The Candice Malcolm Show - Canada ESCALATES the trade war

00:00:00.000 The high-stakes meeting between President-elect Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

00:00:05.840 It is a significant meeting at a significant moment for this country.

00:00:09.980 Prime Minister, what's the next meeting with President-elect?

00:00:13.300 It was a great conversation.

00:00:15.240 It's been a very challenging week for the Prime Minister, for the country, for businesses, for premiers,

00:00:19.880 who all got this social media post from Donald Trump on Monday

00:00:23.240 and kind of panicked, frankly, about the reality and the crushing impact this would have on Canada's economy.

00:00:29.700 President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on Canada haven't even got into effect

00:00:33.760 and it's already plunged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government into turmoil.

00:00:37.920 On Monday, Trudeau's one-time ally, the Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Christopher Freeland,

00:00:42.700 resigned in the most un-Canadian way.

00:00:45.180 Justin Trudeau has announced he's stepping down as the Prime Minister of Canada and as the leader of his party.

00:00:50.840 I intend to resign as party leader, as Prime Minister,

00:00:55.320 after the party selects its next leader.

00:00:59.740 When you threatened tariffs on Canada, Justin Trudeau rushed down here, he wanted to make nice.

00:01:05.300 Now he's on the way out. Is that what you wanted?

00:01:08.640 I didn't think he was going to quit.

00:01:10.680 I spoke to Governor Trudeau on numerous occasions and we'll see what happens.

00:01:18.200 So we'll be announcing the tariffs on Canada and Mexico of 25% on Canada and separately 25% on Mexico.

00:01:28.780 Canadians brace for economic turmoil as the reality of a full-blown trade war with the U.S. sinks in.

00:01:35.520 They owe us a lot of money and I'm sure they're going to pay.

00:01:38.980 We didn't ask for this, but we will not back down.

00:01:42.860 The real fear about what comes next for crucial Canadian industries.

00:01:46.740 It's devastating. It'll devastate us and it'll impact quickly.

00:01:49.900 And the anger growing across the country.

00:01:51.940 We're still here!

00:01:55.440 You announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

00:01:58.300 You immediately got action from both of them on border security and drug interdiction.

00:02:02.060 Is that good enough? Is that good enough? No, it's not good enough.

00:02:05.740 So more needed in 30 days.

00:02:08.000 Something has to happen. It's not sustainable.

00:02:11.000 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that his proposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods

00:02:17.960 will go into effect on March 4th as scheduled.

00:02:21.000 But very importantly, tomorrow tariffs 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico and that'll start.

00:02:27.960 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday.

00:02:37.300 On the tariffs, is there any room left for Canada and Mexico to make a deal before midnight?

00:02:41.280 No room left.

00:02:42.040 This is a policy decision by the American government designed to go after the Canadian economy.

00:02:49.320 This is a trade war.

00:02:51.560 Yes, Canadians are hurt.

00:02:54.320 Canadians are angry.

00:02:55.740 We're going to choose to not go on vacation.

00:02:58.580 We're going to choose to try to buy Canadian products.

00:03:01.980 And, yeah, we're probably going to keep booing the American anthem. 0.99

00:03:06.240 But, Donald, that even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do. 0.97

00:03:12.740 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is the Candice Malcolm Show, 0.93

00:03:42.580 wow, what a news day, what an incredible story.

00:03:46.260 And we are here.

00:03:47.340 We are facing a trade war with our closest friend and ally.

00:03:51.400 You can see the escalation happen over the past three months.

00:03:55.560 How did we get here and how are leaders responding?

00:03:58.220 We're going to get to it all today.

00:03:59.800 We've got a great show lined up.

00:04:01.700 And at the end of the show, pleased to be joined by independent MPP, Bobby and Brady.

00:04:06.600 So let's get right into the show.

00:04:08.220 Today, I am joined by Clyde Nichols.

00:04:10.980 Clyde is known as Clyde Do Something Online.

00:04:13.180 He's an auto mechanic during his day job and a political commentator and content creator

00:04:18.440 who posts daily videos on news and politics about Canada.

00:04:21.400 Clyde, thank you so much for joining the show today.

00:04:23.740 Well, thanks for having me.

00:04:25.060 So what an incredible series of events that we have just lived through

00:04:28.660 and has unfolded over the last few months.

00:04:30.960 And everything kind of came to an end yesterday where the tariffs were introduced

00:04:36.880 and Justin Trudeau came out and hit right back.

00:04:40.300 So we did the show yesterday with Hamish Marshall.

00:04:42.560 We covered that press conference live.

00:04:44.880 But I want to just highlight a few things that happened yesterday.

00:04:48.680 So at that press conference, Justin Trudeau announced the retaliatory tariffs

00:04:52.360 and vowed that they will remain until the U.S. tariffs are lifted.

00:04:57.460 Let's play that clip.

00:04:59.660 Canada will be implementing 25% tariffs against $155 billion worth of American goods.

00:05:08.780 Starting with tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods immediately

00:05:13.360 and tariffs on the remaining $125 billion of American products in 21 days' time.

00:05:20.380 Those are the taxes that Canadians will pay, right?

00:05:25.180 Trump's tariffs are going to impact Americans.

00:05:27.520 Trudeau's tariffs are going to impact Canadians.

00:05:30.340 And Trudeau took it one level further, right?

00:05:32.300 Like this, to me, seems like a personality feud between Trump and Trudeau.

00:05:35.780 They don't like each other and they're just ramping up the ante here.

00:05:39.540 And here is Prime Minister Trudeau.

00:05:41.200 This was sort of the one clip that went viral, the most viral yesterday

00:05:44.240 from his press conference, speaking directly to the American president, 0.98

00:05:47.920 calling him by his first name and saying that this is a very dumb thing to do. 0.98

00:05:51.960 Let's play that clip. 0.87

00:05:53.940 Now, it's not in my habit to agree with the Wall Street Journal.

00:05:58.220 But, Donald, they point out that even though you're a very smart guy, 0.99

00:06:03.520 this is a very dumb thing to do. 0.92

00:06:08.140 And he went on by saying that Canadians were not going to go to Florida on vacation 0.99

00:06:11.860 and that we're going to continue to boo their national anthem.

00:06:14.240 Let's play that clip.

00:06:14.780 We're going to choose to not go on vacation in Florida

00:06:20.200 or Old Orchard Beach or wherever.

00:06:24.400 We're going to choose to try to buy Canadian products

00:06:28.020 and forego bourbon and other classic American products.

00:06:34.660 And yeah, we're probably going to keep booing the American anthem.

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00:07:06.380 So Clyde, I want to hear your thoughts on this.

00:07:14.540 Look, I don't think that Trump has been very clear, as you can see from that intro,

00:07:17.540 of all the different things back and forth, his demands, what the issue is.

00:07:22.380 We don't even really know if the issue is fentanyl and the border, which is what he originally said,

00:07:26.480 or if it's something more like Trump wanting to fund the U.S. government with tariffs rather than income taxes and whether it's just like a general trade strategy.

00:07:37.040 But I want to get your opinion on Trudeau and how you think he's been handling all of this and whether you think that anything that he said yesterday was something that would benefit Canadians.

00:07:48.100 Well, I think he's been handling it terribly, obviously, and that's the case.

00:07:52.260 I want to address one thing.

00:07:54.140 When he says that Canadians are foregoing anything, like vacations or certain products, it's because they can't afford it.

00:08:02.080 It's not because they're doing some trade war thing.

00:08:05.960 And I'd like to say that this is not a trade war.

00:08:08.940 In fact, what a lot of people are in the media are saying is confusing is a confusion of their own, I think.

