Canadians want an election NOW
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Summary
This week on Off The Record, we talk about the Canada Post strike, the fall economic update, and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's reaction to the news that Chrystia Freeland is stepping down as Finance Minister.
Transcript
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Have you guys got your Christmas shopping for the year done?
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Even with the GST, HST, easy to understand tax break, you haven't rushed right out to get your shopping done?
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You know, the other thing that the government completely screwed up on that has totally screwed up my Christmas shopping has been this Canada Post strike.
00:00:23.640
So, number one, the whole idea of doing back-to-work legislation is unpopular anyway.
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You eat that unpopularity of saying, get back to work.
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But only this government, William, could manage to pull off of, go ahead and go back to work.
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By the way, Christmas is still screwed for everyone.
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So, yeah, needless to say, this mom who has, like, relatives across Canada, y'all are getting your presents around, I don't know, Valentine's Day.
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It was like, oh, yeah, well, we're going to put you back to work, so we're going to piss off the unions.
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But we're going to delay it so that all Canadians can, you know, equally feel the pain, you know.
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It was just like, at this point, Trudeau's not even trying.
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William, are you one of those dudes that goes out on, like, Christmas Eve day and you're out at the mall?
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But, unfortunately, with the post-strike for Christmas, technically, everybody's going to get the drill count of posts, sorry, we missed you.
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We'll let you pick up your package at a deeply inconvenient location, slips.
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I think that's what everybody's going to get this year.
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I'm buying people and I'm printing them as pictures and I'm sticking them under the tree.
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I'm the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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Pinch-hitting this week, so thank you so much for listening to me, along with my friends, William and Noah.
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Gentlemen, this week feels to be about three weeks long.
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And I think that's because a lot of people got what would be a surprise resignation from the Finance Minister this week.
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So, for folks who've been asleep and didn't know, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was supposed to deliver her fall economic update.
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What that means in normal people talk is like a baby budget, like a mini budget, where you update the numbers.
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And that was supposed to be done, like, weeks ago, but it was going to then be done on Monday.
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They blew through their so-called fiscal guardrail, which, by the way, was a $40 billion deficit, which is a crazy, terrible fail, okay, from this government.
00:03:02.240
But they blew through that, and it's about a $62 billion deficit.
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But apparently, Freeland didn't want to polish that one for Trudeau, and she resigned before that could happen.
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So, I just wanted to go around the horn before we get to our clips and all the fun that happened after that.
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What was your guys' reaction to that when you saw the wheels falling off there on Monday?
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My favorite part was when the speaker stood up at 4 o'clock.
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He's like, well, it's 4 o'clock, and technically I'm supposed to stand up and get the Finance Minister to talk, but there's no Finance Minister.
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You know, I woke up on a Monday thinking, oh, well, it's going to be another day, maybe the fall economic statement provides some news.
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But I did not have this one on my bingo card, and I'm pretty sure most people didn't either.
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I mean, it's understandable from Chrysia Freeland's perspective, as someone who wants to run for the liberal leadership after Trudeau, and someone who doesn't want to have their reputation tarnished further.
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You know, it's not like her reputation is, you know, extremely clean.
00:04:10.700
You know, she's widely beloved by all Canadians.
00:04:14.280
But tabling a fall economic statement in which you blow past your fiscal guardrail, it really does not help if you're trying to, you know, appeal to Canadians and try and convince them that you are going to be able to adequately manage the country's finances if you become Prime Minister.
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So, she did, and she also has a book coming out, which is interesting, it's called Chrysia.
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So, you know, this, I think, you know, this was probably, you know, more or less planned by her.
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She, you know, came to this conclusion probably a while ago.
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And it also seems that this was like a bit of an interpersonal dispute between Trudeau and Freeland.
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Freeland has been very loyal to Trudeau, one of Trudeau's most valiant soldiers.
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And she has taken a lot of blows on behalf of the Prime Minister.
00:05:04.200
But after the Prime Minister said, yeah, I want you out of the finance ministry, I'm going to put you in a role with where you get no staff and no additional resources.
00:05:13.940
You're basically just going to have a nameplate on a door and that's about it.
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She's like, no, I'm not going to deal with this.
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And it looks as if a lot of Liberals are, you know, looking up there as like a folk hero of sorts.
