00:00:00.000Well, both Prime Minister Carney and the Premier of British Columbia are in damage control after
00:00:11.320the botched condo bailout announcement a week ago. Premier David Eby says the Vancouver condo
00:00:18.380program is not aimed at bailing out developers. Eby says the details are yet to be finalized.
00:00:25.240On this condo proposal, it's, I mean, you know, the federal government was enthusiastic about us announcing this before all the details were out.
00:00:37.100But in the absence of the details, the plot has been lost a little bit here.
00:00:42.740So happy to share some of the information with you.
00:00:44.780If you are a condo developer that took a bet on the high end of the market and you're facing significant potential loss of profits, what we are proposing will not assist you.
00:00:59.240The government of BC has been very clear, I've been very clear, that we are seeking to make housing more affordable for people.
00:01:08.160And that includes inevitable corrections in the market.
00:01:11.580What we see as an opportunity right now is the chance to buy products below the cost of construction.
00:01:20.160While Carney also tried to clear the air, saying no developer asked for a government bailout,
00:01:26.000he also said the program began as a B.C. government initiative.
00:01:29.780I want to say up front, I don't think we've done, self-cluded,
00:01:33.440a particularly good job of rolling this out and explaining exactly what it is.
00:01:37.200So, with your indulgence, I'm going to say, I think it's important to say a few words of what this is and what this isn't.
00:01:44.560We start, as we always do, with Canadians.
00:01:49.400We don't start, yes, it's great that there are developers and they build condos.
00:01:53.380What we care about is affordable housing and affordable housing, in this case, for the people of British Columbia.
00:01:58.180And the province of British Columbia, which initiated the idea, sees an opportunity, potentially given what's happening in that market, to convert some of these condos that are lying unsold to affordable housing, particularly rent to buy affordable housing for, and you can anticipate.
00:02:22.100so these are people uh in many cases young families but people who don't have money for
00:02:27.300a down payment well the 3.2 billion dollar program announced last week was met with a
00:02:33.220lot of backlash including from conservative party leader pierre polyev why is he bailing out these
00:02:38.980condo developers who've made billions over the last several decades well and i quote
00:02:44.980the developers don't want to sell at a loss who does somebody's going to lose money
00:02:53.620right the government inflated the housing market into a bubble and now the bubble burst
00:02:59.620so who's going to pay the price mark carney wants you prime minister carney also spoke about
00:03:06.980immigration this week saying his government now has things under control you've taken back control
00:03:13.300of immigration. Asylum claims are down by a third, temporary foreign workers arrivals down by half,
00:03:20.660and international student arrivals down by 60%. We can now carefully rebuild a sustainable
00:03:27.780immigration system consistent with Canadian values. Well, describing the situation as back0.97
00:03:33.780under control suggests things were out of control before. As many Canadians suspected,
00:03:39.540The influx of so many foreigners led to a housing crisis, increased crime, and inflation.1.00
00:03:46.020Let's be real. Crime is up. Repeat offenders are released on bail. Police responses are slower1.00
00:03:52.380than ever. And in many places, law-abiding citizens are expected to just hope nothing
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00:04:54.000safe than sorry. Our guest today is writer and political commentator Dimpy Brar joining us from
00:04:59.680Oakville, Ontario. Welcome, Dimby. Thank you so much, Mr. Petroni. Always a pleasure to be with
00:05:05.480you. So we've got both Premier Eby as well as Prime Minister Carney in damage control
00:05:12.580trying to fix what they broke, really. You had the announcement on Friday, which was apparently
00:05:19.380botched from a communications vantage point. It sounded like he wanted to save the developers
00:05:25.540from losing money and now it came out as we yesterday and and over the course the last
00:05:32.38048 hours no it's nothing to do with the developers they didn't ask us for the money and
00:05:36.920you know we don't care anyway because it's all about affordable housing for
00:05:40.980canadians who can't afford it what do we make of this mess well first of all i love that the
00:05:47.880idea that it's botched comes down to this it's botched because he told the truth accidentally
00:05:54.060That's what made it a botched communication swap. He accidentally had a little slip up and said that
00:06:00.400it was about the developers. Now, I would just like to remind your viewers that his exact phrase
00:06:06.740was that no one, quote, directly contacted him. Now, of course, no one seriously thinks that
00:06:13.080someone is directly contacting the prime minister himself personally to deal with this. However,
00:06:19.760directly is a very interesting use of phrase. Now, to be indirect, one could always speak to
00:06:26.560his chief of staff or his many staffers, or perhaps he went on a golfing trip with his fellow
00:06:31.780or former employees of Brookfield. You know, that would technically not count as directly either.