00:08:16.500 Donald Trump is not saying something that's very confusing.

00:08:19.240 He said specifically that he's got two sets of tariffs that are going to be coming on.

00:08:25.760 The first set is a punitive set of tariffs, and those punitive tariffs are because of Canada's behavior.

00:08:31.060 It's because of the border.

00:08:32.440 It's because of the fentanyl crisis.

00:08:34.980 It's because of what we've been allowing in our country and allowing to flow across the border. 0.99

00:08:41.180 Now, the second set of tariffs, they'll be coming in on April 2nd, and those are reciprocal tariffs.

00:08:47.620 We hear a lot about reciprocal tariffs, but this is what this is going to be about.

00:08:52.300 Canada has had a tremendous amount of trade restrictions, trade barriers for a very long time, and I think Donald Trump is really just addressing this.

00:09:01.580 You're right.

00:09:02.240 I think that a lot of Canadians are sort of, like, clutching their pearls and jumping to this Canadian nationalism movement that we have to, like, fight fire with fire.

00:09:11.560 And I don't see a lot of internal, like, retrospective look at our own policies.

00:09:16.720 In fact, what we do see is kind of, like, gaslighting, saying that Canada doesn't have tariffs or that we don't ban American businesses, which is just obviously not true.

00:09:26.740 Canada's economy is incredibly protectionist.

00:09:29.920 We have so many limitations on what you can, like, what kind of American businesses can open here, the competition.

00:09:37.420 So much of it is restrictive.

00:09:39.480 We'll get to that a bit later in the show.

00:09:41.800 That specific point, though, about how Canadians shouldn't go down and visit the States, I think you're right that a lot of Canadians can't afford those kind of things.

00:09:49.580 But it's also true that a lot of Canadians spend a lot of their time in the U.S.

00:09:54.800 Like, there's a whole category of Canadians called snowbirds that basically live in southern American states for the winter months.

00:10:02.520 And in many ways, it's cheaper for them, right?

00:10:04.700 If you go down to parts of Florida, you know, it's much, the cost of living is so much lower down there.

00:10:10.020 Same with places like Arizona or New Mexico, you know, depending on where in Canada you live.

00:10:15.400 I know so many people whose parents, like, basically live in the U.S. for half the year, and then they come back, you know, in order to collect their benefits or whatever.

00:10:23.900 So we had Florida Governor Ron DeSantis saying this.

00:10:28.000 Here's a clip of him yesterday saying that 3.3 million people from Canada come to Florida every year.

00:10:33.720 Let's play that clip.

00:10:35.320 We continue to set tourism records.

00:10:37.640 2024 saw more than 142 million visitors come to the state of Florida.

00:10:43.460 This includes 3.3 million visitors from Canada.

00:10:46.920 That's not much of a boycott in my book.

00:10:49.600 Maybe they wanted to get a glimpse of what a Stanley Cup winning hockey team actually looks like.

00:10:56.180 Well, that hurts.

00:10:57.760 That was unnecessary there, Governor DeSantis.

00:11:01.040 But aside from the hockey comment, I mean, he's right.

00:11:03.220 Like, Canadians aren't going to just all of a sudden stop going to the states.

00:11:06.700 I think that there is a contingent of people who are, you know, putting on their Canadian nationalism hat right now and saying, like, let's fight fire with fire and kind of leaning into this.

00:11:14.620 It's a good political message, particularly for the Liberal Party.

00:11:16.880 But I just can't imagine Canadians, A, keeping up a boycott. 0.97

00:11:20.860 Like, how can you boycott, you know, so much of our goods come from the United States.

00:11:25.880 Like, unless we're going to start closing down, like, Walmart and McDonald's and all these major American brands in our country, I don't see that really having any impact.

00:11:32.880 I don't think that Canadians are going to stop traveling to the United States.

00:11:35.520 What do you think?

00:11:36.420 Well, I think there's a bit of, like, a nationalistic fervor that's people are wrapping themselves in the flag.

00:11:41.820 But it's very reminiscent of, like, early 2020 COVID era, you know, let's rally together two weeks to flatten the tariffs.

00:11:52.280 It really is sad to see our fellow Canadians going down this exact same path.

00:11:59.100 Now, on this whole tariff, you know, the reciprocal tariffs coming from the Canadian side, this is only going to hurt Canadians at the end of the day.

00:12:09.940 It's only going to hurt Canadians, and it's only going to hurt trade or relations within Canada.

00:12:16.420 As we see right now, there's moves from people in Alberta to distance themselves from Ottawa.

00:12:22.400 And what is that going to end up looking like?

00:12:25.200 Well, only the future can tell, because I don't see any politicians at the same time talking about, you know, hard times for Canadians, easing up on the restrictions that they have.

00:12:36.080 Like, for example, the transfer payments that Alberta has to make to the other provinces.

00:12:42.080 Those aren't on the table.

00:12:43.560 Well, everything is on the table, and no cost is too high to go against the United States. 0.53

00:12:50.420 It's the political class is really not considering any of these things, including the dairy cartel.

00:12:56.540 Well, it's so interesting because Canada is already facing a cost of living crisis.

00:13:00.500 When you look at the polls and you ask Canadians, what is the top issue facing you and your family?

00:13:05.540 What is the main thing that's going to motivate you to vote in the next election?

00:13:08.120 It's the cost of living and how incredibly unaffordable everything from housing to food to gasoline is.

00:13:13.600 I mean, even just the idea of food security, like having access to fresh fruit and vegetables in your grocery store, that was already a concern for Canadians.

00:13:23.360 And then on top of that, now you're telling us that for everything that's been imported from the United States, we have to pay an additional 25 percent tax on it in hopes that maybe it'll change Trump's mind.

00:13:34.660 Like, I think it's such a bad sell to Canadians, and the fact that every single political party has the same view on this and has the same opinion, it's frustrating.

00:13:43.780 So I want to move over to Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives and his response, because even though fundamentally I don't agree that Canada should be retaliating with these tariffs,

00:13:55.520 I think that a better path would be let's just like try to negotiate a deal with Trump, however that may look.

00:14:00.420 Regardless, I disagree with the idea of the tariffs, but I felt like Pierre Polyev's message yesterday was really strong.

00:14:08.780 I felt like this was the best Polyev that we've seen on this topic.

00:14:12.180 So I'm going to play a few clips for you here.

00:14:14.500 So this was Polyev announcing what happened and talking about how the Americans have stabbed their best friends in the back.

00:14:23.320 Let's play that clip.

00:14:23.840 At 12.01 a.m., President Trump stabbed America's best friend in the back.

00:14:32.380 My message to the president is this.

00:14:35.020 Canada will fight back.

00:14:37.520 We will defend our people and our economy, and we will put Canada first.

00:14:42.940 And strong message, very firm.

00:14:48.680 And then he also notes that the fact that we're in this mess isn't necessarily just because of Donald Trump.

00:14:54.840 It's because the liberals have abdicated their responsibilities.

00:14:58.020 They've let Canadians down.

00:14:59.100 They haven't secured the border.

00:15:00.480 They've allowed the drug crisis to spiral out of control.

00:15:03.640 The idea that we have fentanyl labs, like super labs, operating in Canada by foreign nationals, by the way, by foreign gangs.

00:15:11.840 We know this is happening, and it has been allowed to go unchecked.

00:15:14.440 Maybe they're cracking down on it now, but it's too little, too late.

00:15:16.880 So here is Pierre Polyev saying that the liberals have simply not done enough.

00:15:21.920 The question was, have the liberals done enough on fentanyl?

00:15:24.920 And is that a good justification for Trump's tariffs?

