Maxime Bernier, leader of the People s Party of Canada and former foreign affairs minister in Stephen Harper's government, joins David Axelrod on the show to discuss the impact of the Trump administration's 25% tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States.
00:07:25.540And, actually, what we must do is just wait and see, because these tariffs will have an impact on American consumers.
00:07:36.640Everything that Trump, the 25% tariffs coming from Trump, everything that will come from Canada, so American consumers will have to pay more.
00:07:50.740That being said, Trump did a campaign on managing inflation in the U.S.
00:08:02.300So, I believe that these tariffs cannot be there for, you know, too long.
00:08:08.460Trump will have some pressures coming from businesses in the U.S.
00:08:13.920So, we need to wait and see, but what we can do for our economy is to be sure that we'll have a real free trade in this country,
00:08:24.680to lower taxes to Canadians, to have a flat tax on business, to abolish the capital gains tax, to have a smaller government in Ottawa that won't have any deficit,
00:08:41.940to balance the budget as soon as possible, to cut all the spending that we are giving to the U.N. and foreign aid.
00:08:50.000So, we can do a lot here in Canada to have a better and a more productive economy, and that's the solution.
00:08:59.260But re-imposing counter-tariffs, that is stupid, like I wrote, that is a dumb policy.
00:09:09.180And answering your question, why all these establishment politicians are doing that,
00:09:14.780is because they did what they did to us during the COVID hysteria.
00:12:14.420Because here's Donald Trump's response to Justin Trudeau yesterday.
00:12:18.020He said, please explain to Governor Trudeau of Canada that when he puts on a retaliatory tariff on the U.S.,
00:12:23.580our reciprocal tariff will immediately increase by a like amount.
00:12:26.920So we could be looking at 75% increase, which, of course, will be absolutely catastrophic to the economy.
00:12:35.120But once again, I don't see this message sinking in.
00:12:39.700It's interesting to watch Trudeau at these news conferences.
00:12:42.500He's got the usual three dummies behind him.
00:12:45.440He's got Dominic LeBlanc and David McGinty and Melanie Jolie standing behind him.
00:12:53.640But they look increasingly worried he's not getting this at all.
00:12:58.660And I just find that his attitude, as his days are supposedly numbered, you know, now he's not saying exactly when he's going to be leaving as prime minister.
00:15:30.740It's like we're only being shown one way out of this, which is to raise the ground, to absolutely strike back, and just to hell with the consequences.
00:15:41.320And that's all we heard during the first part of COVID, of course, until the Freedom Convoy demanded change.
00:15:47.440But all we heard from all of the media, from the government, from the official opposition, just follow the mandates.
00:16:18.600And if the clip that you did show us about Poliev, his description of what will happen in the U.S. economy because of the 25% tariffs that Trump did impose on his economy, the description is great.
00:17:28.140And a lot of people forget, because things are bad enough, that there's another carbon tax increase coming, which will certainly, certainly be added.
00:17:37.140And, but what is really frightening, and once again, I think this is something you need to talk about, because I haven't heard a peep out of Poliev or the Conservatives about Mark Carney's plan for a carbon tariff.
00:17:51.120The thing we're going to do is to ensure that there's fair competition for our companies, and that we penalize high-polluting foreign imports.
00:18:02.060So, we're going to develop a carbon border adjustment mechanism.
00:18:04.980What that does is promote jobs here at home, it prevents carbon leakage abroad, and it aligns Canada with our allies who are still engaged in the fight against climate change.
00:18:19.840So, here he is talking about a carbon tariff, and he refers to this, of course, in this very nebulous way, and like it's just something out there that's going to help Canadian businesses, except it's going to probably promote the expulsion of most businesses in Canada who are saying,
00:18:45.920no, I'm not going to pay for this, why, why shouldn't I go to the United States where there's no carbon tax, there's no corporate carbon tax, and there's no carbon tariff that I have to worry about now.
00:18:57.000But, once again, I have been talking about this for the last three weeks.
00:19:01.660I haven't heard the Conservative Party of Canada even mention that Mark Carney wants to introduce a carbon tariff in addition to the corporate carbon tax that he keeps talking about,
00:19:11.720which he claims is going to be less onerous than the personal carbon tax that we're all paying right now.
00:19:17.520But he's essentially going to double the carbon tax in Canada with this tariff, with the corporate carbon tax, which they'll pass on to consumers, of course.
00:19:28.360And yet, we're supposed to think Mark Carney is figuring a solution here?
00:19:32.940I mean, what do you think about this carbon tariff that he's talking about?
00:19:37.800Yeah, you know, Carney and Poliev on that, you know, they share the same position.
00:19:45.380They are in line with the Paris Accord, and all that is happening because of the Paris Accord.
00:19:52.620We will withdraw from the Paris Accord. That's it.
00:20:49.500If people want a real change, if people, they want a politician and a political party that will put Canada first, for real, and that will work for Canadians, we are there.
00:21:03.240We are the only national political party.
00:23:46.840Well, do you think it's actually possible now that Canadians are going to be fooled by Mark Carney masquerading as some kind of moderate?
00:23:58.540He's he's actually posturing as some sort of pure poly of light, like he's just a bit left of pure poly of much more serious than Justin Trudeau.
00:24:08.380This is a man with the personality of a reptile.
00:24:13.520I find his public speaking is is horrible.
00:24:17.200His French is horrible from a party that demands bilingualism as a prerequisite to be leader.
00:24:24.000And yet he's being sold to the Canadian people as the savior of the Liberal Party and the savior of Canada.
00:24:30.440And yet I think he's even more dangerous than Justin Trudeau because people tend to take him more seriously.
00:24:37.340Now, you were in government when Mark Carney was governor of Bank of Canada.
