Candace Malan and Cosmin Zherja take a deep dive into the life of Mark Carney, who is running for Prime Minister of Canada, and why he thinks a carbon tax should be implemented in Canada.
00:00:56.380So let's talk about Mark Carney because he's sort of come out of nowhere. I mean, a lot of people know who he is. He has a familiar face, familiar name. He's kind of been kicking around the scene. And now suddenly he paints himself as an outsider, even though, Cosman, we know that he's been advising the liberals for years. He's been helping Justin Trudeau throughout the entire post-COVID recovery is going back as early as 2020. He's been an advisor.
00:01:22.620And before that, he was the governor of the Bank of England.
00:01:25.100And before that, he was the governor of the Bank of Canada.
00:01:27.880So why don't you tell me a little bit about what you have been uncovering over there at True North?
00:01:34.560Canadians have a sort of surface level understanding of who Mark Carney is.
00:01:40.840For a while, he's been this neutral figure as a public servant, right?
00:01:44.260Governor of Bank of Canada, they're supposed to be neutral at arm's length to some degree from the government.
00:01:49.580But now he's vying for a political position. And we had the idea of using his own words as printed in his 2021 book called Values to hold him to account for some of the beliefs he states there.
00:02:05.780Now, it's a 600-page book, and it's virtually a manifesto of Carney's ideas about how the economy should work, how climate policies should work, his ideas about the future of money and currency, and he lays it all out.
00:02:21.400It's in plain language. He states exactly what he thinks.
00:02:25.580So we wanted to use this as a launch pad to investigate his background, his various positions, and to ask him about these beliefs that he states in this book so openly compared to some of the things he's saying now, like the carbon tax, for example.
00:02:42.820And that was our first part of this series. We're hoping to do at least three or four parts of this series investigating various issues that Mark Carney has discussed in length.
00:02:54.000Okay, so here is what the book looks like.
00:02:56.140It's called Values, Building a Better World for All.
00:02:59.860Like you said, it was published in 2021.
00:03:03.560So some of the things that kind of jump out,
00:03:06.560I mean, we know that he's running for prime minister now.
00:03:09.040And one of the things that he's trying to do
00:03:10.840is move away from his record on carbon tax,
00:03:13.840even though he has been a huge advocate for carbon tax,
00:03:17.040so much so that he talks about how politicians
00:03:20.400need to be like pressured into doing the right thing.
00:03:22.340And even if you sit, if you like you can't flip flop, you have to maintain a commitment to it.
00:03:27.480So why don't you help us understand, like, what does this book Values say about carbon taxes?
00:03:32.380Sure. So he specifically says that the carbon pricing scheme, carbon taxes, in other words, are the cornerstone of any climate policy.
00:03:45.180And to me, cornerstone means that everything else is built around the carbon tax.
00:03:51.200He calls it a central piece of dealing with climate change and entering this net zero future that, you know, global finance people like to talk about, that World Economic Forum types like to talk about.
00:04:06.860And he points specifically to the Canadian federal pricing model first introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, I think, in 2017 with the Canada Carbon Pricing Act, if I recall that correctly.
00:04:20.960And he essentially says that this is the model that the rest of the world should follow.
00:04:26.540He calls it insanely popular in Canada. This is in 2021, at a time when sentiments for the carbon tax weren't exactly overwhelmingly popular. By this time, people have turned against the carbon tax.
00:04:41.840And if you recall back, even before the Freedom Convoy, there was the United We Roll Convoy that came to protest the carbon tax. I think it was around 2018 in Ottawa and to promote pro-energy policies.
00:04:56.300So I don't know where he gets this idea that the carbon tax was immensely popular.
00:05:01.700But like I mentioned, he calls it the model and he says that it was able to navigate the
00:05:06.760complexities of Canadian federalism, which is another falsehood, because when we think
00:05:12.540about the carbon tax, we also have to think about all of the challenges that have come
00:05:54.940Now, so far, carbon prices have been applied sparingly.
00:05:58.640They've been set far too low in the single digits on average globally, well short of the estimated $8,200 a ton needed by the end of this decade to keep us on track to net zero.
00:06:12.840So the problem is that they're too low.
00:06:16.200This is when he launched his leadership campaign in Edmonton a few weeks ago.
00:06:20.940he was specifically asked where he stands on the carbon tax. He gave a very sort of confused
00:06:26.420answer. It wasn't very clear. And by the end, he was basically just like apologizing for the fact
00:06:31.860that he couldn't answer succinctly by saying, you know, I'm not like Pierre Polyev who can fit my
00:06:37.420slogan on a bumper sticker. So let's play that clip. You need a comprehensive approach.
00:06:43.380You need a comprehensive plan, not just a soundbite that fits on Elector. And that, again,
00:06:49.760is the difference between me and some others. I don't do a little leak, I don't do a soundbite,
00:06:55.920do a comprehensive plan that addresses all the aspects, and you'll see that in the coming weeks.
00:07:00.560So we've yet to see, you know, it's the coming weeks, we've yet to see exactly what his position
00:07:05.680on carbon taxes will be, but I think we can assume that they are sort of walking away from it. I
00:07:10.640think the Liberals understand how immensely unpopular the carbon tax has been, how difficult
00:07:15.600lives on Canadians with the crushing standard of living and the costs because of inflation and the
00:07:21.160carbon tax, that it's just not very popular. And it's sort of ironic because Mark Carney, as you
00:07:25.740point out, Cosman, in your article, that he once said the following, he said, backtracking on
00:07:31.300ambitious climate agendas is more difficult if politicians share the same goals and expect to be
00:07:37.880held accountable. So he's saying that he does hold these same values, that we need to have
00:07:42.720carbon taxes in order to save the planet. Yet here he is sort of backtracking on his own
00:07:48.760agenda. What do you what do you make of that? No, you're absolutely right. He says one thing
00:07:54.960in the past and now he's doing the exact opposite of what he wrote down. I mean, this is a guy who
00:08:00.300has championed carbon pricing models at every level, actually at the highest level, at the
00:08:06.580global level. So in 2020, he launches the Global Task Force for Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets.
00:08:14.140At 2021, he co-chaired the Glasgow Financial Alliance, which brought all these banks into
00:08:19.820committing financing only to sustainable projects, etc. That was at COP26. He was the advisor to
00:08:28.420UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for COP26. He's the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action. I could
00:08:35.480go on and on. This guy promoted carbon taxes across the world. That's how I start the article.
