Max Genest - January 20, 2026


Why Carney Went to China


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

143.51646

Word count

1,078

Sentence count

74

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Mark Carney is the new Prime Minister of Canada, and he's got a plan to get even more money out of his deal with China. It's no coincidence that he was in charge of one of the world's largest asset managers, Brookfield Asset Management, when China agreed to loan $276 million to buy lithium-ion batteries from Brookfield.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 So Mark Carney just went to China to strike a deal, and everybody's arguing about the wrong
00:00:04.960 thing. It's not about diplomacy, it is not about trade, and it's definitely not about what's best
00:00:09.860 for Canada. This is all about Mark Carney enriching himself. This guy does not care about
00:00:16.600 the sovereignty of Canada. He cares about the sovereignty of his wallet, and that is exactly
00:00:22.340 why this deal happened. And to understand that, you must understand Brookfield. Before becoming
00:00:30.580 Prime Minister, Mark Carney was Vice Chair and Head of Transition Investing at Brookfield Asset
00:00:38.540 Management. One of the biggest asset managers on planet Earth with over a trillion dollars
00:00:45.340 under management. People need to understand how serious this is. They need to understand
00:00:51.680 the gravity of this situation. Brookfield is in the same business as BlackRock. Mark Carney
00:00:58.460 sitting in the Prime Minister's office is basically the equivalent of Larry Fink sitting in the White
00:01:03.020 House. Let that sink in for a second. Think about that. That's insane. Now, here's where China comes 1.00
00:01:10.360 into play. Brookfield has massive exposure to the EV space. They own Clarios, the world's largest
00:01:16.900 automotive battery manufacturer. Clarios operates in China and has explored partnerships with
00:01:23.920 Chinese firms like CALB on lithium-ion batteries. Now, these batteries end up in a ton of vehicles,
00:01:30.300 including and especially EVs. And in November 2024, Brookfield secured a $276 million loan
00:01:37.840 from the state-owned Bank of China. Oh yeah, and just before Mark Carney launched his leadership
00:01:44.020 bid, Brookfield executives were meeting with Chinese officials about EV-related deals.
00:01:50.280 This is no coincidence. And in fact, this is textbook conflict of interest. This is the pure
00:01:57.480 definition. This China deal increases demand for EVs. More EVs mean more batteries. More batteries
00:02:04.100 mean more profit for Brookfield, which means Mark Harney's net worth just got a whole lot bigger.
00:02:10.560 Now, you might be asking, aren't there any conflict of interest rules?
00:02:14.580 Yeah, of course, there are a lot.
00:02:16.860 But these rules were written for prime ministers who owned maybe a few stocks,
00:02:22.940 some rental properties, and some sort of retirement saving.
00:02:28.220 They were not written, designed, and built for someone who managed the world's largest asset manager
00:02:34.820 and personally holds an ungodly amount of money in financial interest, both foreign and domestic.
00:02:41.780 This situation is completely unprecedented.
00:02:44.880 And Mark Carney has, in fact, violated the Conflict of Interest Act several times.
00:02:49.840 But is there anyone willing or able to enforce it?
00:02:52.560 No.
00:02:53.140 Why?
00:02:53.820 There is no law without enforcement.
00:02:56.720 He controls the enforcement.
00:02:58.520 And then you might be asking, what about the blind trust?
00:03:01.560 He has one, but it doesn't mean anything.
00:03:04.040 A blind trust is never truly blind. You always know what you own. You always know the sectors
00:03:09.920 you are tied to. Calling it blind does not erase that. So what could he do? Well, he could sell 0.75
00:03:16.040 the assets. He could walk away from Brookfield completely. He could eliminate the conflict
00:03:21.420 like that, but he did not. He kept them. Why? Because keeping them would destroy
00:03:26.500 his entire incentive and motivation for even becoming prime minister in the first place.
00:03:32.860 think about what that actually means the only reason why this guy is in political office is
00:03:37.980 because he wants to control regulations taxes subsidies and bureaucracy he wants to use the
00:03:44.020 power of the federal government to make himself richer and i do not say this lightly this is the
00:03:49.200 most corrupted immoral and openly self-interested prime minister this country has ever had it's not
00:03:55.080 even close this man is actively hollowing out canada's economy and culture to personally 0.75
00:04:00.560 benefit financially. And it gets way worse. Brookfield is now pitching a $50 billion
00:04:05.700 maple fund for Canadian infrastructure, housing, and renewables. They want $36 billion from major
00:04:12.280 pension funds, CPP Investment Board, Ontario Teachers, Casta Depot, and another $10 billion
00:04:18.620 directly from the federal government. That fund would likely tie into EV infrastructure,
00:04:25.360 Things like grid updates and charging networks, which means public pensions, retirees' money, could be funneled into China-linked projects through Brookfield.
00:04:36.880 And this rabbit hole goes way deeper.
00:04:39.680 Take Tim Hodgson, former Goldman Sachs Canada CEO, advised Carney at the Bank of Canada, sat on major pension boards like PSP and Ontario Teachers.
00:04:49.000 He leaves those roles, gets recruited into politics by Carney, and suddenly he's the energy minister.
00:04:56.880 And where is Hutchinson's riding?
00:04:59.260 Well, it's right in a CCP election interference hotspot, according to CSIS, according to Aaron O'Toole.
00:05:06.600 Remember Michael Ma, the floor crosser? 0.98
00:05:09.780 Han Dong, the CCP-linked international student operation?
00:05:14.540 And the man who delayed the two Michaels?
00:05:17.040 What about Paul Chang?
00:05:19.000 the bounty comment against Joe Tay, Bob Saraoya, the paid CCP trip.
00:05:26.840 This is all the same general area, and this is the pattern.
00:05:32.000 And then there's Mark Wiseman.
00:05:33.600 Who is that?
00:05:34.480 The former CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board,
00:05:38.120 former BlackRock executive, a major figure behind pushing CPP money into China,
00:05:44.140 including investments in Alibaba and the Postal Savings Bank of China.
00:05:48.000 He's also a longtime close ally of Mark Carney. And what does Mark Carney do? He appoints Wiseman
00:05:55.660 as Canada's ambassador to the United States in December 2025, right before the China EV deal
00:06:03.380 drops in January 2026. Wiseman is not negotiating the China deal directly. Carney is doing that
00:06:11.240 himself. But Wiseman is now perfectly positioned to manage the US fallout because this deal
00:06:17.120 directly undermines U.S. policy and risk blowing up CUSMA talks, especially with the renewal coming
00:06:24.000 up this year, especially with Trump backing the picture. And lo and behold, it's almost like the
00:06:28.480 Wiseman effect is working. We got Trump surprisingly giving the EV deal a thumbs up. Meanwhile, his
00:06:35.400 officials are openly fretting about the risk. And what makes it even more interesting, we got Doug
00:06:40.960 Ford, we got the Michelin Man, we got the Pillsbury Doughboy saying this is a lopsided deal. It is a
00:06:47.980 complete mess. So Carney's entire inner circle is pushing Brookfield-style financial deals from
00:06:54.320 inside the government. Carney, Hodgson, and Wiseman's history of prioritizing global returns
00:07:00.800 over Canadian jobs mirrors exactly what we are seeing now. Brookfield wins, battery investment
00:07:07.800 wins elite financial network wins canadian auto workers lose canadian sovereignty loses and
00:07:15.560 canadian retirees may end up funding foreign subsidized competition against their own country
00:07:22.280 this whole thing is absolutely terrifying and they're doing this
00:07:26.200 because the vast majority of people are clueless more people need to be aware