Juno News - Trump says he'd prefer Mark Carney as PM

00:00:00.000 In a recent interview, Donald Trump said he'd prefer a Liberal over a Conservative in charge

00:00:09.760 of Canada, calling Pierre Polyefre no friend and claiming it would be easier to deal with

00:00:14.780 Prime Minister Mark Carney. One day after criticizing reporters over questions on conflicts

00:00:20.240 of interest, Prime Minister Mark Carney admitted he will need to recuse himself from certain

00:00:26.200 decisions. Data shows that Saskatchewan has the top position in building construction and was second

00:00:31.960 place in housing starts across Canada. Hello Canada, it's Thursday, March 20th, and this is the

00:00:37.720 True North Daily Brief. I'm Isaac Lamoureux. And I'm Clayton Demain. We've got you covered with all the

00:00:43.540 news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't

00:00:48.480 hear anywhere else. In a recent interview, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would rather deal

00:00:57.040 with a Liberal than a Conservative in charge of Canada. Trump claimed that Conservative leader

00:01:01.620 Pierre Polyefre was, quote, no friend of his and it would be easier to deal with Prime Minister Mark

00:01:07.520 Carney. Trump made the comments on Tuesday during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News.

00:01:13.380 Regarding the growing tension over trade disputes between Canada and the U.S., Trump said he

00:01:18.460 rather deal with a Liberal than a Conservative. He said, quote, I think it's easier to deal actually

00:01:24.620 with a Liberal and maybe they're going to win, but I don't really care. It doesn't matter to me at all.

00:01:29.440 He then took a direct jab at Polyefre, referring to his stance on the U.S. President as, quote,

00:01:34.480 negative. Polyefre responded to Trump's comment, inferring that the U.S. President's endorsement of

00:01:40.260 Carney made it clear that he is, quote, weak and would cave to Trump's demands. Polyefre reiterated his

00:01:46.460 stance during a press conference in Sudbury, Ontario, Wednesday morning, saying that Trump

00:01:50.880 prefers the Liberals in power because they will continue to keep Canada weak. Polyefre said, quote,

00:01:56.340 after 10 years in power, the Liberals have given us the weakest economy in the G7. They've doubled

00:02:01.780 their housing costs, driven half trillion dollars to the south, all while Mark Carney was an economic

00:02:07.240 advisor to Trudeau, and while Mr. Carney moved his corporate headquarters to New York. So, Clayton,

00:02:12.820 has Trump spoken about Polyefre in the past? What else has he had to say about the Conservative leader?

00:02:19.060 At the end of February, Trump criticized Polyefre for his firm stance against Trump's use of tariffs

00:02:24.780 and him calling Canada America's 51st state. This was right after Polyefre gave a Canada first rally in

00:02:31.700 Ottawa, which felt like a campaign launch where he took a strong stance against Trump's anti-Canadian

00:02:38.380 sovereignty rhetoric. Trump said that he wasn't a fan of Polyef, saying that Polyef's biggest problem

00:02:45.120 was that he wasn't a, quote, mega guy and that he wasn't a Trump guy at all. Trump said he doesn't

00:02:51.580 care if Polyef wins or not and isn't a fan of the things that Polyef has been saying about him

00:02:56.740 in response to his economic threats. I want to note his comments at the rally were about the

00:03:02.880 substance of Trump's tariff threats and 51st state comments. Trump criticized Polyef of making a big

00:03:10.020 mistake by being a, quote, tough guy taking on Trump. He said everyone who thinks that they can knock him

00:03:15.920 out gets the hell beat out of them. Polyef ended up clapping back, saying, of course, he wasn't a

00:03:22.120 make America great again guy, because his focus was on making Canada great and putting Canada first.

00:03:28.660 Polyef has called Trump's tariffs unjustified, but on the other hand, said concerns over the border,

00:03:34.280 immigration, fentanyl, and national security were shared concerns among Canadian Conservatives.

