PJ The Belt - July 24, 2026


Alberta Just SIDED With Trump despite PRESSURE from Canada

Topics
American tariffs
Mentioned
Mark Carney Donald Trump
Alberta & Saskatchewan CHOOSE The USA!! — China Deal AT RISK for Mark Carney Canada has a HUGE PROBLEM in its hands..

Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

178.63

Word count

1,414

Sentence count

96


Summary

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

In the wake of the latest round of tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his premiers are meeting in Charlottetown, Nova Scotia to discuss how Canada can leverage its leverage in trade negotiations with the US.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 American tariffs have been focus number one in PEI this week
00:00:03.740 though there's differing opinions on how Canada should fight back.
00:00:08.080 We are an energy powerhouse and we could dismantle the U.S. if we wanted to.
00:00:13.640 And we need to be frank with the Americans that they will not get
00:00:16.580 the kind of access that they seek to what's in Canada
00:00:20.280 if this is how the conduct's going to go.
00:00:22.420 It seems most premiers believe it's now time to use Canada's real bargaining power, energy.
00:00:28.540 American refineries, specifically in the Midwest, rely on exported Albertan crude.
00:00:34.320 But ask the leader of the oil-rich province, and it's a hard no.
00:00:39.020 Well, that's not going to happen.
00:00:41.640 Even politicians who build their political brand around opposing Trump are suddenly having to face reality.
00:00:48.080 I mean, it makes sense. Once you get past all the slogans and all the political theater, reality is pretty simple.
00:00:55.320 Canada needs access to the American market more than the other way around.
00:01:00.820 And Canada cannot afford years of economic conflict with its largest trading partner.
00:01:06.000 The tough talk sounds great at a liberal convention, but reality is a whole other ballgame.
00:01:11.160 I think it's very constructive to go into a negotiation saying, or else, right?
00:01:16.120 I mean, I think everybody is trying to get them to find out what the or else is.
00:01:19.780 And I don't think you go into a negotiation promising to punch someone in the nose.
00:01:23.240 You go into a negotiation talking about a win-win, and I think that that's more the Prime Minister's style, and I'm glad to see that.
00:01:29.820 What I would say is you have to be very careful not to put things on the table that you're not prepared to do.
00:01:38.060 And I'm going to try to prevent Canada from making a very dumb decision of putting energy on the table, because Line 5 goes through Michigan.
00:01:46.160 If you cut off energy to the United States, they can cut off Line 5 and cut off energy to Ontario and Quebec.
00:01:53.800 So no aviation fuel, no diesel, no gasoline, and we don't want to do that.
00:01:59.060 So I would just say that it may sound tough to say those kind of things, but if you cannot do it practically and you're not prepared to live with the consequences of doing it, don't threaten it.
00:02:08.240 And so there may be other things that with the passage of time that will come up, but I would say it's far more constructive to go into negotiations saying, hey, we want to deal.
00:02:17.400 We want to maintain this really strong trade relationship and let's see if we can both get a win out of it.
00:02:22.180 That's that's my approach. And I think that's the lesson here.
00:02:25.000 Eventually, reality catches up. You can spend months and months attacking Trump.
00:02:29.720 You can spend months pretending Canada has all the leverage.
00:02:32.820 You can spend an eternity telling liberal voters what they want to hear.
00:02:36.880 But when jobs, investment, trade and economic growth are on the line, suddenly the conversation changes.
00:02:44.420 And as a winery owner, it's disappointing that, you know, it costs more money to send, you know, to send my money across Canada.
00:02:52.240 I mean, even with the 50, the dirty secret is with the 50 percent tariff, it's still cheaper to sell it to the U.S.
00:02:58.140 I mean, I think you're echoing the frustration of so many business owners across the country.
00:03:03.440 Ron, I want to ask you, because in many ways, your perspective and your point of view is what really matters, given the kind of impact that you guys feel with these tariffs.
00:03:13.220 So if you were to be writing this deal, what would be in it?
00:03:17.680 I immediately allow Canadian made wine, Canadian made beer, Canadian made spirits, cider to be treated as domestic product with no provincial markup.
00:03:29.640 Allow us to collect the HST or the PST.
00:03:33.320 You know, in B.C., the PST is 42 percent higher than the regular PST.
00:03:37.360 But allow us to collect that and stop collecting the 71 percent to 300 percent markups that all these provincial liquor boards are doing.
