00:02:38.600But in this case, with retaliatory tariffs as Canadians, this is like someone who's bigger than and stronger than you challenging you to the fight.
00:02:48.200And you say, wait a minute, wait a minute.
00:02:50.120And you tie your own shoelaces together and then punch yourself in the face first.
00:02:54.900That's what we're doing, unfortunately, with these retaliatory tariffs.
00:03:03.780I mean, tariffs at the end of the day is a policy that is going to increase inflation.
00:03:08.980It's going to lower your productivity.
00:03:10.980And overall, it's going to lower your GDP.
00:03:13.340And that is going to happen in Canada and the United States.
00:03:16.220You know, the tariffs aren't going to have necessarily an extraordinary effect on the American economy.
00:03:22.300But they're also imposing tariffs on China.
00:03:24.580And they're imposing tariffs on Mexico.
00:03:26.020And they're imposing tariffs on the EU.
00:03:28.640So that cumulative effect is going to have a quite substantial effect on the American economy.
00:03:34.920But here in Canada, we have to ensure that we do everything we can in our power to ensure that our productivity is not negatively affected, our inflation doesn't rise, and our GDP has been going down on a per capita basis lately.
00:03:50.600But, you know, make sure it doesn't decline even further.
00:03:53.960And imposing counter tariffs are going to exacerbate that effect.
00:03:58.580And the United States seems to have imposed a policy whereby if you impose tariffs on them, they automatically increase tariffs.
00:04:05.960So that could increase the already 25% tariffs that the United States has imposed on us and, you know, 10% on energy products.
00:04:14.520And so when these tariffs are just mounting and mounting, how are Canadian workers going to be able to feel secure that they're going to have a job in the next week, the next month, the next year?
00:04:26.260How are Canadians going to be able to go to the grocery store and be able to, you know, buy some oranges from Florida or be able to buy some wheat products that was potentially, you know, taking some wheat from Canada and some oats from the States?
00:04:40.420It really does not help anyone on either side of the border, especially Canadians.
00:04:46.060And that's who the Canadian government really should be looking out for.
00:04:49.300And if they want to help Canadians, they should instead find ways to boost productivity and boost our capacity to withstand these tariffs by making our economy more competitive and not actually less competitive.
00:05:02.420Isaac, I know we were looking at some stats together before we hit record on the show.
00:05:06.380So what's your thoughts on this when you're looking at some of these charts?
00:05:11.580Yeah, this doesn't make any sense to me.
00:05:14.240Obviously, with that one study, Chris, we saw that the tariffs from the United States would increase our inflation by about 1.5%.
00:05:21.780But then with our counter tariffs, it would double to 3%.
00:05:25.080So as your analogy alluded to, why are you self-inflicting harm upon your citizens to retaliate to the United States?
00:05:33.980And I mean, there's so many questions that come to mind.
00:05:37.240Firstly, we've obviously focused on the Canadian response to these tariffs.
00:05:41.160I'm curious because obviously Trump is trying to alleviate the issues he feels are so problematic, that being the border and the fentanyl and the drug crisis over the borders.
00:05:54.200But I'm wondering, Chris, do you have any insights onto how Americans are reacting to these tariffs?
00:06:00.080Because as you said, this is going to increase the cost for Americans.
00:06:03.800So is Trump losing support in the States because of these tariffs?
00:06:12.560So just taking off my Taxpayers Federation hat off for a minute, I've been in the game for a bit.
00:06:17.960And I've talked to people from all walks of life, including people who are really mad.
00:06:24.580And I've had to de-escalate them and get them talking about their feelings, and especially as a talk radio host.
00:06:30.060I don't think the Canadians went about this the right way, for the most part, trying to have an air war in the media where you're getting into kind of war of words and insulting each other and stuff and trying to, you know, Trump, you know, pardon the term, Trump up kind of Canadian patriotism.
00:06:48.160But on the surface level of like, we're going to take American booze off the shelf that we've already paid for, which doesn't really make sense.
