Juno News - Ford heads to Washington on trade mission

00:00:00.000 Ford is in Washington, D.C. for two days of meetings, hoping to pave the way for improved

00:00:11.300 trade relations. Ford posted this on X. Ontario will do whatever is necessary to stand up for

00:00:18.800 workers and protect our communities. That's why I'm in Washington, D.C. this week, making the case

00:00:26.100 for a safe, secure, and prosperous fortress North America. Ford's conciliatory tone comes after

00:00:33.880 months of publicly attacking President Trump as a bully and a tyrant. This column from Brian Lilly 0.81

00:00:40.900 of the Toronto Sun. Doug Ford goes to Washington amid tense trade talks. Just last week, Ford said

00:00:49.600 his approach was to compete with the United States economy.

00:00:53.520 We have to keep up with the rest of the country, but keep up with the U.S. who we're competing

00:00:59.740 against. And we have to get down there and promote Ontario. And that's what exactly what

00:01:05.280 we're going to continue doing. Okay, so despite the shift in tone, apparent shift in tone, it's

00:01:11.220 uncertain whether Ford will get much of a hearing from Republicans in Congress.

00:01:15.880 U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra is influential in Washington

00:01:19.880 and is very much opposed to Ford's decision to pull U.S. liquor off Ontario store shelves.

00:01:26.780 Sources say that Hoekstra privately urged Republicans in Congress to avoid meeting with Doug Ford.

00:01:34.480 So what began as a generally favorable view of Ford among Republicans has soured over the last year or so.

00:01:42.180 This quote from Brian Lilly's column.

00:01:45.140 That view began to change when Ford's attacks on Trump went from the political to the personal.

00:01:52.520 As he lands in Washington, Carney's office, his cabinet, and more than a few provincial

00:01:58.280 premiers are worried about what Ford will say and do.

00:02:02.760 Meantime, the Financial Times is reporting Mark Carney is abandoning his elbows-up approach.

00:02:08.780 Financial Times is reporting Canada has quietly shifted its trade strategy, pivoting

00:02:14.540 from open defiance of U.S. tariffs to a fortress North America pitch aimed at winning back a seat

00:02:22.040 at Kuzma negotiating table before the July 1st deadline. But is it too late? Has Ford already

00:02:29.520 burned his bridges with the Trump administration? Our guest today is George Ann Burke, political

00:02:35.060 strategist and communications expert with Pathway Group. Welcome, George Ann.

00:02:39.480 Thanks, Mark.

00:02:40.900 Well, the question is, has Ford already burned his bridges with the Trump administration?

00:02:46.360 And other than that, how do you think he'll do in Washington, D.C.?

00:02:50.140 So I would say that he is not held in high regard.

00:02:55.640 I'll just put it like that in Washington.

00:02:58.660 He is you can't insult the president of the United States in the way that he has gone about it.

00:03:04.340 It's one thing if you want to say I disagree with your policies.

00:03:06.400 I think that tariffs are a bad idea, but following it up by saying, let's figure out a better way to do this so that everybody can benefit.

00:03:15.860 Instead, what he chose to do was not only criticize the policy, but he also chose to criticize the man in a very personal, by the way, very personal way that was unnecessary.

00:03:28.500 So he is going to have a problem, I think, maybe not with everybody in Congress, maybe not with every Republican congressman, but there are some who are very loyal to Donald Trump who don't want to meet with him.

00:03:39.800 And I think it's not crazy to assume that he will have a, even those he meets with, he might have a hard time explaining why the sudden turnaround, why the fortress North America, why is it okay?

00:03:53.640 what happened to elbows up? What happened to, you know, Trump is the most unpopular man in the

00:03:59.140 world. You know, what happened to all that? So he has to he has to do a mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,

00:04:06.400 you know, one of those things before he's going to get a hearing from many Republicans.

00:04:12.620 Yeah, I mean, the Republicans are in charge in Washington right now. And, you know, he may not

00:04:16.300 like that. You know, he seems to be currying favor with the Democrats. But of course, for the moment,

00:04:22.160 anyway. Republicans are in charge of the executive branch, the House and the Senate. So you would

00:04:27.280 think going in that he would know where the power is and try to build bridges rather than burn them.

