The Candice Malcolm Show - Is it inevitable？

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. I'm so excited for today's show.

00:00:12.240 Okay, so Donald Trump shocked Canadians last month when he suggested that Canada should be annexed

00:00:18.720 into the United States and that we should become the 51st state. Calling our Prime Minister Governor

00:00:24.400 Trudeau was obviously meant as a cruel joke, but it was one that really stings. You see, there's

00:00:30.320 nothing, absolutely nothing that Canadian elites like Justin Trudeau hate more than the idea of

00:00:37.360 Canada getting absorbed into America. That's because the Laurentian elite, so the elites that

00:00:43.060 live along the St. Lawrence River Corridor connecting Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, these people

00:00:48.680 primarily define themselves and their identity as being not American. Russ Trudeau himself said

00:00:55.880 this. He said it twice last weekend on two different news interviews in the United States on CNN and MSNBC.

00:01:02.520 Here's what that looked like. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian. One of the ways we define

00:01:09.160 ourselves most easily is, well, we're not American. If you talk to any Canadian, you ask them to define

00:01:14.680 what it is to be a Canadian. They'll talk about all sorts of different things, but one of the things

00:01:18.440 we will point out is, and we're not Americans. It seems like sort of a superficial way to define

00:01:25.400 a national identity, if you ask me. Like, imagine if you met someone from New Zealand and you asked

00:01:30.200 them to tell you about New Zealand culture and identity and cultural heritage, and they replied

00:01:35.160 back by simply saying, well, we're not Australian. It wouldn't really tell you very much about New Zealand,

00:01:40.920 other than maybe the fact that it seems like they're a little bit obsessed with their larger,

00:01:45.400 more famous neighbour. So why do Canadian elites have this complex? I mean, it sort of makes sense

00:01:51.800 because our country was founded in opposition to the American Revolution, and Canadians were largely

00:01:57.640 made up of loyalists, those who wanted to remain loyal to the British Crown and to the British Empire.

00:02:04.360 But that empire is long gone. Canadians hardly feel a loyalty or connection to King Charles. I mean,

00:02:11.800 don't get me wrong, I love Queen Elizabeth, but I don't feel the same connection with King Charles.

00:02:17.640 And the same Laurentian elites who have made enormous efforts to demonize our past. The

00:02:24.280 same elites tell us who distance ourselves from early Canadians. They denounce the settlers and the

00:02:29.880 colonialist past. They allow for our statues to be toppled. They dismiss our history as literal

00:02:36.120 genocide. And they try to erase our national symbols at every opportunity. So these Laurentian elites

00:02:42.600 want to shame you for being Canadian, while at the same time, stubbornly insisting that Canada is

00:02:48.680 superior to America, superior to our neighbours, and that they are somehow beneath us. But what about 0.87

00:02:54.840 regular everyday Canadians? Do they feel the same way? Do they have the same passion and hatred for our

00:03:00.840 Americans? I don't think so. I think most Canadians love America. Upwards of 20 million, something like

00:03:06.840 22 million Canadians visit the United States every single year. More than half the country gets on an

00:03:12.920 airplane or gets into their car and goes to the United States every single year. Several million Canadians

00:03:18.600 live and work either full-time or part-time in the United States. And my guess is that many,

00:03:24.120 many more would go if they could only get the work permits and the visas to migrate south. So at the

00:03:30.280 end of the day, we have a heck of a lot more in common with the Americans than what separates us.

00:03:35.720 But what about an actual merger? What about actually merging our two countries together? Well, polls

00:03:40.120 show that only about 10% of Canadians would actually be interested in that kind of deal. Interestingly,

00:03:45.160 the numbers double that, about 20% on the prairies, and about one in five conservative voters might be

00:03:51.320 interested in that kind of a deal. Businessman and investor Kevin O'Leary recently suggested that he

00:03:56.440 thinks roughly 50% of Canadians are interested in some kind of a different deal with our American

00:04:03.160 neighbors. And so to dive into this topic a little deeper, I'm so excited today to be joined by

00:04:07.880 journalist Diane Francis. She is a columnist with the Financial Post and editor at large at the

00:04:12.920 National Post. So more than a decade ago, Diane wrote an in-depth analysis on this topic, a book called

00:04:19.640 The Merger of the Century, Why Canada and America Should Become One Country. Diane, welcome to the

00:04:26.440 Candace Malcolm Show. It is great to have you here. So it's been a decade, I can't believe it, since you

00:04:34.280 wrote this book. I guess you must have...

00:04:36.280 12 years.

00:04:37.800 12 years. I guess you must have had some kind of a crystal ball into the future to know that one day

00:04:43.080 this day would come. So why don't you, why don't you tell us a little bit about the book and tell

00:04:48.520 us what it says and tell us why you wrote it. Yeah, I predicted everything that's happened because

00:04:52.920 it was so obvious to me. I'm an American and a Canadian. I was born and raised in the US. I lived

00:04:58.920 in Canada from the age of 19 on, did business, traveled, had relatives and all that sort of thing

00:05:04.200 between the two countries. The two cultures are different. There is no reason to think, I mean,

00:05:10.360 they really are different. And then the French Canadian culture is different again. And the

00:05:15.560 political cultures are different. The political systems are different. The values are pretty much

00:05:20.920 the same on the big questions. And I did poll, I looked at polls back then and it was pretty much

00:05:28.440 in sync on issues like abortion, capital punishment, gun control, health care, public health care.

00:05:37.320 Americans agreed, like Canadians, that this is what they aspired to having. And they don't have it and

00:05:43.000 we do. But the point is that they're very similar, but I could see that the, call it the Laurentian elite,

00:05:50.920 but it's also a lot to do with Quebec, with Quebec and that sort of thing, is that the Canadian

00:05:58.680 system, political system, is very weak. And it's run by people that are not that knowledgeable or,

00:06:05.960 shall we say, sophisticated or international in mind. And so back then I said, you know what,

00:06:11.640 Canada has no military. It can't guard its borders or its perimeters. Canada is completely and becoming

00:06:19.240 more and more dependent on the United States economically and trade wise and investment wise.

