One Party Rule in Canada! How the Liberals are rigging the system
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Summary
Candace Malan is joined by Professor Bruce Parris to discuss the Ruby Dalla disqualification from the leadership race, and why she should have stood a chance against Mark Carney. They also discuss why the Liberal Party chose to use the CBC as a propaganda machine in order to delegitimize her campaign.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm and welcome to The Candace Malcolm Show. We have a great show for you this
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morning. We are going to get into all of Trump's recent comments over the weekend calling Justin
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Trudeau a loser. And first we're going to get into this ruby dollar situation because from best I
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can tell the fix is in. The Liberal Party has done everything in its power to try to remove obstacles
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for the coronation of Mark Carney. Mark Carney is the one that they want. He's the one that has been
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chosen. He has been selected. He comes from the World Economic Forum. He's a central banker. He's
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been centrally cast to be the prime minister of Canada and the Liberal Party, the liberal machine
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will do everything in their power to make sure that he's prime minister, including apparently
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wielding the CBC and turning it into their personal propaganda machine. We're going to get to
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all of that. I'm very pleased today to be joined for the whole show by Professor Bruce Party. He's a
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legal scholar, professor of law, Queen's University, and he is always an interesting guest. So Bruce,
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thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Candace. Pleasure to be with you.
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Okay, let's get into the ruby dollar situation because we learned on Friday that she has been
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disqualified as leader in the race. So the Liberal Party committee voted unanimously, we're told,
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to disqualify the former MP from the leadership race. The committee claims to have found 10 serious
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violations, including breaches of party rules, potential violations of the Elections Canada Act,
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and a failure to disclose a non-citizen's involvement in her campaign, which they argued could amount to
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foreign interference. This is the best part, though, Bruce. Ruby Dalla learned about her
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disqualification live on air on CBC. She was invited to do a CBC news hit, and apparently
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CBC got the memo before they even informed their own candidate that she had been disqualified.
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Here is what that looked like, folks. This is CBC, Friday, February 21st,
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unbelievable power and politics with David Cochran. Let's play that clip.
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Have you received official word yet from the Liberal Party on your disqualification from this race?
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I haven't as of yet. It's quite interesting that I turned on CBC news and read your headline that I
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was being disqualified from the race. I checked my email, my campaign team has, and as of this moment,
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we have not received any indication from the Liberal Party as to that type of decision.
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I just, I can't even believe, like, what kind of country do we live in, Bruce, where the state
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broadcaster has information about a campaign that the candidate themselves doesn't even have?
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They're closer, in closer cahoots in communication with the Liberal Party than the candidates. What do
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Well, it tells you more than you want to know, doesn't it? So there's a,
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we think of political parties as public institutions, and we expect them to behave as though they are
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parts of the state. And I think that's our first mistake. They are actually not. They're more or
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less semi-private organizations. And it's simply because the Liberals and the Conservatives, but the
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Liberals, you know, the natural governing party of Canada, are in power so often. We think of them as
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sort of synonymous with government, but they're not. The people on the inside, the Liberal Party,
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we control the party, and our expectations are misplaced. This kind of event
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pulls back the curtain to show us all how it really works. And so when you have the candidate
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on CBC and CBC telling her that she's been disqualified, that's the way it really works.
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And the people on the inside have voted to disqualify her. Now, who knows what the actual
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facts are? You know, I'm myself, I'm a little dubious that these disqualification events are
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real, but who knows? But the bottom line is, the people inside control who gets to be the candidate,
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who gets to be the leader. And we have to stop insisting that our expectations are real instead
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of seeing things for what they actually are. Well, I mean, you're obviously right,
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because this isn't democracy. This isn't a grassroots selection process. This is clearly
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a top-down decision. And I don't think that Ruby Dalla was a particularly strong candidate. I don't know
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that she would have even stood a chance against Mark Carney, because, you know, that's where all the
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institutional inertia is going towards him in the leadership race. But the fact that she was a bit
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of an outsider, yes, she'd been an MP, but she hasn't been in the Ottawa bubble for a decade.
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She was talking about different kinds of issues. And I think that she did pose a unique threat.
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She spoke to Ruby Dalla, joined Juno News' Cat Canada in an exclusive interview over the weekend.
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And she basically just said, look, they didn't want me to be out there because I posed a threat to
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Mark Carney. Here, let's play a clip of what that looked like.
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I think that they wanted to complete the coronation of Mark Carney. They did not want to have Ruby
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Dalla on that debate stage or on that ballot. And ultimately, they were denying, not Ruby Dalla,
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but they denied the thousands of people that were supporting me and wanted to vote for a Liberal
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party that would be brought back to the centre. And most importantly, a party where all the membership
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and the grassroots would actually have a voice.
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So she said that. And even further to her point, so speaking on CBC's power in politics,
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this was on Thursday. So the day before this all happened, we had a former Liberal Party
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insider, I believe, a senior advisor, Stevie O'Brien. Basically, say the quiet part out loud.
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I certainly hope that the party finds a legitimate reason to disqualify her candidacy before the
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I hope so. I think that, you know, we've got a serious campaign. Canadians are looking for
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a serious leader. I think that's one of the reasons that Carney is doing very well. I would
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really hate for us to lose, as a partisan, to lose that momentum because someone's trying
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So that was a former chief of staff to a Liberal cabinet minister. And she basically said it.