00:15:29.280 And the answer to both questions is no and no.

00:15:31.320 No, the liberals have not done enough on fentanyl.

00:15:33.640 But not because they should have been doing it for Trump.

00:15:36.380 They should have been doing it for Canadians.

00:15:39.220 So that's absolutely right.

00:15:40.580 But then he goes on to say that it's still not justification for these kinds of tariffs.

00:15:44.320 So what do you think of Polyev's response there?

00:15:47.300 And how do you think he's handling this?

00:15:49.480 Well, I think the gravitas towards Pierre Polyev was this common sense narrative.

00:15:56.380 Speaking truth to power, talk about what's actually happening.

00:16:00.060 What I hear coming out of him right now, I don't really buy that.

00:16:03.320 I hear him saying a lot of platitudes, things that people want to hear, but not really the truth.

00:16:09.020 We're not in a strong position as Canada.

00:16:12.600 And yes, it is the liberals' fault.

00:16:14.280 But we can't go to the table negotiating as if we're in a strong position.

00:16:18.540 We have to be honest about this.

00:16:20.880 And we have to say, listen, we're going to have to capitulate to some of these demands.

00:16:24.980 And I don't think that they're being realistic about the actual crackdown on the fentanyl crisis.

00:16:31.300 When we see super labs getting taken down by the RCMP and only the janitor is being apprehended in those cases, the case that happened in British Columbia just recently, only one man was apprehended, arrested, and is being charged.

00:16:47.920 An Indian guy, when they say it's Mexican cartels that were operating it, it doesn't lend to a good sense of Canada is cracking down on these things.

00:16:58.260 It lends to more of the corruption that we've seen throughout the past 10 years or even longer in Canada.

00:17:05.260 And I think this is part of what Donald Trump wants to crack down on.

00:17:09.360 And again, I'm going to go back to the, you know, stick to my guns here.

00:17:14.240 The first round of tariffs, the blanket 25% tariffs on Canada are punitive.

00:17:19.880 And it's been very clear that this is about the border.

00:17:22.460 It's about fentanyl.

00:17:23.300 It's about terrorists in Canada because of our lax immigration being able to enter the United States.

00:17:28.980 The second round of tariffs that hasn't even come into play, that would be trade war territory.

00:17:33.920 We haven't even entered that market yet.

00:17:36.620 Well, I want to jump to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his response.

00:17:41.720 So in an interview on Fox News Business, Lutnick said that Canada and Mexico were on the phone all day yesterday with the Trump administration and that there may be a deal yet to come.

00:17:52.880 So, you know, this might not be here to stay.

00:17:55.320 It might have just been a warning.

00:17:57.420 Hard to make out again, but let's play that clip.

00:17:59.840 Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they'll do better.

00:18:07.080 And the president's listening because, you know, he's very, very fair and very reasonable.

00:18:11.300 So I think he's going to work something out with them.

00:18:13.700 It's not going to be a pause.

00:18:15.180 None of that pause stuff.

00:18:16.540 But I think he's going to figure out you do more and I'll meet you in the middle some way.

00:18:21.160 And we're going to probably be announcing that tomorrow.

00:18:23.200 So somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome, the president moving with the Canadians and Mexicans, but not all the way.

00:18:31.820 That's interesting.

00:18:32.620 I want to stick with Lutnick because he also criticized Justin Trudeau, saying that hopefully Canadians will select a new leader and adding that the Canadians like to cheat.

00:18:43.080 Let's play that clip.

00:18:43.620 Trudeau, who's about to leave the government, and obviously he should leave the government with his kind of talking.

00:18:50.460 You know, he's leaving the government.

00:18:51.960 Hopefully they'll elect someone who's clever, who comes down and says to Donald Trump, we want to do business with you.

00:18:58.080 We want to do business fairly and we're going to get rid of all this nonsense.

00:19:01.340 They've got a digital tax in Canada.

00:19:03.440 They try to tax our tech companies.

00:19:05.600 What happened to USMCA?

00:19:07.000 I'll tell you what happened to it. 0.77

00:19:08.200 The Canadians like to cheat. 1.00

00:19:10.380 So it's really interesting because there's these two dynamics, right?

00:19:14.840 It's like, yes, there's the fentanyl and drug issue and the border issue.

00:19:18.720 That's something that Trudeau has been weak on from the very beginning of his administration.

00:19:22.480 And that is the area, it seems, that Lutnick is saying that they're on the phones and they might be able to reach a deal on those.

00:19:27.820 And then to your point that you made about the second round of tariffs coming in April, that will be more to do with like evening the playing field and noting that Canadians cheat.

00:19:36.400 This is something that we don't really like to admit to ourselves that Canadians cheat.

00:19:39.820 But I mean, the whole concept of reciprocity in international trade is that you have equal access to one another's markets.

00:19:46.640 And it's just not the case that the Americans have equal access to the Canadian market because we have so many different taxes that we put.

00:19:53.260 I mean, he mentioned the digital sales tax.

00:19:55.040 But then we also have all kinds of subsidies.

00:19:56.720 We have all kinds of regulations that prevent foreign entities from operating in federally regulated spaces, be it banking, digital like telecommunication companies, airlines.

00:20:06.860 There's no shortage of areas where Canada just doesn't open up its market to the Americans.

00:20:12.660 And yet we expect that they should open their market to us and allow us to have access.

00:20:16.800 It's like I don't think like I'll just preface this all by saying I don't agree with what Trump is doing.

00:20:22.980 I think it's terrible.

00:20:23.760 I don't think it's a good idea for the Americans to have an unstable North America.

00:20:27.420 I think that the Americans would benefit from a better agreement leveling the playing field.

00:20:31.960 Maybe this is just how Trump wants to get there.

00:20:33.860 But, you know, there's a lot of a lot of issues that play a lot of moving parts.

00:20:39.920 And I think, you know, suggesting that maybe we'll get some relief from these tariffs today might be a little bit of a silver lining.

00:20:45.800 What do you think?

00:20:46.940 Well, first off, I want to say that this clip is indicative.

00:20:51.380 It really is indicative of how our government operates and how they speak out of both sides of their mouth.

00:20:56.060 Justin Trudeau comes to the Canadian populace and he says, listen, I'm being super tough.

00:21:01.240 Listen to me talk about Donald Trump by his first name.

00:21:05.600 And then they get on the phone with the Americans and they say, listen, can we can we can we fix that?

00:21:12.340 Can we get what can we do?

00:21:13.920 What can we get done?

00:21:15.660 They're not working on getting these things done because there's a whole structure of it is really corrupt here in Canada.

00:21:26.540 And I think a lot of Canadians don't want to really come to grips with that.

00:21:29.820 A lot of the corruption runs very deep and it would be it would expose a lot of them.

00:21:33.720 And this is this is why there's so much reluctance on on actually airing this.

00:21:38.780 I mean, Sam Cooper has been bringing so much of this stuff to light and it goes to the highest levels of government.

00:21:44.860 So, yeah, of course, they're they're reluctant to make any moves on the fentanyl issue.

00:21:49.220 But of course, they're going to speak different different language out of both both sides of their mouth, one to one audience and another to another.

00:21:58.120 Well, let's move on to Donald Trump's response to all of this, because I mean, in some ways he's pouring gas on the on the fire by just continuing to poke and prod Trudeau.

00:22:09.580 And I think every time he does this, it to your point about like the 2020 panic, like it strikes fear in Canadians and they don't like it.

00:22:18.160 And it seems like that's helping the liberals in the polls.

00:22:20.480 So it's almost like it's a song and dance now.

