Juno News - No end in sight for Trudeau’s spending

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:16.320 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:24.180 Hello and welcome to you all, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:28.440 hear The Andrew Lawton Show on this Wednesday, April 17th. Now, I have to apologize in advance

00:01:34.620 a little bit if there's something indiscernible different about the audio, by which I mean if

00:01:40.340 there's a little bit more of an echo. So I was being the good son. I love dogs. So when I had

00:01:46.720 an opportunity arise to dog sit my parents' lovely yellow lab, I naturally jumped at the opportunity.

00:01:53.300 She's a beautiful little thing and is so well-behaved, so mild-mannered, so quiet.

00:01:58.680 It's so lovely until yesterday, moments before I was about to go on air,

00:02:03.320 I sat down and I smelled something and realized that she had to relieve herself overnight. 1.00

00:02:09.980 And attempts to salvage the rug that served both an aesthetic and a soundproofing purpose for this show were unsuccessful.

00:02:18.000 So we've like just removed the rug altogether.

00:02:19.640 weather and I noticed that when I was coming in I can like do the Ricola thing because it just has

00:02:25.160 a bit of an echo in this room now. So this is the behind the scenes look at the Andrew Lawton show

00:02:30.260 you'd never know you were going to get but it never nevertheless it's good to have you tuned

00:02:34.300 into the program here. I'm going to be breaking down as promised yesterday the latest from the

00:02:39.580 federal budget which I kind of could have called I kind of did call actually because I had shared a

00:02:46.760 meme online a couple of weeks back just about this. It was from this show, It's Always Sunny

00:02:50.880 in Philadelphia, about these guys talking about a self-sustaining economy. The money moves around

00:02:55.360 and around. And it's clear they didn't grasp at all how economics or finance or the financial

00:03:01.980 system worked. And I had remarked that it seemed like it was the Liberal government planning the

00:03:06.700 budget for this year. And then, of course, I heard the budget from last year. And I'm even more

00:03:10.720 convinced that that was the case. We have more money being spent. No plan to balance the budget.

00:03:16.160 projections that are changing above and beyond what last year's projections were which were

00:03:20.560 different from the year before so the government isn't even sticking to its own projections and

00:03:26.580 forecasts let alone anything else and in the end what we have here is a system in which the

00:03:32.760 government is pretending to be speaking up and standing for the middle class they're trying to

00:03:37.880 do all this big talking tough thing they're saying oh yes we're going to tax the rich they're going

00:03:42.860 to fiddle with the capital gains tax they're going to make billions more through that and

00:03:47.120 they're going to use that to dump it into housing and what's been fascinating here is how little

00:03:52.420 confidence there is in Canada and what Canada is doing from a lot of people if you've been following

00:03:58.580 a lot of the tech world at the entrepreneurial world online you'll see and we have a story

00:04:03.200 coming out about this a little bit later on this afternoon a lot of people saying like what on earth

00:04:07.780 is Canada doing here? Because they are stifling growth. The government is stifling entrepreneurship.

00:04:15.840 And just to look into some of these numbers in a bit of detail here, I will do that, but I want

00:04:20.780 to pull out some specifics first and foremost, because the government says, oh yes, you know,

00:04:25.620 that we have to be very tough with this. They're saying we're going to get rid of 5,000 federal

00:04:30.720 public service rolls through attrition. And then you hear the government also putting forward this

00:04:36.280 little nifty graph here that I wanted to share with you. This is a graph showing the cumulative

00:04:41.860 federal investments to support inclusion and combat hate. So by 2028, the federal government

00:04:50.520 will have spent $1.1 billion on so-called inclusion and combating hate. Now that is a lot of tampons

00:05:00.220 in men's washrooms. I don't know what the unit cost of a tampon in a men's washroom is, but

00:05:04.880 you probably need a lot of them to get to that 1.1 billion dollars. Now perhaps there are some

00:05:08.700 other line items that come under that, but a billion dollars to combat hate. And when you

00:05:13.220 look at what the government defines as hate, we know that it's really just an excuse to shovel

00:05:18.300 money to groups that are supporting a very liberal interpretation of what free speech should be,

00:05:24.180 which is to say not something that is protected. And the government also found tens of millions

00:05:29.260 of dollars for CBC oh yes the state broadcaster above and beyond the 1.4 billion dollars a year

00:05:35.960 it already gets now gets tens of millions of dollars more a somewhat I think 42 million was

00:05:41.940 the exact number there 42 million that CBC is now going to get when their executives were collecting

00:05:48.520 millions of dollars in bonuses all the while President Catherine Tate screams about the 1.00

00:05:53.340 necessity to make layoffs and cut jobs. So CBC is talking about job losses, they're paying fat

00:06:00.360 executive bonuses, and what do they get for all of this? But a big giant reward from the federal

00:06:05.960 government into the tune of $40 million plus. So that's where things are going there. Now I find

00:06:14.100 it interesting just to set the stage here. This is a government that has been incredibly embattled.

00:06:18.500 The carbon tax fight that Pierre Paulyev and most premiers have been taking up has been effective.

00:06:23.860 It's been landing blows on the federal government.

00:06:27.340 Take, for example, this clip from Andrew Fury, who is the premier of Newfoundland.

00:06:31.720 And before we play it, just a bit of context.

00:06:34.080 There was a by-election loss that Newfoundland saw go incredibly, incredibly dramatically towards the PCs.

00:06:43.880 And this is what Andrew Fury, or towards the liberals from the PCs.

00:06:47.420 And this is what Andrew Furey had to say.

00:06:50.040 Used to be an asset being a friend of the Liberal Party federally.

00:06:53.400 Now it seems like it's maybe not.

00:06:55.180 You're talking about fighting them.

00:06:56.400 No, no, I'm not fighting.

00:06:57.420 I mean, I think, you know, on the carbon tax in particular, the prime minister has tried to bait me at times with certain ad hominems and name calling almost.

00:07:08.040 But look, we have a very different opinion on the carbon tax.

00:07:12.540 It's not right for the people of the province.

00:07:14.060 right now, given the inflationary pressures, given the indirect costs and induced costs that

00:07:19.620 trickles down to people's tables. We hear that. We understand that. I wish the Prime Minister

00:07:24.940 would understand that. He's being very sclerotic in his approach on this ideologic marriage that

00:07:29.560 he has, this principle. That's not to say that we don't believe in fighting climate change. We

00:07:33.960 certainly do. But this policy is wrong for the people of the province right now.

00:07:37.780 the policy is wrong for the people of the province now this is I think very interesting he says

00:07:46.360 Trudeau's trying to bait him so he's basically taking the comments that Justin Trudeau has made

00:07:52.160 and pushed them right back at the federal government has what Premier Fury is saying

00:07:56.980 there is that this is just bad policy it's nothing else it's bad policy it's bad for the people of

00:08:01.720 the province and that to me is I think a point that Justin Trudeau would for his own benefit

00:08:06.440 his own political future, do well to take seriously. Now, we couldn't talk about the

00:08:12.500 federal budget without talking about our old friend Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the NDP,

00:08:17.580 who has, of course, had no shortage of criticisms about the budget. Let's share a couple of his

00:08:23.500 tweets on this. Canadians are struggling, he says. This is one point here. There was a video.

00:08:29.420 Pierre Polyev is fighting to make his rich friends richer. Justin Trudeau had nine years,

00:08:34.560 but only acts when we force him to.

00:08:37.520 We're not going to stop.

00:08:39.480 We're going to take on corporate greed

00:08:41.200 and we're fighting to lower your bills.

00:08:43.860 Then he also had this one to say here.

00:08:46.780 Conservative handouts will continue.

00:08:49.900 Justin Trudeau will keep Pierre Polyev's

00:08:51.820 $60 billion in taxpayer handouts to corporation.

00:08:54.880 Thanks to Pierre and Justin.

00:08:56.740 It's a good day for greedy Galen Weston

00:08:58.860 and a bad day for you.

00:09:01.200 And I think we have one more

00:09:02.520 from the greatest hits of Jagmeet Singh here.

00:09:06.020 Budget 2024 tells us two things that we already knew.

00:09:09.640 One, new Democrats are lowering your bills.

00:09:11.680 Two, conservatives want to cut services for you

00:09:13.820 and continue a $60 billion handout

00:09:16.280 to corporations like Loblaw.

00:09:18.260 Liberals don't have the courage to go after corporate greed.

00:09:21.000 New Democrats do.

00:09:22.980 Ooh, it sounds like Jagmeet Singh

00:09:25.280 is not happy with the federal budget.

00:09:28.100 He also had this to say at a press conference.

00:09:30.440 What is the budget you will support?

00:10:00.440 What is the plan to ensure that Indigenous communities that for so long have not received adequate funding for infrastructure and housing, what's the plan to close that gap?

00:10:09.260 What's the plan to address the fact that $500 or $200 a month for people living with disabilities is insufficient?

00:10:16.840 What is the plan to address those concerns?

00:10:18.380 So I want to hear that from the Prime Minister before we make a decision.

00:10:23.600 Oh, well, maybe we'll support it.

00:10:26.600 I've got some criticisms.

00:10:28.240 I've got some problems.

00:10:29.400 Oh, it's terrible.

00:10:30.020 but uh i don't know maybe maybe if he tells me all this stuff i'll support it this was another

00:10:34.900 clip from that same press conference yesterday a couple concerns you have with the budget as it

00:10:40.100 exists what kind of changes must you see in there to get support from the ndp on this one well

00:10:46.420 there's one contrast that's very clear while i've identified it again and again the reason why your

00:10:51.700 groceries are high the reason why your cell phone bills are high the reason why you can't afford

00:10:54.900 housing is corporate greed and the liberals are failing to address that and the conservatives

00:10:59.540 want to do that either conservatives and the liberals are far too close to wealthy ceos and

00:11:04.340 big corporations to take on the real reason why your cost of living is so high that's a contrast

00:11:09.460 it's clear to me that the liberals and nor nor the conservatives are ever going to address that

00:11:13.220 you'll need new democrats to address that problem but in terms of but in terms of

00:11:18.660 but in terms of the specific question uh we i need to hear a plan from the from the prime minister

00:11:23.700 what is his plan to respond to the concerns that i have before we make a decision

00:11:27.460 But you listed a bunch of concerns there.

00:11:30.460 Do you need all of those concerns filled?

00:11:32.460 What is the must-have of those concerns in order to secure your support?

00:11:35.460 Well, each and every one of those are very important concerns,

00:11:37.460 so I want to hear what the plan is.

00:11:39.460 How is the Prime Minister going to guarantee

00:11:41.460 that there's not massive cuts to services for Canadians

00:11:44.460 with the cutting of 5,000 employees?

00:11:46.460 How is he going to justify to people living with disabilities 1.00

00:11:49.460 that $200 a month is enough to meet their needs?

00:11:52.460 I need to hear a plan on that before we make a decision.

00:11:55.460 Last question.

00:11:56.460 likely blown up now sir with your you know we're not sure you're going to support the budget you're

00:12:01.120 ready to go in an election is this where we're at where we're at right now is there's things in the

00:12:05.820 budget that we we fought for that are there there's problems that we have i want to hear

00:12:09.520 what the plan is from the prime minister to address me so he's basically saying yeah we're

00:12:16.420 terrible we don't like this it's bad but oh no no oh no no i don't want to go to an election just

00:12:21.820 yeah no don't take that yeah no it's fine it's fine and then he starts touting all of these

00:12:25.880 great achievements that he thinks are, well, that he thinks are achievements. I'm not going to do

00:12:30.360 the dancing video. I did the dancing video last time where he like loses an election and then

00:12:34.100 just does like a bangra dance on stage as though he has some reason to celebrate. But the thing

00:12:40.000 about Singh here is that he could be, if he wanted to, one of the most influential figures in Canada,

00:12:45.700 yet instead he is a lackey and a lapdog for Justin Trudeau and does, I think, this incredibly,

00:12:53.220 incredibly harmful thing for the country in which he says on one hand yeah this liberal government 0.74

00:12:58.380 can you believe the stuff they're doing well conveniently glossing over the fact that he has

00:13:04.460 been voting for that he has been voting for and endorsing that same liberal government's conduct

00:13:11.400 and activities and again I'll remind you of the fundamental point here no plan to balance the

00:13:17.620 budget at all? None whatsoever. Now I had asked, there's a clip I saw just before we went on the

00:13:23.220 show here from Chrystia Freeland. I don't know if we'll be able to get it in the show today,

00:13:26.340 but she basically was asked in an interview if you can have, if being balanced matters for the

00:13:32.880 budget. And her answer was basically, well, I don't know, it's more important to be fiscally

00:13:37.100 responsible than to have a balanced budget. So the federal government is basically committing

00:13:42.280 to this idea that a balanced budget doesn't matter.

