00:00:00.000Prime Minister Mark Carney proclaimed to Canadians that we were at war with the United States
00:00:12.080after trade talks fell apart. You already know the details. 50% tariffs on roughly $30 billion
00:00:19.200worth of goods from the United States. Canadian retaliatory tariffs set to go into effect in
00:00:24.940early September. And then retaliatory, retaliatory tariffs from the United States
00:00:30.260are set to go into effect now on January 1st, 2027. Canadians are rallying around the flag
00:00:37.840and giving Mark Carney tons of leeway here, as the Conservative Party led by Pierre Polyev
00:00:43.620doesn't seem to know exactly how to rise to the occasion. The opposition, they want Parliament
00:00:49.800recalled. Can't blame them, seeing as how the Prime Minister has now essentially decided to
00:00:54.740put the country on a war footing. They also want to see the text of the proposed deal that Canada
00:00:59.620walked away from, far from unreasonable demands. As all this is playing out, the conservative
00:01:04.980movement continues to fracture across geographic lines and ideological lines. Progressive
00:01:11.720conservatives in Ontario, populist conservatives out west, Doug Ford versus Pierre Polyev.
00:01:18.340Is the conservative party tent finally getting too large? We discuss all of that on the next
00:01:24.300ratioed panel the canadian government and big tech find new ways every day to shut down and
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00:01:54.780get into it be sure to like this video subscribe to the juno news youtube channel and the common
00:01:59.100question for the episode is this is the trade war with the united states threatening to rip apart
00:02:05.660the conservative coalition in canada let me know your answer in the comments below and let's get
00:02:10.380into it all right joining me now is ezra levant the founder of rebel news and alex brown the
00:02:16.620national director of the national citizens coalition and the managing editor of without
00:02:21.020diminishment thank you both for joining me my pleasure thanks for having us ezra i want to
00:02:26.460start with you from the little information that we've all been able to piece together
00:02:31.020from media reports out of the united states mostly from the us and some reports from canada
00:02:37.100from what we know about the trade deal that fell through in your opinion do you
00:02:41.100think the canadian government and mark carney should have signed that deal
00:02:43.820Well, we don't have all the text in front of us, which is part of the problem. So we're relying on people spinning it on each side.
00:02:56.120I find it plausible. One of the explanations put forward by Jameson Greer, the U.S. trade rep, that is when Mark Carney said we walked away because they were demanding that we abandon our Quebec brothers and sisters.
00:03:10.060Like, he built up this whole feelings story about a war on Quebec, and I thought, that sounds weird.
00:03:17.860And the U.S. trade rep said, no, that just didn't happen that way.
00:03:21.620It was about a Netflix tax of 5% that they were taking those proceeds and handing it out in grants to our competitors.
00:03:33.840I mean, the explanation by the U.S. trade rep was a lot more plausible to me than this idea that Trump suddenly attacked French Canadians.
00:03:43.900There was one more thing that had the same feeling to me, and that is when Carney huffed and puffed and saying those Americans demanded the right to veto us coming to trade agreements with other countries.
00:03:55.840How dare they step on our sovereignty?
00:03:58.080Actually, Article 3210 of the existing trade agreement, which has been in writing for, what, eight years, says that no country, Canada, Mexico, or the United States, can do a trade deal with a non-market economy without the approval of the other two.
00:04:17.920I mean, you can you can press the escape button, you can cancel that. But Canada, Mexico and America all agreed that they wouldn't let China have a free trade deal unless they all agreed to it. So, you know, it might sound shocking, but that's how it's been for eight years.
00:04:33.680So I think Mark Carney in those two examples has shown that he's embroidering the truth.
00:04:39.360Reminds me of his fibbing over the Gordie Howe Bridge.
00:04:42.280My point is, I can't make the judgment because we don't know what really happened.
00:04:47.400But those two things I just mentioned suggest to me it would be foolish to take Mark Carney's view on it without corroboration.