00:22:22.980 But posting on True Social yesterday, President Trump said the following.

00:22:28.000 He said, please explain to Governor Trudeau of Canada that when he puts retaliatory tariff on the U.S., a reciprocal tariff will immediately increase by a like amount.

00:22:39.360 And then he also wrote that Canada doesn't allow American banks to do business in Canada, but their banks flood the American market.

00:22:49.000 Oh, that seems fair to me, doesn't it?

00:22:51.880 And so, first of all, just say that when it comes to Canada putting in our own reciprocal tariffs and then Trump saying we're going to come back even harder.

00:23:02.500 But then you have Howard Lucknick on the other side saying we're going to strike a deal.

00:23:05.540 It's not going to be a pause, but we're going to come to some kind of agreement.

00:23:07.960 And you're seeing two different messages.

00:23:09.740 So I don't know if they're playing this game intentionally like good cop, bad cop.

00:23:13.120 But then Trump makes that point about how Canada doesn't allow American banks to do business.

00:23:18.640 And I want to kind of zero in on that a little bit because Elon Musk jumped in on X and wrote, it's a valid point.

00:23:26.300 The rules are asymmetric.

00:23:28.240 And so pointing out this idea that Americans have, that Canada has access to the American banks and not vice versa.

00:23:35.120 And then it's interesting, if we can show that Elon Musk X post, he says it's a valid point.

00:23:40.840 The rules are asymmetric.

00:23:42.740 The community notes jumped in and slapped a community note on there, basically just saying that this is wrong.

00:23:49.380 And then later they had to correct their community note.

00:23:52.580 And it says, clarification, American banks do business in Canada, but with restrictions, Canadian banks do not have in America.

00:24:01.780 And then you can see there's a couple of links there.

00:24:04.260 And so if you click on the CBC link, it says that this, that Trump falsely claims that U.S. banks aren't allowed to do business in Canada.

00:24:14.100 What does he mean?

00:24:16.200 Trump's claim isn't true, but foreign entry into Canadian bank sector is challenging.

00:24:22.120 And this is supposedly a fact check on whether or not American banks are allowed to do business.

00:24:27.380 This is an example, Clyde, of the CBC gaslighting Canadians, right?

00:24:31.820 They say right here that they're fact checking Donald Trump and he is false.

00:24:36.080 He is wrong that American banks are allowed to do business in Canada.

00:24:40.500 But the problem is when you read the article and it explains the different rules, you can see that it's true, that you don't have commercial banks in Canada.

00:24:51.100 Like you can't just walk into a Wells Fargo or a Bank of America branch in Canada.

00:24:55.880 They don't exist.

00:24:56.680 The opposite is true, though.

00:24:57.620 If you are in the United States, in many states, you can walk into a TD or an RBC.

00:25:02.240 They have branches.

00:25:03.160 You can open up a checking account.

00:25:04.580 You can go and do business at a Canadian bank.

00:25:06.600 In Canada, they have two different sort of types of banks, and so they're kind of making an argument that they can do business in Canada if they want to.

00:25:15.080 They just have to get a different license, and it would require them to buy a Canadian bank, and that there is this kind of obscure pathway for American banks to do business in Canada.

00:25:22.360 They just don't want to, which is just not true.

00:25:24.700 It's like we can walk around the country and just see that there aren't American banks here.

00:25:29.200 You can walk into a CIBC and an RBC, but you can't walk into one of these American brands.

00:25:34.400 To me, it just seems like we're not being honest about the situation.

00:25:38.340 We're pretending that things are there that aren't, and this is part of the problem with Canada in general.

00:25:43.780 We have a super protectionist country.

00:25:45.900 We don't allow a lot of outsiders to come in to do business. 0.94

00:25:48.880 We have a lot of restrictions, even on Canadian businesses, and then we go and pretend like we're completely innocent, and it's just entirely Donald Trump and Elon Musk being crazy. 0.68

00:25:57.760 What do you think? 0.94

00:25:58.540 Well, you beat me to the punch.

00:25:59.580 I was going to say, you don't have to listen to CBC News.

00:26:03.400 You just walk out your door and go to the Wells Fargo and try to, oh, you can't go to Bank of America.

00:26:08.980 Oh, you can't because they're not allowed to operate in Canada.

00:26:12.560 Now, there is some truth to it.

00:26:14.380 There are banks that are operating in Canada for limited access, so that's a thing.

00:26:21.000 Canadian banks can operate in America.

00:26:23.140 It's absolutely open to them.

00:26:24.720 And what happens when they operate in America?

00:26:26.480 Well, TD Bank was fined billions of dollars for money laundering in the United States.

00:26:33.860 So, obviously, the United States is looking at Canada and going, hold on a second.

00:26:37.940 Are you a good neighbor?

00:26:39.740 We've always loved you.

00:26:41.080 We always thought of you.

00:26:42.240 We thought of you as quaint, innocent neighbors that are always kind and polite.

00:26:46.560 And as soon as we raise a little bit of a stink about what's going on, you freak out on us.

00:26:52.740 You lose your mind.

00:26:54.260 And really, I hate to say this, but when it comes to the Canadian market, we're in such a bad position to be coming at the United States with demands.

00:27:05.080 We're in a bad position to do all of this.

00:27:07.280 But then when we doubly go to sporting events and we boo the national anthem when a veteran is singing and we do all of these things and we say on social media some pretty nasty things that I wouldn't even repeat on this show, what it does is it's fueling the American side.

00:27:23.920 Donald Trump can come to the table and he's saying, I have the popularity right now.

00:27:27.980 And with the Canadians and what they're doing, they'll allow me to make these punitive measures now. 0.83

00:27:34.060 We don't even feel bad about it anymore.

00:27:36.840 And that's not a position we want to be in as Canadians.

00:27:39.660 And we don't want our politicians coming to the table like this.

00:27:43.300 And I think Pierre Polyev, if he switched back to what his original rhetoric was, and perhaps even go down unilaterally, why the liberals can break all the rules and conservatives can't, go down.

00:27:54.460 Go talk to Donald Trump and start talking a better game.

00:27:57.980 Stop talking from your PR outfit out of Ottawa.

00:28:02.280 We're tired of hearing it.

00:28:03.520 People are sick of it.

00:28:04.880 Go down there, make some moves, and take the risk of upsetting people with Trump derangement syndrome.

00:28:11.360 Because I guarantee you, when it comes down to a general election, if you sound like liberal light, you're going to get voted on like liberal light.

00:28:18.980 And it's not going to do well in the polls.

00:28:20.880 I agree.

00:28:21.500 That should be the takeaway from the last election.

00:28:23.440 We tried that in 2021.

00:28:24.680 And it turns out that if Canadians want to elect a liberal, they'll just select a liberal.

00:28:28.260 They won't elect a conservative talking like a liberal.

00:28:30.840 I do worry that Trump derangement syndrome is so widespread in Canada, and particularly for people who watch the CBC or still get their media from the legacy media, that the optics of Polyev going down to try to strike a deal for Canadians would end up costing him a chance at becoming prime minister.

00:28:48.600 I might be wrong on that.

00:28:49.880 I doubt it.

00:28:50.840 I honestly doubt it.

00:28:51.860 And the reason why I say this, the reason why it doesn't work is because we're told it doesn't work.

00:28:58.280 Donald Trump being elected twice was said to not work, and he did.

00:29:03.220 And he did it because he spoke truth to power.

00:29:05.940 He spoke truth.

00:29:06.760 All of the things that Americans had brewing and they were thinking, but they knew was politically incorrect and couldn't say out loud, he came out and he said it.

00:29:15.780 And it was relief.

