Juno News - Ford says Carney was in the room when he reviewed Reagan ad

00:00:00.000 Ontario Premier Doug Ford is demanding an apology from the U.S. ambassador to Canada

00:00:09.940 after reports say he, quote, dressed down Ontario's delegate to the U.S. over Ford's Reagan ad.

00:00:18.120 Environmental alarmist Bill Gates wrote in a recent blog post that he no longer believes

00:00:24.960 climate change will lead to humanity's demise, asserting people will thrive globally for the

00:00:31.440 foreseeable future. Structural barriers and capacity constraints prevent Canadian medical

00:00:37.060 students who study abroad from practicing medicine in Canada, while foreign students take

00:00:42.580 training spots only to leave the country. Hello, Canada. It's Thursday, October 30th,

00:00:48.620 and this is the True North Daily Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Clayton DeMaine.

00:00:53.540 We've got you covered with all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day

00:00:59.820 and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:01:06.760 Ontario Premier Doug Ford has revealed that Prime Minister Mark Carney was present in the room when

00:01:12.760 reviewing the controversial Reagan ad that led U.S. President Donald Trump to cancel trade talks

00:01:18.880 with Canada. Additionally, Ford has demanded an apology from the U.S. ambassador after an expletive

00:01:25.720 tirade as trade talks between the two countries ground to a halt. On Monday, Ford revealed that Carney and

00:01:33.000 his top staff reviewed the ad before it was aired. When asked how he knew that the Prime Minister reviewed

00:01:39.000 the ad on Wednesday, Ford noted that the two were physically in the room with him, but wouldn't reveal

00:01:45.280 what Carney's response to the ad was. Back to the Reagan ad. How do you know the Prime Minister and his

00:01:52.160 Chief of Staff saw this particular ad before you moved ahead with airing it? I was with him.

00:02:01.220 Everyone's obsessed. Just think of that 11.4 billion impressions or views. Like that means every leader in the

00:02:08.140 world saw it. You know, it's just real. It's a real ad. It worked. It was the most successful ad ever. I don't

00:02:15.940 know any ad that's ever hit 11.4 billion in every single country in the world. Their leadership and

00:02:21.380 population was watching it because it's real. Ronald Reagan is telling the truth. A tariff on Canada is a tax on

00:02:29.620 American people. And I could run 10 more different ads, which I'm not going to, with Ronald Reagan

00:02:35.840 saying different speeches about how tariffs are terrible. During the Coalition of Concerned

00:02:43.140 Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada's annual general meeting, Hoekstra reportedly gave an expletive

00:02:49.800 laden, quote, dressing down to Ontario's delegate David Patterson over the Reagan ad. Trump has cited this

00:02:57.800 ad as the reason for trade talks breaking down and new 10% tariffs on Canada. Hoekstra lamented that

00:03:05.420 the U.S. and Canada were close to a trade deal, but the ad threw a wrench into negotiations. When asked

00:03:12.000 about the incident, Ford called on Hoekstra to apologize to Patterson, saying his tirade was, quote,

00:03:18.180 absolutely unacceptable.

00:03:20.520 The cheese slipped off the cracker. I get it. You're ticked off. But call the guy up because you're a

00:03:27.140 good guy. And Dave's my champion. The guy is just instrumental in these trade deals down in

00:03:32.840 Washington. And, you know, some people get hot. They get heated. I get heated sometimes. But just

00:03:38.940 call the guy up and bury the hatchet because the ambassador is a good guy, actually. I love Dave.

00:03:46.660 I like the ambassador. So he knows what to do.

00:03:49.600 Obviously, Clayton, the U.S. side sees this ad as an insult. Those in the Trump administration

00:03:58.660 are following the U.S. president's lead. And it's essentially blown everything into disarray when

00:04:08.880 it comes to trade negotiations between Canada and the United States. But when you look online,

00:04:15.860 some critics are saying Ford's response to Hoekstra, you know, going on this tirade is also rubbing

00:04:23.820 salt on this fresh wound. So what else did Ford say during the press conference about Trump and the

00:04:31.280 U.S. ambassador in relation to this?

