Juno News - October 01, 2025


LOOMING Alberta teachers strike + Grocery bills rise higher


Episode Stats

Length

33 minutes

Words per Minute

165.05246

Word Count

5,601

Sentence Count

393

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Candice Malcolm Show. My name is Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta Director for the
00:00:07.680 Canadian Taxpayers Federation, sitting in the chair for Candice today. Thank you so much for
00:00:13.020 making us a part of your day. If you haven't done so yet, make sure you like this video and subscribe
00:00:18.320 to the channel. So we have a lot to talk about today. We've got an amazing guest. Those of you
00:00:24.620 who are on X, formerly known as the artist Twitter, might know him as the food professor.
00:00:31.640 Okay. He's this lovely gentleman from Quebec, Sylvain Charlebois. He is currently a visiting
00:00:37.300 scholar at McGill University, but he's done rounds at several different universities across Canada.
00:00:43.460 He's the guy that explains why food costs what it does. And he does this really granular look at
00:00:50.740 things of how much fuel prices are costing, how much equipment prices are costing, the impact
00:00:56.700 tariffs are having. And he's got a really interesting deep dive on how much your upcoming Thanksgiving
00:01:03.260 dinner is going to cost. And yeah, it's coming up fast. It's in like 10 days or so. So make sure
00:01:08.820 you start shopping for those frozen turkeys. So we're going to get to Sylvain in a moment. But first,
00:01:13.840 I wanted to update you on what is happening here in the province of Alberta. For those of you who
00:01:19.560 aren't in Alberta, please bear with me because teacher strikes have a way of catching. So it's
00:01:25.040 important to find out what's going on here in Alberta. Here's the situation. We've got around
00:01:30.900 700,000 students. Okay. Give or take in government funded schools in Alberta. Okay. Now I'm taking out
00:01:40.060 like the home schools and that sort of stuff. It's around between 700,000 and 800,000 students here in
00:01:45.440 Alberta. We have around 50,000 teachers. The teachers voted 89.5 to reject the latest contract offer
00:01:57.080 from Premier Daniel Smith's government here in Alberta. Here's what the province was offering.
00:02:04.860 The government was offering teachers a 12% raise over four years. So 3% raise per year.
00:02:13.760 They were also offering to hire 3,000 brand new teachers plus 1,500 new education support workers.
00:02:23.940 You know, those classroom helpers. And they still voted against it. In fact, I was sent a screenshot
00:02:31.040 last night and this is why it looks grainy because it is. I think it was snapped from a phone. Here you go.
00:02:37.240 That was on a laptop screen. So I got a hold of these numbers. This is what the government was offering
00:02:47.000 Alberta teachers. So according to the information I was given. Okay. Starting in September of 2027,
00:02:56.800 a brand new teacher. Okay. Imagine 22 years old, fresh out of teacher's college. You're starting at
00:03:02.900 $171,000 a year. You move up that ladder real quick. By the time you have nine years experience,
00:03:12.380 you're already making $110,000 a year. Scroll over to the right there. See where it says six years of
00:03:21.700 teacher education. So that's for the teachers who stay in teacher's school longer. Okay. They get extra
00:03:28.260 degrees and extra specializations and stuff. $119,033. That is a lot of money. That is a very generous
00:03:40.440 offer, I would say. And in fact, according to the source on these numbers, if the teachers in Alberta
00:03:49.200 had accepted this, they would be the highest paid teachers in Western Canada. I have to also stress
00:03:56.820 here. Okay. I think we're good with the board here. I have to also stress here that teachers
00:04:03.400 typically get lots of holidays. Okay. Lots of the summertime off. Okay. They work in relatively
00:04:13.200 safe conditions. I know that there are some dustups sometimes. That's, that's a problem. But relatively
00:04:19.160 speaking, if you're comparing, you know, hauling in a harvest or driving truck through the Northern
00:04:24.800 Wastelands, something like that, um, you're working during the day in a well-lit heated classroom,
00:04:31.660 uh, you've got benefits, you've got pension, and you've got a really secure job, right? And, and teaching
00:04:41.220 children, it's one of those callings, right? It's important to you. Now, I know that there are some
00:04:48.000 great teachers out there. I've dealt with lots of them myself and with my children, but pull up that
00:04:54.240 board one more time. I can't get over these numbers that this is what the teachers said no to.