00:03:43.680 Just one day after lashing out at reporters for asking about potential conflicts of interest,

00:03:49.380 Prime Minister Mark Carney admits he will, quote, probably have to recuse himself from decisions

00:03:56.020 on certain files due to conflicts of interest. During a press conference on increasing defense

00:04:01.640 spending in Iquilat, Nunavut, Carney was grilled again about his potential conflicts of interest.

00:04:07.780 He was asked if there were any files he would have to recuse himself from, like former Prime Minister

00:04:13.200 Paul Martin had previously done when he led liberal government. At first, Carney answered a

00:04:19.080 completely separate question, though he later admitted he had misunderstood the question posed

00:04:24.260 to him in French. After pressure from the reporter, he admitted that he would have to recuse himself

00:04:29.920 from certain decision-making conversations that touched on areas in which he was conflicted.

00:04:35.940 Carney said, quote,

00:04:36.720 My assets have been put in a blind trust well in advance of the requirements, so they've been disposed of.

00:04:43.600 But what happens is that there's a discussion with the ethics commissioner for certain screens

00:04:49.220 around certain issues, and that's a process that is underway. When asked why he didn't disclose

00:04:55.080 those conflicts proactively, he deferred the responsibility to Canada's conflict of interest

00:05:00.900 and ethics commissioner. He added that the prior Conservative government set out the timeline

00:05:06.280 he is abiding by, which Conservative leader Pierre Polyev was part of. Though Conservatives have called for the

00:05:13.500 rules to be changed in light of Carney's likely conflicts of interest. Conservative MP and ethics

00:05:19.880 critic Michael Barrett was in Ottawa Tuesday calling for Carney to disclose what assets he had

00:05:26.420 that went into his blind trust before being sworn in as Prime Minister. Recent reports found that Carney

00:05:33.320 held $6.8 million in Brookfield Asset Management stock options before quitting the company he chaired.

00:05:41.720 Brookfield's annual report shows that Carney held over 209,000 stock options

00:05:48.100 at $35.13 each and 200,000 options at $40.07 each on December 31st, 2024. He's entitled to $6.8 million

00:06:01.940 in stock options until 2033 or 2034. Brookfield did not respond when asked if Carney had been paid

00:06:10.360 those assets. So Isaac, the question began comparing Carney's current position to former Prime Minister

00:06:19.400 Paul Martin. What sort of assets did Paul Martin hold when he was Prime Minister?

00:06:24.300 Paul Martin served as the 21st Prime Minister of Canada and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 2003 to 2006.

00:06:31.580 The Globe and Mail published various articles on Martin's holdings during his tenure.

00:06:36.060 The former Finance Minister and Prime Minister had business holdings that included movie theatres,

00:06:41.560 office buildings, land holdings across North America, and a farm in Quebec. He also held interests

00:06:47.240 in a bus company, an oil business, apartment buildings, a water slide park, a trucking operation,

00:06:52.420 and investments in four movies. The Globe said at the time, in 2003, Martin was actually one of the most

00:06:58.700 diligent MPs in regularly disclosing his holdings. Between 1994 and 2003, he filed eight reports with

00:07:07.040 the Office of the Ethics Counselor. Conversely, former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien filed one report,

00:07:13.500 and former Finance Minister John Manley filed three as of 2003. When Martin was elected to Parliament

00:07:19.660 in 1988, he put his holdings in a trust and later filed a 58-page report outlining his investments.

00:07:26.240 Between when Martin first filed his report in 1988 and his report in 2002, his personal holdings

00:07:33.620 diminished greatly as he divested many of them. The 1988 report included a listing of the big splash

00:07:40.320 water slides at a Quebec ski resort, a third Vancouver movie theatre, shares in an Albertan oil

00:07:45.200 company, 66 beef cattle, five cars, 60 works of art, 22 multiple unit residential buildings,

00:07:52.560 and $2 million worth of power corporation stock. The 2002 report included 89% of a shipping company,

00:07:59.940 100% of an Ontario company that owns treasury bills, 100% of another company with treasury bills,

00:08:06.000 as well as mutual funds and bonds, 100% of a farm, and membership shares in some golf courses.