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But it's definitely a lot, all the more pressure for the Prime Minister to resign after a disastrous year in office.
00:05:38.340
William, what did you think about Freeland's JetBlue performance?
00:05:42.320
Well, look, I think I figured out what happened.
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And it's that Justin Trudeau went to the new finance minister store and he ordered himself a new finance minister.
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But unfortunately, because of the Canada Post strike, the new finance minister didn't show up on time.
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Mark Carney's probably stuck in a Canada Post warehouse right now, waiting for Canada Post to deliver him.
00:06:04.020
So the fact that he already fired his former finance minister without actually getting a replacement left him into a really embarrassing situation on Monday,
00:06:14.100
where Chrystia Freeland, after being put upon by this prime minister, oh, so much over the past few months, finally said enough is enough.
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I'm not going to defend an economic update with measures in it that I don't believe in.
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And I'm certainly not going to do it knowing that you've tried to boot me or have booted me for someone else.
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By the way, someone else who didn't want to even join Mr. Trudeau's government.
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You couldn't have planned a better set of circumstances, I think, for all of this to happen.
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For those of you who are a little older, you may remember there was another finance minister who lost his job in kind of a similar way.
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His name was Paul Martin, and he was fired by John Krekshan because Krekshan decided he didn't want him anymore.
00:07:04.480
He wasn't being loyal, didn't have his confidence, whatever the case is.
00:07:07.760
Well, you know, if you looked what happened after that, Mr. Krekshan was not long for his premiership after that.
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In fact, some would say it was the incident that finally brought Mr. Krekshan tumbling down.
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But certainly, everything is not happy in Liberal land right now.
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I was working on Parliament Hill when that happened.
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And I remember distinctly, Paul Martin was in a press conference, and he was asked something along the lines of,
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And he hesitated a little tiny smidge too long.
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I will point out, from a taxpayer's perspective, this is a totally different Liberal government.
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We have got a record deficit, and Chrystia Freeland, as finance minister, helped Trudeau double the national debt.
00:08:05.520
She loved hiking up the capital gains tax on people's properties and assets.
00:08:10.220
She froze Canadians' bank accounts when they had the temerity to disagree with her government peacefully.
00:08:16.020
So yeah, she's one of the worst finance ministers I've ever known in Canadian history.
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00:08:21.120
And I'm saying one of the, to hedge my bets, because I'm always scared there's some alternate dimension way back in the 1800s that I'm not aware of,
00:08:34.340
So as far as the Parliamentary Press Gallery goes, they can save the sonnets, okay, when it comes to Freeland.
00:08:39.680
All that said, William and Noah, I did enjoy the circus that happened afterwards, and it just kept rolling all week.
00:08:48.660
We've got this clip, and it is a clip, it's a long one, from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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And I've been told to say this, warning, it's a clip from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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So please stay with us, listen to the entire thing.
00:09:00.820
But this is fascinating, because this is, keep in mind, after Freeland quits, after they have no finance minister to deliver a terrible fall economic statement,
00:09:13.240
after a massive caucus meeting that went on and on, where Freeland apparently got a standing ovation, and he did not.
00:09:21.680
So imagine all of this going up to your annual holiday party.
00:09:33.480
It hasn't been easy, and that's why I'm so happy to see you guys.
00:09:41.180
You know, it's hard not to feel happy when we're like this, among liberals, among family, because that's what we really are, a big family.
00:09:51.700
Now, like, like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays.
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But, of course, like most families, we find our way through it.
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I've talked to that prime minister probably three dozen times.
00:10:39.380
He was basically talking through gritted teeth there.
00:10:43.300
Uh, what was your take on it quickly there, guys, William and Noah?
00:10:50.080
And I thought, yeah, you know, the Manson family called themselves a family, too.
00:11:01.240
He almost seems divorced from reality, that what has happened in the real world doesn't
00:11:07.340
doesn't even go through his head, that he, you know, I kind of want a vacation where Mr.
00:11:13.960
Trudeau's, you know, mind is at because it seems like a happy, warm and fun place because
00:11:19.160
it's definitely not the reality the rest of us are sitting in.