00:06:24.840 And, you know, this was a problem. And Canada wasn't even able to pull off free trade within itself,

00:06:31.480 so that it could strengthen itself economically by doing business among one another. Instead,

00:06:38.520 we were doing all this business north-south. So we were, we were, you know, melding into,

00:06:44.280 melting slowly, merging slowly into the United States. So my thesis was, okay, well, that's fine. I

00:06:49.640 don't think that's a problem, frankly, if that's what you want. But I don't think that's what Canadians 1.00

00:06:54.120 would want. And I don't think that they would necessarily do well in a situation like that if

00:07:01.160 the Americans were in charge, given how weakened we had made ourselves. So I talked about increasing 0.98

00:07:08.520 the military, a country that can't protect its borders and perimeters really isn't even sovereign,

00:07:13.880 and the Americans are doing it for us. And I said, they were going to get tired of doing that. 0.96

00:07:17.320 And bingo, here we are. So, you know, we have, then we elect Trudeau, and he does everything

00:07:24.360 to make it even worse. More dependency on the United States, no free trade deal coast to coast,

00:07:30.120 we can't even get a pipeline to the East Coast from the West. All these kinds of things, these

00:07:34.760 impediments, the overspending, the, you know, the failure to take care of the border as well,

00:07:43.720 and to provide our security, not just in terms of military, but to screen immigrants that enter 1.00

00:07:50.040 our country. And of course, he's opened the floodgates in the last few years to immigrants, 0.90

00:07:55.080 many unscreened, because they come in as students, and they come in as students to go to schools that

00:07:59.640 don't exist. It's a lot of scam. And so we have about two and a half million undocumented immigrants 1.00

00:08:05.080 in Toronto, and probably Vancouver and Toronto, that's where they go. And it's causing crime problems,

00:08:12.200 it's causing all kinds of unsettling problems, it's jammed up the price of housing, it's overloaded

00:08:17.640 our healthcare systems. It's been an unmitigated, the Trudeau 10 years is the lost decade.

00:08:23.160 It's an unmitigated disaster. Then he also took aim at all the things I said we shouldn't,

00:08:29.400 and that is, you know, let's develop these resources. It's great. And Canada has a good

00:08:33.640 environmental track record. We don't do bad things to the environment when we produce our metals and

00:08:38.520 minerals and fossil fuels. And then let's let's do something about the Arctic. Otherwise, you know,

00:08:44.120 the Russians will claim it or the Americans will or whatever, did nothing. And so now here we are.

00:08:49.960 And so what do we do? So back then, I said there were several merger models to look at.

00:08:55.320 Canada, it's hard to think ahead, because you're not, you know, either get strong and be independent,

00:09:00.840 or think about how you want to merge, because that's what's going to have to happen. And the most,

00:09:06.840 I think palatable merger idea, there were many different models I had there, I had a lot of fun

00:09:11.880 with it. In fact, I actually did a thought experiment with an investment banker relative,

00:09:17.720 and we looked at the two countries as though they were corporations, we added up their natural

00:09:21.960 resource assets, and figured out how much it would cost the Americans to buy Canada was about

00:09:26.840 half a million dollars a person. 17 trillion dollars. Canada is worth 17 trillion dollars

00:09:32.680 in resources more than the United States. And it's bigger geographically as well. So the whole

00:09:39.000 51st state thing is very insulting and actually rooted in ignorance. So this is a long way of saying

00:09:46.200 that I said, you know, the economic union that the Europeans have done, that's been done to a certain

00:09:51.240 extent in the Caribbean and among African countries is a natural, that's what we should do. And then that 0.99

00:09:56.440 way we have access to one another. And we don't, you know, we don't have to put up with their terrible

00:10:01.400 healthcare system, their crime rate, their social unrest, and and their gun laws.

00:10:07.960 Well, I remember when the book came out, Diane, and I thought it was an incredibly bold idea that no

00:10:13.000 one else was talking about, to the point where I don't know that it really got a lot of traction.

00:10:16.680 I know you did a couple of interviews, and there's a few reviews, I remember you saying something along

00:10:21.160 the lines of, you know, Americans took the book seriously as sort of like a national security

00:10:25.320 geopolitical book, whereas the Canadians were kind of horrified by the idea and didn't didn't

00:10:30.360 want to talk about it at all. And yet here we are again, like 12 years later, and it's happening to

00:10:36.600 us without our control. So why don't you walk us through, I know you had five different proposed

00:10:42.840 models in the book of different levels of mergers, you kind of just mentioned that the first one would

00:10:47.640 be like a full merger, where it was kind of like reunification of East and West Germany, and then other

00:10:53.000 models that look more like an economic union, kind of what Kevin O'Leary is talking about today,

00:10:57.720 erasing that border, having continental shared security and a shared currency. Why don't you

00:11:03.720 walk us through those those those five models? Well, all the five models are very complicated,

00:11:08.920 and I don't think they're that interesting. But I think the European Union model is a no brainer.

00:11:13.160 You keep your culture, you keep your legal system, you keep your political system, and you just

00:11:17.560 get rid of customs. And then you get rid of you adopt a single currency. Now those are tricky things

00:11:24.680 to do. And it's taken New York teams a long time. And they pulled it off the customs. You know, having

00:11:31.000 a customs union means you erase the border in terms of trade, trade and investment. That's tricky.

00:11:39.640 That's very tricky in terms of legal legalities and safety and all that sort of thing.

