Off the Record - Trump’s Choice for Canada’s Prime Minister

00:00:00.000 Isaac, you've got your baby blue on today because you've got your Jays coming up soon.

00:00:04.840 Yeah, the season opener is next Thursday, I think.

00:00:07.340 Okay, I remember, I don't know if you ever made the pilgrimage down to Seattle.

00:00:11.440 Do they even still have a team? Do the Mariners exist anymore?

00:00:14.200 Yeah, they do. I saw that some of the Jays fans might be boycotting the Seattle games this year

00:00:19.800 because that's obviously one of their best series is for Seattle

00:00:23.300 because the stadiums are filled with Jays fans and the hotels in the city.

00:00:27.000 I mean, everything, right?

00:00:27.820 Yeah, oh, because Trump bad?

00:00:30.740 Yeah, because of the tariffs, yeah.

00:00:31.900 Okay, well, you know, I'm not, just saying, I'm not sure how many people in Seattle are huge Trump voters.

00:00:39.200 Like, I'm going out on a limb here and wondering about that.

00:00:42.340 I'm dating myself, but I remember going down to Seattle and Ken Griffey Jr. was playing for the Mariners

00:00:47.960 and we got to meet him down on the field. It was super cool.

00:00:50.440 So, yeah, Alex, do you follow the baseball?

00:00:53.160 No, but I did go to Seattle to cover the U.S. election and your intuition is correct.

00:00:59.100 Like, most people just didn't even care, right?

00:01:00.840 They said, like, it's a foregone conclusion in Washington, at least.

00:01:05.160 Well, we definitely need some happy distractions.

00:01:07.440 So, I will be looking forward to the baseball season started.

00:01:10.080 Okay, speaking of starting, let's get this thing going.

00:01:12.680 All right, welcome to Off the Record.

00:01:17.560 My name is Chris Sims.

00:01:18.900 I'm the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:01:22.180 I'm joined by Alex Zoltan and Isaac Lamoureux from True North.

00:01:26.640 Fellas, there's lots to talk about here and I wanted to get going because we have a pretty packed show.

00:01:31.340 First up, I don't know if I had this on my bingo card.

00:01:35.160 U.S. President Donald Trump went on Fox News, and I think it was on Ingram, and said that he would prefer that the selected Prime Minister, Mark Carney of Canada, he'd prefer that he stay on the job.

00:01:49.180 Because I don't quite know the clip.

00:01:50.900 So, let's actually listen to how Trump phrased this.

00:01:53.820 Give this a listen.

00:01:55.160 We have much more.

00:01:56.620 I don't think so.

00:01:57.260 Just so you understand, we subsidize Canada.

00:01:59.520 And I like Canada.

00:02:00.340 I love Canada.

00:02:01.220 I love Wayne Gretzky.

00:02:01.780 The Liberal guys, the Liberal Party is going to win now in the next election, most likely.

00:02:07.220 And they were down and out.

00:02:09.320 I don't care.

00:02:09.500 Isn't that going to make them more hostile to us and possibly open the door for China closer to Canada? 1.00

00:02:16.380 And that would really put us in a bind. 0.98

00:02:17.920 The Conservative that's running is stupidly no friend of mine. 0.84

00:02:21.760 I don't know him, but he said negative things. 0.98

00:02:23.460 So, when he says negative things, I couldn't care less.

00:02:26.040 I think it's easier to deal, actually, with a Liberal.

00:02:29.380 And maybe they're going to win, but I don't really care.

00:02:32.060 It doesn't matter to me at all.

00:02:33.400 So, your end game is what with them?

00:02:35.340 My end game is I don't want to have a big deficit.

00:02:38.720 I don't want to see the United States of America.

00:02:41.840 And you say 60 and I say 200, but it doesn't matter.

00:02:45.000 I don't want us to pay 60 or 200 billion dollars to a country that, if they were a state, think of this.

00:02:51.940 It would be our biggest, most beautiful.

00:02:54.220 It would be great.

00:02:54.860 Yeah.

00:02:58.900 You know, there was, I forget who said it was, it might have been Pierre Trudeau, who said it's like living next to an elephant.

00:03:05.960 He did, yeah. 0.94

00:03:06.500 And you're a mouse. 0.91

00:03:07.200 And I've never quite understood that until right now, where I roll over in bed in the morning around 5, and I check my Twitter or my ex to find out what the hell is happening now all the time.

00:03:19.800 And so, even if I, you know, like the idea of lower taxes in the States and that sort of stuff, man, this is really shaking things up.

00:03:26.720 Alex, what was your take on that?

00:03:28.800 Why do you think he said that?

00:03:30.080 Well, I don't know.

00:03:32.000 I mean, I really don't like to engage in the game of trying to read Donald Trump's mind because I just don't think it's really a good use of our time.

00:03:40.040 Because it's really impossible and it's unfalsifiable anyway.

00:03:43.320 What I will say about Donald Trump, somebody else had said this and it really struck me.

00:03:47.320 When he says stuff, the spirit is always right, but the details are all wrong.

00:03:52.660 And so when he says 60 billion or 200 billion, it doesn't really matter.

00:03:56.040 Well, actually, sir, it does, right?

00:03:58.040 Like, if this is a problem that you're trying to solve, like, it's important to know the details and the facts.

00:04:04.060 Isaac?

00:04:06.580 Yeah, I don't know what to think of the things Trump has done, especially for the Conservatives' campaign and what that means for the next federal election in Canada.

00:04:17.300 Because some people I've spoken with have thought that Trump's proposed tariffs, for example, have hurt the Conservatives in their campaign against the Liberals.

00:04:28.360 And we've seen the Liberals gain ground in the polls.

