Juno News - Ford BLAMES Carney as TRADE TALKS IMPLODE

00:00:00.000 While the blame game has begun over the disastrous anti-tariff TV ad, which aired in the United

00:00:11.960 States on the weekend, and led to the termination of a new trade deal between Canada and the United

00:00:17.360 States, a deal believed to have been all but done. But after seeing the ads, U.S. President

00:00:23.100 Trump canceled trade talks and announced an additional 10% tariff on Canada. He says it'll

00:00:28.880 be a while before talks begin again. Now, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra confirmed

00:00:34.280 that a trade deal was imminent before the ads were released.

00:00:38.380 Canada burnt the bridges with America. Donald Trump did not slam the door. Canada slammed

00:00:46.140 that door shut all by itself. Anyway, Premier Doug Ford and Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared

00:00:54.000 to be throwing each other under the bus over the fiasco. Carney said it was Doug Ford's

00:00:58.860 decision to run the ads, not something the government of Canada would do during critical

00:01:03.660 negotiations. Ford was having none of it.

00:01:06.420 President Trump says he's canceled these trade talks because he's upset about the Ontario government

00:01:12.160 ad. We've heard from the Business Council of Canada and even some of President Trump's

00:01:17.100 own advisers who suggest the frustration with Canada runs deeper. So is this about the ads

00:01:22.960 or is this about something else? I would suggest you take the president at his word for his

00:01:29.480 reason. Our relations with the Prime Minister, are things strained now because of what's happened?

00:01:33.980 No, not at all. He saw the ad before I put it out. So did his chief of staff. They both

00:01:38.160 saw it and we move forward on it. But again, we achieved our goal. You know, as we say, mission

00:01:44.840 accomplished, it was done. Anyway, Carney would not confirm or deny that he saw the ads ahead

00:01:50.480 of time as Ford states. Conservative Party leader Pierre Paglia said it was Carney who approved

00:01:56.060 the ads and should accept the blame for the collapse of negotiations.

00:02:00.720 Mark Carney approved the ad. And then he claimed after the ad started running that the ad was

00:02:11.660 the reason why no deal happened. So it's time for Mark Carney to come clean. He claims he was

00:02:18.700 on the verge, once again, claims that he was on the verge of getting a deal. Then he approved

00:02:24.400 the ad. And then he blamed the ad for the fact that there is no deal. So the reality is that

00:02:32.180 premiers are stepping up to fill the void left behind by Mark Carney's broken promise. He said

00:02:38.460 he would negotiate a win. He said he would have a deal by July 21st. Still no deal. Still no win.

00:02:45.820 Still no elbows. Still no jobs. If I could, if I could, if I could. And now Mark Carney is looking

00:02:52.860 for someone to blame for his broken promises. And he's blaming an ad that he approved. So it's time

00:03:00.640 for Mark Carney to stop blaming others and start keeping his promises. His promise being that he

00:03:06.720 would get a deal, that he would lower the tariffs, and then he would get the job done. He has not done

00:03:11.920 that. Meantime, Ford insists that the ads did exactly what they are intended to do. When asked if

00:03:18.340 he owed Ontarians an apology for a double down. The Prime Minister was explicit today in saying

00:03:24.820 that it was the ad that derailed negotiations which were moving ahead. With that in mind,

00:03:29.320 why don't you feel you owe Ontarians an apology? For sticking up for Ontarians? Well, let's talk

00:03:35.060 about a so-called imminent deal. I've been hearing this for month after month after month. And if there

00:03:41.080 was, there was no mention about auto. It's about steel. As you heard him there say, I mean,

00:03:46.860 he'd rather have no deal than a deal that excluded the auto sector. Now, those who watched the opening

00:03:53.500 ceremonies of the World Series were treated to this woke rendition of O Canada. No wonder the Blue Jays lost.

00:04:00.740 O Canada, our home on native land. True patriot love, in all of us command.

00:04:24.340 Ouch. Maybe they'll do better tonight.

00:04:27.420 Jocelyn Bamford is founder of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada.

00:04:33.740 And she joins us to talk a little bit about this whole anti-tariff ad fiasco. Welcome, Jocelyn.

00:04:40.300 Thanks for having me, Mark.