00:13:45.900 It's a far cry from this old gem from Justin Trudeau.

00:13:50.800 So in this economic climate, how committed to a balanced budget would you be right now?

00:13:57.300 Would it worry you to go into deficit in this current climate to, as you say, put more people

00:14:01.700 to work?

00:14:02.080 The commitment needs to be a commitment to grow the economy and the budget will balance

00:14:07.440 itself.

00:14:07.920 oh the budget will balance itself that was nine years ago 10 years ago actually almost

00:14:16.640 and to be honest the budget has not balanced itself i don't know when the budget is going

00:14:21.980 to balance itself i've been waiting i've been waiting so patiently as a taxpaying canadian

00:14:26.200 for the budget to balance itself and yet i have seen no such balance take place and even in the

00:14:31.980 next five years according to the liberal government's latest projections the budget

00:14:35.680 does not seem keen on balancing itself. Now, perhaps if left to its own devices, the budget

00:14:41.260 would balance itself, then it would go and take a nice holiday and call it a day. But it strikes me

00:14:48.000 as inconvenient that the Liberal government is balancing, balancing, balancing. Oh, except not

00:14:54.380 actually, because that was only when they were convinced it would balance itself. And a decade

00:14:58.900 later, almost balanced budgets aren't all that important. No, no, no, it doesn't really. You

00:15:02.660 don't need to balance the budget as long as it's fiscally responsible. Well, I'm not even seeing

00:15:08.200 the fiscal responsibility baked into this budget that Chrystia Freeland is claiming is there. And

00:15:14.960 we're going to talk about this in a few moments with someone who has the business perspective on

00:15:19.700 this. And we'll also chat with our old friend, Franco Terrazzano momentarily. But just to again,

00:15:24.640 put some context here, we are seeing a government that on one hand is trying to do this weird sort

00:15:30.540 of like class fighting thing where they say, oh, we're taking aim at the wealthy. We're taking aim

00:15:35.720 at the rich. We're taking aim at all of that. And as we were talking about yesterday with Ryan

00:15:39.780 Mallow from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, they do this while trying to sort of

00:15:45.460 look at the so-called middle class, which is a group that admittedly can be a bit amorphous in

00:15:49.820 politics and say, we've got your back. We're supporting you. And this is what Jagmeet Singh

00:15:54.720 is doing when he takes aim at corporate greed. He is trying to tell all of these people that all of

00:15:59.180 their problems, all of the issues they have, the reason they can't afford groceries. It's not

00:16:03.500 inflation. It's not the carbon tax. It's not bad financial policy, bad monetary policy. No,

00:16:09.060 it's Galen Weston. Galen Weston is the reason that you can't afford groceries. I want to welcome

00:16:14.740 into the show our good friend, Catherine Swift. I got to see her in person last week at the Canada

00:16:19.700 Strong and Free Network Conference. She is the president of the Coalition of Concerned

00:16:24.260 Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada. Catherine, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much for

00:16:29.600 coming on today. My pleasure. I'd love to talk budgets, Andrew. Just love it. Well, you know,

00:16:35.060 I've seen over the last, I don't know, 16 hours or whatever, 18 hours, a lot of people that are

00:16:41.700 with big companies, people that have worked in the tech space, entrepreneurial space that are saying

00:16:46.200 everything that came out yesterday is just bad news for business. It's bad news for making Canada

00:16:51.720 competitive and i wanted to to get your perspective on this i mean from an independent business

00:16:55.880 perspective but just in general for canadian industry yeah it's very bad of course the the

00:17:04.920 burgeoning deficits and debts are bad for every canadian and including business so uh the fact i

00:17:12.120 the fact they presented this as somehow a good budget for young people i i couldn't figure that

00:17:17.640 one out because the young people are going to be paying these massive debts deficits and the fact

00:17:23.160 that we now have our debt service is 54 billion dollars just to pay interest on the debt uh it

00:17:30.040 is taking away from any product productive services in our economy so that's one aspect

00:17:35.480 there's capital gains bumping capital gains i mean to me 50 is pretty rich to start with

00:17:40.840 bumping that to two-thirds is unconscionable and of course business say everything will only affect

00:17:46.760 the rich, and so on and so forth. Oh, no, no, no. It'll certainly affect business, investments on the

00:17:52.560 part of business, assets that they have. They easily can meet that $250,000 threshold. Anybody

00:18:00.820 who has businesses that have a business premise, perhaps, or a few business premises, and they want

00:18:06.400 to reorganize that, they're going to be facing charges there. We see anyone that has a second

00:18:13.160 residents, for that matter, a cottage, say, or whatever, which a lot of free middle-class people

00:18:16.780 do, and plan to leave it to their kids. Well, now their kids are going to get dinged with a whole

00:18:21.560 bunch more. And they overall, the funny thing is, Freeland acknowledged our productivity problem a

00:18:28.220 little while ago. Mind you, it's the 800-pound gorilla in the room. It's pretty hard not to

00:18:32.560 acknowledge it. But what she has done in this budget is only going to worsen our productivity 0.99

00:18:37.400 issue. And maybe people think that's some sort of theoretical economic concept. But our

00:18:42.800 productivity is our standard of living. And we know our standard of living has been stagnant

00:18:47.220 ever since the Trudeau government's been in power. And what's the most important thing to

00:18:52.060 enhance productivity is investment. Investment has already fled Canada because our government

00:18:57.480 can't, we can't get anything built. We can't get anything done. We have building permits that go

00:19:01.640 on for 10, you know, you don't get something for 10 years. It's utterly ridiculous. But we've 0.83

00:19:06.340 already killed investment. This capital gains change is going to kill it even more. And that's