00:03:44.960 You know, as you must be watching the premier's meeting happening in Charlottetown,
00:03:50.400 as you're hearing premiers say that there is a united front among leaders across this country,
00:03:57.540 What do you make of what they're saying and then what they're actually doing?
00:04:02.620 This is no different than the MOU Memorandum of Uselessness that was signed last year to allow free trade by June of this year.
00:04:09.360 I call on the provincial premiers to, because some of them are good people, is to get the bureaucrats out of the room to say we truly want a Canadian market and to get the provincial markups, the 71 to 300 percent markups that we have,
00:04:24.800 and make Canada a truly strong market.
00:04:28.060 After a morning of meetings with Canada's premiers,
00:04:30.700 the Prime Minister says everything is on the table
00:04:33.200 when it comes to U.S. trade negotiations.
00:04:35.440 The leaders all spoke of cooperation
00:04:37.300 ahead of a new round of heavy American tariffs.
00:04:39.920 But some are wondering if Canada is pulling every lever it can.
00:04:44.380 Timbrook explains.
00:04:46.000 American tariffs have been focus number one in PEI this week,
00:04:49.760 though there's differing opinions on how Canada should fight back.
00:04:53.600 We are an energy powerhouse and we could dismantle the U.S. if we wanted to.
00:04:59.720 And we need to be frank with the Americans that they will not get the kind of access that they seek to what's in Canada if this is how the conduct is going to go.
00:05:08.500 It seems most premiers believe it's now time to use Canada's real bargaining power, energy.
00:05:14.620 American refineries, specifically in the Midwest, rely on exported Albertan crude.
00:05:20.000 But ask the leader of the oil-rich province, and it's a hard no.
00:05:25.120 Well, that's not going to happen.
00:05:27.220 Thursday with the PM, temperatures lowered.
00:05:30.320 Mark Carney is preaching national unity.
00:05:32.800 And part of that unity is recognizing that there isn't a series of little trade issues.
00:05:38.340 There are broad trade issues.
00:05:39.540 All of them have to be part of a comprehensive agreement.
00:05:42.920 President Donald Trump's move to impose 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods is coming next month.
00:05:49.340 Carney won't say what comes before then, but hinted Thursday at supports for tariff-affected sectors.
00:05:56.420 Everything's on the table if there's no agreement, depending on the outcome of the negotiations, yes.
00:06:01.480 Experts believe the measured approach is wise.
00:06:04.860 But we need to proceed a bit more slowly and deliberately than other countries upon.
00:06:11.800 Whether the eventual pushback includes energy remains to be seen.
00:06:15.940 Our success has been, I think, that we've gone directly to American businesses and consumers, and they've become our advocates.
00:06:23.080 They know how valuable it is to have a free flow of energy across the border.
00:06:28.380 We still haven't talked about Canada.
00:06:30.660 So Canada, one of the two countries that put retaliatory tariffs on.
00:06:35.280 Mark Carney won an election over opposition to U.S.-Canada trade and other issues.
00:06:43.040 How's it going with Canadians?
00:06:44.880 Well, I'm in contact with my counterparts on a weekly basis.
00:06:49.340 Over the past year, like with other countries,
00:06:51.860 I've given lots of proposals to the Canadians
00:06:53.760 on things that could be done immediately to put us in a better position.
00:06:57.380 The Canadians are always willing to talk, right?
00:06:59.580 Like many countries, we're happy to talk.
00:07:01.860 That's fine. You're always happy to talk.
00:07:04.180 That's not a concession.
00:07:05.040 That's just what we do as diplomats or economic negotiators.
00:07:09.940 So to me, that's not a concession.
00:07:12.060 That's not movement.
00:07:12.600 and that's just describing what we do now, which is talk.
00:07:15.500 So we just haven't seen a lot of movement.
00:07:17.680 There are a couple things that Canadians have done.
00:07:20.400 They had a digital services tax they proposed and rolled back.
00:07:23.280 They had an online streaming act where they wanted to force American companies
00:07:26.200 to fund Canadian companies that they rolled back.
00:07:29.580 I'm glad they did that, but they don't really get credit for doing something bad
00:07:32.880 and then undoing it, right?
00:07:33.980 That's just good practice on their part.
00:07:36.740 But let me know what you think.
00:07:38.120 Do you think Canada is finally facing reality,
00:07:40.520 or do you think Mark Carney will continue the whole elbows-up delusion?
00:07:46.020 Remember, the liberals hate conservative channels like this one,
00:07:49.100 so if you enjoy these videos, make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an update.
00:07:53.240 Thanks for watching. See you in the next one.