00:02:14.960We heard that Trudeau says that Trump will pause the tariffs for 30 days.
00:02:21.160He let us know yesterday on X. He said, I just had a good call with President Trump.
00:02:26.400Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan, reinforcing the border with choppers, technology, personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl.
00:02:38.880Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working at the border.
00:02:44.280In addition, Canada is appointing a new fentanyl czar, and we have listed drug cartels as terrorists.
00:02:52.120So basically, the whole new package, it looks like it's going to be costing $200 million.
00:02:58.000I would say that that's $200 million well spent for taxpayers.
00:03:02.280I would say that these are things that Justin Trudeau should have done two months ago when Trump was first elected and first started talking about it.
00:03:09.900And before that, these are things that Trudeau should have done years and years and years ago to keep Canadians safe.
00:03:18.240I know that the CTF doesn't like it when the government announces big new government programs and $200 million just off the cuff.
00:03:25.720So I'm wondering what your reaction to all of this is.
00:03:28.400Well, you know what we really don't like?
00:03:30.640When governments hammer their own citizens with massive tax increases,
00:03:35.240multi-billion dollar tax increases that make life more expensive. And that's exactly what a tariff
00:03:41.420is. Okay. A tariff is a tax on your own consumers. So when Trump announced potential tariffs of goods
00:03:49.120coming into the US, that is a tax paid for by American businesses and passed on to American
00:03:56.420consumers. Okay. So when Trump imposed, let's say a 10% tax on Canadian oil, well, look,
00:04:02.800the American refineries, pay that tax and pass the costs on to American consumers at the gas
00:04:09.120pumps. Now, conversely, if a Canadian government imposes retaliatory tariffs, those are taxes on
00:04:17.600Canadian businesses and Canadian consumers. That's what a tariff is. A tariff is a tax
00:04:23.700and it makes prices in your own country increase. It expands the power of the government in your
00:04:30.580own country to dictate trading relationships, whether that's with other countries or just what
00:04:36.040you can buy at the store. So look, I am very happy to see that the tariff war, the tariffs,
00:04:41.820at least for now, are not coming into place. I think all Canadians should oppose tariffs.
00:04:47.400They are just taxes. And we all know that we don't need the government in Ottawa with any more money
00:04:52.700or any more power over Canadians. Well, it's interesting because on Saturday,
00:04:57.220when Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs, I basically witnessed the entire country cheering
00:05:03.700him on and applauding him and saying, yes, let's fight fire with fire. People from across the
00:05:08.280political aisle, across the spectrum, all sort of cheering on this idea. And I wondered, when was
00:05:13.780the last time Canadians were cheering for a 25% tax on most of the goods that we buy in the grocery
00:05:19.440store and in the mall? Chris, what did you make of that? It was a little bit bizarre, right? So
00:05:27.220little while before that before they were cheering on yay retaliatory tariffs I was amazed sitting
00:05:33.940here in Alberta on how quickly dirty Alberta oil sands suddenly transmuted into Canadian energy
00:05:42.580like wow that was amazing you know it's pretty rich if we've got the Ottawa set saying take our
00:05:50.180stuff don't tariff our stuff meanwhile the east won't buy oil and gas or even accept it from the
00:05:56.980west in the same country and so yeah that was pretty rich also i found the language uh from
00:06:04.740that statement that was released by prime minister justin trudeau pretty eyebrow raising i don't
00:06:10.180think i've seen half of those words come out of his mouth or from his fingertips ever before and
00:06:16.660i will also point out that a person known as danielle smith the alberta premier was pushing
00:06:23.140for a border czar for weeks. That's right. And she was pilloried in the mainstream Eastern-based
00:06:29.480media. And now, look, all of a sudden, we have a czar to try to manage this. So it's good to see
00:06:36.480that there were some adults in the room. I know I could hear a collective sigh of relief here in
00:06:42.040Alberta when we were first facing 25% tariffs on our oil and gas, and it was knocked down to 10.
