Juno News - April 10, 2026


Poilievre FIRES BACK as floor crossings mount


Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

172.63068

Word count

3,504

Sentence count

135

Harmful content

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this week's show: Conservative MP Marilyn Gladue says she's leaving the party. Premier Doug Ford says it's time to drop political partisanship in favour of a liberal majority. The Alberta government is looking to cut red tape for truckers hauling goods across provincial borders.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Legacy Media is asking how many floor crossers it will take before Pierre Polyev finally quits
00:00:10.700 as leader of the Conservative Party. Polyev is having none of it.
00:00:14.500 How many of your own MPs do you have to lose to the Liberals before you reflect on your
00:00:19.720 own political future as leader? Well, that reflection comes from the
00:00:25.100 record-smashing 8.3 million Canadians who voted Conservative in the last election and the 87%
00:00:34.020 of grassroots Conservatives who backed up my leadership less than 90 days ago to fight for
00:00:39.540 an affordable, safe and strong Canada. Our mandate and my leadership does not come from dirty backroom
00:00:46.740 deals. It comes from the people of Canada. The latest floor crosser, Marilyn Gladue, insists
00:00:53.440 Her riding will be better off with her sitting on the government side of the House.
00:00:58.740 Gladius says voters in Sarnia Lampton were upset that Polly have lost the last election and want her to work with Carney.
00:01:06.420 What I heard starting even after the election was that people, they were upset that Pierre lost his riding, lost the election.
00:01:14.240 They were not confident that he could regain that.
00:01:16.880 And they started to say, I really like this Mark Carney guy.
00:01:20.240 I like what he's saying. Do you think he'll do what he says he's going to do?
00:01:24.420 And I said, time will tell. Here we are. We're starting to see all the projects he said he was going to start and get created.
00:01:30.220 He's buying F-35s. He's working on, you know, bills to combat crime.
00:01:35.240 So people, even long-term conservative supporters in my riding have said, you know, we really think that he's the guy from the moment.
00:01:44.820 Glad you has been lambasted by voters in her riding who called her a traitor and a backstabber.
00:01:50.240 Meantime, having failed to win a majority in the last election, the Liberals seem less
00:01:54.900 interested in seeking a majority mandate by appealing to voters in an election. 1.00
00:02:00.400 Instead, they favor luring more floor crossers. 0.99
00:02:04.460 Here is MP Evan Solomon saying it's not about partisan politics. 0.97
00:02:09.980 Are you talking to other MPs?
00:02:11.480 Yes, we're talking.
00:02:13.340 There's lots of conversations happening.
00:02:14.860 How many more are you recruiting?
00:02:16.700 There's no number.
00:02:17.700 We are talking to lots of people.
00:02:18.700 But you are recruiting.
00:02:19.700 You are actively trying to get more.
00:02:21.700 We are welcoming.
00:02:23.180 We have a mission, and I think the Prime Minister said it.
00:02:25.860 We have a pragmatic mission that is attracting people who want to put their shoulder to the wheel,
00:02:30.820 put away partisanship, and get to work building a country in a very mission-critical moment.
00:02:36.820 But there's a difference between attracting and going out and recruiting.
00:02:41.940 Which one is it?
00:02:43.460 We're having conversations with people who are very confident in the Prime Minister's mission,
00:02:49.080 And if they want to join and put their shoulder to the wheel, we welcome them to join the party.
00:02:55.620 Meantime, Premier Doug Ford of Ontario says it's time to drop political partisanship in favour of a liberal majority.
00:03:03.300 Let's listen.
00:03:04.000 The liberals in Ottawa are just one seat away from majority.
00:03:08.820 Is that really what you want as a progressive conservative premier?
00:03:13.500 I don't look at political stripes and I don't give two hoots.
00:03:16.720 I'll work with anyone.
00:03:17.500 I don't care if it's an NDP mayor in Toronto or if it's NDP colleagues of mine, Premier Eby or Bob Canoe, which is a good pal of mine.
00:03:30.200 I work with someone who wants to help Ontario.
00:03:33.740 And if it's a federal government of any political stripe, I will work with them.
00:03:38.000 And it so happened to be Prime Minister Carney, we're working extremely, extremely well.