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I hope we find a legitimate reason to kick her out because we don't want difficult questions
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and we don't want to turn it into a circus, meaning we don't want legitimate questions
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that could derail Mark Carney's walk into the park of being prime minister. What do you think,
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Well, I think that clip and this event shows how little they fear being exposed for how
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the thing actually runs. I mean, their control is so complete, not only over the party, but
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over the country, that they're not concerned about how it looks. And that, to me, is the biggest
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indication of a problem. I agree with you that I don't think, as a candidate, she probably
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amounted to a very serious threat to his eventual victory. But apparently, they didn't want to
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have a contentious conversation during the debate, which one would think that that's what a debate
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is for. So they're almost drunk on their own power. If a person like that is willing to say that
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out loud, then that has become the norm in the way that they think. They think it's okay for,
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in a liberal leadership race, to find a reason to disqualify a candidate because of the way
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Well, it's interesting. Just a couple of further pieces of context here, right? When Justin Trudeau
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resigned, or at least stated his intention to resign, he's still the prime minister, but
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on January 6th, he resigned. And he said that the Liberal Party will have a robust leadership campaign
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where the leader will be chosen from the grassroots. That's obviously not true.
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He also said, after Donald Trump was re-elected, President Trump was re-elected down in the States,
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he said that the American population missed out on the opportunity to elect its first female
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president, and was sort of looking down his nose at those Americans who didn't make the right choice
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and elect a Democrat. And so there's just so many layers of irony here. It's like they don't care
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about democracy. They don't care about women. They don't care about anything. They don't care
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about minorities. They're happy to kick out the people of Indian descent from the leadership race
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so that we have like three white front runners. And that's really what the Liberal Party is all
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about, even though they like to say that they're all about diversity and all these other things.
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All true. But the most telling thing is that it's so transparently true. And yet it doesn't seem to
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matter. Right? And that's not the fault of the people who are speaking. I mean, the hypocrisy is
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obvious. But the real problem is that it continues to work. Why is it that so many Canadians have such a
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short memory so that this kind of propaganda, and that's really what it is, succeeds? You would like
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to think that eventually, you know, a critical mass of people would recognize it for what it was,
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for what you just described it as. But apparently that doesn't seem to be so. And the same thing with
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the disqualification of Della. Like, it doesn't seem to matter. And so why wouldn't they continue
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down this path? Well, I mean, help us understand, because we've seen the Liberals have a bounce. I
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don't know if it's a resurgence. I don't know if the polls are picking things up accurately. But
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many, many polls, if not almost all of the polls over the last six weeks have shown a huge bounce
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in the Liberals. Some of them show the Liberals up to being neck and neck with the Conservatives. It
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was just in December before Trudeau announced his intention to resign that it looked like Pierre
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Polyev was going to walk into one of the biggest majority governments in Canadian history. And now it's
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like a coin flip. I don't even know that he's for sure going to win. So how is it that with a
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Liberal Party being so callous, so, like you said, unabashedly willing to change the rules, to kick
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people out, to even say it out loud on CBC for the whole country to see, we're going to rig it,
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we're going to get our guy in. And yet Canadians are, presumably, I mean, maybe the polls are wrong,
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and maybe it's all part of a coordinated attempt to make Canadians think that there's,
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enthusiasm and support and love from Mark Carney. I'm not sure. But like, like, you live in Ontario,
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help us understand these Ontario voters. Why is it that they'd be so willing to forgive
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a party like the Liberal Party? I wish I knew. I really, I really wish I knew. I don't know if
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these polls are valid or not. I don't know if they're fake or not. I really don't know. I'm,
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I'm surprised that there'd be such a change in such a short time. So they might be manipulated.
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But part of their purpose might be to lead to a further manipulation to make people think,
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oh, well, now things are different. And now I'm going to rethink what I was going to do before.
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But it's all part of the same play, right? The powers that be have learned over a long period of
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time that the public can be manipulated. And they're not wrong. That's the real problem.
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They're not wrong that the public can be manipulated. And why particular voters in Ontario or elsewhere
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would be willing after these past nine years to, to, to, to think that maybe things are not so bad
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after all, couldn't, couldn't begin to tell you.
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You know, it reminds me of the provincial politics. You know, you had the Dalton McGinty government
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back in the early 2000s and, you know, they ruled with popular appeal for many years. And then all
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of a sudden there was just too many scandals and too much waste. And there was this huge boondoggle
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with the gas power plants being canceled in the middle of the election. And so they got rid of
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Dalton McGinty and then they just put Kathleen Wynne in. And I couldn't, I couldn't believe that Ontario
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voters rewarded her with a, with a government, but they did because I think they saw, even though
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Kathleen Wynne was a minister in McGinty's government, I think they, they saw there was
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enough change, right? It's, it's, it's not McGinty anymore. It's this new, it's this fresh face,
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this woman, she's going to be different. And even though it was just the same party, the same
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apparatus, the same people behind the scenes, they, they saw it as enough of a change and, and gave her
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another government now, to be fair, in the next election after that, Doug Ford won, and he's now
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set to win his third straight majority government. So I don't know that it paid off in the long run
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for the liberals, but it's interesting that voters would be willing to, to forgive a party with it,
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with a new face on the front. It's the power of a brand, right? We, this is, you know, goes back to
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my original point. I mean, the liberal party has a brand and people associate things with the brand
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that maybe aren't true, but that doesn't matter because it's in their head. It's like, it's like
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Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a brand and the brand sells the product. The branding of the political
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party sells the product, even if the product stinks. And, and so there's, there's real value
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and the, and the, and the, the brand is essentially a private one, privately held. People think that
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the natural order of things in Canada is, or for that matter, in a province, Ontario, say the
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natural order of things at the, is it the liberals or the conservatives have to be the government
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because that's the way we do things. I mean, I know there are NDP exceptions, but essentially
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the voters won't entertain the possibility that a newcomer to the political arena might,
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might be a better go. This doesn't happen. And so if you are able to take control of one of these brands,
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then you've got a shot. If not, you're, you're out in the political wilderness. And that's a very
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hard thing to shake. Even if the parties themselves spend years denigrating their brand, people don't
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seem to notice. It's a very, it's a very powerful, um, um, deeply held, uh, perception and, uh, and
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Well, a huge part of the liberal party's brand is sort of this appeal to anti-American sentiment. I think
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that lives strongest in the minds of central Canadians and Laurentians that they really define themselves as
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Canadians as just being not Americans and counter to the American. And the stronger that anti-American
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sentiment is, the better the liberals seem to do. And so we can enter Trump into the conversation.