00:06:49.480That was a bit of a reprieve. And now we have another month. But we can't waste this month. We've got to get stuff done. Like Franco has been pointing out, these tariffs are just trade taxes. So we have got to make sure that this government knows we don't want to go down this route again in 29 more days.
00:07:09.060Absolutely. Well, that's something that Trump sort of alluded to. So I'll read you Trump. He posted on True Social after the call. And let me just read this. He says, Canada has agreed to ensure we have a secure northern border and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like fentanyl that have been pouring into our country, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans while destroying their families and communities all across the country.
00:07:34.480Canada will implement their $1.3 billion border plan, as per Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will be reinforcing the border with Chopper.
00:07:41.540He goes on to sort of repeat what Trudeau said in his statement, but then this was the key part.
00:07:47.200He says, as president, it is my responsibility to ensure the safety of all Americans, and I'm doing just that.
00:07:52.140I'm very pleased with the initial outcome and that tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for 30 days to see whether or not the final economic deal with Canada will be structured fairness for all.
00:08:06.000So really kind of using some keywords there to say this is just an initial pause, right?
00:08:12.380This isn't this isn't we're not done here.
00:09:33.300I really am not privy to what's going on in the White House.
00:09:36.180What I do know is that Canada now must take the threat of tariffs seriously,
00:09:41.060and we need to double down on what we should have been doing for a very long time and that's
00:09:46.600unleashing Canada's economy. You want to push back against Mr. Trump the best way to do that
00:09:52.920is to make Canada more competitive more successful than the United States. Okay like I've heard a lot
00:10:00.040of people talk about the 670 billion dollars in natural resource projects that have been stalled
00:10:06.700or canceled since 2015. You know what else is happening right around the corner? Another carbon
00:10:12.560tax hike, right? A 19% increase to the carbon tax going up April 1. The carbon tax cost our economy
00:10:21.020about $12 billion last year. It'll cost our economy about $30 billion by 2030. Immediately,
00:10:29.320Canada could become more competitive by scrapping the carbon tax. We know that the United States
00:10:35.400doesn't have a carbon tax the capital gains tax hike that the trudeau government wanted to impose
00:10:40.360a 90 billion dollar hit to our economy so what can canada do to help canadians and to also push
00:10:47.880back on the united states make canada competitive cut taxes cut red tape okay well we're definitely
00:10:55.320going to get to all of the things that pier poliev is calling for including the inter-provincial uh
00:11:00.440trade stuff but i i wanted to just stop for a second because so many people in the news you
00:11:05.080you know, part of what we do here at True North and part of what we do on the Candace Malcolm
00:11:07.400show is point out the fake news. And what I've been hearing so much over the past couple of,
00:11:12.680well, the past 72 hours, but also the past few weeks is that the tariffs aren't really about
00:11:18.480the border. It doesn't really have anything to do with securing the border, stopping fentanyl,
00:11:22.920all the stuff that Trump said it was about. But really, it's like there's like a deeper
00:11:26.540meaning here. So here we had the CBC, Murray Brewster saying, it is kind of shocking. It is
00:11:33.360it is the kind of shocking rhetoric that chills national security experts and historians to the
00:11:37.640bone, especially the ones steeped in the long-held American belief of that nation's exceptionalism,
00:11:43.500a concept known as manifest destiny. We also had Mark Toohey, someone more on the conservative
00:11:52.080side also, someone who used to be with us at Sun News there, Chris, saying on X the other day,
00:11:58.280this is not about fentanyl. It's not about national security or defense. It's not about
00:12:03.800trade. This is about American expansionism. And in Trump's own manifest destiny, he's coming for
00:12:09.580our energy, our water, our land. I mean, these are just two examples. I don't mean to pick on those
00:12:13.480two. But from what I heard, almost everyone in the media was hammering this point and saying,
00:12:19.620you know, don't pay attention to the border. It's not about national security. It's not about all
00:12:24.480these things that Trump says about no matter what we do, he's going to impose these tariffs because
00:12:28.540he just wants to, like, take Canada. I always thought that that was like a negotiating thing.
