Juno News - Is it inevitable？

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. I'm so excited for today's show.

00:00:12.280 Okay, so Donald Trump shocked Canadians last month when he suggested that Canada should be annexed

00:00:18.760 into the United States and that we should become the 51st state. Calling our Prime Minister

00:00:23.680 Governor Trudeau was obviously meant as a cruel joke, but it was one that really stings.

00:00:29.060 You see, there's nothing, absolutely nothing that Canadian elites like Justin Trudeau hate more than

00:00:36.640 the idea of Canada getting absorbed into America. That's because the Laurentian elite, so the elites

00:00:42.760 that live along the St. Lawrence River corridor connecting Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, these

00:00:48.360 people primarily define themselves and their identity as being not American. Justin Trudeau himself said

00:00:55.880 this, he said it twice last weekend on two different news interviews in the United States

00:01:00.260 on CNN and MSNBC. Here's what that looked like. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian.

00:01:07.820 One of the ways we define ourselves most easily is, well, we're not American. If you talk to any

00:01:12.920 Canadian, you ask them to define what it is to be a Canadian, they'll talk about all sorts of

00:01:17.020 different things. But one of the things we will point out is, and we're not Americans.

00:01:20.780 It seems like sort of a superficial way to define a national identity, if you ask me. Like, imagine if

00:01:28.060 you met someone from New Zealand, and you asked them to tell you about New Zealand culture and

00:01:32.660 identity and cultural heritage, and they replied back by simply saying, well, we're not Australian.

00:01:38.380 It wouldn't really tell you very much about New Zealand, other than maybe the fact that it seems

00:01:42.960 like they're a little bit obsessed with their larger, more famous neighbour. So why do Canadian elites

00:01:48.600 have this complex? I mean, it sort of makes sense, because our country was founded in opposition to

00:01:54.840 the American Revolution. And Canadians were largely made up of loyalists, those who wanted to remain 0.63

00:02:00.360 loyal to the British Crown and to the British Empire. But that empire is long gone. Canadians hardly feel

00:02:08.600 a loyalty or connection to King Charles. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Queen Elizabeth. But I don't feel

00:02:14.440 the same connection with King Charles, and the same Laurentian elites who have made enormous efforts to

00:02:22.280 demonize our past. The same elites tell us who distance ourselves from early Canadians, they denounce

00:02:28.840 the settlers and the colonialist past, they allow for statues to be toppled, they dismiss our history as

00:02:35.240 literal genocide, and they try to erase our national symbols at every opportunity. So these Laurentian elites

00:02:42.520 want to shame you for being Canadian, while at the same time, stubbornly insisting that Canada is

00:02:48.600 superior to America, superior to our neighbours, and that they are somehow beneath us. But what about 0.87

00:02:54.760 regular everyday Canadians? Do they feel the same way? Do they have the same passion and hatred for our

00:03:00.760 Americans? I don't think so. I think most Canadians love America. Upwards of 20 million, something like 22

00:03:07.320 million Canadians visit the United States every single year, more than half the country gets on an

00:03:12.840 airplane or gets into their car and goes to the United States every single year. Several million

00:03:17.880 Canadians live and work either full time or part time in the United States. And my guess is that many,

00:03:24.120 many more would go if they could only get the work permits and the visas to migrate south. So at the

00:03:30.280 end of the day, we have a heck of a lot more in common with the Americans than what separates us.

00:03:35.720 But what about an actual merger? What about actually merging our two countries together? Well,

00:03:39.800 polls show that only about 10% of Canadians would actually be interested in that kind of deal.

00:03:44.440 Interestingly, the numbers double that about 20% on the prairies, and about one in five conservative

00:03:50.280 voters might be interested in that kind of a deal. Businessman and investor Kevin O'Leary

00:03:55.240 recently suggested that he thinks roughly 50% of Canadians are interested in some kind of a different

00:04:01.000 deal with our American neighbors. And so to dive into this topic a little deeper, I'm so excited

00:04:06.760 today to be joined by journalist Diane Francis. She is a columnist with the Financial Post and editor

00:04:12.040 at large at the National Post. So more than a decade ago, Diane wrote an in-depth analysis on this topic,

00:04:18.360 a book called The Merger of the Century, Why Canada and America Should Become One Country. Diane,

00:04:25.800 welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. It is great to have you here. So it's been a decade, I can't

00:04:33.320 believe it, since you wrote this book. I guess you must have-

00:04:36.440 12 years. 12 years. 12 years. I guess, I guess you must have had some kind of a crystal ball into the

00:04:41.240 future to know that one day this day would come. So why don't you, why don't you tell us a little

00:04:46.760 bit about the book and tell us what it says and tell us why you wrote it. Yeah, I predicted everything

00:04:51.960 that's happened because it was so obvious to me. I'm an American and a Canadian. I was born and raised

00:04:57.320 in the US. I lived in Canada from the age of 19 on, did business, traveled, had relatives and all that

00:05:03.640 sort of thing between the two countries. The two cultures are different. There is no reason to 0.94

00:05:09.720 think, I mean, they really are different. And then the French Canadian culture is different again.

00:05:14.840 And the political cultures are different. The political systems are different.

00:05:19.720 The values are pretty much the same on the big questions. And I did poll, I looked at polls back

00:05:26.040 then, and it was pretty much in sync on issues like abortion, capital punishment, gun control,

00:05:35.480 health care, public health care. Americans agreed, like Canadians, that this is what they aspired to

00:05:41.320 having. And they don't have it, and we do. But the point is that they're very similar. But I could see

00:05:48.040 that the, call it the Laurentian elite, but it's also a lot to do with Quebec,

00:05:52.520 with Quebec and that sort of thing, is that the Canadian system, political system, is very weak.

00:06:02.520 And it's run by people that are not that knowledgeable, or shall we say, sophisticated

00:06:07.240 or international in mind. And so back then I said, you know what, Canada has no military.