00:11:21.700
I think, you know, for him to go to a very high end liberal fundraiser following his terrible
00:11:27.540
day, not to talk to reporters, not to talk to Canadians about the fact that their elected
00:11:34.480
But boy, he always has time for liberal donors who paid a lot of money to the liberal party
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I think really just sums up this prime minister party before country and self before anyone
00:11:46.880
No, you hit it right on the head of the nail there, William, because instead of addressing
00:11:52.600
the Canadian people after that tumultuous day, I mean, it wasn't just political chaos.
00:11:57.460
It was it had an effect on the Canadian economy.
00:12:00.320
We saw our dollar drop below 70 cents per dollar value to the American dollar.
00:12:07.560
So like this had an implication when it came to the financial markets and especially the bond
00:12:14.120
markets, we had people in the bond market saying, hey, like, can we really trust Canadian bonds
00:12:21.000
and buy these bonds when Canada looks like it's going to have even a harder and harder
00:12:30.320
And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would rather go in front of a friendly crowd of liberals that
00:12:40.720
And not only did he do that, but he canceled all of his year end interviews.
00:12:44.140
The prime minister usually gives at least one, a few year end interviews generally.
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And he decided, hey, I'm not even going to just cancel all of them except for one, maybe
00:12:54.120
with his favorite reporter at the Global Mail or Global News or CBC or whatever.
00:13:02.420
And it really shows like, it really looks like he's trying to avoid political accountability.
00:13:07.300
He's not trying to face the Canadian people because he's probably just trying to, he probably
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feels that if he can reconstitute a plan to regain his support.
00:13:23.340
He's delusional if he thinks that's a possibility.
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And it's a shame that in a democracy like ours, the prime minister doesn't want to face the
00:13:33.180
I find it very interesting that after nine years of puffball interviews that he's been
00:13:39.340
given by the mainstream media and largely directly from the press gallery to zero in on them,
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I hold them responsible for the fact that they've given this guy carte blanche free reign for the
00:13:50.020
last nine years and the moment that he might get an uncomfortable question at the year-end
00:14:04.020
So it just speaks, you know, frankly, it just speaks to the fact that he's never had to be
00:14:12.720
That's why it's so frankly disgusting when he jets down to places like Brazil to some up with
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00:14:17.760
people conference and scolds all the rest of us, saying that we should value paying his
00:14:23.000
carbon tax over feeding our kids and paying rent as if he knows the first thing about
00:14:33.360
It's the same guy who wanted the budget to balance itself, right, and said, forgive me
00:14:51.920
If you started counting right now, it would take you 30,000 years to count to $1 trillion.
00:15:03.180
So that's where we are after this Trudeau government.
00:15:05.440
Speaking of delusional, did we want to move on to the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh?
00:15:11.340
And I will give some credit to my old colleagues at the Parliamentary Press Gallery here, because
00:15:17.400
you can hear them, William, getting exasperated, finally, finally, with this NDP leader, because
00:15:26.100
amid all of this stuff, finance minister quitting, having to rush down to governor general, begging,
00:15:32.640
you know, his old baby sitter to become finance minister, all this stuff happening.
00:15:36.940
Jagmeet Singh comes out and speaks to reporters and again says exactly nothing.
00:15:44.480
Yeah, you know, Jagmeet Singh, that paragon of political strategy and effectiveness in
00:15:49.980
the House of Commons has, you know, just become such a laughingstock for all of us who follow
00:15:57.660
You know, this is a guy who said he was ripping up the Supply and Confidence Agreement, proceeded
00:16:02.620
to continue to vote to keep Trudeau and the Trudeau government in power.
00:16:06.820
Well, you would think out of any time that this would be the moment he would summon himself
00:16:14.840
We're going to vote no confidence in this government.
00:16:17.460
But of course, never one to miss an opportunity.
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Jagmeet Singh completely missed the opportunity.
00:16:23.520
And instead, to a yes, no question, gave this incredible, well thought out and concise answer.
00:16:35.860
Right now, Canadians are struggling with the cost of living.
00:16:40.780
People cannot find a home that they can afford.
00:16:45.120
And on top of that, we have Trump threatening tariffs at 25%, which put hundreds and thousands
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And instead of focusing on these issues, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are focused on themselves.
00:16:59.380
They're fighting themselves instead of fighting for Canadians.
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00:17:02.480
And for that reason, today, I'm calling on Justin Trudeau to resign.
00:17:07.300
Will you declare no confidence in the Liberal government as soon as possible?
