Off the Record - Carney's cringe factory tour

00:00:00.000 Isaac, did Noah contract you out to fix his basement there?

00:00:05.700 No, yeah, they're calling for, well, let's see here.

00:00:08.360 They're calling for about 20 centimeters of snow.

00:00:10.660 So that's looking like, yeah, about that much in Edmonton today.

00:00:14.180 So I thought there might be some hail.

00:00:15.720 So I just, you know, threw this on.

00:00:16.940 There could be falling debris.

00:00:18.440 My roof is questionable at best.

00:00:20.440 I didn't know people who went to snowplow need to put on a hard hat for their job.

00:00:24.280 You know, it's kind of like wearing a mask inside your truck for COVID.

00:00:27.260 But, you know, good on you, Isaac.

00:00:30.000 You're like, well, good.

00:00:30.860 You're a real Mark Carney out there.

00:00:32.340 You know, you can run for private minister next.

00:00:33.880 Yeah, I just wanted to fit in at Carney's press conference there.

00:00:38.020 You know, safety first.

00:00:39.640 You look like you're about to prepare for the economy to collapse on you any second now.

00:00:45.900 Yeah, hopefully True North can reimburse me for this PPE I had to purchase.

00:00:49.860 Yeah, as soon as those tariffs on Canadian energy comes on, boom, your roof collapses on you.

00:00:55.880 So, you know, safety first.

00:00:57.120 So I really, I really think you think you're doing a good job for yourself.

00:01:02.120 All right, guys, let's get right into it.

00:01:04.680 Talking about Mark Carney and some other major stories this week.

00:01:07.780 So, Artie, off to a shaky start for Mark Carney.

00:01:14.740 We've seen him present himself as the everyday working man, most recently at a steel factory.

00:01:23.200 But with questionably no workers present, just Mark Carney and the usual suspects.

00:01:30.120 Now, this got a lot of traction on social media, people pointing out where are the workers?

00:01:36.840 Why is Mark Carney dressed like that?

00:01:38.980 Why is he wearing a hard hat that way?

00:01:42.680 And what do you guys make of this?

00:01:45.180 Is this the grand entrance that Canadians expected of Mark Carney?

00:01:49.740 Or are we looking at more of the same with Trudeau's similar antics as before? 0.99

00:01:57.080 Well, he looks like an absolute goofball. 0.86

00:02:00.160 And I mean, this is only like the first day of like, you know, his time as prime minister. 0.98

00:02:04.740 First week.

00:02:05.740 Like, you know. 0.68

00:02:06.800 Even goofier than me, Noah?

00:02:07.820 Well, you know, Isaac, at least, you know, you look like you should have the hard hat on. 0.82

00:02:12.820 Carney looks like, you know, he's never been within 10 feet of a hard hat in his life.

00:02:17.300 But in any event, I think that if you are the president of the United States and, you know,

00:02:21.800 you're trying to impose tariffs on Canada or at least strike a bargain or strike a hard bargain with Canada.

00:02:28.100 And you see, you know, Canada has a new prime minister.

00:02:30.600 You look across the pond. 0.93

00:02:31.640 He's looking like a goof on like the first week.

00:02:33.540 You know, what signal does that really send?

00:02:35.880 I don't think it's a positive signal.

00:02:37.820 But it also shows that Mark Carney is willing to just, you know, evolve and adapt, transform

00:02:42.920 into whatever he feels like he needs to become in order to be successful politically.

00:02:48.900 I mean, he wrote a whole book called Values talking about the virtues of carbon taxes.

00:02:54.760 And then, you know, one of his first campaign announcements is that he's going to drop the

00:02:58.920 consumer carbon tax.

00:02:59.960 You know, he's looking to keep the industrial carbon tax, which is really what drives up the

00:03:03.340 prices on, you know, food and, you know, pretty much everything in the economy.

00:03:07.260 Uh, but, you know, he is going to abandon one of his core values, uh, for political gain.

00:03:13.360 Uh, he's going to, uh, you know, let the world burn, you know, if this were, uh, 2020 Carney,

00:03:19.140 uh, talking to, uh, 2025 Carney.

00:03:21.780 But, you know, it is really interesting to see that, uh, Carney is going to try and, you know,

00:03:28.060 engage in the same political gimmicks that Justin Trudeau engaged in, uh, in his, uh,

00:03:32.340 nine and a half years and what led him to becoming unpopular, which is, you know, dressing up

00:03:36.460 in these, all these costumes or whatever.

00:03:38.120 And, you know, instead of just embracing the fact that he's a banker and he's an aristocrat

00:03:42.560 and just, you know, wearing a suit to the event and saying, Hey, you know, it wouldn't

00:03:45.760 be incumbents on me, uh, to wear that, you know, just, uh, he's going to play dress up.

00:03:51.300 Yeah, the, the word that stood out for me there, Cosmin, that you used was costume as

00:03:57.300 well.

00:03:57.700 Uh, really they are playing dress up because Carney is only pretending to even care about

00:04:03.600 the working class.

00:04:04.420 As we saw in those pictures on X, he was at the steel plant, not a single worker was

00:04:09.260 there.

00:04:09.640 You, you can guess why that may have been, but then we saw the contrast, the complete

00:04:14.020 contrast with a conservative leader, Pierre Polyevre, when he took pictures at a steel plant

00:04:19.300 among 30, 40 workers standing alongside him because they agree with his policies.

00:04:24.560 They agree with his future for Canada.

00:04:26.800 And, you know, that's really what it comes down to here.

00:04:29.720 I think that Polyevre really wants to present himself as, uh, a supporter of the working class.

00:04:38.760 Whereas I think Carney's just playing make-believe here.

00:04:43.120 Well, it brings up an interesting dynamic that we're seeing at play heading into the next

00:04:47.260 election and we've seen in past endorsements that somehow the conservative candidate, Pierre

00:04:53.800 Polyevre, suddenly is getting endorsements from unions.

00:04:57.760 Whereas that used to be the traditional territory of the NDP, of the liberals.