00:04:35.620 I'm just wondering, I mean, I don't see him getting anywhere near anybody close to the

00:04:41.120 Trump administration while he's in Washington, D.C. I mean, what do you think? Well, I would

00:04:49.240 imagine that one of the groups he'd want to meet with would be the people from trade or the people

00:04:54.300 from commerce. And I can't imagine that anybody there would have any interest in talking to him

00:04:59.500 until he actually publicly acts more like an adult rather than a schoolyard bully

00:05:08.680 throwing his weight around, which he has been doing for the last year. Very unwise that he did

00:05:14.440 And so I was shocked that he was so, I guess I would say outspoken, that he spoke in such a negative way about a world leader.

00:05:26.480 It doesn't matter whether you like them or you don't.

00:05:28.840 When you're in the position of being the less strong party in a situation where a country like the United States has the upper hand, and they do, that's just a fact, you don't go around insulting the president of that country.

00:05:42.220 There are lots of ways of getting your point across.

00:05:44.440 your unhappiness with what they've done without being obnoxious.

00:05:49.420 Yeah. And the Mexicans have demonstrated that approach and have gotten a lot closer to 0.66

00:05:55.980 cutting a deal with the Trump administration than Canada has. And, you know, Mexico, I believe,

00:06:01.480 is run by basically a communist. Yeah, she's she's a leftist without a question. I mean,

00:06:08.200 I don't know officially if she's a member of the Communist Party, but she's definitely far left.

00:06:12.760 And from day one, she made her her views known that she wasn't crazy about him.

00:06:18.440 And but she did it in a way that was completely different.

00:06:20.660 And in the background, they were reaching out to the U.S. to say, you know, let's work something out here.

00:06:26.600 They've been talking about a bilateral deal and working out the details of that for probably the better part of a year.

00:06:32.260 I mean, it's not easy because they have this agreement coming up in July for renewal or renegotiation or whatever you want to call it.

00:06:40.820 So is Mexico saying, hey, listen, whatever you guys want, we'll pull out if you want to just do a bilateral with us?

00:06:47.340 I mean, I don't know what the background chatter is, but they certainly have gotten a lot further with the Trump administration than Canada has gotten in any way, shape, or form in the last while.

00:07:01.040 Partly the fault of Doug Ford, partly the fault of Mark Carney, because they both did the same thing.

00:07:06.140 Carney wasn't quite as, I won't say not as quite as outspoken, he wasn't quite as harsh maybe as Ford was, but it didn't go unnoticed that he was basically saying the same things in a slightly more polite way, but only slightly.

00:07:23.000 Yeah, well, speaking of Kearney, now the Financial Times is reporting that Canada has quietly shifted its trade strategy, pivoting from open defiance of U.S. tariffs to fortress North America.

00:07:36.720 Unfortunately, they've already cut that deal with China.

00:07:40.120 They've already agreed to bring in, what, 49,000 EVs.

00:07:44.640 That's not sitting well with the Trump administration.

00:07:48.180 So, unfortunately, they're kind of all over the map.

00:07:51.660 Will this shift in strategy endear the Carney government to Trump at this point?

00:07:59.860 Well, I wouldn't use the word endear.

00:08:02.440 I don't think that's going to happen.

00:08:05.440 I think that it's going to give Trump a talking point or his people a talking point to say,

00:08:10.160 see, we told you if you behave like that, you'd get nowhere.