00:19:11.340 our standard of living again. So I just don't get what version of economics, none I've ever seen,

00:19:18.660 they're basing their thinking on. And boy, I sure hope we have an election sooner rather than later

00:19:24.180 because I think most Canadians are figuring out that they're getting badly hurt by this government

00:19:29.520 and it's certainly not helping the broader picture at all. And Chrystia Freeland, I should point out

00:19:35.060 here, and you noted this in a statement yesterday, had previously said that we were going to keep

00:19:39.760 deficit under 40 billion dollars as though we're supposed to be grateful for such fiscal prudence

00:19:44.080 with a deficit that's only 40 billion now it came in just under that we're at 39.8 billion now you

00:19:51.360 you're suspecting that if you like lift the hood there and take a look around there's going to be

00:19:55.360 some creative accounting just to get it below that target absolutely no she really the fact

00:20:00.640 that she focused on it so much prior to the budget i thought oh they're going to pull some fast one

00:20:05.360 here that won't be apparent right off the bat, but to make that, you know, because she's always

00:20:11.600 talked about, oh, I have my guardrails and I have my, you know, all these things that she's not

00:20:16.860 supposed to go past the red line. And yet she's gone over every red line she's set for herself

00:20:23.900 since. So this one, I wasn't surprised to see it barely. It was by 200 million dollars, I believe

00:20:31.940 that it was under the $40 billion.

00:20:35.480 But I would bet serious money today, Andrew,

00:20:39.200 that that will never be achieved.

00:20:41.260 When we get the final data,

00:20:42.480 this isn't the final data for the fiscal year.

00:20:44.540 We don't get that till usually around September.

00:20:47.180 And I think once we see those accounts,

00:20:49.820 we'll see that it's even worse.

00:20:51.460 And going forward, of course, as you said,

00:20:53.560 there's clearly no attempt at all to come toward balance.

00:20:57.440 There's the kind of reduction by a few billion a year.

00:21:00.820 I don't believe that'll happen either.

00:21:02.800 We're going to see, again, interest rates are a plague on Canadians right now.

00:21:06.760 And the higher, the more debt they go into, the more they tax Canadians, the higher they 0.53

00:21:13.380 keep interest rates for longer.

00:21:14.780 The Bank of Canada has already said the government's fiscal policy is running absolutely contrary

00:21:20.880 to the Bank of Canada's monetary policy.

00:21:23.480 So that prevents, I mean, we all want to see interest rates come down.

00:21:26.640 A lot of Canadians have yet to renew a mortgage at those higher rates, and they're going to

00:21:30.220 get hammered when that happens. Some already have been hammered. That won't happen as long as this

00:21:35.380 government pursues these kinds of policies. They're just making it worse for everyone.

00:21:40.700 Yeah, and I want to rhyme off some of the numbers here since you bring up the deficit. So we have

00:21:45.080 the projection for this budget year, $39.8 billion as a deficit. Next year, $38.9 billion.

00:21:54.300 the year after 30.8 billion, 2027, 2028, 26.8 billion. The end of the projections, 2028 to

00:22:02.340 2029, the budgetary deficit will be down to $20 billion. So no plan to balance the budget. And if

00:22:09.860 you go at that rate, it would probably take another decade to get there. And what's interesting

00:22:14.840 too, is if you look at the debt as a percentage of GDP, that number is relatively stagnant. It

00:22:21.100 goes from, you know, 42 to 41 and a half to 40.8 to 40 to 39. So we're still going to be at 39%

00:22:27.660 of our debt as a percentage of GDP within five years if the liberals have their way. And as you

00:22:33.260 note, that is not taking into account interest rates, which could throw a tremendous wrench.

00:22:37.780 It just as, you know, individual homeowners are beholden to changes in interest rates, so too

00:22:42.140 is the government here. So I mean, maybe they're being so reckless because they know they're not

00:22:47.020 be around beyond a year and a half from now and this will be someone else's problem but like how

00:22:51.740 do you justify this at all you don't not in any sane manner uh and and i i again i don't believe

00:23:01.020 any of these targets will be met um and i i have come to believe i don't like to wear my tinfoil

00:23:06.540 hat too often but i have come to believe that they are making this as as bad as it can possibly be

00:23:12.700 uh for the next government which looks like it's going to be Pierre Poiliev government

00:23:17.180 uh so that they just have a horrific time and then of course they'll criticize them right

00:23:21.340 how could you ever have such a big deficit and let's not forget these are the guys that were

00:23:24.700 only going to run those modest 10 billion deficits until 2019 when the budget would be balanced uh

00:23:30.780 also this budget makes assumptions about growth in the economy that look overly optimistic that's

00:23:36.060 another consideration because they have to assume the economy is going to grow by you know x percent

00:23:40.700 uh in the in the future years and i think we're heading for some serious trouble here

00:23:45.020 uh again investors around the world foreign investment's a big deal in canada our dollar

00:23:49.580 has fallen by the way a falling dollar we weren't a lot into canada too a falling dollar means more

00:23:54.380 inflation because our dollar doesn't buy as much and and it all every single thing they've done

00:23:59.820 here is leading toward making all of these critical measures that affect all of our everyday lives

00:24:05.980 worse and and so it's very depressing of course uh but i i wonder how they can really uh i wonder

00:24:12.780 how they can justify it in their own minds how they can look in the mirror at themselves with

00:24:16.700 damage they're doing and but what seems to be interesting is they seem to be thinking maybe

00:24:21.260 they they almost act as if they haven't been in government for the last eight and a half years and

00:24:25.740 trudeau saying oh geez we've got an awful lot of immigration what could have happened there and

00:24:30.060 freeland you know commenting on darn we got all this you know uh debt interest we have to pay

00:24:35.180 shucks who did that uh and we can we get all this i wonder if it's that new there was supposedly a

00:24:39.820 new communications guy uh hired in the pmo back back uh last year and i wonder if this is the

00:24:46.380 new strategy sort of pretend you know pretend they didn't they didn't do any of this in the

00:24:51.020 last eight and a half years if so i don't think canadians are going to be fooled yeah very well

00:24:56.780 said on that they do tend to just be very surprised that uh they've been in the helm for you know the

00:25:01.580 the last eight years and things just happen. It's so Stephen Harper's fault. I think they're

00:25:05.280 still blaming Arthur Meehan for the budgetary deficit probably. Catherine Swift, always good

00:25:10.880 to talk to you. You are doing great work over there standing up for business and industry in

00:25:15.600 Canada and we appreciate it. Thank you, Andrew. All right, thanks very much. Catherine Swift

00:25:21.560 of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada, formerly of the Canadian

00:25:27.100 Federation of Independent Business, so she knows this file very well. I wanted to check in on this

00:25:32.700 from just a taxpayer perspective of, well, we've done the business side, going to do the consumer

00:25:37.440 taxpayer side, although as we know full well, there is only one taxpayer, and any measures

00:25:43.900 that penalize business will always end up screwing the little guy as well, as we've noted with carbon 0.98

00:25:48.900 taxes. I mean, even if you have a policy that's going to be an industrial polluter-based thing

00:25:54.700 where they try to go after the big industry, it still trickles down to ordinary Canadian

00:26:00.200 taxpayers. You're always going to be footing the bill, even when, oh, the government is paying.

00:26:04.840 So it's funny when you hear the rhetoric from Christopher Freeland, we're giving, we're doing

00:26:08.860 this, we're spending, we're, no, no, we are, we, the people listening to you, we, the taxpayers

00:26:15.180 are the ones paying for this. You are not paying for anything. The billion dollars you're spending

00:26:19.600 on combating hate is me. The money you're giving to CBC is me. The deficit spending is me that has

00:26:27.240 to pay all of you. I mean, I got my little tiny teeny teeny little itsy bitsy share of it. You've

00:26:31.760 got your own share, but we are the ones that are getting hosed on this. And that's, this is why

00:26:37.800 there's just such this giant shell game with all of this. And I get so frustrated and I know that

00:26:42.520 budgets aren't always the most fascinating thing to talk about. I get that, but it matters tremendously

00:26:47.760 when you have government treating the taxpayers with such disrespect. And Catherine Swift mentioned 0.55

00:26:52.920 the interest payments. This is actually an important point. I saw an observation yesterday

00:26:58.360 online and I didn't pull the tweet, but basically the amount that the federal government collects

00:27:03.700 on GST is like, I think it's $51 billion a year. The amount that the federal government collects

00:27:08.940 on GST pays for the interest that we pay on our federal debt, the interest. So that means anytime

00:27:16.260 you pay GST that I mean it's not it's general revenue but I'm saying the amount is the same

00:27:22.180 so anytime you pay GST know that that money is actually going towards nothing that is going

00:27:27.840 towards paying the interest payment on the federal government's credit card that does not build you

00:27:33.400 a road it does not build you a hospital it does not get you another episode of Rosie Barton's show

00:27:39.680 it provides absolutely well that one's probably good but it provides you nothing that is what

00:27:45.740 happens when you have such a debt-laden country. One of the only guys in Canada who gets this is

00:27:50.900 Franco Terrazzano, who is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and joins us

00:27:56.320 once again. Franco, you didn't get your wish list, it looks like. Oh, I sure didn't, right? And hey,

00:28:03.720 welcome to Canada where you pay a federal sales tax so Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can cover

00:28:08.880 the interest on his government's credit card. You know what? I'm so glad you started with the

00:28:13.500 interest charges because this is what is so bizarre, just how expensive the interest charges

00:28:19.200 on the debt have become. So now, taxpayers are losing out on more than $1 billion every single

00:28:26.180 week just to pay interest on the federal government debt. You mentioned that it's now $54 billion,

00:28:32.600 which is the exact same amount of money that the federal government is bringing in through the GST.

00:28:37.880 So ponder that the next time you're waiting in the checkout line. But also, what we're

00:28:43.260 paying on interest charges this year is more money than what the federal government will send

00:28:48.060 to the provinces in health transfers. Okay. So let all of this sink in and just imagine what we

00:28:54.360 could do if we didn't have these ballooning debt costs. Okay. You could essentially remove the

00:28:59.900 entire GST or you could double health transfers, but instead taxpayers are paying more than a

00:29:06.920 billion dollars every single week on interest charges. That money, it ain't building more

00:29:12.040 hospitals. It ain't fixing the roads. It ain't staying in your pockets because that money's

00:29:16.980 going to the bond fund managers on Bay street. And when you look at a budget that has no path

00:29:22.960 to balance, not even like an aspirational pie in the sky in five years, we're going to balance it

00:29:27.520 plan. No projection that goes there whatsoever. No. I mean, look guys, we're running a, well,

00:29:33.720 I'm not, I'm not running a $40 billion deficit. We're just paying for it. They're running,

00:29:38.400 They're running a $40 billion deficit after they just brought in a massive tax hike.

00:29:44.780 So even with a massive tax hike, they're still running a $40 billion deficit.

00:29:49.120 And like, let's just think about it for a second.

00:29:51.340 This is 2024.

00:29:52.700 There isn't like a pandemic.

00:29:54.860 And yet they're still running a deficit that would have been unheard of only a couple years ago.

00:30:01.300 And you mentioned it.

00:30:02.740 There is no plan to balance the budget.

00:30:04.300 the best that this government can muster is, hey, in five years from now, we'll try to run

00:30:09.820 a $20 billion deficit. But Andrew, just between me and you, don't let anyone know this,

00:30:15.640 but I don't think this government will ever balance the budget.

00:30:19.460 No. And I must admit, I'm slightly concerned because I've talked about this with conservative

00:30:24.100 leader Pierre Polyev. He's obviously the one most poised to be the prime minister

00:30:27.980 if current polling holds. And I've said, how are you going to get the budget to balance

00:30:32.380 when this is what you're inheriting and already, and I'm sympathetic to it, he has to start hedging

00:30:37.420 and saying, well, you know, we don't know what we're going to be left with. And the problem is

00:30:40.740 when the government leaves something this bad, it is going to take an incredibly difficult and

00:30:45.960 disciplined approach to bring it to balance. I mean, how quickly, realistically could that happen?

00:30:51.460 Okay, well, let me set the stage because I was pouring through the numbers, as you know, I like

00:30:55.200 to do. And you know, I was bringing up the budget from 2021, only a couple years ago. And every time

00:31:01.880 they do a budget, they project spending into the future. That's how they do it. Well, guess what,

00:31:06.920 folks? If Trudeau just stuck with his big spending pandemic budget from 2021, and he just spent like

00:31:14.340 how he said he was going to spend, there would be a balanced budget this year. That's all it would

00:31:20.100 have taken. Just stuck to the big spending budget of 2021 from the Trudeau government, and you would

00:31:25.720 have a balanced budget this year, right? Because as inflation takes money out of Canadian's pockets,

00:31:32.000 you know, you hear the NDP talk about greedflation, greedflation. Well, the greedflation is also

00:31:37.060 coming from the government because their tax revenues, their revenues are also going through

00:31:41.560 the roof. So, you know, I know the state of the finances are in an awful place, right? The last

00:31:46.880 budget that we just saw yesterday is an absolute dumpster fire. But the good news for Canadians 1.00

00:31:51.860 is that it would only take a very modest level of spending restraint to actually balance the

00:31:57.100 books. All you would have to do is just stick to the spending plan that Trudeau made when he gave

00:32:03.200 out his big spending budget 2021. I want to get you to react to this clip here. Christopher

00:32:07.940 Freeland was asked if the federal government cares about a balanced budget. And this is what

00:32:12.580 she said. Now, I also want to talk about your financial guardrails here, because I appreciate

00:32:17.940 that your government has kept to your economic guardrails.

00:32:20.780 But there is no path to balance.

00:32:22.340 You heard the criticism.

00:32:23.300 You've heard it before.

00:32:24.360 There were no cuts made to reduce the $40 billion deficit

00:32:27.340 that was posted today or predicted past one

00:32:31.120 and then going forward for the next fiscal year.

00:32:33.900 Does a balanced budget matter to you or your government at all?

00:32:38.320 I'll tell you what matters to me.

00:32:40.100 What matters to me is a fiscally responsible budget.

00:32:44.780 what matters to me is maintaining canada's triple a credit rating which is the basis for the ratings

00:32:52.760 of all provinces which is the basis for the ratings of businesses in our banking sector

00:32:57.820 what matters to me is maintaining a fiscally responsible budget and hitting and you know

00:33:04.540 sticking within our guardrails because the bank of canada has been clear that those guardrails

00:33:09.920 are helpful to the Bank of Canada. And so I know by sticking within them, which I have done,

00:33:16.140 I help to create the conditions that make it possible for the Bank of Canada to lower rates.

00:33:21.980 And we've seen, we've had some good news on that front just today. Today, we had the March

00:33:27.300 inflation numbers, 2.9%. February was 2.8. January was 2.9. I would contrast 2.9 in March

00:33:36.140 with 3.5 in the United States, which, by the way, is running a far more expansive fiscal policy.

00:33:43.860 For the past three months in a row, inflation has been within the Bank of Canada's target range.

00:33:51.360 So yeah, it's very important for me to run a fiscally responsible policy. I am doing that.

00:33:57.100 And the final thing I would say to you, Michael, is, you know, there are some issues on which

00:34:03.820 reasonable people can have different points of view. It's a matter of opinion of ideology. You

00:34:10.680 know, you can argue whether gun control is good or bad. You can argue whether a woman's right to 1.00

00:34:15.560 choose is good or bad. But the simple fact is Canada has the most responsible fiscal approach

00:34:25.800 of any G7 country. We have the lowest debt to GDP ratio and it's coming down. We have the lowest

00:34:33.280 deficit to GDP, and that is coming down to, we have a AAA credit rating. It is not, you know,

00:34:39.620 I'll tell you what, the people who work in ratings agencies, these guys are not liberal partisans,

00:34:44.860 these guys and gals. If you were, by the way, driving when, and now I've frozen for whatever,

00:34:51.620 if you were driving when that went on, I apologize. I hope you didn't fall asleep at the wheel. But

00:34:56.740 so number one, props to Chrystia Freeland for answering a question about, do you care about

00:35:01.680 balanced budgets with invoking gun control and woman's right to choose. I didn't see that one 0.85

00:35:06.080 coming. I didn't see that plot twist. But the answer was a long way of saying no. She thinks

00:35:11.300 it's a fiscally responsible budget that matters, which I suspect, Franco, you also disagree with

00:35:17.020 the assertion that this budget falls into that category. Of course, it's not physically

00:35:21.880 responsible. A $40 billion deficit, there's nothing fiscally responsible about that. And look,

00:35:27.540 I keep hearing this like idea that they have these fiscal guardrails in place as if you just say

00:35:33.120 fiscal guardrail and that's a good thing. Like, you know, summer's coming up. I got to trim down

00:35:38.180 a little bit before I go to the beach. So it's like me saying, you know what? I'm going to stick

00:35:42.400 to my diet. I'm going to do a very good job and stick to my diet. Only one problem. The diet is

00:35:48.360 10,000 calories a day. Yeah. It's pretty easy for me to stick to a diet when it's that high.

00:35:54.240 You know what I'm saying? Like, there is nothing fiscally responsible for this government. This government has proved time and again that it doesn't care about balanced budget, that it doesn't care about the fact that it is now doubling the entire national debt since the 2015 election.

00:36:09.520 And by the way, folks, the whole brand of this budget is fairness for future generations.

00:36:15.560 Well, doubling the entire debt and making Canadians' kids and grandkids continue to make payments on the federal debt for the rest of their lives, there is nothing fair about that.

00:36:25.100 And look, there is no plan to find savings in this budget.

00:36:28.380 There is no plan to balance the budget.

00:36:30.840 The only plan that this government has is to take as much money from taxpayers as it can.

00:36:36.200 And in last year's budget, by the way, Freeland said that she would find $15 billion in savings

00:36:42.060 over a handful of years. Well, let's check in on that progress. This year, the federal government

00:36:47.660 is increasing spending by $37 billion. So newsflash, when you increase spending by $30

00:36:55.440 billion in one year, you're saving money wrong. Yeah, I think you're bang on there. And we would

00:37:05.340 perhaps be better suited having you as finance minister, although you've previously poo-pooed

00:37:09.560 such nominations on your part. Franco Terrizano, Federal Director for the Canadian Taxpayers

00:37:14.640 Federation. Always a pleasure, sir. Hey, thanks for having me on, Andrew. All right. Thank you,

00:37:19.020 Franco. And again, good to catch up with him last week in Ottawa as well. It was like a big old

00:37:22.980 Andrew Lawton Show family reunion. All our favorite guests under one roof. We should have had a

00:37:27.640 designated survivor in place in case calamity hit. We could have just carried on the show. So,

00:37:32.780 So, all right, well, that does it for the budget stuff.