00:05:02.700 I think it has scared the NDP.

00:05:04.560 I think Jagmeet Singh has totally dropped the ball, uh, despite his repeated claims to represent

00:05:10.700 workers, blue collar Canadians, the working class.

00:05:14.080 He has distanced himself, not only by his support of the liberals who are essentially to blame

00:05:21.640 for the current economic woes, the, you know, stagnation of, uh, wages, but also the inflation,

00:05:28.640 which impacts all of our wallets at the end of the day, but also his own personal choices.

00:05:34.640 Jagmeet Singh has made quite a few personal choices where he's shown himself to be this champagne

00:05:40.120 socialist, you know, getting into Maseratis, wearing expensive watches and suits and presenting

00:05:46.000 himself in this way.

00:05:47.880 And conservative leader Pierre Polyevre is benefiting off of it.

00:05:51.820 And here we see an attempt with Carney trying to paint himself as this, uh, figure as this

00:05:58.780 friend, so to speak.

00:06:01.060 And Noah, you bring up an interesting point because you talked about the carbon tax.

00:06:05.480 Now the liberals want that problem to go away.

00:06:08.880 They hope that Carney's solution, this idea of an industrial carbon tax settles the matter,

00:06:16.240 but I don't think it does.

00:06:17.500 And we've spoken about this in the show quite a few times since Mark Carney was first floated

00:06:22.680 as the liberal leader and now prime minister, that he hasn't actually addressed the main issue

00:06:31.340 here. If you impose an industrial carbon tax, that is going to get passed down to consumers one way

00:06:39.340 or another. The industry giants, the industry businesses are not just going to shoulder that

00:06:46.020 cost themselves. They will find a way to pass on that cost into their products and eventually into the

00:06:53.500 products that consumers buy.

00:06:55.360 So it's funny because in one hand, he's talking about taxing industry, introduce, uh, introducing

00:07:04.280 a industrial carbon tax. And here he is appearing at some industrial site as a friend of the

00:07:11.680 industry. It doesn't match up like what, where, where is the consistency here? And he's also been on

00:07:18.800 the record in interviews saying, you know, I don't buy steel. Do you buy steel? And he's, he's made

00:07:23.720 jokes about that, but here he is doing this. Like, how is he really, is there a consistent message

00:07:31.080 coming here from the liberals in their introduction of Mark Carney, who is the prime minister of Canada?

00:07:37.860 Has he presented himself in a way that actually makes sense and is coherent to the voter? Because

00:07:44.060 coherence really is what matters having a coherent message when you go to the ballot, which we're

00:07:49.400 expecting to do in about a month's time or so.

00:07:53.440 Well, Carney didn't need to present a coherent message in the liberal leadership race because of

00:07:59.040 who he was going up against. I mean, let's be realistic. The liberal party executive, uh, the

00:08:04.400 committee running the election, uh, they wanted Mark Carney to win. Mark Carney was the establishment

00:08:09.720 candidate. He, who is, he's the person that Justin Trudeau wanted to win. He's the person who the

00:08:15.720 majority of Justin Trudeau's cabinet backed to win in this race. And, you know, surprise, surprise,

00:08:21.500 Mark Carney won. And, you know, it wasn't like his competition was great either. Karina Gould was,

00:08:26.360 you know, uh, just presented herself like a bit of a far left lunatic. And she wasn't exactly the most, 1.00

00:08:31.500 uh, popular cabinet minister in the Trudeau government besides, uh, what some online liberals

00:08:36.840 might have you believe. Uh, Christian Freeland was the most popular, but she didn't really endear

00:08:41.560 anybody to any, uh, endear to anybody because she ran just a terrible campaign, uh, with a weird 1.00

00:08:47.080 message and ultimately didn't, uh, you know, show herself to be competent in her time in government. 1.00

00:08:53.400 So Mark Carney was basically coronated. So he didn't have to provide that coherent message,

00:08:57.660 but now once he's going to be tested, uh, by Jamie Singh and Pierre Polievre and use François Blanchet

00:09:03.780 and by the Canadian media as the prime minister and not just a potential prime minister,

00:09:09.040 he is going to have to, you know, make his message more coherent. What is your, uh, position on

00:09:15.020 pipelines? Do you support an East to West pipeline that runs through Quebec or do you respect la

00:09:20.340 souverance du Québec? And are you not going, are you going to avoid, uh, such a pipeline? What is

00:09:25.440 your position on carbon taxes? Do you think that carbon taxes actually benefit industry? Cause that's

00:09:30.380 his position. He said that the industrial carbon tax actually helps industry to remain competitive,

00:09:35.180 but I don't see how that's helping, uh, industry remain competitive when it's just going to increase

00:09:39.560 the price of their product and make their product less competitive compared to say American steel or,

00:09:44.920 uh, Chinese, uh, or other, uh, steel from other countries. So, uh, it is really, he's going to have

00:09:50.980 to, you know, sell, uh, some of his items that are not going to be popular with liberals because that

00:09:56.100 is the message that they've been pushing for the past nine and a half years while also trying to be a

00:10:01.860 sort of change candidate. And there are going to be, uh, some conflicts in trying to portray himself

00:10:07.240 as, you know, a continuity liberal and also the change candidate. And, you know, I'm pretty sure

00:10:13.240 that Pierre Poliev's team is waiting for, uh, Carney to make some of those contradictions so that he can

00:10:18.760 point them out to the Canadian people and put them out in, uh, campaign ads.