00:04:43.260 Well, you heard the various arguments. Now we've got Mark Kearney and Doug Ford appearing to be at odds here

00:04:51.260 with the blame game and the finger pointing with Kearney saying, look, this was an ad that was taken out

00:04:57.660 and paid for by the province of Ontario. We would never do a thing like that, especially with

00:05:02.860 negotiations going on. Ford says Kearney saw the ads in the beginning, you know, before they ran.

00:05:09.340 So what's he talking about? I mean, is the bromance over between these two?

00:05:14.780 Now, you know what? I knew it right from the start. Doug Ford tweeted out that Mark Kearney came to his

00:05:22.380 house for dinner. This was the Friday before the ads, the week before the ads came out. He tweeted out

00:05:29.980 about how they had a lovely dinner and talked about a whole bunch of variety of topics. And as soon as

00:05:35.580 those ads came out, I was like, there's no way that they met for dinner and had a conversation of a

00:05:42.540 variety of topics and a $75 million ad buy right in the middle of negotiations would not have come up.

00:05:50.300 It would be inexplicable. That just doesn't pass the smell test. So right from the start, when the

00:05:58.460 liberal media was running with, Oh, you know, Doug Ford is gone rogue. I was like, there's no way this

00:06:05.580 was planned between the two of them. Kearney would say he has plausible deniability and he would make

00:06:16.060 Ford look like he's gone rogue. And I never bought it from the start. I don't buy it now. Now,

00:06:21.580 Ford is saying, yes, of course, Kearney knew about it. And I believe that to be true. And so you hear

00:06:29.820 from a variety of sources from the US administration that a deal was eminent. They were coming out just

00:06:36.540 T's and C's. And it looks like the Canadians take their own trade deal. So, you know, why we should,

00:06:45.740 who benefits from the US Canadian trade deal falling apart. It's certainly not Canadians. 0.76

00:06:51.900 That's for sure. It's not our, the average Canadian. And we should be asking some pretty 1.00

00:06:57.020 serious questions. Where did the $75 million come from? How was it funded? Did the federal

00:07:03.020 government kick in any money? We should be looking for freedom of information on the funding of that deal.

00:07:11.020 Yeah. And Ford has come out recently and said, well, it's not going to cost quite 75

00:07:15.260 million because he paused the ads. I would ask, well, if the ads are so successful,

00:07:20.140 as successful as you say they are, why pause the campaign? You know, but he claims that no,

00:07:26.460 the ads did exactly what they were intended to do. In the meantime, Kearney has not confirmed or

00:07:32.140 denied that he saw the ads in the, you know, ahead of time. I think he's looking for a way to kind of

00:07:37.900 weasel his way out of this. I agree with you. There's no way he didn't see the ads, him and his chief

00:07:43.740 of staff. They saw the ads and probably said, well, you know, go ahead. And it's all, it's blown up in

00:07:49.740 the face of not only Ford, but Kearney himself, because you have Pierre Polyev who says, you know,

00:07:55.980 you got to come clean here, prime minister. You know, you knew about it. And if you did know about it,

00:08:01.900 then you should accept the blame for the collapse of those talks. And we'll have to just see how this

00:08:07.660 plays out. But none of this looks good on any of the main players, either Ford or Kearney. What

00:08:13.180 do you think? Yeah, absolutely. And so why would they do it? Why would they take a deal

00:08:19.180 in the dying hours? And so, you know, two things come to mind. One, we should ask ourselves,

00:08:26.220 does Kearney really just want to cozy up to Xi Jinping, the communist leader, and have a deal with

00:08:34.780 him and say, oh, it wasn't my fault. It was Trump. Trump did it and he broke off negotiations. And

00:08:43.340 then the timing of these ads is suspect. There are two governorial races going on, one in New Jersey,

00:08:53.100 one in Virginia. Were they trying to influence the outcome of those two very tight races right now,

00:09:00.060 two traditionally blue states, although Virginia is Republican, but has traditionally been Democrat.

00:09:10.460 So were they trying to influence the outcome of those elections? And these are all very concerning

00:09:16.220 issues that we ought to see the light of day. We should discuss the reasons why, because

00:09:21.180 who wants to cozy up with the regime that has dumped steel on time and time again on Canadian borders,

00:09:31.020 has hurt Canadian manufacturers, and has held our Canadian citizens hostage? Who thinks that they're

00:09:39.980 a better partner than the United States, who's our longest ally, friend and neighbor?