00:06:13.720 It can't guard its borders or its perimeters. Canada is completely and becoming more and more dependent on

00:06:20.280 the United States economically and trade-wise and investment-wise. And, you know, this was a

00:06:26.680 problem. And Canada wasn't even able to pull off free trade within itself so that it could strengthen

00:06:32.840 itself economically by doing business among one another. Instead, we were doing all this business

00:06:39.960 north-south. So we were, you know, melding into, melting slowly, merging slowly into the United States.

00:06:47.400 So my thesis was, okay, well, that's fine. I don't think that's a problem, frankly,

00:06:51.560 if that's what you want. But I don't think that's what Canadians would want. And I don't think

00:06:55.480 that they would necessarily do well in a situation like that if the Americans were in charge,

00:07:03.320 given how weakened we have made ourselves. So I talked about increasing the military,

00:07:09.720 a country that can't protect its borders and perimeters really isn't even sovereign,

00:07:13.800 and the Americans are doing it for us. And I said, they were going to get tired of doing that. 0.96

00:07:17.320 And bingo, here we are. So, you know, we have, then we elect Trudeau and he does everything

00:07:24.280 to make it even worse. More dependency on the United States, no free trade deal coast to coast.

00:07:30.040 We can't even get a pipeline to the East Coast from the West. All these kinds of things, these

00:07:34.760 impediments, the overspending, the, you know, the failure to take care of the border as well,

00:07:43.720 and to provide our security, not just in terms of military, but to screen immigrants that enter 1.00

00:07:49.960 our country. And of course, he's opened the floodgates in the last few years to immigrants, 0.90

00:07:55.080 many on screen because they come in as students, and they come in students to go to schools that

00:07:59.640 don't exist. It's a lot of it's scam. And so we have about two and a half million undocumented 1.00

00:08:04.120 immigrants in Toronto and probably Vancouver and Toronto, that's where they go. And it's causing 1.00

00:08:11.240 crime problems. It's causing all kinds of unsettling problems. It's jammed up the price of housing. It's

00:08:16.920 overloaded our healthcare systems. It's been an unmitigated, the Trudeau 10 years is the lost decade.

00:08:23.080 It's an unmitigated disaster. Then he also took aim at all the things I said we shouldn't,

00:08:29.320 and that is, you know, let's develop these resources. It's great. And Canada has a good

00:08:33.560 environmental track record. We don't do bad things to the environment when we produce our metals and

00:08:38.520 minerals and fossil fuels. And then let's do something about the Arctic. Otherwise, you know,

00:08:44.040 the Russians will claim it or the Americans will or whatever, did nothing. And so now here we are.

00:08:49.880 And so what do we do? So back then I said there were several merger models to look at.

00:08:55.320 Canada, it's hard to think ahead because you're not, you know, either get strong and be independent

00:09:00.760 or think about how you want to merge because that's what's going to have to happen. And the most,

00:09:06.760 I think, palatable merger idea, there were many different models I had there. I had a lot of fun

00:09:11.880 with it. In fact, I actually did a thought experiment with an investment banker relative,

00:09:17.640 and we looked at the two countries as though they were corporations. We added up their natural resource

00:09:22.440 assets and figured out how much it would cost the Americans to buy Canada. It was about half

00:09:26.920 a million dollars a person, $17 trillion. Canada is worth $17 trillion in resources more than the

00:09:35.640 United States. And it's bigger geographically as well. So the whole 51st state thing is very insulting

00:09:41.080 and actually rooted in ignorance. So this is a long way of saying that I said, you know,

00:09:47.240 the economic union that the Europeans have done, that's been done to a certain extent in the

00:09:51.720 Caribbean and among African countries is a natural, that's what we should do. And then that way we have

00:09:57.080 access to one another. And we don't, you know, we don't have to put up with their terrible healthcare

00:10:01.960 system, their crime rate, their social unrest, and their gun laws.

00:10:07.880 Well, I remember when the book came out, Diane, and I thought it was an incredibly bold idea that no one

00:10:13.160 else was talking about to the point where I don't know that it really got a lot of traction. I know

00:10:16.840 you did a couple of interviews and there's a few reviews. I remember you saying something along the

00:10:21.240 lines of, you know, Americans took the book seriously as sort of like a national security

00:10:25.240 geopolitical book, whereas the Canadians were kind of horrified by the idea and didn't want to talk

00:10:30.760 about it at all. And yet here we are again, like 12 years later, and it's happening to us without

00:10:38.120 our control. So why don't you walk us through, I know you had five different proposed models

00:10:43.560 in the book of different levels of mergers. You kind of just mentioned that the first one would be

00:10:47.720 like a full merger where it was kind of like reunification of East and West Germany, and then

00:10:52.760 other models that look more like an economic union, kind of what Kevin O'Leary is talking about today,

00:10:57.640 erasing that border, having continental shared security and a shared currency. Why don't you walk us

00:11:04.040 through those five models? Well, all the five models are very complicated and I don't think

00:11:09.400 they're that interesting, but I think the European Union model is a no brainer. You keep your culture,

00:11:14.040 you keep your legal system, you keep your political system and you just get rid of customs and then you

00:11:19.800 get rid of, you adopt a single currency. Now, those are tricky things to do and it's taken the Europeans 0.99

00:11:26.120 a long time and they pulled it off. The customs, you know, having a customs union means you erase the border

00:11:33.400 in terms of trade and investment. That's tricky. That's very tricky in terms of legal legalities

00:11:43.240 and safety and all that sort of thing. But customs, a customs union is doable. You don't completely

00:11:49.560 erase the border. You don't let anybody walk across the border, for instance. But that would be, 0.94

00:11:55.000 a customs union would be where I could take freight and have it arrive in Vancouver and it could go

00:12:03.160 anywhere in the US or Canada without crossing a border and getting, well, it would cross the border,

00:12:09.800 but it wouldn't be held up. It would be approved for continental purposes at any port of entry,

00:12:16.760 at the extremity. That would really speed up a lot of things and make everything more efficient.