00:04:31.280 But the most interesting thing, Chris, I want to talk about, which is a completely different story that I wrote about, was the OECD report, which went into a proposed tariff scenario.

00:04:39.860 And who would be the big winners and losers nationwide, or no, sorry, not nationwide, worldwide, worldwide.

00:04:46.280 And guess what?

00:04:47.240 U.S. would lose.

00:04:48.180 Canada would lose.

00:04:49.000 Who would win?

00:04:49.640 China.

00:04:50.520 I don't think that's what Donald Trump wants.

00:04:52.640 He's definitely not pro-China.

00:04:54.800 So maybe in reading that report, he might start to change his mind.

00:04:59.360 Because, look, the tariffs are hurting the American people even more than us.

00:05:02.560 We see their GDP is going to go down more than ours is.

00:05:06.000 So we're going to be hurt.

00:05:07.300 They're going to be hurt.

00:05:08.140 China's going to be the winner. 1.00

00:05:09.100 How is this the situation we find ourselves in, where China is profiting from a trade war between North American countries?

00:05:17.140 I just, I can't believe it.

00:05:19.920 So I keep getting phone calls from people and emails about tariffs because they can feel really complicated.

00:05:26.020 But ultimately, tariffs are just trade taxes.

00:05:29.940 So, and this is one of the things where when people are saying here in Canada of, hey, man, his whole 51st state talk is really ticking me off.

00:05:37.720 Like, I totally get it.

00:05:39.580 Like, somebody walks up, punches you in the face, you want to punch back.

00:05:42.400 But you've got to be smart about this.

00:05:44.380 And if we put in retaliatory tariffs, all we're doing is tying our own shoelaces together before our fight.

00:05:51.080 Like, we've got to be more calculated about this.

00:05:54.300 And so, to your point on the numbers he was throwing around, it doesn't matter.

00:05:58.320 It really does.

00:05:59.320 Like, one of my friends on the air used to be described as a volume on 10, facts on three.

00:06:07.820 Right.

00:06:09.840 You know, great.

00:06:11.060 That's Donald Trump.

00:06:12.220 Yeah.

00:06:12.600 For sure.

00:06:12.900 It's one of those things where you're like, really?

00:06:15.660 Like, because this is now, what's frustrating here is that regardless of your politics, if you're like a Polyev guy or a carny person or a Trump person, whatever, it isn't the rulers who feel this stuff.

00:06:30.260 When these sorts of people start getting into a big trade tariff war, it is only normal working people who feel this stuff.

00:06:38.900 It's the person at the grocery store who's suddenly paying double for peanut butter.

00:06:43.080 It's the person who is in the aluminum plant who is worried about losing his job, which is devastating.

00:06:49.680 Like, you lose your house, you lose your car.

00:06:51.860 Like, that is not something people just shake off.

00:06:54.340 And so this is where whenever sort of these kind of statements and eruptions happen from the media and the states, it's just like, okay, again, how do we deal with this?

00:07:03.340 But, yeah, we'll see.

00:07:05.000 That wasn't something I was expecting.

00:07:06.740 However, having read his book, The Art of the Deal, and I'm currently listening to his later one, like, Kicking Butt in Politics.

00:07:15.720 I can't remember what it was called.

00:07:18.060 He's always keying in on, like, the fracture in the bone.

00:07:22.400 He's always feeling for the weakness or the chink in the armor. 1.00

00:07:27.020 And so the language there that he used of easier to deal with, I think that was what he was getting at.

00:07:33.680 So I would recommend everybody always read the books of political leaders because they have a lot of control over you.

00:07:40.640 Who wants to take this kind of a surprising video?

00:07:44.220 I didn't realize that the vandalism had gotten to this point in Canada.

00:07:48.280 I was seeing some footage from the states, but apparently there was some vandalism at a Tesla place in Canada.

00:07:53.260 Alex, did you want to take that?

00:07:55.400 Yeah.

00:07:55.700 So apparently they spray painted a Tesla showroom, I guess you would call it, in Montreal.

00:08:02.680 That follows some vandalism that occurred on a Tesla lot in Las Vegas.

00:08:07.180 There was an attack in Kansas City.

00:08:08.740 There was a protest here in Vancouver for Metro Vancouver in Surrey on the weekend.

00:08:14.660 And also they have removed the automaker Tesla from the Vancouver auto show as well on account of security concerns.

00:08:23.640 Wait, just a second.

00:08:24.980 So I grew up in B.C. and I lived in, like, Lower Mainland quite a bit.

00:08:29.480 And I've got a weird thing where I notice the makes of cars, like, all the time.

00:08:34.900 Like, it just ticks by, like, a mental ticker.

00:08:36.840 I will say, the Langley, Surrey area, like, there's a lot of Teslas there.

00:08:42.540 Like, way more than anywhere else I've ever lived.

00:08:46.140 So you're saying that the Vancouver car show isn't letting Tesla in now?

00:08:51.360 Oh, wow.

00:08:52.280 Correct, yeah.

00:08:52.840 Yeah, they've been banished on security concerns.

00:08:55.800 Which seems kind of wrong, right?

00:08:57.320 I mean, it's not like Tesla chose for them to be a security concern, right?

00:09:01.880 It kind of seems like you're almost rewarding the vandals at that point, right?

00:09:06.300 You're canceling Tesla for being a victim of crime.

00:09:10.820 Let's watch the video.

00:09:12.300 I think we have a clip from what happened in Montreal.

00:09:14.960 Hey, everybody.

00:09:16.400 I'm currently at Tesla dealership in Montreal.

00:09:20.340 And as you can see behind me, this is what happened this morning.