00:06:55.840We're going to boo the American anthem, which at the time makes you feel viscerally good if that's the type of person you are, but doesn't look great on American TV.
00:07:04.820My assessment of this is that the smarter way to go about this, and this is exactly to your point, Isaac, is similar to the way that Premier Smith was trying.
00:07:16.060So get down there, put a smile on your face, here to help, want to make a deal, and really appeal to the governors of states where this is going to hit them the most.
00:07:28.060And show them with like math and graphs of, hey, your gasoline is going to cost you like 25 cents more per gallon, like today, because you're not getting it at the same discount from Alberta that you used to be because you're hitting it with a 10% tariff.
00:08:05.600So you see what's happening in Ottawa, and if you're just a cold, hard calculator, and you're looking at political expediency, what's easier?
00:08:15.160Getting down there and actually doing the, I'm going to, how do I put this nicely, grin and bear it, and get through some of these difficult conversations with somebody who wants to dominate my country, and work out a deal, or just bloviate from Toronto or Ottawa about how bad things are, and then your politics will get a rise in the polls.
00:08:41.000Yeah, you bring up a great point that a lot of the politics of Canada right now are being dictated by emotion.
00:08:49.140It feels really good to hit the Americans back with tariffs when they impose tariffs against you.
00:08:55.020It feels really good to espouse venomous rhetoric against Donald Trump because he is legitimately attacking our economy, and Canadians should feel some level of anger about it.
00:09:08.700But, you know, the reasonable thing to do is to outline what your goals are and to achieve those through reasonable policies.
00:09:15.800If your goals are to mitigate the effect that this has for Canadians, then you should be deregulating your economy.
00:09:23.540You should be trying to make your economy as appealing for investors from, say, Europe, from Asia, from the United States, inside Canada.
00:09:34.640Make those investors want to invest in Canadian businesses and in, you know, Canadian entrepreneurs so that you can actually grow out your economy and make Canada, you know, great again.
00:09:46.600Well, the Americans shoot themselves in the foot and, you know, American tech entrepreneurs and American manufacturers look across the pond and say, you know, wow, the Canadians have it great over there.
00:09:59.120But instead, they're looking across the pond and saying, hey, you know, the tariffs aren't going to be great for us.
00:10:03.860But, you know, they're languishing in an overly regulated environment and, you know, they're being taxed to high hell.
00:10:13.580So, you know, I think that we need to set our goals and, you know, and move clearly toward them if we're going to, you know, actually get through these next three and a half years.
00:10:24.040Isaac, I'll let you jump in after a second, but I wanted to actually hear from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he's still Prime Minister, on what his actual response to the tariff imposition is.
00:10:34.140We have a clip of him. Here's what he said.
00:10:36.320To my fellow Canadians, I won't sugarcoat it.
00:10:41.100This is going to be tough, even though we're all going to pull together because that's what we do.
00:10:47.620We will use every tool at our disposal so Canadian workers and businesses can weather this storm.
00:10:55.560From expanding EI benefits and making them more flexible to providing direct supports to businesses, we will be there as needed to help.
00:11:06.620But Canada, make no mistake, no matter how long this lasts, no matter what the cost, the federal government and other orders of government will be there for you.
00:11:21.140We will take measures to prevent predatory behaviour that threatens Canadian companies because of the impacts of this trade war, leaving them open to takeovers.
00:11:32.560We will relentlessly fight to protect our economy.
00:11:37.060We will stand up for Canadians every single second of every single day because this country is worth fighting for.
00:11:47.620Okay, so once again, that was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responding, I would say, pretty emotionally to what was happening with President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on Canadians.
00:13:32.080Like, have you heard any of those concrete things happening?
00:13:36.980All right, Chris, so many things I want to cover that have been discussed.
00:13:41.120But just starting with what Noah said about it feeling good, I just wanted to say quickly that it would only feel good if you're ruled by emotion,
00:13:49.780not logic, facts, and data, as we've discussed,
00:13:52.400because how could it feel good to essentially be doing more harm than good to yourself through these tariffs?