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And he was really ramping up the rhetoric over the weekend. Now, on the one hand, as a conservative,
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that's, you know, I like Donald Trump. I like, I like a lot of the things that he says and does,
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um, in the States. I think that the Canadian conservatives would be better picking up some
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of those things, not all of them, but some of them. Um, I like Trump. I think he's hilarious.
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And I think he's good for the country, for the U S. Um, but some of the things he's doing is just not
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helpful to us Canadians and conservatives. And I'll give you a few examples. So, uh, first we'll talk
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about his appearance on Fox news with Brian Kilmeade and president Trump calls Justin Trudeau a loser,
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He won the first game and the second game was a great game. We could have gone either way. Justin's a loser,
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always has been. And, uh, you know, he's, he's, uh, he's just a guy that really doesn't, I think he's
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done a very bad job for Canada. He's taken it radical left. Justin's, uh, uh, sort of a nice guy,
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but he's a loser. Some say the bubbles in an arrow truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your
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mouth. Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light, rich, creamy, chocolatey arrow
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truffle. Feel the arrow bubbles melt. It's mind bubbling.
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Okay. All right. Thanks for your opinion there, president Trump. Uh, we know that president Trump
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doesn't have a lot of time for Justin Trudeau because, uh, when, when, when Justin Trudeau was
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speaking the night that they introduced the retaliatory tariffs to Trump's tariffs, Trudeau let
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it slip that he has been trying to get ahold of president Trump and Trump won't take his call.
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Let's play that clip. What does it tell you about your relationship with president Trump
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that you've been trying to get ahold of him and he hasn't been speaking with you?
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I think, um, this is a time where we've all remarked on just how active president Trump has been
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in engaging, uh, with a wide range of topics, uh, in his first weeks in office.
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So, so we know that Trump doesn't like Trudeau and those of us who don't like Trudeau either,
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we, we, we like this fact. It's funny. And I think that Trudeau deserves a bit of trolling
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and a bit of mockery that he gets. But then at the same time, it sort of fuels this liberal brand.
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Like the more that Trump is angry at Trudeau and takes it on Trudeau and makes these remarks,
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somehow the stronger the liberal party gets in Canada. What do you make of all this?
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Well, of course the, you know, the, the, the reactionary knee jerk anti-Americanism is,
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has always been, or maybe, I don't know, I don't want to overstate it, but that has been one of the
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primary characteristics of the Canadian identity. We come by it honestly too. It's in our cultural DNA,
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if you like, uh, a lot of people who ended up in Canada at the time of the American revolution
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came to escape the American revolution. We, we, the Canadians were Canadian because they didn't
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want to be American. And, and, and let's put it another way over the past, let's say five years or so.
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Um, a lot of, of the Canadian chattering classes have decided that Canada is a terrible country,
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a settler country, an oppressive country, uh, you know, uh, uh, an evil capitalist Western country.
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And it seems like the only country that they think is worse is the United States.
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Uh, so it's, it's, it's hilarious to have watched them denigrate the Canadian flag, for example. And now
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suddenly when the Americans and Trump are trolling them, now they want to wrap themselves in the Canadian flag.
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It's just, it's just another piece of the hypocrisy we've been talking about. And the question is,
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is anybody noticing? Is, is the Canadian population noticing the hypocrisy, the inconsistencies, the,
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the, the shrillness of the response? Um, and I, I fear that the answer is that it won't be a very
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large proportion of the population. It almost feels like we're back in COVID hysteria, Bruce. It's like,
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it's like, you remember back then when they said that you couldn't go to church,
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you couldn't go to like your community group. I couldn't go for a walk in the park with my kids.
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My kids couldn't play on the playground because somehow that was going to be dangerous for COVID.
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And yet you could walk into the local Loblaws or Costco or any of these big box stores and they
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were open for business. And it's like, how, how many make sense of that? Right? Like, how is it not
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only that they can impose these ridiculous rules? Um, but that, that the vast majority of Canadians will just
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go along with it. Right. It's like the buy Canada campaign where, you know, I, I read on X, uh,
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someone was recounting a story about how they were in a Costco in Ottawa about to buy something. And
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then they got scolded by a fellow shopper saying, you can't buy that. That's made in America. You
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have to buy something in Canada. It's like, it's like, hello, you're in Costco. Like Costco is like,
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the mindset of like, you know, you can't buy something American, but you're, or, or, or all
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the people who, who say, um, you know, they hate Elon Musk, uh, whilst engaging on X is, it's just
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inherently contradictory. And yet somehow it works. Somehow the liberals have managed to use this
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momentum, uh, to, to, to boost themselves in the polls. I'm going to play another example. So, uh,
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again, this is the kind of thing that as a Canadian conservative, I find it hilarious,
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um, but not helpful, not helpful. Um, so president Trump was speaking at the Republicans
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Governors Association in Washington, DC. And he said, I guess rather benevolently that,
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that he likes the Canadian national anthem. And that when Canada becomes a 51st state,
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we can keep our national, we can keep O Canada. Uh, let's play that clip.