00:12:32.980And then that's just Trump doing what Trump does, which is kind of, you know, it's all about the
00:12:37.620deal and negotiating. And, you know, sure, I think he would love for Canada to become the 51st state.
00:12:43.300But I think he knows it's not going to happen. And I think that all of that posturing was just
00:12:48.200about getting a better deal. Chris, I'm dying to hear your opinion on this. Like, what do you
00:12:54.180make of our colleagues in the media, uh, saying that this wasn't really about what it was. And
00:12:58.540then I think it kind of turned out to be about what exactly, uh, we thought it was about the
00:13:02.440border and drugs. Yeah. Just taking off my CTF hat for a second, because, uh, I've been in the
00:13:07.680game for a long time and I would strongly recommend for my dear friends who are in the
00:13:14.900mainstream media, who are in the corridors of power, take a breath, take a serious chill pill.
00:13:22.080Okay. Does Trump want to own Canada? Maybe. Maybe he thinks about it at night. Is it likely to have? No. I don't picture him planting the Star Spangled Banner like in Winnipeg somewhere. I will point this out.
00:13:39.280the best way to understand someone is to listen very carefully to what they say especially over
00:13:47.280decades thankfully donald trump has been in the public eye for decades since the late 70s he wrote
00:13:55.900a book the art of the deal that you just mentioned wherein he describes doing exactly this come in
00:14:03.160like a bull in a china shop make unreasonable demands get mad at the waiter like send your
00:14:08.840dish back. And then by the end of it, you come up with a reasonable solution and you're the nice guy
00:14:14.740all of a sudden. Your deal is made. This is like a repeated pattern. And so for the folks who are
00:14:22.000in the mainstream media who have access to these documents, I would strongly recommend they read
00:14:26.920them. Now, like, I don't, I'm not inside that, that gentleman's head. I'm not inside the president's
00:14:31.420head, but we can see his pattern of operation here and we can apply it perhaps to our diplomacy
00:14:38.520I will also point out, this is just a personal observation over decades of interviewing people
00:14:45.320from all walks of life, okay? From homeless shelters to 24 Sussex. Listen carefully to what
00:14:52.740people say about their lives and how they feel, okay? If you're dealing with something like
00:14:58.700fentanyl, maybe you should start thinking long and hard about the two guys who are down there in the
00:15:04.680White House, the president and the vice president. What are their hard opinions about things like
00:15:11.800this? Think about it and then apply it. Now, again, is this all a ruse in order for him to
00:15:18.120come up and, I don't know, steal beavers and lumber? Who knows? But if we take it at face
00:15:23.580value right now, he said this is about the border. He said this is about fentanyl. If we hold up our
00:15:29.400end of the deal, hopefully, we won't get into another issue that Franco has raised here of
00:15:35.220these retaliatory tariffs, bit for bit, tit for tat. Because what that's going to do to get down
00:15:41.640to the grocery store level, if we impose, Franco, correct me if I'm wrong, if we impose retaliatory
00:15:48.300tariffs on everything, dollar for dollar, that's coming out of the United States, for example,
00:15:53.760and I was listening to a gentleman who was with the Chamber of Commerce years ago,
00:15:57.760He was saying that things like fresh produce, okay, our strawberries, our tomatoes, our lettuce, our cucumbers that are coming from California and New Mexico, we'd see like a 30, 35% increase in price because of retaliatory tariffs at the store.
00:16:18.120I don't know about you guys, but we hear all the time from folks at the CTF all the time.
00:16:23.360People are calling in, people are writing letters who can't afford things anymore.
00:16:29.580They sure as heck can't afford a 30% increase in their cost of fresh fruits and vegetables at the store.
00:16:36.240So it's super important for adults in the room to put their like really major fears aside here and their personal opinions and try their best to get a deal with this person.