00:04:54.460And so, Alex, the framing and the discourse around this has really come down to no deal is better than a bad deal, right? And based off of Ezra's comments, and I think a lot of Canadians are feeling this way, we just don't really have all the information in front of us. Is that framing, no deal better than a bad deal? Is that really oversimplifying what we're going through right now?
00:05:17.340I think it is because I have a lot of understanding for those who are frustrated with this whole situation. Much respect for the percentage of conservatives who feel particularly alienated right now by some of this rhetoric. But surely they're like, would a future president give back concessions? So many concessions if we were to give so much away. I'm not even thinking of just sovereignty. I'm just thinking of our future deal power.
00:05:45.760um it's it's with much respect to the twitter account the anonymous twitter account sneakotron
00:05:52.160who was the one who who uh shared that ai post about all um all the u.s demands we just we just
00:05:59.540don't know the true story and perhaps i'm i'm jumping ahead of you on on some future questions
00:06:04.300here but i i think the answer to that is to recall parliament like i no matter no matter what happens
00:06:09.980i think sunlight is the best disinfectant here i don't think that has to get in the way of
00:06:14.280negotiations. But I do think there is an opportunity here where instead of two warring
00:06:18.800communications departments, instead of some in media either glomming on to the right side or
00:06:24.800the wrong side or spending for someone or on behalf of another country, let's just see what's
00:06:30.720happening here. Let's stay at the bargaining table. Let's continue to deal with this like
00:06:35.960adults. Let's protect our sovereignty. And when I worry about the millions of people who are
00:06:40.320impacted by these rising costs with with tit-for-tat tariffs and in certain sectors
00:06:45.120i just want to make sure that we don't leave them behind we left behind you know many well-meaning
00:06:51.200common sense characters during the covet response for example because it's it's easy for so many
00:06:56.160people to say um let's do this forever this doesn't affect me when we know that our working
00:07:02.320canadians are 20 30 40 somethings are the ones who bear the brunt of it and i you just touched
00:07:08.480on the covid era and i want to ask you ezra i mean at rebel news reporting during that was was
00:07:13.760incredibly important and people are framing this trade war in those covid terms some are saying
00:07:20.160if you're not with the government you're a traitor you are siding with the enemy we we did go through
00:07:26.640this um is this where we are right now and if we are in this sort of social moment like we were in
00:07:34.3202020 and 2021 where does that leave the conservative party because if we all remember it didn't go so
00:07:39.920well for the conservatives when we were in that moment yeah well that's a good point i i think
00:07:45.040that there's such a mania out there some might call it a mass formation psychosis you have to
00:07:50.560outdo each other in proving your hatred for the evil orange man and um yeah i saw some news stories
00:07:58.420today they found a store in ontario that was still selling american liquor everybody get them
00:08:05.300you know and by the way it's not against the law to buy or sell american liquor it's just the lcbo
00:08:10.840decided not to put it on the shelves anymore there's this mania out there and it's who can
00:08:16.340outdo each other and so we have mayors going on us tv condemning trump and it's you can it's
00:08:24.520I know why they're doing it. I know why they're all leaning into it. And for whatever you can say
00:08:32.180about Donald Trump and his occasional insults and hurtful nicknames, look at the buffoonish
00:08:40.380behavior of Doug Ford. And I won't even get into what Wab Kanu has said. These are disgraceful
00:08:46.720performances, but it's working for them. Because, I mean, in the case of Ontario,
00:08:52.660You know, Ontario is a have-not province, something unthinkable when I was younger.
00:08:57.540And Doug Ford is presiding over the worst crime wave in Ontario history.
00:09:02.020Yeah, he'd much rather run against Donald Trump than against his record.
00:09:06.520And same thing with the failed city of Toronto.
00:09:09.720And Wab Canoe has a, you know, a welfare state province.
00:09:13.740And he's never had more fun in his life.
00:09:27.860If you dissent, you're unpatriotic, you're a traitor even.
00:09:30.740The only grown-up in the room is Danielle Smith.