00:08:44.420Carney tried to convince the world to adopt a carbon tax. Here he is in Canada stepping away
00:08:51.340from it, but I suspect in many ways he's just trying to disarm the conservative opposition
00:08:56.440because he's looking ahead. In his mind, I suspect he already thinks he's going to become
00:09:01.740prime minister, and he's planning ahead, trying to make certain chess moves to counter Pierre
00:09:08.120Polyev's wish to have a carbon tax election. But the truth is the carbon tax is still here. We're
00:09:14.120paying it at the pump. Canadians keep paying it. You're paying it on your heating bills.
00:09:19.080It shows up in anything that's transported via gas-powered vehicles, trucks. So the carbon tax
00:09:27.240is very much a real thing. If an election were to happen, it will definitely be a ticket issue.
00:09:32.880So I suspect there's an element of smoke and mirrors and trying to step away and to confuse
00:09:38.340people. But the plan he's proposed, this incentives model, doesn't clear any confusion. It doesn't
00:09:44.600make sense. And it doesn't provide any real solid answers about what he plans on doing if he's
00:09:49.660prime minister. Well, you mentioned the banks there. So I want to point to this story that
00:09:54.720came out in January about how many of the banks in Canada are now moving away from Mark Carney's
00:10:01.400climate initiatives. See as the CBC, it says four of Canada's big banks leave Mark Carney-led
00:10:07.400climate initiative. Banks say that they can go it alone to help the push for achieving net zero
00:10:13.820emissions. So basically, Mark Carney led up a scheme through the United Nations, something
00:10:20.420called Net Zero Banking Alliance that aims to accelerate climate action among financial
00:10:27.920institutions. The banks, including BMO, National Bank, TD, and CIBC all confirm that they were no
00:10:34.700longer members. Withdrawals from the alliance followed departure from six large U.S. banks
00:10:40.800and this was at the time ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump. It seems like there's been a bit
00:10:47.120of a cultural shift, Cosmin, in the last, I don't know, three months, where people are just sort of
00:10:52.400done with all the woke stuff, like all of the ESG, UN, World Health Organization, WEF, everything,
00:11:02.180like we're done with all of it. And I think it's becoming much more popular, even for in the
00:11:06.660corporate world, which is very restrained, very cautious and careful. They're saying like, yeah,
00:11:13.240no, we don't want to do this stuff anymore. And the idea that you can run a bank, you know,
00:11:18.520that the purpose of a bank is to be good stewards of money, right? And to give loans to people when
00:11:24.200they need it and to hold people's money. Like the purpose of a bank isn't to try to meddle in left
00:11:29.480wing politics. And yet that's what we've seen for previous five to 10 years. And now things are
00:11:35.080shifting away, abandoning this whole concept that Mark Carney tries to push to net zero banking
00:11:41.640alliance with total nonsense. What do you think that this will do for sort of Mark Carney's
00:11:46.600reputation? Like he's really built his entire political career on being this like really
00:11:53.000important backroom banker who builds these big, important green policies. And yet at the same
00:11:58.560time, the culture shifting away from it, banks are openly leaving them. Where do you think that
00:12:03.040leaves Mark Carney? Well, it leaves him in a difficult position, but if it weren't for the
00:12:09.160legacy media, because the legacy media refuses to hold them accountable on any of this stuff.
00:12:14.480They just take what he says word by word and reports it as if he's a new person. He's a changed
00:12:20.040person. You know, we saw the Jon Stewart interview where he claims he's a political outsider,
00:12:25.980whereas, you know, he's he's advised the prime minister. He's advised the prime minister in the
00:12:30.140UK. He's he's definitely the most insider type of person. And you're absolutely right. There has
00:12:36.860been a growing awareness and i think social media has a lot to do it definitely elon musk take over
00:12:43.200of x there's a growing awareness of the double standards that these elites who buy into this
00:12:50.680net zero agenda you know you call it the great reset that was a big thing during covid these
00:12:56.640elites who want to adopt world economic forum ideas and and and mold national policies based
00:13:05.080on these, you know, think tank, unelected sort of things. And people are aware of it. They see
00:13:11.720the double standards. They see them flying their private jets and then preaching about saving the
00:13:17.000climate. And they're sick of it. And I think, thankfully, at least you see it in the private
00:13:22.220sector and of things. Companies are reacting to that. They're seeing the consumer shift and
00:13:28.140they're starting to reevaluate whether this is actually, first of all, the way to tackle things
00:13:33.520like climate change uh with carbon taxes all these sort of virtue signaling uh approaches
00:13:41.200and secondly they are starting to believe in a sense they're starting to adopt more to the
00:13:49.600consumer mindset as it shifts well you mentioned this uh clip and i have it so i want to show it
00:13:55.280this is mark carney appearing on the daily show this was uh back on january 14th so he was still
00:14:00.960just teasing the idea that he might run but here you can see that he calls himself an outsider
00:14:07.040wild hypothetical let's say the candidate wasn't part of the government let's say the candidate
00:14:13.680did have a lot of economic experience let's say the candidate did deal with crisis let's say the
00:14:19.280candidate had a plan to deal with the challenges in the here and now you sneaky you're running as
00:14:24.960an outsider i am an outsider i love how john stewart calls him sneaky there because it's just
00:14:32.800like it's just perfect uh we have a bit more information about mark carney with regards to
00:14:38.960the world economic forum uh because you mentioned that as well and it wasn't too long ago that he
00:14:43.520appeared on a podcast with an mp a toronto mp for the liberal party and they were just kind of
00:14:49.440casually chatting about WEF and basically saying that it was a great, wonderful thing
00:14:54.800that Mark Carney was involved in it. And they don't understand why the conservatives don't like
00:14:59.720it. Let's play that clip. So one of the knocks on me that the opposition makes or part of the
00:15:09.280opposition. You're a WEF global elite. Exactly. I'm a WEF global elite. John Barrett is too,
00:15:14.120But I don't know. Can't be a coach here. That never comes up.
00:15:20.160He's banned his ministers from going to World Economic Forum events to cater to conspiracies.
00:15:25.040And you've been a board member for over a decade.
00:15:27.120Yeah. I've rolled off the board, but that's absolutely right.