00:16:49.700I couldn't agree more. Even just as you were saying that, it made me think about, you know, J.D. Vance, the vice president, is someone who dealt with addiction in his own family with his own mother.
00:16:58.020And Donald Trump says that he's never tasted alcohol in his entire life because his older brother was an addict, sadly succumbs to his addiction.
00:17:05.540So both of them have dealt with it in their immediate families. No wonder it's such a big
00:17:10.600deal. And I can't help but thinking that as well. I'll take it back to you, Franco, because, you
00:17:15.500know, everybody in the Canadian political sphere was fighting mad over these tariffs, willing to
00:17:21.480double down. And, you know, in this game of chicken, like really up the ante and say, we're
00:17:26.940going to introduce our own. Not thinking about the reality on the ground, which is that we are
00:17:32.580living through an unbelievable cost of living crisis in large part because of what happened
00:17:37.220during covid um the fact that the government shut down the economy told everyone not to go to work
00:17:41.860and then started paying people to stay at home obviously paying people and racking up lots and
00:17:46.260lots of debt and starting uh the printing of money to keep up with that flooding flooding
00:17:50.580the economy with with new money and driving up the price of everything um so what what came through
00:17:56.420your head uh when when you thought of that and then also the idea that the the liberal government's
00:18:01.060solution is that we need to have some kind of another pandemic style relief program,
00:18:07.660relief program, like a second EI to pay people who might be impacted by these tariffs. And then
00:18:14.560like on top of that, parliament's not even sitting. So I don't understand how we're even
00:18:18.680going to have the money to do all this stuff. You bring up so many good points. And you know,
00:18:23.840when I was watching all of this happen on Sunday and Monday, my thought was,
00:18:29.280I wish they were just, you know, even a fraction of as upset with their own government taking more money from Canadians.
00:18:38.200Because we've seen our own government hike taxes consistently, right?
00:18:42.560As I just mentioned, April 1, a 19% increase to the carbon tax that is making the necessities of life here in Canada more expensive.
00:18:54.440Makes fueling up your car more expensive.
00:18:56.140if Canada is a cold place, have to stay warm, makes heating your home more expensive, right?
00:19:01.120Just a trip to the grocery store is made more expensive by the carbon tax. Not to mention the
00:19:06.240fact that payroll taxes this year are also going up, will cost every worker about $5,500 at the
00:19:12.960end of the threshold. Your employer is also paying more money, right? Alcohol taxes, millions of
00:19:18.340dollars more being taken from Canadians this year through another tax hike. The capital gains tax
00:19:23.020hike, which I know we'll get into, a $90 billion hole in our economy, 400,000 fewer jobs. So I do
00:19:31.100think everyone has a right to worry about the... Whoops, I can't hear you there, Franco. Is that
00:19:42.480just me? Can you hear him, Chris? No, no, unfortunately. But Franco is making a great
00:19:47.180point there. When it's coming to things like the carbon tax increase, and what went through my
00:19:51.980mind as well as he just figures out his audio there I'm sure it'll be fine what went through
00:19:56.600my mind as well when they said oh we'll just do you know serve style payments again so number one
00:20:01.880like nothing but sympathy for the people who were locked down out of their jobs and not able to work
00:20:07.540and had their you know livelihoods taken away from them this isn't on the people this is on the
00:20:11.760government from back during the lockdown times but the idea that we would just suddenly decide
00:20:17.080to go back to Serb-style payments. With what money? With what money? The Trudeau government
00:20:23.880has doubled the national debt. The national debt now stands at more than $1.2 trillion,
00:20:32.280largely in part because they printed hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air
00:20:38.600during the so-called payments that they were handing out during the lockdowns.
00:20:42.600and we don't have the cash on hand for that so what would they do we would just plunge ourselves
00:20:47.720deeper into debt we would then probably print more money in order to cover off this issue
00:20:53.080and so that's where it gets really frustrating of folks are still going to be on the hook for this
00:20:58.360and they're being dragged along by this government's bad choices and you're exactly
00:21:03.000right for raising issues like the carbon tax because that is going up again april 1st i'm
00:21:08.120I'm getting a little bit concerned in that the mainstream narrative is now, oh, well, that's yesterday's issue.