00:29:17.240 It was relieving to hear somebody come out and say it.

00:29:20.020 We need somebody like that in Canada.

00:29:21.800 And who's it going to be?

00:29:23.600 Like, obviously, we have Maxime Bernier saying a bunch of stuff.

00:29:27.840 I don't think that that's a viable thing.

00:29:31.540 I think a mainstream political candidate needs to start saying the truth.

00:29:35.740 Well, I want to touch back on that point that you're making about how Trump has a huge mandate.

00:29:41.060 And right now he has the popularity and his agenda is incredibly popular.

00:29:46.080 So I watched last night he addressed a joint session of Congress, which is sort of like the State of the Union for the first year in office.

00:29:53.560 And hearing him talk about his policy objectives and his early wins, like he's already drastically reduced the number of illegal people walking across the border in the South.

00:30:04.820 I think it's down 92 percent in the first month, which is just absolutely incredible.

00:30:09.100 It shows you that all it really does take is political will.

00:30:11.560 This idea of completely banning men from competing in women's sports and that if a school allows a man to play on a girl's team, they no longer get any federal funding.

00:30:22.320 Like really putting putting forth this agenda that that is incredibly popular, that is incredibly needed.

00:30:28.620 And frankly, so many of these policies would be happily welcomed in Canada as well.

00:30:34.260 I think that even people in like even Americans, Republicans that believe in free trade and they believe in limited restrictions, they're going to give Trump time to see if this works.

00:30:43.300 Like they're going to allow him to have a long, long rope when it comes to tariffs, even if they philosophically don't agree with tariffs.

00:30:48.840 So they don't know if this is the right direction.

00:30:50.600 I mean, the stock market is taking a real hit from these policies.

00:30:54.220 But I think that that people are are open to hearing and waiting.

00:30:58.220 So I want to play a few clips of President Trump speaking last night, addressing Congress and particularly the ones that relate to Canada.

00:31:04.980 So here is Trump saying that other countries have used tariffs against us for decades.

00:31:09.980 And now it's our turn. And I think I think this is right.

00:31:13.140 I think that Canada does have restrictions and, you know, we're not we're not an innocent party here.

00:31:18.420 So let's play that clip.

00:31:19.500 If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff and in some cases, a rather large one.

00:31:30.340 Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades.

00:31:33.860 And now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries. 0.91

00:31:39.760 And here is Trump again talking about reciprocal tariffs coming into effect on April 2nd.

00:31:46.120 April 2nd, reciprocal tariffs kick in and whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them.

00:31:57.600 That's reciprocal back and forth, whatever they tax us, we will tax them.

00:32:05.840 So that's that's his philosophy.

00:32:07.600 That's his idea that that is how he's going to run the government.

00:32:10.440 And I don't personally agree with it.

00:32:12.800 I don't like it.

00:32:13.240 I don't think it's good for Canada at all.

00:32:14.800 But I think that, you know, again, people are going to give him the opportunity to try and see how it works for the American economy.

00:32:22.840 What do you think?

00:32:23.800 What's the rule of, you know, mutual assured destruction?

00:32:26.840 You know, and Americans have have the ability to use this.

00:32:31.360 They have a bigger weapon.

00:32:32.960 They have the bigger economy.

00:32:34.280 And to say, well, we'll put on reciprocal tariffs and the goal in that is to remove all tariffs.

00:32:42.480 Well, that's good.

00:32:43.240 That's that means easing up restrictions.

00:32:45.880 That means easing up.

00:32:47.240 So I've heard I hear a lot of people saying that this is about protectionism.

00:32:50.800 This is about protectionism.

00:32:52.280 This is about ending protectionism.

00:32:54.140 A lot of states are a lot of like not United States, but states governments around the world have their own protectionist measures that are just ridiculous.

00:33:02.180 I mean, look at Canada in 2024, we went to the British we went to to talk with the Brits about trade negotiation and they told us to come back when we've put our big boy pants on because we wouldn't walk away from the dairy lobby and 250 percent tariffs on dairy products.

00:33:21.780 It's it's ridiculous, the position that we're coming from. 0.62

00:33:24.640 And, yeah, we're going to get spanked now. 1.00

00:33:26.740 We're in a situation where Donald Trump is coming in and he's saying we want the same deal you got.

00:33:32.260 We want things to work well for us just as it works well for you.

00:33:36.880 And this is how we're going to do it.

00:33:38.680 We're going to we're going to give you the same fair playing field.

00:33:41.900 And if you don't like the rules that we're putting on, we'll just restrict those rules and we'll just follow back.

00:33:46.820 And that's really what that comes down to.

00:33:49.040 And I hope that that works.

00:33:50.800 I think that that would be the rational response for Canada to say, OK, let's just stop and look at ourselves.

00:33:57.260 You know, we don't we may not like Trump.

00:33:58.980 We may not like the messenger, but some of these facts are true.

00:34:02.020 And in the long run, we'd all be better off if we just had complete open access to one another's markets.

00:34:08.020 And well, it's going to be difficult.

00:34:09.120 It's going to be very difficult there because obviously they understand this.

00:34:13.460 Every single one running for government or who is in government understands this because they're saying the same thing.

00:34:19.300 They're saying if you put a tariff on us, we'll put a tariff back on you.

00:34:23.100 So it's the same thing.

00:34:24.260 And they and they know that the purpose of that is to alleviate the tariffs.

00:34:28.460 But the problem in Canada is that there's not a lot of political will to talk about some serious issues.

00:34:34.560 Supply management is run by a lot of politically powerful people.

00:34:38.540 And unless it's that's confronted, we're not really going to be moving on from this story.

00:34:43.340 And it's it's the first time that a foreign country has put this much pressure on an internal struggle that we have in our political system. 0.81

00:34:51.800 We know that the dairy cartel can make or break politicians.

00:34:55.840 And it's it's good.

00:34:57.780 It's going to be the case.

00:34:58.700 It's going to make or break Canada at this point.

00:35:00.580 But I agree if I were a political leader, I would say let's use this opportunity to get rid of it.

00:35:06.280 You know, yes, there are vested interests and there are some farmers that have come to rely on us and we'll give them a fair compensation.

00:35:13.560 But this program ends and we open up the market.

00:35:16.380 I just don't see that happening from any political party.

00:35:20.120 And in fact, the opposite is happening.

00:35:21.520 Rather than saying let's start eliminating a lot of our barriers, our political leaders are responding back saying we're going to add even more.

00:35:27.600 Or we're going to try to make it even more painful for the United States.

00:35:30.920 Ontario Premier Doug Ford is sort of leading this charge.

00:35:33.460 And so yesterday he announced that he supported retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., that they would start banning American alcohol, banning American businesses from being part of Ontario's procurement and canceling Ontario's Starlake contract.

00:35:48.440 Let's play that clip.

00:35:49.920 To support the federal government's efforts, Ontario will also launch its first round of retaliation.

00:35:56.420 Starting today, LCBO, the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world, will begin removing U.S. products from its store shelves.

00:36:07.360 Also, starting today, all U.S.-based companies will be banned from taking part in government procurement.

00:36:15.100 We're ripping up Ontario's contract with Starlink.

00:36:19.340 It's done, it's gone.

00:36:21.180 We won't award contracts to people who enable and encourage economic attacks on our province and our country.

00:36:30.740 Oh, that's the reaction that we're seeing.

00:36:32.860 We saw footage of workers removing American alcohol, particularly bourbon from Kentucky, from the shelves, making a big deal about it.

00:36:42.840 I find this kind of funny, Clyde, because, well, we already purchased those bottles, right?

00:36:47.600 The LCBO purchased those bottles.