00:15:30.300I had a board member there and I used to go there with Prime Minister Stephen Harper when he was there and et cetera.
00:15:36.560So I think that the culture has shifted so much again since this interview,
00:15:41.120because before the liberals used to just brush off anything about WEF as just a conspiracy theory.
00:15:46.800Like, oh, Pierre Paglia believes these crazy conspiracies, the conservatives are scared of it,
00:15:50.880whereas you, Mark Carney, amazing Mark Carney, you spent a decade there and you're the leader of it
00:15:56.000and way to go. And like the reality, I think Danielle Smith said it so perfectly when there
00:16:00.480was a legacy media reporter hounding her like, what do you have against the WEF? You haven't
00:16:05.280even explained it. And she's like, I don't like an organization where billionaires brag about
00:16:10.000controlling politicians like like that's that's not an organization that i want to be a part of
00:16:15.280i think danielle put it so perfectly but the reality is that yeah like you have klaus schwab
00:16:20.720out there saying that he penetrated cabinets and then you have people like justin trudeau and
00:16:25.120christia freeland acting not on behalf of the people as you can tell by the fact we don't have
00:16:29.120an election and we're about to have a selected prime minister installed and i just think that
00:16:34.000when i hear them talking about it laughing about it and brushing it off like it's no big deal
00:16:37.840it's like they've been listening too much to the legacy media and to the you know the people who
00:16:43.520believe the exact same narrow thing that they do and canadians are not on the same side i i wonder
00:16:49.360like i think these comments have already aged really badly but i think it'll get even worse
00:16:54.080i want to show um andrew andrew lawton who is a journalist for true north he's now going to be a
00:17:00.000conservative candidate in the next federal election he he was always our guy that would
00:17:04.400would go to Davos. He was great at it. There's wonderful videos of him interviewing Mark Carney,
00:17:10.540or at least trying to on the side of the road. But Andrew Lawton tweeted this last September,
00:17:16.0002024, saying this. He said, Mark Carney is a mainstay at the West Davos retreats. I bumped
00:17:22.840into him when I've been reporting on the Davos elites as a journalist. Last year, he was on my
00:17:28.860flight home from Zurich to Toronto. He was in business class. His wife was in economy. Take
00:17:35.140from that what you will. Cosmin, I know you are happily married. Your better half, Lindsay
00:17:40.940Shepard, used to work for True North, and she's moved on now working in Victoria politics. Would
00:17:47.280you ever take a flight and sit in business class and make your wife sit back in economy?
00:17:52.340Well, I would do the exact opposite and swap places instead. But it's funny, you mentioned World Economic Forum. When we were there last year, we saw Mark Carney. And you're absolutely right. It is a bunch of elites trying to make decisions for politicians.
00:18:08.280It was last year at the World Economic Forum that Chrystia Freeland talked about meeting with this financier to discuss investment in Canada.
00:18:17.700That is lobbying, but it was unregistered lobbying, and she did it, and she openly bragged about it.
00:18:23.700So absolutely, Mark Carney was a mainstay at these events.
00:18:27.360I think he went every single year while he was involved in that.
00:18:30.980Yeah, and again, this is another clip that came from his time at WAP.
00:19:02.460Well, speaking as a European, I like to say falling.
00:19:07.640Whoops. Do you think he regrets saying that now? I know that he has multiple passports, right?
00:19:13.100He's also a citizen of the UK. So maybe that's what he's talking about. He considers himself European.
00:19:21.840Yeah. And that was a huge deal. If you recall, when Andrew Scheer was conservative leader,
00:19:26.200the media were hounding him practically daily to resign his U.S. citizenship.
00:19:33.220And yet, here's Mark Carney, who describes himself as a European holding a second citizenship. I am not sure if he's a U.S. citizen as well. He might be. But nobody's asking this question. And it just goes to show that double standard. And Mark Carney, to describe himself as European, I think he would regret it. Because now, with the tariff stuff, he's trying to, you know, bring up this whole Team Canada approach.
00:20:00.020we're all proud to be canadians we're different than the americans but here we have him on record
00:20:05.140calling himself a european first before a canadian well and it's so much worse even than andrew sheer
00:20:11.620who andrew sheer was born with an american parent so he got an american citizenship passed it down
00:20:18.660to him and so it wasn't something that he went out and tried to get uh mark harney i'm going to read
00:20:24.820read his bio, but this is part of his bio, is that he's a citizen of three countries. So he was born
00:20:30.000a Canadian. He obtained Irish citizenship in the 1980s and then became a British citizen in 2018
00:20:37.920when he became the governor of the Bank of Canada. So these are decisions that he made
00:20:42.180as an adult, not like Andrew Scheer, who was born with that and, you know, of no control to himself.
00:20:48.940I remember when Thomas Mulcair was running for prime minister as the NDP and we found out that
00:20:54.200he was a citizen of France. And when that came out, he promised that if he became prime minister,
00:21:02.340he would renounce his French citizenship. So you had Andrew Scheer saying, I will renounce my
00:21:06.960American citizenship. And he was taking steps at the time to do that. You had Thomas Mulcair
00:21:11.100promising that. And I don't think that Mark Carney has even acknowledged it. And it's not
00:21:16.820like he's just running for prime minister, Cosmin. He will be prime minister. He's just running for
00:21:21.980liberal leadership which he'll win and then he'll become prime minister so it's not even like well
00:21:27.340if i win the general election i'll get rid of this it's like he's already going to do that i'm going
00:21:31.660to read a bit more of his bio because interesting uh person and character so he was born all the
00:21:37.180way up in fort smith northwest territories and apparently grew up in edmonton his father was a
00:21:43.340candidate for the liberals in um in edmonton when he was growing up he earned a bachelor's degree
00:21:49.340from Harvard University in 1988. He also received his Master's and a Doctorate in Economics from
00:21:54.540the University of Oxford. He became a Managing Director and Investment Banker at Goldman Sachs.