00:13:57.840And we've seen, for example, the anthem booing quickly.
00:14:00.420We've seen Canadians booing children, children singing the American anthem.
00:14:08.220In no way are these people singing the anthem to blame for the tariffs or American people as a general populace either, right?
00:14:16.960So I really hated seeing that stuff at sports games.
00:14:20.060And let's move into Trudeau's response now, calling President Trump Donald by his first name and then dumb, not calling Trump dumb, but his tactics dumb.
00:14:32.040I mean, this is not how you negotiate against the most powerful leader in the world, certainly not.
00:14:38.200As you said, you have to find a deal and bringing it back to emotion.
00:14:43.160We might think that based on Trudeau's response, he is being ruled by emotion, as so many politicians have been throughout this process.
00:14:51.000But you've discussed some of the things that should be being tabled, that being pro-energy policies and things that will appease Trump.
00:14:59.640We've seen Pierre Polyevre, the conservative leader, suggest that he might implement some of those things.
00:15:04.620What have you guys thought of his response to the tariffs?
00:15:07.320My estimation, and I watched his speech, but I haven't read his background or on it yet, looks like Polyevre wants retaliatory tariffs, but not across the board.
00:15:17.880He said it was for items that we can easily make ourselves and or that we don't need.
00:15:24.080So, for example, I'm just guessing maybe that means that he wouldn't put a tariff on, say, peanut butter imports because we don't generally produce peanut butter on this side of the border.
00:15:35.680That's largely a Southern thing in the Southern states, the United States.
00:15:38.960It's hard to say because he's in a tough position right now where he's trying to show patriotism, where it is like, yeah, you get punched, you want to punch back, but you also have to be smart.
00:15:48.980So don't tie your own shoelaces together and don't punch yourselves in the face.
00:15:52.740I think he is smart to focus more on making ourselves as lean and mean as competitive as we possibly can.
00:15:59.700So this is like where, you know, a marathon's coming, you know, you have to run it in six months.
00:16:21.200And so my concern here is that we're going to have all of this pain inflicted both by the United States tariffs and our own tariffs, and we're not going to have the actual solutions that would help Canadians in this situation, which would be dropping all of our carbon taxes and building pipelines.
00:16:40.680Yeah, I really think it's important that Pierre Poliev proposes a plan that Canadians feel is an appropriate response to the United States' imposition of tariffs while also, you know, making sure that is reasonable policy.
00:16:57.720And I think, you know, in the lead up to January and the inauguration of Donald Trump, Pierre Poliev has done a good job building out a message that has responded to the concerns of everyday Canadians and building out policy responses that, you know, are, you know, not to be partisan because I'm not trying to be, but are quite reasonable.
00:17:17.800You know, axing the carbon tax when people are suffering from inflation is a common sense, you know, reasonable policy, you know, trying to increase or make it easier for developers to build housing and, you know, getting rid of development charges is, you know, reasonable policy.
00:17:36.120But when it comes to these tariffs, Canadians seem to want, you know, to punch back.
00:17:44.600So he has to find a balance between, you know, imposing tariffs on things that are, say, inelastic goods as, you know, economic jargon goes.
00:17:53.660He has to probably try and impose tariffs on things that, you know, can easily be substituted by goods from Canadians or from across the pond in Asia or in Europe.
00:18:05.340Perhaps a lot of services that American companies provide that can be provided, say, you know, online could be contracted from, you know, companies in Canada or from countries abroad.
00:18:18.320So there are a lot of ways you can sort of impose sort of some, you know, pain in your own way on the Americans to help the American people come to the conclusion that these tariffs are bad and to pressure the president to reverse course.
00:18:36.020And I think that Pierre Polyev has to toe that line.
00:18:38.780I think he's been doing an okay job, but he ought not stray into dogmatism and into demagoguery with these tariffs like Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau and especially Jagmeet Singh has engaged in.