00:09:33.360If you think that the goal is to keep trade growing, keep jobs going.1.00
00:09:41.320And that's why they're turning on her, because she's not doing a performative anti-Trump dance.1.00
00:09:46.960and they're actually asking her to break the law and to rip up contracts with American refineries1.00
00:09:52.980for Canadian oil. The one grown up in Canada, Scott Moe is there too, but he's not as visible.
00:09:59.440They are trying to topple her because remember, you need unanimity. You need this false unanimity
00:10:06.600that they did in COVID also. You need it here. If there's one dissenter in the room, it doesn't
00:10:12.000quite work. Alex, before I ask you this, I want to just preface this to the audience to take what
00:10:17.540I'm about to say with a major grain of salt. But the Angus Reid Institute conducted a poll
00:10:22.460just days following the collapse of these trade talks showing that about half of polled
00:10:28.580conservative supporters said that Mark Carney should have signed the deal or that it was a
00:10:33.540mistake to walk away from the deal way beyond the national average and really an outsider among
00:10:39.220where the other polled participants were. Is this an electability issue for Pierre or is it actually
00:10:45.700secretly something good for him that the base are not prepared to walk beside the prime minister
00:10:50.960here? I think it's an electability concern in the short to medium term. I don't really think
00:10:58.320that there's any way to spin the situation they're in as favorable. I think it's going to be a few
00:11:03.780years but i they have a unique challenge here and maybe some of the plucky individualism of
00:11:10.180some of their supporters maybe of that no longer trusting the government um that is so ingrained
00:11:16.100in a larger portion of the base it's like nearly half if you dig into the number within the number
00:11:20.900uh can help but they also do have a challenge an understandable challenge um barring the the
00:11:26.420boomers sort of aging out um of the electorate and and young folks actually showing up to the polls
00:11:33.060in better numbers between distinguishing between love for canada and loyalty to a liberal government
00:11:39.140that has clearly failed this country's you know present and next generation it they have to i
00:11:45.620think conservatives have a fine line to walk here where they have to acknowledge the degree of youth
00:11:50.740anger there there's a percentage a large percentage of their their you know their inner electorate in
00:11:57.220the conservative base and supports who i who i don't want to just dismiss as like monster truck
00:12:02.180driving beer swilling mega anti-vax maniacs because it's like so many of them come by their
00:12:07.560alienation honestly and have been harmed by the last few years but it is i i'm almost thinking
00:12:13.340that the conservative party the answer for them is to find a kind of nationalism that works for
00:12:20.120them it's like be be proud and bold about the canada that existed before pierre elliott trudeau
00:12:27.340Like just just Red Ensign, Max, like at this point, the liberal brand is is almost indistinguishable from what modern Canada is.
00:12:37.220And so any any concerns that conservatives have are read as as disloyal, especially at a moment like this, when they are just fulfilling their duty right now as his majesty's loyal opposition.
00:12:48.040They're supposed to critique government. It is a lose lose situation for them.