00:09:24.460 There is two activists who came here to draw paint, the pink paint, at the Tesla dealership.

00:09:32.880 This is the first attack against Tesla here in Canada.

00:09:38.260 So I will have my full report coming soon.

00:09:41.160 See you soon.

00:09:41.540 I just want to point out the irony of now people are protesting electric cars.

00:09:48.980 Like, it's really hard for me to keep up.

00:09:51.100 Like, I know the taxpayers have helped, you know, underwrite and fund some of the electric car manufacturing in Canada.

00:09:57.720 And that was a huge push coming from folks who generally vote NDP and liberal.

00:10:04.560 And now to see vandalism happening of an electric, I think they're completely electric.

00:10:08.780 I don't even know if Tesla makes hybrids. 0.95

00:10:10.980 Like, that's, I know, I did not have this on my bingo card.

00:10:15.200 Isaac, what was your thoughts on this?

00:10:17.180 I don't know if you're a car guy, but I was kind of surprised to see, because Teslas are popular, legit popular in the Vancouver area.

00:10:22.340 Well, I have my problems with Teslas living in Edmonton, where it's like minus 50 sometimes.

00:10:27.900 That ain't going to do you too good.

00:10:29.600 I mean, it's spring for most people.

00:10:31.540 It's still like almost minus 10 here.

00:10:32.860 And the snow's melting, which is good.

00:10:34.840 And minus 10, it's funny, actually, it was like minus 10 or 20 the other day.

00:10:38.740 And my neighbor's outside in his shorts and T-shirt, shoveling his walk.

00:10:43.120 And I'm like, minus 10, yeah, it's short sweater.

00:10:46.820 But yeah, you know, I was thinking about this last night, completely unrelated to the Tesla.

00:10:50.780 But just about the cult-like ideology of people that we've seen.

00:10:55.640 I mean, really, they don't care what the cause is that they're fighting before.

00:10:59.960 It was oil and gas.

00:11:00.600 Now it's electrical vehicle companies.

00:11:02.080 Complete opposite things.

00:11:03.420 Before they hated Canada.

00:11:04.680 Now they love Canada.

00:11:06.600 You know, it just changes at the flip of a switch when the people they look up to in politics, let's say, tell them what they need to hate.

00:11:15.660 But perhaps what they're lacking is the reasoning behind it all and the critical thinking that actually lets us know why we believe what we believe.

00:11:24.460 I will say I spent 25 years, most of it, as a mainstream journalist.

00:11:30.920 And so I've cut thousands of clips.

00:11:33.340 Back in the day when we used to have to hand tape to each other, like big ones, Betamax tapes.

00:11:38.920 And so I'd sit there and toggle and cut and cut.

00:11:41.220 And it would be a 10-second clip or a two-minute clip.

00:11:44.400 I don't care who's talking.

00:11:46.120 Could be left, right, whatever, space alien.

00:11:48.560 Listen to the entire thing.

00:11:51.640 Always listen to the entire conversation.

00:11:54.420 Always watch the entire interview.

00:11:56.540 Always watch the entire press conference.

00:11:58.860 Get the context.

00:11:59.920 And then make up your own mind.

00:12:01.880 Totally fine to make up your own mind.

00:12:03.920 But just a bit of advice as somebody who's cut clips before.

00:12:08.720 Always watch the entire thing for context.

00:12:10.800 It's one of those things where you can really get a crowd of people going in one direction based on a little bit of information.

00:12:18.580 I wanted to shift gears here, no pun intended.

00:12:22.480 Does Teslas have gears?

00:12:23.940 Like, I don't even know.

00:12:24.840 I've never driven a fully electric car.

00:12:27.460 Like, I'm a big...

00:12:28.180 I love cars.

00:12:29.340 Love them.

00:12:29.940 But I've never...

00:12:30.580 I don't even know if the transmission engages in the same way.

00:12:33.680 Okay, let's shift gears.

00:12:36.040 To Pierre Polyev had a huge announcement this week.

00:12:39.700 And at first, people might be forgiven for thinking, oh, this isn't that different.

00:12:43.760 Polyev vows to scrap the carbon tax.

00:12:46.440 For real.

00:12:46.960 Now, some of you might be thinking, he's literally got that on a t-shirt.

00:12:51.340 He's been doing acts of the tax rallies now for, you know, more than a year straight.

00:12:56.200 This is a big one, though.

00:12:58.080 Because he is the first major Canadian politician to come out and say no carbon taxes.

00:13:05.360 None.

00:13:06.120 Meaning, no industrial carbon tax.

00:13:08.580 No consumer carbon tax.

00:13:10.040 And he's on the record many times saying no second carbon tax, which was a weird carbon tax that was buried in fuel regulations, especially there in BC, Alex.

00:13:18.700 You guys pay it through the nose.

00:13:20.480 So, for him to come out and say this, like it was like a huge thing.

00:13:24.860 It's a big deal for two main reasons.

00:13:28.740 One, it will save Canadians like billions of dollars, like mega money here.

00:13:34.740 Because, of course, as of right now, industries that are nailed with the industrial carbon tax are not eating this cost.

00:13:43.080 They are passing that down to you from the fuel refinery down to the pump, from the utilities company down to your home heating.

00:13:49.980 Same thing at fertilizer plants.

00:13:51.400 They're charging farmers more, which increases your price of food.

00:13:54.040 It is a major trickle down.

00:13:56.600 It's just harder for you to see the pain as a carbon taxpayer.

00:14:00.560 And second, and this is key, by obliterating the industrial carbon tax, it removes the ability for politicians to hide the consumer carbon tax the way that Carney is saying he's going to.