00:12:22.840 That actually has been worked on under free trade, moving toward that model. Monetary union's trickier.

00:12:31.080 I mean, it'd be great if they paid us par for, if we got one US dollar for one Canadian dollar,

00:12:37.960 given how low ours is, but that's not going to happen. So that would be a negotiation of sorts.

00:12:43.000 The West and East Germans did that. If you do a corporate type merger, which I looked at,

00:12:48.920 it's a 17 trillion dollar over contribution by Canadians to the merged entity, which was back then

00:12:56.280 roughly half a million bucks per person. And I said, they'd actually have to also throw in health

00:13:01.000 care for your grandchildren to get Canadians to want it. See, I speculate it's different. I think

00:13:07.800 that Canadians at this point are so desperate because our economy is just, to your point that

00:13:13.640 you made earlier, it's just completely fallen off a cliff over the last decade. And I think people have

00:13:18.520 really started to feel it a lot more in the last six to nine months or year that if given an offer,

00:13:24.760 I mean, if, if the United States just said, Hey, you can come to Canada, you can come move to America

00:13:29.720 without a visa and you can just come live here if you want. I think a significant number of Canadians

00:13:34.360 would go, especially young Canadians who are locked out of the housing market. I mean, you look at like

00:13:38.200 a place like Utah, where the average home is like $400,000 and compare that to a place like Vancouver,

00:13:43.400 Toronto, where you need over a million dollars to get a very basic starter home. I think that more

00:13:48.840 Canadians, I mean, even if you just look at Diane, the brain drain that we currently have, right? 1.00

00:13:53.560 Like all of our most talented actors and singers and people in the cultural arts already go to the

00:13:58.280 United States. All of our top athletes already go to the United States, unless they're playing

00:14:01.720 professional hockey for a Canadian team. But most of them are down in the United States. The top law

00:14:06.840 students, the top tech people, the top finance people, they all end up in the Silicon Valley or New York.

00:14:13.080 And so I think that the main barrier is that Canadians can't get visas to go down there. So

00:14:17.800 I really do think that if Trump offered residency or citizenship to Canadians, that millions would go.

00:14:24.520 What do you think about that? They might, they might not. I mean, that's always been the case. The book

00:14:29.720 also deals with in the front of the book is the excessive immigration that's taken place with or without

00:14:36.760 visas. In the 19th century, the entire population of Canada went to the United States.

00:14:41.960 And I think there's something like one in five Americans have a Canadian grandparent.

00:14:48.440 So, I mean, we have been the farm team talent wise for the United States for a long time,

00:14:53.800 which is another thing, of course, I mentioned in the book, which is another thing that we have to

00:14:57.880 consider, that we will always be weaker than them because of the draw of that dynamic,

00:15:03.720 more powerful world-class economy. Austria has the same problem. New Zealand has the same problem.

00:15:10.360 So you get into some kind of formal arrangement where nobody's, you know, impoverished or weakened to

00:15:16.120 the point where they're, you know, an overhead of cost and that sort of thing. The other thing too,

00:15:21.320 is that we could have repaired this a long time ago. And about seven years ago, I wrote a column in

00:15:27.400 the post. I said, look, if we don't start to have a decent military and stop freeloading as a NATO member

00:15:35.640 and as a member of NORAD, they're going to send us invoices and they're going to be big invoices.

00:15:41.640 And so they actually did. In fact, about three or four years ago, quietly, the Defense Department

00:15:47.880 in the Pentagon said to Canada, to the Trudeau government, here's 50 billion bucks you have

00:15:53.880 to spend on surveillance equipment in the Arctic. Get on with it. That was kept very quiet, never

00:15:59.640 announced, of course. But that's padded into the overheads that Canadians are paying now.

00:16:05.000 So, you know, we can't freeload and we can't become too dependent. And, you know, the brain drain

00:16:13.000 will get worse unless we improve our own economy to keep people here, or to attract Americans.

00:16:23.400 I'm wondering, because, you know, you're talking about the military and, you know, Canada's military

00:16:28.040 is embarrassingly underfunded. And it seems like they have a problem even recruiting people. The

00:16:33.080 other issue that you identify in the book, and I think it's just gotten so much worse under Trudeau,

00:16:37.160 is the lack of any kind of development in the North. Like, we have this huge territory

00:16:42.840 full of minerals and natural resources and oil and gas, that you can't really get to, that's not

00:16:48.760 really even accessible. In the future, I think the threats from adversarial forces like China and 0.55

00:16:55.880 Russia will just get worse. And it doesn't really seem very obvious that Canada can manage itself up 0.95

00:17:01.400 there. What can Canada do? Like, do you think that going to the Americans and getting their help

00:17:07.720 securing the North and maybe even developing the North is the only solution? Or can you see a path 0.92

00:17:12.840 towards us doing it independently? Well, one of the ideas I had in the book 12 years ago was that we

00:17:18.600 do a joint venture in the North with the Americans, they got the money, build some, you know, facilities

00:17:24.920 for military and for rescue operations and that kind of thing. And just get on with it. But then, of

00:17:31.880 course, we elected a guy who, who wanted to do photo ops with Greta Thunberg, and made war against our 0.96

00:17:39.640 natural resources, which is the underpinning for our entire lifestyle. And as they say, you know,

00:17:44.920 we know what he's done, he sabotaged natural resource. And that's the only thing that the

00:17:50.360 North has to offer us is resources, is the extraction of metals, minerals and fossil fuels.

00:17:57.800 And we've got lots of it up there. But we can't even do it where it's in the South, where it's already

00:18:02.520 been discovered, and there's infrastructure to develop it. We've been impeded by that by,

00:18:09.000 by our government. So, you know, we've got we put ourselves in this box of being this tiny little,

00:18:14.440 you know, politically correct, wokey jokey, socialist, you know, kingdom by the liberals. And,

00:18:22.200 and you know what, it's not sustainable without American help.