00:10:24.200 Just one thing I wanted to add before we potentially move on, because I'd forgotten to mention it,

00:10:28.060 when I last spoke, this was in regard to Carney having no workers at this announcement. Uh, it just

00:10:34.900 reminded me of prime minister, Justin Trudeau during the end of his tenure and the press conferences

00:10:41.880 similarly that he would hold, uh, regarding anything to do with the trades would have to

00:10:45.940 essentially be done in complete and utter secrecy because otherwise, uh, these workers would just

00:10:51.500 berate him. Uh, we, we saw him getting questioned things he couldn't answer. And, and people were like,

00:10:56.160 what, how are you going to help me? How are you going to fix my life? He, he, he, he didn't have

00:11:00.080 the answers they were looking for. People would be yelling at him from across the street. He basically

00:11:03.460 had to, we saw some press conferences, he was doing them in like secret underground places. I mean,

00:11:08.460 that just reminded me of that when I saw the pictures of Carney at the steel mill there with

00:11:14.240 no workers present. Yeah, definitely. I think the one aura that he gives off and that voters are

00:11:22.460 picking up on is inauthenticity and almost a smugness and assuredness that he's going to become

00:11:30.880 prime minister for a while and that he's got this in the bag. And he has reasons to, if you look at

00:11:37.980 some of the recent polls, more reputable ones, Leger showing a boost in his popularity, you know,

00:11:44.180 some even showing neck and neck tie with the conservatives, but maintaining that attitude,

00:11:51.200 uh, while Canadians are watching closely being super attentive. I would think that,

00:11:58.900 you know, we had this leadership race, Canadians probably heard about it, probably saw it on the

00:12:05.120 news, uh, listened to some discussions, maybe mentioned it once or twice in their family.

00:12:10.060 But when we're talking about an election, a general election at a time when we are facing

00:12:17.600 an existential threat to our economy, uh, potentially our own sovereignty, we, we have

00:12:25.340 nine years of disastrous policies. Canadians are going to be paying a lot of attention to this,

00:12:33.420 uh, election that's coming up. And they're going to look at every single thing that Mark Carney

00:12:39.720 says as well as Polyev and the other candidates, but they're going to make sure to evaluate that

00:12:48.680 and, and bring that with them when they go to the bullet ballot box. So in short, what I'm saying is

00:12:55.940 that is Carney really up to the task? Because one of the things he's presented himself as is this

00:13:03.340 outsider. And most of us don't believe that he's not an outsider. He's as about as establishment as you

00:13:09.120 can get. But one thing he doesn't have is that experience of having the public eye, the constant

00:13:16.020 scrutiny of every single word you say, every claim you make being fact-checked. And Carney has proven

00:13:23.280 himself to be quite poor at that. From what we've seen, he's made so many statements that don't line

00:13:28.780 up with reality. He's embellished his own record. He's taken credit for other people's work and he's

00:13:34.620 exaggerated what he's actually achieved. So, uh, to, to carry on with that, there's a clip from this, um,

00:13:42.700 from this event. He, he held this announcement at this plant and it just goes to show that Noah,

00:13:48.880 you've had experience with this being, you know, showing up to Carney's events. He doesn't want to

00:13:53.980 talk to the media. He feels like, uh, he feels entitled to not having to answer questions to the

00:14:01.020 media. And you could just see it when he's getting into this car, just look at his face and how his

00:14:06.220 attitude when he's getting, uh, questions thrown at him in this clip. So Noah, as a journalist who

00:14:13.580 has experience dealing with Mark Carney at his events, is this the same thing you've experienced

00:14:19.240 from him? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, uh, my situations were different. The first time I went to a Mark Carney

00:14:26.520 event, I was able to kind of slip into the crowd and they didn't really notice me, even though I had

00:14:32.120 my phone on a tripod and I was recording his entire speech. And then I sort of approached him,

00:14:37.360 you know, as if I was one of the, uh, Carney fans in the crowd. Uh, but then, yeah, I asked him a

00:14:42.760 serious question. I asked him a question about the car, the carbon tax. I don't think he recognized that

00:14:47.580 I was a journalist, uh, at that point. And he, you know, gave a pretty candid answer to basically

00:14:53.220 saying, Oh, you know, I didn't talk about that, uh, uh, in my speech, but, uh, you know, I'm going

00:14:58.860 to, you know, throw some bones for you guys later. It's like, okay. Uh, but the other times I went to

00:15:03.980 Carney events, uh, I was, you know, barred at the door, uh, in an Oakville event. I went to, uh, at

00:15:10.720 the boating club in the local boating club in Oakville. Uh, I was not allowed inside the event and

00:15:16.680 it was for probably good reason. Uh, Anita and Nan spoke at that, uh, event and, uh, they just didn't

00:15:22.040 want any journalist, uh, who is going to report on, uh, the facts of the story and perhaps

00:15:27.660 a, you know, not, uh, glowing light. Um, I think that it's global and CTV, uh, reporters

00:15:34.420 were allowed in. And this is also the case at, uh, his most recent, uh, event in Mississauga,

00:15:39.600 uh, global CTV, CPC journalists were allowed in, but I was barred. Rebel news journalists were

00:15:45.480 barred, uh, and, uh, Kareem Assad, the independent, uh, uh, investigating journalist. She was also

00:15:51.280 barred from, uh, entering the event. Uh, they even threatened to call, uh, the RCMP on me. Uh,

00:15:56.980 so this is the MO of Mark Carney. Try to avoid Canadian media as much as possible, especially

00:16:03.520 if they're independent media, especially if they, you know, don't mind reporting on the

00:16:08.560 negative facts, you know, Carney, uh, and his team probably sees the stuff that goes up on

00:16:13.920 the Juno news website and says, wow, you know, they're actually reporting on the stuff that

00:16:17.540 Bark Carney has said in the past, in his books, at his, uh, the world economic forum speeches,

00:16:22.340 uh, you know, this is an outlet that we don't want at our, uh, events. You know, what if they

00:16:28.720 report on something that he says, you know, and this is not the attitude that our prime minister

00:16:33.300 should be having, uh, even though he was, uh, just, uh, appointed as prime minister at the

00:16:39.760 governor general's mansion a few hours ago. Uh, it is clear that, you know, we, or it is unclear

00:16:45.860 what he stands for. And that is largely because, uh, media outlets have not been able to question

00:16:50.380 him on the issues that matters to Canadians. Let's not forget, Noah, there's nothing new

00:16:55.860 under the sun. I of course went to Carney's campaign launch in Edmonton and was banned

00:16:59.860 from entering the building along with all other independent media. We weren't even allowed in the

00:17:04.500 building. I, I, other media were even trespassed off the property just for showing up, uh, only the

00:17:10.740 legacy media that the liberals fund were allowed at Carney's campaign launch. And I, I, this has

00:17:16.100 been consistent over his small tenure thus far, but I don't see that changing in the future.