00:04:58.800 Like, I don't get it. Four years of education is what the kids in school call an undergrad. Okay.
00:05:04.920 You're 22, 23, you're fresh out. Bam. You're making 71,000. The first year you jump up to 75,
00:05:11.580 three plus all those benefits and holidays and stuff that I mentioned and a really secure job.
00:05:18.900 That's a lot that they just turned down. Um, so this is what I'm trying to figure out
00:05:24.180 that if it's not hiring more teachers, if it's not giving you a 3% wage increase per year for the next
00:05:31.820 four years, if it's not hiring 1500 new teacher's aides, then what is it? Like, what is it?
00:05:39.300 And an 89.5% strike vote, that is a strong rejection. So they got to figure this out because
00:05:47.020 it's not fair for teachers to go on strike and for kids to be thrown out of class again.
00:05:53.640 I will point out that a lot of these kids are the same kids who just went through lockdowns
00:05:58.840 and weren't able to experience a lot of cool school stuff. Okay. And be in classrooms. So this
00:06:04.760 is a problem. There is one thing that's interesting that Premier Daniel Smith announced,
00:06:09.140 and that is if the teachers strike, and if they do, we're expecting it to be on October 6th.
00:06:15.340 If the teachers strike, the Premier, the government of Alberta is going to compensate parents. So
00:06:23.240 parents who have students under the age of 12 years old, okay, who are in school, who are then locked
00:06:29.560 out of school due to a teacher strike, those parents will be able to get $30 per day per child
00:06:37.480 under the age of 12. That's to compensate them for childcare. Okay, because there's plenty of
00:06:44.000 parents that have two people working outside the home, or you're a single parent, and they count on
00:06:48.820 school to be that safe environment for their kid to go to during the day while they're working.
00:06:54.560 So if all of a sudden, all of these students, 700,000 of them or so are locked out of school,
00:07:00.540 that's going to throw a huge spanner into the works of so many families. So you can actually go to the
00:07:05.380 Alberta government website, sign up, and the government is now announcing that the first
00:07:10.580 payments, if this happens, will happen October 31st. So I just wanted to give you a brief update
00:07:16.360 there. That's where we are in the middle of negotiations here in Alberta. We're on the brink
00:07:20.680 of a teacher strike, which I really hope does not happen for the sake of everybody. Okay,
00:07:25.180 I wanted to shift gears now because I mentioned Halloween. And before that, of course, comes
00:07:31.440 Thanksgiving. Pierre Polyev, the Conservative Party leader, had a press conference the other day
00:07:39.080 where he was speaking directly with food bank workers. And these are some of the hardest things
00:07:44.760 that you see. He was giving examples of people who were lining up at like six in the morning
00:07:49.700 for the food bank to open at 10 in the morning. He was talking to workers at the food banks who say
00:07:56.160 that working families are relying on food banks more and more every year. And to put that another
00:08:03.620 way, if a working family is relying on a food bank, that means that a parent who's holding down a job
00:08:11.460 is nonetheless counting on a charity to feed their kid. That's a bad situation to be in.