00:09:45.020 Yeah. I mean, interfering in another country's affairs, internal affairs, is not a good look for

00:09:51.420 Canada. We would certainly be outraged if the Americans were trying to do it to us in Canada. And yet here

00:09:57.100 we are trying to influence possibly those two gubernatorial races, but also the Supreme Court decision, which

00:10:04.540 is coming out shortly on the legitimacy and the legality of the use of these tariffs to begin with. And so,

00:10:12.540 you know, and I'm not the only one saying that. I mean, even John Manley, the former

00:10:17.260 deputy leader of the Liberals, you know, back in the day, we're going back a few years before Trudeau,

00:10:22.220 but he came out and said, look, we wouldn't appreciate it if the Americans did it to us,

00:10:25.980 took out those ads and ran them in our country. And so why would we expect them to appreciate it?

00:10:33.740 I mean, but Ford is just, it seems like a bull in a china shop. And I'm not sure what his intentions are here.

00:10:41.020 I think it's quite possible to your point about Carney playing a duplicitous game here,

00:10:47.740 trying to cozy up with Xi of China, and then using his flunky Doug Ford to do the heavy lifting,

00:10:55.660 putting out these ads, you know, pretending like, now saying, pretending like he didn't,

00:11:01.900 he might not have seen them. He's not saying yay or nay, kind of subtly trying to distance himself from

00:11:07.180 all that. Meantime, he was probably all in when he saw the ads, knowing full well the impact they

00:11:12.540 might have. Yeah. And the hypocrisy of Doug Ford, who whilst pouring out the Crown Royal,

00:11:20.940 told the cameras, the LCBO is Crown Royal's largest customer. And is this how you treat your largest

00:11:27.500 customer? Meanwhile, the United States is far ahead in terms of being our Ontario's largest customer.

00:11:38.220 And yet Doug Ford has seen fit to call the U.S. President all kinds of names and continues to treat

00:11:48.140 him terribly. And so Doug Ford should look in the mirror and follow his own advice and start treating

00:11:55.500 his largest customer with some respect and try to get a deal. But I'm going to argue they don't want

00:12:00.540 a deal because none of their behavior supports the fact that they want a deal.

00:12:05.500 Doug Ford Well, there's a whole thing about what kind of deal. And that's one thing that Ford was

00:12:10.780 talking about because he said, and it's probably true. And I don't know if that came out during that

00:12:17.020 discussion with Pete Huckstra when he was talking because he's the U.S. ambassador to Canada. You know,

00:12:23.580 that deal that had been negotiated did not include autos. It was really about steel, aluminum, and

00:12:31.180 I believe it was energy were the big three. And that was part of the negotiated agreement. I'm going

00:12:39.180 to suggest that Ford got wind of what was in that deal. He may not have seen it, but he got wind of

00:12:44.620 what it dealt with and then upended the chessboard when he found out that cars were not going to be

00:12:51.260 part of it. So do you think that that's a possibility here? And what's the wisdom of, say, refusing to

00:12:59.100 accept half a loaf in this case, knowing that maybe you can negotiate an auto deal down the road. But

00:13:06.300 in the meantime, hey, let's get some relief in manufacturing of steel. Let's get some, you know,

00:13:12.140 relief in energy, you know, aluminum. That doesn't make any sense to me. But that seems to be his

00:13:17.900 attitude here. You know, without auto, if I can't protect the auto sector and the auto jobs, well, then

00:13:24.300 to hell with the steel jobs as well. The whole thing is inexplicable. It makes no sense the way

00:13:33.260 that they've been behaving right from the get go. If your largest customer is upset with you,

00:13:39.820 any business person would hop on a plane and go visit with their largest customer and find out what's

00:13:46.780 fussing them and trying to negotiate a way forward. But that's not what our prime minister did. His

00:13:54.300 first trip abroad was to Europe. And you can continue to see them put trial balloons of maybe we should

00:14:04.220 get a little cozier with communist China. And the liberals have a clear pattern. They have somebody