00:18:27.240 And I think that that's become incredibly clear. Canada's sort of wokeness has become the butt of

00:18:32.760 a lot of jokes and sort of the laughing star of the world. I want to think a little bit about the

00:18:37.000 cultural differences and the cultural divide. If you can tell us a little bit more about the

00:18:41.000 reception that you got, I know, in the book, you talk a bit about how Canadians and Americans

00:18:45.000 fundamentally have different sensibilities, and how there might be a little bit of a clash.

00:18:50.520 Talk a little bit about the two different cultures in the countries.

00:18:53.240 Yeah, well, I grew up in the US and then I immigrated to Canada at 19 with a husband with

00:18:58.520 a draft dodger husband, and who was British. So I understood the British thing. It's Canada, Canada,

00:19:08.360 I would say the Canadian sensibility is British or French, it's European. The American sensibility is

00:19:15.720 German, is Germanic. I looked at the census, I had this idea, and I wanted to really in depth

00:19:23.000 examine the two cultures, the histories, the book is full of information about the two. I mean,

00:19:27.560 it's an encyclopedia about the US and Canada. And I looked at the census at that point, and Americans

00:19:35.000 ask you your ethnic background in their decade, every decade. And among white Americans, 60% said they were

00:19:42.440 German. Unbeknownst to most people, Pennsylvania was not Dutch, it was German. Texas was founded by

00:19:51.160 Germans. Silicon Valley is full of Germans. California was founded by Germans. And the Midwest, 0.92

00:19:58.280 industrial Midwest where I grew up, where there's a lot of metal bashing in industrial and small family

00:20:04.040 businesses that became multinational giants is little Germany. Whether you're talking about,

00:20:08.840 you know, Caterpillar or Harley Davidson, these are in small towns and the three generations of German 1.00

00:20:17.480 people are working in those companies. And they're world beaters. So it's, and what does that mean?

00:20:23.400 Well, you know, obviously to a British person, how you speak, how you dress, how you eat,

00:20:31.400 what family you're from, all of that is extremely important. And you have to be very, very polite.

00:20:37.480 And you, you, you can't talk about things that are difficult to talk about. Well, America is a

00:20:43.320 Germanic nation. They're all shouting each other all the time about all everything. And so they're 1.00

00:20:49.000 blunt, they're direct. It's not a bad, and they have a work ethic that, that is unmatched anywhere in

00:20:55.240 the world, maybe China. And so Canadians don't have that work ethic. You know, we have a long,

00:21:01.000 a legal long weekend every, every month, they have two, two or three. So there is your difference right

00:21:08.120 there. But, you know, we all speak English, we all like the same cultural arts, and, and singers, and

00:21:15.240 so on. And, and, and the sports thing, and all of that, I mean, you know, over, overwriting the whole,

00:21:21.160 and we're capitalists, and we're, we're Democrats. So, you know, that, that's, that's the similarity.

00:21:26.040 But no, there's a lot of differences. And it, and it grades Canadians, no end.

00:21:33.240 Well, certainly, yeah, like, it's, it's kind of like, almost like a big brother, little brother

00:21:36.840 thing where Canada wants to show that it can be independent and do its own thing, and pretend

00:21:41.320 that we have nothing in common with our neighbor. But at the end of the day, we're basically of the

00:21:45.960 same family that the example you gave of the sensibilities, it reminded me of my own family.

00:21:51.720 When my husband and I were getting married, we did a marriage prep class at our church. And one of it

00:21:57.720 was like talking about the two different types of families that you're from. And my family is very

00:22:02.040 British and English. And so we don't ever, like, we're not very direct, and everyone's very quiet

00:22:06.920 and very polite. My husband's family is from Iran, the Middle East, and they are incredibly direct,

00:22:12.200 and they shout, and they talk. And so it was kind of interesting just to see the two families come

00:22:16.200 together and how totally different that the kind of backgrounds that you talk about. I did, I want

00:22:22.760 to get your thoughts on this. There's a video that's been kind of going viral on social media,

00:22:27.320 I saw it on YouTube that talks about a different kind of setup in North America. So rather than

00:22:33.560 a sort of north south divide between two countries, splitting the country into two, like,

00:22:38.600 along the coast. So I'm gonna play this video, and then I want to get your reaction to it.

00:22:41.880 Post-election, I've seen lots of joke maps like this that take right and left-leaning states and

00:22:47.640 provinces and swap them between the US and Canada. But what if we actually did this? This is

00:22:52.680 controversial, but to me, something like this would make the most sense without creating too

00:22:57.560 much fragmentation. In a lot of ways, these central provinces in Canada have a lot more in common with

00:23:02.920 states like Montana and Texas than they do with Ontario, while the coastal regions are more

00:23:07.960 economically and politically aligned. And these new countries would have a shockingly similar

00:23:13.080 population and GDP figure. The blue country would have an economy based more around technology,

00:23:18.200 finance and healthcare, while the red country would be an energy, food and manufacturing powerhouse.

00:23:23.720 So, not that I think that that would ever happen, but I found it interesting. I think that video had

00:23:29.400 like millions and millions of views. All that stuff was in my book. So, and the other thing,

00:23:33.560 there was a book before me that I liked. It was a New York Times writer. He called it the 12 tribes

00:23:38.680 of North America. And he divided it into ethnic tribes. And that was very interesting. His roots were

00:23:44.600 his grandparents were from Quebec. He was a French, he had a French name, but he was American, and a second

00:23:50.200 generation American. And yeah, no, there's people in Toronto have more in common with people in New

00:23:55.880 York than they do with people in Calgary or Vancouver or Montreal. And, you know, the same

00:24:00.840 thing applies in portions of the US. People in New York have not much in common with people from Utah or

00:24:06.680 Alabama. So there are these different 12, he defined it as 12 tribes. And I thought he did about the

00:24:13.240 best job. It's a very good book. I'm sure it's out of print, but so yeah, that's the situation. What that

00:24:19.400 other map is about is mapping in terms of political positioning. And that's different again, but you

00:24:25.320 know, it's not red, blue. It's not red, blue. It's all over the map too.