00:03:42.320 Help is on the way for Canadian truckers trying to navigate a maze of rules across political, well, provincial borders.
00:03:51.120 The Alberta government is looking to cut red tape for truckers hauling goods across Canada.
00:03:56.960 Starting April 22nd, Canadians will be able to access the Canadian Trucking Regulations Hub.
00:04:03.200 It's a made-in-Alberta digital tool which will help Class I operators navigate the regulatory
00:04:10.200 and operational hurdles across provinces and territories.
00:04:15.320 Our guest today is Devin Drieschen.
00:04:17.000 He is the Alberta Transport Minister.
00:04:19.820 Welcome, Minister.
00:04:21.180 Well, thank you so much, Mark, for having me on.
00:04:22.720 I really appreciate it.
00:04:23.640 Oh, we appreciate you coming on the show.
00:04:25.140 So starting April the 22nd, there's going to be a new hub that's available.
00:04:30.160 And it's not just for Alberta-based truckers, is it?
00:04:33.700 It's for all Canadians, right?
00:04:36.120 Yeah, the idea that Alberta wanted to lead on having a pre-trip inspection hub, essentially.
00:04:42.240 So using technology to help truckers traveling across the country to be able to access not just permits on time, but also know the route that much better.
00:04:51.300 Because in Alberta and other provinces, there's been an increasing amount of bridge strikes that we're seeing oversized trucks hitting bridges.
00:05:00.080 And we're hoping that this hub will go a long way in helping pre-plan these routes, as well as just speed up the permit approvals for the industry so that governments can actually work at the speed of business.
00:05:10.760 I mean, is there much appetite from other province provincial premiers and their staffs to collaborate extensively on this project of yours?
00:05:21.300 Yeah, we found out in a lot of other ways that if Alberta can take the lead that other provinces do follow. So whether that's through this hub, through our Red Seal certification work that we've been working on for the last couple of years, it actually needs five other provinces to sign on to actually make trucking like a Red Seal certified industry is something that we're continuing to work on.
00:05:45.840 So I think there is an interest and appetite for other provinces to follow Alberta's lead, just to make sure trucking is more of a regulated profession and has that high level of professionalism to attract more people into the industry, as well as just increase trucker safety across the entire country.
00:06:02.440 How many provinces have signed up?
00:06:03.820 So right now, Alberta has created it, and we have our advanced education minister working
00:06:11.360 on with industry for the actual curriculum and how that Red Seal certification will
00:06:16.060 actually look at.
00:06:17.900 And we have some good intentions from Saskatchewan and Ontario that are looking to sign up, but
00:06:23.720 none officially yet out of the five, but we are still designing it and we're still pushing
00:06:29.960 the rock up the hill.
00:06:30.960 Well, what's the stumbling block for them?
00:06:33.480 I mean, you've had no other provinces essentially say, yeah, we will work with you.
00:06:37.900 We will officially sign up and be involved in whatever degree that you want us to be.
00:06:43.820 I mean, what's their problem here?
00:06:46.000 Well, Red Seal certification obviously is tricky in a lot of aspects.
00:06:50.320 So whether you're a carpenter, an electrician, every province has their own stamp on what it looks like.
00:06:56.400 So it is tricky just to develop a national-wise Red Seal certification.
00:07:00.560 So it is a lot of work.
00:07:02.460 And obviously, through transportation, we've created the need and the design for it.
00:07:07.400 But now it's going into the advanced education world, which through education, through other provinces, does take some time.
00:07:14.680 But we're hoping to get this signed off as quickly as possible so that we can have that higher degree of professionalism in the trucking industry.
00:07:22.140 So not begrudging any provinces, but we're still advocating to have them sign up.
00:07:27.520 Will this ultimately lead to lower prices in the grocery stores?
00:07:31.980 because that's what people are really interested in.
00:07:34.180 Well, I get to see a change.
00:07:36.620 I mean, if the trucker is facing less in the way of costs
00:07:41.020 and less regulatory problems and hurdles,
00:07:45.060 then ultimately that should translate into lower prices,
