Trump KILLS possible trade deal with Canada？!
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Summary
Trump says he is not looking to renew the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico. Meantime, Premier Doug Ford is ending his trade mission to Washington, D.C. after getting a cool reception. No one in the Trump administration would meet with him, and the one reception he was scheduled to attend was canceled at the last minute.
Transcript
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President Trump says he is not looking to renew the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
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He says NAFTA has been terrible for the United States.
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How confident are you that you'll be able to renew the USMCA and what more do you expect from Canada at this point?
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I don't, you know, I mean, I made the deal and the primary reason I made the deal is that NAFTA was the worst trade deal I've ever seen.
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Well, that's more bad news for Canada, which is trying to salvage the trade agreement.
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Meantime, Premier Doug Ford is ending his trade mission to Washington, D.C.
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No one in the Trump administration would meet with him,
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and the one reception he was scheduled to attend was canceled at the last minute.
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Ford did do some media interviews, including this one with CBS.
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This is a slightly more diplomatic overture by you
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after the moves last year to remove American goods from provincial stores,
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the advertising that was run that needled President Trump?
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Why the change in tactic, and does it have anything to do with the fact
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that Canada appears now to have gone two quarters with negative growth,
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Well, I guess that would be the exception to Ontario.
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And so we're seeing tremendous growth right now in Ontario.
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And there's going to be a time, and the time is right now,
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We keep the lights on and businesses open with the lights on.
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1.5 million homes and businesses in New York State and Michigan and Minnesota.
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and I want to ship more energy down to the U.S.
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Afford was careful not to attack the president this time.
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It was great to meet Congresswoman Representative Tenney of New York
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to discuss how we can continue growing our two economies through tariff-free trade
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and support greater cooperation between New York and Ontario.
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Despite a few low-level meetings, the premier's more conciliatory tone came too late.
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Months of public attacks, during which he called Trump a tyrant who was hated by Canadians,
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And so the Ford charm offensive, in which he called for a fortress North America-style
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trade alliance with the United States, has ultimately failed.
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He was scheduled to attend a reception hosted by Ross Perot Jr.,
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Despite that, Industry Minister Melanie Jolie praised Ford's trip to the United States.
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Well, I have a super good relationship with Premier Ford.
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I think that we're standing shoulder to shoulder to counter the impacts of the tariffs.
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And I think it's important that we talk to American leaders across the U.S.
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Our guest today is Jocelyn Bamford, founder of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers
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and Businesses of Canada, joining us from Virginia.
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It's always a pleasure to be with you and your listeners and your viewers.
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it's kind of a blow to those who had been hoping
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to renew the USNCA, and what more do you expect
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and the primary reason I made the deal is that NAFTA
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the worst trade deal i've ever seen usmca did one thing that i loved after six years it comes up for
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renewal i don't know that i'm going to redo it there you go i'm not a particularly optimistic
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assessment but now we've got canada all in now it's the full court press not only by
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uh premier ford who's been to washington dc but uh the federal government and they're now on this
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kind of charm offensive you know they've completely dialed back the elbows up stuff and are really
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trying to uh speak to anybody who will listen to them about this trade deal what do you think
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yeah absolutely and and we all predicted that this would happen at the beginning
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we said in what world is it a great strategy to tick off your largest customer, your closest ally,
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your trading partner, and in what world does it go well when you poke the bear continuously,
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talk smack about them every chance you get, ban their liquor, completely cut off any negotiations,
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and then suddenly decide that you can come in on the 13th hour and get a deal.
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And we had warned them the absolute crushing effect on the economy.
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If they didn't have a deal, we told them to get back to the table.
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Small to medium-sized businesses cannot afford to have a deal.