00:14:14.640 Alex, I'll let you take the first run at this.

00:14:16.460 What was your thoughts when you saw this announcement?

00:14:18.160 Well, I actually have more of a question because I'm kind of on the crime beat right now.

00:14:22.280 So I'm a little bit outside of this area.

00:14:26.020 It's not in my circle of knowledge.

00:14:27.400 Let's just put it that way.

00:14:28.720 So, Chris, I'm curious.

00:14:29.920 So if Paul Yev were to get rid of the carbon tax, what would happen in provinces where they've instituted their own carbon tax proactively, like in BC, for instance?

00:14:38.900 Would we still have a carbon tax?

00:14:40.340 I'm just curious.

00:14:40.980 I don't know.

00:14:41.800 So a few things there.

00:14:42.960 Number one, when he made the announcement about the industrial carbon tax, he was talking about the forced federal industrial carbon tax.

00:14:51.220 Okay.

00:14:51.540 So just from what I know of him, because, you know, I go back quite a while.

00:14:57.380 He's not the type to force a province to stop imposing an industrial carbon tax.

00:15:02.540 He might think it's dumb or he might talk to the premier, but he's not usually.

00:15:06.740 That's not usually his bag. 0.79

00:15:07.840 But as of right now, he has said it's the federal industrial forcing of it, which is what is happening right now.

00:15:15.300 And also, this is key.

00:15:17.100 It's what Carney wants to crank up.

00:15:19.520 Carney has said he is going to shift the carbon tax costs that we can all see because it annoys him that we can see the carbon tax costs because the peasants get uppity.

00:15:28.200 Right.

00:15:28.580 So he's going to shift it over there and then crank it up.

00:15:30.880 So that federal element will be gone.

00:15:33.340 However, the first carbon tax that you guys pay visibly, like the one that shows up on your Fortis B.C. natural gas bills, your premier, David Eby, has promised to get rid of that B.C. carbon tax if the federal backstop is removed.

00:15:50.740 And Carney has said he's reducing the federal one to zero.

00:15:54.380 That's when he signed that weird piece of paper.

00:15:56.280 And he said immediately, but the paperwork says April 1st, so a bit of a discrepancy there.

00:16:01.940 But he does say he's going to reduce it to zero.

00:16:04.380 And if he does do that legit, that is saving you $13 per minivan.

00:16:09.340 It's saving you $20 per pickup fill-up.

00:16:11.720 And that's saving the average Canadian family about $400 per year on their home winter heating.

00:16:18.180 That's the first carbon tax, the one that Carney promises he's reducing to zero.

00:16:22.240 Eby is on the record.

00:16:24.000 You might remember from the provincial election saying, if they go first, we'll go second, and we'll match them.

00:16:30.580 So, pitter-patter.

00:16:33.320 Isaac, did you have thoughts on this huge carbon tax announcement?

00:16:36.660 Oh, many thoughts, yes.

00:16:37.860 No, Chris, this goes back to what you were saying about watching the whole clip, because I remember, and how I came to know of this, was Paul Yefra pulled up the carbon tax law at a press conference and said, hey, guys, Carney said he's removing the carbon tax.

00:16:53.980 He can't actually do that.

00:16:55.740 This is the carbon tax law that legislates what the carbon tax is.

00:17:01.320 Parliament's prorogued.

00:17:02.220 You can't get rid of this law until it comes back.

00:17:05.000 Here's the law.

00:17:05.940 I have it in my hands.

00:17:06.840 Or Paul Yefra did.

00:17:08.180 The act in his hands.

00:17:09.860 And he actually broke it down for a normal person to understand who was just listening to that press conference, which I think is really key when we're talking about those complex issues.

00:17:18.400 As we saw with Alex, even, a reporter, he had to ask you a question right away.

00:17:22.240 Like, it's not entirely clear.

00:17:24.160 And just bringing it back to the industrial carbon tax and how it's a hidden tax.

00:17:28.420 We've, of course, talked before on the show, Chris, about my heating bill and how the carbon tax was more than the energy itself.

00:17:34.600 Now, if they raise the industrial carbon tax, that's not going to be on there.

00:17:39.020 But guess what?

00:17:39.500 The energy will go up because it costs the company more to produce that energy.

00:17:43.660 You think they're going to absorb that cost?

00:17:45.420 They're not.

00:17:46.020 I'm going to absorb that.

00:17:47.380 And it won't be on my bill as carbon tax.

00:17:49.400 It'll just be, I'm magically paying 1.5 times more for energy.

00:17:53.740 I wonder what could have happened there.

00:17:55.300 Oh, maybe it's because the industrial sector is paying more for the energy.

00:18:00.500 Oh, yeah.

00:18:00.900 And this is their, like, straight up, this is their playbook.

00:18:03.820 Like, Mark Carney, his book is out of my reach right now.

00:18:05.980 I don't want to unplug my earphone.

00:18:07.360 Like, Mark Carney wrote a 507-page book, okay, cheerleading carbon taxes.

00:18:12.800 Carbon taxes are a keystone to his worldview.

00:18:15.540 He says that carbon taxes must exist and continuously increase.

00:18:20.820 The Carbon Tax Center, which is kind of a clearinghouse for information on the carbon tax around the world,

00:18:26.780 there's language in there.

00:18:28.180 It's not their own language.

00:18:29.240 It's just stuff that they're reposting for information.

00:18:31.160 But there's language on there that is basically counselling politicians who have to deal with us uppity peasants who don't like a visible carbon tax.

00:18:40.500 It's counselling them to do things like a cap-and-trade carbon tax, which is still a carbon tax, but you just can't see it.