00:22:00.380He served as the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2000 to 2004, and then eventually he
00:22:06.220was promoted to the Bank of Canada Governor from 2008 to 2013. He likes to talk a lot about how he
00:22:13.020worked with Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
00:22:17.900former finance minister, the late Jim Flaherty, in sort of steering Canada away from the economic
00:22:23.500crisis in 2008, the financial crisis. And Canada's banks did, you know, incredibly well relative to
00:22:29.740the rest of the world, especially the Americans. After that experience, he moved on to become the
00:22:33.900head of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020. So it's interesting that he became a citizen in 2018,
00:22:40.860Cosman, but he started that role in 2013. So it's not like it was required for him to do that. It's
00:22:46.060It's not like they said, look, you can come be the bank, the governor of the bank, but
00:22:49.660you have to become a British citizen first.
00:22:51.500It's like he became the British citizen halfway through.
00:22:55.380After that role, he became the chair and head of impact investing at Brookfield Asset Management.
00:23:01.320He became the chair of the new board of directors of Bloomberg.
00:23:05.360He served as a special envoy for climate change and finance to the United Nations, became
00:23:10.440the co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
00:23:15.800He became a foundation board member for the World Economic Forum.
00:23:19.200And then, like I mentioned earlier, he became a special advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Canada's COVID response back in 2020.
00:23:27.580And then it seems that he continued advising liberal policy from that point.
00:23:33.100It became public again that he was a special advisor and chair of the Liberal Task Force on Economic Growth just in 2024.
00:23:41.060So, you know, again, this guy's the ultimate insider.
00:23:43.480Warren Kinsella, who's a liberal insider as well, he posted the following on X, talking about Mark
00:23:50.500Carney's sort of insider status. So if we can show that tweet, he says, Mark Carney is the team
00:23:56.320Trudeau candidate. His campaign is being run by Gerald Butts, Katie Telford, etc., the ones who
00:24:03.620had to resign due to scandal or have been implicated in multiple scandals, the ones who
00:24:08.060reduced the Liberal Party to 16%. Carney equals Trudeau. And Warren Kinsella is someone who would
00:24:14.960know because he's also a liberal insider. So what's your take on all of that, Cosman?
00:24:20.720Yeah, if you just compare the policies Trudeau has promoted to the things that Mark Carney
00:24:26.720promotes in his book Values, it's almost a one-to-one comparison. In that book,
00:24:31.940While discussing climate policies, he talks about the need to phase out gas powered vehicles. He talks about introducing certain zoning rules for, you know, climate and less carbon intensive things in building housing and real estate.
00:24:50.560He talks about putting caps on oil and gas. These are all policies that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has attempted to introduce or has introduced during his time. So when you look at this, when you look at his own words, it just seems that if Carney, carbon tax Carney, as the conservatives call him, if he were to become Prime Minister, it would just be a fast forward on these policies.
00:25:17.340It would be not only Trudeau 2.0, but it would be Trudeau 2x or 10x in a sense that he's going to multiply what he was doing and introduce it quicker and with more punch.
00:25:31.280So one of the things I'm noticing, Cosman, and tell me if you find this trend as well, is that basically the liberals at this point are completely abandoning all of their policies.
00:25:42.020And it seems to me that they're trying to copy the conservatives.
00:25:45.020Like whatever the conservatives are saying, that's kind of the position that the liberals are taking.
00:25:49.180You saw this after the tariff threat where Pierre Polyev really started talking about reducing barriers for interprovincial trade.
00:25:56.040And you had the one of the ministers, Anita Anand.
00:25:59.360I think she's now the minister of, oh, I don't know, something.
00:26:03.580She used to be the foreign, the defense minister and she moved on.
00:26:07.820Anyway, she came out saying, yes, we need to eliminate these interpredential trade barriers.
00:26:12.220One of the interesting things I saw was last week we had Dominic LeBlanc.
00:26:17.840So this is this is Canada's new finance minister.
00:26:21.600After Chrystia Freeland, you know, was thrown under the bus and then threw Justin Trudeau under the bus.
00:26:27.580This individual came in to replace her.
00:26:30.300And Dominic LeBlanc came out and said last Friday that Canada should spend less and that we should review the size of government.
00:26:39.240So these liberals are sounding an awful lot like conservatives.
00:26:42.880I think we have a clip of Dominic LeBlanc saying basically, I don't know, that the liberal spending and the entire 10 years of Justin Trudeau in office was kind of a mistake.
00:26:55.040And we need to start again and actually become fiscally responsible.
00:27:00.300One of the tensions, of course, in any spring budget would be the fact that spending would be
00:27:05.960looked for and maybe even required in the event of tariffs. But we also need some fiscal prudence.
00:27:11.000A Canadian dollar demands it at the very least. If we have a massive deficit, it will weaken us
00:27:16.220further in other ways. How do you marry those two things? How do you match them up?
00:27:20.180Accept that premise as real, the premise you just said, that the continued significant spending in
00:27:26.120a bunch of areas has to be ratcheted down. My own view is things as simple as the growth of
00:27:31.900government need to be looked at. So again, sounds sort of like a conservative. This is sort of
00:27:37.900frustrating, I think, for many conservatives. It's like liberals go into office. They spend
00:27:42.200an entirely ridiculous amount of money. They grow the size of government. They somehow manage to
00:27:46.660give patronage packages to all of their friends who work in various industries. And then right at
00:27:53.440very end when they're about to get kicked out of office they're like yeah someone needs to come and
00:27:56.560like clean this out uh so they put that on the conservatives so the conservatives could be in
00:28:00.320charge of all the unpopular cuts and then 10 years from now the liberals will come back and you know
00:28:05.040promise a bunch of goodies and canadians will turn around elect them again i mean maybe that's
00:28:08.320a cynical take on it all maybe it's a victory maybe the fact that the liberals are finally
00:28:12.240coming around to say hey all the spending that we did was really bad and we probably shouldn't
00:28:16.560do it anymore maybe it's victory or maybe we shouldn't believe them because they're not
00:28:19.840not actually going to do it. What do you think, Cosman? Well, I think it's a victory in the sense
00:28:25.960that the public conversation has ramped up and is openly talking about cutting foreign aid,
00:28:33.940cutting the size of government. I think most voters are in support of that. For a while,
00:28:39.400the liberal government would fearmonger against conservatives talking about any cuts being an
00:28:45.280attack on social services and attack on health care but there's uh you know we talk about doge
00:28:50.960and i i think we'll be playing this clip later but carney says you know the government uh the
00:28:56.000government of the united states has is on a war on woke but in reality what doge is a war on yeah
00:29:01.760we have it why don't we play it right now let's play the clip of this is just such a weird
00:29:05.760statement but here is mark carney last week uh saying what cosme just said there's a fever
00:29:11.600gripping america and while it rages canadians will remain resolute and true to our values
00:29:20.240while america engages in a war on woke canadians will continue to value inclusiveness
00:29:27.760so it's it's false to say that doge or the u.s government uh the department of government
00:29:32.960efficiency is waging a war on woke it's waging a war on overspending wasteful spending and it
00:29:40.400just so happens that those two areas overlap a lot of the wasteful spending has been on like
00:29:47.120diversity equity inclusion initiatives that do not provide any material or comfort benefit for
00:29:53.840the average taxpayer and it's the same case here in canada think about all of the departments and
00:30:00.000the different spending initiatives that the liberal government has ballooned we're talking
00:30:05.840we have to hold them to their record we have nine years worth of governance to hold them to account
00:30:11.680for that includes ballooning the size of executives we're talking about managers in the government
00:30:18.960not just public sector employees there's a record number of executives earning huge amounts of money
00:30:26.400well above the average canadian salary they've invented new departments new ministries and
00:30:33.200And they've introduced things like, you know, gender-based analysis across the board, across government sectors.