00:36:49.420 So they're taking the alcohol that they already paid for and saying that we're going to refuse to try to make any money off this product that we've already sold.

00:36:57.900 I don't know what they're going to do with it.

00:36:58.980 Doug Ford also threatened legislation on grocery stores, as was reported over at Juno News, that they were looking to force grocery stores to label all products as whether they're Canadian or American, so that consumers can choose to boycott the American products.

00:37:16.700 Yes. And then this is this is the big one. Ford said that Ontario is prepared to escalate the trade war by imposing a 25 percent surcharge on electricity exports to the United States and potentially even cutting off power if President Trump moves forward with more tariffs.

00:37:33.740 So this is where things get a little bit scary. Like, like, yes, you know, it hurts to have that 25 percent goods and services tax.

00:37:43.260 But when you start cutting off sort of like critical infrastructure and the ability for people to heat their homes, I mean, presumably once you close that door, you can't reopen it.

00:37:51.920 Like if if Ford does that, the Americans will seek another source of electricity.

00:37:56.080 And even if we resolve this issue, they're never going to come back to us.

00:37:59.340 And that could really permanently hurt the relationship. What do you think?

00:38:02.760 Well, it absolutely would. It absolutely would. But I want to I want to get people to push, put their emotions aside for a second and listen to the things that Doug Ford's saying.

00:38:11.340 Ontario, the LCBO in Ontario is the largest purchaser of alcohol on the planet.

00:38:16.800 Shouldn't that be alarming that our government is running the alcohol business? 0.97

00:38:22.300 It really it's ridiculous that one entity could be such a large supplier.

00:38:27.820 Canadians should be able to make their own choices. But here's the problem.

00:38:30.880 The Ontario government is jumping in and they're making the choice for you and they're not trying to convince you of what choices you should make.

00:38:37.880 Now, it was it was it was famous a few a month ago, a month ago.

00:38:41.480 Doug Ford made the same threat about the the the Starlink contract.

00:38:45.880 Elon Musk responded to it with I believe I'm paraphrasing, but I think it was oh, well, he doesn't care.

00:38:51.820 I mean, one hundred million dollars in the grand scheme of things for a billionaire who has a billion, you know, billion dollar businesses, trillion dollar businesses possibly at this point.

00:39:02.820 Doesn't care, doesn't care. And it's he's really motivated to push people towards freer markets.

00:39:09.640 And really, at the end of the day, it's Ontario and it's Ontario that's saying we don't have free markets.

00:39:16.060 We don't have free markets because we don't allow businesses, grocery stores, everything to purchase alcohol.

00:39:22.280 We control all these items. So I think Ontario should take a step back and start freeing up their own personal market within the province and then having more free markets with the other provinces.

00:39:32.740 Before they come to the table and start talking about what Donald Trump is doing on the international stage.

00:39:38.760 I think they have a few lessons to learn on what free trade actually is before they start spouting off about it.

00:39:45.220 I hope that that's the message they take, but I'm not not super optimistic on that one.

00:39:49.260 Clyde, I want to get your your thoughts on this one more thing you posted on X the other day.

00:39:54.540 A basically the polls showing how the conservatives have basically blown a lead.

00:40:00.880 And you wrote this is inexcusable. Obviously, the Liberal Party wants to win, but I'm not sure when the conservatives decided that they don't.

00:40:08.740 Somebody needs to get fired. So just real quick here, like what what's happened in the last three months?

00:40:15.860 How did the conservatives blow such a massive lead? Did they really blow it?

00:40:19.060 Are the polls to be trusted? And who do you think might who should be fired? Let me ask that.

00:40:24.940 OK, so there's a bunch of factors in this whole thing.

00:40:28.740 Now, obviously, the liberals, they got rid of Justin Trudeau, so they're going to climb in the polls immediately.

00:40:34.140 This has been said across the country and especially in the maritime provinces where MPs were getting letters from their constituents saying,

00:40:41.520 I like you, but I won't vote for you if Justin Trudeau is the leader.

00:40:45.040 So they were voting for they were polling for Pierre Polyev simply on that.

00:40:50.160 So you can see a lot of the support being lost in the conservative party just based on that.

00:40:55.500 Now, of course, the conservatives have come back to, you know, show that they're they're very, you know, they're they're friendly to liberal voters.

00:41:04.640 And this is this is this is a this is a it's been plaguing the conservatives in Canada for decades.

00:41:09.940 This whole idea of if we we have our base and we can upset our base as much as we want, let's try to capitulate and be what we said earlier, liberal light.

00:41:19.880 And I don't think that that strategy is strategy is working out for them.

00:41:24.580 They need to switch gears because it's happening again.

00:41:28.260 It's happening where they had some popularity because of a bad leadership on the liberal side.

00:41:32.400 But they're bringing in a new guy.

00:41:34.260 Now, if you look at it, for example, for the average liberal voter, when when the liberals under Carney, who's going to get in?

00:41:41.060 We all know this.

00:41:42.140 So they they had to disqualify a few people to make that happen.

00:41:46.440 But he's going to be in and he's coming to the table with telling people he's going to get rid of the carbon tax.

00:41:53.400 So obviously, the conservatives have lost that messaging.

00:41:56.760 That was the real strong messaging that they had.

00:41:59.220 Now they don't have that messaging because it's the same as the liberals.

00:42:03.120 And then what do we have?

00:42:04.380 Most most people are worried about the trade barriers, the trade tariffs.

00:42:07.520 Same messaging.

00:42:09.200 We're looking at, you know, all these different scenarios, situations around Canada.

00:42:15.020 It's a lot of the same messaging.

00:42:16.560 We're going to build homes.

00:42:17.560 We're going to do this.

00:42:18.600 Whether the you know, the liberals have taken a lot of the conservatives messaging and the conservatives have come to the left quite a bit.

00:42:26.280 And they're kind of meeting in the middle.

00:42:28.240 And with a populist that tends to generally vote left, it looks like that's the way they're going to go.

00:42:34.260 Now, one thing to measure is if the two parties are looking very similar, what people are going to do at the polls, and I'm talking undecided voters, they're going to look at the resumes.

00:42:44.420 They're going to look at the resumes of Pierre Polyev and they're going to look at the resume of Mark Carney. 0.98

00:42:48.400 Now, I think Mark Carney's resume is is trash. 0.95

00:42:52.520 I almost slipped a bad word out there, but I think it's it's awful. 0.97

00:42:56.700 But for the average person, they would say, oh, Bank of Canada, Bank of the UK.

00:43:02.700 Wow.

00:43:03.200 What a what a resume has been part of all these organizations.

00:43:05.480 And you have the other guy that's been a politician since he was a sophomore.

00:43:09.580 So we can see why people are leaning the other way.

00:43:14.300 And you can see even on the other on the graph, you have other parties like the Bloc Québécois are losing a lot of support, which is going back to the liberals, as well as the NDP, which is typically been the choice for Canadians as a, I guess, a protest vote against the liberals from liberal voters.

00:43:32.640 So this is this is my my guess on this.

00:43:36.000 I know there's going to be a little bit of skewed data in the polls because of the pollsters writing questions in a in a particular way.

00:43:43.260 But to see all the polls leaning this way is is too much.

00:43:47.080 It's not just static.

00:43:48.220 It is actually moving in that direction.

00:43:50.700 Well, it's interesting.

00:43:51.340 I agree that that Mark Carney is not the kind of leader that I want.

00:43:54.880 I don't want someone who is a career civil servant, central banker involved in the World Economic Forum, a self-described elitist and a globalist.

00:44:02.940 But I can see how Canadians could sort of be fooled by that, especially just at first glance.

00:44:07.600 They don't have a lot of time to get to know him.

00:44:09.420 Well, hopefully, you know, hopefully things still change.

00:44:13.140 And we really appreciate, Clyde, you take the time to join us.

00:44:16.120 It's been a great conversation.

00:44:17.160 I hope to have you back on again.

00:44:19.020 That's Clyde Do Something.

00:44:20.240 Thanks so much for joining us.

00:44:21.640 Absolutely.

00:44:22.080 Thank you so much.

00:44:22.680 Okay, so earlier today, I caught up with an independent MPP named Bobby Ann Brady.

00:44:29.320 She represents the riding of Haldeman Nordfolk in the Ontario Legislative Assembly.

00:44:35.180 I talked about her in this sort of post-election show that I did last week about how she was, you know, a great story in Ontario of an independent fighter who was able to be re-elected.

00:44:45.240 So I was pleased to sit down with her earlier.

00:44:47.440 And here is what that looked like.

00:44:50.400 Bobby Ann, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

00:44:52.680 I said to the audience last week that I thought your victory in Haldeman Norfolk was the silver lining of a very sort of predictable, boring election.

00:45:01.280 So I want to hear your perspective.

00:45:03.960 Tell us what happened and how were you able, as an independent member of the provincial parliament, how were you able to beat the PC machine?

00:45:11.140 So beating the PC machine in 2025 seemed a little bit easier than 2022.

00:45:18.920 And I've told media over the past few days that, you know, 2022 was different in the sense that I spent much of the campaign explaining to people what an independent looked like, what an independent could do.

00:45:33.140 And, you know, people would say to me, good luck, right?

00:45:36.800 And you didn't really know what good luck meant.

00:45:39.540 And so I won by, you know, over 2,000 votes in 2022.

00:45:42.820 We squeaked by.

00:45:44.680 And I think over the past two and a half years, the people of Haldeman Norfolk have gotten a good taste of what an independent representative can actually do.

00:45:53.480 And the naysayers and my detractors will say, oh, you have no voice.

00:45:57.580 Well, we actually have a bigger voice in the Ontario legislature because no leader, no party tells me what I can and cannot say or can or can and cannot do.

00:46:07.600 And the people of Haldeman Norfolk have really grown to embrace that.

00:46:12.080 And, you know, the money still flows into the riding.

00:46:15.120 So they'll say, well, an independent voice gets no money.

00:46:17.840 I'm no different than any other opposition member at Queen's Park.

00:46:21.220 No different than a liberal, an NDP or a Green Party member.

00:46:25.080 And money has to flow to communities.

00:46:27.240 And I said throughout this campaign, you know what?

00:46:30.220 The best way to keep monies flowing into Haldeman Norfolk is to keep Doug Ford hungry for your vote.

00:46:35.460 And he will keep trying to buy it.

00:46:37.280 And that messaging all resonated with the people of Haldeman Norfolk.

00:46:40.500 And my goodness, they sent a very, very clear message to Doug Ford on Thursday night.

00:46:46.740 Well, certainly he wasn't expecting it.

00:46:48.560 The premier himself wasn't expecting it because it was just back in April where you were doing your job.

00:46:53.660 You were doing what an opposition MPP has to do, what people want them to do, which is trying to hold the premier accountable, asking him tough questions, even asking him a question from the political right.

00:47:04.480 He wasn't having any of it.

00:47:05.620 So I'm going to play this clip.

00:47:06.620 This is from April 18th, 2024, where Doug Ford tells you that you're not going to have a job after the next election.

00:47:13.260 Let's play that clip.

00:47:14.600 In January, I launched a petition calling on this government to follow the lead of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.

00:47:21.560 No response except for carbon tax referendum legislation that does absolutely nothing to help the people of Ontario today.

00:47:28.600 It's a publicity stunt.

00:47:29.620 You call that a publicity stunt?

00:47:31.800 By the way, you won't have a job next election.

00:47:37.680 So his caucus sure liked that comment, but I'm sure he regrets saying it now because not only do you still have a job, Bobby Ann, but you won with a much stronger majority in your riding.

00:47:49.440 You got 64% of the vote to the PC's 24%.

00:47:55.180 So it wasn't even close.

00:47:56.900 The people gave you another mandate.

00:47:58.720 Have you seen Premier Ford since your victory, and what do you think that's going to be like?

00:48:03.340 No, I likely won't see the Premier until we go back for the first day.

00:48:07.320 And, you know, I'm not sure.

00:48:09.440 I work really hard on keeping it classy, and sometimes when those things happen, like that outburst in the Ontario legislature,

00:48:16.940 it's hard not to, you know, be the hockey mom and be all over that.

00:48:21.700 But, you know, I might just give him a little wave.

00:48:24.840 I might just, you know, smile at him.

00:48:27.140 I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that.

00:48:28.880 But I will go back to your comment that his PC caucus, you know, seemed to like it that day in question period.

00:48:34.640 Quite honestly, a few of them came to me and told me how embarrassed they were of that comment.

00:48:40.280 Well, I'm sure he regrets it now at this point.

00:48:42.820 Now, when I was trying to walk the audience through what happened, I was really surprised by your story.

00:48:47.740 Because typically when you have an independent member of a provincial parliament or legislature or MP,

00:48:52.920 they were usually like a former member of a party that chose to step away so that they have the name recognition

00:48:58.000 and they have the support in your writing.

00:49:00.060 But that's not the case with you.

00:49:01.460 You worked for the PCs and you worked for your predecessor, and he endorsed you.

00:49:05.840 So maybe you could walk us through that story and tell us how it came to be that you became the independent candidate and then MPP.

00:49:12.520 Sure, Candice.

00:49:13.520 So I worked for MPP Toby Barrett for over 23 years.

00:49:18.180 I worked with many of the MPPs who are currently at Queen's Park for many, many years.

00:49:23.360 You know, I ruined vehicles, I missed family functions, working for the PC family. 0.98

00:49:29.500 And, you know, one of the things that Toby Barrett, he was grooming me to follow in his footsteps,

00:49:34.780 but never in a million years would we have expected an appointment.

00:49:38.980 So in 2022, I began in January.

00:49:41.920 I was the PC Riding Association president.

00:49:44.300 I had been for over 20 years.

00:49:46.340 And we began asking for a nomination evening.

00:49:49.040 And the party brass kept saying, oh, we can't, COVID has reared its ugly head once again.

00:49:55.360 We can't hold a meeting.

00:49:56.560 And I knew meetings were being held elsewhere across the province.

00:49:59.780 So this didn't make sense to me.

00:50:01.660 So I kept going back.

00:50:03.100 February, I went back.

00:50:04.660 And March, I went back.

00:50:06.100 And I was told the same thing.

00:50:07.380 And I finally said to Toby, I said, something's inherently wrong here.

00:50:11.020 And so Toby reached out to the premier and said, you know,

00:50:13.900 my Riding Association president is trying to set up a nomination night.

00:50:18.180 And the party brass is, you know, turning her down.

00:50:22.120 And so it was April 9th, 2022.

00:50:25.520 I was, I remember the day very well because I don't cook all that often.

00:50:29.040 And I had cooked all day for my mom's birthday.

00:50:31.400 And we were just sitting down to dinner.

00:50:32.860 And I got a call from Toby.

00:50:34.220 And he said the premier is going to appoint the mayor of Haldeman County as the PC candidate.

00:50:39.680 And so we spent, you know, a week going back to the premier, going back to the party,

00:50:44.120 saying, like, this is very wrongheaded.

00:50:45.760 And this isn't going to work out well for you guys.