00:11:45.640 But customs, a customs union is is doable. You don't completely erase the border. You don't let

00:11:51.000 anybody walk, walk across the border, for instance. But that would be a customs union would be where I

00:11:57.000 could take freight and have it arrive in Vancouver, and it could go anywhere in the US or Canada without

00:12:06.600 crossing a border and getting, well, it would cross the border, but it wouldn't be held up. It would

00:12:11.800 be approved for continental purposes at any port of entry at the extremity. That would really speed up

00:12:20.440 a lot of things and make everything more efficient. That actually has been worked on under free trade,

00:12:27.400 moving toward that model. Monetary unions trickier. I mean, it'd be great if they paid us par for,

00:12:34.920 if we got one US dollar for one Canadian dollar, given how low ours is, but that's not going to happen.

00:12:40.680 So that would be a negotiation of sorts. The West and East Germans did that.

00:12:45.800 If you do a corporate type merger, which I looked at, it's a $17 trillion over contribution by Canadians

00:12:53.160 to the merged entity, which was back then roughly half a million bucks per person. And I said they'd

00:12:59.240 actually have to also throw in healthcare for your grandchildren to get Canadians to want it.

00:13:05.240 See, I speculate it's different. I think that Canadians at this point are so desperate because

00:13:10.200 our economy is just, to your point that you made earlier, it's just completely fallen off a cliff

00:13:16.760 over the last decade. And I think people have really started to feel it a lot more in the last six to nine

00:13:21.400 months or year that if given an offer, I mean, if, if the United States just said, hey, you can come to

00:13:27.720 Canada, you can come move to America without a visa and you can just come live here if you want,

00:13:32.360 I think a significant number of Canadians would go, especially young Canadians who are locked out of

00:13:36.520 the housing market. I mean, you look at like a place like Utah, where the average home is like $400,000

00:13:41.480 and compare that to a place like Vancouver, Toronto, where you need over a million dollars to get a very

00:13:46.280 basic starter home. I think that more Canadians, I mean, even if you just look at Diane, the brain 0.96

00:13:51.960 drain that we currently have, right? Like all of our most talented actors and singers and people in

00:13:56.600 the cultural arts already go to the United States. All of our top athletes already go to the United

00:14:01.080 States unless they're playing professional hockey for a Canadian team, but most of them are down in

00:14:05.160 the United States. The top law students, the top tech people, the top finance people, they all end up in

00:14:10.840 the Silicon Valley or New York. And so I think that the main barrier is that Canadians can't get visas

00:14:17.080 to go down there. So I really do think that if Trump offered residency or citizenship to Canadians,

00:14:22.120 that millions would go. What do you think about that? They might, they might not. I mean, that's

00:14:28.200 always been the case. The book also deals with in the front of the book is the excessive

00:14:34.520 immigration that's taken place with or without visas. In the 19th century, the entire population of

00:14:39.960 Canada went to the United States. And I think there's something like one in five Americans

00:14:45.800 have a Canadian grandparent. So, I mean, we have been the farm team talent-wise for the United States

00:14:53.000 for a long time, which is another thing, of course, I mentioned in the book, which is another thing that

00:14:57.400 we have to consider, that we will always be weaker than them because of the draw of that dynamic,

00:15:03.800 more powerful world-class economy. Austria has the same problem. New Zealand has the same problem.

00:15:10.440 So you get into some kind of formal arrangement where nobody's, you know, impoverished or weakened

00:15:16.040 to the point where they're, you know, an overhead of cost and that sort of thing. The other thing,

00:15:21.160 too, is that we could have repaired this a long time ago. And about seven years ago, I wrote a column

00:15:27.320 in the post. I said, look, if we don't start to have a decent military and stop freeloading as a NATO

00:15:35.400 member and as a member of NORAD, they're going to send us invoices. And they're going to be big invoices.

00:15:41.720 And so they actually did, in fact, about three or four years ago. Quietly, the Defense Department

00:15:47.960 in the Pentagon said to Canada, to the Trudeau government, here's 50 billion bucks you have

00:15:53.960 to spend on surveillance equipment in the Arctic. Get on with it. That was kept very quiet, never

00:15:59.720 announced, of course, but that's padded into the overheads that Canadians are paying now.

00:16:05.080 So, you know, we can't freeload and we can't become too dependent. And, you know, the brain drain

00:16:15.080 will get worse unless we improve our own economy to keep people here or to attract Americans. 0.91

00:16:23.400 I'm wondering, because, you know, you're talking about the military and, you know, Canada's military

00:16:28.120 is embarrassingly underfunded. And it seems like they have a problem even recruiting people. The other

00:16:33.320 issue that you identify in the book, and I think it's just gotten so much worse under Trudeau,

00:16:37.160 is the lack of any kind of development in the North. Like, we have this huge territory full of

00:16:43.320 minerals and natural resources and oil and gas that you can't really get to, that's not really

00:16:49.560 even accessible. In the future, I think the threats from adversarial forces like China and Russia will

00:16:56.280 just get worse. And it doesn't really seem very obvious that Canada can manage itself up there.

00:17:01.720 What can Canada do? Like, do you think that going to the Americans and getting their help securing the

00:17:08.360 North and maybe even developing the North is the only solution? Or can you see a path towards us 0.86

00:17:13.400 doing it independently?

00:17:14.440 Well, one of the ideas I had in the book 12 years ago was that we do a joint venture

00:17:20.120 in the North with the Americans. They got the money. Build some, you know, facilities for military and for

00:17:26.520 war, rescue operations and that kind of thing, and just get on with it. But then, of course,

00:17:32.280 we elected a guy who wanted to do photo ops with Greta Thunberg and made war against our natural 1.00

00:17:40.120 resources, which is the underpinning for our entire lifestyle. And as they say, you know, we know what

00:17:45.480 he's done. He sabotaged natural resource. And that's the only thing that the North has to offer us

00:17:52.040 is resources, is the extraction of metals, minerals, and fossil fuels. And we've got lots of it up there,

00:17:59.400 but we can't even do it where it's in the South, where it's already been discovered and there's

00:18:03.640 infrastructure to develop it. We've been impeded by that by our government. So, you know, we've got,

00:18:11.400 we put ourselves in this box of being this tiny little, you know, politically correct,

00:18:16.280 wokey-jokey, socialist, you know, kingdom by the Liberals. And you know what? It's not sustainable

00:18:25.560 without American help. And I think that that's become incredibly clear. Canada's sort of wokeness

00:18:31.640 has become the butt of a lot of jokes and sort of the laughing star of the world. I want to think a

00:18:36.360 little bit about the cultural differences and the cultural divide. If you can tell us a little bit

00:18:40.520 more about the reception that you got, I know in the book, you talk a bit about how Canadians and

00:18:44.600 Americans fundamentally have different sensibilities and how there might be a little bit of a clash.