00:17:22.220 Yes. And it's provided a lot of fodder for Pierre Polyev. He came punching right out of the gate

00:17:28.340 after Mark Carney was elected, a leader spoke directly to the media, gave a statement, answered

00:17:34.680 questions. Uh, a lot of the time that legacy media blames Pierre Polyev for shutting them out

00:17:42.560 and taking only one question, no follow-ups, et cetera. But here he immediately goes right in front

00:17:50.660 of a press conference, takes questions about his own record and hits back at, at Mark Carney. And,

00:17:57.860 and I think there is an obvious contrast here and it might be a political calculation by Pierre

00:18:04.520 Polyev moving in to the next election to show that he's willing to tangle with the media and he's

00:18:11.520 willing to tangle with the opponent. And there are some comparisons to be made here. If we look

00:18:17.340 south of the border with Joe Biden and the way that he was sheltered for the last, uh, you know,

00:18:24.340 before he's eventually stepped down from his campaign, the media essentially sheltered him. They

00:18:28.580 totally denied, uh, some of the issues, uh, you know, health issues, old age issues that he had

00:18:35.500 and were eventually forced to confess that they did. They ignored this problem for so long,

00:18:41.180 but they also did the same thing with Kamala Harris. She was horrendous in front of the camera. 1.00

00:18:46.320 She was awful in interviews. She couldn't provide coherent answers to any questions and it ended up

00:18:53.600 backfiring on them. And Mark Carney, when I look at his performance before, uh, at his campaign

00:19:00.620 speeches, there's no, you know, excitement, there's no vitality. He's kind of boring to listen to, but

00:19:06.800 let's jump to a Pierre Polyev's criticisms right after the liberal leadership of prime minister Carney.

00:19:13.520 Now, Mark Carney is trying to hide from his record over the last five years of advising Trudeau in favor

00:19:19.740 of raising carbon taxes, money printing inflation and blocking resource projects, all while he moved

00:19:26.380 his company headquarters and jobs to the United States. You know, it's ironic. Mr. Carney is trying

00:19:33.020 to distract from his many scandals and conflicts of interest, as well as his disastrous record as

00:19:38.300 Justin Trudeau's economic advisor, by talking about Trump. He's the guy that sold out to Trump. Six days

00:19:46.300 after Donald Trump threatened Canada with tariffs to steal our jobs, Mark Carney announced to Brookfield

00:19:54.060 shareholders that he would move his headquarters from Canada to New York. And when you asked him

00:19:59.500 about it, he lied to your face. We got it in writing and we proved it. He sold out Canada. He put his profit

00:20:09.100 ahead of our people and he did exactly what Donald Trump wanted. Never before have we had a prime minister so

00:20:15.900 conflicted and compromised and yet so little scrutinized. Just like when he supported carbon taxes in Canada while

00:20:23.500 investing in American coal. He opposed Canadian pipelines while his company bought Middle East pipelines.

00:20:32.300 He has millions of dollars of financial interest that run against Canada's national interests. He gets rich

00:20:40.220 making Canadians poor. You can be sure about one thing. Donald Trump's going to have a briefing on his desk

00:20:47.580 of all of Mark Carney's American investments. And he is going to leverage all of Carney's profit motive

00:20:55.500 against the interest of the Canadian people. And we know Carney will sell out Canada for his personal

00:21:01.980 profit. He's already done it. He's systematically done it his entire time as a corporate insider.

00:21:07.580 So we see Pierre Polyev accusing Mark Carney of having sold out Canada and moving on as prime

00:21:16.460 minister to sell out Canada even further. Can Isaac or Noah, either of you take this up,

00:21:23.180 give us a little bit of background about his own dealings, past business dealings. You know,

00:21:27.900 we've talked about statements he's made that are contradictory, particularly with regards to Brookfield,

00:21:33.340 et cetera.

00:21:36.460 Yeah, that's the thing, Cosmin. You say accusing, which I find an interesting verb, given 0.59

00:21:42.780 everything Polyev said there in the press conference is just stating facts. Carney said this,

00:21:48.300 but this is the truth. Carney said this, but this is the truth, which are, of course, complete opposites.

00:21:52.940 And then we we've seen Carney, too, saying the complete opposite thing in French versus English.

00:21:59.020 We saw him in Quebec saying, I'll never put a pipeline through Quebec, guys. Trust me, in French.

00:22:02.860 But then he speaking English Canadians, he said, oh, I'll do I'll do everything I can to get pipelines

00:22:07.580 across Canada and will be an energy behemoth. These these are two completely opposite stories he's

00:22:12.540 telling just based on the crowd he's telling it to. So it really feels taking it back to the first story

00:22:18.620 when we're talking about him dressing up in costumes at the steel mill. It really he just caters what

00:22:24.700 he's saying to the crowd he's speaking to just based on what he thinks they want to hear, which

00:22:30.780 either he could dress how they think they want to dress or he wants to say what they want to say.

00:22:34.140 Like, I don't know. It really feels more like he's acting than telling Canadians the truth.

00:22:39.900 And Polyev brings up an interesting point. He's framing this as Carney's past business dealings,

00:22:48.460 his unwillingness to disclose his financial holdings, his ties, actually make him more vulnerable

00:22:58.940 when dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump. Pierre Polyev paints this picture of Donald Trump is at his,

00:23:05.180 you know, White House desk in the Oval Office looking through Mark Carney's record.

00:23:11.660 How much of a vulnerability is Mark Carney's refusal to disclose what exactly he has,

00:23:19.660 what invested interest he has and whether there are any conflicts of interest, Noah?