00:18:56.920I just wanted to touch on two things there before we move on, Isaac, to Mark Carney.
00:19:06.380We're hearing some pretty alarming language coming out from the last I saw, and I didn't hear his whole clip.
00:19:12.820The last I saw was from newly reelected Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, basically saying that we'll just hand out government money in response to this.
00:19:22.740And Trudeau saying very similar things.
00:19:25.540I'm having harsh flashbacks to the government lockdowns and what happened then.
00:19:31.120Because even just take away all the social stuff and the fact that bank accounts are frozen and stuff.
00:19:36.380But just financially, financially, that was a disaster because the government turned on the printing press for money just and then handed out, sprayed all of this inflationary cash everywhere.
00:19:48.980And we had the worst inflation in 40 years.
00:19:54.680So folks are wondering, holy cow, why is everything so bloody unaffordable and expensive?
00:20:01.080It's because of inflation, because of money printing and stupid government decisions and the carbon taxes.
00:20:07.660And if we have two of the biggest political leaders in Canada in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, both going to just say, let's hand out government money, that would be a disaster.
00:20:21.700It is much smarter to get in there as hard as we can and get a deal so that this punishment stops.
00:20:58.900He is just going to take the consumer tax, which us unwashed masses can see and get mad about, which bothers him, and he's going to hide it in a massive national industrial carbon tax.
00:21:46.720And then he sees an announcement that Canada is imposing massive industrial carbon taxes on fertilizer plants, steel manufacturers, all of these industrialists.
00:21:59.680Like, Trump will phone the moving truck company himself to have them go down there.
00:22:05.660So this is an example of why it is not smart for us to be strangling our own resource sector and hammering our own people with carbon taxes, especially while we have this threat to the South.
00:22:24.480But, yeah, no, just firstly starting with what we were talking about with Ford and Trudeau and suggesting that they would print money.
00:22:32.440I mean, this is insane to me that any Canadian would be in favor of printing money after we saw the colossal failure that the pandemic policies of printing money were not only for inflation but for CERB, for example, and for the small business loans.
00:22:47.440We've seen reports saying that X percentage, I don't have the data off the top of my mind, but there are companies who weren't eligible getting paid millions, billions of dollars.
00:22:57.200I mean, how can we possibly advocate for this knowing this?
00:23:00.980And another thing I wanted to say, Chris, was so much talk of the tariffs, which, of course, tariff is synonymous with tax.
00:23:08.080Why is the federal government then trying to act as if they're anti-tariff, but then on April 1st, they're going to be hiking the carbon tax, which, from every poll we've seen recently, Canadians are vehemently against the carbon tax.
00:23:25.560So if you want to have an answer to counteract the tariffs, I mean, hiking or halting that 20% carbon tax, that's a 20% savings right there, I mean, that's going to be better than implementing counter tariffs that are actually hurting your own people, as we've seen through the inflationary data.
00:23:42.640So this is, I mean, yeah, getting through all that, do we want to hop into the leadership race now?
00:23:48.440Yeah, let's move to Carney, because I'll finish off with another carbon tax rant.
00:23:52.680I just know it just happens. I talk about it in my sleep. I'm sorry.
00:23:55.680But yeah, let's move on to Carney quickly here.
00:23:58.920Last I saw, it looks like he's going to win.
00:24:02.460It looks like Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, is going to be chosen as the Liberal Party leader.
00:24:11.200And I'm breaking it down like this, because folks who don't live in this terrarium that all of us do, who are normal, that must be nice, don't follow all the minutia of this.
00:24:21.320So when he is a selected leader of the Liberal Party, he will become the de facto Prime Minister of Canada, even though he is not a member of Parliament.
00:24:31.700So he's not representing like Yellowknife or downtown Toronto or wherever.
00:24:35.500And that is because the Prime Minister is a member of Cabinet, First Minister.
00:24:42.540They're the First Minister within the Cabinet to the Crown, King Charles III.