00:18:50.520 Talk a little bit about the two different cultures in the countries.

00:18:53.880 Yeah. Well, I grew up in the US and then I immigrated to Canada at 19 with a husband,

00:18:58.440 with a draft dodger husband, and who was British. So I understood the British thing. It's, 0.60

00:19:04.920 it's Canada, Canada. I would say the Canadian sensibility is British or French. It's European.

00:19:14.360 The American sensibility is German. It's Germanic. I looked at the census. I had this idea and I

00:19:21.240 wanted to really in depth examine the two cultures, the histories. The book is full of information about

00:19:27.000 the two. I mean, it's an encyclopedia about the US and Canada. And I looked at the census at that point,

00:19:33.960 and Americans ask you your ethnic background in their decade, every decade. And among white Americans,

00:19:40.680 60% said they were German. Unbeknownst to most people, Pennsylvania was not Dutch. It was German.

00:19:49.960 Texas was founded by Germans. Silicon Valley is full of Germans. California was founded by Germans. 0.71

00:19:57.400 And the Midwest, industrial Midwest where I grew up, where there's a lot of metal bashing in industrial and

00:20:03.000 small family businesses that became multinational giants is little Germany. Whether you're talking 0.81

00:20:08.600 about, you know, Caterpillar or Harley Davidson, these are in small towns and the three generations

00:20:17.080 of German people are working in those companies. And they're world beaters. And what does that mean?

00:20:23.400 Well, you know, obviously to a British person, how you speak, how you dress, how you eat,

00:20:31.400 what family you're from. All of that is extremely important. And you have to be very, very polite.

00:20:38.200 And you can't talk about things that are difficult to talk about. Well, America is a Germanic nation.

00:20:44.280 They're all shouting each other all the time about everything. And so they're blunt, they're direct.

00:20:51.640 It's not a bad, and they have a work ethic that is unmatched anywhere in the world, maybe China.

00:20:57.720 And so Canadians don't have that work ethic. You know, we have a legal long weekend every month. 0.97

00:21:04.120 They have two or three. So there is your difference right there. But, you know, we all speak English.

00:21:10.520 We all like the same cultural arts and singers and so on, and the sports thing and all of that. I mean,

00:21:19.480 you know, overriding the whole, and we're capitalists and we're Democrats. So, you know,

00:21:25.080 that's the similarity. But no, there's a lot of differences. And it grates Canadians no end.

00:21:33.320 Well, certainly, yeah. Like, it's kind of like almost like a big brother, little brother thing where

00:21:37.560 Canada wants to show that it can be independent and do its own thing and pretend that we have

00:21:41.720 nothing in common with our neighbor. But at the end of the day, we're basically of the same

00:21:46.920 family that the example you gave of the sensibilities. It reminded me of my own family.

00:21:51.800 When my husband and I were getting married, we did a marriage prep class at our church.

00:21:57.080 And one of it was like talking about the two different types of families that you're from.

00:22:00.760 And my family is very British and English. And so we don't ever like, we're not very direct and

00:22:06.120 everyone's very quiet and very polite. My husband's family is from Iran, the Middle East,

00:22:10.600 and they are incredibly direct and they shout and they talk. And so it was kind of interesting just to

00:22:15.240 see the two families come together and how totally different that the kind of backgrounds that you talk

00:22:21.800 about. Dad, I want to get your thoughts on this. There's a video that's been kind of going viral on

00:22:26.840 social media. I saw it on YouTube that talks about a different kind of setup in North America. So

00:22:32.680 rather than a sort of north-south divide between two countries, splitting the country into two,

00:22:37.800 like along the coast. So I'm going to play this video and then I want to get your reaction to it.

00:22:42.840 Post-election, I've seen lots of joke maps like this that take right and left-leaning states and

00:22:47.640 provinces and swap them between the US and Canada. But what if we actually did this? This is

00:22:52.760 controversial, but to me, something like this would make the most sense without creating too much

00:22:57.880 fragmentation. In a lot of ways, these central provinces in Canada have a lot more in common

00:23:02.760 with states like Montana and Texas than they do with Ontario, while the coastal regions are more

00:23:07.960 economically and politically aligned. And these new countries would have a shockingly similar

00:23:13.160 population and GDP figure. The blue country would have an economy based more around technology,

00:23:18.280 finance and health care, while the red country would be an energy, food and manufacturing powerhouse.

00:23:25.720 So not that I think that that would ever happen, but I found it interesting. I think that video had

00:23:29.480 like millions and millions of views. All that stuff was in my book. So and the other thing, there was a

00:23:34.040 book before me that I liked. It was a New York Times writer. He called it the 12 tribes of North America,

00:23:39.960 and he divided it into ethnic tribes. And that was very interesting. His roots were his grandparents

00:23:45.400 were from Quebec. He was a French, he had a French name, but he was American, and a second generation

00:23:50.840 American. And yeah, no, there's people in Toronto have more in common with people in New York than

00:23:56.360 they do with people in Calgary or Vancouver or Montreal. And you know, the same thing applies in

00:24:01.720 portions of the US. People in New York have not much in common with people from Utah or Alabama. So

00:24:08.120 there are these different 12, he defined it as 12 tribes, and I thought he did about the best job.