00:04:34.000 Yeah, Cosman. So all this, as you mentioned, after Trump announced that there would be an additional

00:04:40.080 10% tariff on Canada and trade talks are over because of Doug Ford's ad, which Carney and his

00:04:47.800 staff approved. But Ford said he never meant to, quote, poke the president in the eye and that he

00:04:55.140 just wanted to get a conversation going to wake up the Democrats in America. But then he immediately

00:05:00.760 started talking about a poll he saw on CNN, which claimed that the majority of Americans like Canada

00:05:07.780 more than they like Donald Trump. Does this seem like the kind of thing to say to Trump, of all

00:05:14.680 people, if you're trying to repair a trade relationship with America? I think anyone who

00:05:20.360 knows Trump, regardless of which side you are on politically, could probably recognize that Trump

00:05:27.460 wouldn't like that comment very much. Ford also said Trump's disapproval ratings are higher than

00:05:34.860 anyone he's ever heard of. And with regards to Hoekstra, Ford said he wouldn't call him to ask for

00:05:41.860 an apology himself, stressing that how good of a relationship they have, because they have a low

00:05:49.160 stakes sports bet going on right now with the Blue Jays and LA Dodgers World Series game. And by the way,

00:05:57.340 the same series where Ford aired the Reagan ad multiple times, which landed Canada in this mess to

00:06:04.280 begin with. Longtime environmental alarmist and billionaire Bill Gates now says climate change

00:06:12.860 will, quote, not lead to humanity's demise, and that, quote, people will be able to live and thrive in

00:06:19.760 most places on Earth for the foreseeable future. According to the Microsoft co-founder's personal

00:06:25.460 website, Gates notes, emissions projections are down, and people should no longer subscribe to the, quote,

00:06:33.180 doomsday view of climate change. Gates writes, quote, unfortunately, the doomsday outlook is causing

00:06:40.460 much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals, and it's diverting resources

00:06:48.520 from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world. It's not too late

00:06:56.460 to adopt a different view and adjust our strategies for dealing with climate change. His recommendation

00:07:03.420 to temper climate alarmism appears directed at global leaders gathering at COP30, a climate summit in Brazil

00:07:13.240 next month. Gates stated that while climate change is, quote, serious, governments can't cut funding for

00:07:20.500 health and development programs to fight it. He continued saying, quote, it's time to put human

00:07:27.180 welfare at the center of our climate strategies, which includes reducing the green premium to zero and

00:07:34.400 improving agriculture and health in poor countries. This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should

00:07:43.180 count even more than emissions and temperature change, improving lives. Our chief goal should be to

00:07:50.820 prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world's poorest

00:07:57.820 countries. So, Cosmin, this seems like a complete 180 turn. How has an entrepreneur such as Gates

00:08:05.200 become a respected voice on climate science anyway? Well, Clayton, these days it seems like every

00:08:11.540 billionaire seems to have a pet cause, whether they pick health or climate, as Bill Gates does.

00:08:19.340 They stick to this one thing and they pour a lot of money into it. And I think a lot of people

00:08:26.180 confuse the dollar value of the funding that they've contributed to a cause for some sort of

00:08:34.440 expertise. And that's what I believe is at play here with Bill Gates.

00:08:39.080 But part of it could be a signal, a sort of shift away from this nonstop doomsday rhetoric we've seen

00:08:47.860 for years. When you read Bill Gates's blog post, he really is walking back some of the central claims

00:08:56.280 that were made by climate activists and the climate movement for decades. And these days you've got

00:09:05.800 groups like Extinction Rebellion out there screaming that the apocalypse is coming. And if we're honest with

00:09:14.160 ourselves, there are concerning elements of the climate movement. And some of those elements have even

00:09:21.380 drifted to environmental terrorism, like sabotaging pipelines and such. So Gates is stepping in here, he's putting

00:09:30.660 out this greed that's supposed to be more measured, I guess, and more human centric instead of the

00:09:38.680 essentially anti-human rhetoric that a lot of radical climate activists employ.

00:09:47.440 And on top of that, I think Gates hasn't done himself any favors in the public eye lately.

00:09:53.240 Obviously, if you search up Bill Gates on social media, you have pictures and messages and stuff about his

00:10:04.100 relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. So this could be a convenient way to polish his reputation, make himself the

00:10:13.540 reasonable voice of the climate movement.

00:10:15.880 Canadian medical students who train abroad are largely choosing to take their skills to other

00:10:24.260 countries because they face too many hurdles and limited opportunities to practice medicine back home

00:10:30.640 as foreign students who leave Canada are taking training spots. During a House of Commons health

00:10:36.860 committee, medical licensors, a Canadian medical student advocacy group, and a Canadian who was shut out of

00:10:43.740 his field after studying abroad called on the federal government to reform the immigration and health

00:10:50.040 licensing program. Advocates noted Canada's health care system has been chronically overwhelmed and

00:10:56.360 understaffed, ranking nearly last among other universal health care systems internationally. Yet federal

00:11:03.340 immigration policy prioritizes international students over thousands of Canadians ready to work.