00:08:18.880 Why are our food prices getting so high? What is contributing to all of this? How can we try
00:08:25.960 to fix this problem? Let's find out. Joining me now is Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. He is a visiting
00:08:33.260 scholar at McGill University right now, otherwise known as the food professor. You've probably seen
00:08:39.600 him on Twitter. He's the guy that explains why our food costs what it does. And he takes in all sorts
00:08:47.500 of interesting economic factors. I'm super excited to speak with you. I think I first spoke with you,
00:08:52.960 now that I'm thinking about it, way back in the day when you were at Guelph. And I think I was at
00:08:57.280 CTV at the time. So thank you so much. Oh my goodness. I know, right? So thank you so much for
00:09:02.220 covering this. I think it's super important. First off, I just wanted to start with something a little
00:09:07.080 bit more fun. And this was a little bit of good news that I saw. Turkeys are going to be more
00:09:13.080 affordable this Thanksgiving. You did a deep dive on this. Yeah. So every year we actually look at
00:09:18.680 the main staples that would represent a typical Thanksgiving dinner. And I say typical with quotes
00:09:26.260 because a lot of people will eat different things, right? But we stick to turkey, carrots, bread rolls,
00:09:32.460 gravy, cranberries, pumpkin pies, the classics. And if you look at prices last year compared to this year
00:09:40.540 for a family of four, you're looking at a price tag that is 18 cents more this year compared to last year,
00:09:49.340 which is actually not bad. Now in 2024, we did see an increase of 7%. The avian flu, lots of things
00:09:57.860 going on in produce, for example. Potatoes were actually more expensive last year, a bit of a jump
00:10:05.640 there. So we looked at a price tag of 32.60, I believe. Now this year, the bird, turkey, is lower.
00:10:14.480 The avian flu is not impacting that sector as much as last year. So good news there.
00:10:20.840 Where you need to be careful is with sides, especially if you buy something in a can.
00:10:27.580 I'm thinking about cranberries and if you're making your own pumpkin pie and you buy the filling in a
00:10:33.980 can, you're going to pay more for all these things due to tariffs on both sides of the border. So you've
00:10:40.280 got to be careful. But generally speaking, you're looking at a pretty good Thanksgiving season.
00:10:46.700 Now, can you, I will just add, because I love making Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah, there's the
00:10:51.260 cranberries. There's the pumpkin pie filling. There's also usually evaporated milk that you put
00:10:56.600 into the pie filling. You can do condensed milk that's also in a can. There's lots of stuff that
00:11:01.620 can be in a can for Thanksgiving. Can you explain to our viewers and to me, frankly, what is it about
00:11:06.940 tariffs on both sides of the border that's making putting things in a can more expensive?
00:11:12.020 Well, everything that's in a can sold at a grocery store, margins are incredibly low.
00:11:17.080 In fact, Kim, actually, a lot of the canned stuff is sold as a loss leader. So grocers don't expect
00:11:25.180 to make a whole lot of money with products in a can. And I'm thinking about canned tuna, for example,
00:11:31.980 canned salmon, soups, and of course, gravy and cranberries. So as soon as you see like an extra
00:11:42.020 25% at the border, it makes a big difference, obviously, for manufacturers right here in Canada
00:11:47.360 or even in the United States, because they are paying more for that input. So it's impacting North
00:11:53.020 America, including Canadians. And of course, they're not talking about Thanksgiving in the U.S.
00:11:57.400 because Thanksgiving is way later for them. But for us, it's in, well, less than 10 days now. So
00:12:03.820 people are starting to think about the bird and everything else. Yeah, just a programming note,
00:12:08.700 Thanksgiving is a bit earlier this year. I'm used to it being, you know, a little bit later around
00:12:13.740 the 15th this year or so. But yeah, it's coming up really quick. So if you're going to go shopping...