00:23:24.940 Well, it's very important because Mark Carney says he's going to shell out a bunch of money for

00:23:30.940 like infrastructure projects of the like. Well, Brookfield Asset Management is vested in a lot of

00:23:37.020 companies, a lot of companies that the public doesn't really know about right now. And I'm pretty

00:23:42.620 sure Mark Carney has his own personal investments on the side. And if it is disclosed that, for example,

00:23:49.980 Mark Carney still has significant shares in Brookfield Asset Management and that the Carney government is

00:23:57.340 granting certain contracts to businesses that Brookfield is invested in, that is classic corruption.

00:24:03.980 And if the public doesn't know what companies Mark Carney is vested in, how much stock he has in

00:24:10.860 Brookfield, how much of that portfolio that it consists, what other companies he's invested in,

00:24:16.540 you know, and if these companies are going to have, you know, or do have contracts with the federal

00:24:22.300 government if they're going to apply for future contracts in the government. This is all very

00:24:26.940 important information so that, you know, we ensure that our reputation as a pretty non-corrupt country,

00:24:33.820 you know, is maintained. Now you can point to individual instances. I know that I think Montreal

00:24:40.220 mayors, for example, have had a history of getting charged with corruption. But, you know, we don't want

00:24:46.540 that happening in the federal government. So we need to ensure that Mark Carney is complying,

00:24:52.380 not just with the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law that our public officials are disclosing

00:24:57.660 their assets once they become public officials. And he's not just skirting around certain exceptions to

00:25:05.020 the law because, well, he can. Yeah. And the tariffs, let's just shift to the tariffs because that's the

00:25:12.140 central issue we're talking about. That's going to be on top of mind for everybody when they head into

00:25:17.180 an election. And we've seen for the past two months, I will give credit to the premiers. They

00:25:23.740 have taken the lead on this because we've had an absent government. There was nobody really advocating

00:25:29.500 on our behalf publicly at the federal level, but the premiers have taken it upon themselves to advocate

00:25:37.420 for Canada. And to me, that's it is a good thing because it does provide a case for provincial

00:25:44.380 autonomy and that the provinces collectively should decide the future of this country. And we shouldn't

00:25:49.340 have this heavy handed federal government approach. And in a way, it is a blessing that we have this

00:25:56.380 conversation about who is actually the representative of Canadians. And for a while with the Trudeau government,

00:26:04.300 it's been a top down sort of lecturing. We know better approach. But the premiers have taken different

00:26:12.620 approaches. You know, in Alberta, Isaac, you have Premier Danielle Smith making gains, you know,

00:26:18.540 getting that 10 percent instead of a higher tariff on Albertan oil and gas. And she's also trying to be 0.67

00:26:26.940 more conciliatory. But in Ontario, Noah, your neck of the woods, we have Doug Ford. And last,

00:26:33.900 this week, this last week, we just had Doug Ford tried to make a big play. He introduced briefly

00:26:41.980 for a moment, 25 percent surcharge on electricity sent to U.S. states, which neighbor Ontario. And

00:26:50.060 Ontario does supply U.S. states with quite a bit of electricity, I think upwards to like double digit

00:26:56.460 percentage of certain states, a composition of their energy mix. And immediately that was shot

00:27:04.300 down. So what happened, Noah? How did U.S. President Donald Trump respond to these threats from Doug Ford?

00:27:12.540 Well, as we know, Donald Trump has imposed a 25 percent tariff on aluminum and steel imports to the

00:27:19.420 United States. And so when Doug Ford said that he's going to add this 25 percent surcharge on electricity

00:27:27.100 going to American states, his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, told the president, the president

00:27:33.260 sent out a mean, menacing tweet or truth on Truth Social. And he threatened to increase that tariff from

00:27:43.420 25 percent to 50 percent on aluminum and steel, which would be a major blow to Canadian steel and

00:27:51.820 aluminum manufacturers. Because, you know, perhaps maybe they can sell to some American importers with

00:27:58.540 a 25 percent tariff. A 50 percent tariff would be catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic. So

00:28:04.620 Howard Lutnick and Doug Ford had to get together. They worked out a deal where they would both

00:28:11.180 back down from this escalatory approach to the tariff war. The United States would back down on increasing

00:28:18.140 the tariff on aluminum and steel. And Ford would back down on the surcharge on American

00:28:24.300 electricity going to America with the incentive that they both meet up in the future to renegotiate

00:28:31.180 USMCA. So overall, for people in the United States and Canada, it's a good thing that we're both in

00:28:38.300 our in a very small way deescalating this trade war. You know, you don't want it to escalate to the

00:28:44.060 point where we're imposing 100 percent tariffs on each other, which, you know, would not be good for

00:28:48.380 either of us, quite frankly. So that's a good thing. But it is quite frankly weird that Howard

00:28:55.100 Lutnick and the Trump administration sees Doug Ford as the person to negotiate the USMCA and not

00:29:01.980 the Carney government. What does that say about how the Trump administration views the Carney

00:29:06.780 government? Perhaps they view Carney as more of a placeholder or they just have more respect for Ford

00:29:13.180 and view Ford as or view Carney as a placeholder, because at the end of the day, sure, maybe

00:29:18.780 Ford didn't get the win by being able to levy the surcharge on electricity going to the United States

00:29:25.100 as a retaliatory effort. But at least Trump said that, you know, Doug Ford is a strong man. I think

00:29:30.780 that was the quote. So at least, you know, the Trump administration is showing some respect to Ford

00:29:35.580 and are willing to talk with and negotiate with Ford. We have not seen the same thing with Trudeau over the

00:29:40.620 past few months. And we currently are not seeing this with Carney. It's actually a slap in the face

00:29:45.180 that Trump wants to negotiate with Ford, not Carney. So very, very interesting to see how the Trump

00:29:51.820 administration approaches trade negotiations with Canada going forward. Now, Isaac, how does this

00:29:59.340 compare to Daniel Smith's approach? Because she has imposed her own tariffs to some degree. I know there is

00:30:06.220 the whole removing alcohol, which all the provinces have done. But how does it compare to the way Doug

00:30:12.300 Ford is approaching this in a more heavy handed, you know, fisticuffs sort of way?