00:24:47.380So actually, to be part of Cabinet in Canada, under our parliamentary system, our Westminster system, because we are a constitutional monarchy, you don't have to be an MP.
00:24:58.740You can be in Cabinet without being a member of Parliament.
00:25:04.440So this is how Mark Carney, for a period of time, we don't know for how long, will be Prime Minister.
00:25:09.980At some point in the future, people are going to be expecting a federal election to happen, and he may or may not be elected by people.
00:25:17.800But as of right now, on Sunday, when they pick their leader, if he's chosen, he will become the Prime Minister, which I think is important for us to focus on some of the stuff that he's been saying.
00:25:29.820Now, once you guys are finished with him, I did want to point out just how much he desperately loves carbon taxes, but I will get back to that.
00:25:37.360Noah, did you want to take this one away?
00:25:38.780You had a timeline that you had written out for Carney.
00:25:42.020Yeah, so Mark Carney basically claimed that he – okay, so there's a story that broke that Brookfield Asset Management was moving its headquarters to New York.
00:25:56.140And Mark Carney claimed that he had nothing to do with it.
00:25:58.840He was completely fine with, you know, Canadians, you know, setting up a shop in Canada and keeping their business there.
00:26:06.360So, you know, time passes, and it was revealed that Mark Carney, in his role as chairman of the board at Brookfield Asset Management, had actually written a letter recommending that Brookfield Asset Management move its headquarters from Canada to New York.
00:26:25.820So, Mark Carney, when questioned on this issue, he basically said that, well, there's nothing that I could have done.
00:26:34.500This was a decision that was already in motion.
00:26:37.580Maybe I should have gotten better at politics, at, you know, concealing my true intentions.
00:26:43.520Like, it was really weird stuff that – and really weird things to say, you know, admitting that he's not good enough at being a politician, you know, just flatly saying, like, I'll get better at lying next time.
00:26:56.440I'll hide this – I'll hide my next scandal better.
00:26:59.000But, you know, really appealing to the members of the Liberal Party, you know, how good is your Prime Minister at wiggling through scandals.
00:27:07.600But it really seems as if Mark Carney has been trying to walk back a lot of the things that he has committed to in his private life, like carbon taxes, like moving Canadian business to the United States,
00:27:20.460because he believes that setting up shopping in the United States is the best thing for business, which, you know, quite frankly, is not exactly wrong per se.
00:27:31.280But you're running to be the Prime Minister of Canada.
00:27:33.720You have to, you know, set a standard for yourself, and you have to, you know, actually, like, invest in Canada and, you know, commit to making Canada better.
00:27:42.880But Carney really seems to be having to walk back on his commitment on carbon taxes too.
00:27:48.040You know, carbon taxes were a big thing that Carney advocated for in his book, Values, and, you know, just in his role as an ambassador in the United Nations at COP26.
00:28:02.040And Carney, he has also had to walk back his claim that he has helped past Prime Ministers.
00:28:08.720He had to walk back the claim that in 2008, he basically managed Canada's economic crisis and managed Canada's recovery.
00:28:19.280And he said that he helped Paul Martin balance the budget.
00:28:22.620Both claims were disputed by people who worked in both governments.
00:28:27.080So, Mark Carney is really having a hard time adapting to, you know, being truthful and honest in front of media and Canadians.
00:28:37.260But the Liberals do seem poised to pick Mark Carney.
00:28:41.580Isaac, if you could just elaborate, what seems to be likely to happen on March 9th when the Liberals pick a new leader?
00:28:50.780Yeah, just before getting into that, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to True North's Cosmin Georgia, because obviously he has started an investigative series on the book, Values, going into what Carney has said and what he's actually doing and what he says he believes now versus what he's said in the past.
00:29:06.360But, yeah, no, hopping into the leadership electoral race, which, of course, concludes on Sunday, as you said, we've seen, we've covered this extensively at True North, specifically in the past when the party disqualified Chandra Aria and Ruby Dalla separately for questionable reasons on the candidates' opinion.