00:07:48.360 say for food in the grocery stores, correct?
00:07:52.000 Yeah, our hub portal actually had the Canadian Federation
00:07:54.940 of Independent Business say that this should be able
00:07:57.080 to cut down barriers by about 8%.
00:07:59.340 So obviously, trucking goes a lot into the cost of everyday goods that we enjoy every day.
00:08:06.160 So to have that 8% reduction in the cost of transportation and trucking, I think we'll go a long way of having more affordable products on store shelves across the country.
00:08:17.060 So this is something on the portal side that we think will go a long way of helping address that food inflation and just inflationary prices that we're seeing in everyday goods.
00:08:26.720 So I think it will go a long way in helping.
00:08:30.400 So it'll cut their costs by 8%.
00:08:32.960 And if they pass those savings on to the consumer, then possibly we could
00:08:38.560 see that type of savings for people purchasing foodstuffs and deliverables
00:08:44.640 at grocery stores, right?
00:08:45.680 8%?
00:08:47.040 For sure.
00:08:47.520 Obviously, trucking is a competitive market.
00:08:50.000 There's lots of different trucking companies in Alberta and around the country.
00:08:53.280 So when you have any cost savings that trucking companies can find to be able to be that much more competitive in whatever market they're serving, that cost obviously can get passed down to consumers, to us.
00:09:06.800 And I think that obviously will go a long way in helping as much as governments can to reduce cost of inflation for sure.
00:09:15.360 Especially at a time of high diesel costs and fuel costs in general.
00:09:19.900 And if you're looking at food inflation of, I believe, 7.3% in Canada,
00:09:24.320 last time I checked, highest in the G7,
00:09:27.180 you would think that the other provinces will be jumping at any opportunity
00:09:30.800 to give their residents a break here.
00:09:35.460 And so the fact that they haven't done it or are shying away from it somehow,
00:09:39.760 I find a little baffling, would say.
00:09:43.080 Just talking about the price of diesel, when I put my farmer hat on, it is pretty tough. We have a whole bunch of diesel tanks that have the old price of diesel in it, which is almost half price compared to refilling it up in the springtime.
00:09:56.200 So as farmers, obviously, you can't pass on those cost savings because you're obviously a price taker with your commodity.
00:10:02.760 But in the trucking industry itself, there is a lot of opportunities to be able to pass those costs that benefit if you can actually have any efficiencies that are gained to the consumer.
00:10:13.180 But those increased diesel prices do hurt the bottom line for a lot of industries.
00:10:19.280 Do your counterparts in the other provinces know that there could be an 8% savings?
00:10:26.200 in the transport area for delivering products to grocery stores and that that might translate into
00:10:33.200 lower prices for consumers are they aware of that yeah well we're obviously pushing that uh and the
00:10:39.600 more provinces that can can use our hub style system to be able to reduce um permit costs and
00:10:46.340 to be able to increase uh competitiveness in the trucking industry i think there'll be a lot of
00:10:51.100 provinces that will will see the benefit of this and and will hopefully join alberta i mean there
00:10:55.780 all sorts of talk, you know, after the tariffs were introduced of eliminating interprovincial
00:11:03.060 trade barriers and something like this, I would think would be enormously helpful in that regard.
00:11:09.140 And so the fact that there's reticence there, I mean, I don't want to harp on it too much, but it's
00:11:13.460 just suggests to me that maybe some of the other leaders and provinces are not as serious about
00:11:20.100 eliminating those trade barriers as we once thought yeah well we we obviously took that
00:11:26.260 took that seriously and i think as as a conservative government in alberta whenever you can find some
00:11:30.660 some red tape reduction to help help industry be able to compete and to to lessen that government
00:11:36.500 footprint is is something that's that's really important and i think a big debate that always
00:11:40.980 happens when it comes to harmonization of any cross canada um rules is is equivalency as well
00:11:47.700 So it's not just you have to have one national standard and everybody has to kind of have water in their wine, but it's it's also equivalency so that even if provinces do have different rules or regulations that you can at least say that, well, at least it's it is a Canadian or it's a North American standard.