00:08:14.000 And it's going to make it much more difficult for Canada to get a good deal,

00:08:18.540 which they would have gotten, by the way, had, first of all, former Prime Minister Trudeau not 0.99

00:08:24.520 made the stupid comment that he made about 10% tariffs killing Canada off. And secondly, 0.99

00:08:30.180 not taking the elbows up approach to win an election, which is what he did. He didn't think

00:08:35.860 about the, he thought he could work his way around the Trump administration, even though he was going

00:08:43.720 to attack them in the election. Or maybe he thinks that the internet doesn't work in the two

00:08:48.380 countries at the same time and maybe Donald Trump wouldn't know what he said. I don't know what he

00:08:52.140 thinks. But the fact is that he's going to have a lot of ground to make up. I don't think that

00:08:59.060 they're going to be overly warm. Maybe they'll work out a deal. Maybe they will. Maybe it'll

00:09:03.340 be a bilateral deal. But it isn't going to be. There's going to be a lot of stuff they're going

00:09:07.740 to have to give up. They're going to have to start talking seriously about, for example, dairy. I

00:09:13.540 I know that's an anathema word in some parts of the country, including Quebec.

00:09:17.540 But the truth is that Trump has always hated those restrictions.

00:09:22.200 And now he's going to be less inclined to give up on it and back away.

00:09:26.300 He got a little bit of traction the last time.

00:09:28.260 And that little bit of traction set people's hair on fire in Canada, if you recall, in the last Kuzma negotiations.

00:09:34.740 But now we have a situation where he's just going to say, I want it all or I want a lot more or whatever.

00:09:44.360 And he's going to say, you deal with your political problem at home.

00:09:47.000 It's not my problem. I'm here for the United States of America.

00:09:51.080 I put America first. That's what he's going to tell them or his people will.

00:09:55.660 I mean, I think it's a good opportunity for the Carney government to ditch supply management.

00:10:00.800 And I mean, either that or our economy will be destroyed, you know, and just point fingers at Trump.

00:10:08.860 I mean, isn't it possible that they could play it that way if they were so inclined?

00:10:13.680 Sure it is. And if I were actually a liberal strategist, I might actually advise them to do that.

00:10:20.340 Because, number one, supply management is a disgusting, hateful socialist program,

00:10:25.800 program, which has done nothing but raise the prices of a basic food supply item, set of items

00:10:33.660 that everybody needs. This is something that's basic to people being able to eat. And with the

00:10:39.700 prices of food being what they are, and the price of dairy being outrageous, like, I don't know how

00:10:45.960 he can look at this and say, this is okay. This would be an affordability thing that he could

00:10:50.060 actually point to and say, see, we helped you here. We lowered the price of dairy because we made this

00:10:54.520 deal. We got rid of that program that was keeping the prices too high. I don't know if they're that

00:10:59.100 smart. I don't know. I don't know whether they probably will have to do a poll first and see

00:11:02.900 what happens if they get rid of supply management, how bad it is for them. It will hurt them in

00:11:07.960 Quebec. No question about it. There may be a few other places where they get hurt, but basically

00:11:12.200 there's only a few thousand people in that business that are affected by this. So maybe

00:11:17.680 they're going to do the math and say, yeah, we'll just have to do what we have to do to get this

00:11:22.660 deal. Yeah, I think it's possible that certainly the Ford administration and even Arnie thought

00:11:29.960 that they could play a waiting game. The midterms are not that far away. They figured the Democrats

00:11:35.780 would at least take the House, that Trump would be relegated to being little more than a lame duck 0.96

00:11:44.300 the last two years of his time in office. But something has happened to tweak that. Something

00:11:50.400 has changed that and i'm not sure exactly what that is but they might have come to the realization

00:11:56.380 that no they need to play ball with trump regardless of whether they like him or not

00:12:01.520 like i'm just concerned that they might have come to that realization uh too late in the game i guess

00:12:07.740 it's too late in the game for a great deal it's not too late in the game to get some kind of deal

00:12:12.640 maybe i i guess um the other thing is that one of the things that may they may have uh awakened to

00:12:18.720 is that the Democrats have gone so bizarrely crazy

00:12:21.800 in the United States

00:12:22.820 with the candidates that they're nominating

00:12:25.360 that they just might not win the House 0.98

00:12:27.560 because they've got lunatic candidates running. 0.99

00:12:30.040 Some guy with a Nazi tattoo, 0.99

00:12:32.300 which is probably the best thing you can say 1.00

00:12:34.140 about him right now

00:12:35.020 with all the other stuff that's come up.