00:12:17.720 And the reason why we're coming out with the report this week is that if you want to look for deals,
00:12:21.540 well, buy this weekend, like buy right now a frozen bird. And if you're planning for the holidays,
00:12:27.460 I'd buy two because by the time you get to the holidays, I suspect that turkeys will be more
00:12:32.160 expensive. Oh, that's a really smart tip. And yeah, just a quick mom tip. If you're defrosting
00:12:38.220 it, make sure you take it out in enough time so that it thaws. That's right. At least two,
00:12:42.640 three days. Absolutely. Yeah. If you're cooking your first bird, it can be daunting, but if you do it
00:12:47.080 right, it's amazing. You can eat from it for days. I wanted to get into some specifics here with you
00:12:51.960 because right now, a lot of people are struggling. They're noticing at the grocery store that things
00:12:57.480 are more expensive. I think we have a graphic board here that shows the price changes, especially with
00:13:03.940 things like meats. And I'm noticing folks, and it's hard to see, they'll be in the beef section and
00:13:10.840 they'll take a quick look and they'll just keep walking right on by. Or sometimes they'll have it in
00:13:15.220 their hand and it's just too expensive and they'll put it back down. That's hard to see. Can you explain
00:13:22.880 why meat has gone up so much? Let's start with meat, particularly beef, if you can.
00:13:28.980 Yeah. Beef is the big story there. Because when you look at pork prices in general, it's been
00:13:36.000 somewhat stable. In fact, for Thanksgiving, a lot of people are going for ham just because of
00:13:42.480 affordable prices there. But the beef story is concerning, to be honest. I'd say I was actually
00:13:49.840 talking to an Australian reporter yesterday and he saw my posts on X with Australian beef being sold
00:13:58.760 in Canada. And our beef, the beef that we have access to in Canada that comes from Australia is
00:14:05.200 cheaper here than Australian beef in Australia. So something is going on here that concerns me. And
00:14:13.120 I don't think it's really the retailers. I think it's either in packing and we know that packing in
00:14:20.080 Canada is controlled by basically two privately owned companies, foreign companies, GBS and Cargill.
00:14:27.760 So I'm very concerned about what's going on because if you look at ground beef, for example, the cheapest
00:14:32.800 bovine protein out there, prices are up in Canada by about 22, 23% versus the US at about 10%, 11% since
00:14:43.200 the beginning of the year. So there's a part of the increase that I can't explain. Low inventories,
00:14:52.560 our beef herd size is the same as it was back in 1989. There's no inventory, but there's, there's some,
00:15:00.160 there's some of it, some of the increase that I just can't explain really. And I think it has a lot
00:15:06.400 to do with the fact that we're dealing with a huge black box. And the other question I would ask to
00:15:12.160 Ottawa is that, okay, so if there are signs of dumping coming from Australia, because it seems to be
00:15:20.080 that, why isn't, isn't Ottawa looking into the matter? Because we are basically underwriting our
00:15:27.680 own cattle industry right here in Canada where it's under it. So Australian beef is basically a bargain
00:15:36.160 compared with Canadian beef. And that's what, that's what we call dumping and dumping can be, can be
00:15:41.680 sanctioned. Yeah. So that your post surprised me on several levels. One that it was cheaper in that
00:15:49.200 situation to buy Australian beef than Canadian, because last time I checked on a globe, it's on
00:15:54.640 the other side of the planet. And so it had to be shipped here. So that costs money. And two, exactly
00:16:00.800 to your point on, on dumping, I've got some experience working in ag, at least a little bit,
00:16:06.640 and they're pretty sensitive to that stuff. If that stuff starts happening, they usually jump on that
00:16:11.520 pretty quickly. So is this, is, I'm sorry to sound like a broken record, but is this once again,
00:16:17.760 like our bureaucrats and our government within the trade department, just not doing their job?
00:16:22.720 I'm so frustrated, Sylvain, that we do not have a new trade agreement with our biggest trading partner
00:16:28.880 in the United States. It is just inexcusable. We pay these bureaucrats in the department of trade,
00:16:34.160 in some cases, $200,000, $300,000 to work this stuff out. So is this a situation where they're just
00:16:41.440 falling asleep at the wheel? What do you think is going on?
00:16:44.160 I see no evidence that Ottawa is paying attention, like at all. Of course, Ottawa,
00:16:53.920 it really helps. I mean, we're actually offering affordable stakes to Canadians. So nobody's
00:17:01.200 complaining. And Kim, you know this, if no one's complaining, Ottawa is not going to pay attention.