00:24:29.160 Okay. I want to show you a few charts that we pulled here. Just looking at the difference

00:24:34.760 in GDP, because again, when your book came out, Canadian and American were much more at par. Like,

00:24:40.440 like if you look at this first chart per capita GDP in Canada versus the United States, you can kind of

00:24:48.760 see go back to 2016 there and the two economies kind of mirror each other, huge dip during COVID

00:24:54.680 there in 2020. And then you can just see the sort of lack of recovery in Canada, whereas the United

00:25:00.200 States has continued to climb. I think that's a pretty devastating chart. I think that the median

00:25:06.360 average income is the Delta is now 25 or 30,000. The other one is the per state and capita GDP.

00:25:15.240 So if you look at, if you, if you take every jurisdiction in North America, all the provinces,

00:25:19.000 all the States, Canada would have the highest taxes and some of the lowest per person per capita GDP.

00:25:27.720 So you can, you can kind of see there, you know, you think of some of these really, really poor states

00:25:34.680 in, in the Southeast of the United States, the deep South, and you think of them as being quite poor.

00:25:39.880 And then you realize that they're actually the per capita GDP is higher than most Canadians.

00:25:46.520 And then this one, I thought this was one of the most devastating charts that I've seen recently.

00:25:49.640 This is chart number four, Sean, the per capita GDP minus immigration. So is this the right one? 0.99

00:25:59.080 Yeah. So basically we had an economist point this out saying that the new GDP grew by 1.1% in the fourth

00:26:07.080 quarter of 2022 to 2023, while the population grew by 3.2%. So if you take away popular population

00:26:15.000 increase by immigration, we actually had a negative 2% annual growth. Really, this all just paints a

00:26:22.200 picture of Canada falling economically behind and kind of makes you wonder like, what's going to happen

00:26:29.160 if Trump does bring in these 25% tariffs? What will happen? Can the loonies survive? Can Canada survive?

00:26:35.480 What do you think? Well, the Trump, the Trudeau factor has, has weakened the country. And for,

00:26:40.440 you know, for his whole entire tenure, I've been battering away at him like every week in the

00:26:45.240 National Post on the GDP per capita on every other metric you want to look at. It's just,

00:26:51.720 you know, it's just pathetic. And, you know, if you take away people's, not right, but interest in

00:27:00.040 developing our endowment, our natural resource endowment, this is what you get because, you know,

00:27:05.480 we don't have a lot else going for us. We're a branch plant country and resources are, are much

00:27:12.520 more important than anything else. And I include farming in that. So, you know, you just, I mean,

00:27:18.360 he just had no sense of anything and we've lost a complete decade. The OECD has us down as the worst

00:27:25.560 performing of the, all of the OECD members and that, and another important, shall we say economic,

00:27:36.200 I've forgotten the name of the organization, Institutional Economic Organization said that

00:27:41.560 Canada will, will have, will continue to be the lowest of the pack for 60 years based on

00:27:49.960 extrapolating the kind of government and policies that we have in place. So it's just, and you know,

00:27:56.600 I don't think, frankly, the unscreened immigration of two and a half to 4 million 18 year olds from

00:28:05.160 India and is going to really lift our living standards up necessarily. They came as students. 1.00

00:28:13.000 We don't know where they are. They disappear. This is not very smart from any point of view. So

00:28:19.240 Canada is always, but Canada has always been less rich than the United States just because it's a

00:28:26.760 more dynamic place down there and they just have created a lot of great industries and so on.

00:28:32.840 The book I said, Hey guys, you're going nowhere fast. You better think about ahead of time before

00:28:37.720 it's sprung on you as a, as a, you know, a tough takeover thing, some options and, and also pull up your

00:28:47.560 socks. Okay. Well, I think Canadians are ready for change. They're willing to hear change. I mentioned

00:28:54.920 off the top that Kevin O'Leary, I think he was sort of guessing, but he said that he thought about half

00:29:00.200 of Canadians might be interested in an economic murder. He goes through some of the facts here.

00:29:05.400 So I want to play that clip and then I'll get you to react to it.

00:29:07.880 There's 41 million Canadians, basically the population of California sitting on the world's

00:29:14.520 largest amounts of all resources, including the most important energy and water. Canadians over

00:29:21.240 the holidays, the last two days have been talking about this. They want to hear more. And so, you

00:29:26.840 know, there's obviously a lot of issues, more details, but what this could be is the beginning of an economic

00:29:31.560 union. Think about the power of combining the two economies, erasing the border between Canada

00:29:36.760 and the United States and putting all that resource up to the Northern borders where China

00:29:42.280 and Russia are knocking on the door. So secure that, give a common currency, figure out taxes across the

00:29:48.600 board, get everything trading both ways, create a new, almost EU like passport. I like this idea. And

00:29:56.360 at least half of Canadians are interested. The problem is the government's collapsing Canada

00:30:01.400 right now. Nobody wants Trudeau to negotiate this deal. I don't want him doing it for me.

00:30:06.280 So I'm going to go to Mar-a-Lago. I'll start the narrative. The 41 million Canadians,

00:30:10.840 I think most of them would trust me on this deal. So it's, it's being hoist upon us. People didn't

00:30:17.720 listen to your warnings in your book 12 years ago or not enough. And now it's happening.

00:30:21.800 And that's where he got his ideas. Look, I talked to Kevin. Kevin is a showboat. 50%,

00:30:28.520 I don't think is, is realistic. But if you do something really bold, as I said before,

00:30:35.720 and you mentioned it too, if you, if you do something really bold, like pay people

00:30:42.280 for the over-contribution of assets they would give to a union, I think that might be an offer

00:30:48.120 nobody can refuse, but the Americans aren't going to do that because they don't have to.