00:18:48.060 Massive industrial carbon taxes.

00:18:49.980 And it even says, which is a safe harbour for politicians who are shy about facing irate voters.

00:18:58.320 It is just so disgustingly undemocratic.

00:19:02.200 I think it's interesting that Carney keeps calling the carbon tax divisive, right, which is, like, a really interesting use of language.

00:19:08.700 I don't know if it's divisive so much as it's just wildly unpopular.

00:19:11.600 Because a carbon tax is very immoral when you think about it, because heating and gas, they live on a very inelastic demand curve, right?

00:19:20.820 Like, you don't have an option of whether or not to keep your home in Edmonton.

00:19:24.420 If you don't, you freeze to death.

00:19:26.320 You don't have an option of whether or not you can drive to work or not, or else you lose your job, and you can't pay your heating, and you freeze to death.

00:19:32.080 It's like putting a tax on insulin for diabetics, right?

00:19:35.280 There's something incredibly immoral and unjust about that.

00:19:37.980 So I find the language divisive to be almost, yeah, it's a strange use of the word.

00:19:43.720 It is.

00:19:44.160 I will point out, so Franco Teresano, our federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, wrote a book on this.

00:19:54.240 It's going to be coming out soon.

00:19:55.780 It's already available for pre-order on Amazon.

00:19:58.100 I just finished voicing the thing, and I'm editing it, which is taking forever.

00:20:01.920 But this is why I can recall all this stuff fresh.

00:20:04.760 What's upsetting is that politicians have known this, the immorality that you point out here, Alex.

00:20:12.360 They've known this for a long time.

00:20:15.340 Very briefly, where you are right now, the carbon tax was hatched back in 2008, and politicians at the time promised many things.

00:20:24.300 They said that the carbon tax was going to be revenue neutral.

00:20:27.020 They said that the carbon tax was going to create an abundance of affordable alternative energies that people could just switch to.

00:20:35.300 To your point, Alex, this is not like choosing between paper or plastic shopping bags.

00:20:40.360 No.

00:20:41.040 Most people don't have that affordable alternative abundant energy source to switch to.

00:20:46.520 They would have done it by now.

00:20:48.540 They're just beaten into a financial corner.

00:20:50.460 And this is key for any of my folks who are huge environmentalists, and they hug trees like I have done.

00:20:57.780 Like, I hear you.

00:20:59.260 This is not an environmental solution.

00:21:01.720 Because when British Columbia first hatched the carbon tax in 2008, they promised that the carbon tax would reduce emissions by 33% below 2007 levels by 2020.

00:21:14.080 Guess what?

00:21:15.860 They went up instead.

00:21:18.160 So it doesn't work anywhere you slice this thing.

00:21:20.680 And very briefly, one more thing on this industrial carbon tax thing.

00:21:23.580 This is what blows my mind, coming from Carney.

00:21:26.160 And this is fresh from Carney.

00:21:27.700 This is not dug up from his book from two years ago.

00:21:30.400 It's what he said out loud with his face.

00:21:32.780 He says he wants to crank up the industrial carbon tax and create carbon tax tariffs.

00:21:39.020 So stuff coming into Canada for the first time ever will have a carbon tax punishment coming from a country that doesn't have one, i.e. the United States.

00:21:49.500 Making stuff cost more for Canadians.

00:21:51.980 That does two things, okay? 1.00

00:21:53.660 Which is super stupid, especially right now. 0.98

00:21:56.100 One, it makes stuff cost more here. 0.99

00:21:59.020 Two, there's a guy named Donald Trump, the president of the United States, who's ringing a dinner bell right now, trying to get industry to come to America.

00:22:08.020 America.

00:22:09.140 Well, guess what's going to happen to those manufacturing plants in Ontario?

00:22:12.900 I'm looking at you, Ontario.

00:22:14.720 They're just going to get up and move. 0.98

00:22:17.260 Yeah, I'm going to be a bit of a jerk to all sides of the political spectrum and say that 25% tariffs on Canadian goods to solve the fentanyl crisis is just as dim-witted as thinking you can change the weather with taxes. 0.97

00:22:28.920 Tariffs, as you mentioned. 0.97

00:22:29.900 Yeah, tariffs are just trade taxes and they just make things and life more expensive for normal people.

00:22:38.340 Did we want to get into, this was quite the eyebrow-raising moment.

00:22:42.320 Premier Daniel Smith here in our home province of Alberta, Isaac, kind of throwing down the gauntlet, right?

00:22:50.640 So I was trying to read this to understand it, but I haven't had enough time to really analyze it.

00:22:55.440 Basically, what I understand is this.

00:22:57.160 Is she going to designate our oil and gas sites and the data as kind of protected so the feds can't look at it?

00:23:07.020 Like, what was your take on this, Isaac?

00:23:08.760 What did you get from this?

00:23:09.540 Yeah, a few things I want to cover.

00:23:12.680 Firstly, just touching on the tax.

00:23:14.420 We've seen, of course, Alberta go to war against the feds uncountable amount of times on these carbon taxes.

00:23:22.280 And we've seen nationwide, too, the emissions have only ever gone up with the carbon taxes.

00:23:26.620 They do absolutely nothing for emissions.

00:23:28.020 And we've seen that in Alberta.

00:23:29.720 They've been saying the same things.

00:23:31.040 Look, we can reduce our emissions with technology.

00:23:33.700 Taxes are not the option.

00:23:34.720 In fact, empowering industry will help because it will boost technology.

00:23:38.720 And now, speaking of industry, here's Alberta saying to Ottawa, you can't access our oil and gas industry at all.

00:23:47.160 Off limits, completely off limits.