00:21:13.540No, it's not. It is not yesterday's issue.
00:21:15.820It is still here. It is still going up.
00:21:18.800All of the Liberal Party candidates have said basically they would squish it or change it or swap it out.
00:21:24.060But the costs would still be there for Canadians.
00:21:27.220And the carbon tax makes everything more expensive, of course, because it's a huge tax on things like gasoline, diesel and home heating.
00:21:33.700And so this is where things get frustrating where, yes, it's actually good to see people kind of come together and actually pay attention and get riled up about something like a tariff threat, but they should focus that energy, frankly, about what their own government is doing to their pocketbooks.
00:21:49.500I couldn't agree more. I think that the approach, especially by the Trudeau Liberals, has just been head scratching. And I'll bring it into this Bob Ray interview last night on Fox News. So Canada's United Nations ambassador, Bob Ray, obviously, he was a former interim leader of the Liberal Party. And before that, he was the NDP Premier of Ontario. Well, he was on with Fox News host Brett Baier last night. Brett Baier is not like a hard right opinion journalist. He is a straight news journalist.
00:22:18.120he is the best that there is in the business and the best at Fox. And so he had Bob Ray on the show
00:22:25.400last night. First of all, I don't know why they selected Bob Ray to go out and be the spokesman.
00:22:30.420I think it's good that, hey, they're finally going on to Fox, right? For a while, we just saw
00:22:34.740Melanie Jolie and Justin Trudeau going on MSNBC and CNN, which we know that Donald Trump doesn't
00:22:41.160like those networks. So at least he's going on Fox now to talk to sort of the Republican base.
00:22:46.860and we know that donald trump himself watches fox um i don't understand why bob ray was chosen
00:22:52.860as the representative not just for the liberal government but for canadians it was truly
00:22:57.180embarrassing to see him up there now um later in the interview uh brett bear took a quote from a
00:23:03.8202017 op-ed that bob ray had written where he basically just says that donald trump is a
00:23:09.340dictator he's not legitimate and he should not be welcome in canada so again this is the person that
00:23:14.540they're choosing to speak for us. Let's play that clip. You wrote in 2017 that the determination of
00:23:21.480many world leaders to try to normalize this leadership has to be brought to ground. He
00:23:25.500should not be welcoming in our country. Speaking about not welcoming the president of the United
00:23:31.220States to Canada. Well, first of all, I made that comment when I was in private life.
00:23:37.200We've all said different things in private life. But if you said, has my opinion overall changed?
00:23:41.440I would say to you very directly that the concern that I think all Canadians have, it's not a personal thing about President Trump.
00:23:49.300The concern we have is that we don't want the administration making and taking decisions that are going to create insecurity, uncertainty and real collapses in the market at the at a in a way that's that's quite arbitrary.
00:24:06.360so not a good moment there for bob ray i don't think that saying it was my private life really
00:24:12.840cuts it one other clip i want to play from that basically the the problem that i have with bob
00:24:17.800ray in part is his demeanor like he's just so moralistic and he sounds like he's lecturing
00:24:22.360the audience and and sort of like telling them that they're wrong so here he is um talking about
00:24:29.080the rules-based international order and why tariffs are wrong in the first place let's play that clip
00:24:35.200There is a major trade deficit with Canada.
00:40:25.720This country imposes massive trade barriers on us that cost about $5,100 per person.
00:40:33.180So which country is it that we should be pursuing as our new top trading partner?
00:40:38.880Switzerland? France? No. Our new top trading partner will be Canada.
00:40:48.940Very, very effective. Very funny. Pierre doing what he does best there. Well, it's almost
00:40:53.840interesting because when it came to the tariffs, there was a weird consensus where everybody,
00:40:58.280even reluctantly, Danielle Smith at the end said, we have to go with the retaliatory tariffs.