00:14:13.660 write an op-ed in the media. They put out a trial balloon and then they roll out policy. And then

00:14:20.780 you can look at it on a number of contentious issues. That's how they roll and that's what

00:14:27.340 they've been doing. So, I mean, as a mother, I do not want to cozy up with China. Everybody should be 1.00

00:14:36.300 aware of the Davidson window, which is when the United States believes that Xi Jinping is going to invade

00:14:42.860 Taiwan. If you want to be really afraid and stay up at night, look at how many warships the communist 0.99

00:14:51.180 Chinese party is rolling out. We in North America just can't compete with the level of shipbuilding 1.00

00:14:59.980 and warships that they're rolling out. So, to cozy up with a regime that has again and again

00:15:10.060 stole our intellectual property, dumped steel and aluminum onto our shores, haven't followed our 0.88

00:15:16.860 our trade rulings and continue to be a threat to our democracy, influence our elections. It makes no

00:15:29.500 sense. Why would you want to cozy up to them versus getting a deal with our largest trading partner? It

00:15:38.300 makes no sense to me. Unless you're a complete radical yourself and just putting out this idea

00:15:45.100 that, no, you're a moderate. I think these guys are not what they purport to be. I think they've

00:15:52.460 got their own little agenda. And to your point, these guys break things and then use the breakage

00:15:58.460 that they created to push their own agenda. And all you have to do is look at the crime,

00:16:03.340 you know, which they created. Their policies created an explosion in crime. And what did they do?

00:16:08.380 They used that as an excuse to go after legal firearms ownership in Canada. You know, this is

00:16:13.340 the way these guys think. You know, let's create a problem and then we'll propose the solution,

00:16:18.780 even though that solution has, you know, no relationship to the problem that they created.

00:16:23.500 I don't trust these people. As far as I'm concerned, Carney's a snake in the grass.

00:16:28.940 And we'll just have to see how this whole plays out. Now, of course, he is in China or in Asia,

00:16:34.220 rather, for this conference in Korea, South Korea. And so we'll have to see what he comes out of there,

00:16:41.980 because I've heard that Trump has made a number of announcements and partnerships, including one

00:16:48.940 involving rare earth minerals with Japan. And so, I mean, that's an agreement he should be signing with

00:16:54.780 Canada. You know, rather than going to Asia to get rare earth minerals, we've got them in Canada.

00:17:00.140 And yet, rather than signing a deal with Trump on rare earth minerals, he goes over there and signs

00:17:05.020 it. So that should show you what kind of attitude he has about Canada right now. But I want to also

00:17:11.260 ask you about a graph that you've produced, some series of numbers about investment related to

00:17:19.420 outflows of capital from Canada by the billions and, you know, to the United States. And in a way,

00:17:28.940 you're part of that because, of course, you expanded your plant in the United States. It made sense for

00:17:33.660 you, considering your clients. But many of your colleagues at the Coalition of Concern,

00:17:38.540 Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada, same deal. They're looking and going, this makes no sense

00:17:43.340 staying here. You know, we tried, we really have tried, we'd love to grow in Canada, but we can't.

00:17:49.020 And so we start looking south, and they move to states like Ohio and Virginia and whatever,

00:17:55.340 Pennsylvania or any other state. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the outflow of capital.

00:18:00.700 Yeah, so you know, this, you can get this on any website, you know, I always encourage people to do

00:18:06.220 your own research. But this is the outflow of capital from Canada to the United States,

00:18:12.780 and starting to ramp up in 2015 and 17, and then just hockey sticking as we're going up. So what

00:18:21.580 drives that? I'm going to argue there's, unaffordable energy is one of the reasons that people have

00:18:30.220 sought to either move or to move growth into the United States. So what goes into unaffordable energy,

00:18:37.980 unaffordable electricity. Doug Ford was elected for a mandate to fix the electricity, which the cost

00:18:45.260 was driven up by wind and solar contracts to make it unaffordable for not only people in their homes,

00:18:52.620 but running manufacturing plants. So unaffordable electricity on the federal government is carbon

00:18:59.260 tax, clean fuel standards, industrial carbon tax, all of those things, there are not in the United

00:19:05.820 States. And when you look at Canada, contributing less than 1.5% of greenhouse gases, you have to ask