00:17:20.980
But what is clear, given what we have seen, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government that
00:17:25.860
are focused on themselves, they are infighting at a time when people cannot even do their
00:17:31.020
They can't even find homes that are affordable.
00:17:33.860
And we've got the threat of Donald Trump and 25% tariffs that mean hundreds of thousands
00:17:40.880
Because of that, I'm saying very clearly that Justin Trudeau has to resign.
00:18:01.400
Just from watching that, you can just sense all the political cynicism just emanating
00:18:10.720
Like, it's really, it's really, like, just annoying that he won't come out and just say
00:18:18.020
He's keeping the Trudeau government in power because he sees that the NDP are down in the
00:18:22.740
polls and he doesn't want to go to an election where they're probably going to lose seats
00:18:26.380
in an election where they should easily win seats as an opposition party when the government
00:18:32.560
That and also because he wants to get his pension.
00:18:34.740
You know, like, like, you have a lot of money already.
00:18:37.920
Like, we see the Prada bags and the Maseratis and the Rolexes and the $2,000 suits, you know,
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like, now he wants even more money on the back of taxpayers.
00:18:49.200
Like, he's a hustler, you know, and I would be able to respect that if he was hustling to
00:18:57.580
But he said he's just hustling to, you know, line his pockets and to, you know, keep a very,
00:19:05.980
If he decided to not, you know, sign this confidence and supply and confidence agreement,
00:19:12.160
then he would have been able to position his party as a true opposition party to a prime
00:19:18.420
And then he decided to, you know, take the supply and confidence agreement and rip it
00:19:22.980
up, you know, and then he's still supplying them with confidence.
00:19:27.060
It's, it's, it's, it's actually like really, really annoying as an observer of Canadian
00:19:33.680
And I think most Canadians are annoyed because polls show 50%, 58% of Canadians want to go
00:19:39.760
to an election and majority of NDP voters want to go to an election.
00:19:47.500
So it's, it's, it's not as if he is, you know, fighting against this demand from the
00:19:53.500
conservatives, uh, for an election that is going to be unpopular, like the 2021 election.
00:19:58.360
This is probably the election that Canadians have wanted the most in years, in decades even,
00:20:10.900
And I apologize for not knowing if it was either Chris Sully or Matt Gurney, one of the
00:20:15.300
two posted a great tweet and it was about Justin Trudeau, uh, basically fall, carrying
00:20:21.960
a sword, slipping, falling on the sword, having a spill of oil on himself, lighting himself
00:20:27.660
on fire at the same time as scabbing himself with the sword.
00:20:30.860
And he says, Jagmeet Singh, looking on, eyes narrow, thinking closely and saying, not yet.
00:20:38.900
And I mean, I think, you know, there's been a lot of speculation.
00:20:47.100
And one of the theories that has been put forward is, is because in, uh, if he waits just
00:20:52.580
a little bit longer, another, another two months, he becomes eligible for his government
00:21:00.620
And New Democrats have been very quick and ardent in denying that this is the reason, except
00:21:07.300
they have yet to provide a, a convincing alternative reason for why they're actually not voting to
00:21:16.720
And until they do, I think all of us are going to believe that this is really just a crass
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exercise on the part of Jagmeet Singh and the New Democrats in order to make Mr. Singh have a,
00:21:28.000
have a soft feather MP pension landing rather than the best interest of Canadians, a card.
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I think that most people who've been observers long enough figure that as well.
00:21:41.540
And you know what, to your point exactly, William, uh, the NDP is not doing itself any favors.
00:21:49.760
That's like answering, I'm paraphrasing, answering the question of, okay, well, when do you see
00:22:01.400
That's after this big pension date, which I think is the 25th or 26th of February.
00:22:10.020
And for folks who are watching this, uh, who are big supporters of the dippers and you're
00:22:20.800
They brought them down as soon as they possibly could.
00:22:22.840
And I wanted to point out something kind of procedural and nerdy for folks who are watching,
00:22:27.700
who listened to, to Mr. Singh say that Trudeau should resign.
00:22:34.520
That sounds like, okay, that means the plug is pulled.
00:22:38.000
He very specifically said, Trudeau needs to resign.