00:12:36.700 You know, we believe every woman,

00:12:37.800 unless it's a Democrat that's been harassing 0.95

00:12:40.540 and sexually molesting or attacking women, 0.95

00:12:44.100 then it's a different story. 0.84

00:12:45.580 But you have that.

00:12:46.800 you have these crazy far left people that have been nominated. You have the guy in New Jersey

00:12:52.540 who has a history with terrorist organizations and actually testifying on behalf of the blind 0.90

00:13:00.940 shake in the courts in the United States when he was on trial, claiming, how could they ever bring

00:13:07.280 that up? I mean, what does that have to do with anything? Well, okay, there are some people that

00:13:10.620 might be upset about that. And, you know, so they have a bunch of loony candidates. So maybe they're 0.97

00:13:16.140 going, maybe Trump isn't going to lose this. And we got to deal with another two years.

00:13:21.040 If they're smart, Mark, if they're listening today, if I were them, I would sit down and

00:13:27.020 think hard and long and look back historically at what Trump has said about the things that

00:13:31.040 really, really irk him. Certainly, I would say that Derry is one, but there are others

00:13:37.620 and they really need to figure out how they're going to square that circle with him, how

00:13:43.060 they're going to have to come to him with some suggestions proactively. Maybe that's what I would

00:13:47.320 do. I wouldn't wait for him to suggest it. I'd say, listen, these are some things that we think

00:13:50.860 we can do to help allay this and show a real willingness to negotiate because they certainly

00:13:56.400 haven't to this point. I want to pivot a little bit to the elections that have taken place and

00:14:04.960 just the eye-opening level of confusion, chaos in California. We're seeing the same types of

00:14:13.040 things that we saw in the 2020 election. Yeah. Where election accounting was stopped and then

00:14:20.240 it dragged on the next day, the next week, you know, as the next month of mail-in ballots came

00:14:29.260 in and lo and behold, the Democrats went from behind Republicans or at least conservative

00:14:37.180 minded candidates and surging ahead just like that. Reports that the many thousands of homeless

00:14:44.860 people are casting ballots. Nobody knows whether they're even American. This is really an eye

00:14:53.000 opener what has happened. And I hope that the rest of the country looks at what happens in

00:14:56.900 California and thinks we really need to say that ASAP. Yes, I can't disagree at all with a single

00:15:03.820 words you said. What is going on in California is classic California politics. They've gotten

00:15:09.840 away with this for decades. But now, thanks to candidates like Steve Hilton and Spencer

00:15:17.780 Pratt, I think people are paying closer attention to what goes on there. And this sudden surge

00:15:24.960 of votes that left-wing woman Rahman got in the last couple of days has really opened

00:15:31.780 some eyes and raised eyebrows, if you wish, about how things are being conducted there.

00:15:37.760 This is a serious problem, not only in California, by the way. This is a problem in many other places

00:15:42.680 in the United States, not in the state that I'm living in. They have pretty strict laws here.

00:15:47.720 What they do in California, and by the way, they did the same during COVID in Utah and other places.

00:15:53.140 I don't know if they're still doing it, but they did then. They send out a ballot, mail a ballot

00:15:57.660 to every single quote unquote registered voter, whether they're alive or dead, whether they're

00:16:03.300 living in California or not. So a ballot arrives at my house where I live, but it's addressed to

00:16:09.760 Joe Smith, who used to live there 10 years ago, five years ago, even two years ago. He's not here

00:16:14.120 anymore. Doesn't even live in the state. What do I do with that ballot? Well, if I'm an honest

00:16:18.420 person, I tear it up and throw it in the garbage and inform the elections board that he doesn't

00:16:24.340 live here anymore. But if I'm not an honest person, I take that ballot, I open it up, and I vote,

00:16:30.880 especially if I want to vote for one of those Democrat candidates who may be running behind.

00:16:36.660 The other thing, of course, is this story today, that terrible story about registering large

00:16:43.480 numbers of homeless people. It won't be the first time something like that has happened.