00:19:13.980 yourself, why? Why would they do this to Canadians? And then what happened with all that carbon tax money,

00:19:20.300 it went into the Sustainable Development Technology Corporation. And the auditor general went in

00:19:27.100 there and said there was waste, fraud and abuse. And that's why the government was prorogued. And we

00:19:32.300 still don't have answers. Where's our carbon tax money? Because we paid over $600,000 in carbon taxes,

00:19:41.180 and we want our money back. If that money went to friends and people that did not do anything to

00:19:48.700 contribute to lowering greenhouse gases or making the environment any better, it was just money extorted

00:19:58.380 from us and fraudulently used. And I want my money back. That is money I could have given a bigger bonus

00:20:05.180 to our people. We could have hired more people. We could have bought equipment. And the fact that Canadians 1.00

00:20:10.780 are so apathetic, they don't care about anything, how much waste, fraud and abuse are Canadians going to 0.96

00:20:21.980 stand up for? They are taking food from your kids' mouths and ruining your children's future. And the apathy of 0.96

00:20:32.860 Canadians is stunning. So why do people move? Unaffordable energy, red tape. They just keep

00:20:41.580 adding the red tape both federally and provincially onto us. The inability to get any projects done,

00:20:49.740 expansion, the amount of red tape and studies and consultant fees you have to pay, it just makes it

00:20:58.380 unaffordable. And instead of somebody sitting down and going, you know, Houston, we have a problem.

00:21:05.180 Capital's fleeing to the United States. There seems to be no appetite to look at and do some analysis

00:21:13.260 and ask people why they're leaving. Doug Ford's response to companies moving growth or packing up

00:21:21.340 and leaving is to demand that everyone boycotts them instead of sitting around and asking them what's

00:21:27.500 going on. And they will continue to go in this direction until there is a politician that wants

00:21:36.780 to sit down and listen to why capital's fleeing. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all we hear from Ford is

00:21:43.580 Trump this and Trump that. I mean, I understand he wants to blame the United States. There's this strong

00:21:50.060 sense of righteous indignation on the part of the premier and many other people that somehow, you know,

00:21:54.700 we're being betrayed, that Trump wants to destroy Canada. I don't think he wants to destroy Canada.

00:21:59.340 I think he wants to repatriate, you know, millions of jobs that left the United States over the course

00:22:06.940 of decades. And I understand that. But I think I would tell my fellow Canadians, it's not Trump's

00:22:15.020 responsibility to prop up our economy. You know, it's not his job is to take care of his people. You know,

00:22:21.260 I wish our government here was as committed to improving the lives of Canadians as Trump is

00:22:27.100 committed to improving the lives of Americans. You know, again, somehow we think that they owe us.

00:22:34.700 They don't owe us anything. Yeah, it's the total attitude of entitlement. The liberal government's been

00:22:43.100 in power for almost 10 years. The Ford government has been, you know, over eight. What have those two

00:22:52.060 governments done to bring back manufacturing, have a manufacturing strategy, get affordable energy?

00:22:59.660 What have they done to improve the lives of Canadians, especially the middle class, bring back 1.00

00:23:05.500 high paying, high skilled manufacturing jobs? And what have they done to protect our freedoms and

00:23:10.220 liberties? Because I'm going to argue that that flight of capital has just as much to do with

00:23:16.620 people being concerned that the government's going to encroach their rights, their liberties,

00:23:21.980 and the money that they have spent their lives working towards as it is for anything else. So people

00:23:30.940 are leery of the government. They saw what happened during the lockdowns. They saw what happened when

00:23:37.980 the bank accounts were frozen. And if anybody values freedom and liberty, that's a scary prospect. So

00:23:45.660 in talking to some business owners, I've seen that that was also a concern that they have worked

00:23:54.620 and spent many hours. If you know any entrepreneur, it's not a nine to five job. It's a seven by 24 job,

00:24:03.340 and they have worked hard. A lot of them have intellectual property that they've invested in,

00:24:10.860 new inventions, and they're concerned with the encroachment of their freedom. So it's death by a

00:24:19.580 thousand cuts. And people just throw up their hands finally and say, there's not going to be prosperity.