00:22:42.400
He didn't say, I'm withdrawing my confidence in this government at the earliest possible
00:22:48.040
Because what that would do is the leader of the party that happens to be in power would
00:22:54.840
So then that, that party would muddle through and put in an interim leader in the middle
00:23:01.500
So somebody, anybody, frankly, would be interim leader and they'd have to have a little, you
00:23:09.500
And that would muddle them through until at least, what would you say, William, March,
00:23:16.900
You, you could definitely survive until the government was about to run out of money again.
00:23:23.740
That buys you many weeks by him saying that exact answer, which is why I think that was
00:23:30.080
Marika Walsh from the Globe and Mail, who was yelling at him saying, is that really a credible
00:23:35.740
Channel that to all of the reporters on Parliament Hill who are part of the press gallery.
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You know how you're being fed that line deep down, you know, that's true.
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So channel that anger and keep asking these folks hard questions of all political parties.
00:23:50.020
Speaking of political parties, Noah, did you want to chat about, there was a big, there
00:23:56.600
It was in Cloverdale, Langley in BC, and it was a gain for the conservatives?
00:24:02.560
So in British Columbia on Monday, to cap off the disastrous day that Trudeau had on Monday,
00:24:13.560
The liberals won the seat in 2021, and I believe also in 2019.
00:24:18.960
And the conservatives, they put up a candidate named Tamara Jensen.
00:24:23.800
Now, the conservatives, they've tried to move away from their stance on abortion issues,
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just to try not to talk about it, and probably have said he's pro-choice.
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So you would think that this is an easy candidate for the liberals to attack the conservatives on,
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The liberals, they love harping on the abortion issue.
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But instead, the liberals, they got decimated in this by-election.
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Remember how I said the liberals won the last election in Cloverdale, Langley?
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Instead, the conservatives won this by-election with 66.3% of the vote, with the liberals at 16%.
00:25:09.580
We never see this in politics, from one election to another.
00:25:13.280
If you extrapolate a 50-point win nationally, that means that the conservatives would win
00:25:23.220
But a 50-point swing in British Columbia province that the liberals are supposed to be competitive
00:25:29.740
in, this is not like in Alberta, where the conservatives win 66.3% of the vote if they put a horse as the
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But instead, they lost a by-election that they were supposed to be competitive in.
00:25:45.240
Now, going into the election day, we thought that the conservatives would win.
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This probably had something to do with an announcement earlier in the day that Christian
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A lot of liberal voters probably said, well, what's the point of even going to the polls?
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But it looks as if the liberals are digging themselves in a deeper and deeper hole.
00:26:09.460
These by-elections are getting worse and worse for Trudeau and the liberals.
00:26:12.940
And it doesn't seem as if they're going to be able to save very much furniture in that
00:26:19.440
What do you guys think of this by-election result?
00:26:25.020
I always say, don't ever read too, too much into any one by-election.
00:26:30.260
There can be weird things happening in by-elections, lower turnout, and rarely does a future of
00:26:37.700
a government hang on the outcome of a single by-election.
00:26:40.620
All of that being said, I think you have to look at the series of by-elections that have
00:26:44.560
happened over the past eight or so months, past year.
00:26:49.280
And the fact that the liberals are now consistently losing what had been described as safe liberal
00:26:53.660
seats to the conservatives and, in one case, to the bloc, I think is painting a very worrying
00:26:59.840
picture for what this means to the Liberal Party.
00:27:03.080
Now, if you look at other advanced democracies, the Liberal Party is a bit of an anomaly.
00:27:14.200
It's moved quite far to the left, I would say, under the leadership of Mr. Trudeau and
00:27:32.680
But having this centrist party exist sort of between a left-wing opposition and a right-wing
00:27:40.000
And in many places, centrist parties just have been unable to continue existing after electoral
00:27:46.720
And that, you know, you look at Ontario and the Kathleen Wynne Liberals, well, the Liberal Party
00:27:52.460
has disappeared virtually or become, you know, a very much less of a factor.
00:27:58.040
Alberta, we don't have a Liberal Party anymore.
00:27:59.860
I mean, maybe we do on paper, but it doesn't say or do anything.
00:28:03.280
It's either the United Conservative Party or the New Democrats.
00:28:10.060
So the real worry for the Liberal Party isn't just losing this upcoming election to Pierre
00:28:14.740
It could be losing the Liberal Party as a political force, as a viable alternative in party politics.