00:12:52.280so lay out your sort of positive national vision for the country that is unabashed and proud but
00:13:00.540just but almost just find a slightly different frame for it because it's they're going to keep
00:13:05.180being called disloyal no matter what their electoral prospects are not great no matter what
00:13:10.260they should be proud of their their major gains with young voters they should try to hang on to
00:13:15.640them but you should but in laying out this vision for canada a canada that we can that we can all
00:13:20.340remember and look back to and see was working so well, surely that will also have appeal to the
00:13:25.960boomers. Ezra, what was your reaction to that polling which showed conservatives are really
00:13:31.460sort of out on this issue in their own space in this country, filling up one side of the argument
00:13:37.360pretty clearly? Yeah, well, I mean, it comes from a number of things. There's not a love affair with
00:13:45.040mark carney where he's you know i mean mark carney has the mantle of the anti-trump that's sort of
00:13:51.800his national and international brand that's why you have a near erotic support for him by let's
00:13:57.140say the andrew coins of this world because this is the final showdown we're taking on donald trump
00:14:02.640this is the davos speech speech manifest and if a few hundred thousand uh workers including in the
00:14:09.300auto auto sector in the steel sector have to lose their jobs well that's a price andrew coin is
00:14:14.260willing to pay this is some fantasy uh game that's becoming very real and i mean the
00:14:20.660the excitement from the laurentian regime is palpable um when you get out west where people
00:14:28.540are actually selling things to america like minerals and oil um there's less hatred for
00:14:33.600america um there's less less obedient credulity towards um carney i think right now anti-americanism
00:14:43.840in can is probably at its height like i don't know how it could go higher i i think what will
00:14:49.500happen is the anger may subside somewhat but the pain will go up the unemployment like um they are
00:14:56.680not going to continue those unless the government just gives them billions a year which they might
00:15:02.120those are those automobile plants are going to shut down those steel plants are going to shut
00:15:07.500down. And suddenly, it'll be a little less fun to have this performative anti-Americanism that's
00:15:15.080cost-free to the Andrew Coins of the world. And I don't know, I remember in COVID when Aaron O'Toole
00:15:21.200was completely indistinguishable from the other parties. It was a unanimity. And I saw Jason
00:15:28.040Kenney refer to that poll and saying, it's outrageous that conservatives aren't with the
00:15:32.140program. Yeah, no, that's called having a difference of opinion and it's called being
00:15:37.140the opposition. So I think a big part of the problem is the media. This is their time to
00:15:43.880shine. They want to be on American TV too, just like the Canadian politicians. I don't know. I
00:15:50.260think we have a really big problem in Canada because for a decade, this country has had a
00:15:56.800full tilt anti-Trump, anti-American brainwash. So you're not going to, I don't even know how
00:16:02.640Pierre Polyev could win that debate because saying anything contrary to Mark Carney lends himself to
00:16:08.600be called a traitor. They're calling Danielle Smith a traitor. I guess the problem though
00:16:12.200really is you hinted at this. This is the economic pain that Canadians are about to face from this.
00:16:17.840And I'm pretty sure we would all agree that Mark Carney wasn't going to turn around if there wasn't
00:16:24.280any tariff threats from donald trump if donald trump didn't levy any tariff threats i'm not
00:16:28.080i'm pretty sure sure that canada wasn't about to turn around and say we're going to just tariff
00:16:33.120america right away and we're going to see what happens right it was started by donald trump
00:16:37.660and we really sure about that i am sure i really don't think a canadian government ezra would
00:16:43.280would without provocation just decide to rip up kuzma and start and start trying to attack the
00:16:50.700United States. This was started by the U.S. Donald Trump did kick this off. And so I'm not saying
00:16:56.920that Mark Carney isn't partially responsible, but would you say that the blame lies mostly
00:17:05.180with Carney here? Hey, can I throw something at you? I'm just out of the blue here. So we've been
00:17:09.620trying to get this trade deal with America for a year and a half, right? And the U.S. midterms are
00:17:14.520just around the corner, just a couple months away. And there's a lot of cross-pollination between
00:17:19.320Canada's PMO and the Democrats. In fact, Carney's chief of staff or executive director, I forget
00:17:25.420her title, is a Democrat operative. You see liberal MPs campaigning in the States. You see,
00:17:32.840you know, explicit talk about running ads to meddle in the midterms. So is it hard to believe,
00:17:40.180is it implausible that Canada, which has already waited 18 months anyways, might decide, well,
00:18:11.280He said come back when you want to talk.
00:18:14.400And I think Mark Carney is going to come back and get the deal, but he's first going to have this two months of being the world's anti-Trump because he actually does want to meddle in the midterm.
00:18:27.380So let me throw one more thing at you, and I don't know if you know this, but I recently discovered a speech that Mark Carney gave in 2019 when he was the head of the Bank of England.
00:18:36.400And you can find this on the Bank of England website.
00:18:38.560He made the argument seven years ago that the world should get off the U.S. dollar.
00:18:44.400and it should no longer be the currency of choice for invoicing, for reserves.