00:11:09.500 Rosemary Polliuk, the president of Canadian studying medicine abroad, testified at the committee saying,

00:11:16.580 quote, there are 3,500 of us Canadian medical students studying abroad, 800 graduate every year,

00:11:24.200 last year 181, and we've had as low as 119 of those 800 apply to come back to Canada, not because they

00:11:33.100 don't want to, but because the barriers are so significant and we're so unwelcome.

00:11:38.060 That's a darn good question. Very good question why they're doing that. We know that that this came

00:11:46.100 about by the request of the faculties of medicine of Ontario, supported by the others. What's happening

00:11:52.760 is that the faculties earn $100,000 of as an application. That's what they charge each year of these foreign

00:12:04.080 physicians. So it's a very good source of income. Millions of dollars are earned every year by the

00:12:10.140 faculty. They can use that money at their discretion. And so what they're doing is using, you know, taxpayers'

00:12:18.320 resources and our trained doctors to train these foreigners so that they can then have a lot of extra 1.00

00:12:28.900 money for the purposes that they want, whether it's research or whatever. Last week at the committee,

00:12:35.040 internationally trained doctors who have already immigrated to Canada and hope to work in their

00:12:40.440 fields noted similar licensing and bureaucratic barriers, which prevent them from working to

00:12:46.480 alleviate the overwhelmed system. According to a Second Street study, at least over 15,400 Canadians

00:12:53.740 died while waiting for care between April 2023 and March 2024. The group estimated the real number

00:13:00.800 may exceed 28,000. Scott Alexander, a Canadian from Vancouver, BC who studied medicine in Australia in

00:13:08.160 2017, said only two of his cohort of 60 Canadian students at the University of Queensland School of

00:13:16.080 Medicine returned to Canada to practice. Alexander said he was led to believe he would be able to work

00:13:22.140 in Canada after his education. However, after being turned away from residency jobs, which are requisite

00:13:28.500 for licensure and changing rules to resident level examinations, he has been unable to work as a

00:13:34.920 doctor in his own country. Dr. Alexander, so you were given false expectations about your ability to

00:13:41.260 practice in Canada after you arrived here, and I'm sure you're not the only one who has practiced, a Canadian

00:13:47.500 use practice abroad who's given also those false expectations. Yeah, to a certain extent, after the

00:13:52.940 two years of applying for residency with no success, it did feel like the rug was kind of pulled out from

00:13:57.900 under me because now new requirements were required for me to even have the privilege of applying for a

00:14:03.280 residency in Canada. Clayton, you watched this committee meeting. What are some of the arguments

00:14:07.920 presented on how the Liberals' immigration policy has contributed to this doctor shortage across the

00:14:15.480 country? Yeah, Cosmin, so aside from the licensing barriers and changing exam rules, as we heard from

00:14:23.240 some of the witnesses there, one of the arguments from this part of the committee was that there is

00:14:28.700 simply no room for Canadians with international education to come back to Canada. Part of the requirements

00:14:35.980 to be a doctor is to have training in Canada under an observership or a residency program and to have a

00:14:44.280 recency of practice, meaning that they've been practicing within a certain period of time from when they want to

00:14:51.800 get the license or go to work. The problem is that these students who actually want to work in Canada have a little

00:14:59.580 opportunity to get into those positions. Scott Alexander, who we just heard from, said he's been working

00:15:05.980 in Canada not as a doctor as he wanted to for seven years and still can't get a residency. Immigrants with 0.95

00:15:14.160 international training similarly face those barriers, as we discussed, who would also want to come to

00:15:22.380 Canada but end up going to places like the US because they're more appreciated and valued there with less

00:15:28.720 barriers. So these training spots are being filled by international medical students, most of whom are

00:15:35.820 under contract to leave Canada as soon as they complete their training as their governments are sponsoring them.

00:15:42.000 According to witnesses, the majority of those students come from Saudi Arabia. There's over 1,100 Saudis

00:15:53.000 currently being trained in Canada and of course the Saudi government pays for their education to be used in their own country.

00:15:59.940 The president of Canadian studying medicine abroad said that some international students do stay in Canada, but the vast

00:16:08.120 majority leave. And much like international students in any other post-secondary school in Canada, the faculty can charge

00:16:15.280 them way more than Canadian students, making them a great source of both labor and revenue for those schools. The only problem is that

00:16:23.940 thousands of Canadians are dying on wait lists and there are roughly 80,000 foreign trained medical professionals who aren't even

00:16:32.120 working in medicine at all while these med schools rake in the cash.

00:16:37.120 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by subscribing to the daily brief on

00:16:47.460 iTunes and Spotify. Also, while you're at it, make sure to hit us with a five star rating and please leave a review.

Juno News - October 30, 2025

Ford says Carney was in the room when he reviewed Reagan ad

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript