Juno News - Peter MacKay WARNS against Carney's massive defence spending

00:00:00.000 our guest today is peter mckay former defense minister in the harper government welcome peter

00:00:10.300 hey mark it's great to be with you good to see you my friend great to see you as well i want to

00:00:15.800 start with this clip of the current defense minister david mcginty when he was asked about

00:00:20.960 the sacrifices canadians are going to have to make in order to pay for the huge military

00:00:27.160 commitment that we've made to to nato let's uh let's listen to that clip 0.1 1.2 percent to two

00:00:33.620 percent and canada aims to get to five percent yes can you just say do you think that the uh

00:00:38.660 canadian public is aware of the degree of sacrifice that it's going to have to make

00:00:42.500 to achieve that kind of expenditure on defense and where is that money going to come from what

00:00:46.820 has to be given up to get defense i think the canadian people realize that there's been a lot

00:00:52.480 of change. I think they realize that our geography no longer protects us as a

00:00:57.420 matter of course. I think they saw through the Iranian this recent war in 0.99

00:01:02.560 Iran, that Iran for example deployed a missile which traveled over 5,000

00:01:06.940 kilometers, having announced to the world for two and a half decades that

00:01:11.320 they had no such capacity, that they only had a missile that could travel 2,000

00:01:15.340 maybe 2,500 kilometers. The Canadian people know that the threat landscape

00:01:19.460 has changed. The Canadian people understand that there are foreign interference activities

00:01:24.120 going on. They understand that we need to make these investments.

00:01:27.500 Do they understand where the money is going to come from? Do you yourselves understand?

00:01:31.040 Yes, we do. We're growing our economy. We're making major investments in the defense sector

00:01:36.600 to generate more wealth, create more jobs, and provide the resources we need to accomplish

00:01:42.240 this goal. And we're well in our way. I mean, we have done things in the last 12 months

00:01:46.200 which I think the Canadian people are very supportive of.

00:01:49.660 I think they saw the announcement yesterday for the submarine choice,

00:01:53.000 and I think they said that's a very positive thing for Canada, security and sovereignty.

00:01:57.160 Well, our economy is not growing. We're actually in a recession right now.

00:02:00.500 But what I think I heard there, Peter, is that Canadians will make the sacrifices

00:02:04.220 because we're all living in fear of Iran and Russia, not China, apparently,

00:02:09.480 which has repeatedly interfered in our elections to help the Liberals.

00:02:13.860 What do you make of what the minister just said?

00:02:17.160 Well, there's a lot of things to unpack there, Mark, to be honest with you.

00:02:21.500 In terms of the threat assessment, sure, Canadians are watching with no small amount of horror

00:02:27.700 what's unfolding in Ukraine with that illegal invasion and the cost and casualties there.

00:02:34.900 Yes, the closure of the Straits of Hormuz and the conflict with Iran.

00:02:39.820 And of course, the ongoing concerns around what, if anything, China will do to Taiwan

00:02:45.720 or their neighbors or us, for that matter.

00:02:48.000 So there is very much an increased awareness.

00:02:51.800 How we pay for the type of investments

00:02:55.040 that this government has announced or is talking about

00:02:57.780 is indeed a fair and problematic challenge for our country

00:03:03.700 because I agree with you,

00:03:05.100 we are not in a good place economically.

00:03:07.920 The recession, the fact that 4 in 10 Canadian businesses

00:03:13.120 are looking at relocating where to the united states of america and this is before donald trump

00:03:18.140 amongst the many things on his plate lowers taxes personal and uh and company taxes in the united

00:03:24.540 states creating even more of a vortex to pull canadian companies south of the border and and

00:03:30.740 the reality is that the announcements that have been made like the submarine announcement that

00:03:35.280 that the minister alluded to we we canada are not going to see many of those benefits for 10 years

00:03:42.060 And let's not forget that the submarine, the ThyssenKrupp Marine Service is going to build it in Germany and in Norway.

00:03:51.940 So the talk of jobs and economic benefits are well down the road and they're questionable.

00:04:00.400 The numbers are speculative, a bit like, you know, Gripen saying they're going to create thousands of jobs in Canada.

00:04:05.680 if you track some of the the reality of where they've created jobs in other countries the

00:04:11.580 numbers are minuscule so a lot of it is spin a lot of it is is more than aspirational and i i do

00:04:21.180 believe that canadians want to see our national defense department support it i certainly do i

00:04:26.060 agree with it but i also agree that it has to be done in a prudent fashion that isn't going to

00:04:32.180 push our country even further into debt and deficit which is where this is headed

00:04:36.480 yeah i mean when harper when your government uh ended stock moved on as it were lost

00:04:45.160 balanced budget though well you were out of balanced budget i believe the last budget that

00:04:51.780 your government tabled was balanced from what i recall balanced budget after having been through

00:04:57.400 a recession, I say humbly, and after having prosecuted a war in Afghanistan, where we were

00:05:02.920 able to procure heavy lift helicopters, Globemasters, long-range guns, armored cars,

00:05:11.700 General Dynamics. We made major investments at the time, but we also were focused on growing

00:05:18.680 the economy in the short term, so that we wouldn't be passing this on to our children and

00:05:23.820 grandchildren. It seems almost inconceivable to think that we had a balanced budget a little

00:05:30.340 over 10 years ago compared to where we are today. Yeah, the debt has doubled since then.

00:05:36.160 We haven't had a sniff of a balanced budget ever since. Apparently, the budgets

00:05:40.600 have not balanced themselves after all. And now we have a former federal banker,

00:05:49.960 governor of the Bank of Canada, while you were there, as a matter of fact,

00:05:53.820 at the helm and people had high expectations of how he would manage the economy of the country,

00:05:59.900 given his credentials. In fact, we've seen kind of a reckless approach to spending.

00:06:05.780 I mean, and then if you think the best way really to pay the cost of all this stuff,

00:06:11.100 including the social programs, is by ramping up our resource sector. What have we done with that?

00:06:17.460 We've made a lot of promises. We've made a lot of commitments. There's been some photo ops,

00:06:21.220 but in actual fact, very little is done to increase sales of oil to Asia and Europe. I mean,

00:06:28.860 when you guys left, the Northern Gateway had been greenlit, as was Energy East, which would have

00:06:39.000 brought energy to your neck of the woods. And all of that fell by the wayside. And now we're at a

00:06:46.700 point now where Canada's fiscal position is pretty tenuous when you look at it. Our dollar has

00:06:52.900 continued to fall. We're not in good shape right now. So for us to make the kind of commitments

00:06:58.040 that we are on the military front, you have to wonder how we're going to pay for this. And all

00:07:03.580 I can think of is increased taxes. I mean, is that what they're going to do? I mean, I sure hope not,

00:07:09.480 Mark. There's no capacity to increase taxes. We are already amongst one of the highest taxed

00:07:14.700 countries in the world. And they're punitive and they're causing people to make really difficult

00:07:18.860 decisions like go elsewhere, you know, not take promotions because it'll put them in a higher tax

00:07:25.300 bracket. I mean, that does nothing for the productivity of the country. I mean, I agree

00:07:29.360 with so much of what you said and the old adage, you know, when all is said and done, much more is

00:07:34.880 said than done. That's what it feels like right now. And I don't I want to give the prime minister

00:07:40.140 the benefit of the doubt i know him we worked with them as you mentioned in the harper years

00:07:45.900 but one thing i do know about bankers they're a bit like card dealers the house never loses

00:07:50.780 you know they're playing with somebody else's money and printing money at a time like this

00:07:55.420 to me doesn't feel right stacking more debt feels as you pointed out reckless at a time when we are

00:08:04.540 in a precarious situation until such time as we're able to get our resources to Tidewater

00:08:11.140 and to the global market. I can't tell you how many times I've lamented the fact that we were

00:08:17.080 not able to commit a pipeline. It wasn't for lack of trying, I can assure you. We were running up

00:08:22.500 against fierce opposition. We were running up against court challenges, all of it. Not to say

00:08:28.500 that today is any different, but I don't know that the true commitment is there. Announcements

00:08:35.080 are a far cry from completion of pipelines. We still don't have, of course, the investors,

00:08:40.820 the private sector investments that will be required. And, you know, even though British 0.78

00:08:46.580 Columbia has nominally agreed to a southern route, that is still anything but certain.

00:08:52.680 the past is the past it's pros as the saying goes but you know had we been able to get

00:08:58.600 liquefied natural gas to the world market for the last 10 years canada's economy would be

00:09:05.220 rolling in money the jobs the prosperity associated with that and the geopolitics if

00:09:12.060 we'd been a steady and reliable supplier with liquefied gas produced ethically and and priced

00:09:19.100 fairly, I dare say we could have really collapsed the Russian economy and perhaps prevented some of

00:09:25.400 the harm that they're currently doing inside Ukraine. But that's all behind us. Hope is not 0.83

00:09:32.280 a plan, but there's still a lot of hope that we're going to be able to get these pipelines completed

00:09:36.800 because we're missing out on a generational opportunity. And I would say the same of some

00:09:43.280 the other exercising of trade deals that we we really have been complacent about our government

00:09:49.920 signed 51 trade agreements including with the european union and we we as a country have not

00:09:56.880 really taken full advantage the americans don't have those agreements trans-pacific partnerships

00:10:02.640 same we've we've missed out on all of these opportunities and told the world for over a decade

00:10:09.040 there's no business case. That's right up there with balancing the, you know, the budget will

00:10:13.080 balance itself in terms of ludicrous public statements. Chinese vehicles are here. I can't

00:10:19.940 imagine that's going to help our case with the Americans. The deadline has come and gone.

00:10:26.340 The future of KUSMA very much in doubt. How do you see our relations with the Americans right now?

00:10:31.860 Well, certainly administration to administration, they're very strained.

00:10:37.680 The institutional cooperation and relationships remain intact for the most part.

00:10:44.500 Security, state to province, you know, the type of chambers of commerce, all of that

00:10:53.820 interconnective tissue is still very, very strong.

00:10:57.220 but you know the trump administration is not wrong about everything and much of what they've done

00:11:04.880 have caused us to recalibrate particularly around things like security at our border

00:11:09.180 and investment in defense but i i don't know the strategy mark to be very frank with you and again

00:11:16.480 i'm i'm not uh privy to the inside discussions that are happening but the speech at davos and

00:11:23.520 middle powers unite he referenced china china's our new strategic partner that's nonsense we know

00:11:29.120 that they are the number one um cyber attacker they're constantly trying to steal intellectual 0.95

00:11:35.200 property uh signing on for 50 000 or close to 50 000 avs coming into our country that are not the

00:11:43.760 affordable uh brand that was that was talked about all of this uh retaliatory tariffs that

00:11:51.120 went sideways quickly, saying things publicly and something else privately. None of this bodes well

00:11:57.860 for the current talks. And you only have to compare where Mexico is in this process. They've

00:12:03.100 had one very serious substantive discussion already and another one planned. We're nowhere

00:12:08.120 to be seen. So I don't know that the management of the relationship at the highest level was

00:12:17.500 what was promised, certainly. And I remember Brian Mulroney used to speak of the number one job of

00:12:24.280 the Prime Minister of Canada after the health and well-being of Canadian citizens is the management

00:12:29.560 of the relationship with the United States of America. And we've, you know, we have examples

00:12:34.620 of that. I mean, Mulroney, Reagan and Bush was one thing, but Chrétien and Clinton also got along

00:12:40.760 very well. You have to invest the time and effort. And it's hard. It is hard. And it doesn't mean

00:12:46.420 capitulation it doesn't mean you know having anybody run roughshod over you but i i don't

00:12:54.000 know i'm i'm very very vexed by where we find ourselves today and all of this to me is in the

00:13:01.500 backdrop of the promise that we were going to have a deal not this past july but the one before

00:13:07.620 let's talk a little bit about the war in iran your wife of course is from iran and so i know

00:13:15.980 you're watching with close interest to what's going on there, and wondering about what Canada's

00:13:24.000 role should be, NATO's role, for instance. I mean, we've heard President Trump talk about the fact

00:13:29.540 that NATO has not come through with the little that they've asked the alliance to do in terms of

00:13:36.020 playing some kind of role in keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. What do you think of that?

00:13:41.740 Mark, I think those are reasonable requests, quite frankly, and that may be a position that Canada could take in concert with others.

