innovations and the cultural products and
00:53:22.400 whatever else is developed in these big sort of American centers. I actually think it's important
00:53:26.800 that we make it easy for Canadians who have ambitions to move and live in the US and be able to,
00:53:33.280 you know, pursue economic opportunities. But then also that we, you know, we create opportunities for
00:53:38.400 ourselves in this country to be able to poach American talent and make it easy for ambitious
00:53:42.880 and skilled Americans to come and work in this country. Because that is another sort of part of
00:53:47.120 the story too, is that you, you do often find when you look at the big universities or even like big
00:53:53.200 corporate firms and stuff in Canada, they will often have Americans working for them. You know,
00:53:57.600 I've seen, you know, American CEOs, American, you know, presidents of, of large companies or
00:54:03.360 institutions or whatever, like it, it, it does happen in the other direction as well. And so I
00:54:08.160 think that, you know, just having free movement of, of, of labor, it's something that we've never
00:54:13.680 really tried on this continent, the way that the Europeans have tried, the way that the Australians
00:54:18.000 and the New Zealanders have tried, you know, the way that other similar countries are in the world
00:54:21.600 have tried with each other. I think it's, I think it's something that we, we is worth exploring again.
00:54:27.520 And, and so as a result, I think that we should focus less on border security and more on security
00:54:32.960 on things like airports and international ports of entry, because I do think at the end of the day,
00:54:37.440 that's where the problems come. It's not from sort of Canadian citizens and American citizens
00:54:41.600 crossing the borders. It's from, you know, people from other places entering this continent for the
00:54:45.520 first time and whether or not our screening mechanisms are strict enough to prevent sort of
00:54:49.840 problematic people from becoming permanent residents who then can become problematic people when they
00:54:54.560 cross the border and wreak havoc in, you know, one country or the other.
00:54:57.520 Yeah, no, I agree with that last part. I want to go back to something you said earlier though,
00:55:01.280 that like, it's good for Canada if smart people leave, because one of the things, so I spent a
00:55:06.000 couple of years, my husband and I spent a couple of years living in the Silicon Valley. And one of the
00:55:10.000 things that really struck me, I mean, it's just such a different culture, just in terms of how open to
00:55:14.880 change everyone is. Like everyone wants to do something totally different. And like being part of the
00:55:19.120 status quo is seen as like, people look down on that, which is like kind of the opposite of a place like Toronto.
00:55:24.080 But like, okay, so there's all these Canadian clubs, there's tons and tons of Canadians in the
00:55:29.680 Silicon Valley. I spoke to a guy that was part of this C 100 club, and he told me that there were
00:55:34.240 over 100,000 Canadians living in the Bay Area of San Francisco. San Francisco's about that big,
00:55:39.600 right? It's like maybe two, three million people. So the idea that there's 100,000, and I think like,
00:55:43.920 who are these 100,000 people? They are like entrepreneurial, innovative, forward looking,
00:55:50.160 the kind of people that you need to build a civilization. Like if you look at like the number,
00:55:55.520 even just look at the post COVID, I don't think we have this graph. But there's a graph that shows
00:55:59.520 the post COVID job growth. And it shows like, public sector going straight up, private sector kind of
00:56:05.360 going across, and then small businesses, it just like plummets and down. So it's like, all the people
00:56:10.320 who would start a business, all the people who would do something innovative in the economy, people who know
00:56:15.280 how to, you know, do computer programming, all the all these kind of people that would just help bring
00:56:21.360 so much energy, enthusiasm, forget about like the tax base and tax revenue, but just like the energy
00:56:25.840 that they would bring to your country. And instead, they're like, living down in California, contributing
00:56:30.720 to that. It just, to me, it's just a shame. I don't know, what are your thoughts?
00:56:34.240 Well, it's like, I agree in theory, like what you're describing, yeah, it makes it makes a kind of
00:56:40.320 sense. And it certainly can easily offend us as a sort of matter of sort of national dignity,
00:56:46.400 right? It does seem sort of undignified to lose sort of talented people. But again, like, I think
00:56:52.000 that this analogy, it kind of breaks down when we think about the extent that this just naturally
00:56:58.400 happens across the countries themselves, right? You know, for example, here in Vancouver, I know
00:57:04.080 quite a few people who have moved here from Saskatchewan, right? Like Saskatchewan compared to
00:57:08.800 Vancouver is less dynamic, less economically sort of vibrant, you know, a lot of people
00:57:14.400 from Saskatchewan feel like they have less of a future there than they do here. And you know,
00:57:18.800 we can think of Atlantic Canada, how much sort of there's out migration from there. And so like,
00:57:24.080 this is just, there's a certain sort of geographic mobility that I think is a natural part of a sort
00:57:29.600 of a market economy, where you sort of seek out people. And then in contrast, if there's one thing
00:57:34.640 that I do think is somewhat discredited as an economic strategy, it is these kind of like
00:57:39.120 domestic industry building programs, right? Going to back to what we said before, like kind of,
00:57:44.240 because once you sort of get to this idea where it's like, well, we should have industry X, Y,
00:57:49.360 and Z, and we should have an economic hub of activity, then you get into the sort of down the
00:57:53.520 road of like government planning and sort of government trying to create economic opportunity zones.
00:57:57.840 And something that, you know, frankly, the Trudeau government has pumped a lot of money in,
00:58:02.240 to no success, you know, trying to again, like trying to invent the Canadian Silicon Valley,
00:58:07.520 when there's already a pretty, you know, good Silicon Valley in Silicon Valley.
00:58:11.520 So it's, it's, it's difficult, right? Because I, you are simply like, it is sympathy,
00:58:16.720 we do have sympathy for losing talented people to other things. And we don't like the idea of seeing
00:58:21.920 our communities, sort of depopulated of our best citizens. But I do think that most economists would
00:58:28.480 argue that if you take like the projected larger view of things, the quality of life of Canadians
00:58:33.520 in general do benefit from the innovations made overall, even if those innovations are not made
00:58:38.880 in our own backyard. Yeah, no, that's a very good point. And you're right about the fact that,
00:58:43.680 you know, one of the interesting things, because I went to university in Edmonton at a time where
00:58:47.040 Alberta was absolutely booming. And one of the kind of fun things is that there was people from all over
00:58:51.120 the country there. And like, I had never met people from like Newfoundland before. But it was, it was
00:58:56.320 great to have that experience of just like everyone wanted to be in Northern Alberta during that time
00:59:01.360 because of the price of oil. Okay, JJ, I really appreciate having you on the show. It's been so
00:59:05.120 much fun. Thanks for joining us. And everyone go check out JJ's Substack and his YouTube page.
00:59:09.680 Thanks so much. It was great.
00:59:11.440 Okay, all right. Thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. We will be back again tomorrow. Thank you
00:59:16.240 so much. I'm Candice Malcolm. God bless.