00:30:51.800 And, you know, the country is not for sale. And so, you know, I think that, I think 50% is high.

00:30:59.400 He goes down there. He's not, you know, he's not the guy that I think Canadians would follow.

00:31:07.480 He's a great guy. He's very smart. He's, you know, hugely rich and popular in the US. But, you know, he,

00:31:14.520 he tried to become leader of the Conservative Party in Canada. And it's too bad he didn't. But then he went on

00:31:20.920 to become a very big celebrity on Fox and everywhere else. So I think that this has to be a referendum.

00:31:30.360 This would have to be put to a referendum by Canadians in a sensible way.

00:31:34.680 Or, I think the next election, when we have it, is going to probably be based on

00:31:44.200 what the respective leaders feel about the US relationship going forward.

00:31:49.960 Well, it is a little ironic because I think Kevin O'Leary probably could have been Prime Minister

00:31:54.600 had he wanted to, because back in 2019, when he ran for leader of the party, he was, he was ahead.

00:32:01.560 It looked like he could have won. And then he chose to drop out himself, leading way to sort of two

00:32:08.600 unsuccessful Conservative runs at leader leaving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in for five years

00:32:13.960 longer than he probably should have. And now it seems like we possibly do have a leader that can

00:32:19.080 kind of capture that imagination of the Canadian people. We do have some news about Justin Trudeau.

00:32:26.280 He was meeting with the premiers yesterday and Justin Trudeau made the announcement that he will

00:32:31.000 not be running for a seat in Parliament, that he is done being Prime Minister and he is done being an MP

00:32:37.000 as soon as an election is called. So let's just play that quick clip.

00:32:40.120 In terms of my own decisions, I will not be running in the upcoming election.

00:32:47.080 As to what I might be doing later, I honestly haven't had much time to think about that at all.

00:32:52.120 I am entirely focused on doing the job that Canadians elected me to do in an extraordinarily

00:32:57.800 pivotal time right now. The US inauguration and the weeks that follow are something that is of deep,

00:33:04.840 deep importance to Canadians. And we are entirely focused on that as a team.

00:33:08.840 So I think a lot of Canadians are probably happy to see that Justin Trudeau won't be around for

00:33:14.120 too much longer, but at the same time still kind of horrified that he is the one that will negotiate.

00:33:18.280 He will be the one that represents Canadians with Donald Trump on January 20th when he gets inaugurated.

00:33:24.920 And from what we're hearing, the 25% tariffs are going to be a day one executive order. So what are your

00:33:32.680 thoughts on Justin Trudeau leading that negotiation? I thought he resigned. Yeah. Yeah. He said that

00:33:40.040 he's not going to be prime minister, but he still is prime minister until the next election or until

00:33:44.280 the leaders, liberals replace him. The guy has been a disaster. He's the biggest disaster in Canadian

00:33:52.520 history. Has to be to date. Has to be. Who does that? Who drives the ship into the shoals and then

00:34:00.600 abandons it? Who does that? CEOs don't do that. And if they do, they get sued or they go to jail.

00:34:08.360 So, I mean, I'm really, I am so upset that A, that he was in power, but B, that he would do this

00:34:17.720 the minute, you know, he, he, I mean, talk about a spoiled brat. He just, it's not fun anymore. So I'm

00:34:25.880 not doing it. And we can't have this ship without, without a captain. And so I'm, I'm glad that Doug

00:34:34.600 Ford and Danielle Smith have stepped forward as spokespeople. We've got some good premiers and, you

00:34:44.920 know, I, I hope they're sitting around the table. I don't want Trudeau there. I don't want O'Leary there

00:34:50.280 either. He's not elected. He didn't get elected. He left ship too. He's a great guy, but I mean,

00:34:56.040 he's not my political leader. And so this is up to Canadians to figure out. Polyev is a good man.

00:35:03.000 He's got good people around him. And, you know, I think the next election is going to be fought

00:35:08.200 over this, but when is that next election going to be? You know, are the, are the liberals going to pick

00:35:13.160 a leader who kicks the can down the road all the way to October? That would be absolutely a disaster.

00:35:20.440 I mean, you could see it happening, right? Because NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said that as

00:35:24.360 soon as parliament resumes, he's going to vote for non-confidence and force an election. So

00:35:29.560 Dustin Trudeau perogued parliament. And now the liberals are having a leadership race. It looks

00:35:34.120 like my prediction is that it will be Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, the Bank of

00:35:38.280 Canada that takes over. And you could imagine a world where he just negotiates a deal with Jagmeet Singh.

00:35:43.480 To quote, you kick the can down the road and allow him to be the prime minister for longer.

00:35:48.440 Again, another unelected person that doesn't represent Canadians down there negotiating with

00:35:53.240 Trump. You mentioned the provinces. So I want to report this news as well. Alberta Premier Daniel

00:35:58.280 Smith has announced that she will not be signing a provincial agreement. So the provinces met that

00:36:04.120 clip that we just showed Justin Trudeau. He was meeting with the provincial leaders. And this is

00:36:08.520 True North reporting. It said that Smith opted out of participating in a joint statement signed by

00:36:12.840 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the other premiers on Wednesday that outlined proposed

00:36:16.760 retaliatory measures in response to US President-elect Donald Trump's potential tariffs. This is

00:36:22.680 a quote from Danielle Smith. It says, the province of Alberta did not approve the joint statement between

00:36:27.880 the Government of Canada and the Council of Federations. And we've heard Danielle Smith on this

00:36:33.640 topic, particularly saying absolutely not when it comes to any kind of tariff or embargo on Alberta

00:36:41.400 oil being sold to the United States. She says absolutely not. And there is kind of an irony here