00:24:14.120 It's a very good book. It's I'm sure it's out of print. But so yeah, that that's the situation.

00:24:18.920 What that other map is about is mapping in terms of political positioning. And that's different

00:24:24.680 again, but you know, it's not red, blue, it's not red, blue, it's all it's all over the map, too.

00:24:29.880 Okay, I want I want to show you a few charts that we pulled here. Just looking at the difference

00:24:34.840 in GDP, because again, when your book came out, Canadian and American were much more at par,

00:24:40.040 like, like, if you look at this first chart, per capita GDP in Canada, versus the United States,

00:24:48.280 you can kind of see go back to 2016 there, and the two economies kind of mirror each other,

00:24:53.480 huge dip during COVID there in 2020. And then you can just see the sort of lack of recovery

00:24:58.920 in Canada, whereas the United States has continued to climb. I think that's a pretty devastating

00:25:04.360 chart, I think that the median average income is the delta is now 25 or 30,000. The other one is

00:25:12.680 the per state and capita GDP. So if you look at if you take every jurisdiction in North America,

00:25:18.360 all the provinces, all the states, Canada would have the highest taxes, and some of the lowest

00:25:24.600 per person, per capita GDP. So you can you can kind of see there, you know, you think of some of these

00:25:32.680 really, really poor states in in the southeast of the United States, the deep south, and you think

00:25:38.600 of them as being quite poor. And then you realize that they're actually the per capita GDP is higher

00:25:44.360 than most Canadians. And then this one, I thought this was one of the most devastating charts that

00:25:49.080 I've seen recently, this is chart number four, Sean, on the per capita GDP minus immigration. So

00:25:55.560 is this the right one? Yeah, so basically, we had an economist point this out saying that the new GDP

00:26:05.400 grew by 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 2023, while the population grew by 3.2%. So if you take

00:26:12.760 away the population increase by immigration, we actually had a negative 2% annual growth. Really,

00:26:21.400 this all just paints a picture of Canada falling economically behind and kind of makes you wonder,

00:26:26.760 like, what what's going to happen if Trump does bring in these 25% tariffs? What will happen? Can

00:26:33.000 the loonies survive? Can Canada survive? What do you think? Well, the Trump that the Trudeau factor

00:26:38.520 has has weakened the country. And for you know, for his whole entire tenure, I've been battering away at

00:26:43.720 him like every week in the National Post on the GDP per capita on every other metric you want to look at. 0.99

00:26:51.080 It's just, you know, it's just pathetic. And you know, if you take away people's 0.96

00:26:58.280 not right, but interest in developing our endowment, our natural resource endowment, this is what you

00:27:04.520 get. Because you know, we don't have a lot else going for us. We're a branch plant country. And

00:27:10.360 resources are much more important than anything else. And I include farming in that. So you know,

00:27:17.320 you just, I mean, he just had no sense of anything. And we've lost a complete decade. The OECD

00:27:24.280 has us down as the worst performing of all of the OECD members. And that, and another important,

00:27:34.760 shall we say economic, I've forgotten the name of the organization, Institutional

00:27:38.760 Economic Organization said that Canada will, will have, will continue to be the lowest of the pack

00:27:47.640 for 60 years based extrapolating the kind of government and policies that we have in place.

00:27:54.840 So it's just, and, and, you know, I don't think, frankly, the unscreened immigration of two and a

00:28:01.480 half to 4 million 18 year olds from India, and is going to really lift our living standards up

00:28:10.120 necessarily. They came as students, we don't know where they are, they disappear. This is not very smart

00:28:17.640 from any point of view. So Canada is always, but Canada has always been less rich than the United

00:28:23.880 States, just because it's a more dynamic place down there. And they just have created a lot of

00:28:29.880 great industries and so on. The book I said, Hey guys, you're going nowhere fast. You better think

00:28:36.120 about I had a time before it sprung on you has a, as a, you know, a tough takeover thing, some options

00:28:45.560 and, and also pull up your socks. Okay. Well, I think Canadians are ready for change. They're 1.00

00:28:52.760 willing to hear change. Uh, I mentioned off the top that Kevin O'Leary, I think he was sort of

00:28:57.720 guessing, but he said that he thought about half of Canadians might be interested in an economic

00:29:03.160 murder. He goes through, uh, some of the facts here. So I want to play that clip and then I'll get

00:29:07.080 you to react to it. There's 41 million Canadians, basically the population of California sitting on the

00:29:14.200 world's largest amounts of all resources, including the most important energy and water.

00:29:20.440 Canadians over the holidays, the last two days have been talking about this.

00:29:24.600 They want to hear more. And so, you know, there's obviously a lot of issues, more details,

00:29:29.400 but what this could be is the beginning of an economic union. Think about the power of combining

00:29:33.800 the two economies, erasing the border between Canada and the United States and putting all that

00:29:39.240 resource up to the Northern borders where China and Russia are knocking on the door. So secure that, 0.95

00:29:45.160 give a common currency, figure out taxes across the board, get everything trading both ways,

00:29:51.560 create a new almost EU like passport. I like this idea. And at least half of Canadians are interested.

00:29:58.840 The problem is the government's collapsing Canada right now. Nobody wants Trudeau to negotiate this

00:30:04.360 deal. I don't want him doing it for me. So I'm going to go to Mar-a-Lago. I'll start the narrative.

00:30:09.480 The 41 million Canadians, I think most of them would trust me on this deal.

00:30:14.600 So it's, it's being hoist upon us. People didn't listen to your warnings in your book,

00:30:19.800 12 years ago or not enough. And now it's happening.

00:30:22.600 And that's where he got his ideas. Look, I talked to Kevin. Kevin is a showboat. 50% I don't think is,

00:30:29.400 is realistic. But if you do something really bold, as I said before, and you mentioned it too,

00:30:37.720 if you, if you do something really bold, like pay people for the over contribution of assets they

00:30:44.760 would give to a union, I think that might be an offer nobody can refuse, but the Americans

00:30:49.880 aren't going to do that because they don't have to. And you know, the country is not for sale.