00:23:48.640 We've seen them, of course, go to battle with the feds many times over the oil and gas emissions cap.

00:23:55.080 And in its past forms, it seems to keep evolving, although they don't really change anything.

00:23:59.000 They just say they did.

00:24:00.420 And they've even taken them to court before and won various times.

00:24:04.200 Where, of course, the No More Pipelines Act, I think it was, was deemed unconstitutional.

00:24:10.740 And here's what Alberta is saying.

00:24:12.600 Again, if you're trying to violate our jurisdiction, yeah, not going to happen.

00:24:17.820 So they basically updated their act to take it to the next level where Ottawa can't even get Alberta's data.

00:24:24.340 So all these impact assessment acts, whatever, they're based on emissions data, they won't even have the data.

00:24:30.640 So how are they going to know what's happening in Alberta?

00:24:33.780 Yeah, no, it's, it's, I mean, I certainly don't blame Alberta.

00:24:37.700 Like I said, they're actually trying to not only empower industry, but reduce their emissions.

00:24:41.960 Unlike Ottawa, who, who, who are just trying to tax people and do nothing about emissions, though they virtue signal and say, oh, this will reduce emissions.

00:24:49.080 We know from the data itself, by the way, from the data that in these taxes do nothing to reduce emissions.

00:24:55.120 In fact, they do the opposite.

00:24:56.600 Whereas Alberta is actually trying to empower industry and implement best practices and technologies that will and are reducing emissions.

00:25:06.040 And another report I read recently, I forgot which one it was.

00:25:09.240 But anyways, yeah, look, Canada can actually be a global player in energy because we have clean energy and the alternative is getting very, very dirty energy from coal producing plants in China.

00:25:21.540 So, yeah, if we actually boost up our energy and get it worldwide, we can actually do something in global emissions, not just our little country of 40 odd million people.

00:25:32.460 Yeah, to your point, again, Canada is responsible for about 1.4% of global emissions.

00:25:38.820 We're really fighting on the wrong end of that arithmetic problem.

00:25:42.120 If we're really concerned about global emissions.

00:25:44.880 I will quickly point out, I did, I think I saw language such as if the feds try to get into these offices to get this data, it will be like a trespassing situation.

00:25:57.800 So, like things is getting real.

00:25:59.680 I will also point out that the parliamentary budget officer, the PDO, okay, the nonpartisan watchdog of the federal budget has came out with a report very recently.

00:26:11.200 I did a stand up in front of a pumper there, a pump jack, and it would cost.

00:26:16.220 So, the production cap, they call it an emissions cap, but it's a production cap, coming from Ottawa, imposed on Alberta's oil and gas sector.

00:26:25.820 This is the data from this report.

00:26:28.220 That move would blow a $20 billion hole in the Canadian economy and slash more than 40,000 jobs.

00:26:40.380 Chris, it's $20.5 billion, and I know, because I know the report, and 54,400 jobs.

00:26:46.620 I think it was by 2032, but yes.

00:26:48.420 Wow.

00:26:48.940 That is an astonishing amount.

00:26:51.460 Just an astonishing amount.

00:26:53.060 Alex, you're there in the Lower Mainland.

00:26:54.860 You're actually in the New West, the original capital of British Columbia for history nerds.

00:26:59.780 Alex, what's your take on this?

00:27:01.460 What did you think when you heard this gauntlet being thrown down?

00:27:05.620 Yeah, I'm curious.

00:27:06.500 Again, I have another question, because I'm not as knowledgeable on this as I probably should be.

00:27:10.060 How much does the federal government collect from the carbon tax?

00:27:13.800 How much does the federal government collect from the federal carbon tax?

00:27:17.060 Around $13 billion in a year.

00:27:20.880 Because I guess my concern, and I'm just playing devil's advocate, so forgive me.

00:27:25.480 As we all know, the federal government is so bloated as it is, and they already can't afford to basically run operations with a balanced budget.

00:27:34.360 Can they afford to lose the carbon tax?

00:27:37.260 Yes, because they need to cut spending. 0.88

00:27:40.180 Right, no, no, no, I agree with that, of course.

00:27:42.000 I absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, out of principle.

00:27:44.160 I mean, obviously we're all right of center, and we're all, you know, would rather have a smaller government.

00:27:49.080 But just theoretically speaking, if Carney wants to keep the existing federal government intact as it currently is,

00:27:55.320 can he even afford to get rid of the carbon tax?

00:27:57.740 No, he would add on to the debt.

00:28:00.560 He would straight up add on to the debt, which, by the way, is $1.2 trillion.

00:28:04.480 And as we all famously know, our deficit, which is a little baby debt, deficit is a yearly debt that is piled on to the big honking mama debt. 0.56

00:28:13.400 OK, the baby debt for this fiscal year went from the $40 billion mark to around the $60 billion mark.

00:28:20.680 And that is when famously Christopher Freeland said, you know what, I'm out of here.

00:28:24.000 I'm not doing this.

00:28:24.680 So, yeah, if they kept on spending, I won't even say like drunken sailors, like a drunken sailor was my best man at my wedding.

00:28:31.240 He was way better with money than the Trudeau government.

00:28:33.600 So if they just keep blowing money like this, then no, they would just have an extra $13 billion added on to their debt.

00:28:41.760 The answer, though, of course, is to slash spending.

00:28:44.760 Wouldn't this be a good question for mainstream media?

00:28:48.640 Yeah, that's a really good question.

00:28:50.280 How are you going to afford this?

00:28:52.180 That's a great question.

00:28:53.240 And you know what he'll probably say?

00:28:55.180 He'll say something like, we're going to make big polluters pay, which translation, use your universal translator from Star Trek, means businesses, industries, job creators, all of that.