00:36:47.240 that the Trudeau government for a decade has denigrated Alberta oil, has demonized it, has kicked it when

00:36:54.280 it's down, done everything it can to derail that industry, killing pipelines, bringing in Bill C-69,

00:37:00.760 the so-called no pipeline bill that just creates an unrealistic environmental assessment

00:37:07.080 program that would just basically never allow anything else to be built. And then turn around,

00:37:11.480 and as soon as Canada is in trouble, use Alberta as a bargaining chip saying, we're going to allow your

00:37:17.560 oil to get taxed. And one of the things that Danielle Smith said in a press conference earlier this week,

00:37:23.400 really just very firmly talking to the Trudeau government saying, look at a map,

00:37:27.480 look at a map of the pipelines, we have a map of the pipelines, specifically, she's talking about line

00:37:33.400 five, and line nine, if we can show that map, Sean, and you get an idea of how kind of crazy it is that

00:37:42.120 central Canada so you can see where the oil comes from, it starts up in Alberta and Edmonton, and goes

00:37:48.120 down and it leaves Canada, it goes to line five, which takes that oil across the Great Lakes through

00:37:54.680 the United States into Sarnia, and then line nine connects it back up to Toronto and Montreal. So any kind

00:38:01.640 of taxes, tariffs or an embargo would actually just lock out central Canada and freeze them. So it

00:38:09.240 doesn't even really make sense that that's what Canada wants to do. And yet that's what they're

00:38:13.800 proposing potentially. So good for Danielle Smith for saying no to that. And I think we're seeing

00:38:20.120 another crisis unfold here, Diane, which is a crisis of unity, a crisis of confederation in the country

00:38:26.360 where the provinces don't even agree on how to do this. So it's not even like we're creating a united

00:38:31.320 front to the Americans. And people on the left will blame Danielle Smith for that. But really,

00:38:36.280 Danielle Smith is the only one really speaking some sense and standing up for the working people

00:38:41.400 in this country. What do you what do you make of all this? Well, Danielle's right. I mean, I just think

00:38:48.440 we're the mouse that roared. You want to you want to start a match, a retaliatory match

00:38:55.000 with that country. It's stupid. It is ridiculous. And you know, and furthermore, they rely on electricity

00:39:05.320 from Quebec, and they rely on electricity from Ontario and a little bit from BC, and a lot of

00:39:11.800 oil from from Saskatchewan and Alberta. And if you want to fool around with that supply, the soldiers

00:39:18.280 will be across the border in no time. They depend on that. We're a supplier. Suppliers don't threaten.

00:39:26.600 Customers threaten, but suppliers don't threaten. That's that's suicidal. So she's absolutely right.

00:39:33.400 And it's inappropriate. And you know, this is this is the problem. It's it's a weak little country

00:39:41.800 that's very fragmented politically, and run by an even weaker federal system. And and actually a guy

00:39:49.800 that shouldn't be prime minister who is. So you know, this is exactly what I warned about 12 years ago.

00:39:56.120 We're weak. Now we're weaker. And so Trump is going to do what Trump has to do. And he doesn't want any

00:40:03.880 any hassle. He doesn't want any guff. He doesn't want any nonsense. He just he wants to get it. He wants

00:40:10.840 his military costs covered for the portion that he pays for for Canada and NORAD. And, you know,

00:40:18.120 he wants a fair deal. Okay, very treacherous time, very treacherous. But Daniel's right. Retaliation is

00:40:27.240 nuts, in my opinion. But negotiating is is okay. So you know, instead of whining and threatening,

00:40:36.360 you just say, Okay, you send grownups down there, and say, Okay, what can we do? You know,

00:40:42.680 how much do you want for military? How much? You know, we'll double the size of our military,

00:40:48.280 we'll buy everything from the US. That's what Europe's going to do. How smart is that?

00:40:54.280 Well, it seems like now's the time to potentially be making a deal. And I just want to talk,

00:41:00.600 finally, about who will potentially become the Prime Minister after an actual election when Canadians

00:41:07.320 get to decide which is Pierre Polyev. He made an announcement today, which I think a lot of

00:41:12.840 entrepreneurs and investors will be happy about. Remember, earlier in 2024, Justin Trudeau announced

00:41:19.480 really staggering capital gains changes, capital gains tax changes that would really, you know, scare

00:41:26.280 away investors, chase away entrepreneurs even further, and send a message to sort of some of

00:41:31.080 the most productive people in the country, the Canada's closer business, including people that

00:41:35.240 the economy desperately need, like real estate developers, and doctors, doctors, the way that

00:41:40.040 they set up their incomes, in a lot of ways uses capital gains tax exemptions to help them save for

00:41:47.560 retirement. Polyev just announced this morning, formally, that he will get rid of those hikes,

00:41:53.640 that his government will not implement those. And interestingly, in his video, he announced

00:41:59.080 something that kind of reminds me of what Elon Musk is doing down in the States, or what he's

00:42:03.800 spearheading with Donald Trump, which is sort of like a doge, like the Department of Government

00:42:08.120 Efficiency. In his video there, he said that one of the things he's going to do is put together a task

00:42:14.840 force of investors, entrepreneurs, farmers and workers to come up with a better tax system

00:42:20.200 for Canadians. I think we have that clip, if we can play that, please.

00:42:23.640 That's why within 60 days of becoming Prime Minister, I will name a tax reform task force

00:42:30.200 of entrepreneurs, investors, farmers and workers, but no lobbyists, to design a bring it home tax cut.

00:42:37.640 So just wondering, Diane, what do you see the Conservatives doing differently? Does Pierre

00:42:45.960 Polyev's message resonate with you? Do you think that there's optimism there that he can possibly be

00:42:50.360 the one to fix Canada and solve all of these monumental problems that we've kind of outlined on the show

00:42:56.120 today? No, there's no silver bullets and no one should pretend they have all the answers. He's not

00:43:01.880 going to be the knight in shining armor. He's going to do some very sensible things that Conservatives have

00:43:09.320 been promoting for decades to turn around the ship. Trudeau is going to lose the election

00:43:18.440 and Polyev is going to win it unless he makes a big mistake or unless something comes out of nowhere.