00:08:11.940 Saskatchewan is celebrating leading the country in building construction and being the runner-up in

00:08:20.720 housing starts. However, the day after Saskatchewan celebrated, the Conservative Party of Canada

00:08:26.200 bashed the Kearney Trudeau Liberals for seeing national housing starts plummet annually under their

00:08:32.060 reign. Saskatchewan issued a release on Tuesday highlighting that building construction investment

00:08:36.640 increased by 27.2% in the province between January 2024 and January 2025. Housing starts in Saskatchewan

00:08:44.380 saw 115.7% increase between February 2024 and February 2025. The province's trade minister,

00:08:53.380 Warren Kading, said the two increases reflect the province's overall economic strength.

00:08:58.620 The Saskatchewan government also celebrated its real GDP increasing to an all-time high of $77.9

00:09:05.580 billion in 2023, placing its second nationwide in growth at 2.3% compared to 2022. The province also

00:09:14.280 saw the biggest increase in private capital investment last year and anticipates the second

00:09:19.260 highest growth this year. However, while Saskatchewan celebrated its housing increases, the nation saw a

00:09:26.080 decline. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released data on Monday, showcasing that nationwide

00:09:32.260 housing starts were in the red. Nationwide, housing starts fell 17% annually between February 2024 and

00:09:39.960 2025 in cities with over 10,000 people. However, housing starts decreased even more notably in Canada's

00:09:46.800 most populated cities. Vancouver and Toronto, Canada's most expensive cities to buy a home, saw housing starts

00:09:53.160 decreased 48% and 68% respectively between February 2024 and February 2025. Some smaller Canadian cities

00:10:02.060 saw steep declines as well. Kelowna, London and Halifax saw housing starts decline 67%, 58% and 50% respectively.

00:10:11.540 So Clayton, the federal government has tried to use immigration to spur housing construction. Have these

00:10:16.960 programs worked in any way? Well, in 2023, Sean Frazier, Trudeau's immigration minister at the time,

00:10:23.720 claimed that high immigration levels would help solve the housing shortages by filling labor gaps in

00:10:30.100 construction. He said that the key setback developers were facing was a lack of access to the labor force.

00:10:36.780 His solution, of course, was mass immigration. But data showed that the population growth spurred on by

00:10:42.660 liberal immigration policies, far outpaced housing completions. And you see this from ardent supporters

00:10:49.000 of the liberals' mass immigration programs over the years. And I've encountered this within the last

00:10:54.200 few months, people saying Canada needs more immigration because of labor shortages in those

00:10:59.280 fields. When True North wrote about this at the time in August 2023, it found that despite the surge in

00:11:06.180 population, Canada lost nearly 45,000 jobs in construction in July of that year and 14,000 construction

00:11:14.740 jobs in June. That's the reason why when Mark Miller was performing as Trudeau's immigration minister,

00:11:20.720 he had to admit the previous minister on the immigration file made some mistakes. And the liberals took a near

00:11:27.980 180 degree turn in rhetoric, pledging to lower population growth instead. That same year, the Bank of Canada

00:11:34.940 also noted that while newcomers had helped loosen tight labor markets, the housing supply was not

00:11:42.060 keeping pace with population growth, which contributed to heightened housing costs. Since then, the

00:11:48.300 government has attempted to link its immigration measures to the needs of the Canadian market,

00:11:53.420 such as in construction, subtly admitting that simply increasing the population won't mean needed

00:11:59.580 markets are filled. But construction job growth is still not keeping pace with population growth

00:12:04.860 in some instances. Still, there isn't a decrease in jobs, as was the case in 2023. In Ontario, for

00:12:12.780 example, according to the province's construction secretariat, the labor market saw an increase of

00:12:19.180 640,000 people between the second quarters of 2019 and 2024, which accounted for an 8% increase in that time.

00:12:27.900 Construction in the province saw only an increase of 7% or 40,000 workers in that same period.

00:12:35.820 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes

00:12:44.220 every weekday by subscribing to The Daily Breed on iTunes and Spotify. Also, while you're at it,

00:12:49.660 make sure to hit us with a 5-star rating and please leave a review.

Juno News - March 20, 2025

Trump says he'd prefer Mark Carney as PM

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