00:12:03.320 And and let's at least accept that as well. So that through technology cuts a lot of that red tape to be able to have equivalency.
00:12:10.740 But yeah, when it comes to interprovincial trade barriers, Alberta has been, in the last couple of years, really leading the charge to reduce that red tape for businesses.
00:12:21.360 Well, it's a shame that the others are not also leading the charge, it seems.
00:12:26.760 What about the feds? I mean, they could play a role here.
00:12:29.800 It's not their jurisdiction, but couldn't they be helpful in terms of making this a national initiative?
00:12:37.120 they could and uh and minister mckinnon uh we we've we've had some some initial talks um and
00:12:45.060 that what we're hearing from from just the carny government in general is is positive so we're
00:12:50.140 waiting to see some some concrete actions that can follow up but uh but yeah it's i think so far
00:12:56.300 so good but i think there's a cautious optimism uh that we that at least i have uh going forward
00:13:02.080 to see if the the federal government can can help in this regard what sorts of concrete actions would
00:13:06.740 you like to see from the feds well i think that the biggest thing is to to well help with the red
00:13:12.520 seal certification to be able to have the federal government uh lean on provinces to say that this
00:13:17.440 is something that's going to help out the trucking industry i think that that would go a long way for
00:13:22.300 them to be able to advocate for for that work um something that uh i've heard lots in the industry
00:13:28.100 about the driver inc issue of there are some some bad actors in the trucking industry that are are
00:13:35.360 essentially um going around the employee model by not having to pay for certain benefits as an
00:13:41.780 employee but that's if you're a contracted trucker that's obviously it can work and there are good
00:13:48.220 actors that are there are standalone independent trucking company so but there there are some of
00:13:53.460 those that that abuse that and they obviously cross cross into provincially as well as chameleon
00:13:58.280 carriers so you can have one trucking company in a province that gets shut down because they're
00:14:03.840 unsafe or they're obviously not a good carrier, but then they can easily jump ship and go to a
00:14:09.480 different province and start up with a slightly different name. So that's something that the
00:14:13.740 federal government, just with that broader lens, could be helping out provinces to be able to see
00:14:18.780 where those chameleon carriers can pop up in other provinces. And just last year in Alberta,
00:14:23.900 we actually shut down 13 trucking companies, most of which were shut down in other provinces,
00:14:29.980 but we actually had to have audit teams go out and find that they were still bad carriers that
00:14:35.420 had to be shut down here in Alberta too. So there is some coordination work that the federal
00:14:40.060 government can have that kind of transcends beyond provincial borders. Well, we've heard of the
00:14:46.080 nightmares in the United States where states like California have handed out commercial driving
00:14:53.680 licenses to people who can't read English, don't understand English, don't understand the rules of
00:14:59.280 the road and they get out there and they're a disaster. They've caused the deaths of Americans 1.00
00:15:06.420 on the roads because of their terrible handling of their rig. I mean, would a Red Seal certification
00:15:14.860 prevent that type of abuse at all in Canada or is it something different?
00:15:20.520 Well, we think obviously just increasing that professionalism and that extra training for
00:15:24.580 red seal certification will go a long way but something that we think just on on your point
00:15:30.740 that we're looking at is having a two-year wait so obviously if you come to alberta you have a
00:15:36.820 class fives or a regular driving license to at least wait uh two years before you could actually
00:15:42.740 apply for a class one trucking license we think that'll go a long way of of having obviously we
00:15:48.100 have four very distinct seasons in in alberta so to have two years of driving a regular vehicle
00:15:53.940 under your belt before you get behind the wheel of a large semi truck we think that'll go a long way
00:15:58.740 of just improving the overall safety especially of of newcomers that are that are entering the