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Uh, you heard the people booing the national anthem, but I think ultimately they'll be
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praising the national anthem. We'll have to work out some deal with it. Cause I do like the O Canada,
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uh, right. It's a beautiful thing. I think we're going to have to keep it for the 51st state.
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I call him governor Trudeau. I said, governor Trudeau is doing a wonderful job. I think it's
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actually cost him his election. If you want to know the truth.
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No, president Trump, it hasn't cost him the election. It's helping him. It's helping his party.
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Every time Trump says 51st state, it helps the liberals.
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Well, so, but this is a kind of moment of truth for Canada really. Right. And, and I know people
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want to focus on Trudeau and the present liberal government and fair enough, but, but this is a much
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bigger picture than that. Right. Uh, our, our main threat today, in my opinion, comes from inside,
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not from outside. Now the, there, there are lots of threats from outside as well. But part of the
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problem is that our threats from inside are colluding with those outside threats.
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And so it's not just Trudeau to get rid of Trudeau. The problem's not solved. Carney is going to be a
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problem, but he's not the problem. I, the conservatives, listen, I have to say this.
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If the conservatives get in, that is not solve the problem. Like I'm not partisan about this.
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I think we have some real serious structural constitutional problems in this country that
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we are pretending to not exist. One of the things I think that a lot of COVID dissidents in Canada
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discovered was that the country that they thought they lived in does not actually exist.
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It's a figment of their imagination. And a lot of people are defending now, I think,
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the country they have in their imagination. That country does not exist. Our main problems are
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internal. It's the way the country is organized. It's the people who lead us. It's our elites.
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It's our chattering classes. It's the idea that we need to be managed as a country. It's a,
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it's in our cultural heritage. We have to rethink, I think, what this country is.
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And Trump, for all this trolling, and I, I, I understand what you're saying about,
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you know, the, the, the political moment, but, but Trump has opened the door to a conversation.
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Now, maybe the conversation will go badly. I don't know. But it is at least now possible
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to speak about what Canada is and what our fortunes, where our fortunes lie, where they, where we,
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what we should do now, because this country is in a mess.
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I tend to agree. I, I mean, I raised this on an interview I did last week with Professor
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David Haskell from Wilfrid Laurier, where like Canada's, I think Canada's at rock bottom.
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I can't, I can't imagine the economic situation getting any worse. I mean, when the loonie went
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down to 68, it's, it's popped back up a little bit, but you know, you have a declining dollar,
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you have just every single economic problem, cost of living, cost of housing, cost of groceries,
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cost of fuel, everything compounding from the liberal government agenda. But then on top of
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that, you have this social division, not just the separatist movements, but at a local community
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level, like people don't feel safe in their homes, in their communities. And I talked to so many people
00:23:59.680
who, every time I talked to people from Toronto, it's like that all they're talking about is home
00:24:03.600
robberies, home invasions, carjackings, and the rampant problem of illegal immigration and legal
00:24:09.520
immigration. And even among immigrant communities, it has completely divided them. Like people just
00:24:14.400
don't feel safe on the streets of Toronto. And even in safe suburbs, they don't feel safe.
00:24:18.640
And to me, like Canada is just not in a good place. And I, and I agree with Pierre Paglia,
00:24:24.560
the conservative leader, when he says Canada is broken, of course it's broken. It's been broken
00:24:27.680
for a long time. It really came to the surface during COVID. And now again, with this hyperinflation
00:24:32.880
and with crime. And, you know, if there were to be a time where Canada could fall, I mean,
00:24:39.840
having this offer from Trump, it's like, it's like this would be a time where more, more Canadians
00:24:44.560
than usual, I think might be open to the idea of it. So I think it's an interesting conversation.
00:24:48.640
I want to bring this, tie this to your recent Substack piece that you wrote last week,
00:24:52.720
a declaration of independence for Alberta. And you're not from Alberta, you're not, you're not an
00:24:57.600
Albertan, but you believe that Alberta potential would be greater if they were independent or
00:25:04.560
potentially part of the United States. So why don't you tell us a little bit about that?
00:25:07.840
Yes. So as you say, I'm, I'm not from Alberta, I'm an Ontario boy. And so it's really not my place
00:25:14.480
to do this. But I thought, listen, I might as well express what I would say if I was from Alberta,
00:25:19.520
because I perceive that they've not just Alberta, but, but Alberta, first and foremost,
00:25:24.000
really has had a raw deal in Confederation for, for, for quite a while. And, and I know that there
00:25:31.440
are a lot of people in Alberta who feel that way, and it might not be in a majority, but there's a
00:25:35.520
lot of people that I have encountered who, who very firmly think that their fortunes would be much
00:25:40.720
better off either independent or as a part of, of the US of A. And, and this is all part of the,
00:25:48.480
the part of the results of the, of the flaws in this country, as they have come to be.
00:25:55.360
So let's just talk about Alberta first, in particular, Alberta, Alberta's primary industries
00:26:01.280
have been intentionally impeded over a long period of time, while both by the federal government,
00:26:08.480
and by other provinces. So for one example, Quebec refuses to approve pipeline, to move Alberta oil
00:26:16.240
from where it is to the East Coast. The federal government over a period of time has done its
00:26:23.680
best to undermine Alberta's constitutional jurisdiction, through things like the Impact Assessment Act.