00:30:54.120 And so, you know, I think that, I think 50% is high. He goes down there. He's not, you know,

00:31:02.680 he's not the guy that I think Canadians would follow. He's a great guy. He's very smart. He's,

00:31:10.040 you know, hugely rich and popular in the US. But, you know, he, he tried to become leader of the

00:31:16.520 Conservative Party in Canada. And it's too bad he didn't. But then he went on to become a very big

00:31:23.240 celebrity on Fox and everywhere else. So I think that this has to be a referendum. This would have

00:31:31.000 to be put to a referendum by Canadians in a sensible way. Or I think the next election,

00:31:39.880 when we have it is going to probably be based on what the respective leaders feel about

00:31:47.880 the US relationship going forward.

00:31:50.600 Well, it is a little ironic, because I think Kevin O'Leary probably could have been Prime Minister

00:31:54.600 had he wanted to because back in 2019, when he ran for leader of the party, he was, he was ahead,

00:32:01.560 it looked like he could have won. And then he chose to drop out himself, leading way to sort of two

00:32:07.960 unsuccessful Conservative runs at leader leaving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and for five years

00:32:14.040 longer than he probably should have. And now it seems like we possibly do have a leader that can

00:32:19.080 kind of capture that imagination of the Canadian people. We do have some news about Justin Trudeau.

00:32:26.360 He was meeting with the premiers yesterday, and Justin Trudeau made the announcement that he will not be

00:32:31.480 running for a seat in Parliament, that he is done being Prime Minister, and he is done being an MP as

00:32:37.160 soon as an election is called. So let's just play that quick clip.

00:32:40.200 In terms of my own decisions, I will not be running in the upcoming election. As to what I might be

00:32:48.440 doing later, I honestly haven't had much time to think about that at all. I am entirely focused

00:32:53.960 on doing the job that Canadians elected me to do in an extraordinarily pivotal time right now.

00:32:58.920 The US inauguration and the weeks that follow are something that is of deep,

00:33:04.920 deep importance to Canadians, and we are entirely focused on that as a team.

00:33:08.920 So I think a lot of Canadians are probably happy to see that Justin Trudeau won't be around for too

00:33:14.280 much longer, but at the same time, still kind of horrified that he is the one that will negotiate.

00:33:18.360 He will be the one that represents Canadians with Donald Trump on January 20, when he gets

00:33:24.280 inaugurated. And from what we're hearing, the 25% tariffs are going to be a day one executive order.

00:33:31.720 So what are your thoughts on Justin Trudeau leading that negotiation?

00:33:35.480 I thought he resigned.

00:33:38.280 Yeah. Yeah. He said that he's not going to be Prime Minister, but he still is Prime Minister

00:33:42.920 until the next election, or until the leaders let the Liberals replace him.

00:33:46.840 The guy is, has been a disaster. He's the biggest disaster in Canadian history. Has to be to date. Has

00:33:54.920 to be. Who does that? Who drives the ship into the shoals and then abandons it? Who does that?

00:34:03.400 CEOs don't do that. And if they do, they get sued or they go to jail. So, I mean, I'm really, I am so

00:34:11.160 upset that A, that he was in power, but B, that he would do this the minute, you know, he, I mean, talk 0.78

00:34:21.720 about a spoiled brat. He just, it's not fun anymore, so I'm not doing it. And we can't have this ship

00:34:30.040 without a captain. And so I'm glad that Doug Ford and Danielle Smith have stepped forward

00:34:41.160 as spokespeople. We've got some good premiers. And, you know, I hope they're sitting around the

00:34:47.320 table. I don't want Trudeau there. I don't want O'Leary there either. He's not elected. He didn't

00:34:51.800 get elected. He left ship too. He's a great guy, but I mean, he's not my political leader.

00:34:58.280 And so this is up to Canadians to figure out. Polyev is a good man. He's got good people around him.

00:35:05.080 And, you know, I think the next election is going to be fought over this. But when is that next

00:35:09.880 election going to be? You know, are the liberals going to pick a leader who kicks the can down the

00:35:14.840 road all the way to October? That would be absolutely a disaster. I mean, you could see it

00:35:21.400 happening, right? Because NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said that as soon as parliament resumes,

00:35:25.960 he's going to vote for non-confidence and force an election. So Dustin Trudeau prorogued parliament,

00:35:31.720 and now the liberals are having a leadership race. It looks like my prediction is that it will be Mark

00:35:35.880 Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, that takes over. And you could

00:35:40.680 imagine a world where he just negotiates a deal with Jagmeet Singh to, quote, you kick the can down

00:35:45.320 the road and allow him to be the prime minister for longer. Again, another unelected person that

00:35:50.040 doesn't represent Canadians down there negotiating with Trump. You mentioned the provinces. So I want

00:35:55.320 to report this news as well. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has announced that she will not be signing a

00:36:01.560 provincial agreement. So the provinces met that clip that we just showed Justin Trudeau. He was

00:36:05.640 meeting with the provincial leaders. And this is True North reporting. It said that Smith opted out

00:36:10.840 of participating in a joint statement signed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the other premiers

00:36:14.600 on Wednesday that outlined proposed retaliatory measures in response to US President-elect Donald

00:36:20.760 Trump's potential tariffs. This is a quote from Danielle Smith. It says, the province of Alberta did not

00:36:26.280 approve the joint statement between the government of Canada and the Council of Federations.