00:37:35.720 I wanted to do a bit of a counterbalance,

00:37:37.500 give you that red meat culture war content you crave

00:37:40.540 and throw to this interview I did last week

00:37:43.380 at the big old conference with Christine Van Gein.

00:37:46.640 Take a look.

00:37:49.360 Well, civil liberties have been under attack in Canada

00:37:52.720 for certainly four years.

00:37:54.820 And we've seen this war being waged in provinces,

00:37:58.580 municipalities, and certainly the federal government.

00:38:01.160 And when people ask me how I remain so chipper and cheery about it, the only answer I have is that there are a great many people, probably not as many as there should be, that take on the fight and push back against this.

00:38:12.800 And there has been one organization that stands out above many others that has been at the forefront of that.

00:38:17.480 The Canadian Constitution Foundation, whose litigation director, Christine Van Gein, is a mainstay on The Andrew Lawton Show and joins me in person today.

00:38:25.460 Christine, great to see you.

00:38:26.880 Thanks so much for having me on, Andrew.

00:38:28.120 And I should say congratulations first and foremost.

00:38:30.720 I've had you on to talk about it.

00:38:31.780 Hold it up there to talk about the book Pandemic Panic,

00:38:34.440 which has now been nominated for the Donner Prize,

00:38:37.300 which is quite a prestigious, shortlisted for it,

00:38:39.900 quite a prestigious award.

00:38:41.180 It was not one bestowed upon my book on the Freedom Convoy.

00:38:44.440 It should have been.

00:38:44.820 Well, thank you.

00:38:45.520 But the Freedom Convoy book was cited in here.

00:38:47.660 Many times.

00:38:48.540 So I get like one, you know, 157th of the glory.

00:38:51.960 Your several footnotes of glory.

00:38:53.740 All right.

00:38:54.200 Well, my several footnotes of glory is actually the name of my memoir,

00:38:56.720 I believe, that I'm penning right now.

00:38:58.780 But well done.

00:38:59.740 What do you take from that?

00:39:01.040 I actually don't know what the nomination criteria are.

00:39:03.280 So what is it that you're really being recognized for?

00:39:05.700 So it's the top prize for public policy writing in Canada.

00:39:09.000 It's a $60,000 prize.

00:39:11.480 There's five books that get shortlisted.

00:39:13.740 There's a jury that reviews nearly 100 books

00:39:17.340 that get submitted for consideration.

00:39:19.620 They narrow that down to five books for the shortlist.

00:39:23.520 And the idea is that it is not just a history, it's a public policy book.

00:39:29.180 So the book needs to include recommendations for things for the future.

00:39:32.820 And that's a big part of what's in Pandemic Panic.

00:39:35.280 In fact, the last part of the book is a series of recommendations

00:39:38.780 for what individuals can do to improve civil liberties in Canada

00:39:42.540 and help better hold governments to account.

00:39:44.760 Because the things that happened during the pandemic, a lot of them were illegal,

00:39:48.380 a lot of them were completely inexcusable.

00:39:50.000 But if we don't remember the lessons and if we don't learn to hold our governments to account, we are absolutely bound to repeat them in whatever the next crisis or imagined crisis is.

00:40:01.200 Yeah, you're right about that.

00:40:02.660 And you and I have talked on the show about this mootness fallacy that government likes to advance where, well, this was just a really hyper-specific circumstance.

00:40:10.180 And they do that to really deflect against people looking back to prevent abuse in the future.

00:40:15.400 And, you know, it's a ridiculous example, but it's an incredibly useful one.

00:40:19.020 Niagara region declaring an eclipse emergency we talked about this on the show they basically said

00:40:24.980 oh yes this eclipse is coming up and there are going to be a lot of tourists we're going to

00:40:27.660 declare this as an emergency and CCF criticized this and in the end we didn't see you know like

00:40:32.700 police horses coming in and trampling people that were looking up at the sun but it was still

00:40:36.660 government at a municipal level or a regional level using powers that are not meant for that

00:40:42.420 and using them without any real worry of the implications of that and I think that really

00:40:48.400 proves your thesis here which is why these issues are so important to have so that that category of

00:40:53.660 what an emergency is doesn't perpetually broaden yeah and i think one of the concerns look the

00:40:59.180 emergency management civil protection act in ontario it's provincial legislation very different

00:41:04.680 in nature from the federal emergencies act the powers in the federal emergencies act are a lot

00:41:09.680 broader it allows the federal government to create new criminal law especially by executive order

00:41:15.000 And they did pretty extreme things with those powers when they invoked the state of emergency federally.

00:41:22.520 I mean, they froze bank accounts, they prohibited gatherings.

00:41:25.600 In Niagara region, the powers under emergency declaration are more limited,

00:41:30.840 but they still give the government the power to do things like perhaps ration goods or impose a curfew.

00:41:36.440 Those would be permitted under the Emergency Management Civil Protection Act.

00:41:40.720 And if we broaden what is considered an emergency to include an entirely foreseeable event, like an eclipse.

00:41:48.420 It's been scheduled for like 40 years.

00:41:50.280 We literally know when the next one is happening 90 years from now or 120 years from now or whatever it is.

00:41:56.400 It's a very predictable event.

00:41:58.220 If we call that an emergency, then I already know what's going to happen.

00:42:02.860 Social activists across the province, across the country are going to argue that all kinds of social issues, serious ones, but still social issues of a systemic nature that are addressed through public policy, they're going to say those are emergencies.

00:42:18.980 Homelessness is an emergency.

00:42:20.520 Climate change is an emergency.

00:42:22.640 The opioid crisis, that's an emergency.

00:42:24.680 We need emergency powers like a curfew or a rationing of goods to deal with these social issues.

00:42:34.660 Some politicians locally are already attempting this, declaring homelessness or opioid emergencies.