00:16:03.700 industry so we think that's something that we're looking at here in alberta and again
00:16:07.700 you would be leading the country with that two-year pause let's talk a little bit about federal tax
00:16:12.740 changes i i understand that you're not quite extremely well versed in that just yet i hope
00:16:18.340 that you get there but there are changes that were brought in in the last budget the 2025 budget
00:16:23.620 federally, that are kind of cracking down on quote-unquote driver ink. These are the owner
00:16:29.680 operator in trucking that have been doing this for decades, and they've been benefiting it
00:16:36.360 through their ability to get write-offs, tax write-offs, through putting various purchases
00:16:46.080 and writing them off. The government's cracked down on that, and truckers are telling me,
00:16:52.640 frankly, that this is a disaster for them, that it's making operating a rig no longer profitable
00:16:59.100 to the point where some of them are leaving. I mean, there's already a 20,000 shortage,
00:17:05.360 number shortage, trucker shortage in Canada. They need people on the road. And if the federal
00:17:11.200 government is bringing in tax changes that are making it less profitable to be an owner-operator,
00:17:17.200 and you're seeing truck drivers leave the industry altogether, then something is wrong here.
00:17:22.640 Do you have any thoughts about this?
00:17:25.200 Well, obviously, when the federal government was calling small business owners tax cheats, that obviously wasn't very helpful or looked very kindly on a lot of really great owner-operators, especially in the trucking industry.
00:17:38.080 So I think, as I mentioned before, Drivers Inc. can have some bad apples. You can have bad trucking carriers, truck carriers that actually are using, you know, essentially having employees, but contracting them out as individual contractors.
00:17:54.220 And that obviously can can have its own problems. But if you are a legitimate good owner operator truck company, you should have all those benefits of a regular small business to be able to write off to to remain competitive and to be able to provide a great service.
00:18:11.120 So I think that I'd hate to see the federal government throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to some in the industry that that are actually giving giving the industry a black eye, essentially.
00:18:21.900 Well, yeah, I mean, you're punishing an entire industry, the thousands of truckers for the
00:18:30.060 actions of a few bad actors, if that's what you're doing. And regardless of what their
00:18:35.940 motivation is, I mean, there could be a huge consequence, ultimately, if you're a consumer
00:18:42.260 and there aren't enough drivers, you know, moving products, there are strict regulations around how
00:18:47.860 many hours you can drive and all this sort of thing and so ultimately it's going to lead to
00:18:52.260 higher prices so that's that's what the bad decisions do so i appreciate you addressing
00:18:58.060 that for us today thank you devin yeah well appreciate you coming on the show awesome no
00:19:03.340 thank you mark really appreciate it oh one last question while i got you on the line how do people
00:19:07.280 access your your portal how will be they be able to do that so it'll be a website uh that'll go
00:19:13.160 live on on the 22nd and then trucking companies themselves can be able to to go through it and
00:19:18.280 then when they put in their actual route it'll streamline on our side even the permit process
00:19:23.900 so that they can be able to our our employees our bureaucrats will be able to look at what that
00:19:29.840 permit looks like and can be able to fast track it as well so it'll have the weights and dimensions
00:19:35.060 of if they have an oversight load that they're going in they can say this is the height of their
00:19:39.660 whatever it is that they're hauling. And it can actually indicate instantly the bridges that would
00:19:45.840 be problematic so they can reroute it. So it'll be a really interactive website, but it has to
00:19:51.260 have that point A to point B kind of mapping tool built into it. Thank you so much for coming on the
00:19:58.820 show. Appreciate it. You bet. Thanks, Mark. If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great
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00:20:10.820 straight up. You can find the link below. It helps us to do what we do here at Juno News.
00:20:15.880 Thank you so much. We'll see you next time.