00:18:49.240And he suggested that the most likely successor would be the Chinese, Renminbi.
00:27:26.200But if you're being holier than thou, and if you're being so exquisitely independent, you're outraged at these challenges of sovereignty, good luck to you, mate.0.90
00:27:36.180And good luck the next time a Chinese hot air balloon comes over.0.70
00:27:39.940And good luck when you, like, I think that Canadians want it both ways.0.94
00:27:43.820And and I understand America saying time to time to pony up and we're not spending five percent on our military.
00:27:53.280We're spending two point three percent. The rest is just padding it with bureaucrats and we're not doing our duty on the border.
00:28:01.220We're just not. And I think we have a lot of self delusion up here about how grand we are.
00:28:06.740The world needs more Canada, we tell ourselves. Yeah, I don't know.
00:28:10.460last place in the OECD for jobs, poorer than, you know, I looked up Manitoba and Wob Canoe,
00:28:16.100so brave. He's poorer than Mississippi, his province. I don't know. I just think that
00:28:20.240there's a Canadian condescension going around here. Yeah. Harrison, can I jump in there?
00:28:25.060Yes, quickly, because I do want to finish off on a broader question about the conservative
00:28:29.420movement. But go ahead, Alex. Of course. This was George Grant, like one of his principal
00:28:33.360concerns in Lament for a Nation, which is if we allow ourselves to become so subsumed by America's
00:28:39.260identity, we ultimately turn into a vassal state. And we're a country that apologizes for absolutely
00:28:47.820everything and some things it hasn't even done, and yet is now turning around and waving flags
00:28:52.920that recently bought on Amazon and Timu. That starts these major press conferences still with
00:28:58.860land acknowledgements. We undercut our own sovereignty. And so if we truly believe in
00:29:03.040being masters in our own home. Why do we define ourselves as not American? I think there's such
00:29:10.200an incredible opportunity here to try to take a little bit of this momentum and actually import
00:29:15.700it into a more robust and consistent Canadian nationalism and not just one that is drummed up
00:29:22.000by a temporary fervor. Well, I will say that Gavin Newsom, the presumptive potential Democrat nominee
00:29:28.760for president in 2028 just said on canadian news that tariffs under a democrat will probably remain
00:29:34.280so i think we're now moving into a a permanent position here which if we're going to if we're
00:29:41.240going to make these changes and it's going to strengthen canadian sovereignty i guess we should
00:29:44.040make them now and stick with them but i want to end on this question uh ezra and i first want to
00:29:50.120send it to you this issue with the united states seems to have exposed another major fault line
00:29:56.280in the conservative movement we not only are dealing with a geographic issue here with rising
00:30:02.120alberta independence movements but we now have this issue where all under the same federal
00:30:08.280conservative party tent you will find figures like doug ford yourself jason kenny corey tonight
00:30:15.640and i just don't know if if everyone under that tent can really all work together is is this
00:30:22.600movement really robust enough to to operate when you have people like that all working for the same
00:30:29.400under the same political banner i i just don't think uh the people you named are under the same
00:30:35.720banner i mean uh the conservative party of ontario is conservative in name only i i think they've been
00:30:41.560at war with pierre polyev since uh since before carney was prime minister um and cory tonight who
00:30:48.520who I've known for a very long time. He's Doug Ford's stalking horse. So that's internal
00:30:53.840politics. They think they can knock up Pierre Polyev and put in their own guy.