00:30:18.540 Yeah, I'll just speak firstly to what Noah was saying, how the premiers have really or how you

00:30:24.380 both were saying how the premiers have really headed the negotiations over the last month or two, as we've

00:30:27.820 not had a sitting prime minister until today. And of course, Doug Ford is the head, the chair of the

00:30:33.420 Council of the Federation, which is the group of Canada's premiers. So it only makes sense that he's

00:30:37.980 been leading the negotiations with Trump and therefore Trump sees him in that light. And it's

00:30:44.380 good that he's getting some level of respect from him, which we unsurprisingly haven't seen towards

00:30:48.940 the liberals, because every press conference they hold, it feels like all they do is smack talk Trump.

00:30:53.820 Why would he respect them? As for Daniel Smith, she has taken a more

00:30:58.780 I don't want to say collaborative approach, but diplomatic approach, because she's, as we've seen

00:31:06.300 in the United States, like half the time just trying to not only negotiate with Trump, but she's speaking

00:31:12.300 to the governors, governors from all the different states saying, how can we make this work? How can we

00:31:15.900 not do these tariffs? I don't want our energy to crash. I don't want tariffs on our energy. How can we

00:31:21.340 make a deal, basically? And she's she's doing everything in her power to negotiate with

00:31:25.660 these governors. And of course, the president himself, we've seen her, yeah, probably actually

00:31:30.460 spend more time in the United States than Alberta, because she's actually over there doing the 1.00

00:31:34.620 negotiations. Well, we see some liberal leaders sit in Canada and say things but not actually do

00:31:41.580 much at all. And to your point, you know, that approach has bore some fruit. We've seen

00:31:45.820 the lower tariff rate on Canadian energy, which is definitely, you know, a good thing for Canada's

00:31:53.100 oil and gas sector. But also, you know, Daniel Smith is, you know, willing to talk to, you know,

00:31:59.260 American congressmen and senators and try to convince them that, you know, these tariffs are not a good

00:32:05.340 idea. You see, you know, for example, Rand Paul, who has always been a libertarian, you know, he vocally

00:32:10.780 says that, you know, the tariff war against Canada is a stupid idea and that we should not be doing 0.81

00:32:15.420 that because it's going to only impose higher costs on Americans. She's going to talk with Ben Shapiro, 0.96

00:32:20.520 who is a leading thought leader in the American conservative movement. And Shapiro has been one

00:32:26.760 of those commentators who says that the tariff war is actually stupid and it's going to hurt American 0.99

00:32:32.080 consumers. And, you know, this is a point that I think really should be emphasized. This is not a move 0.98

00:32:37.940 that is going to help America in the long term. It is something that Daniel Smith has been trying

00:32:42.960 to impress upon American politicians and American thought leaders now talking to Shapiro. I think

00:32:49.900 Ford has been trying to impress this upon, you know, say, viewers of American media. He's been going on

00:32:55.660 Fox and been saying this. So we've seen some premiers, you know, at least trying to articulate

00:33:01.120 the negative effects that this is going to have on their country. While, you know, people like David

00:33:07.480 Eby is not trying to do that at all. He's only, you know, banning, I think his initial idea was to

00:33:13.320 only ban American liquor imports from red states. And, you know, he's, you know, truly trying to take

00:33:18.540 it to all the Republicans. And, you know, you see a lot of liberals trying to make this a partisan

00:33:23.280 thing, a left versus right thing. And that's not right. You know, you have to, you know, they want

00:33:28.460 this team Canada approach, but they are really, you know, doing the opposite. While you have other

00:33:33.460 premiers like Smith and to an extent Ford, who are really, you know, looking out for the national

00:33:38.440 interest and actually getting these wins. And they're not, you know, berating sort of the quality

00:33:45.120 of the American leadership, you know, all the time in the way that the logos are. And, you know,

00:33:50.520 that's actually producing results. So let's just play a clip here of Donald Trump reacting to Doug Ford

00:33:57.460 walking back this electricity surcharge. And we've talked about, you know, some respect that

00:34:04.580 Trump has shown, but here it's, it is quite a different story. He's taking a victory lap and

00:34:09.720 he's claiming victory over this. In my opinion, not going to be tough. Just like when Ontario

00:34:15.180 charged us, everybody said, Oh, they just, I said, this will be one in one hour. And they announced what

00:34:21.220 we were going to do and they withdrew their little threat. And what they don't say in Canada is that

00:34:28.220 270 percent. Have you ever heard that? We have tariffs on dairy products from Canada of 270 percent

00:34:36.220 going up to 400 percent. You never hear that. Canada is absolutely one of the worst. And we,

00:34:44.220 when I say worst, worst in terms of charging tariffs, they're dairy products. They charge our

00:34:50.520 farmers 240, 250, 270 and 400 percent. Okay. Think of that for dairy product. And we charge them like

00:34:59.020 peanuts. You know why? Because we've been improperly run for so many years. I had that all settled

00:35:04.100 in my first term. But then of course, Biden, you know, he let everything go to hell.

00:35:08.780 So the tariff situation is an evolving issue. It almost changes every single day,

00:35:14.340 if not every week. We see Trump advancing his offense and then retreating a little bit and

00:35:20.820 advancing further. And to me, that that is his strategy. He wants to keep Canada on their feet,

00:35:28.780 be unpredictable in a sense. He's won elections based on his unpredictability. And his opponents

00:35:36.380 are unable to figure out what his next move is. And this is all approaching the USMCA renegotiation.