00:24:42.600And, you know, and supposedly he almost became our finance minister.
00:24:45.840But what is what is your feeling about Mark Carney is as a as a danger, as an even greater danger than Justin Trudeau has been?
00:24:53.980He is. He is the globalist in chief and he's a big globalist, a big spender.
00:25:02.720He will spend the money that we don't have.
00:25:04.880And he tried to tell us that he will balance the budget, the operation budget and take our budget and, you know, say, oh, there's two kind of spending, the spending and the investment.
00:25:18.800No, what the federal government, when the federal government is spending, that's not an investment.
00:25:23.020That's spending. So he will try to find a way to tell Canadians that, oh, he is balancing the operation budget.
00:25:31.440No, you need to balance the global budget and he won't do that.
00:25:35.440So, yes, Carney is a little bit as dangerous as Trudeau.
00:25:40.980But now Poliev is speaking like the Liberals.
00:25:44.200So, you know, we we are the only other options.
00:26:56.440This country is sovereign and we don't need to impose more taxes on Canadians to try to look like, you know, we have the best interests of our country.
00:29:09.640So it's why I said the Conservative Party of Canada is morally and intellectually corrupt.
00:29:17.500They don't promote real conservative ideas and they are speaking like liberals and when they are doing that, they are giving more credibility to the leftist narrative.
00:29:28.740I think of what you're saying there, all of that pandering that Stephen Harper did to the liberals, to the left of center, to the red Tories, to those so-called moderates in the Conservative Party.
00:29:43.980And he still lost the next election to Justin Trudeau.
00:29:58.600They're back with Poliev and they're giving him the same advice they gave Stephen Harper.
00:30:02.180And they're going to run the same election campaign as they ran for Stephen Harper in 2015, which was disastrous because it was a campaign all about Stephen Harper.
00:37:52.160And now we are pushing Ukraine to be part of NATO.
00:37:55.340And, you know, the worst of that is the U.S. did not respect in 2019 the treaty that they signed with Russia about the security and the missiles.
00:38:09.280And, you know, we had a nuclear treaty to manage, you know, missiles, nuclear missiles in Europe.
00:38:17.980The U.S. decided to withdraw from that.
00:38:20.520And now, you know, for Russia, they are saying, you know, if Ukraine is part of NATO, they will have a NATO base and they may be able to have nuclear missiles in that base in Ukraine.
00:38:35.620And I can understand why Putin doesn't want that.
00:38:39.860And add to that, you know, that Crimea and Donbass were, you know, under Russian jurisdictions a long time ago.
00:39:49.120We must accept that and we must stop that war.
00:39:54.840It's very dangerous for, you know, a third world war.
00:39:58.780And we have there's a good agreement on the table and you have Trudeau and all these European leaders and Poliev that are saying, we're going to give more munitions to Ukraine.
00:40:11.480We're going to give more financial aid to Ukraine to be for them to be able to go and do that war again.
00:40:20.460You know, the reality is Ukraine lost the war.
00:40:43.780Our enemy here in Canada is our own government and these establishment politicians who are not working in the best interests of our country.
00:40:53.260You know, when folks that is called common sense policy right there.
00:41:00.480And I have to say, I, I have Ukrainian lineage.
00:41:03.680My maternal grandmother was, was Ukrainian.
00:42:43.840So I'm telling them, you know, if you want to have, you know, if you want to have your ideas and your values to win, you need to vote for what you believe in.
00:42:56.020You'll have more chances to have what you want if you vote for what you want.
00:43:01.160And for us, you know, we are the only party that is with you and ready to fight.
00:43:06.680And, you know, if you increase our percentage of the vote from five to 10 or 15 percent, we may have, and I hope we will, our first candidate elected at this election.
00:43:19.260And for us, we will be your insurance policy that, you know, in Canada, we are speaking about the real challenges that we have with real common sense conservatives policies.
00:43:33.980And we are we are able to push that here in Canada.
00:43:37.700So, you know, we will support Poliev as a political party when Poliev will be a real conservative and we will shame him when he won't.
00:45:02.160People, actually, mostly out West, they don't like that big, fat federal government that is telling them what to do or what not to do.
00:45:12.520We want to end that and give more autonomy to provincial governments and more autonomy and freedom to Canadians.
00:45:20.000So if you like that, I hope that you'll vote for us.
00:45:23.540And if you don't like what I'm saying, don't vote for us because we won't change.
00:45:30.120Well, like you, I always say I applaud the Conservative Party of Canada and Pierre Pauly when they do something that's very, very conservative and principled conservative.
00:45:40.180I applaud them when they have conservative, true conservative policy.
00:45:45.140I'm not in the pocket of any political party.
00:45:47.180And, you know, I would criticize you, too, if I disagreed with you or didn't think you were putting out real conservative, small-c conservative libertarian policy.
00:45:56.060But, you know, I've never found occasion to have to do that because I don't think I've ever heard you say anything policy-wise that I can disagree with.
00:46:54.940And I may say to your viewers, if one of your viewers is, you know, a podcaster or very active on social media, you know, I'm ready to do an interview also.
00:47:06.640My goal is to be active, you know, on the ground for this election, traveling across the country, but also on social media.
00:47:14.620As you know, the mainstream media cancel us and they don't want to put our point of view out there.
00:47:21.420So, we need to be out and speak about our values to Canadians.
00:47:25.180And we need to be able to reach to more Canadians.
00:47:27.400So, the fact that you did interview me today, I'm very pleased with that.
00:47:34.560And so, if other YouTubers or podcasters want the same, they can just write to us at info at people's party of Canada.ca.
00:47:44.340And if you want to know more, if your viewers want to know more about our policy, they can go on our website, people's party of Canada.ca, and click on platform.