00:36:31.480 And we've heard Danielle Smith on this topic, particularly saying absolutely not when it

00:36:37.320 comes to any kind of tariff or embargo on Alberta oil being sold to the United States. She says,

00:36:43.480 absolutely not. And there is kind of an irony here that the Trudeau government for a decade has

00:36:51.160 denigrated Alberta oil, has demonized it, has kicked it when it's down, done everything it can to derail

00:36:56.760 that industry, killing pipelines, bringing in Bill C-69, the so-called no pipeline bill that just

00:37:03.000 creates an unrealistic environmental assessment program that would just basically never allow

00:37:09.320 anything else to be built. And then turn around, and as soon as Canada is in trouble, use Alberta as

00:37:14.120 a bargaining chip saying, we're going to allow your oil to get taxed. And one of the things that Danielle

00:37:20.520 Smith said in a press conference earlier this week, really just very firmly talking to the Trudeau

00:37:25.880 government saying, look at a map, look at a map of the pipelines, we have a map of the pipelines,

00:37:31.000 specifically, she's talking about line five, and line nine, if we can show that map, Sean,

00:37:36.840 and you get an idea of how kind of crazy it is that central Canada, so you can see where the oil comes

00:37:44.840 from, it starts up in Alberta and Edmonton, and goes down and it leaves Canada, it goes to line five,

00:37:51.800 which takes that oil across the Great Lakes through the United States into Sarnia, and then line nine

00:37:58.120 connects it back up to Toronto and Montreal. So any kind of taxes, tariffs, or an embargo would actually just

00:38:06.280 lock out central Canada and freeze them. So it doesn't even really make sense that that's what

00:38:11.160 Canada wants to do. And yet that's what they're proposing, potentially. So good for Danielle Smith 0.64

00:38:17.240 for saying no to that. And I think we're seeing another crisis unfold here, Diane, which is a crisis

00:38:23.240 of unity, a crisis of confederation in the country where the provinces don't even agree on how to do

00:38:29.160 this. So it's not even like we're creating a united front to the Americans, and people on the left

00:38:33.880 will blame Danielle Smith for that. But really, Danielle Smith is the only one really speaking

00:38:38.760 some sense and standing up for the working people in this country. What do you make of all this?

00:38:44.840 Well, Danielle's right. I mean, I just think we're the mouse that roared. You want to start a match,

00:38:53.640 a retaliatory match with that country? It's stupid. It is ridiculous. And you know, and furthermore, 1.00

00:39:03.640 they rely on electricity from Quebec, and they rely on electricity from Ontario and a little bit from BC,

00:39:11.160 and a lot of oil from from Saskatchewan and Alberta. And if you want to fool around with that supply,

00:39:17.720 the soldiers will be across the border in no time. They depend on that. We're a supplier. Suppliers

00:39:25.240 don't threaten. Customers threaten, but suppliers don't threaten. That's that's suicidal. So she's

00:39:32.520 absolutely right. And it's inappropriate. And you know, this is this is the problem. It's

00:39:40.040 it's a weak little country that's very fragmented politically, and run by an even weaker

00:39:45.720 federal system. And and actually a guy that shouldn't be prime minister who is. So you know,

00:39:52.920 this is exactly what I warned about 12 years ago. We're weak now we're weaker. And so Trump is going

00:40:00.520 to do what Trump has to do. And he doesn't want any any hassle. He doesn't want any guff. He doesn't

00:40:06.600 want any nonsense. He just he wants to get it. He wants his military costs covered for the portion

00:40:14.360 that he pays for for Canada and NORAD. And, you know, he wants a fair deal.

00:40:20.760 Okay, this is very treacherous time, very treacherous. But Daniel's right.

00:40:25.720 Retaliation is nuts, in my opinion. But negotiating is is okay. So you know, instead of whining and

00:40:35.000 threatening, you just say, Okay, you send grown ups down there and say, Okay, what can we do?

00:40:41.640 You know, how much do you want for military? How much? You know, we'll double the size of our

00:40:47.880 military, we'll buy everything from the US. That's what Europe's going to do. How smart is that?

00:40:54.360 Well, it seems like now's the time to potentially be making a deal. And I just want to talk finally

00:41:01.160 about the who will potentially become the prime minister after an actual election when Canadians

00:41:07.240 get to decide which is Pierre Polyev. He made an announcement today, which I think

00:41:12.200 a lot of entrepreneurs and investors will be happy about. Remember, earlier in 2024,

00:41:17.880 Justin Trudeau announced really staggering capital gains changes, capital gains tax changes that would

00:41:24.600 really, you know, scare away investors, chase away entrepreneurs even further, and send a message to

00:41:30.760 sort of some of the most productive people in the country that can has closer business, including

00:41:34.920 people that the economy desperately need, like real estate developers and doctors, doctors, the way

00:41:39.960 that they set up their incomes in a lot of ways uses capital gains tax exemptions to help them save

00:41:47.480 for retirement. Polyev just announced this morning, formally, that he will get rid of those hikes,

00:41:53.720 that his government will not implement those. And interestingly, in his video, he announced something

00:41:59.400 that kind of reminds me of what Elon Musk is doing down in the States or what he's spearheading with

00:42:04.600 Donald Trump, which is sort of like a doge, like Department of Government efficiency. In his video

00:42:10.280 there, he said that one of the things he's going to do is put together a task force of investors,

00:42:16.120 entrepreneurs, farmers and workers to come up with a better tax system for Canadians. I think we have

00:42:21.560 that clip if we can play that, please. That's why within 60 days of becoming prime minister,

00:42:27.240 I will name a tax reform task force of entrepreneurs, investors, farmers and workers,

00:42:33.880 but no lobbyists to design a bring it home tax cut. So just wondering, Diane, what do you what do you

00:42:42.040 what do you see the Conservatives doing differently? Does Pierre Polyev's message resonate with you? Do you

00:42:47.800 think that there's optimism there that he can possibly be the one to fix Canada and solve all of these

00:42:53.640 monumental problems that we've kind of outlined on the show today? No, there's no silver bullets

00:42:58.520 and there's no and no one should pretend they have all the answers. He's not going to be the the the

00:43:03.960 knight in shining armor. He's going to do some very sensible things that Conservatives have been,

00:43:10.120 you know, promoting for for decades to to write to turn around the ship. Trudeau's going to lose the

00:43:17.080 election. And Polyev is going to win it, unless he makes a big mistake, or unless something comes out

00:43:23.880 of nowhere. And so that's that's what's important, I think. Carney, I know he's a very lovely gentleman.

