Juno News - Ditch Mexico and Deal Directly with America (with JJ McCullough)

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 0.64

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 0.77

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 0.68

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 1.00

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 0.73

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 1.00

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 0.99

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 1.00

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, 0.78

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 0.99

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 1.00

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 0.99

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. 1.00

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 0.94

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 0.96

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 0.90

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 0.66

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 0.95

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 0.97

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 0.98

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 1.00

00:42:39.280 are dumb and ignorant and uninformed. And there started to be this sense that like Canadian 1.00

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. 0.94

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 0.90

00:47:41.760 seduce the kind of like poor ignorant middle-class people who are so seduced by, you know, their, uh, 0.82

00:47:48.080 their, uh, their, uh, their TV shows and, uh, sneakers and all of this. 0.97

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 0.99

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 0.86

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 1.00

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 0.89

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. 0.99

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.

Juno News - January 22, 2025

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

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