00:16:48.380 It has happened before. They just haven't been able to get them caught at it. But I think

00:16:53.800 people are paying really close attention they have the state's attorney uh the sorry the u.s

00:16:59.320 attorney for the state there he's a part of bill um sally's i think is his last name his team the

00:17:07.960 the u.s attorney for california for that district he's there watching everything that's going on

00:17:13.080 and he's taking some copious notes and you can be sure there's going to be follow-up on this

00:17:16.840 election um if uh they see some things that are untoward and i believe they will i believe they

00:17:22.800 will see things that are untoward they're allowing people to to id themselves with debit cards with

00:17:28.560 gym memberships i mean like come on guys that's not an official government issued id and that is

00:17:35.160 what you are supposed to use to identify yourself as a voter i actually went into the website here

00:17:40.760 in florida to change my status from a mail-in voter to a non-mail-in voter but they had already

00:17:46.980 changed it because i hadn't updated it and if i don't update it i don't get a ballot

00:17:53.940 okay so now i'm i do live here i will vote in person here um but i can't vote by by mail anymore

00:18:01.620 more unless i actually go in and change the status back to mail-in and then if i do that

00:18:06.180 i'm not allowed to vote in person very strict that's how it should be everywhere um you should

00:18:11.940 be able to prove that you're a citizen citizens are the ones that are allowed to vote in the

00:18:14.820 the country, not people that are not citizens. I'm sorry if anybody's insulted by that, boo-hoo-hoo.

00:18:21.880 That's the law. So these are things that they have to really start looking at. The SAVE Act

00:18:28.800 deals with those questions. I do not understand why every decent elected official, so we'll leave

00:18:35.920 a few of them out because we know some of them aren't decent, but anyone who has any principles

00:18:39.660 at all would not say, yes, this is exactly what we want to do. We want to make sure only citizens

00:18:43.600 vote, only people who actually reside in the district they're voting in, that they can prove

00:18:48.780 all of this. It's not, it is actually racist to say that racialized people or poor people or

00:18:55.620 people who have differences somehow are not able to identify themselves. That's such BS,

00:19:02.400 pardon my almost French. It is garbage to say such a thing. And it's insulting to the people 1.00

00:19:08.720 that they talk about. As a matter of fact, when they go out on the street and they interview

00:19:11.340 blacks and Hispanics, they say, do you have any trouble getting ID, you know, government ID? They

00:19:17.640 look at you like, what are you talking about? I have a driver's license. I have this, I have that,

00:19:22.480 I have a passport, blah, blah, blah. No, of course they don't because it's just nonsense. It's a

00:19:28.260 lie. Okay. And it's actually racist in nature. It actually says these people are not capable

00:19:33.740 of getting these things, which are readily and easily available. And many of them,

00:19:38.100 Certain kinds of ID are free of charge that you can get that are government, official government ID.

00:19:44.720 You don't need a passport, but there are forms of ID that are free for people that cannot afford to pay for or don't need or don't have a driver's license, et cetera.

00:19:52.920 Yeah, I mean, I think the Democrats are terrified of the SAVE Act because they know that if it passes, it'll cost them millions of votes, like literally millions of votes. 1.00

00:20:03.640 Last word to you, Georgianne. 0.53

00:20:05.400 Yeah, it actually also will have negated their plan of bringing in all of these tens of millions of people from outside who are potential voters. 0.97

00:20:16.360 And, you know, they won't be able to get away with that stuff anymore.

00:20:19.420 So I'm hoping that wiser heads will prevail in Washington and they will get this passed.

00:20:24.900 If I were the president, I would be on top of John Thune's head every single day telling him, you get this done. 0.96

00:20:30.720 This is ridiculous. It has to be done. 0.73

00:20:32.200 Thank you so much for coming on the show, George Ann.

00:20:35.400 We always appreciate it.

00:20:36.840 My pleasure.

00:20:37.420 Great to see you, Mark.

00:20:39.120 If you enjoyed this show,

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00:21:02.200 You

Juno News - June 09, 2026

Ford heads to Washington on trade mission

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