00:24:27.900 There's poor policies by not only the federal liberals, but the Ontario conservatives.

00:24:35.580 And they finally get to the point where they have to move their growth because their business

00:24:44.700 prosperity and their companies are at stake.

00:24:47.260 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they treat businesses like garbage. And then they turn around and throw 0.99

00:24:54.860 billions of dollars at massive corporations who don't really need the corporate welfare. But they 0.91

00:25:01.260 say, here you go, take this money and build EV plants. And what do we get to show for it? You know,

00:25:06.940 as a result of this tariff war, you know, Stellantis has moved. GM is moving. You know,

00:25:12.460 that truck plant out in Quebec, downsizing, you know, ultimately, these companies are going to

00:25:17.980 look after their own interests. And if the economic environment changes, away they go. And part of

00:25:25.260 that, of course, when you're talking about subsidies, as soon as the government money runs out, what do

00:25:28.940 these people do? It's just like, see you later. You know, because I mean, you've got the same problems

00:25:34.780 that add to costs for the corporations that add to costs of companies like yourself. You know what I

00:25:40.140 mean? It's just ridiculous. We've spent years, you know, our first choice is to grow in Canada. We're 0.98

00:25:49.980 Canadians, we're proud Canadians. But eventually, you have to make sure that the company is going to be

00:26:00.860 strong. And sometimes you need to grow in another area. If all things were equal, I'm sure every single

00:26:07.020 one of those companies that have either moved or moved growth to the United States would rather just

00:26:13.020 stay here. It's difficult running multiple plants, you have to travel a lot. Most people would just

00:26:20.220 rather stay home. But we are being pushed out by bad government policies. And that's not good for Canadians.

00:26:27.340 Absolutely not. Last question. Just I want you to maybe mention some of that something about that

00:26:33.260 billboard campaign that you've got going on? Yeah, so the coalition has taken out a billboard

00:26:39.820 campaign in Ontario, simply stating Ottawa is more detrimental to Canadians than Washington, D.C.

00:26:49.260 To get Canadians to wake up from their slumber and understand that the poor government policies are

00:26:55.260 causing the pain, not President Trump. It's Prime Minister Carney, and it's some of the premiers that

00:27:01.740 have poor policy that are hurting ordinary Canadians. But interestingly enough on that, those ads ran on

00:27:09.740 a private billboard company, some of which were in the city of Peterborough's arenas. And the city of

00:27:18.060 Peterborough, for that benign ad just saying that Ottawa is more detrimental than Washington, D.C.,

00:27:24.620 that billboard company was forced to take those billboards down in Peterborough city properties because

00:27:34.700 they said they were divisive politically. I mean, it's stunning. It's stunning, folks. They are coming after

00:27:44.380 your ability to speak freely and to view your opinion. And they are taking over, you know, our media.

00:27:53.900 They're taking over billboard companies. It's alarming what's happening. And Canadians need to be aware,

00:28:01.740 because once your freedoms are gone, they're not coming back. And that is horrifying. Canada was proud.

00:28:09.340 Canada did their part to make sure that we had freedoms in the First and Second World War,

00:28:17.420 and we're allowing our government to take those freedoms away. And we're not even putting up a

00:28:23.420 fight. So, you know, another reason why a lot of Canadians are looking at opportunities after the

00:28:30.940 border is they're just saying, I can't stay. If people are going to fight, I'll stay, I'll entrench,

00:28:37.900 I'll fight. But when people have such apathy to losing their freedoms and losing their liberties,

00:28:45.420 then a lot of people just finally say, you know, I want to go where people value those things. I want

00:28:51.500 to go and make sure that my kids have those things that our forefathers fought for. And so Canadians need to

00:29:03.500 wake up and smell the coffee because it's not getting better, folks.

00:29:07.100 No. Yeah, it's long overdue in the waking up department. Thank you so much for coming on the

00:29:12.860 show, Jocelyn. My pleasure, Mark. It always great to spend some time with you and your listeners.

00:29:19.260 Jocelyn Bamford. And that is it for this edition of Straight Up with Mark Petroni. Appreciate you

00:29:24.620 tuning in, my friends. Let's do it again real soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.

Juno News - October 28, 2025

Ford BLAMES Carney as TRADE TALKS IMPLODE

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