00:29:06.060 Remember that steel plant that he was standing in with his earplugs in and his eye protection and his hard hat?

00:29:13.120 And they couldn't get apparently the word on the street is I don't know if this is true.

00:29:17.440 The word on the street is, is they couldn't get workers to stand behind him.

00:29:20.500 So they made all of the cabinet ministers put on these outfits and just saying, I don't know if many of those cabinet ministers have worn steel toes before in their lives because they looked a little awkward.

00:29:32.080 Alex, just to take it to your neck of the woods there, I saw a few articles come up recently on if EB were to remove the carbon tax, I think it would leave like a $1.5 billion hole in their budget.

00:29:43.760 And we already know BC is continuously running record deficits and their credit rating, I think, has decreased like three times or something.

00:29:50.980 So I don't know how they're going to deal with losing the carbon tax, the revenue from the carbon tax, because it's revenue neutral.

00:29:57.500 No, it's not. You need that money. You need to tax your citizens because you're spending in other areas is very irresponsible.

00:30:04.020 Speaking of spending in other areas, do we want to get into the stuff that Premier EB spends money on there, Alex?

00:30:10.080 Ah, yes.

00:30:11.340 Oh, yeah. So I heard that he was eating $57 sandwiches. Is that true?

00:30:15.980 Yeah. So the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, my colleague, Carson Binda, he's our BC director for the CTF.

00:30:23.600 This is his story. He dug up these FOI documents.

00:30:26.860 So Premier EB blew more than $118,000 on a huge taxpayer funded party.

00:30:34.400 Get this. This was not for people from British Columbians around the province who had done great things.

00:30:40.680 This wasn't for people who were raising money for cancer research.

00:30:44.100 Even then, a $57 sandwich is expensive, but it wasn't for any of those noble things.

00:30:49.900 No, it was a huge shaker for bureaucrats.

00:30:54.600 And what got me was it was termed government innovation, which is like an oxymoron.

00:31:02.600 And then they had like a huge party.

00:31:05.400 And this is what blew my mind. Two things.

00:31:07.500 One, there was the hall they rented cost like $14,000 or something.

00:31:13.580 And it was just like a couple blocks from, you know, the enormous building that we already pay for in Victoria called the legislature, which has ballrooms and stuff in it.

00:31:22.780 And then also, this is what I can't understand.

00:31:25.880 And I'm going to throw it to you guys, Alex and Isaac.

00:31:28.300 They spent $57 on sandwiches per sandwich.

00:31:33.780 And this is not, before you ask, this is not with a catering fee baked in. 0.99

00:31:38.320 The catering fee was a different line item on this damn receipt. 0.99

00:31:42.420 Okay. 0.99

00:31:42.740 On this invoice.

00:31:43.540 These, these sandwiches cost 57 bucks a piece.

00:31:48.380 I make sandwiches for my kids every single morning using like roast beef and stuff.

00:31:53.220 I could not make it cost 57 bucks.

00:31:55.860 Yeah, like what's in them?

00:31:57.360 What's in the sandwich?

00:31:58.500 Is it like foie gras and beluga caviar?

00:32:02.300 Beluga caviar.

00:32:03.820 How do you possibly get to $57 per sandwich?

00:32:06.960 A sandwich by definition is a fairly small thing.

00:32:09.900 It's just two pieces of bread with something in the middle.

00:32:11.680 So, Isaac, what do you think they put in between the pieces of bread?

00:32:16.820 What do you think they put in there?

00:32:18.660 I don't know.

00:32:19.400 Some sort of lobster sandwich, I guess, could, could warrant that cost.

00:32:22.380 Although you are in BC, you could theoretically maybe get lobster for a bit cheaper.

00:32:25.840 You're right on, on the waterfront there, but I have no idea.

00:32:30.880 There's no, so it would have to be, I would go, I would, I would up you there.

00:32:34.640 It would have to be like salmon, wild salmon off the West Coast.

00:32:38.260 Because the lobsters don't live on the West Coast.

00:32:40.880 Except this one time, a family member of mine, who was from Nova Scotia.

00:32:45.480 This is a fun story.

00:32:46.820 From Nova Scotia.

00:32:48.120 And he was coming back, back home to BC.

00:32:50.900 And he was bringing lobsters with him.

00:32:53.560 Like live lobsters. 0.61

00:32:54.800 Because you have to cook them.

00:32:55.780 Sorry, animal rights people.

00:32:57.200 You have to cook them boiling from when they're alive.

00:32:59.200 But he had a layover at the ferry.

00:33:02.500 And so he took them down to Horseshoe Bay and put like a little fence in the water.

00:33:07.940 And took out his lobsters and swam them around.

00:33:11.640 And so all these tourists started taking pictures of him.

00:33:14.460 So they thought that we had pet lobsters.

00:33:17.300 Anyway, there was entire lore that started there.

00:33:19.920 But yeah, this thing, for these sandwiches, I was envisioning like the golden goose.

00:33:25.340 Like they killed the golden goose.

00:33:27.080 They made, to your point, Alex, foie gras out of this poor golden goose.

00:33:31.380 Then they sprinkled it with saffron.

00:33:33.540 And just added an inflation tax or something.

00:33:36.560 Like you said, it's a sandwich between two pieces of bread.

00:33:38.800 There has to be some like super bougie bread too.

00:33:40.800 I don't know what the most exquisite bread in the world is.

00:33:43.620 But something crazy.

00:33:44.920 Just to take us through a few other costs.

00:33:47.100 Because I had written about this article.

00:33:49.120 Get this.

00:33:49.820 $7.50 per bottle of sparkling water.