00:30:39.020So there's so much there to go through.
00:30:42.580And if any future government wants to take this seriously and take Dominic LeBlanc at his word, the fact to look at the government and downsize, there needs to be an audit.
00:30:53.920a real audit where, like Doge, you embed people with an objective financial mindset and looking
00:31:01.960where can we make these cuts, what hasn't produced any real results, and what can we do away with
00:31:07.980while maintaining core services and actually improving the outcomes for Canadians at a lower
00:31:15.100cost. Well, it's interesting that you say that it's not exactly a war on woke, it's a war on waste.
00:31:21.160And I think that's true. The government is spending on such ridiculous things. We see that down in Washington with what Elon Musk is exposing. I mean, I think it was like $20 million for an Iraqi Sesame Street or a musical on transgenderism in Ireland and a comic book in Peru.
00:31:43.520Like, it was so absurdly ridiculous that, you know, it's wrong because it's wasteful.
00:31:48.460It's extra wrong because we're pushing just the worst values upon the world.
00:31:55.180Like, you know, the Americans had those really high-profile funny examples.
00:31:58.980But when the sort of mini scandal happened last week where the Foreign Affairs or Global Affairs Canada tried to take down the database of all of their international development plan funding,
00:32:10.440and then they put it back up and everybody was going through and finding all the things like
00:32:14.520our forward policy is kind of embarrassing. The fact that we have, we've spent $52 billion over
00:32:22.100the last, since 2017, so over the last six years on programs, I think is wrong. I think that that
00:32:27.900money should be spent in Canada. But then even beyond the fact that it's wasteful, the idea that
00:32:33.700some of these things that we're spending, like we're spending money on transgender surgeries
00:32:38.360in the Philippines. Like what does the Philippines have to say about that? Well, if you were from the
00:32:42.680Philippines, you know, it's a very religious, very Catholic country. And all of a sudden there's
00:32:47.180these like foreigners pushing this kind of radical religion upon your children. I wouldn't be happy
00:32:53.420about that if I was from that place. Or we learned that Canada is spending $10 million a year
00:32:58.820providing abortions to women in London. Like why? You know, in what world is that Canada's business
00:33:06.820or Canada's role, plus we're pushing an ideology.
00:33:10.200So to me, Cosmin, yes, the world is having a war on woke.
00:33:14.220I mean, just repeat what Mark Carney said.
00:33:19.160And while it rages, Canadians will remain resolute and true to our values.
00:33:24.060While America engages in a war on woke, Canada will continue to value inclusiveness.
00:33:31.620So, I mean, is this his new campaign slogan that like woke is here to stay?
00:33:36.360Canada is going to remain the woke country and you know again this idea that Canadians are like
00:33:41.920this compassionate people that we value inclusiveness so we need to pay for sex change
00:33:46.940operations and abortions all over the world like it's it's so patently absurd the reason that
00:33:51.140people don't like woke and the reason that woke is you know it's it's so popular to go against it
00:33:56.980and Canadians are just so done with it is because it's morally wrong and I think we're sick of it
00:34:02.720we had to keep our mouths quiet. Well, I personally didn't, but so many Canadians
00:34:06.700felt afraid to talk about this kind of thing. And the cultural environment for the last maybe 10
00:34:11.460years has been quite hostile towards people who do speak out. We really witness cancel culture
00:34:17.880to the extreme. So I understand how before Canadians and Americans didn't want to talk
00:34:22.320about their opposition to this kind of thinking. But again, things have shifted. Everything's on
00:34:28.220open everybody kind of agrees at this point that we don't want this kind of stuff and it seems like
00:34:34.300mark crane didn't get that message so again if his new campaign slogan is like woke is here to
00:34:38.780stay and i'm the woke candidate uh good luck with that yeah part of it seems to be that this liberal
00:34:46.140uh trend or almost uh behavioral pattern where they constantly need to counter signal against
00:34:52.780the United States. They're constantly trying to say, oh, look how better we are, even when it's
00:34:58.360to the detriment of Canada. They're willing to die on that hill. And I think Carney is willing
00:35:05.380to die on that hill. And we will be exploring that in our series because he talks a lot about
00:35:11.180inclusivity and changing the economy. You know, this is a World Economic Forum idea. Klaus Schwab
00:35:18.260term this made this term up, you know, stakeholder capitalism. And this is encapsulates this whole
00:35:24.720idea about, you know, changing the world to adapt to these climate goals, but also to these social
00:35:31.300goals, these social governance goals, to promote diversity and equity to, you know, promote mass
00:35:37.240immigration, etc, refugee policies. So absolutely, whether that is a winning ticket with Canadian
00:35:45.900voters? I don't think so. And you mentioned, you know, people are way more willing to be open
00:35:51.540about this and express their dissent, whether it's at their own workplace on social media or
00:35:57.440against the government. And I'd like just to point out how much of a testament that has been to True
00:36:03.900North's hard work on this topic, because we were covering it before any of the mainstream legacy
00:36:10.600media outlets were willing to touch it we got a lot of flack for it but we stuck by it and we've
00:36:16.520we have a catalog of examples going all the way back to this company's founding of coverage
00:36:23.880pointing out exactly where this is happening and why it's wrong and it's it's it's i mean
00:36:30.920i'm very grateful that things are starting to change i think that back then when we were the
00:36:35.000only ones reporting on it uh it was great because you know we were the only ones reporting on it and
00:36:39.480And so we got a lot of scoops and we told a lot of stories that were unique to Canada, but we certainly got a lot of blowback.
00:36:46.740And you realize that the people who push these extreme ideologies, they sort of have like a, I wouldn't even say a religious movement, because I think that that's unkind to religious people.
00:36:59.100But they're maniacs. And, you know, when they have their eyes set on you, it's kind of scary.
00:37:05.720So, yeah, we've all kind of been the target of the craziness from these people.
00:37:10.660I just don't think that Mark Carney's very good at this.
00:37:13.160I think that he has a lot of experience.
00:38:36.620the system it's not working as it should i don't know if that was supposed to be an applause line
00:38:44.140Just a long pause and nobody clapped. And it just was very inspiring. What do you what do you think?
00:38:51.800Well, it was more like he's reading a funeral eulogy than he's actually launching a political
00:38:56.960campaign. And you're absolutely absolutely right. The energy isn't there. And I compare this back
00:39:02.460to 2015 when Justin Trudeau was running to become prime minister. After he became liberal leader,
00:39:10.940There was energy in his campaign. There was a lot of young people flocking to Trudeau. You know, he forwarded he was talking about, you know, releasing students of their student debt. He was promoting the legalization of marijuana. And he had some vitality, right? Some energy and youthful drive that clinched him the election. I just don't see it. I don't see it in Carney. I don't see it in Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gold, any of the liberal candidates.
00:39:40.940And barring the one who, you know, you might call the meme candidate.
00:39:53.220And she's been calling out Mark Carney because one of the things that happened, Cosmin, was after the Trump tariff threats and then Trudeau pushing back and saying that we're going to have our own retaliatory tariffs.
00:40:03.840Mark Carney came out and put out a statement where he was saying that he was in constant conversation with Canada's cabinet.
00:40:11.460And he was like involved, kind of like implying he was involved in all of these decisions.
00:40:15.060And it's like, dude, you're not even a member of parliament.
00:40:17.980In what world is it OK for you to be involved in this stuff?
00:40:22.160And, you know, that's what we were pointing out from the outside.
00:40:25.200But then Ruby Dalla jumped in and also made that point.
00:40:27.960So it is kind of amusing to have, I would say, even though Ruby Dalla is a former member of parliament,
00:40:33.360and she's been around liberal politics probably her entire adult life.
00:40:37.920She's kind of an outsider because she's not part of that kind of elite Laurentian crowd,
00:40:56.500This shows us his character more than anything else.
00:40:59.860So we had the counter signals. Kian Bexty was sort of leading the charge, but it was also the Western Standard and True North's own Isaac Lamoureux, who, and Isaac is from Edmonton. He's a local journalist. And they weren't letting him in. They weren't giving an explanation. Kian filmed it all. And so, yeah, let's show that clip to see what it looked like.
00:41:21.120if we have to leave i'm happy to leave but nobody is from whoever's book this has told us that
00:41:27.440they're actually an authority figure just people that i think don't like us so okay you are
00:41:32.440trespassing so that was that was how it all ended but if uh you know earlier in other footage you
00:41:40.940could see kian just trying to get in the door and there's this man that's just blocking it and
00:41:45.580kian's asking him like who are you you know are you running this event why aren't we allowed in
00:41:49.940to re-allowed in. And these kind of like self-appointed bouncers, we're not letting them
00:41:55.480into a community center and treating them like they were doing something wrong. It's like,
00:41:59.440hello, we live in a free society. This is called a free press. You might not like the journalists,
00:42:03.240but they should still be allowed in. And the fact that Carney took that approach, that if you're
00:42:08.420not part of whatever, I don't even know. I don't know how they identified our own Isaac Lamoureux,
00:42:13.280or maybe they recognized Kean Bextie, but I don't understand why the rest of them didn't get let in.
00:42:18.500Like what trouble or like what would have possibly happened if like Isaac, who's just a very well mannered, unassuming young man, like what like what's the problem with letting a journalist into the room?
00:42:30.540I think it really demonstrates exactly what we're going to get with our Kearney.
00:42:36.620Yeah, it demonstrates weakness and fear almost of being asked questions that he doesn't want to answer, because as far as I can tell, the legacy media has only thrown him softball questions.
00:42:47.580He refuses to engage with any independent outlet, even if you're just sending him inquiries
00:42:53.960He didn't answer any of our reasonable questions.
00:42:56.960We're not going there to pick a fight.
00:42:58.580We're just going there to ask him some basic things about what he said in the past and
00:43:03.140what he's saying now and how he reconciles these things.
00:43:06.760Any politician worth his or her salt should be able to do that because that is going to
00:43:13.420be their job if they become prime minister.
00:43:15.920people have a lot of questions you are running a government and you better be equipped to be able
00:43:22.100to answer those questions coherently and in a way that makes sense but Carney has refused to do so
00:43:28.020he seems to just be cruising along and and when you just look at his campaign there's this sense
00:43:33.840of confidence almost smugness that radiates from it that he has this in the bag and he doesn't need
00:43:41.140to take that extra effort to convince the other voters, other voters who might not be necessarily
00:43:47.400Liberal Party members, right? Of course, he's running for the Liberal leadership, and that's
00:43:52.080who he's trying to convince. But if he thinks he has it in the bag, he needs to convince Canadians
00:43:57.720who are not liberals, who don't traditionally vote liberal, that he is going to be serving
00:44:03.280in the highest office in this country in their interest, everybody's interest, not just the
00:44:09.020Liberal Party supporters' interests. But do you know what, Cosman? I don't think he really does
00:44:13.500have to convince Canadians. Like, here he is. He has decided that he's going to be Prime Minister.
00:44:19.480There aren't really a lot of other good candidates, as you pointed out. Chrystia Freeland,
00:44:24.280Katrina Gould, like, they're very uninspiring. They're just, they're not going to win. They're
00:44:28.380not going to be Prime Minister. Had Mark Carney not stopped in, I mean, maybe it would have been
00:44:31.820Chrystia Freeland, and then we would have seen a repeat of the 93 election, I think, where Kim
00:44:35.840Campbell got absolutely decimated. But Mark Carney has stepped in. And I think part of the idea is
00:44:41.560that he doesn't have to face an electorate, that he is going to get selected by the liberal brass.