00:41:03.600And then now when it comes to the idea of opening up interprovincial trade,
00:41:07.160There also seems to be a bit of a consensus. We had Anita Anand also advocating for removing
00:41:13.920interperimental barriers, saying it's fundamentally important. Let's play that clip.
00:41:20.160The issue relating to internal trade, reducing barriers inside our own country to trade and
00:41:27.180commerce is fundamentally important, especially at this time. And the Prime Minister has charged
00:41:32.680me with that responsibility as minister of internal trade and so that's what i'm focusing on
00:41:39.320what she's focusing on i don't know that she's made any inroads there chris what do you think
00:41:43.080of all this it just goes back to okay so inter-provincial trade barriers this has been
00:41:50.680going on for so long like before franco was born before most of us i bet you were born this has
00:41:59.160been an issue. Perrin Beattie, okay, who worked with the Mulroney government, has been talking
00:42:05.960about this literally for decades. The idea that now at like 11.59, 30 seconds before we're supposed
00:42:15.400to get a trade tariff over our heads, that now all of a sudden we should fix this. Yeah, you guys,
00:42:21.720all across governments, all parties, pox on all their houses, they should have done this decades
00:42:27.080ago. So if we're going to do it now, okay. But I really am asking, pleading with the governments to
00:42:36.760focus. Don't have attention deficit on this. Get this done. Get things like interprovincial trade
00:42:43.240barriers down. Stop insane things like Bill C-69, no more pipelines laws, so that we aren't
00:42:49.880strangling ourselves and shackling ourselves and tying ourselves to one customer. These are all
00:42:55.320such common sense things that should transcend like party affiliation that it needs to be so
00:43:03.020done. And again, getting back to Franco's point all the time is that these tariffs are just higher
00:43:09.680taxes. They're just called something slightly different. And I have to stress, people can't
00:43:16.660afford anymore. Like they are tapped out. About half, about half of Canadians now, Candice,
00:43:23.100are within $200 of not making their minimum payments on their bills every month. Meaning
00:43:31.400keeping the lights on, the rent paid, and stopping the credit card company from phoning you. You're
00:43:37.180not paying it off. You're just making the minimum payment. Half of Canadians now are in that boat.
00:43:43.120The idea that we would just willingly take tax hikes inflicted by our own government is crazy.
00:43:49.160And so I really do hope this is the I've hit bottom. This is a wake up call. And we're going to fix so many of these problems.
00:43:56.820I really hope it was to continue your metaphor. You know, it was the quarter to midnight scare back in the 90s where Canada basically almost defaulted on their debt.
00:44:05.320We didn't have a buyer for a bond. And that was a wake up call.
00:44:08.560We needed to drastically reduce the federal government and get rid of a lot of the growth that happened under the first Trudeau.
00:44:14.480I wonder if this is our quarter to midnight, or to use Chris Sims' metaphor there, it's 11.59 in like 38 seconds or 59 seconds.
00:46:11.600Candice, on your show, we've talked about all the bonuses going out to the CBC, right?
00:46:17.120$18 million last year where CBC executives are taking bonuses that are bigger
00:46:22.140than what the average Canadian worker makes an entire year.
00:46:25.480Well, this bonus scandal is happening all across the departments, all across the Crown Corporation, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
00:46:35.460They like to claim, oh, we have one overarching objective, housing affordability for all.
00:46:41.960Well, newsflash, they haven't been able to afford a home for years.
00:46:46.700Meanwhile, the CMHC has rubber stamped more than $100 million in bonuses since the beginning of 2020.
00:46:53.220So Candace, this should be a wake up call for the federal government or for any politician
00:46:57.580that wants to be a champion of taxpayers.
00:47:00.640We need to cut government wasteful spending and we need to cut it now.
00:47:04.460Well, we are going to get to doge at the very end of the show, Franco.
00:47:07.260So I'm excited to hear your perspective on that.
00:47:09.660I think I can guess what you're going to say.