00:28:22.600
The only saving grace, I would say, for the Liberal Party is the fact that the New Democrats
00:28:27.880
are being led by Jag Eatsingh, who is just so incompetent as a political party leader.
00:28:33.820
If the New Democrats had a competent leader who was politically astute, who was good on
00:28:40.040
policy, leading an energized United Caucus, I bet that the amount of space between, you
00:28:46.260
know, popular support, they would just be crushing those Liberals in between them and
00:28:51.480
And a bag showing for the Liberal Party now could send them into the wilderness, maybe for
00:29:01.420
Maybe letting my political, partisan political feelings show just a little bit there.
00:29:06.400
Well, you bring up a great point, because even in Canada, you see this consolidation
00:29:14.860
In British Columbia, you have the NDP, and, you know, there was a nominally center-right
00:29:19.920
party, the B.C. Liberals, they renamed to the B.C. United.
00:29:23.560
But they got outshined by a center-right party that is, you know, unafraid to say that they're
00:29:34.160
You see in Alberta, the Liberals get pushed out.
00:29:36.800
In Ontario, it looks like the NDP and the Liberals, they're both suffering from weak
00:29:41.020
So we'll see what party rises to the top once one of them becomes electorally viable.
00:29:47.480
You see even in Manitoba, they have the PC-NDP divide.
00:29:50.780
It looks as if Canada is polarizing into falling into one or two distinct political identities,
00:29:59.500
either you're center-right or center-left, and that's about it.
00:30:02.500
And it seems as if this consolidation would be happening on the federal level, if not for
00:30:09.560
If the NDP were, as William said, a lot stronger, you'd probably see the Liberals being pushed
00:30:16.360
But you have this problem where Justin Trudeau is staying on, and his brand is very toxic
00:30:24.720
You go even in the streets of Toronto, and you talk about Justin Trudeau to the average
00:30:29.440
person, and they're not going to have great things to say about him.
00:30:33.040
So Trudeau is hastening the decline of the Liberal brand in Canada.
00:30:37.800
But as William says, Jang Lee Singh just cannot capitalize on this.
00:30:41.940
The NDP have been going down in all their by-election results, as have the Liberals, and it's making
00:30:47.400
it very easy for Pierre Poliav to pick up all the people who are frustrated with the government
00:30:53.440
as supporters and to get them to vote for the CPC in the next election.
00:30:58.720
To that point, mentioning center-left and Manitoba and by-elections, the NDP won a by-election
00:31:08.860
And I learned this week that NDP Premier Wab Kanu of Manitoba, did you know that he speaks
00:31:20.660
He speaks English, obviously, Ojibwe, and French.
00:31:25.080
And gotta say, dude's a very good communicator.
00:31:30.760
Speaking of watching with a lot of popcorn, did we want to get to President-elect Trump
00:31:48.280
Okay, so for folks, again, who haven't been following, U.S. President-elect and former
00:31:53.020
President Donald Trump has been apparently following Canadian politics pretty closely.
00:31:57.700
As we know, he is threatening, very seriously, a 25% tariff on stuff that we ship in to the
00:32:08.180
Our relationship with the United States, as far as just trade goes, forget the fact that
00:32:13.220
we're neighbors and relatives and allies and all that stuff and good friends, our trade
00:32:22.340
It is not duplicated anywhere else in the world.
00:32:24.440
It is billions and billions and billions of dollars that cross that border.
00:32:28.620
And he's apparently been watching a lot of this stuff going back and forth, and so much
00:32:33.060
so that I actually had a relative text me earlier this week, like, freaked right out,
00:32:38.020
like, about Manifest Destiny and, aren't you worried about this?
00:32:41.660
So just off the top, I'll take my CTF hat off, because tariffs are bad and we should take
00:32:48.920
But as somebody who was raised in the 80s, I've read Donald Trump's main book, Art of
00:32:56.380
the Deal, and I used to watch wrestling all the time, and I would occasionally tune in
00:33:05.660
This is like somebody getting ready for an MMA fight and giving you shots beforehand.
00:33:10.980
He is trash-talking you before he pulls you into the octagon.
00:33:15.560
So to me, I know, I don't think that the U.S. Army is going to roll across the 49th parallel.