00:17:07.920 And, but, but to me, the cattle industry is always undermined by a bunch of policies. And right now,
00:17:14.720 I'm very concerned about what's happening to the Canadian beef sector. And frankly, I've tried
00:17:20.880 Australian beef. I've tried Mexican beef. They're all into our grocery stores right now. Mexican beef is
00:17:27.280 horrible, comes from older animals. It's not very tender. Australian beef is actually not bad, but it's
00:17:33.360 not as good as Canadian beef. And so I would certainly be concerned about what's going on
00:17:37.840 right now at the grocery store, seeing a foreign product competing, perhaps unfairly against our
00:17:46.960 own products here in Canada. I'm in Lethbridge, Alberta, and the site of Australian beef in a
00:17:53.440 grocery store would probably cause a riot here. Oh yeah. You're in Feedlot Alley. Of course. Absolutely.
00:17:59.120 I mean, this, this is some, I honestly, I just don't think Ottawa cares right now because it's
00:18:07.440 actually serving the urbanites, urban consumers looking at great deals at the meat counter. And
00:18:13.040 that really matters a whole lot to Ottawa. Okay. I wanted to get into some of the other,
00:18:18.800 we'll call them inputs. But in normal people talk, what makes things cost more? So we heard from
00:18:25.040 conservative party leader, Pierre Polyev opposition leader, Pierre Polyev the other day, talking about
00:18:30.400 things like the packaging tax. So plastics that he's using, that we use to wrap our food in. He's
00:18:38.160 warning that that's going to make food cost more. He also kept on about the industrial carbon tax. And
00:18:44.080 I'm so glad that he is because right now, yes, we do have an industrial carbon tax. We also have what is
00:18:50.880 typically called a low carbon fuel standard. It's not as expensive nationally yet as it is in British
00:18:56.560 Columbia, but it still exists. And this is what I wanted to get you on Dr. Charlebois is the big new
00:19:03.440 industrial carbon tax that we're all bracing ourselves for. And before we start chatting about it,
00:19:08.720 we have a clip. Now this is prime minister Mark Carney back when he was campaigning during the election,
00:19:16.400 people might remember to be fair. He said this himself. He said that he wasn't going to
00:19:22.720 axe the carbon tax. He was going to change the carbon tax. Listen to this.
00:19:37.280 So axing the tax was a laugh line for him. People thought that was funny. He treated it as a funny
00:19:51.440 situation. So I feel like we're in kind of a phony war right now. He got rid of the consumer carbon tax
00:19:59.440 and we're all bracing ourselves for what comes next. Do you have any inkling as to what's coming next with
00:20:05.760 this big industrial carbon tax that he's going to have? Well, I'm concerned for our food industry
00:20:13.120 from farm gate to store, essentially because we now have a regime in Ottawa aiming at the obscure
00:20:22.640 part of the food industry. Now we all know that Mark Carney has decided to tackle the visible part
00:20:28.720 of the carbon tax, which is the retailable part of the carbon tax and the checks we receive and the
00:20:35.600 taxes, the carbon tax that impacted retail prices. But we still have a carbon tax, an industrial carbon
00:20:42.960 tax, and that actually can increase with new policy. So we haven't really, from an industry perspective,
00:20:51.360 the problem remains. It's getting worse. And of course, Kim, you know this, the carbon tax is now at
00:20:57.920 $95 a metric ton. That will increase again in April and there are more taxes likely coming in just
00:21:07.440 because Ottawa knows very well that if it actually attacks the obscure part of the food industry,
00:21:13.760 it won't get any criticism coming from voters because voters do not understand supply chain economics.
00:21:24.000 That's pretty clear to me anyways. When we saw the boycott against Loblaw, for example,
00:21:30.720 it became pretty clear that it was impossible to educate Canadians on supply chain economics.