00:50:49.300 You know, as the PC Riding Association president, Candace, how do I attract people to come to the table,

00:50:55.280 raise money, make decisions at, you know, at the grassroots level,

00:50:58.960 when the single most important decision that they can make every few years is choosing the candidate who will represent them?

00:51:05.980 When that is taken out of their hands, it leaves a very bad taste.

00:51:09.380 So, you know, there were a lot of tears, tears of anger, tears of frustration over those days.

00:51:15.760 And finally, you know, I walked into Toby's office one day and I said, I know what we're going to do.

00:51:20.100 We're going to stand up for democracy.

00:51:22.140 And Toby says, what do you mean?

00:51:23.100 And I said, I'm going to challenge Doug Ford's candidate as an independent.

00:51:27.740 And, you know, Toby said to me, he says, I think you're crazy, but let's do this.

00:51:32.100 And, you know, the party was worried. 0.96

00:51:33.920 I know that now in retrospect, I know that they were worried because they told me, you're going to commit political suicide. 0.99

00:51:40.800 You're going to be an embarrassment.

00:51:42.840 You're going to get less than 5% of the vote. 0.98

00:51:45.020 And I said to them, I said, that's on me.

00:51:47.100 If I want to commit political suicide, that just means that there's something else out there for me to do after this.

00:51:53.500 But I've got to stand up for the people of Haldum-Norfolk and I have to stand up for democracy.

00:51:57.800 So that's what we did.

00:51:58.940 And, you know, I guess the rest, as they say, is history.

00:52:04.320 And so would you say that you outworked your opposition?

00:52:07.200 Like, how was it that you, without a political party, without any sort of, you know, big machine working behind you,

00:52:13.400 like what do you attribute to that original victory?

00:52:16.820 The original, I think it was the fact that I have 23 years of experience in the writing.

00:52:22.940 I think they underestimated that.

00:52:24.560 That, you know, when people called Toby Barrett's office, they often got Bobby Ambrady on the other end of the phone.

00:52:30.420 And I, you know, I didn't give them party lines.

00:52:33.180 I was empathetic.

00:52:34.960 I was sympathetic.

00:52:35.860 I never blew smoke.

00:52:36.880 You know, if I couldn't fix something, I would say to someone, I can't fix it.

00:52:40.960 But if I thought I could fix it, I carried their issue like a dog with a bone.

00:52:44.520 And during this campaign, more so in this campaign than in 2022, the people who came out of the woodwork and posted testimonials online saying,

00:52:55.260 hey, I remember back in, you know, 2012, I contacted Toby Barrett's office and Bobby Ambrady picked up the phone and she helped me.

00:53:03.060 She, you know, she may not have fixed my issue, but man, she worked hard to try and help me. 0.67

00:53:08.200 There were countless testimonials in this campaign and reminded me of the work that I did over 23 years.

00:53:16.420 And my goodness, when people remember that, it really tells, it really says what kind of people we have here in Haldeman, Norfolk.

00:53:23.860 Principal.

00:53:24.760 Well, it sounds like you're the exact kind of person that we want representing us in Canada and we want being our representative.

00:53:31.780 One of the things I noticed, Bobby Ann, was that voter turnout provincially was really quite low.

00:53:36.760 It was second only to 2022, which was also a low year.

00:53:40.000 But in your writing, so I think it was 46% in Ontario, but in your writing, it was upwards of 56%.

00:53:45.840 And so, you know, do you think that that is because the Conservative base showed up for you?

00:53:52.220 Or what do you attribute to that disparity in voter turnout?

00:53:55.700 So I'd say that it was all bases.

00:53:58.760 And it's interesting.

00:54:00.020 I am a fiscal conservative and it's no secret that I spent 23 years in the PC family, but people of all stripes in this writing, they don't like their small town girl being told she will be out of a job.

00:54:14.460 They also love the fact that I can go to Queen's Park with no monopoly on a good idea.

00:54:19.560 So I've supported ideas from, yes, the PCs, but I've also supported ideas from the Greens, from the NDP and from the Liberal caucuses.

00:54:27.720 And, of course, that ended up on a smear piece of literature on me during this campaign.

00:54:34.360 But people see the benefit of it in that.

00:54:36.700 If I can support a bill that is good for the people of Haldeman Norfolk, who cares who brought forward the bill?

00:54:44.680 If it's good for the people, then you vote for it.

00:54:48.200 And my goodness, if we could actually just run Queen's Park like that, if representatives could stop being brand ambassadors and just truly, genuinely represent their community, what a better province this would be.

00:55:01.400 I totally agree. I feel like so many candidates, so many members of parliaments and legislatures, they just tow the party line and you don't really get a genuine sense of who they are, what they believe in, what they see.

00:55:12.760 There's so much party discipline in the system in Canada.

00:55:16.260 So what are your priorities for this parliamentary session?

00:55:21.320 And what are you going to try to accomplish?

00:55:23.920 So, first and foremost, I represent a very rural riding.

00:55:28.700 And, you know, this is a government.

00:55:30.340 The PCs have long been or supposed to be the government of rural Ontario and of farm country.

00:55:37.020 And over the past two and a half years, nary a mention of agriculture or rural affairs in the Ontario legislature in budgets and fall economic statements.

00:55:44.940 And we have to fix that.

00:55:46.460 You know, we are continuing to bring more and more people to Canada, many of them landing in Ontario.

00:55:52.800 The more people we bring, the more people we have to feed.

00:55:56.520 And we have to cut red tape.

00:55:58.220 We've got to cut regulation.

00:55:59.980 And we have to allow farmers and small business to generate, you know, in their businesses and on their farms and allow them to stimulate Ontario's economy.

00:56:09.080 But we've got to get out of their way.

00:56:10.380 So one of the very first things I'm going to do, and I worked on this prior to the election, is I want to work with the Minister of Agriculture.

00:56:17.700 And I'm hoping that that is Rob Flack, because Rob Flack and I get along very well.

00:56:23.460 And I would love to see a standing committee on agriculture and rural affairs at Queen's Park.

00:56:29.160 We're one of the only jurisdictions in North America that doesn't have such a committee.

00:56:33.920 And we need to bring that rural voice back to Queen's Park and put it back on the political map. 0.79

00:56:39.960 So that's first and foremost one of the most general, you know, the broader issues I'm going to bring forward.

00:56:46.980 And then we have a, locally, we have what's called the Ministerial Zoning Order in kind of in waiting at the Nanticoke Industrial Park.

00:56:55.420 There is a proposal to build a city of upwards of 40,000 people at an industrial park, at Ontario's largest industrial park.

00:57:03.180 And I think it's the most harebrained idea.

00:57:06.340 There's also an energy project on the table for that same area.

00:57:09.680 So, you know, I really want to work with the government and make sure that we get an energy project at an industrial park.

00:57:16.040 I think that we need power at an industrial park, not people.

00:57:20.720 And so I want to work with the government to make government to make sure that we add to the good paying jobs in our in our industrial park at Nanticoke instead of putting people there and driving industry away.

00:57:30.380 Well, I think that the people are lucky to have you as a representative and it's been such a great pleasure for me to have you on the show.

00:57:37.100 Thank you so much for me.

00:57:37.760 I keep fighting.

00:57:38.380 You're such a great fighter and I look forward to seeing what you'll do at Queen's Park this year.

00:57:42.160 Thanks, Candice.

00:57:43.500 Great.

00:57:43.720 Thank you so much for tuning in to Candice Welcome and this is the Candice Welcome Show.

00:57:47.880 Thank you and God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - March 05, 2025

Canada ESCALATES the trade war

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