00:13:50.840 But not while it's a hot war, not while there's missiles flying.

00:13:54.140 And frankly, that it is more than disappointing to see where we find ourselves today.

00:14:02.280 I think there was tremendous optimism in the early stages of this war that it would result in this theocratic, maniacal regime actually losing power and the people of Iran having the opportunity to rise up, as they've attempted to do in the past, and transition towards a democratic system.

00:14:25.420 how and who and when still seems a distant dream for people like my wife and the diaspora outside

00:14:34.200 Iran. And yet there's been a lot of effort, quiet effort behind the scene to talk about a

00:14:40.720 transitional government and to put forward thoughtful solutions, none of which has made

00:14:46.620 its way into this calculus so far. And, you know, replacing Ayatollah Khomeini with his son

00:14:56.120 and other IRGC leaders will only exacerbate the situation, in my opinion, because they come back 0.79

00:15:03.840 with vengeance. They come back with the intention of causing more harm to their neighbors, to the

00:15:10.760 West, and frankly, to their own people. You'll recall that there was a period of 48 hours where 0.86

00:15:18.820 this unbelievable, vicious regime killed 40,000 of its own citizens. And over the course of the

00:15:28.440 regime itself, 47 years, hundreds of thousands, untold numbers of innocent Iranian citizens

00:15:35.920 being tortured being killed many left the country and just you know think for a moment what it would 0.89

00:15:44.860 do for global peace if you're able to remove that source of proxy warfare happening around the world 0.84

00:15:52.560 their support their they support both financially and with weapons hamas hezbollah the houthis

00:15:59.660 other disruptive forces throughout the world and so that in and of itself and the the efforts of 0.84

00:16:07.240 course to deny them achieving an enriched uranium bomb were very much the the goal and they've 0.97

00:16:15.120 always been the goal and yet we don't seem any closer to that panacea of stability inside Iran 0.91

00:16:22.560 We've kicked over the anthill. We're now seeing, of course, some would suggest a war without exit. We've seen the impact on fuel prices, of course, because of the Strait of Hormuz.

00:16:37.860 it is going to require i think a more collaborative effort either from nato as you referenced

00:16:44.240 or through other coalitions of the willing because the united states and israel some would

00:16:50.440 argue are too tainted invested in this i i think you know some more thoughtful approach as to how

00:16:58.120 this uh this war is prosecuted may be required but i understand countries like canada are loath

00:17:04.500 to get involved at this stage.

00:17:07.340 Consultation at the front end.

00:17:08.740 And it's, of course, always easy after the fact.

00:17:10.700 But if there was an effort to actually involve others,

00:17:14.240 things might have gone differently.

00:17:17.020 As we wrap it up, Peter, because I know you're a busy man.

00:17:21.540 Those who miss having you around in politics

00:17:25.700 will want me to ask whether there's any hope

00:17:28.620 one day of having you return.

00:17:32.740 Obviously, you still have a young family.

00:17:34.500 and things you want to do. But I have to ask, is there any chance you'll return to politics?

00:17:42.660 Well, Mark, I love this country. I've dedicated a good part of my life, not only through politics,

00:17:48.580 but through public service. As a Crown Prosecutor, a public defender, I still engage in a lot of

00:17:55.620 volunteer charity work. I'm always going to be interested and active in ways that I hope will

00:18:02.680 improve my community, my province, my country. And I won't ever say never. But it's timing. It's

00:18:09.740 timing within my own party and the process that is always involved. And it's, of course,

00:18:17.100 timing, as you pointed out, with my own family. So it's something that I'm not spending a lot

00:18:25.360 of time thinking about, to be quite frank with you. I support Pierre Polyev. I support our

00:18:29.440 our current leader. And I think, uh, uh, he has a very good shot if, uh, if things break his way

00:18:35.720 instead of against them, as we saw in the last election. Thank you so much for coming on the

00:18:40.760 show. We appreciate it. Great to see you again. Cheers. Hey, if you enjoyed the show, consider

00:18:48.300 supporting great independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno news, please

00:18:52.660 go to judonews.com backslash straight up. You can find the link below. It helps us do what we do.

00:18:58.540 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:19:00.120 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - July 11, 2026

Peter MacKay WARNS against Carney's massive defence spending

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