00:21:36.320 And so right now, Prime Minister Carney is taking advantage of that ignorance. Let's put it this way.
00:21:42.960 I'd strongly recommend that folks read some economics books,
00:21:47.520 in particular ones that, no really, that explain, you know, the margins that are at grocery stores
00:21:53.680 and the loss leader, like you were saying. So for example, the roast chickens that I can get at
00:21:59.600 Walmart for $8.75 here in Lethbridge, the fancier grocery stores, it's a little bit more over $10.
00:22:05.520 Those are typically loss leaders, meaning the store is actually losing a little bit of money,
00:22:10.960 but in order to get you coming through the doors, they have that there for you. And actually it's
00:22:15.920 a good deal considering all the energy you'd spent cooking the thing. So there are loss leaders. And
00:22:21.040 so I would strongly encourage people like, for example, and again, you know, I'm not defending
00:22:25.920 any one company. I don't think corporate welfare is a good idea. Taxpayers did give money to Loblaws.
00:22:30.800 That wasn't a good thing for the refrigerators. However, you know, that was silly. So, but, but
00:22:36.960 if you go back and look at where their profits were actually coming from back when people were
00:22:41.520 all jumping on them, it's the stuff on the other side of the store. It's the candles and the blankets
00:22:47.360 and the clothes and like. Well, Loblaws bank is, is shoppers drug mart. Right. It's all part of the
00:22:52.800 same thing. It wasn't on, on pork and potatoes. Okay. No, it wasn't on those basics. And so if you look
00:22:59.600 at same store food sales versus food inflation, it's always below water, always most, most quarters,
00:23:07.200 most, not all, but most quarters. So it means that they're basically making their money,
00:23:12.080 uh, selling other things with higher margins, cosmetics, uh, prescription drugs and things
00:23:17.920 like that. Yeah. You can see all sorts of stuff you can buy there at the store. I shop there a lot.
00:23:22.640 I shop at a lot of these places a lot. So, uh, before I let you go, I really wanted you to address
00:23:28.240 this whole let's blame Trump. Okay. Um, I am getting so tired of this. Um, I understand. Yes.
00:23:35.040 If he does something that we're not expecting, like all of a sudden there's a hundred percent tariff on
00:23:39.360 film. Like I get it. Okay. It can be tiresome and it's hard to deal with. However, we are adults
00:23:47.360 and we have had a long standing, I hope so. Some of us are, um, we've had a longstanding trade
00:23:54.560 relationship with the United States and the fact that they have not been able to hammer this out.
00:23:59.680 And so many Canadians, and I would imagine some working Americans north of the, on our,
00:24:04.400 on the other side of the border in the Northern part of the States are suffering because of this.
00:24:09.120 I wanted to applaud, uh, Jason jocks, who is the interim parliamentary budget officer who was asked,
00:24:15.200 oh, well, isn't this Trump's fault with the big deficit? And he said, um, no,
00:24:19.360 we've been blowing our money. Yeah. Long before Trump. So I wanted to get your take on this.
00:24:24.880 I assume we're in the middle of some form of negotiations with the United States.
00:24:29.840 Where do you see food prices being affected with tariffs and what we might need to change
00:24:35.680 here in Canada in order to land a deal with the white house?
00:24:39.520 Well, first of all, we need to focus on making a deal with, uh, with the Americans and, and, and Mexico.
00:24:48.640 I, I, I actually, you know, I appreciate, uh, Prime Minister Carney's effort to look at other markets,
00:24:56.240 which is something we need to do, but we're, we're prisoners of our own geography. I mean,
00:25:01.840 we're right next to the United States. Uh, it's the largest and most powerful economy in the world.
00:25:07.360 Uh, we're going to continue to do business with the Americans, whether we like it or not. Uh,
00:25:11.760 because a lot of our food companies rely on the Americans to make a living and people tend to
00:25:17.600 forget this sales going to the United States actually subsidize supports our food affordability
00:25:23.040 right here in Canada. It makes our own companies more efficient and scalable. So that's the one thing
00:25:29.040 that people need to understand. We, we will need to continue to do business with, with the Americans.