00:06:37.560Those are all indirect measures, but the point remains the same. This government somehow has
00:06:43.180the money to bail out a subsect of condo units in Vancouver, potentially thinking to do the same
00:06:51.360thing in Ontario. All the while, it struggles to have money to, first of all, restore 24 Sussex.
00:06:59.440It has to essentially go fund me that. And it also lacks the money and the financial holdings
00:07:07.020to support and preserve our industries, which are a part of national security. So for instance,
00:07:13.780our energy sector, our critical mining sector, and most importantly, our manufacturing sector.
00:07:20.280These somehow do not rise to the occasion of not necessarily a government bailout,
00:07:25.360which none of them have asked for, but somehow it's too much to ask the government to support
00:07:30.260and preserve those industries, which are integral to our national security issue.
00:07:35.620And yet somehow condos in Vancouver, that is a national issue for Canadians.
00:07:41.120Well, if they extend that program to Ontario, I think it might have been a bit of a trial balloon.
00:07:47.220Let's see if it flies in Vancouver, which is a major market in Canada.
00:07:52.280And if it does, well, then we can roll it out in Ontario.
00:07:55.440And I think they saw a massive backlash that arose from that and the outrage saying,
00:08:01.820how dare you use Canadian tax dollars in order to buy out these developers that have made out
00:08:07.700like bandits for decades. When times are good, you don't see those developers sharing their
00:08:14.320massive wealth with the rest of us. But when things go south, because their investments were
00:08:20.320made during a time when you already had a frothy real estate market, then we're supposed to pick
00:08:25.980up the tab. You know, all this, as so many Canadians are struggling to get into the housing
00:08:31.460market. I mean, it just rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and for good reason. And so now
00:08:38.160they're scrambling, because you also have the Prime Minister saying, well, by the way, it was a
00:08:42.960it was a BC government initiative. You know, it was their idea. We kind of went along with it. And,
00:08:49.860you know, it's really all about affordability. I think it was just botched from the start.
00:08:55.980And so any plans they might have had to roll it on Ontario, I think may have to hold off
00:09:18.740That's what I see it as with his relationship with Mr. Eby.
00:09:21.980Mr. Eby wants to blame Mr. Carney and Mr. Carney wants to blame Mr. Eby.
00:09:27.200And this is going to be very interesting moving forward because, of course, Mr. Eby is not exactly right wing.
00:09:33.760So we're not dealing with somebody who is antithetical to the Liberal Party's platform or even working with Mr. Carney.
00:09:41.840This is someone who has been quite an open supporter and sympathizer of Mr. Carney's policies.
00:09:47.100And it's indicative of a problem that Mr. Carney is having nationally now.
00:09:50.700There are two premiers who, again, they don't need to explicitly say that they don't like Mr. Carney or that they disagree. It's just a very interesting distancing that's happening, both between Mr. Eby, again, who represents a left flank to Mr. Carney, as well as Mr. Ford, who represents the, quote, right flank to Mr. Carney.
00:10:12.000One way or another, these two premiers, despite their differences in politics, seem to understand one thing, that Mr. Carney is not as popular as he might seem, and tying their fortunes to him does not seem to be as politically expedient or lucrative as it once was when he began.
00:10:30.240So again, this is really, I think, the beginnings of a scandal that's going to continue on throughout the summer.
00:10:36.620We still don't know which developers in question who really asked for this and what at some point we will find out the answer to this.
00:10:46.860And I am troubled by the fact that, as Mr. Cooper pointed out on your show, I'm troubled, especially by the fact that Vancouver is a hotbed for money laundering,
00:10:56.380especially money laundering of criminal organizations, if not foreign adversaries.
00:11:02.300The CCP really has a hold in Vancouver, especially in its real estate market.
00:11:07.160So again, I don't think that this is as simple as it seems or as it appears at first glance.
00:11:13.500We are seeing the beginnings of a scandal that he'll be dealing with, I think, for a long time.
00:11:19.500Yeah, I think we're going to find out.