00:29:31.800But certainly we saw that happen when they were clearly picking up steam in the public's eye and looked like they could actually be real contenders for Mark Carney.
00:29:41.600Ruby Dalla perhaps came out with some of the strongest language against the party's decision, saying that they were essentially just doing whatever they could in their power to coronate Mark Carney and ensure that he became the leader.
00:29:52.900But another interesting thing I wanted to cover was the Liberals initially released that they had 400,000, approximately 400,000 people sign up to vote in this leadership election.
00:30:04.920And then we've seen more recent numbers come up, more around the 100,000, 200,000 mark.
00:30:09.600So people have been really critical of that because a percent or even less than a percent of Canada's population will be determining who becomes the next prime minister.
00:30:19.280I mean, it is really shocking when you look at it that way, like 100,000 people could be determining who becomes the prime minister.
00:30:26.480This is this is nothing when in a general election, what would we expect, 20, 30 million?
00:30:31.260I mean, it's kind of crazy when you think about it that way.
00:30:34.220Yeah, the fact that like, you know, like one percent of the population, I think only like two percent of the Canadian population is just registered for political parties in general.
00:30:42.420So these parties have a lot of power and they actually have a lot more power in the sense that, you know, only like less than one percent of Canadians are picking the prime minister in this liberal leadership race.
00:30:54.680In the United States, when they have a primary, you know, they have like, you know, substantially more Americans show out.
00:31:02.660And, you know, whoever wins the primary primary doesn't get immediately installed as president.
00:31:07.400They still have to win a presidential election.
00:31:09.720So not only are less Canadians having power to pick the liberal leader, the liberal leader is going to become the prime minister.
00:31:16.180So, you know, Canadians really, I think, are going to be concerned about, you know, the fact that, hey, you know, I thought we're going to be thrown into election.
00:31:25.780You know, this guy actually becomes prime minister and they're going to want to hold him accountable in elections, see, you know, what platform he's actually going to run on in a general when he's appealing to all Canadians.
00:31:36.860They're going to want to litigate some of his past work as Bank of Canada governor, Bank of England governor, you know, his time at Brookfield and on the boards of several, you know, nonprofits and other organizations.
00:31:51.280They're going to want to get to know him because most Canadians still don't have a good impression of him.
00:31:56.780And I suspect that that's true because a lot of Quebecers say they're going to vote for him in opinion polls, but the guy doesn't know a lick of French.
00:32:03.660So, you know, I think when, you know, a camp, a general election campaign actually gets underway and, you know, Canadians are turning into the evening news, you know, almost every night to see what's happening in the election.
00:32:16.720Uh, they're going to get a interesting impression of Carney and maybe some of that, uh, John Turner effect, uh, kicks in.
00:32:24.920Just saying, uh, I started on Parliament Hill in early 2001 before 9-11.
00:32:31.800Uh, I knew Paul Martin's staff pretty well.
00:32:35.740I knew Prime Minister Stephen Harper's staff pretty well.
00:32:42.840Um, like, I'm just flat out saying, and I would say the same thing if he were running for a Conservative Party leader and trying to claim that he was right there with Jim Flaherty, Cheek to Jell.
00:32:53.700And I must say, it takes quite a bit, I find, for Stephen Harper, um, to put his oar in nowadays.
00:35:42.460But so much so that he sees individuals, you, me, all of us listening, as personal carbon emissions budgets.
00:35:52.780Okay, like walking, talking carbon emissions budgets.
00:35:56.600So, I want to read from this book, page 233.
00:36:01.300To limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the average global citizen born today will have a personal carbon emissions budget over their lifetime equivalent to one-eighth of their grandparents.
00:36:17.040Okay, that means all of us that are living today will have to reduce our use of things like oil and gas, our carbon emissions budget, to one-eighth of our grandparents.
00:36:38.540So, this is not like one of those things where you're like, oh, I used to really like lasagna, but I'm on a no-carb diet now and I've seen the light.