00:42:41.700 This is not what that legislation was designed to do.

00:42:45.440 There's a statutory definition of emergency, and it's a situation of a temporary nature that is a serious danger to persons or property.

00:42:57.500 And an eclipse just doesn't meet that threshold.

00:43:00.500 Yeah, and to go back, when you mentioned climate emergency, it wasn't that long ago that any politician or commentator who mentioned that there could be such a thing as that was told to be a conspiracy theorist.

00:43:10.980 And I think that's really short-sighted to make that claim.

00:43:13.580 And one example, if I go back to the Ontario Supreme or the Ontario Court of Appeal hearing some years back on the carbon tax, which I was sitting through and you were arguing, I believe you were representing the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in that one.

00:43:26.120 Oh, yeah, I was.

00:43:26.680 Yeah. But, you know, there you had the David Suzuki Foundation arguing that the carbon tax was justifiable under federal government's emergency powers.

00:43:34.400 Now, this is not the Emergencies Act.

00:43:36.560 This is the emergency powers in the Constitution.

00:43:39.700 But that's not new, that idea of activists really co-opting emergency language

00:43:43.740 to make policy prescriptions just because they think that's their way to do it.

00:43:48.020 So I am very concerned about that mission creep and redefinition of emergency.

00:43:52.600 Yeah, I think that, and this all kind of ties back to the book.

00:43:55.200 It's a kind of mentality that some people have called safetyism,

00:43:58.980 where safety is the governing sacred value of society

00:44:04.460 and our whole lives should be organized

00:44:06.480 as that is the most important thing in our life.

00:44:09.760 And I just fundamentally disagree with that worldview.

00:44:13.140 I think that the organizing value of liberal democracies

00:44:15.860 is freedom and liberty, not safety.

00:44:19.180 And these two things are not necessarily incompatible

00:44:21.620 with one another, but if you put safety ahead of freedom,

00:44:25.460 we're going to see a terrible erosion

00:44:27.460 of our fundamental freedoms

00:44:29.200 that have served Western liberal democracies well

00:44:32.120 for hundreds of years.

00:44:33.900 To pivot to an issue that,

00:44:35.940 I don't want to say more pressing,

00:44:37.200 but certainly one that's more timely politically,

00:44:39.420 Bill C-63.

00:44:40.840 This is the Federal Government's Online Harms Act.

00:44:43.180 And you and I have spoken about this on the show in the past.

00:44:45.360 So I don't want to rehash those conversations

00:44:47.360 except to say that with all of the criticisms

00:44:49.120 that have been brought by people,

00:44:50.820 like I'm a bad faith actor to the government.

00:44:52.800 I don't expect them to listen to me.

00:44:54.460 I think they should probably listen to people like you,

00:44:56.500 But even people that are far more mainstream in their views than a lot of the critics on C63 have been raising some of the very similar criticisms.

00:45:05.000 And the government showed no willingness to really give an inch on this.

00:45:08.180 They're not really saying, yeah, maybe we're overplaying our hand on the hate speech stuff.

00:45:12.000 Or maybe we could separate out the online hate speech from the child sexual exploitation and revenge porn.

00:45:17.940 And I think it's politically different or politically understandable why they're doing that.

00:45:23.260 Legally, I understand that they're going to face challenges on this stuff immediately.

00:45:27.900 Are you optimistic that free speech challenges against C-63, when it becomes law eventually,

00:45:33.520 will go the right way in court with how courts have viewed freedom of expression issues?

00:45:38.880 I actually am optimistic that certain provisions of this legislation will be challenged almost immediately.

00:45:45.300 I think the biggest ones relate to the criminal law amendments.

00:45:49.980 I think that the peace bond provisions and the standalone hate offense, which has the potential to, if someone commits an offense that is then motivated by hatred, that can be a standalone offense and can come with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

00:46:10.560 No, no, the PMO says that's not true.

00:46:12.880 Supriya Devetti did her column.

00:46:14.080 She said that's not about that at all.

00:46:15.680 I literally don't know what she is talking about.

00:46:18.840 She seems to think that because there are principles of sentencing that overcharging won't happen and that there's zero risk associated with this.

00:46:29.500 But she does not operate on the ground in the criminal law sphere.

00:46:35.200 And I'm telling you that this is a piece of the, that is probably the most constitutionally vulnerable piece of Bill 63.

00:46:42.160 The peace bond provisions, there's nothing like these peace bonds in any legislation because it's a prohibition on future speech, not future action.

00:46:53.720 It's very, very different in nature and inherently a lot more speculative.

00:46:58.480 And it's tied to the squishy definition, the statutory definition that derives from human rights law about what hatred is.

00:47:05.200 So putting all of this into the criminal law context and tying it to the possibility of life imprisonment, very constitutionally vulnerable.

00:47:13.200 I am optimistic that a constitutional challenge of that part of the legislation will be successful.

00:47:19.340 And look, if it passes in its current form, we at the Canadian Constitution Foundation may be the ones to bring that challenge.

00:47:26.320 Well, I hope you will. And I wish you well with it. Congratulations again on the shortlist.

00:47:29.660 Thank you. I mean, I hope I hope it's not us because I hope they don't pass this legislation.

00:47:33.640 You need to find another alliteration when you write your speech version of Pandemic Panic about all the online hate stuff.

00:47:39.400 I don't know what you're going to call that book, but you've got to write another one.

00:47:41.760 Oh, alliteration is great.

00:47:42.960 Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Christine Van Gein, Litigation Director for the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

00:47:49.020 That's it.

00:47:53.080 As I was talking, the wheels were turning as I tried to come up with that alliteration, but I fell short.

00:47:57.680 But in any event, always great to talk to Christine.

00:48:00.760 Tomorrow, we will share my lengthy fireside chat with New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs.

00:48:05.960 That is tomorrow on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:48:08.020 Plus, we'll have some other goodies for you as well.

00:48:09.960 I don't know what they are yet, but we'll come up with some.

00:48:12.040 In the meantime, thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:48:15.840 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:48:18.340 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:48:27.680 We'll be right back.

00:48:57.680 We'll be right back.

00:49:27.680 Thank you.

Juno News - April 17, 2024

No end in sight for Trudeau’s spending

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