00:33:23.860
William, are you gathering your acorns to use them in your slingshot, or what's happening
00:33:30.840
You know, I think it's funny to watch the reaction to Mr. Trump's comments, because the
00:33:39.540
hysteria we're seeing from some quarters, is precisely what Mr. Trump wants to have happen.
00:33:47.000
He's saying these things precisely to elicit a response.
00:33:52.440
And the more the Canadian side flaps about, the more strength it puts his position in for
00:34:00.220
negotiating when the actual negotiation comes to pass.
00:34:04.340
We're in the pre-negotiation phase right now, you know, where he's laid out dire trade consequences
00:34:10.800
for Canada unless progress is made on several issues.
00:34:14.820
And now he is simply fanning the flames of sowing the seeds of discord or sanity on our
00:34:24.480
side in order to simply be able to put himself in a position to extract more concessions for
00:34:31.180
The best thing any people could do would be to focus on the trade issue and the specific
00:34:38.280
border issues that Mr. Trump has brought forward and ignore everything else.
00:34:44.340
Because if he tweets something and doesn't get a response, he's going to move on to something
00:34:51.740
He won't just keep saying something if there's no response to it.
00:34:54.920
If we keep responding with increasingly insane responses, then he's going to be saying it
00:35:01.940
for the next 8, 12, 18, however many years he manages to keep himself in the White House
00:35:13.900
And, you know, should Canada, you know, ever find itself on the receiving end, there's only
00:35:20.240
a few things I can say, which is, first of all, good luck trying to afford a house up here right
00:35:30.560
And secondly, to Mr. Trump's and Republicans' own best interests, Canada would be a blue state,
00:35:39.840
Do you really want to give more electoral votes to the Democrats in every presidential election?
00:35:45.680
Strategically, not a great idea for President Trump and the Republicans.
00:35:50.320
So just keep that in mind, Mr. President-elect, when you're making things.
00:35:54.640
Noah, I think Polly was right when he stated in his press conference something along the
00:36:07.520
And freaking out about him teasing us, saying, oh, Governor Trudeau, 51st state, just screams
00:36:19.500
Well, my general take was, this kind of reminds me of when a little kid makes a joke that adults
00:36:26.180
find funny, and then they just keep repeating it and repeating it, and it just loses all
00:36:32.900
Like, Trump, he's a bit childish, in my opinion.
00:36:36.960
And he thinks it's funny, you know, prodding Canadians over this joke.
00:36:44.700
You know, we like to think of ourselves as better than Americans.
0.66
00:36:48.300
Oh, we have a better health care system than you guys.
00:37:00.300
You know, before in the 1800s, they used to say, we're more religious than you guys.
00:37:05.580
But, like, we always have had this insecurity since 1867 and even before.
00:37:12.080
So, Trump exploiting this is kind of funny, you know, as someone who doesn't take Trump
00:37:17.120
very seriously when he says these types of things.
00:37:19.680
But, as William said, we do need to take serious the trade thing.
00:37:24.160
And we need to, you know, make overtures to Trump and flatter him a little.
00:37:30.800
When Trump went to visit China, Xi Jinping, you know, fouled him with, you know, this pomp
00:37:35.960
and ceremony and, you know, probably fed him some good food, some McDonald's.
00:37:39.540
And, you know, he's like, wow, this Xi guy, you know, I really like this guy.
0.55
00:37:46.360
He's like, oh, Kim Jong-un, you know, he's not rocking that anymore.
00:37:49.980
But, you know, when he goes to visit, like, Germany or whatever, and Angela Merkel's, like,
00:37:54.520
you know, giving him a scorn, like a sour face.
00:37:56.980
Like, you know, that doesn't help American-German relations, and it doesn't help Canadian-American
00:38:02.800
So, I think what Daniel Smith is doing is really smart.
00:38:05.740
Going on Fox News, talking to American conservatives, you know, putting forward the Canadian conservative
00:38:12.060
position that a lot of Americans would resonate with.
00:38:15.240
I think Xi has been a great leader when it comes to trying to deal with the threat of tariffs.
00:38:22.980
You know, he goes to, like, a conference and makes a speech about how the Americans should
00:38:28.820
have voted in Kamala Harris, and, you know, the Americans are sexist because of it.