00:26:30.560
And there is the bugbear of equalization. For a long time, the wealth of individual Albertans has
00:26:37.360
been taxed by the federal government and then redistributed across the country. And, you know,
00:26:41.920
it's a federation, so it's cooperative. And so sometimes, you know, we help out other places,
00:26:45.840
but this has been going in one direction for a long time. So I do not blame Albertans at all,
00:26:51.920
those who think that they, their fortunes might be better somewhere else. I, I completely understand
00:26:56.720
where they're coming from. The, the thing is that a lot of these problems, I think, can be traced to
00:27:03.040
our Canadian history. Because there was a moment, and I alluded to it earlier, there was a moment where,
00:27:08.560
when the Americans were deciding that they did not want to live under the thumb of the British King
00:27:14.320
anymore, they would have taken us on board and said, let's all do this together. We'll be, let's be a
00:27:21.440
continent. And the Canadians at the time refused. They, they, they wanted to be subject to the King.
00:27:28.960
And, you know, maybe for them, that decision made sense at the time. I can't put myself in their shoes,
00:27:35.120
but nevertheless, that is the legacy of this country. And so there's a determination on the
00:27:41.360
part of many Canadians, and some of them, I would think don't understand why they're so committed to
00:27:47.280
this. But they're committed, number one, to being not American. And number two, they're committed to
00:27:53.200
being under the thumb of the crown. And I don't think that either one of those two things as a knee
00:28:01.280
jerk reaction is very helpful. I think it's important for us to take this moment, this opportunity
00:28:07.280
to rethink the decision we made in 1775, to rebuff the Americans and say, well, hold on.
00:28:14.800
Let's just rethink this again. We have another choice now, that we have the choice again.
00:28:20.480
What would it mean to, to join the Americans? That's not going to happen as a country. I mean,
00:28:26.320
I know Trump's been trolling us as a 51st state. I don't think there's any prospect at all of Canada
00:28:33.200
as a unit becoming the 51st state. The embedded interest in our federal system, in our national
00:28:43.280
system simply will not stand for that because their status and fortunes depend upon having this
00:28:50.720
small pond. They're big fish in a small pond, the small pond has to continue. But there's no reason
00:28:56.080
why an aggrieved province like Alberta couldn't step out and say, you know what, we've been mistreated,
00:29:02.960
we're out. And once you had one or maybe two, my colleague Lawrence Solomon has suggested this,
00:29:09.040
that maybe two at a time might be appropriate. And he's suggesting Alberta and Newfoundland.
00:29:13.920
Newfoundland is the most recent entry to Confederation. It for a time looked like it wanted to join the
00:29:19.760
United States. There's still some rumblings of that around, I understand, in Newfoundland.
00:29:25.360
Alberta and Newfoundland together, once you had one or two, even if it wasn't finished yet,
00:29:32.160
even if they started on the path, that might start a cascade, a domino effect. And suddenly,
00:29:41.440
we would be in a different territory in terms of talking about what we ought to do as a country.
00:29:47.920
And that's, that's a conversation I think we have to have.
00:29:52.160
And then, I mean, if we were to play out this hypothetical scenario where Alberta
00:29:56.640
and Newfoundland said, okay, we probably would have a better go at things if we were part of the US,
00:30:02.160
you know, lower cost of living, more purchasing power, higher standard of living, all these things
00:30:06.960
that we've talked about so much on this show. I mean, what would, what would happen to the rest of
00:30:10.560
Canada at that point? Well, I, so I would think that the rest of Canada, maybe province by province
00:30:19.280
or region by region would then consider whether or not it wanted to go to undergo the same process.
00:30:25.520
So I would imagine, let's just hypothetically, we're blue sky here, but let's just imagine,
00:30:29.920
let's say Alberta and Newfoundland were, were either accepted as states or on the way to becoming states.
00:30:36.400
I would have thought that the people in Saskatchewan, for example, would immediately say, well, us too.
00:30:41.680
Don't leave us behind. We want to, we want to join and so on. I suspect, this is just a guess,
00:30:47.440
but I suspect that, that Ontario and Quebec would be the, the holdouts because they have the most to
00:30:53.360
lose because that's where the power base in Canada is. All the, all the Laurentians live there.
00:30:58.240
Who knows? Quebec might decide that finally, it does want to be an independent country.
00:31:02.720
I don't know. Ontario might be the last man standing.
00:31:06.480
To its detriment. But, you know, so be it. A lot of Ontarians that, that don't want to,
00:31:13.520
to be the last man standing might move elsewhere so that they can join the people who are moving off.
00:31:19.680
Who knows? I mean, there's so many different scenarios and, and maybe Alberta would decide
00:31:23.840
to be independent and not part of the United States. Who knows? Who knows? The point is that
00:31:28.320
the status quo has proven to be not very good. And we now have choices in front of us that we need to
00:31:36.160
talk about in a, in a way that's not the knee jerk reaction we're having right now.
00:31:43.520
It's so interesting because I mean, when you hear the, I think, I think the whole conversation was
00:31:47.920
designed to annoy Canadians and specifically the election elites. Like, that's why I, I, I held
00:31:52.480
up for a long time that I did think Trump was joking. I, I didn't think that he was serious. I
00:31:56.080
thought that it was, you know, if you read the art of the deal, he says like, throw out the most,
00:32:00.080
you know, to start a negotiation, throw out the most outrageous demands. And then, you know,
00:32:04.640
by the time you get back to what you want, it sounds much more reasonable. And it's, it seemed,
00:32:08.320
it seemed like trolling. It seemed like he was just kind of putting it out there. But then,
00:32:11.600
like I said, you know, we're at this low point in Canadian history and in just so many ways.