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but they didn't listen to us and they continued um to go on cnn and insult the the president of
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the united states and our largest trading partner and this is what you get what you
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how you reap so so so you so and and but we're paying the price ordinary canadians small business
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are going to pay the price uh for this and it was a predictable outcome yeah i think what
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what else is predictable is it wouldn't surprise me if the U.S. media started to get bored of
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Doug Ford and stopped bringing him onto the show. But as far as I could see,
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Premier Ford's strategy appears to, to your point, you know, take the U.S. liquor off the store
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shelves, you know, anger as many people in that industry south of the border, then take repeated
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personal shots at Trump on U.S. cable networks over the course of months. And if that doesn't
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work, go down to D.C. and see if anybody worth talking to will give him the time of day. I mean,
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this was a humiliation for Doug Ford. He went down there. The only real event that was scheduled for
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him, a reception, was canceled. This was with Ross Perot Jr. It didn't happen. And I don't know,
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he didn't get anywhere. He got nothing. And certainly nobody from the administration is
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going to give Doug Ford the time of day. My question is, what was he thinking when he was
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going on CNN, Fox, anybody that would have him on MSNBC and take all these shots at the president
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and think that that was going to work out? I don't get it. And I find it difficult to believe
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it's not a coordinated strategy between the federal government and the Ontario provincial
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government because when those first Ronald Reagan ads came on, the Premier of Ontario and the
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Prime Minister had dinner the night before. And I find it absolutely unbelievable that they wouldn't
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have had a conversation on that. So to say that, oh, Doug Ford's gone rogue, that's not believable.
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I believe it was a coordinated strategy. But you know who has made out well is Premier Daniel
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Smith. She did not get on the wrong side of our largest trading partner. She went down in spite
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of the consternation of the elbows up crowd. She went down, had conversations, worked to get a
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deal. And as I predicted at the beginning, Alberta is going to come out way better than the rest of
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Canada in terms of having better economic outcomes than the rest of us. Ontario is going to be
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decimated. And the fact that they couldn't see this coming is beyond me. I guess they thought
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that they were going to coordinate a complete world group against the United States. And that
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just hasn't happened. They completely underestimated, as they always do, because they
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think they're the smartest people in the room and all the rest of us are big dummies. They continue
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to launch their strategy again to the economic issues for ordinary Canadians and small to medium
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sized business. You know, those big companies, I don't think they're going to feel it as much as
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we do. And the other thing they've done is they've made sure that people don't speak out. They don't
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speak out against poor policies. And it is a failure. It's a bipartisan failure. And the
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Canadian landscape, especially in Toronto. We have an NDP mayor who's failed a small to medium-sized
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business. We've had a conservative premier who's failed to deliver on the things that they were
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supposed to do. And we have a federal government, liberal, they've all failed because what's
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important to ordinary Canadians and small to medium-sized business isn't what's important to
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them and they aren't they don't feel it the way we feel it so that's what happens yeah i mean one
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of the things that ford really needs to do or at least try to do is bury the hatchet with pete
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hookstra the u.s ambassador to canada who is a friend of the president's he is influential
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word is that he urged republicans in texas ahead of ford's trip down there not to speak with ford
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possibly even DC, you know, telling Republicans, don't bother with this guy. He has been ripping
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our president for months. You know, let's not give him any more attention than he deserves.
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What do you think of that idea to start with, is to try and heal that rift?
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Well, 100%. And here's how you do it. If I was Doug Ford, and I had done a bunch of things to
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completely alienate myself from the administration and those people that support the administration,
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I would hire somebody that is aligned with the administration as an envoy and send them down to
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see if there's any way that they could smooth the waters. And very similarly, when the first
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NAFTA deal was being negotiated, or the USMCA, Harker was in charge, and he sent NDP Premier
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Gary Dewar to go down because he thought he would be more aligned with the Democrats that were in
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power then, sent them down, and we got a deal. And likewise, on exemptions to buy America,
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The government in power, again, Harper, sent down some folks that have some relationships.
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And there's a bunch of Canadians, let's be clear, that do have good relationships with
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Send those folks down to see if they can fix it.
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But no one seems to be able to think their way out of this problem.
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There's a number of people that come to mind that are Canadians that would like to see
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a deal get done, that have good relationships with the U.S. president and his administration,
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if you really want a deal, if you absolutely do want a deal, there's a bunch of things you can do,
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but I'm not seeing them execute on any of them. And again, it leaves me to wonder, do they in
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fact really want a deal? Yeah, we had speculated that Carney kind of didn't really want a deal
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and that many of his actions seemed almost designed to undermine Kuzma.
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And maybe that's the result of having met with the Chinese
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and realized that maybe, you know, a free trade deal with them
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isn't the best possible hope that Canada can have.
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Europe, you know, they might want some of our oil and natural gas and LNG,
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But apart from that, you know, how many of our cars are going to are they going to buy?
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So I'm wondering if you think that maybe they're realigning things, you know, the realization
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that they, you know, pivot their pivot over to Asia, their pivot to Europe is not going
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to replace our relationship with the United States.
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And it absolutely could be a way to have in the voters' mind, oh, they tried.