00:35:46.220 And it will be up to Carney or the next government as well to carry on that negotiation into what

00:35:53.400 deals and terms the Canadian government will have with the United States. And perhaps my hope is

00:36:01.720 that these tariffs are simply a negotiating tool to when eventually they sit down at the negotiating

00:36:09.640 table and work out in US USMCA. But that's yet to be seen. Now, just to bring this to a different

00:36:16.120 issue, I know you've all heard a lot about Mark Carney, the tariffs every single day, every week,

00:36:23.000 you turn on the TV, radio, or you read the news. It's all about these federal issues and the upcoming

00:36:29.140 election. But here in British Columbia, a university, the University of British Columbia Okanagan

00:36:36.500 campus has prohibited or rejected an attempt to set up a student conservative club. They essentially

00:36:46.760 rejected a proposal to start a club. Now, I recall from back in my university days, it was pretty common

00:36:53.080 to have a university conservative club, a university liberal club, there was young socialist club,

00:36:58.840 there was communist Marxist Leninist clubs for crying out loud when I went to school. But now

00:37:04.360 suddenly, I guess it's not acceptable to have a conservative club. Now, Noah, you're in university

00:37:11.200 still. Can you tell us what the atmosphere is, what the vibe is on campus? Is it even acceptable to be

00:37:19.000 conservative or have right wing views at a Canadian university today? Well, you'd be hard pressed to find,

00:37:26.380 you know, a student union or many professors who are tolerant of, you know, right wing or just even

00:37:33.520 moderately center-right views. Now, it depends on the professor. You know, I've had professors who

00:37:38.060 are closet conservatives and, you know, they try their best not to, you know, articulate their

00:37:43.360 conservatism because they know they'd be eaten alive by their students, which, you know, is something to

00:37:48.620 think about in and of itself. But, you know, it is really a hostile environment to conservatives or just

00:37:54.400 anybody who has, you know, just normal opinions. Like, if you go on the York University campus where

00:38:00.660 I go to, especially after October 7th, there was a ton of pro-Palestine protests, you know, on almost

00:38:07.780 a daily basis. Certainly, at least once a week, a massive protest would happen. And many, many other

00:38:14.040 universities are like this. At least at York, the campus conservative club was able to get ratified.

00:38:20.520 But the student union here even gave them a hard time. Usually, it takes about a few weeks to get

00:38:26.460 ratified by the student union. And the student union, YFS, the York Federation of Students, gave the

00:38:33.140 York conservatives a lot of, you know, just a lot of crap. It took several months to get ratified. And 0.98

00:38:39.480 it took, you know, I think, I think four months in its entirety to get ratified. It did not take the

00:38:44.900 the young communists that long. And we have two communist clubs. I'm sure it didn't take 0.79

00:38:50.480 any one of them that longer. Now, I don't know the clubs that UBC has. I know that they have a

00:38:56.580 young liberals club. I know the NDP, they operate some student clubs and the communists, definitely

00:39:01.140 operate student clubs. But if you're going to allow the liberal club, which is basically the

00:39:07.140 dominant center left party in Canada, how are you not going to allow the dominant center right

00:39:10.960 party to allow to have a club in Canada? It's not like the conservative party is some radical,

00:39:16.600 you know, far right, you know, party or whatever. And you can even argue that those clubs should be

00:39:21.540 allowed. But, you know, it's not like this is some extremist party, you know, advocating for crazy

00:39:26.800 opinions or crazy things. They're just the mainstream, the other mainstream party in Canada. And I think

00:39:33.960 that the UBC Okanagan is in a riding that had elected a conservative MLA in this past election,

00:39:42.420 I might be wrong about that. But I know for sure the central Okanagan MLA is a conservative. So it is

00:39:48.540 pretty interesting that they're represented by a party that they're not even allowed to represent on

00:39:54.720 campus. It's, it's, it's pretty disgusting and anti free speech, like the left has been for the past,

00:40:01.900 you know, decade and a half. So let me just read the decision here. This is by Student Union Vice

00:40:09.040 President Internal Rajat Arora, who includes his he him pronouns in his signature there. He says

00:40:17.400 that the board's decision were due to certain opinions and policy positions, political stances

00:40:25.820 of the party, their club would represent speaking of the federal conservatives. Actually, it's not

00:40:33.180 clear whether they're speaking of the federal conservatives or provincial conservatives. But

00:40:37.160 let's just assume both because they pretty much align on many of these issues. So they cite

00:40:43.040 these specific issues. So particularly views regarding the black and LGBTQ communities. Now,

00:40:53.180 as far as I know, the federal conservative party does not have any particular position on black

00:41:00.820 Canadians or any sort of discriminatory policies that they've promoted. And as for the LGBTQ

00:41:08.360 communities, what I assume they're mentioning is opposition to gender ideology, which they're just 0.99

00:41:15.320 generalizing as being anti gay or anti LGBT, which is totally missing the point of the entire issue. It's

00:41:22.780 against pornography in schools. It's against, you know, transitioning children. The issue is much more

00:41:29.000 complicated as just being against LGBTQ communities. So are they like, has this DI diversity, equity,

00:41:38.960 inclusion, these, this mishmash of progressive beliefs just been used? And it's been adopted all over

00:41:46.280 universities, student unions, first and foremost, Isaac, has this been used just as a hammer,

00:41:52.780 over the head of any group that might differ or oppose those particular opinions or ideological

00:41:59.000 viewpoints.