00:32:15.920
And it's like, well, like, I mean, some of the things that Trump says is accurate. Like Canada
00:32:21.760
doesn't have a real military. We don't hold our own weight. We don't really protect our Arctic. And
00:32:26.800
if you look at it from like perspective of, for instance, uh, a journalist, uh, Sam Cooper,
00:32:31.200
who's done deep dive investigation, Chinese infiltration into so many different aspects of our
00:32:37.520
society, you know, it's not just political interference, which the liberal government's
00:32:40.480
happy to just sweep under the rug, but it's also like our financial institutions and the police
00:32:44.160
stations. And there's just, you know, corporate SPS, there's just deep, deep levels of Chinese
00:32:48.480
integration. And you think, you know, in what way is Canada sovereign state today? We can't even
00:32:53.280
protect ourselves from these nefarious foreign actors. I mean, you know, it's not even to get into
00:32:58.800
different sort of Islamist operations that happen in Canada or the Iranians that, that have these
00:33:03.040
cultural community centers there to like influence the culture. Like we, we, we don't have this
00:33:09.680
sovereign independent country. We have all of these influences that we can't even protect ourselves
00:33:15.440
against. So if you look down the road, like 25, 50 years, um, would you rather be under China's
00:33:21.600
influence or would you rather be part of America? I think even the most anti-American, um, you know,
00:33:27.680
loyalists and the historic loyalists in Canada would, would still probably say that they, they
00:33:32.480
would rather be under the American influence than the Chinese. Um, I think, although given
00:33:37.600
the fact that the liberals have allowed so much of this, maybe they would prefer the Chinese. I don't
00:33:41.280
know. Yeah. I think, I think a lot of Canadians don't appreciate one of the reasons why the Americans
00:33:47.760
are now interested in acquiring Canada, why Trump is trolling us like this. It's because we have become
00:33:55.440
a threat to them because we have allowed this infiltration that you're referring to. I mean,
00:34:00.640
we have not been a serious country for quite a while and we've assumed a kind of Canadian manifest
00:34:07.120
destiny that we are, we are, we are do certain things, but here's the, here's the hypocrisy or
00:34:11.760
the irony of Canada. At the same time that we carry our anti-Americanism on our shoulders, we live under
00:34:17.920
their umbrella. You know, we, we benefit from economic integration with them. We, we depend upon them
00:34:24.640
for military protection. We've assumed for forever, or at least since World War II that,
00:34:29.920
that if anybody attacked us, the Americans would defend us. If, if not for our benefit,
00:34:34.080
then certainly for theirs. And as long as we were a benign, you know, a secure source of,
00:34:43.120
you know, resources and nice people, everything for the, as far as the Americans were concerned,
00:34:48.080
everything was fine. But we have allowed our country to be influenced in very bad ways. And
00:34:53.840
we've gone down downhill. You, what you say about the military is correct. We couldn't defend our
00:34:58.320
own borders if we, if we tried. And, and, uh, there are foreign powers now knocking on the Americans
00:35:06.160
door because of us. So we are now, we are now a threat and they're not going to put up with that.
00:35:12.320
So we either have to, we either have to fix ourselves, which would be a very difficult thing
00:35:16.480
to do because of all the, of the internal problems or the Americans are going to come in and fix it
00:35:22.400
for us. I want to bring in something that Ben Shapiro, so daily wire co-founder and conservative,
00:35:27.920
probably the most famous, uh, conservative, uh, pundit in the States. Uh, he wrote the following on
00:35:33.840
Facebook this morning. He wrote, I still don't understand why we're levying 25% tariffs on Canada.
00:35:40.080
I've got to be honest with you. I don't understand that one. I get it on Mexico. I get it on China.
00:35:44.480
In fact, I think we should have much higher tariff on China because China is an actual geopolitical
00:35:49.840
enemy, but I don't understand exactly what we're trying to pry out of the Canadians.
00:35:54.560
So Bruce, tell me, what is it that Ben Shapiro doesn't understand?
00:35:58.880
Well, I don't know. Just from that, from that passage, he might not understand the degree to
00:36:03.760
which China has, and not just China, other, other powers as well have, have, um, infiltrated and
00:36:10.720
influenced, uh, what's going on in Canada. Uh, you know, I, and Sam Cooper knows an awful lot more
00:36:17.200
about this than I do, but, but, uh, you know, it's not, and it's not just fentanyl. It's organized
00:36:22.640
crime. It's political interference. All of these things have been alleged. Uh, there, there's,
00:36:28.240
I've certainly heard credible accounts that they're real. Um, and so the, the 25% tariff,
00:36:34.960
I mean, who knows it's Trump, right? And one of Trump's strengths is that he's unpredictable
00:36:42.320
and he does throw things out to rattle you and it, it's very effective. I mean, the Canadians are
00:36:48.800
rattled. Uh, and so I don't know what his end game is, but, but to try and predict what he's going to
00:36:54.480
do is, is very difficult and not the point. The point is that you and I here are now talking about
00:36:59.520
this along with a whole lot of other people in this country. And, and that's a good thing. And
00:37:04.960
that's probably what, what they want. They want as many Canadians, I think as possible to understand
00:37:10.480
we have some problems and the Americans have noticed and, and they're not going to allow us
00:37:16.080
to become a threat to them. So if you don't want interference from the Americans, then get rid of
00:37:22.000
the interference from other places. I, I completely agree with you. It's interesting. I want to play in
00:37:26.400
this other clip because Marco Rubio, the secretary of state was on with CBS journalist, Catherine
00:37:31.920
Hedgebridge over the weekend, former CBS journalist. And he basically said that this whole 51st state
00:37:37.760
thing came from Justin Trudeau, that it was Justin Trudeau's comments at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago that
00:37:43.920
basically started it all. Let's play that clip. In a hot mic moment, Canada's prime minister said
00:37:50.400
that absorbing Canada is a real thing. Is it a real thing? Look, you know how that came about?