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So, you know, wouldn't it be a great strategy if you ticked off the administration of the U.S. so they wouldn't give you a deal?
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And then at the last minute, you pretended like you wanted a deal so that you could go back to your electorate and say, look, we tried.
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We tried to make friends and they wouldn't make friends with us.
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So you got to wonder, is it A or is it B or is it both?
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and they're trying to find a way to excuse themselves in the 13th hour.
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I just don't know if Doug Ford is equipped to fix what he broke,
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if you know what I mean, as far as our relationship with the United States.
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I'm just not sure that there's any, you know, putting Humpty back together again,
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you know, as far as, I don't know if he has the diplomatic skills
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to try and heal the rift with an aim towards reestablishing good relations with our
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neighbor to the south. I don't know who advised him to take the approach that he did. Maybe he
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was watching Mark Carney talk about elbows up and he thought it was real rather than just some
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campaign slogan that was designed to get everybody behind Carney. But this has been a huge blunder
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then why wouldn't you appoint a special counsel
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and actually put people on that special counsel
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to go back and see if there's anything they could do.
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you know, I don't know if I want this deal or not.
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yeah well so again i would i would put a huge um emphasis on doing everything i could to try
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and make this deal happen um and again i would have a special counsel i would put all my resources
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and trying to come up with a deal because i think the purpose of not getting a deal is going to be
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absolutely um horrific especially for ontario manufacturing and then uh adding on that
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potentially more tariffs aimed at Canada, the outcome of that is unimaginable. So if I was
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the premier, I would put every resource possible into trying to negotiate a deal, because I think
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at this point, the damage has been done. But I would give it one last try to try and untangle
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that and start afresh with the US administration. And that would take for him to assign some
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resources on that that would make it happen. You could put a dream team together pretty quick. I
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think a lot of Canadian business people understand the importance and are willing to do whatever
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they can do to help get a deal with the United States. So I'd like to see him put his money
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where his mouth is and and have a strategic plan to get a deal with the U.S. Yeah I mean they could
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even put forth this change in the liquor policy and say you know what as a good faith step we are
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going to put back the U.S. liquor back on the shelves as a sign that we want to talk to you
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and we want to open up a chain of communications with the important people who are going to make
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this decision. And so that might be seen as kind of an olive branch and something that the Trump
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administration can kind of cling to as a sign that maybe there is going to be hope for this.
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But in the meantime, a lot of the members of your coalition, the business coalition and
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manufacturers, they must be on edge right now wondering, because if this deal is not renewed,
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I mean, what happens to some of those companies?
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So, well, I'll tell you what would happen to a lot of those companies.
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A lot of the companies are making their plan B, which would be,
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I need to open up a secondary plant in the U.S.
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And the job losses will be terrible for Ontario.
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So a lot of them are making a plan B, looking at growth in other areas.
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And isn't that a tragedy that Canadians, entrepreneurs are basically pushed out of their own home because growth, energy prices, red tape is untenable in the country?
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Shouldn't we be doing whatever it takes to help our small to medium sized business?
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And I can't tell you, I've never been asked by the liberal government federally or the provincial government in Ontario, you know, what do we need?
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Why don't they ask us for our advice on how to get a deal with the United States?
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we've got lots of ideas um let us help them um get you a deal because we certainly need one
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but you're right that your strategy is perfect if you wanted a deal extend an olive branch and and
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let's face it um how many people ontario would love to see california wine and bourbon back on
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our shelves i suspect a lot yeah and in the meantime what have we got i mean we're in a
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recession and the only people who say we're not are members of the arnie government and the media
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but the rest of people in the canadian public are not fooled by this at all so we're being told no
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our economy is strong and we're hiring all these people and look how great things are but at the
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end of the day our numbers show otherwise and so i think unfortunately a lot of canadians are
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losing faith in our government. Last word to you.
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Yeah, I don't blame the government for trying to paint a rosy picture. What I blame is Canadians
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for buying it. We all know, just look at the statistics. It used to be one in 60 people
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required services of food bank. Now it's one in 10. How much more are we going to take for our
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government? We need to demand better of them. And it's incumbent on ourselves to really
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become educated and make wise choices for our politicians so that they can help our kids and
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grandkids have jobs. Yeah. Dawson, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it as
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always. Always a pleasure, Mark. Thanks for having me. If you enjoyed the show, consider supporting
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great independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno News. Go to junonews.com
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backslash straight up. You can find the link below. It helps us do what we do. Thank you so