00:38:33.300
You know, it's not smart when you're trying to flatter, you're supposed to be trying to
00:38:39.140
flatter Trump to get him to remove these tariffs.
00:38:42.400
But, you know, Trudeau is stuck in this, like, now that he realizes that he's done with his
00:38:49.760
time in office, pretty much, he's going to just, you know, become a bit more ideological,
00:38:55.180
He's going to try and keep Pierre Poliev out of office as long as possible because he views
00:39:00.020
And he's going to, you know, prod and poke Donald Trump because he views Donald Trump
00:39:08.400
Damned what that's going to do to the Canadian economy.
00:39:10.640
We've got to, you know, tell Trump that he's a sexist.
00:39:12.780
So, you know, but just in general, I think the joke should not be taken seriously.
00:39:18.140
We're not going to become the 51st state guys, you know, don't worry.
00:39:21.400
And if they invade, we got army of moose, I think, you know, we ride them like, you know,
00:39:27.880
like horse, just instead of, you know, horse, we got the atlers to ram into the tanks.
00:39:34.400
So a nice way of putting it is that when you're trying to imagine like you're getting
00:39:42.560
married, OK, and you're melding two families together, maybe the families have their differences.
00:39:48.440
The best thing to do is to meet people where they are, find commonality and ingratiate
00:39:54.100
yourselves to them based on those common interests.
00:39:57.160
So to your point, Noah, on Premier Daniel Smith, she's doing the smart thing.
00:40:02.080
She's climbing into Trump's living room by going on Fox News and going on Fox Business
00:40:14.020
She's talking about facts and laying out what she's going to do to uphold her end of the
00:40:20.180
That is how you make deals with adults is showing how you're going to uphold your end of the
00:40:26.520
And so it is very good that we have some premiers in Canada who can be the adults in the room.
00:40:34.260
So Premier Ford out in Ontario is getting a lot of play this way.
00:40:38.340
I would say that's largely because it's an Ontario dominated mainstream media still.
00:40:42.980
I am a little biased because I'm a Western Canadian gal.
00:40:46.120
I think Premier Smith is doing a great job of kind of doing the Captain Canada thing here
00:40:51.660
right now because she's talking about facts and dates.
00:40:56.960
And this is all leading back to the initial reason why apparently Trump said all this.
00:41:04.980
Like that generally will just benefit Canadians.
00:41:09.000
At the Taxpayers Federation, we've been railing against the gun grab, for example, here, where
00:41:13.880
the Trudeau government is trying to penalize law abiding licensed firearms owners and steal
00:41:20.300
our property from us, even though he is letting tons of illegal weapons and firearms and guns
00:41:26.520
rush across our border back and forth all the time.
00:41:29.360
So sure, he needs to be taken seriously because, of course, a tariff like that is going to damage
00:41:34.340
economies, frankly, on both sides of the border.
00:41:36.340
Because if you want to get back to Premier Ford, the auto pact, the auto industry, they're
00:41:48.100
We just need to actually make a good deal and stop taking so much of this personally.
00:41:55.220
William and Noah, thank you so much for joining us.
00:41:57.920
Please leave your comments under the channel here on the YouTube channel.
00:42:02.320
You can always go to the True North website and send us a message there.
00:42:07.640
But until then, remember, everything we've said is off the record.
00:42:18.300
Off the record, they're posting on the internet.
00:42:21.740
I mean, I think Danielle makes a good point, too, where she's trying to debunk that hundred
1.00
00:42:27.920
And I think that's useful saying a lot of its raw imports into the United States, oil, gas
00:42:33.740
and lumber and other things which big American companies, you know, turn into really great
00:42:39.920
products that they sell for trillions of dollars on the global market.
00:42:43.640
So, you know, why don't we look at it as we're investing in each other?
00:42:47.760
We're being part of a team that together we're both going to be successful.
00:42:51.760
So I really hope that message starts to start sneaking out there.
00:42:58.640
And he'll be so impressed that smart Daniel Smith is saying this back to him.
00:43:04.280
This is my I'm very optimistic when it comes to this stuff.
00:43:17.120
And I mean, like, you know, you're elected on a mandate of like improving things.
00:43:20.400
It's like, oh, immediately our prices are up 20 percent because we're the tariff on Canada.
00:43:25.100
You know, that that won't really play well in America.