00:44:46.620He's already kind of been selected in backroom deals with bankers and whoever else. He's going
00:44:51.260to come in. He's going to get to be prime minister, which is something that, you know, he can add it
00:44:55.740as another trophy on his shelf of things that he's accomplished. And we think we're going into
00:45:01.040an election, right? Jagmeet Singh said in December that we're going to go into an election, no matter
00:45:05.440who the liberal leader is. But that requires us to actually trust Jagmeet Singh, who has proven
00:45:10.520himself over and over and over again, to be entirely untrustworthy. So I can imagine a world,
00:45:16.280and I think it's pretty easy to imagine this, where Mark Carney wins the liberal leadership
00:45:20.540race in March, becomes the prime minister, and then manages to strike another deal with the NDP,
00:45:27.280strike another deal with Jagmeet Singh. We know Jagmeet Singh is, his polling numbers are in the
00:45:31.600tank. And he is probably not even going to win his own riding if there were to be an election
00:45:36.000this spring. So why would he trigger one? Just like from a rational kind of incentives perspective,
00:45:41.840he has no incentive to actually trigger an election. He's lied to the Canadian people
00:45:45.940so many times that he doesn't even care about his reputation or his word anymore.
00:45:49.680So all Mark Carney has to do is dangle something in front of him. And we know that Jagmeet Singh
00:45:54.640falls for that because he did over and over and over again with Justin Trudeau. And so maybe
00:45:59.360they'll push the election back to October 2025. That will be four years after the last election,
00:46:05.440and our Elections Canada Act says it's supposed to be every four years. But then there's also
00:46:10.080this theory floating around. So I want to play this video from our friend Brian Lilly of the
00:46:14.320Toronto Sun, where he talks about how we might not see an election this year at all. Let's play that
00:46:19.280clip. Since I get the most is when is Canada going into a federal election? Well, the answer is we
00:46:24.800may not head into one until September 2026. Yeah, you heard that, September 2026. That's the last
00:46:31.540time that we're able to. The vote has to be held before the five-year mark of the last vote, which
00:46:36.240was October 2021. That's the Constitution. Yes, we've got fixed election date laws, but they're
00:46:41.040not worth the paper they're printed on. They have all kinds of outs for parties to be able to do
00:46:45.800this. If Mark Carney takes over and becomes liberal leader and prime minister, he could cut
00:46:50.520to deal with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP and say, we've got a national emergency because of Donald
00:46:55.180Trump and these terror threats. We've got to stay in power. They could stick around, not just until
00:47:00.820the summer, not just until October, but all the way until the fall of 2026, all because of our
00:47:07.460strange government and constitutional system. Now, that's totally possible. It's within the
00:47:13.280realm of possibility. I've talked to many sort of insiders and people who understand the legal
00:47:16.840system. And they said, yep, that's probably what could happen. That's inside the possibility of
00:47:21.540what could happen. So what if the whole plan for Mark Carney is to come in, push off the democratic
00:47:28.440process, stay prime minister, you know, lead the G7 meeting in Canada this summer, not have an
00:47:34.420election, make this deal with Dugmik Singh, continue to promote their WEF agenda, their
00:47:38.560globalist agenda. I mean, to me, it's like the nail in the coffin of Canada. And then maybe by
00:47:43.660the time 2026 rolls around, he'll bail and do something else, leave the Liberal Party to someone
00:47:48.420like Chrystia Freeland, and then they'll go down in flames. But, you know, we'll have to endure
00:47:52.440another 18 months of this. And, you know, as bad as it is today, 18 months from it, one can only
00:47:57.860imagine the damage that could be done to Canada. So what do you think of that scenario?
00:48:03.380Well, it's absolutely possible. We've seen that the governor general would be willing to, you know,
00:48:09.120delay an election and and jagmeet singh is not to be trusted considering his various flip-flops on
00:48:15.060issues in the past but it just points to the cynicism the political cynicism that is happening
00:48:22.060in ottawa and the amount of self-interest that the liberal party and the ndp have placed over
00:48:30.160the interest of canadians over affordability over housing in every single uh sector the liberals
00:48:38.500have put themselves and their political futures above the future of Canadians. We are in a crisis.
00:48:46.440Canada is in a predicament that I'm not so sure it can get out of, at least not right away,
00:48:51.860because we have a debt crisis. We have mounting debt. At this point, it's intergenerational debt,
00:48:58.680not to mention the housing and the healthcare situation, the problem with our borders,
00:49:03.580But the tariff threat, we're talking about a recession, a terrible recession.
00:49:09.500And here we are discussing politicians who are willing to delay Canadians' choice because that's what we're talking about.
00:49:18.660An election. Canadians deserve a choice by this point, given we have we have a prorogue parliament and nothing is working.
00:49:25.220The government is going to reach a deadline for spending and Canadians need to have a say.
00:49:30.480okay I'm not to make this too personal with you Cosm but you know there's a there's a
00:49:37.260we did a survey a poll that True North published that found that almost half of young men so
00:49:43.560Canadian men aged 18 to 34 you fit into that demographic said that they would take American
00:49:48.540citizenship if it was offered so you know you don't have to say for yourself personally but
00:49:53.000you know among your friends when people you know like do you think that a lot of young men in this
00:49:57.760country have simply just given up on Canada? Well, it's funny you mentioned that because
00:50:02.480literally two weeks ago, I have a friend, a longtime friend from Ontario, who was a licensed
00:50:10.120electrician. He did his apprenticeship, you know, he did trade school, etc. And he was a practicing
00:50:15.700electrician making a decent wage, but he moved to the to the United States, he moved to Michigan
00:50:22.020two weeks ago so i have a real life example i've i have friends who have left the country not for
00:50:28.060the united states but for other countries and it's absolutely true young people but specifically
00:50:34.560young men do not see a future in canada because they don't see a a place where they can own a
00:50:41.200home where they can build a business it's it seems to be all rigged against them and there are
00:50:46.540virtually few or to none politicians who are speaking for them. These are individuals who
00:50:55.000build the country. They work the jobs that keep things going, keep the infrastructure built,
00:51:00.720keep the lights running. And that's who we need to keep in this country. But all we're doing is
00:51:06.600driving not only individuals away, but also investment, innovation, entrepreneurs with the
00:51:13.580capital gains tax we're driving business away it's unbelievable like people are voting with
00:51:20.360their feet and you can see it it's sad but at the same time it makes sense and i think there's like
00:51:24.600a little bit of dissonance like i i talked to a lot of people about you know what what trump is
00:51:29.700talking about a lot of people are like horrified by this idea of the 51st state and then you know
00:51:34.480a few minutes later they'll be like oh by the way um i got a visa i'm gonna move to the states and
00:51:38.760It's like it's kind of funny how, you know, when it comes to someone's own self-interest, they would take a better opportunity if they could.