00:37:56.400
President's meeting with Trudeau and Trudeau says, well, if you impose, if you even out our trade
00:38:00.240
relationship, then we will cease to exist as a country. At which point the president responded
00:38:04.880
very logically. And that is, well, if you can't exist without cheating and trade, then you should
00:38:09.680
become a state. And we know this because Fox News' Peter Doocy reported this right after that meeting
00:38:17.120
in Mar-a-Lago. So interesting, Bruce, because Trudeau came back. We didn't hear anything about this from
00:38:23.760
the Canadian side. And it wasn't until American reporting on this dinner. Peter Doocy said the
00:38:29.200
same thing. We have that clip, so let's play that. And tonight we're getting some new details about
00:38:34.240
that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table. We are told that when Trudeau told
00:38:40.480
President-elect Trump that new tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada
00:38:46.800
can't survive without ripping off the U.S. to the tune of $100 billion a year, then maybe Canada should
00:38:53.520
become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor.
00:38:59.520
So why would Trudeau give that away, right? Like, it's like you're entering a negotiation with someone
00:39:04.480
who, like you said, is very unpredictable, who has the better hand, right? The Americans have much more
00:39:09.920
power and control over this relationship. It's true that Canada has, even though we have free trade,
00:39:15.840
we have a huge number of subsidies and even playing field, all kinds of subsidies around
00:39:21.760
sort of core Canadian industries, including things like dairy and cheese and all that kind of stuff.
00:39:27.760
So why would Trudeau say that? Why would Trudeau say that? I mean, I don't think that Trudeau is
00:39:33.120
someone who's like thinking ahead and playing 3D chess and is like, let me get into this because
00:39:37.760
the Canadian people will turn against Trump and then that'll help me in the polls. But,
00:39:41.520
you know, this idea is that Trudeau came out and said, if we actually had an even playing field for
00:39:47.600
trade, Canada wouldn't exist as a country. I mean, we should be mad at Trudeau, not Trump.
00:39:53.520
Well, yes. So here's a metaphor that keeps running through my head. Canada is like a little brother.
00:40:01.680
The Americans are the older brother. Canada is the little brother. And the little brother assumes
00:40:07.760
that the older brother is going to look after him because that's just the nature of
00:40:11.520
the thing. Right? And the little brother can still get away with slagging the older brother
00:40:18.080
because he's a little brother. But when they go to school together and the bullies pick on the
00:40:22.640
little brother, the big brother is going to protect him and get away with insulting the big brother
00:40:29.440
because he's a little brother. And the big brother is fed up with it. The big brother is saying, no,
00:40:38.720
you know what? We're both adults now. You stand on your own two feet. And if you can't, then I'm done
00:40:44.560
with you. I'm not going to step out now and protect you because I've been doing this for a long time and
00:40:52.000
I'm not doing it anymore. So, so, you know, put up or shut up. Either this relationship becomes
00:40:58.160
equalized. And of course it can never be equalized because we're not equal countries. Access to the
00:41:04.160
American market is the thing that every country in the world wants. And we've had it. Largely,
00:41:12.400
we've had it. And we think we're entitled to it because of who we are and where we are and our
00:41:17.280
relationship with them and so on. They're fed up with this. And I don't blame them in some respects
00:41:23.600
because we've been taking a lot of things for granted. And so how do you think, let's turn back
00:41:29.040
to the conservative side, because I think in some ways Pierre Polyev is stuck between a rock and a
00:41:34.880
hard place. Donald Trump is such a wedge even on the conservative side. You know, half the conservatives
00:41:39.040
in the country love Donald Trump, half of them hate him and don't want the Polyev party,
00:41:45.200
the conservative party to come even harder and stronger than what Trudeau is saying,
00:41:49.520
like with retaliatory tariffs and with anti-American sentiment and Canada first.
00:41:55.760
If you were advising Mr. Polyev, what would you tell him to do?
00:42:00.480
Well, geez, I'm not a political strategist, so he probably shouldn't take advice from me. But if
00:42:05.280
he did it the way I would like to see, I would like him to pick a lane. Like, come on, come on,
00:42:10.080
man. Where do you stand on this? And I would like him to say, know what? We have problems in this
00:42:17.120
country. We have to fix these problems. You know, Trump is trolling us and maybe we don't agree with
00:42:22.080
what he's proposing, but he's got a point. And the point is we have to fix our own house,
00:42:28.800
put our own house in order. I don't really hear that from anybody right now in this country. And
00:42:34.640
that's a shame because that means we're not going to get anywhere. And it means that we're not going
00:42:40.400
to take advantage of the opportunity, this open door that we have. I'm not saying that we have to
00:42:45.440
walk through it. I'm just saying that we have to figure out what to do given the choice. And that's
00:42:50.720
the kind of thing that the conservatives and the liberals and everybody else in the political realm
00:42:57.040
right now is refusing to do. I want to just bring in one more topic to this conversation, Bruce. And
00:43:02.320
that is a, this is, this is so ironic to me. Thousands of Canadians have signed a petition asking for the
00:43:08.880
Canadian government to revoke Elon Musk's citizenship. So this comes from NDP MP Charlie Angus. He's
00:43:15.120
sponsoring this e-petition saying, Elon Musk is a dual citizen with Canada and the United States. His
00:43:21.120
mother was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. Musk himself attended Queens University, where you teach.