00:11:21.440some developer will let slip that yeah we did lobby the government on this i think keep an eye
00:11:28.640on that story because guaranteed that they did they don't want to lose money and so they went to
00:11:34.700one level of government or the other possibly evie possibly carney because of course you have
00:11:41.660cases where they raised money they raised they did some fundraising for for carney ahead of his
00:11:47.560of his uh winning the election but there's all of that there's and you're right to raise the issue
00:11:54.100about so many other questions around how this is going to work like in eb's statement earlier
00:12:01.080he talked about getting these condos at a price that's lower than the construction costs that
00:12:09.740doesn't make much sense to me i mean why would these condo owners sell to government at a loss
00:12:16.820they might as well just go to the market they were going to do that they just go to the market
00:12:19.980and sell them and you know take a haircut and that's just being a byproduct of the speculative
00:12:27.140work that they do and sometimes you lose most of the time they win but this time they didn't
00:12:33.220and so you take a haircut and move on but what Evie is saying is well we could get these condos
00:12:38.280cheap and then have a kind of a buy to rent or rent to buy program and so I mean it doesn't
00:12:46.720makes sense to me that these developers would unload these condos to governments at less than
00:12:53.700what they could get on the market or at the same time amount they could get and you know what i'm
00:12:58.320saying like that that part doesn't ring true to me and you know what we need to hear from here
00:13:03.420uh is the developers these guys need to come out and say okay here's a deal we own these condos
00:13:10.520And here's our position on this. You know, yes, we wanted government money. Yes, we lobbied, you know, whatever their quote unquote, what their truth is.
00:13:20.620They need to say I'd love to hear from them, but they've been quiet, haven't they?
00:13:25.820Yes, their silence is notable, which is never a good sign for them, by the way.
00:13:31.540But it really raises the question of who exactly Mr. Carney's constituency is, or at least exactly who does he think he's exactly ruling on behalf of.
00:13:42.940It's certainly not the people. The people don't get lower affordability or housing prices just because he bails out these developers.
00:13:50.800In fact, it seems that when he's speaking about affordable housing, he means affordable housing for the developers is what he's expecting.
00:13:56.820But more importantly, a party that serves the interests of its donor class, which let's be honest here, there is a major faction of the development and real estate industry across this country that is a consistent voter and donor and fundraiser of the Liberal Party of Canada.
00:14:17.200So it raises the question of who Mr. Carney is really serving. We've seen him serve the interests of the Europeans, of Davos, of everybody except his own people. And in many ways, Mr. Carney should have a new motto, which is ABC, anything but Canadians.
00:14:37.140He will help out donors. He will help out Europeans. He will help out the Chinese Communist Party. He will help out even Iran and Venezuela, where he now wants to open diplomatic centers or embassies.
00:14:52.640But somehow the Canadians bear the brunt of this. And after a certain point, one has to wonder, when Canadians are lining up, the optics of Canadians lining up for food banks, if the government doesn't have money for that, how could you possibly have money for a bailout of condos out west?
00:15:12.540It's all very strange. And again, it's I really believe it is not the beginning of the end, but really the end of the beginning with Mr. Carney's tenure.
00:15:24.100Really? So you think it's downhill from here?
00:15:28.180Oh, yes. Mr. Carney, for the last couple of a couple of months, you know, everyone has the first year honeymoon, which is why no one should really look at polling in the first year of any prime minister in Canada, because it's usually very high, very consistent.
00:15:41.320and he has had record high polling across the country. That is absolutely true. But the
00:15:47.040precipitous fall that he's shown, especially in like the ledger polling for the past two months,
00:15:52.160when you have it for two months, it's not necessarily about the numbers, but the direction
00:15:56.500in which things are going. And one way or another, things are going southward. The Canadian people are
00:16:03.220not too happy with Mr. Carney's performance. And I think it all amounts to the same thing.
00:16:08.600Mr. Carney promised a kind of financial ruling. He is the international banker extraordinaire.
00:16:16.440He understands the markets and economics. That's why he was supposed to get us the best deal with
00:16:21.440President Trump. That's why he was elected. Essentially, the Canadian electorate made this
00:16:27.060decision, and I don't believe that voters are ever wrong the same way customers are never wrong,
00:16:32.220in theory. He was elected simply for the fact that the Canadian voter thought
00:16:37.340if there was one man who was going to get us a better deal economically with Mr. Trump,
00:16:42.800it would be Mr. Carney. The fact that he is failing on that account and on various other
00:16:47.980economic planes and domains in Canada. We are still in a technical recession. We still have
00:16:54.820a housing crisis. We have an immigration crisis on top of it. And we have two provinces who are1.00
00:17:01.280flirting with the idea of secession. Any one of these should bring a prime minister to his knees
00:17:06.640To have all of them going on at once is not exactly the kind of political situation or landscape that Mr. Carney wants to be ruling on top of.
00:17:19.740Speaking of immigration, they did do some internal polling and they found out that it's a major issue amongst Canadians.0.98
00:17:27.380They're really fed up the mass influx of so many people into the country.1.00
00:17:31.980It's created gridlock on the streets, created a housing crisis.1.00
00:17:36.900It has served to spike inflation as well as crime.0.99
00:17:42.000And so he came out recently and spoke about how immigration levels are now back to normal.