00:42:01.000 Yeah, Cosmin. And you know, this actually reminded me of was of the Canada Strong and Free Network

00:42:05.800 in Red Deer last year that I attended, where Chris Rufo, the American conservative commentator,

00:42:11.080 he spoke there and he outlined strategies for defeating wokeism, which is relevant here in regard

00:42:18.260 to this email. It's, he was saying, do not accept their premises. So when they're saying, we can't

00:42:24.600 allow a conservative club because it's anti black, anti LGBTQ. And I would respond to that email and say,

00:42:30.020 can you give me one example of a policy that's anti black from the conservatives, please, like one

00:42:34.040 example. It's not hard. You're saying this is a broad net net thing. It's just how the party is. Give me one

00:42:40.020 example, please provide me an example. And I really be interested to see how the student union

00:42:45.640 person responded to that. I mean, you could imagine. But yeah, I mean, obviously, I, I graduated from

00:42:55.560 university with my bachelor's a few years ago. But I do recall, I think there was like a communist

00:43:02.060 Marxism party on the campus, though, I won't say I know that there was a conservative one. So really,

00:43:08.200 it's, we've seen left wing ideology run amok on universities across Canada. And of course,

00:43:15.920 the the students become the professors. So it's just a revolving door of that ideology. And it's

00:43:22.480 really been the predominant, especially I mean, it depends on the faculty, because of course, if you're

00:43:28.900 in business, there's going to be more conservatives than if you're in the Bachelor of Arts, as I was

00:43:33.940 obviously in the Bachelor of Communication. So it was in the Arts Department. So it was, I walk around

00:43:39.400 some days amongst the hundreds of students and think, man, I'm the only conservative here, I could

00:43:43.060 just tell. So really, was living in the shadows. But yeah, I don't know what if I don't, I've always

00:43:51.340 thought this, I don't know what can fix what universities have become with the idea, with the

00:43:55.760 ideology and the far left wingism at universities, I really don't know what can fix it. Because as I said,

00:44:01.080 it literally is a revolving door, where the students that have these ideologies become the

00:44:05.760 professors. So I really don't know what the answer is. But what Rustad said was pretty interesting in

00:44:12.020 cutting off funding. We've seen that happen in the States, because, of course, most universities there

00:44:17.320 are through private funders. And these funders are saying, we're not supporting you if you're

00:44:22.040 implementing DEI policies. Now, the same thing can't happen in Canada with many public universities,

00:44:27.160 unless it comes from the government. Yeah, you bring up a really good point where

00:44:32.260 people are able to register, say, communist clubs, but not, you know, the mainstream conservative

00:44:38.420 club. The socialist fight back is, I think, the most predominant communist club around Canadian

00:44:45.560 campuses, but also the Communist Party of Canada. They also register our parties. So I'd be interesting

00:44:50.100 to see if any of those clubs are registered, and if they deem communism to be hateful, or at least

00:44:56.380 an extremely violent ideology. But, you know, Rustad's, you know, idea of allowing students

00:45:03.660 to opt out of paying student dues is, you know, one of common sense. It is one of personal autonomy

00:45:10.840 and freedom. If I don't want to fund the student union, well, I don't have a choice. At least at

00:45:16.360 York University, I assume it's the same thing for students who attend UBC. You don't have the choice.

00:45:22.300 You are going to contribute that, you know, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, 50 bucks to your student union.

00:45:28.260 And I don't want to, you know, personally, I don't want to contribute money to the YFS because

00:45:32.980 they promote, you know, pro-Palestine stuff. And, you know, they're rabidly anti-Israel. You know,

00:45:39.220 you could say they're pro-Hamas even. You know, I think some of the statements that the YFS has made

00:45:44.100 were utterly ridiculous. I think CIA has also condemned them, and the York administration

00:45:49.140 has condemned them because they're so radical. I don't want to contribute money to them,

00:45:53.740 but I have to. So the ability to opt out of these student unions and perhaps even create

00:45:59.240 alternative student unions, you know, that are able to compete for the ability to legitimize

00:46:06.120 certain unions and, I mean, certain clubs, and then provide those clubs with funding so that they

00:46:12.620 can carry out their events. I think that would be a really good idea. But these student unions,

00:46:18.120 they have a monopoly, they're going to do everything in their power to ensure that they

00:46:22.380 retain their monopoly. And, you know, as a monopolistic entity, they're able to impose

00:46:27.920 certain ideological, you know, certain ideological positions on the student body, even if the

00:46:35.660 majority of the student body doesn't want it or is just apathetic to it. So the way that you

00:46:42.540 combat these monopolies and break them up is by, you know, having the government, the provincial

00:46:47.480 governments intervene and say that, hey, students, you are able to opt out and, hey, you can create

00:46:52.660 your own student union. That's really the only way to be able to break the university monopoly

00:46:58.220 by the left, at least in the student unions. You know, doing that on a broader level in the

00:47:04.080 universities is such a harder task to accomplish that, you know, we don't have enough time to talk

00:47:12.360 about that here. But at least, you know, that the possibility of defunding these radical left-wing

00:47:18.380 student unions is possible.

00:47:21.100 Well, unfortunately, there have been very few, if any, provincial governments willing to be up

00:47:26.680 to the task of defunding these woke student unions, as well as universities altogether and

00:47:33.740 their imposition of DEI ideology throughout those institutions. It's definitely been an interesting

00:47:41.360 week. We are going to head into an even more interesting week, if not an election called

00:47:47.820 any moment. But as always, this has been off the record.

00:47:52.820 I think you ought to get your hard hat back, man, for the outro.

00:48:00.620 Yeah.

00:48:01.520 I got a good question for you, Cosmin.

00:48:05.440 Go ahead.

00:48:06.100 There we go.

00:48:06.980 Cosmin, did you secretly become or do you have a U.S. citizenship? I'm curious.

00:48:12.100 No.

00:48:12.440 Because you referred to the trade agreement as the USMCA, which is the common verbiage in the States,

00:48:18.940 but in Canada, it's KUSMA. And then, interestingly, in Mexico, I think it's TMAC.

00:48:24.520 Yeah.

00:48:25.700 Yeah.

00:48:26.520 So you have to say it differently based on where you are, which is totally weird.

00:48:30.560 Yeah. And in Quebec, do they call it the Etats-Unis-Can-SMA or whatever?

00:48:37.540 I'm not sure what they call it in Quebec.

00:48:39.280 The E-U-S-C-M-A or whatever. That'd be interesting.

00:48:45.640 Got to talk to some Quebecers.

00:48:47.120 Yeah. I have a few in my contacts.

00:48:51.140 Well, you're a Frenchman, Isaac. You should know this.

00:48:55.160 I should, but I'm not from Quebec.

00:48:58.160 Fair enough.

00:48:58.840 Thank you.

Off the Record - March 16, 2025

Carney's cringe factory tour

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