00:30:58.160Jason Kenney's running for something. I'm not quite sure why. I'm not quite sure who his clients
00:31:02.040are right now. But, I mean, Tanike and Kenney are lobbyists. And that's okay. I think they
00:31:08.800should just disclose that a little more, what their interests are. I think that, you know,
00:31:15.320there are some more ideological differences within the Conservative Party of Canada. I think
00:31:19.220Jamil Giovanni is an example of that. And I think, frankly, he's a little bit of a bull in a Chinese1.00
00:31:23.900shop. I like the guy, but he's acting in ways that step on a leader's toes. And that's never1.00
00:31:29.080a good idea. I do not think that Doug Ford is a conservative in any meaningful way, other than
00:31:34.960that's just the color of his jersey. And for Corey and Jason, they're just pursuing a business
00:31:41.800agenda. Corey's podcast is sponsored by some climate institute thing. So I don't even know
00:31:48.920if I can, like one of the problems in Canada is we have pundits panels, but they're actually
00:31:53.240lobbyist panels. We have no idea who we're listening to. Like what country says, let's
00:31:58.440have three lobbyists in, don't disclose your clients and let's hear what you really think.
00:32:03.100That's sort of absurd. Alex, is this like the largest tent ever for a political party that
00:32:09.720we're dealing with here? Because Ezra brought up Jamil Giovanni as well, who is kind of freelancing
00:32:14.840his own attack lines on the, on the government right now. How is this, how does this party
00:32:19.420actually represent a unified vision for Canada when clearly a lot of the members don't share
00:32:26.140the same vision? I'm not sure it does at the moment, but that doesn't mean that that can't
00:32:31.520be a temporary state where you do have the lobbyist podcasts that apparently just exist
00:32:36.540to air personal grievances at this point, where I'd have a lot of time for the curse of politics.
00:32:42.360And it's, I think, 60,000 viewers. It acts like it's some monolith with millions of viewers.
00:32:46.820If they weren't just doing the mean girls routine, and if they weren't just playing he said, she said,
00:32:52.540like, I'd love to hear a more impactful analysis than calling Pierre PP and silly little names and
00:32:58.880talking about his workouts. But I do think that the conservative movement right now in the country,
00:33:03.960I think the small C movement is healthier than the big C movement, because I do think that is growing. I think that that has growth potential. But I think we are being undercut or not well serving ourselves by these kind of parasocial relationships that have developed inside the movement where we only see people through a screen or we only think of them as being in relation to another candidate.
00:33:26.840so everyone's meeting behind the scenes and and engaged in skullduggery like i'm i'm in british
00:33:32.860columbia and i was i was sort of adjacent to plenty of campaigns did lots of media coverage
00:33:39.060met with all kinds of people and like i won't speak to the some of the early uh successes and
00:33:44.420failures of the new administration uh for the bc conservatives but i was watching people i know
00:33:49.560and who i know to not be uh crooked some as practically as pure as the wind-driven snow
00:33:55.100across multiple campaigns be cast as like secret evil liberals and i'm just going like guys if you
00:34:00.220like had an opportunity to actually meet them and shake their hand you'd see you'd see things
00:34:03.660differently so my my one concern is that conservatism in canada has always been quite
00:34:08.540regional but now we're adding like a like the internet is making it even more regional and
00:34:12.940balkanized as well and so i i hope that we can remember that we can remember that we're we're
00:34:18.700not all just so and so had a picture with jason kenny so he's an evil liberal um and and that
00:34:23.980generally speaking, this movement and those working towards it are trying to point in the
00:34:28.640right direction. But I am very much on Team Ezra when it comes to my criticisms of a certain podcast
00:34:34.500of Doug Ford. I'm a contributor to Project Ontario. I've been called a Yahoo and a radical right
00:34:39.600by the premier. And so I'd love for Doug Ford to practice what he preaches. If he truly believes
00:34:45.160in unity, he could stop with the name calling. And frankly, all those camps, these camps of
00:34:50.840consultants of lobbyists, they don't serve conservatism well in the country by waging this
00:34:56.760public war and also a shadow war behind the scenes, drumming up certain influencers,
00:35:02.720getting things in certain media. I hope the public here and your viewing public also understands
00:35:07.360that there are people behind people who are making this worse. Sometimes it's in the camps
00:35:13.800that you might be surprised by. And so I would just love to see them actually focus on the issues.
00:35:19.580All right, gentlemen, we'll leave it there.
00:35:21.180Thank you both, Ezra, Alex, for joining me.