00:43:24.440 And so that's what's important, I think. Carney, I know he's a very lovely gentleman. He's an

00:43:32.840 international banker, but he cannot be allowed to get away with the slogan that he's the outsider,

00:43:41.480 come in and fix everything when he was part of the insider group and he's an accomplice.

00:43:47.560 He held their hands through all their economic stuff and he's right in the middle of this. So we

00:43:53.000 don't want another one of their gang, even if it's in a suit and has a better accent, okay, and better

00:43:59.800 credentials. So I think it's time that, you know, common sense revolution type of thing that Mike Harris

00:44:06.360 did. Stephen Harper was a good prime minister and all of his people are around Pierre Polyev. Come on,

00:44:14.040 we've got to do this. We've got to clean up the place. It's not going to be done quickly. The damage

00:44:20.120 is great. The damage is huge. But, you know, the polls show tomorrow, I mean, Polyev would win 0.99

00:44:28.120 easily. But Trudeau knows that, which is why he is holding hostage Parliament and the people of Canada

00:44:36.520 and history for his own ends. And that to me is treason and unforgivable.

00:44:46.600 I can't agree more. And I think that the problem with Mark Carney is that he basically

00:44:51.560 believes the same stuff as Justin Trudeau, the same things that got us into this mess,

00:44:55.400 like you mentioned, like showing reverence to Greta Thunberg, a deranged sort of teenage activist,

00:45:02.280 basically just saying shut it all down. He believes in the carbon tax. He believes

00:45:05.640 in not developing Canadian oil and gas. He's an accomplice. He was a guru. He held their hands.

00:45:14.360 And that's what he's done all over the world. He's a big greenie and he's very socialist. So, 0.99

00:45:20.360 you know, do we need more of this? I don't think so. I think we need to turn the page and take another

00:45:26.360 refreshing look at how to run a country better. Well, I hope that Pierre Paulio picks up a copy

00:45:31.960 of your book. Maybe I'll send him one and get him to think about in that realm. I want to just ask you

00:45:38.200 one final question, Diana, and I'll be respectful of your time because I know you have a heart out

00:45:41.720 in a couple minutes here. But what do you make of Donald Trump and the way that he's come about

00:45:47.880 this whole thing? I know just from reading your subsac and seeing what you've said recently,

00:45:52.520 doesn't seem like you're a big fan of his demeanor and his attitude. But at the same time, he's pretty

00:45:58.280 good at identifying the problem, sending that message that he's going to fix it. And he seems

00:46:02.840 like someone who gets those kind of things done. So I'm wondering if you can give us just a quick

00:46:07.320 analysis of Trump and how you think that Canada should go about dealing with him. You hear a lot

00:46:11.800 of people on the political left saying Trump's a bully. He only responds to strength. We need to hit

00:46:17.080 him where it hurts and meet strength with strength. What's your take on all that? And what can Canada do

00:46:22.200 you know? Well, I like the attitude that Christine Lagarde had. Christine Lagarde is the head of the 1.00

00:46:29.880 central bank in Europe for the European Union. She was the finance minister of France. But before that,

00:46:34.760 she was an international law partner in a Chicago based firm. She knows America, she understands it.

00:46:41.640 And, you know, when he started to talk to Europe, you know, because he's been on their case about NATO,

00:46:47.800 NATO expenditures, he started to talk about 20% tariffs on their exports to the United States.

00:46:58.120 She said, she was asked, this is going to cause a crisis. This is awful. She said, no,

00:47:02.840 it's the beginning of bargaining. It's a negotiation. So he wants this. He's going to ask this.

00:47:08.760 And we're going to counter offer this. And then he's going to come down a little and then we're going to

00:47:12.280 go up a little. And that's when she came up with the idea. Look, Europe can get around this problem.

00:47:17.560 He's very upset because he has trade deficits with Europe, huge trade deficits, as he does with 0.96

00:47:22.920 Canada. He calls it a subsidy, but that's not accurate. It's a trade deficit. Okay. How do you

00:47:27.800 get rid of a trade deficit? You buy more of their stuff than you did before. So she said, what we're

00:47:34.440 going to do and what we should do in Europe is we should spend as much money as we should militarily,

00:47:39.720 which we should have been doing anyway, and we'll procure it all from the Americans. And secondly,

00:47:44.840 we need natural gas because we don't want to be on Russian oil and gas. So we're going to buy LNG

00:47:49.480 from the US exclusively. And that would erase, that would erase the trade deficit. And so Trump is,

00:47:56.520 his style, again, this gets back to the cultural differences. His style is very American. I mean,

00:48:02.440 he's the New York guy, German background, blunt direct, trash talking, let's make a deal. Let's 1.00

00:48:10.520 get down and fight, down and dirty. Canadians are horrified by that. Europeans are horrified by that. 0.77

00:48:17.400 But Christine Lagarde said, he's negotiating. So make him counteroffer. It's not a crisis. It's an

00:48:24.600 opportunity to get along better. That's the kind of head we need dealing with him.

00:48:29.400 Okay, well, I hope that hopefully Pierre Polyev will be in the position soon enough to take over

00:48:36.840 those negotiations. And I think that would be a very good way of thinking about it. Well, Diane,

00:48:42.600 I really appreciate your time. I encourage everyone to go and pick up Diane's book,

00:48:46.280 check out her Substack as well. I think it's just that Diane Francis on Substack. Thank you so much for

00:48:52.680 joining us. Thank you. Bye bye. All right. Thank you so much for tuning into the Candace Malcolm

00:48:58.120 Show. We will be back again tomorrow with all the news. Thank you so much and God bless.

Juno News - January 16, 2025

Is it inevitable？

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