00:25:34.240 And, and, and, and of course, at the end of the day, I mean, you can fight all you want. And of course,
00:25:40.560 we, we, we, we, we need to negotiate, but to, uh, continue to nurture or foster that anti-American
00:25:48.960 sentiment is just disruptive. I, I've in the last nine months, I've been to, uh, South America and
00:25:55.280 Brazil. I've been to Europe twice and I've been to America four times and I'm back in New Orleans next
00:26:00.240 week. Kim, the things I'm hearing about Canada is embarrassing, completely embarrassing. We're seen
00:26:08.720 as, uh, adolescents, basically, uh, having a hissy fit every time we hear something we don't like,
00:26:16.240 it's just not something we need to continue to do. We need to focus on business as much as possible.
00:26:22.160 You mentioned this online. Uh, you said that we were kind of seen as teenagers on the world stage.
00:26:28.560 Um, can you, can you give a more of a specific, is it that we're. So something serious will happen,
00:26:35.120 say a warning of a new trade tariff or a new rule or something. Is it your take then that we are acting
00:26:42.880 with emotionalism and, and, and kind of freaking out to use a better term, um, and not actually doing
00:26:49.040 the adult work and saying, listen, let's have a meeting of the minds. Let's find a common ground.
00:26:54.000 Let's hammer out this deal and kind of ignore kind of schoolyard insults. Are we, are we just
00:26:59.040 jumping on that and then leaving the homework? I was giving a talk, uh, in, uh, in Auckland,
00:27:06.000 New Zealand, a few months ago, and, uh, you know, talk about an economy that is trade focus,
00:27:12.720 New Zealand, they export for billions worth of dollars of food products from all to all over the world
00:27:18.480 in the middle of, and they're in the middle of nowhere. I mean, and they see us as it was really,
00:27:26.080 when I was listening to people, they, they do see us as teenagers, because if you remember your
00:27:31.120 teenage years, you're always, uh, in pursuit of your own identity. And they saw us as right next to
00:27:38.000 the U S and I actually did ask a few participants, how do you see Canada? And it's always, it was always
00:27:44.880 in reference to the U S we do not have an identity as Canadians, as a Canadian economy, and that needs
00:27:51.840 to change. And it's not by responding to, uh, to any of Trump's comments. I mean, he, he trolls Canada
00:28:01.680 because he knows it works. It works. And I'm thinking about supply management. I mean, supply management is,
00:28:08.480 is going to have to go through a, a, a major reform, not because of Trump is because we need to do it.
00:28:16.240 New Zealand scrap its supply management system in 1987, they moved on. We're still stuck with some
00:28:23.520 of that baggage. So we need to look at ourselves in the mirror before criticizing anybody. We don't
00:28:29.040 have any lessons to give to anyone. And if I, if, if there are people listening out there thinking that
00:28:34.960 Canada is morally superior to everyone go on a plane, travel, talk to business folks in the U S and
00:28:42.000 other parts of the world. And you'll understand that we have a lot of work to do. Do you think
00:28:46.800 it can improve, uh, based on the government we have now? Um, I will say that I I'm noticing like
00:28:53.280 at least a bit, a tone change. Um, my, my leader on the world stage, isn't literally showing off his
00:28:59.360 socks, like in front of cameras. I know it's hard to say that out loud, but that's what happened all
00:29:05.520 the time. And so I'm no longer feeling that sense of home, man, like we're having somebody who said,
00:29:11.200 I don't think of fiscal policy and the budget will balance itself. Like that guy's gone.
00:29:16.560 We've got a PhD in economics from Oxford that's there now, former governor of the bank of Canada.
00:29:22.800 Like, do you see improvement happening in the future? There's no doubt in my mind. Absolutely.
00:29:28.880 I I'm, I'm less embarrassed to be honest. And frankly, so I have a podcast called the food professor
00:29:35.120 and, uh, Michael, my co-producer and I, we talk about, uh, food policy all the time. And, uh, and
00:29:41.440 during, during the Trudeau years, I, I, I, as an academic, it was very difficult for me to find any
00:29:47.120 positives to be honest, but with, with, uh, with Mark Carney, his approach, I think I see a prime
00:29:53.840 minister realizing that, uh, he's dealing with, with a lot of baggage coming from the Trudeau years.
00:30:00.000 It was a complete disaster. So he has to deal with that while keeping his base happy. So I, I understand
00:30:07.520 that. And, uh, my, my only concern with Mark Carney right now is that I'm not sure he, uh, he is honest
00:30:17.520 because I mean, last week we, we, we did learn from the CBC of all places that, uh, not, uh, Mark Carney
00:30:24.720 wasn't overly transparent about counter-terrorists. He basically scrapped them all, but he didn't say
00:30:30.720 it in front of cameras. Uh, the CBC reporter, uh, actually had to go through the Gazette to basically
00:30:38.160 understand exactly what was going on. So I, I, I'm hoping, and he did that because he didn't want to
00:30:43.920 annoy the elbows up base. I think that we need to move on from there and we need a prime minister
00:30:50.320 that is transparent and honest with the Canadian electorate so we can actually understand what
00:30:54.800 exactly is going on. But I, but I am more reassured right now compared to say a year ago.
00:31:00.720 Excellent. Uh, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, uh, visiting scholar at McGill university. You can check him out
00:31:07.840 on Twitter. Also find his podcast, the food professor. Thank you so much for your time today.
00:31:13.920 My pleasure, Kim. Wonderful. Once again, uh, that is the food professor. If you go check him out on X,
00:31:20.880 uh, he is really responsive. He watches committee. As you heard, he flies all around the world.
00:31:27.440 Um, when I first started speaking with him, he was at Guelph, which does this kind of really
00:31:32.800 scientific database, deep dive into things. It isn't just surface stuff, right? It isn't slogans.
00:31:38.960 They get down into inputs as they call it, that make food cost what it does and his issue there
00:31:45.840 about scalability. That's also really interesting. I strongly recommend you go read some articles on
00:31:51.200 that because it would be nice to think that here on the Canadian side of the border, we could all have
00:31:56.240 little tiny niche farms and we'd all be able to feed ourselves, but that isn't what feeds a country
00:32:03.120 like Canada or a continent like North America. So I'm trying to be hopeful here, uh, because
00:32:09.120 hopefully there are cooler heads that prevail. My key concern going forward is still this big,
00:32:15.520 huge industrial carbon tax. And I'll leave you with this point. We just finished seeing some
00:32:21.600 taxpayers money being handed by the government to steel company in Ontario because they're losing
00:32:28.960 money because of tariffs, all of that terrible stuff. Here's the thing during the election campaign,
00:32:36.160 there were pipe workers and steel companies that were endorsing the conservatives for this one
00:32:42.320 reason. The conservatives were promising to get rid of all carbon taxes, including the industrial carbon
00:32:49.120 tax. And it was the steel folks who were largely around the Hamilton area in Ontario who were warning
00:32:57.200 the industrial carbon tax, the industrial carbon tax would quote decimate their industry because guess
00:33:02.720 what? The United States does not have an industrial carbon tax and it won't have one anytime soon.
00:33:09.120 Even US president Barack Obama scrapped plans to have such a thing. So that's not happening in the
00:33:15.520 States. And it's just too easy for a company to shutter here and set up shop down south. The smarter thing to do
00:33:22.560 would have been to get rid of all carbon taxes instead of trying to bail out a company here on
00:33:28.320 this side of the border. Folks, what did you think about the great food professor? I find him fascinating.
00:33:34.240 Please leave your comments under the channel. Once again, thank you so much for watching. Be sure to
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