00:43:27.040
And they are saying that he should not have the privilege of being Canadian. Now, I find this
00:43:33.840
ironic because it was just a decade ago that we heard from Justin Trudeau that a Canadian is a
00:43:38.400
Canadian is a Canadian, and that even terrorists should get to keep their Canadian citizenship,
00:43:42.880
even if they are involved in active terrorist plots against Canada, that Canadian citizenship is
00:43:49.120
totally above the fray of partisan politics. And yet now you have an MP from the Liberal
00:43:56.160
from the NDP, Liberal Coalition, saying that we should just take people's citizenships
00:44:01.040
away because we don't like them. What do you think?
00:44:05.200
Oh, this is, this is just pathetic. This is small. This is just virtually signaling. I'm
00:44:10.800
sure he's not expecting it to happen. He's just trying to, you know, wave the flag in his own way to
00:44:17.840
satisfy the supporters and people who feel the same way. I mean, I think it's ridiculous. It's sad. It's,
00:44:24.480
it's, it's a sad idea from what has become a, uh, a, well, I don't want, I don't want to call
00:44:30.160
Canada a sad little country because it's, because like we, we are all committed and loyal and, and
00:44:38.320
we are all committed to the country. And so we are all committed to the country. And so we are
00:44:42.800
to be fond of our own country. We want the best for it, but the responses that this country is generating
00:44:45.440
to this moment that we have are kind of pathetic and disappointing. I would like us to have a much
00:44:53.200
more sophisticated conversation, an open-eyed, open-minded conversation about the, the position
00:45:00.800
that we're in. And I, I just don't, I just don't hear very much of it happening now in some places
00:45:06.720
it is happening. There are, there's a small group of people who understand, I think I perceive the
00:45:12.960
understand that, that, that this country has found itself in a mess, but, but the, but the numbers are
00:45:20.640
still too small. Well, certainly if you look at the polling and you see the resurgence and surge
00:45:26.080
on the liberal side, it's, it's alarming that, that so many Canadians, um, can sort of succumb to
00:45:31.920
the narrative that they're being told that, um, America is the enemy and that, you know, we have
00:45:36.640
to wrap ourselves on the flag and the liberal flag, not just the Canadian flag, but the liberal party is
00:45:40.480
the one that can protect us. Hopefully, uh, you know, there's still time and hopefully
00:45:46.000
more Canadians will, will, will come around to this idea that, you know, we're not,
00:45:49.440
we're not angels and we have an opportunity to improve our country. I don't think that joining
00:45:54.880
the United States is really in the cards, but I mean, the, the, the way that you laid out and
00:45:59.440
the idea that maybe Alberta, um, should just consider, I'll mention, I did raise this question.
00:46:04.160
I interviewed Premier Daniel Smith, Alberta Premier, and I did ask her about this specifically. And she,
00:46:10.240
she basically just said that she understands why many Canadians would want to become Americans. I mean,
00:46:17.440
specifically, I think 45% of young males, uh, age, uh, 18 to 34 say that they would take American
00:46:23.760
citizenship. And, and she says she understands because of the economics of it. Like, it's not,
00:46:27.680
it's not a matter of love of country or patriotism. It's just a matter of pure, like,
00:46:32.080
where can I have the best life? And for many that, that is the United States. I don't know if you caught
00:46:35.680
that interview, but did you, did you want to comment at all on that? Well, so I, I, I totally understand
00:46:41.360
why federal politicians wouldn't want to endorse this idea. And as I say, that's not going to happen
00:46:47.200
as a, as a unit. I understand, uh, Danielle's hesitation to, to, to put her eggs in that basket.
00:46:55.920
It's politically difficult to do that because an awful lot of people are not there yet and maybe
00:47:00.320
they'll never be there. Maybe it's a loser idea politically. I don't, I don't know. Um, but,
00:47:05.600
but I have to say that, that a politician in the position of, of Premier Smith, uh, would, would,
00:47:14.960
I mean, she just imagine this again, I'm blue sky, but imagine, imagine that this actually happened
00:47:20.160
with Alberta and she became the first governor of the state of Alberta. I mean, that would be pretty
00:47:27.200
cool. It'd be cool for her. It'd be cool for the, for, for Alberta. And so at the same time that I
00:47:33.840
understand their hesitation to jump in with both feet, I hope that in some corner of their brain,
00:47:40.640
they will be thinking, well, you know, how could this, how could this occur? And I don't think,
00:47:48.640
my guess is that there won't be any official referendum and referenda on this, even in Alberta.
00:47:55.120
But what I've been suggesting is, and we have history with this because of Quebec, right? We have
00:48:00.720
a Supreme court decision setting out what would be needed to start this process. We even have a
00:48:05.280
federal statute setting out what would be needed. Although the federal statute, you know, is a
00:48:09.600
statute only, but, but you'd need a referendum in Alberta with a clear question that a majority of
00:48:17.840
people approve. And that would start it. It wouldn't finish it. It would start it, start the progress
00:48:21.920
process of negotiating what, what was going to happen. And that referendum is a, in an official
00:48:29.280
sense is not going to happen anytime soon. And so what I've been saying is to Albertans, it's like,
00:48:35.040
hold your own, like go out there and organize your own referendum. It won't be binding. It won't satisfy
00:48:41.840
the requirements, but if you get a good result, it will then require the powers that be to hold an
00:48:47.280
official referendum. And you got, and you got to start somewhere and who knows where it will lead.
00:48:54.480
Try not, try not to worry about the end and instead worry about the next step. And let's,
00:49:01.280
let's see what happens. Well, it's very, very thought provoking and interesting.
00:49:05.280
Bruce Pardy, thank you so much for joining the podcast and thank you for your thoughts as usual.
00:49:10.560
We appreciate your time. It's been a real pleasure, Candice. Thanks for having me.
00:49:13.840
All right. Let's do it again soon. Okay. Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:49:16.560
That's it for us today. We'll be back again tomorrow with all the news.