00:33:52.160 Okay.

00:33:52.560 I don't know about that one.

00:33:55.420 Usually you won't have to pay.

00:33:57.080 It's like Woodstock 99 prices.

00:34:01.160 And then just on the provincial level, of course, their 2024-25 deficit rose to $9.4 billion,

00:34:08.840 which was a $1.5 billion increase from its initial forecast.

00:34:13.300 And now the debt has risen to $130 billion, also surpassing previous forecasts.

00:34:20.580 But here's what you need to know if you're a British Columbian.

00:34:22.900 So this one's for you, Alex.

00:34:24.520 British Columbians will pay $4.3 billion annually in interest on the provincial debt, amounting to about $757 per resident.

00:34:33.780 So, yeah.

00:34:34.580 And this is just what your politicians are spending their money on.

00:34:38.080 That's only 14 sandwiches, I think.

00:34:43.220 And that's just the interest.

00:34:45.540 And for folks keeping along with home at home, over $4 billion this year on interest, you could build almost four brand new hospitals for that.

00:34:54.280 So it's a good way of picturing a billion, because a billion is $1,000 million.

00:34:58.300 It can get kind of, like, overwhelming to understand how big that is.

00:35:01.540 The next time you walk past a reasonably sized new shiny hospital, that's about a billion dollars.

00:35:07.380 So absolutely wild.

00:35:08.940 I am laughing, because I know it's infuriating.

00:35:11.280 I'm laughing, because otherwise you'll cry, because it's so infuriating.

00:35:15.280 And also, I'm laughing, because we have to mock these people.

00:35:19.360 These people clearly think very highly of themselves.

00:35:22.160 Like, they think of themselves as landed dukes, which is why they can blow $57 per sandwich. 0.76

00:35:28.980 And apparently the finance minister was asked about this by the media, to their credit.

00:35:33.580 They stuck a mic in her face. 1.00

00:35:35.220 And she doesn't think a $57 sandwich is extravagant.

00:35:38.660 I think people should mail the minister of finance there in Victoria what they spend on groceries.

00:35:50.060 Let them know. 0.99

00:35:51.060 Let them know what they spend on their stupid BC carbon tax, which they need to get rid of yesterday, 0.99

00:35:56.420 so she can get an understanding of how much a $57 sandwich actually costs the average person. 0.99

00:36:02.420 Pretty wild, guys.

00:36:03.520 I think that's all we have for today's fun.

00:36:06.560 Thank you both for joining us.

00:36:08.020 Alex, it looks like you're being broomed away from your location there in the U.S.

00:36:13.160 Yeah, that's right.

00:36:15.380 Move along, we're going to have you standing here. 0.64

00:36:18.440 That's right.

00:36:19.100 That's right.

00:36:19.500 It's starting to rain, too.

00:36:20.440 I was just going to mention, I went to Seattle.

00:36:24.620 Oh, he got cut out there.

00:36:25.880 The election there.

00:36:26.660 You said you went to Seattle.

00:36:27.880 Whoa, whoa, stop, stop.

00:36:28.760 You said you went to Seattle in what?

00:36:30.280 I went to Seattle to cover the election, the U.S. election, and somehow I ended up in the Washington State Democratic primary building.

00:36:38.440 They had a kind of convention.

00:36:40.620 I don't know if I'm still here.

00:36:41.960 It was $27 per beer.

00:36:44.800 U.S.

00:36:46.240 U.S.

00:36:46.840 Yeah, so that's almost, you could almost buy a sandwich with that.

00:36:51.560 My gosh.

00:36:52.760 See, that's a perfect example of even the most ridiculous moments where you're trapped in a certain area and, like, that's all you can pay, like, at a concert or something.

00:36:59.920 This still eclipses that.

00:37:02.060 And the people of British Columbia are dealing with disgusting costs of living.

00:37:07.100 Like, people can't afford homes.

00:37:08.600 They can't afford food.

00:37:09.680 Their transportation costs are through the roof.

00:37:11.680 Like, that B.C. government should be ashamed of itself.

00:37:15.160 Folks, thank you so much for watching.

00:37:17.000 And remember, everything that we've said is off the record.

00:37:24.280 Isaac, what's the most extravagant sandwich you've ever had?

00:37:28.040 You know, I...

00:37:29.080 Like, think fancy.

00:37:30.240 Like, was it grilled?

00:37:31.220 Did you have mushrooms on it?

00:37:33.060 I'm sure I've had some extravagant sandwiches.

00:37:34.920 They just don't come to mind because, you know, it's just in your head.

00:37:36.940 It's like, oh, it's just a sandwich, right?

00:37:38.900 And I tell you, Chris, they definitely didn't cost $57, no matter how extravagant they were.

00:37:45.560 I mean, are you kidding me?

00:37:47.520 $57? 0.87

00:37:48.440 It's so gross.

00:37:49.480 Alex, before you get broomed away by security, what was the fanciest sandwich you've had? 0.53

00:37:55.040 Oh, like, I'm super stingy.

00:37:56.860 I'm a really cheap person.

00:37:58.060 So, at first, I thought I couldn't think of anything.

00:37:59.820 But it occurred to me in conversation, I have spent, like, $27 on a lobster roll once.

00:38:04.920 Does that count?

00:38:05.980 Is a roll a sandwich?

00:38:07.220 Yeah, a roll is a sandwich.

00:38:08.600 I have a sandwich chart on the inside of my cupboard, and a roll counts as a sandwich.

00:38:13.500 So does a hot dog, by the way.

00:38:14.820 Fight me.

Off the Record - March 23, 2025

Trump’s Choice for Canada’s Prime Minister

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