00:51:49.760I think even Mark Carney is backing away from that capital gains tax hike, which is really interesting.
00:51:56.180Finally, I want to talk about before we wrap this up, Cosmin, is that, you know, one of the things that Mark Carney really promotes is his experience as the governor of the Bank of Canada.
00:52:07.420I know you have forthcoming series on this topic, specifically what he was talking about
00:52:12.860with digital currencies, kind of terrifying.
00:52:15.600I think that for so many people, not just Canadians, but so many people around the world,
00:52:19.300seeing what happened during the trucker convoy, seeing the Trudeau government, really the
00:52:24.200mask slipped and we saw like the tyrannical face of a liberal government supposed to be
00:53:24.260He downplays gold. He downplays cryptocurrency. He wants to see everything centralized under global bank governance and that to be the future, to get rid of cash, paper cash, and have this system where we have central banks issuing digital currencies that are not true cryptocurrencies in the sense that we talk about Bitcoin or Ethereum or any of the other coins out there.
00:53:52.000they are almost dupes because they are controlled they it's not a decentralized system it's a
00:53:59.060centralized system and they don't have the privacy inherent to cryptocurrency right that's where the
00:54:04.860crypto comes from essentially hidden in a sense and of course there are downsides to that with
00:54:11.760the criminal elements but Carney advocates for CBDCs and he lays it out plainly it's all over
00:54:19.220the book. And this is, in his mind, the future. And we know the Liberal government has taken steps
00:54:25.440to issue to the Bank of Canada to investigate this and, you know, potentially lay out a future
00:54:33.180plan for Canadian digital currencies. If I recall correctly, they sort of downplayed it and said
00:54:40.360that, oh, this isn't feasible right now. But given Mark Carney's advocacy of this, and he's advocated
00:54:47.260as a person in finance for this type of model for the future of money. I suspect that it is
00:54:53.620definitely within the works of a potential national policy if he becomes prime minister.
00:54:59.860Well, that's the kind of thing I'm worried about, that he gets elected and then he stalls an
00:55:03.620election. It gets placed in by the Liberal Party, I should say, and installs the election so that he
00:55:08.080can implement something like that. It's really terrifying because, you know, every penny is
00:55:12.800controlled by the state, the government. They know what you're spending money on. They can
00:55:16.980turn it off whenever they want. They deem that you've done something wrong, as they did during
00:55:21.480the trucker convoy. So, you know, I'll play this one clip because Kian Bextie caught up with UK,
00:55:28.580former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss when he was down in Washington, D.C., and she put out a strong
00:55:34.000warning to Canadians to avoid Mark Carney to not go down the path. She said it would be disastrous
00:55:39.960for Canada. This is someone who knows she was Prime Minister when he was the governor of the
00:55:45.080Bank of Canada. Let's play that clip. Wanting to get your thoughts on Mark Carney and your
00:55:49.720relationship with him while you were prime minister of the United Kingdom and any advice
00:55:54.320you have to Canadians who think he might make a good prime minister. Well, Mark Carney was
00:55:59.160governor of the Bank of England and under his tenure, too much money was printed, which did
00:56:04.960damage to the British economy and put our economy off track. He, at the last election, endorsed
00:56:11.900Rachel Reeves' economic policy. She's now become Chancellor. It's been a disaster for Britain.
00:56:17.940The country is heading for bankruptcy. So I would strongly recommend not backing Mark Carney
00:56:23.200or his policies on net zero, which have been disastrous for Britain, would be disastrous
00:56:28.740for Canada. It's not just Liz Truss. There was an op-ed written in the Spectator magazine in the
00:56:34.860UK on January 7, 2025, with a headline saying, Mark Carney is not fit to be Canadian Prime
00:56:41.300Minister. This is written by Matthew Lynn, who's a financial journalist in the UK. And he goes on
00:56:47.020and on about basically just how bad he was at this job, how harmful it's been for England,
00:56:53.100how ideological he was in pushing these net zero policies and the green agenda. I mean,
00:56:58.760I think coupled with his idea of a digital currency, and then the fact that he's had a
00:57:04.120hand in destroying the British economy, I mean, the Prime Minister said right there,
00:57:07.420They're heading towards bankruptcy because of him.
00:57:10.580I'll leave the last word on this to you, Cosman.
00:57:22.800In the Globe and Mail, Mark Carney wrote an op-ed, and its title is this verbatim.
00:57:29.020It's time to end the sedition in Ottawa by enforcing the law and following the money.
00:57:34.900And he writes in that op-ed about gutting the financing of the Freedom Convoy, and when we know the measures that Christy Freeland introduced and the Emergencies Act introduced, treating ordinary Canadians, evidence is clear, over 80%, if not 90% of the donations came from just regular people.
00:57:57.780It was a regular people funding this convoy and treating them like terrorists, like they're involved in money laundering, like they're criminal organizations. And Mark Carney, and we've talked a lot about holding him to his own words, advocated for this in very plain language.
00:58:17.320And here he is talking about in his book about introducing a central bank digital currencies.
00:58:24.040You know, any thinking person just needs to connect the dots there.
00:58:29.260Well, it's a pretty terrifying idea, Cosmin.
00:58:32.260I appreciate all the hard work and the excellent reporting that you do over at TrueNorth and exposing all of this.
00:58:37.540Thank you so much for joining this show today.
00:58:40.740I hope these predictions don't happen.
00:58:41.880But I think if Mark Carney, if things go to plan, which is that he will be selected and placed in as a prime minister next month, this is where we could be headed as a country.
00:58:50.960So thanks for your time today, Cosman.