00:39:36.240I've followed Telefrancais with the singing pineapple.
00:39:38.900Like, you know, at least most of us know jamais means never, which is the word he used when he talked about never putting a pipeline through Quebec.
00:39:48.100So how about just we duck all over come off?
00:40:20.740On April 1st, not only are we getting a huge carbon tax hike, which will make it more expensive for you to buy gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and propane.
00:40:30.320So basically it becomes a tax on everything because trucking and we live in a cold country.
00:40:44.280So on April 1st, your average backbencher, benchwarmer member of parliament is getting about a $6,000 or $7,000 raise around there.
00:40:53.380And the prime minister is getting around a $16,000 raise.
00:40:57.700After this raise is done on April 1st, a backbench MP, I mean, with no committee responsibilities, you're not a deputy whip leader, blah, blah, blah, of your party, is going to make $211,000 per year with a huge expense account.
00:42:52.460And Doug Ford says, hey, I want an election.
00:42:56.320I can't campaign on increasing MP pay.
00:42:59.700So let's wait till after election and then boom, we're going to increase MPP pay.
00:43:05.060So it's a growing trend across the country.
00:43:08.100I know that in British Columbia, David Eby has no gripes with MLA pay increases.
00:43:14.640And, you know, while our politicians continue to align their politics and get more and more, you know, equipment, more wealth, we continue to struggle.
00:43:25.460It's interesting that the politicians are responsible for managing our economies, but their pay is in no way tied to the health of our economy.
00:43:37.020You know, like if you want, if you want this pay increase, let's see GDP growth at like 4% per capita.
00:43:44.380You know, you want that pay increase, you know, let's see the inflation at like 1%, you know, you don't deserve that.
00:43:51.860You know, like if inflation goes up to above like 2.5%, like there's a pay should be docked.
00:43:57.980Not, not, not, it should be docked 2.5%, not increasing.
00:44:02.700Yeah, they used to have balanced budget legislation in British Columbia, where if a minister delivered a deficit in their department, they got a pay cut.
00:44:42.940Chris, I'm thinking you at the CTF maybe should start a petition to advocate for a performance-based pay for parliamentarians.
00:44:50.260I mean, imagine how much we could improve our country if parliamentarians had to improve it to improve their pay scale.
00:44:57.480We, you know, the similarities I'm drawing right now are, of course, to the CBC, who, despite their declining numbers, continue to give themselves raises.
00:45:06.440And we've covered this extensively at True North.
00:45:27.000Well, we do have a petition at Taxpayer.com to stop the MP pay hikes.
00:45:31.540And I will put a call out to every member of parliament.
00:45:34.960There is a yawning chasm of opportunity right here that you can just step into.
00:45:41.260The late, great Ralph Klein once said something to the effect of a really smart politician sees which way the parade is going and then jumps in front of that sucker.
00:45:49.940And that's what a member of parliament should do really quick.
00:45:53.760They should come out and say, I am fundamentally opposed to these pay increases.
00:45:58.880I will not take these pay increases if they are forced and there's nothing I can do about it.
00:47:56.320One, it will keep them on their toes for next time when they come to knock for your vote.
00:48:00.780And two, it will give you a sense of agency and fellowship that you're not in this by yourself and that you're able to say something.
00:48:07.460Folks, I'll leave the last word to you.
00:48:09.160Isaac and Noah, if you want to sign off here.
00:48:10.860Well, I just got to say that, you know, holding your members of parliament, as Chris said, to account is very important.
00:48:20.560You know, they sometimes have public events go out to there.
00:48:23.420You know, sometimes they have town halls.
00:48:24.680And if your member of parliament doesn't do these sorts of things, reach out to them and say, why aren't you facing the music in public?
00:48:31.900You know, it's really important that our member of parliament stay engaged in their communities and they're reporting back the experiences of those communities to Ottawa and don't just become auto-washed, as someone once told me.