00:43:32.280 He's a international banker. But he cannot be allowed to get away with the slogan that he's the outsider,

00:43:41.560 come in and fix everything when he was part of the insider group. And he's an accomplice. He held their

00:43:48.600 hands through all their economic stuff. And he's right in the middle of this. So we don't want another

00:43:53.800 one of their gang, even if it's in a suit and has a better accent. Okay, and better credentials. So I think

00:44:01.880 it's time that, you know, common sense revolution type of thing that Mike Harris did. Stephen Harper was a

00:44:07.720 good prime minister. And all of his people are around Pierre Polyev. Come on, we got to do this.

00:44:14.840 We got to we got to clean up the place. It's not going to be done quickly. The damage is great.

00:44:21.400 The damage is huge. And but you know, the polls show tomorrow, I mean, Polyev would win easily. But

00:44:30.520 Trudeau knows that, which is why he is holding hostage Parliament and the people of Canada and history.

00:44:38.040 for his own ends. And that, to me is treason and unforgivable.

00:44:44.520 I can't agree more. And I think that the problem with Mark Carney is that he basically believes the

00:44:52.200 same stuff as Justin Trudeau, the same things that got us into this mess, like you mentioned, like,

00:44:57.240 showing reverence to Greta Thunberg, a deranged sort of teenage activist, basically just saying,

00:45:03.000 shut it all down. He believes in the carbon tax. He believes in not developing Canadian oil and gas.

00:45:08.280 He's an accomplice. He was a guru. He held their hands. And that's what he's done all over the world.

00:45:16.520 He's a big greenie. And he's and he's very socialist. So you know, we do we need more of this? 1.00

00:45:22.440 I don't think so. I think we need to turn the page and take another refreshing look at how to run a country better.

00:45:29.080 Well, I hope that Pierre Paulio picks up a copy of your book. Maybe I'll send him one and get him to think about in that in that realm.

00:45:36.680 I want to just ask you one final question, Diana, and I'll be respectful of your time because I know you have a heart out

00:45:41.480 in a couple of minutes here. But what what do you make of Donald Trump and the way that he's come about this whole thing?

00:45:48.640 I know I know just from reading your your subsac and and seeing what you said recently, it doesn't seem like you're a big fan

00:45:53.800 of his demeanor and his attitude. But at the same time, he's he's pretty good at identifying the problem,

00:46:00.440 sending that message that he's going to fix it. And he seems like someone who gets those kind of things done.

00:46:04.760 So I'm wondering if you can give us just a quick analysis of Trump and how you think that Canada should go about dealing with him.

00:46:11.480 You hear a lot of people on the political left saying Trump's a bully. He he only responds to strength.

00:46:16.520 We need to hit him where it hurts and meet strength with strength. What's your take on all that?

00:46:20.840 And what can Canada do? Well, I like I like the attitude that Christine Lagarde had. 0.97

00:46:28.760 Christine Lagarde is the head of the central bank in Europe for the European Union.

00:46:31.960 She was the finance minister of France. But before that, she was an international law partner in a

00:46:37.240 Chicago based firm. She knows America. She understands it. And, you know, when he started to talk to Europe,

00:46:45.400 you know, because he's been on their case about NATO, NATO expenditures, expenditures.

00:46:50.680 He's he started to talk about 20 percent tariffs on on their exports to the United States.

00:46:56.600 And she said she was asked, this is going to cause a crisis. This is awful.

00:47:01.800 She said, no, it's the beginning of bargaining. It's a negotiation.

00:47:06.120 So he wants this. He's going to ask this and we're going to counter offer this.

00:47:10.440 And then he's going to come down a little and then we're going to go up a little.

00:47:13.480 And that's when she came up with the idea. Look, Europe can get around this problem. 0.97

00:47:17.640 He's very upset because he has trade deficits with Europe, huge trade deficits, as he does with 0.96

00:47:23.000 Canada. He calls it a subsidy, but that's not accurate. It's a trade deficit. OK, how do you get

00:47:27.960 rid of a trade deficit? You buy more of their stuff than you did before. So she said what we're going

00:47:34.600 to do and what we should do in Europe is we should spend as much money as we should militarily, which we

00:47:40.120 should have been doing anyway. And we'll procure it all from the Americans. And secondly, we need natural

00:47:45.880 gas because we don't want to be on Russian oil and gas. So we're going to buy LNG from the US

00:47:50.200 exclusively. And that would erase, that would erase the trade deficit. And so Trump is his style. Again,

00:47:57.640 this gets back to the cultural differences. His style is very American. I mean, he's the New York guy,

00:48:04.760 German background, blunt, direct, trash talking. Let's make a deal. Let's get down and fight down and 1.00

00:48:12.520 dirty. Canadians are horrified by that. Europeans are horrified by that. But Christine Lagarde said,

00:48:19.720 he's negotiating. So make him counteroffer. It's not a crisis. It's an opportunity to get along better.

00:48:27.160 That's the kind of head we need dealing with him.

00:48:29.480 Okay, well, I hope that hopefully Pierre Polyev will be in the position soon enough to take over

00:48:36.920 those negotiations. And I think that would be a very good way of thinking about it. Well, Diane,

00:48:42.680 I really appreciate your time. I encourage everyone to go and pick up Diane's book. Check

00:48:46.600 out her sub stack as well. I think it's just that Diane Francis on sub stack. Thank you so much for

00:48:52.760 joining us. Thank you. Bye bye. All right. Thank you so much for tuning into the Kenneth

00:48:57.960 Malcolm show. We will be back again tomorrow with all the news. Thank you so much and God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - January 16, 2025

Is it inevitable？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript