The Candice Malcolm Show - Trump lifts tariffs and Bob Rae bombs on Fox (ft. Franco Terrazzano & Kris Sims)

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show. Thank you so much for tuning

00:00:09.660 in. We're doing a show live today. We have so much news to get to you today. So basically

00:00:15.100 yesterday, right after we finished recording our show, news came out that Mexico had negotiated

00:00:21.520 a deal with Donald Trump and that Trump was pausing the tariffs for Mexico. So there was

00:00:26.540 a glimmer of hope that maybe he would do the same for Canada. We heard that Justin Trudeau

00:00:31.680 finally got Trump on the phone. Remember on Saturday night, he said that he's been trying

00:00:35.420 to call Donald Trump. Donald Trump would not take his calls. Well, yesterday that changed.

00:00:39.740 So Trump and Trudeau had a call in the morning. They had a call in the afternoon. And it was

00:00:44.040 after that afternoon call that we learned that Trump had agreed to make the same concession

00:00:48.880 to Canada 30 days in exchange for ramping up our efforts at the border. So it turns out

00:00:55.800 it was all about the border after all, as many of us said. So we're going to get to all

00:01:00.720 of that. We're going to fill you in on everything with regards to Trump and the tariffs. We're

00:01:05.380 going to talk about Bob Ray's disastrous appearance on Fox News last night. Dude, know your audience,

00:01:11.940 know who you're talking about. I have no idea why the Liberals sent this man out onto Fox News.

00:01:16.480 It was a disaster. We're going to talk about protectionism, talk about interprovincial trade

00:01:20.000 barriers. And we're also going to get into Elon Musk and the good work that he is doing

00:01:24.520 down in the States in dismantling many, many harmful elements of the federal government

00:01:29.860 down there. And I am very pleased today to be joined for the entire show by my friends

00:01:34.120 from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. So I'm joined today by Franco Terrezino, who is the

00:01:39.060 federal director of the CTF. Prior to his work with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, he

00:01:43.780 was a policy analyst at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Also joined by my friend Chris Sims,

00:01:48.520 who's the Alberta director. Prior to this, she was a talk radio host on 580 CR.

00:01:54.460 FA. Part of that, she worked with me at Sun News Network. Yes, back in the day,

00:01:58.720 Chris Sims and I were colleagues over at Sun News. Good times, Chris. So Chris, Franco,

00:02:03.680 thanks for joining the show. Great to be here. Yeah, thank you.

00:02:07.580 So let's get to the big news. We heard that Trudeau says that Trump will pause the tariffs for 30 days.

00:02:15.820 He let us know yesterday on X, he said, I just had a good call with President Trump.

00:02:20.140 Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan, reinforcing the border with choppers,

00:02:26.200 technology, personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, increased resources

00:02:30.860 to stop the flow of fentanyl. Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working

00:02:37.420 at the border. In addition, Canada is appointing a new fentanyl czar. And we have listed drug cartels

00:02:44.960 as terrorists. So basically, the whole new package, it looks like it's going to be costing

00:02:50.000 $200 million. I would say that that's $200 million well spent for taxpayers. I would say

00:02:57.000 that this is, these are things that Justin Trudeau should have done two months ago when Trump was

00:03:02.340 first elected and first started talking about it. And before that, these are things that Trudeau

00:03:06.640 should have done years and years and years ago to keep Canadians safe. So Franco, I'll start with you.

00:03:12.300 I know that the CTF doesn't like it when the government announces big new government programs

00:03:17.480 and $200 million just off the cuff. So I'm wondering what your reaction to all of this is.

00:03:22.600 Well, you know what we really don't like? When governments hammer their own citizens with

00:03:27.700 massive tax increases, multi-billion dollar tax increases that make life more expensive. And

00:03:34.320 that's exactly what a tariff is. Okay. A tariff is a tax on your own consumers. So when Trump announced

00:03:41.400 potential tariffs of goods coming into the US, that is a tax paid for by American businesses

00:03:48.580 and passed on to American consumers. Okay. So when Trump imposed, let's say a 10% tax on Canadian

00:03:55.860 oil, well, look, the American refineries pay that tax and pass the costs on to American consumers at

00:04:02.780 the gas pumps. Now, conversely, if a Canadian government imposes retaliatory tariffs, those

00:04:10.720 are taxes on Canadian businesses and Canadian consumers. That's what a tariff is. A tariff

00:04:17.000 is a tax and it makes prices in your own country increase. It expands the power of the government

00:04:24.200 in your own country to dictate trading relationships, whether that's with other countries or just what

00:04:30.200 you can buy at the store. So look, I am very happy to see that the tariff war, the tariffs,

00:04:35.980 at least for now, are not coming into place. I think all Canadians should oppose tariffs. They

00:04:41.680 are just taxes. And we all know that we don't need the government in Ottawa with any more money

00:04:46.860 or any more power over Canadians. Well, it's interesting because on Saturday when Trudeau

00:04:52.240 announced retaliatory trade tariffs, I basically witnessed like the entire country cheering him on

00:04:58.340 and applauding him and saying, yes, let's fight fire with fire. People come across the political

00:05:02.760 aisle, across the spectrum, all sort of cheering on this idea. And I wondered, like, when was the last

00:05:08.160 time Canadians were cheering for a 25% tax on most of the goods that we buy in the grocery store

00:05:13.980 and in the mall? Chris, what did you make of that?

00:05:17.040 It was a little bit bizarre, right? So a little while before that, before they were cheering on,

00:05:24.260 yay, retaliatory tariffs, I was amazed, sitting here in Alberta, on how quickly dirty Alberta oil

00:05:32.360 sands suddenly transmuted into Canadian energy. Like, wow, that was amazing. You know, it's pretty rich

00:05:40.220 if we've got the Ottawa set saying, take our stuff, don't tear up our stuff. Meanwhile, the East won't buy

00:05:48.500 oil and gas or even accept it from the West in the same country. And so, yeah, that was pretty rich.

00:05:56.300 Also, I found the language from that statement that was released by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

00:06:02.000 pretty eyebrow-raising. I don't think I've seen half of those words come out of his mouth or from his

00:06:08.600 fingertips ever before. And I will also point out that a person known as Danielle Smith,

00:06:14.800 the Alberta premier, was pushing for a border czar for weeks. That's right. And she was pilloried in

00:06:22.240 the mainstream Eastern-based media. And now, look, all of a sudden, we have a czar to try to manage

00:06:28.780 this. So it's good to see that there were some adults in the room. I know I could hear a collective

00:06:34.560 sigh of relief here in Alberta when we were first facing 25% tariffs on our oil and gas and it was

00:06:42.360 knocked down to 10. That was a bit of a reprieve. And now we have another month. But we can't waste

00:06:49.760 this month. We've got to get stuff done. Like Franco has been pointing out, these tariffs are just trade

00:06:55.860 taxes. So we have got to make sure that this government knows we don't want to go down this

00:07:01.260 route again in 29 more days. Absolutely. Well, that's something that Trump sort of alluded to.

00:07:07.260 So I'll read you Trump. He posted on True Social after the call. And let me just read this. He says,

00:07:14.460 Canada has agreed to ensure we have a secure northern border and to finally end the deadly scourge of drugs

00:07:21.660 like fentanyl that have been pouring into our country, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans

00:07:25.580 while destroying their families and communities all across the country. Canada will implement their

00:07:29.960 $1.3 billion border plan as per Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. We'll be reinforcing the border

00:07:34.780 with Chopper. He goes on to sort of repeat what Trudeau said in his statement. But then this was the

00:07:40.920 key part. He says, as president, it's my responsibility to ensure the safety of all Americans. And I'm doing

00:07:45.800 just that. I'm very pleased with the initial outcome and that tariffs announced on Saturday

00:07:51.260 will be paused for 30 days to see whether or not the final economic deal with Canada will be

00:07:58.500 structured fairness for all. So really kind of using some keywords there to say this is just

00:08:03.720 an initial pause, right? This isn't this isn't we're not done here. We're not out of the woods.

00:08:09.900 Trump is just saying we're in this is an initial outcome. We're pausing for 30 days and then we will

00:08:15.540 have our final economic deal with Canada. So Franco, I mean, from your perspective, like what can Canada

00:08:23.040 be doing at this point, aside from, you know, really, really taking serious border security?

00:08:29.500 And how do you think we should prepare for the next round of negotiations with Trump?

00:08:34.180 Well, you know, let me just nail down one more point on how tariffs are really taxes and even

00:08:38.940 retaliatory tariffs from the Trudeau government will hurt Canadians. Okay, so the Canadian Chamber of

00:08:44.600 Commerce looked at this when Trump was initially proposing 25% tariffs across the board. Those

00:08:50.480 tariffs from Trump would cost each Canadian about 1300 bucks. That's painful. I get it. I understand.

00:08:58.580 But you know what would make that pain even worse? If the Trudeau government stepped in and imposed

00:09:03.700 tariffs, i.e. taxes on Canadians, that cost would go from 1300 bucks a Canadian to about $1,900 a Canadian.

00:09:12.820 So you know, when your friend is hurting themselves with a bad decision, you don't fix the situation by

00:09:19.520 also hurting yourself more. So I just want to nail that point home. Now, what does Trump want at the

00:09:25.740 end of the day? I don't know. I really am not privy to what's going on in the White House. What I do know

00:09:31.180 is that Canada now must take the threat of tariffs seriously. And we need to double down on what we've

00:09:37.760 been doing for a very long time. And that's unleashing Canada's economy. You want to push

00:09:44.220 back against Mr. Trump, the best way to do that is to make Canada more competitive, more successful

00:09:50.200 than the United States. Okay, like I've heard a lot of people talk about the $670 billion in natural

00:09:58.720 resource projects that have been stalled or cancelled since 2015. You know what else is happening right

00:10:04.860 around the corner? Another carbon tax hike, right? A 19% increase to the carbon tax going up April 1.

00:10:13.600 The carbon tax cost our economy about $12 billion last year. It'll cost our economy about $30 billion

00:10:20.180 by 2030. Immediately, Canada could become more competitive by scrapping the carbon tax. We know

00:10:28.460 that the United States doesn't have a carbon tax. The capital gains tax hike that the Trudeau government

00:10:33.400 wanted to impose. A $90 billion hit to our economy. So what can Canada do to help Canadians and to also

00:10:41.680 push back on the United States? Make Canada competitive, cut taxes, cut red tape.

00:10:48.600 Okay, well, we're definitely going to get to all of the things that Pierre Polyev is calling for,

00:10:52.900 including the inter-provincial trade stuff. But I wanted to just stop for a second because so many

00:10:58.380 people in the news, you know, part of what we do here at True North and part of what we do on the

00:11:01.180 Candace Malcolm Show is point out the fake news. And what I've been hearing so much over the past

00:11:06.200 couple of, well, the past 72 hours, but also the past few weeks, is that the tariffs aren't really

00:11:12.400 about the border. It doesn't really have anything to do with securing the border, stopping fentanyl,

00:11:17.080 all the stuff that Trump said it was about. But really, it's like, there's like a deeper meaning here.

00:11:21.640 So here we had the CBC, Murray Brewster saying, it is kind of shocking, it is, it is the kind of

00:11:28.600 shocking rhetoric that chills national security experts and historians to the bone, especially

00:11:32.580 the ones steeped in the long held American belief of that nation's exceptionalism, a concept known as

00:11:38.840 manifest destiny. We also had Mark Tui, a more, someone more on the conservative side, also someone

00:11:47.340 who used to be with us at Sun News there, Chris, saying on X the other day, this is not about

00:11:53.580 fentanyl. It's not about national security or defense. It's not about trade. This is about

00:11:59.100 American expansionism. And in Trump's own manifest destiny, he's coming for our energy, our water,

00:12:04.560 our land. I mean, these are just two examples. I don't mean to pick on those two. But from what I

00:12:09.740 heard, almost everyone in the media was hammering this point and saying, you know, don't pay attention

00:12:15.940 to the border. It's not about national security. It's not about all these things that Trump says

00:12:19.420 about, no matter what we do, he's going to impose these tariffs, because he just wants to like,

00:12:23.920 take Canada. I always thought that that was like a negotiating thing. And then that's just Trump

00:12:28.160 doing what Trump does, which is kind of, you know, it's all about the deal and negotiating. And,

00:12:33.740 you know, sure, I think he would love for Canada to become a very diverse state. But I think he knows

00:12:38.340 it's not going to happen. And I think that that all of that posturing was just about getting a

00:12:43.200 better deal. Chris, I'm dying to hear your opinion on this. Like, what do you make of our colleagues in

00:12:49.320 the media saying that this wasn't really about what it was? And then I think it kind of turned out to

00:12:53.800 be about what exactly we thought it was about the border and drugs? Yeah, just taking off my CTF hat for

00:13:00.020 a second, because I've been in the game for a long time. And I would strongly recommend for my dear

00:13:07.000 friends who are in the mainstream media, who are in the corridors of power, take a breath. Take a

00:13:15.140 serious chill pill. Okay? Does Trump want to own Canada? Maybe. Maybe he thinks about it at night.

00:13:22.900 Is it likely to have? No. I don't picture him planting the Star Spangled Banner like in Winnipeg

00:13:30.500 somewhere. I will point this out. The best way to understand someone is to listen very carefully to

00:13:39.040 what they say, especially over decades. Thankfully, Donald Trump has been in the public eye for decades,

00:13:48.160 since the late 70s. He wrote a book, The Art of the Deal, that you just mentioned, wherein he describes

00:13:54.600 doing exactly this. Come in like a bull in a china shop. Make unreasonable demands. Get mad at the

00:14:01.000 waiter. Like, send your dish back. And then by the end of it, you come up with a reasonable solution,

00:14:07.540 and you're the nice guy all of a sudden. Your deal is made. This is like a repeated pattern. And so for

00:14:15.400 the folks who are in the mainstream media who have access to these documents, I would strongly recommend

00:14:20.660 they read them. Now, like, I don't, I'm not inside that gentleman's head. I'm not inside the

00:14:25.140 president's head. But we can see his pattern of operation here. And we can apply it perhaps to our

00:14:32.060 diplomacy. I will also point out, this is just a personal observation over decades of interviewing

00:14:39.020 people from all walks of life. Okay? From homeless shelters to 24 Sussex. Listen carefully to what

00:14:46.900 people say about their lives and how they feel. Okay? If you're dealing with something like fentanyl,

00:14:54.660 maybe you should start thinking long and hard about the two guys who are down there in the White House,

00:14:59.540 the president and the vice president. What are their hard opinions about things like this?

00:15:07.300 Think about it and then apply it. Now, again, is this all a ruse in order for him to come up and,

00:15:12.800 I don't know, steal beavers and lumber? Who knows? But if we take it at face value right now,

00:15:19.040 he said this is about the border. He said this is about fentanyl. If we hold up our end of the deal,

00:15:24.560 hopefully, we won't get into another issue that Franco has raised here of these retaliatory tariffs,

00:15:31.840 bit for bit, tit for tat. Because what that's going to do to get down to the grocery store level,

00:15:37.520 if we impose, Franco, correct me if I'm wrong, if we impose retaliatory tariffs on everything,

00:15:44.160 dollar for dollar that's coming out of the United States, for example, and I was listening to a

00:15:49.280 gentleman who was with the Chamber of Commerce years ago, he was saying that things like fresh produce,

00:15:55.680 okay, our strawberries, our tomatoes, our lettuce, our cucumbers that are coming from California and New

00:16:02.640 Mexico, we'd see like a 30, 35% increase in price because of retaliatory tariffs at the store.

00:16:12.880 I don't know about you guys, but we hear all the time from folks at the CTF all the time. People

00:16:17.600 are calling in, people are writing letters who can't afford things anymore. They're at their breaking

00:16:22.880 point. They sure as heck can't afford a 30% increase in their cost of fresh fruits and vegetables

00:16:29.840 at the store. So it's super important for adults in the room to put their like really major fears

00:16:36.160 aside here and their personal opinions and try their best to get a deal with this person.

00:16:44.080 I couldn't agree more. Even just as you were saying that, it made me think about, you know,

00:16:47.360 J.D. Vance, the vice president is someone who dealt with addiction in his own family with his own

00:16:51.120 mother. And Donald Trump says that he's never tasted alcohol in his entire life because his older

00:16:55.840 brother was an addict, sadly succumbed to his addiction. So both of them have dealt with it

00:17:01.360 in their immediate families. No wonder it's such a big deal. And I can't help but thinking that as

00:17:06.640 well. I'll take it back to you, Franco, because, you know, everybody in the Canadian political sphere

00:17:12.960 was fighting mad over these tariffs, willing to double down and, you know, in this game of chicken,

00:17:18.160 like really up the ante and say, we're going to introduce our own, not thinking about the reality

00:17:25.120 on the ground, which is that we are living through an unbelievable cost of living crisis,

00:17:29.680 in large part because of what happened during COVID. The fact that the government shut down

00:17:34.080 the economy, told everyone not to go to work and then started paying people to stay at home,

00:17:38.000 obviously paying people and racking up lots and lots of debt and starting the printing of money

00:17:43.200 to keep up with that flooding, flooding the economy with new money and driving up the price

00:17:47.600 of everything. So what came through your head when you thought of that? And then also the idea

00:17:53.600 that the liberal government solution is that we need to have some kind of another pandemic style

00:18:00.640 relief program, relief program, like a second EI to pay people who might be impacted by these

00:18:07.360 tariffs. And then like on top of that, Parliament's not even sitting, so I don't understand how we're

00:18:12.560 even going to have the money to do all this stuff. You bring up so many good points. And you know,

00:18:18.000 when I was watching all of this happen on Sunday and Monday, my thought was, I wish they were just,

00:18:25.120 you know, even a fraction of as upset with their own government taking more money from Canadians,

00:18:32.320 because we've seen our own government hike taxes consistently, right? As I just mentioned,

00:18:37.760 April 1, a 19% increase to the carbon tax that is making the necessities of life here in Canada more

00:18:44.800 expensive. Well, Canada is a big place. You got to drive, makes fueling up your car more expensive.

00:18:50.320 Canada is a cold place, have to stay warm, makes heating your home more expensive, right? Just a trip to

00:18:55.760 the grocery store is made more expensive by the carbon tax. Not to mention the fact that payroll taxes

00:19:01.680 this year are also going up will cost every worker about 5,500 bucks at the end of the threshold.

00:19:08.080 Your employer is also paying more money, right? Alcohol taxes, millions of dollars more being taken

00:19:13.680 from Canadians this year through another tax hike, the capital gains tax hike, which I know we'll get

00:19:18.160 into a $90 billion hole in our economy, 400,000 fewer jobs. So I do think everyone has a right to worry about

00:19:28.160 the to worry about... Whoops, I can't hear you there, Franco. Is that just me? Can you hear him,

00:19:37.840 Chris? No, no, unfortunately. But Franco is making a great point there. When it's coming to things like

00:19:43.200 the carbon tax increase, and what went through my mind as well, as he just figures out his audio there,

00:19:48.400 I'm sure it'll be fine. What went through my mind as well when they said, oh, we'll just do,

00:19:53.040 you know, serve style payments again. So number one, like nothing but sympathy for the people who

00:19:58.400 were locked down out of their jobs and not able to work and had their livelihoods taken away from

00:20:03.840 them. This isn't on the people. This is on the government from back during the lockdown times.

00:20:08.800 But the idea that we would just suddenly decide to go back to serve style payments with what money?

00:20:15.360 With what money? The Trudeau government has doubled the national debt. The national debt now stands at

00:20:22.320 more than $1.2 trillion. Largely, in part, because they printed hundreds of billions of dollars out of

00:20:31.600 thin air during the so-called payments that they were handing out during the lockdowns. And we don't

00:20:37.520 have the cash on hand for that. So what would they do? We would just plunge ourselves deeper into debt.

00:20:43.120 We would then probably print more money in order to cover off this issue. And so that's where it

00:20:48.080 gets really frustrating of folks are still going to be on the hook for this. And they're being dragged

00:20:53.520 along by this government's bad choices. And you're exactly right for raising issues like the carbon tax,

00:20:59.600 because that is going up again, April 1st. I'm getting a little bit concerned in that the mainstream

00:21:05.200 narrative is now, oh, well, that's yesterday's issue. No, it's not. It is not yesterday's issue. It is

00:21:10.480 still here. It is still going up. All of the Liberal Party candidates have said basically

00:21:15.440 they would squish it or change it or swap it out. But the costs would still be there for Canadians.

00:21:21.200 And the carbon tax makes everything more expensive, of course, because it's a huge tax on things like

00:21:26.240 gasoline, diesel and home heating. And so this is where things get frustrating where, yes, it's actually

00:21:31.760 good to see people kind of come together and actually pay attention and get riled up about something,

00:21:36.800 like a tariff threat. But they should focus that energy, frankly, about what their own

00:21:41.760 government is doing to their pocketbooks. I couldn't agree more. I think that the approach,

00:21:46.960 especially by the Trudeau Liberals, has just been head-scratching. And I'll bring it into this

00:21:50.720 Bob Ray interview last night on Fox News. So Canada's United Nations ambassador, Bob Ray,

00:21:56.480 obviously, he was a former interim leader of the Liberal Party. And before that, he was the NDP

00:22:01.760 premier of Ontario. Well, he was on with Fox News host Brett Baier last night. Brett Baier is not

00:22:08.720 like a hard right opinion journalist. He is a straight news journalist. He is the best that there

00:22:13.520 is in the business and the best at Fox. And so he had Bob Ray on the show last night. First of all,

00:22:20.960 I don't know why they selected Bob Ray to go out and be the spokesman. I think it's good that,

00:22:25.280 hey, they're finally going on to Fox, right? For a while, we just saw Melanie Jolie and Justin Trudeau

00:22:31.120 going on MSNBC and CNN, which we know that Donald Trump doesn't like those networks. So at least

00:22:36.560 he's going on Fox now to talk to sort of the Republican base. And we know that Donald Trump

00:22:42.240 himself watches Fox. I don't understand why Bob Ray was chosen as the representative,

00:22:48.480 not just for the Liberal government, but for Canadians. It was truly embarrassing to see him up

00:22:52.880 there. Now, later in the interview, Brett Baier took a quote from a 2017 op-ed that Bob Ray had written,

00:23:01.280 where he basically just says that Donald Trump is a dictator, he's not legitimate,

00:23:04.960 and he should not be welcome in Canada. So again, this is the person that they're choosing to speak

00:23:10.000 for us. Let's play that clip. You wrote in 2017 that the determination of many world leaders to

00:23:16.400 try to normalize this leadership has to be brought to ground. He should not be welcoming in our country,

00:23:23.120 speaking about not welcoming the president of the United States to Canada.

00:23:26.320 Well, first of all, I made that comment when I was in private life. We've all said different things

00:23:32.560 in private life. But if you said, has my opinion overall changed? I would say to you very directly

00:23:38.080 that the concern that I think all Canadians have, it's not a personal thing about President Trump,

00:23:43.280 the concern we have is that we don't want any administration making and taking decisions

00:23:50.000 that are going to create insecurity, uncertainty, and real collapses in the market

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00:24:28.720 So not a good moment there for Bob Ray. I don't think that saying it was my private life really

00:24:37.120 cuts it. One other clip I want to play from that. Basically, the problem that I have with Bob Ray,

00:24:42.240 in part, is his demeanor. Like, he's just so moralistic, and it sounds like he's lecturing

00:24:46.640 the audience and sort of like telling them that they're wrong. So here he is talking about the

00:24:53.680 rules-based international order and why tariffs are wrong in the first place. Let's play that clip.

00:24:59.680 There is a major trade deficit with Canada. So to rectify that, they are saying,

00:25:07.760 what are you going to come to the table with beyond these border

00:25:11.680 provisions that the prime minister announced today? Well, we have something called an agreement,

00:25:16.160 a treaty, Brett, between our two countries that's been signed, sealed, and delivered.

00:25:20.720 Sure. And it came under the Trump administration. That's right. And before that, we had one

00:25:26.320 over many, many years. NAFTA, and then it was redone.

00:25:29.360 And before that, we had an auto pact, which went back to 1964. So we've had a lot of agreements. My

00:25:35.200 point is, you don't just threaten to do things which end up causing huge challenges for both countries

00:25:41.520 in the marketplace. And you don't do it by putting a tax on consumers and a tax on producers.

00:25:46.880 That's going to end up making the economy less efficient.

00:25:49.200 You understand the trade deficit argument. I do. But I want to put it to you that when it comes to

00:25:54.640 the overall economic relationship, when it comes to services, when it comes to tourism,

00:25:59.840 when it comes to the number of Canadians who are investing in a whole variety of ways in the United

00:26:04.240 States, it's a win-win situation between our two countries. So Bob Ray didn't get it done. He didn't

00:26:12.480 do what he needed to do in front of the Fox audience. This interview is blowing up like all over social

00:26:18.720 media, all over X, all over YouTube. Americans pointing out, who is this guy? F Canada.

00:26:24.160 This is the kind of attitude, frankly, the Laurentian elite attitude that drives me crazy.

00:26:29.120 And I think it drives Americans crazy. The more that they see this side of Canada,

00:26:32.480 the more they really don't like Canada. And they're like, yeah, you know what?

00:26:36.560 We're going to put you in the same bucket that we put Mexico and maybe like the Europeans. We don't

00:26:40.400 like you. This is a time where we should be building inroads. One of the things that really,

00:26:45.600 I think, frustrates Canadians, Frank, I'll put this to you, is that the Americans say,

00:26:51.280 and Trump says this a lot, there's a huge trade deficit. I think Danielle Smith has been really

00:26:54.880 effective in saying, you know, the reason that there is a trade deficit for the United States

00:26:59.120 is because of our oil. And if you take oil out of the picture, it's actually a surplus for United

00:27:03.920 States. So the trade deficit comes onto Canada. And the reason that Americans buy so much of our oil

00:27:08.880 is because it's plentiful, readily available. And of course, we sell it at a discount. Now,

00:27:14.240 we still at a discount because we don't have other markets. But the idea is that we do have a special

00:27:19.680 relationship. We're trading oil back and forth. Wouldn't you much rather have our oil than,

00:27:25.120 you know, Saudi dictatorship or Venezuelan oil? I think that Bob Ray should have made that point.

00:27:29.920 I didn't hear him talk about oil at all. So the important part that he needed to correct,

00:27:33.520 he didn't. Instead, he was being condescending and rude and talking down to the host. And,

00:27:40.240 you know, of course, the disastrous op-ed kind of represents the view of the liberal government,

00:27:45.040 people like Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, who had during the first Trump administration,

00:27:48.880 which is that Trump is terrible and we shouldn't even deal with him. I think it's all coming

00:27:53.040 home, Drew. So why don't you take on the trade deficit narrative and let me know what you think

00:27:58.080 about that? Well, first, Candace, can you hear me now? Yes. Yeah, you're back. All right. Just like

00:28:03.120 one of those old Verizon commercials, happy to be back with you guys. So, you know, first,

00:28:07.680 I'm going through the chat that's going on live here. And I just am so happy how so many people are

00:28:13.360 just saying, yeah, tariffs are just taxes. We are already taxed to death. We don't need another tax

00:28:18.320 that drives up the cost of living. But look, on the trade deficit part, I have a trade deficit

00:28:23.840 with the grocery store. I go to the grocery store and I pay for all the extra lean ground beef that

00:28:30.720 I'm going to have, right? Look, that is a voluntary, me going to the store and paying money to get a

00:28:37.520 service, right? Just like the organization I work for has a trade deficit with me. They pay me to do

00:28:44.800 what I'm doing now and to rail against the carbon tax, right? So that's all that a trade deficit

00:28:50.560 means. Now, a trade deficit is not like a budgetary deficit where we should be concerned,

00:28:56.720 right? We are getting soaked because the Trudeau government couldn't balance the budget of a

00:29:01.040 lemonade stand. So we should care about budget deficits, but a trade deficit is not the same

00:29:07.680 thing. Where we should be concerned with is when government intervenes to stop voluntary trade.

00:29:16.240 When government intervenes with regulations like they do in the internal market, which produces all

00:29:22.160 these internal trade barriers in Canada, or when government intervenes with massive tariffs, that

00:29:28.480 is what we should be concerned about, right? So this trade deficit, which I wish Mr. Ray would have

00:29:35.440 explained clearly to the American audience when he had a chance to do so is not something that those

00:29:41.600 consumers should be worried of. What consumers in America should be worried of is that the tariffs

00:29:48.560 that Mr. Trump imposes will directly raise the cost of living in the US, like what would happen if Trudeau

00:29:56.400 imposed tariffs in Canada. And also those tariffs also harm industries like American manufacturing,

00:30:05.280 right? It's these different types of government taxes, tariffs included, that are what makes life

00:30:11.360 more expensive in many times, is what reduces jobs. That's what Rob Ray should have communicated to the

00:30:18.320 American audience when he had the chance. Well, I don't disagree that there's nothing inherently wrong

00:30:25.280 with having a trade deficit or surplus. I will just say though, like the concept of free trade is based on

00:30:31.120 the principle of reciprocity. And I think that the idea that we'll buy your stuff, you buy our stuff,

00:30:37.120 we'll open up our market, you open up your market, and we'll have like this mutually free market of trade is the

00:30:44.240 goal. But I can't say that Canada actually lives up to that. Like if you look at our own barriers, our own

00:30:50.640 protectionism, like, I mean, just for goodness sake, look at dairy, the dairy industry in Canada and how convoluted it is.

00:30:56.480 Like, I don't blame the Americans for having qualms. And I think that this is a great opportunity for

00:31:01.520 Canada to get its house in order. I wish that Bob Ray had made the points that you made Franco.

00:31:06.480 Actually, I wish he hadn't have gone on Fox News at all. I wish that Justin Trudeau had called you up and

00:31:10.480 put you up on Fox News instead, because you could explain it a heck of a lot better.

00:31:15.520 Can't you picture it? Wouldn't that be a great segment? Like Jesse Waters, at least once a week,

00:31:21.440 Franco, you got to go on Fox News. Let's make it happen, Chris. Let's talk about

00:31:27.680 interprovincial trade barriers. Let's talk about, well, first actually, let's talk about the premiers

00:31:32.080 and all of the huffing and puffing that we saw in the last 72 hours. It's all kind of falling apart.

00:31:37.040 So, you know, we have an election here in Ontario. Doug Ford is trying to get another majority mandate.

00:31:42.400 And he was kind of out being the loudest with retaliatory measures against the trade bearers,

00:31:48.160 you know, canceling Starlink, saying that the LCBO, the liquor store in Ontario, is no longer going to

00:31:53.520 carry American whiskey or wine. And then, of course, he had to undo all of that after things changed

00:32:00.720 yesterday afternoon. Chris, what did you think of all of the premiers? You know, on the one hand,

00:32:05.680 we're saying that tariffs are bad, that we don't want to have a trade war. And then on the other hand,

00:32:09.600 we had premiers from just about every province except for Alberta jumping up and down, saying like,

00:32:15.120 no to the Americans. You know, it kind of reminded me of like the 2003 moment where Americans stopped

00:32:20.720 selling French fries and it became freedom fries, right? And at the time, I just remember thinking

00:32:25.440 it was so cheesy and so silly. It was all because France refused to join the coalition to go and

00:32:32.400 take part in the invasion of Iraq, which turned out to be a disaster. But at the time, it was freedom

00:32:37.280 fries, freedom fries. And I think Canadians used to kind of like laugh and mock that idea that the

00:32:41.440 Americans were so, you know, down this rabbit hole of patriotism that they would, you know,

00:32:45.760 take products off the shelf. And yet I saw Canada's premiers doing that over the last couple of days.

00:32:52.400 So what did you what did you make of all that? So just at a human level, I understand where somebody

00:32:58.160 comes along and they punch you in the nose. You don't want to turtle, right? You don't want to like,

00:33:03.920 you know, skate off the ice. You want to throw the gloves down too, man. Like, that's a normal,

00:33:09.200 I think, human response, especially if you feel like you're defending your people. But to Franco's

00:33:14.960 point all the time, it gets back down to the facts and the data here. And that if we start throwing

00:33:21.760 punches too, we're going to get tied up in each other's sweaters, and we're going to wind up

00:33:25.920 punching ourselves, right? So you don't want to wind up with constant tit for tat retaliatory tariffs,

00:33:32.160 because all they are are trade taxes, and it is going to make our pain even worse. But on a human level,

00:33:38.800 I understand, especially if you have to be seen as doing something. I do think that Premier Smith's

00:33:46.320 approach was much more an effective way of doing something. And that is going right into the lion's

00:33:53.040 den. I think she I think she has her own microphone now at Fox News Network. Like she was on there all

00:33:58.080 the time. She was meeting them where they are. She was speaking their language. She was talking about

00:34:03.360 deals. She was talking about money, talking about energy, talking about security, right? This idea of

00:34:08.560 kind of fortress America, hey, don't you want to have this great two way street when it comes to

00:34:12.960 energy? I will point out, you know what it's like sometimes where you have visitors come into your

00:34:18.400 town, and you're showing them around, and you start noticing things yourself for the first time,

00:34:23.120 or it's that much more stark. Hearing it repeated over and over again on a major news network, that

00:34:30.160 Canada does not have a big east west pipeline for our own energy from like the Pacific to the Atlantic

00:34:39.600 was crazy. When you think about it, it was almost like one of those things where somebody overhears you

00:34:44.480 saying it, you're like, wait, that is kind of strange. So I think I think Smith's approach was

00:34:48.800 very effective. She withstood a lot of criticism coming from the east. And again, it's in order to save us

00:34:55.760 all huge economic pain. Because the idea of having a retaliatory 25% tariff on on our energy would have

00:35:05.120 been disastrous for Albertans. Like, I can't even picture it, it would have been horrific.

00:35:12.080 And so it was really important for premiers to stand up and do stuff. But that stuff had to actually

00:35:17.760 be effective. I haven't checked online yet this morning. But I was kind of laughing to myself wondering

00:35:23.600 if Premier Ford had a ceremonial big roll of tape, where he was taping his Starlink contract back

00:35:29.760 together. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I definitely saw a meme of that of him like trying to take it all

00:35:35.760 back together. I don't know if that was real or not. But probably not. But yeah, so so you know,

00:35:41.920 Doug Ford had promised to rip up Ontario's nearly $100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink.

00:35:48.720 Elon Musk, who's hilarious, just quote tweeted it and said, Oh, well, because you know, when you're

00:35:55.760 worth hundreds of billions of dollars, a measly contract like that doesn't help. And actually,

00:36:00.800 you know, Starlink is is probably better service for Ontarians in rural areas to get internet,

00:36:06.800 much cheaper than the alternative. So again, like, you know, these reactionary things are not usually

00:36:12.960 that helpful. Well, that that was sort of the, what I saw is like the negative response in terms of all of

00:36:18.560 this. You know, particularly when it came to alcohol. Frank, you mentioned that Canadians pay

00:36:25.040 ridiculous taxes already when it comes to alcohol, we had Manitoba, Yukon, Nunavut,

00:36:33.120 all in variations, pulling American alcohol from their shelves, only to, you know, go and restock it

00:36:39.360 again. Yesterday afternoon, I know out in British Columbia, Premier Ebby said that they were going to ban

00:36:44.880 alcohol from red states. So, you know, don't don't punish California for the ills of Donald Trump,

00:36:51.840 I guess. What's your take on all this? Well, my take is that I really am worried that the response

00:36:58.080 to these potential tariffs might do even more damage to Canadians. And like, just ask yourself,

00:37:05.040 do you think that Trudeau's response or maybe one of the other premiers, right, if they retaliate,

00:37:11.120 do you think that's going to make things better? Or do you think that's going to make things worse?

00:37:16.320 What do you think the governments or governments in the United States are going to do in response?

00:37:21.920 Right? Like, ask yourself that question. Now, we've mentioned many different times,

00:37:26.400 I'm seeing it in the chat, that people understand that tariffs are just taxes,

00:37:30.480 and they especially harm the poorest and middle class Canadians by making things more expensive.

00:37:36.480 So I think the question is, and to Chris's point, like, I understand that when somebody takes action

00:37:42.960 against you, you want to fight back. But again, the best way for Canada to actually fight back

00:37:49.920 is to make Canada's economy the most competitive ever. Now, I read Daniel Smith's post in the National

00:37:57.360 Post that I think was published on Sunday or Monday. And she mentioned that like, hey, folks,

00:38:03.040 if we want to actually push back, then we should make Canada's economy more competitive. And all

00:38:08.960 that starts with doing away with the massive regulatory burden that makes it nearly impossible

00:38:14.560 to build anything in Canada, right? Since 2015, folks, $670 billion of natural resource projects have

00:38:24.480 been stalled or canceled. We know about the carbon tax, the second carbon tax buried in fuel regulations

00:38:31.600 that will also harm our economy to the tune of billions of dollars, the rejection of the Northern

00:38:36.720 Gateway pipeline, moving the regulatory goalposts on the Energy East pipeline, right? The unconstitutional

00:38:44.400 Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines Act, the discriminatory tanker ban on Canada's West Coast.

00:38:51.120 The story goes on and on and on. And look, I don't know if tariffs are going to come back in a month,

00:38:58.400 but regardless, we have to take this serious. And that means unshackling us from the control

00:39:05.440 of our government in Ottawa and the massive overstepping governments in all the provinces.

00:39:10.960 There's just so much irony. There's like layer and layer and layer of irony upon the situation,

00:39:16.080 because Justin Trudeau got us into this mess in so many different meanings of the word,

00:39:19.760 right? He neglected the border, he allowed drugs, I mean, legalized drugs, and like paid

00:39:25.840 fentanyl dens, essentially drug dens, to give Canadians deadly drugs. He, you know, opened up

00:39:32.080 the border, never took seriously the holes in the border, places like Roxham Road, basically said to the

00:39:38.640 world's migrants and refugees, come to Canada, we'll welcome you. So the borders on Justin Trudeau,

00:39:44.800 his adversarial relationship with Donald Trump, and just like, painting himself in the public

00:39:50.160 mind as like the anti-Trump, and taking every opportunity, him and his cabinet to undermine

00:39:55.680 and slap Trump around. I mean, that's all coming back to us. But then even when it came to the idea

00:40:00.320 that we can't, we might not be able to trade with the United States in the same way that we used to,

00:40:03.760 and to your point, Chris, we don't even have a pipeline, thanks to Justin Trudeau's anti-development and

00:40:10.400 anti-energy policy. So one of the good things that Pierre Polyev did was put out the call for

00:40:16.480 interprovincial trade. He put out a very snazzy mini-documentary yesterday. Polyev's team does video so,

00:40:22.880 so well, so effective. And so I'll play just a clip. This is Pierre Polyev's video highlighting the

00:40:29.600 need to truly liberate trade within our own country.

00:40:33.120 It is reckless to remain so helplessly dependent on just one export market, the United States.

00:40:42.240 Canada must also look to sell to other countries, and I found just the one. There's only one problem.

00:40:49.840 This country imposes massive trade barriers on us that cost about $5,100 per person. So which country

00:40:58.800 is it that we should be pursuing as our new top trading partner? Switzerland? France? No. Our new

00:41:07.680 top trading partner will be Canada.

00:41:13.440 Very, very effective, very funny. Pierre doing what he does best there. Well, it's almost interesting

00:41:18.640 because when it came to the tariffs, there was a weird consensus where everybody, even reluctantly,

00:41:23.360 Danielle Smith at the end said we have to go with the retaliatory tariffs. And then now when it comes

00:41:29.280 to the idea of opening up interprovincial trade, there also seems to be a bit of a consensus. We had

00:41:34.480 Anita Anand also advocating for removing interprovincial barriers, saying it's fundamentally important.

00:41:42.560 Let's play that clip. The issue relating to internal trade, reducing barriers inside our own country to

00:41:51.040 trade and commerce is fundamentally important, especially at this time. And the Prime Minister has charged

00:41:56.960 me with that responsibility as Minister of Internal Trade. And so that's what I'm focusing on.

00:42:03.600 What she's focusing on, I don't know that she's made any inroads there. Chris, what do you think of all this?

00:42:08.880 It just goes back to, okay, so interprovincial trade barriers.

00:42:12.800 This has been going on for so long. Like, before Franco was born. Before most of us, I bet you, were born.

00:42:23.120 This has been an issue. Perrin Beattie, okay, who worked with the Mulroney government, has been talking

00:42:30.240 about this literally for decades. The idea that now at like 11.59, 30 seconds before we're supposed to get a

00:42:40.160 trade tariff over our heads that now all of a sudden, we should fix this. Yeah, you guys all across

00:42:46.640 governments, all parties, pox on all their houses, they should have done this decades ago. So if we're

00:42:53.040 going to do it now, okay. But I really am asking, pleading with the governments to focus. Don't have

00:43:02.560 attention deficit on this. Get this done. Get things like interprovincial trade barriers down.

00:43:08.960 Stop insane things like Bill C 69, no more pipelines laws, so that we aren't strangling

00:43:14.800 ourselves and shackling ourselves and tying ourselves to one customer. These are all such

00:43:20.000 common sense things that should transcend, like party affiliation, that it needs to be so done. And

00:43:27.760 again, getting back to Franco's point all the time, is that these tariffs are just higher taxes.

00:43:34.960 They're just called something slightly different. And I have to stress, people can't afford anymore.

00:43:42.160 Like they are tapped out. About half, about half of Canadians now, Candice, are within $200

00:43:49.600 of not making their minimum payments on their bills every month. Meaning keeping the lights on,

00:43:57.200 the rent paid and stopping the credit card company from phoning you. You're not paying it off.

00:44:02.640 You're just making the minimum payment. Half of Canadians now are in that boat. The idea that we

00:44:08.240 would just willingly take tax hikes inflicted by our own government is crazy. And so I really do

00:44:14.640 hope this is the, I've hit bottom, this is a wake up call, and we're going to fix so many of these

00:44:19.920 problems.

00:44:20.880 I really hope it was to continue your metaphor. You know, it was the quarter to midnight

00:44:25.920 scare back in the 90s, where Canada basically almost defaulted on their debt. We didn't have

00:44:30.080 a buyer for a bond. And that was a wake up call. We needed to drastically reduce the federal

00:44:34.960 government and get rid of a lot of the growth that happened under the first Trudeau. I wonder if this

00:44:40.160 is our quarter to midnight, or to use Chris Simms' metaphor there, it's 11.59 in like 38 seconds,

00:44:46.960 or 59 seconds. Franco, what do you think? Oh, we got to get our house in order. Like it's getting

00:44:53.200 outrageous. In less than a decade, the Trudeau government doubled the debt in less than a decade.

00:44:59.600 Okay, folks, interest charges on the federal debt are costing taxpayers more than a billion dollars

00:45:06.800 every single week. That's the cost of building a hospital, gone, because that money is going to

00:45:12.880 the bond fund managers on Bay Street to pay interest on the federal debt. Let's put that one more in one

00:45:18.880 more perspective. Okay. Every time you're lining up at the checkout, every single dollar you pay

00:45:25.520 in federal sales tax goes to pay interest on Trudeau's debt. So it is long past time to get

00:45:32.640 this under control. And you know, the wake up call really is what's going on in the United States,

00:45:38.240 right? The Department of Government Efficiency, where they're slashing regulations, they're

00:45:43.040 cutting wasteful spending, they're restructuring government agencies. I mean, look at here in

00:45:48.000 Canada, right, where you have bureaucrats in Ottawa tripping over themselves. There's so many.

00:45:53.120 Okay. So since Trudeau came to power, he's added more than a hundred thousand extra government

00:45:58.800 bureaucrats. The average compensation for a federal bureaucrat is $125,000 a year. When you look at their

00:46:06.720 salary, bonuses, perks, pensions, $125,000 a year, the cost of the bureaucracy in Ottawa has gone up 73%

00:46:16.560 under Trudeau. 73%. Like, I think I can go on a limb here and say that unless you're working for

00:46:24.400 the government, no Canadian is getting anywhere close to 73% services better from the federal government.

00:46:32.800 Not even close. And then the bonuses, right? Candace, on your show, we've talked about all the bonuses

00:46:39.120 going out to the CBC, right? $18 million last year, where CBC executives are taking bonuses that are

00:46:46.080 bigger than what the average Canadian worker makes an entire year. Well, this bonus scandal is happening

00:46:53.040 all across the departments, all across the Crown Corporation, the Canada Mortgage and Housing

00:46:58.960 Corporation, okay? They like to claim, oh, we have one overarching objective, housing affordability for

00:47:05.440 all. Well, newsflash, they haven't been able to afford a home for years. Meanwhile, the CMHC has rubber

00:47:12.720 stamped more than $100 million in bonuses since the beginning of 2020. So Candace, this should be a wake-up call

00:47:19.680 for the federal government or for any politician that wants to be a champion of taxpayers. We need to cut

00:47:25.920 government wasteful spending, and we need to cut it now. Well, we are going to get to doge at the

00:47:30.160 very end of the show, Franco. So I'm excited to hear your perspective on that. I think I can guess

00:47:35.200 what you're going to say. It's his favorite. But I did just want to stay for a moment on the

00:47:40.720 interprovincial trade barriers, because you're right, Chris. This is something that we have been

00:47:43.920 hearing for like decades, as long as I can remember. And I think part of the problem now, I'm going to

00:47:49.040 share a tweet that I put up, not saying that this is, you know, a popular opinion. But basically, I

00:47:55.360 quote tweeted an economist who was a former policy advisor to Quebec's Minister of Finance. And he was walking

00:48:01.040 us through why we haven't eliminated interprovincial trade. I, you know, posted to saying because

00:48:07.200 Canada is not a real country. Basically, we're just a decentralized federation where province,

00:48:11.760 provincial gatekeepers have built perfectionist fiefdoms. Because when you read the thread

00:48:18.240 from this individual Jean-Philippe Fournier, you realize just how difficult it is to eliminate these

00:48:24.720 barriers because they're so entrenched in the makeup of our entire country,

00:48:30.640 which is basically that we have a weak federal government and strong provincial governments.

00:48:34.960 That is the purpose. You can take that down, Sean. That is kind of the concept of Canada,

00:48:40.320 right? We have these super different regions that don't really have all that much in common. So we

00:48:44.240 let the provinces take the bulk share of responsibility. The federal government's job is

00:48:48.960 really just to like keep us safe, like have a military and basically just make sure everyone gets

00:48:54.800 along. I'm not saying that we do a very good job at that. We don't. But, you know,

00:48:59.520 most of the responsibilities fall into the provinces. So I'll just read a little bit of what

00:49:03.680 Fournier says here. He writes, at one point, the minister asked us, again, he worked for

00:49:08.480 Quebec's Minister of Finance. He said, at one point, the minister asked us to look into low-hanging fruit

00:49:14.080 to liberalize and improve free trade between Quebec and the other provinces. The cost of these

00:49:18.560 apparent barriers, we were told, were so high that even quick wins would surely give us a little bit of

00:49:24.000 a boost? No. Well, it turns out not really. Other than the very stupid rules on alcohol, the so-called

00:49:30.640 interprovincial trade barriers are all regulatory in nature. In other words, they're the result of

00:49:36.000 10 provinces introducing rules and regulations for all other sorts of things and slowly diverging.

00:49:41.760 These rules don't ever target other provinces directly. They're all just rules that kind of touch

00:49:46.480 every other aspect of our lives, but were made without taking into account what other provinces

00:49:52.640 were doing, diverging regulatory creep. And so I think this helps us sort of understand why. Like,

00:50:00.240 like he goes on to give a bunch of examples, like, you know, there might be a rule when it comes to car

00:50:04.800 seats and how they are manufactured, what kind of material they can be used in Quebec. And that differs

00:50:10.160 incredibly from like province to province. So because of that, a province, you know, a car seat

00:50:15.920 made in Quebec can't actually be sold in Ontario and vice versa. And this happens like across every

00:50:20.560 industry. Most of the industries are regulated by like professional organizations. So like a health

00:50:26.960 organization or teachers, you know, it's like when you get trained in one province, your training might

00:50:31.840 not actually qualify you to do that job in the province. So how can we fix this? Like, what is it that

00:50:37.840 can be done to fix this? Do you mind if I step in here? Because before I was with the Canadian

00:50:42.800 Taxpayers Federation, I worked for the Canadian Constitution Foundation. And that's when we were

00:50:47.200 doing the free the beer campaign, right all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. So I was tasked

00:50:52.560 with writing the report on these internal trade barriers. And you know, they are very costly to

00:50:57.680 Canada's economy. I mean, I've heard estimates of up to $200 billion. And when I was doing a report on

00:51:04.320 this, like I've found that some businesses had an easier time trading with US states than with other

00:51:11.280 Canadian provinces. So so Candace, I think your tweet has a lot of validity to it. Now, a couple

00:51:18.000 things to remember, like number one is I do think decentralization is a good thing, right? I don't want

00:51:24.480 Ottawa overstepping where they shouldn't. I mean, we've seen them do that so many times with energy and

00:51:29.760 environment regulations that hammer the provinces and provincial taxpayers. But the two reasons why

00:51:35.840 we have these internal trade barriers is number one, you have a whole bunch of bureaucrats within

00:51:41.840 provincial governments who are looking for make work projects, right? They're looking for things to do

00:51:47.440 because we have so many of them employed in the provincial governments that if they didn't have things

00:51:52.000 to do, they would be fired. So they're always looking for things to do and things to regulate.

00:51:57.680 It's kind of like a nanny state, if I can use that term of reference, right? So that's number one,

00:52:04.400 too many bureaucrats everywhere meddling in people's affairs where they don't need to be.

00:52:08.880 The second is pure, in a sense, corporate welfare, where you have these provincial politicians,

00:52:16.480 provincial governments, and also businesses lobbying the provincial government to have regulatory

00:52:23.360 barriers that protect themselves from other businesses. And that all comes to the detriment

00:52:30.000 of internal trade. It all comes to the detriment of consumer choice. And it all comes to the detriment

00:52:35.920 of consumers who now have to face higher prices because provincial governments have set up regulations

00:52:42.080 as a barrier to competition, more choice, and lower prices.

00:52:47.920 Well, I think that makes it really clear what the problem is. And I do wonder, I mean, again,

00:52:53.120 I can guess what you're going to say because I think this is a perfect segue into what Elon Musk is doing

00:52:57.360 with the Department of Government efficiency and DOGE. You have a bureaucracy that is massive,

00:53:02.960 and you have the mindset of a nanny state. How can we change that? Do you think that Canada

00:53:09.280 needs its own version of DOGE? And a question to you, Franco, are you willing to run it?

00:53:16.240 I don't need to run it. We've done our homework online. I just want the government to cheat off

00:53:20.960 the homework that's already there. But hey, I could definitely tell you we need some government

00:53:25.280 efficiency here in Canada. Folks, if you got any kids in the room, earmuffs, I promise you I'm not

00:53:30.240 making this up. $8,800 on a sex toy show in Germany. That is the type of money the federal

00:53:38.240 government is spending our funds on. I've got a better one for you. $12,000 to pay senior citizens

00:53:46.320 in other countries to talk about their sex lives in front of live audiences. Folks, these aren't even

00:53:53.520 Canadian seniors. We're outsourcing old people sex stories. Okay? So yes, we desperately need some

00:54:01.600 type of government efficiency here in Canada. Here's a couple other examples. One department,

00:54:08.000 Global Affairs Canada, spending $51,000 a month on booze. All paid for by the taxpayer,

00:54:17.280 $51,000 a month on booze included in that was a $1,000 booze filled trivia night. And Candace,

00:54:25.920 you'll appreciate this next example I'm going to make. The government is spending millions of dollars

00:54:33.040 on government podcasts that nobody listens to. Like how do you even spend millions of dollars on

00:54:40.800 podcasts? Unbelievable. Can I just jump in here? So yeah, like Franco again, every time I pick Franco

00:54:48.240 up at the airport, he's talking about the sex toy show in Germany. How much we spent on this because

00:54:55.680 it's so crazy. I do encourage people, you know, not safe for work, but do look it up. There's pictures

00:55:01.120 of these things and you paid for this stuff. To exactly what Franco just pointed out there,

00:55:06.720 I have to point out this isn't the government wasting taxpayers money on other people's podcasts.

00:55:14.160 So it's not like when they're funding mainstream media and putting journalists on the government

00:55:18.000 payroll, making them propagandists. Okay. Like that's bad enough. No, no. The nerds at the departments

00:55:26.800 themselves are talking to each other with microphones and cameras. They are making podcasts

00:55:33.840 that we are all paying for. I was reading through some of the topics, like they're literally

00:55:38.800 talking about like gay ghosts, like LGBTQ plus and the paranormal. Like what?

00:55:46.720 Unbelievable. If I want to listen to that, that's my business. Okay. But I shouldn't be making taxpayers

00:55:53.680 pay for that stuff. And so, yeah, to exactly Franco's point, and you'll understand too from your time,

00:55:59.360 Candace, at the Canadian taxpayers federation, all this homework is done. Take it, take it,

00:56:05.040 go back through our 20 something years of Teddy waste awards. Okay. Where we hand out our golden

00:56:10.880 pig statues to politicians and bureaucrats that waste your money and take it, steal it, take all those

00:56:17.600 ideas, cut all of that waste. We've already got this stuff done. I think that can be done on day one. I

00:56:23.600 really do hope that Pierre Polyev goes down this path. I think so much of what Elon Musk and,

00:56:29.120 and frankly, Donald Trump with his executive orders, what he has done for his country in the

00:56:33.760 first, just what, two, three weeks in office here has been incredible. One of the things I was cheering

00:56:38.640 over was Elon Musk is taking aim at what he calls the viper's nest, um, federal agency with a global

00:56:44.640 footprint, which is USAID or USAID. Um, unbelievable organization. I looked it up. Well, I tried to look

00:56:51.520 it up by a funny fact. I tried to look up the budget of this organization, something around 42,

00:56:55.760 40 to $45 billion. Uh, but when I went to click on the website for USAID, it just took me to a page

00:57:02.080 not found site because when Elon Musk is getting rid of a government agency, like he is getting rid of

00:57:06.800 it. Um, so we, uh, Fox news reported that more than 50 senior, uh, staff members were placed on

00:57:13.440 administrative leave. Basically he's just going in and saying like, what does this organization do?

00:57:18.720 Why is it spending so much money? You know, not even the ridiculous examples, the low hanging fruit

00:57:23.360 that we could just get rid of because it's so absurd and insulting to the public that taxpayers'

00:57:28.640 money would go to things like the things that you're describing. Um, but, but like, why not rethink

00:57:32.640 the entire organization? Like take a step even further back and say, yeah, we shouldn't have these

00:57:37.280 sex toys things. We shouldn't have these podcasts, but what department is it coming out of? Like, why do we

00:57:42.160 have a department of heritage? Why do we have a federal health department? You know, health is under the

00:57:46.800 jurisdiction of the provinces. Why do we even have it? I would love to see the approach. Um,

00:57:52.240 you know, really just, just taking a huge step back and say, uh, let's rethink what the purpose

00:57:57.120 of government is. Uh, let's use this opportunity. And I really hope that I hope here probably have

00:58:02.000 taps the two of you, um, and puts you on his Canadian, uh, doge commission. I don't know if

00:58:06.320 he will, but I think that would be the way to go. Okay. Folks, we got to wrap it up at that. It's

00:58:10.480 been such a pleasure to have you, Franco and Chris, thank you so much for joining the show. I hope to have

00:58:13.920 you back in the future. Thank you. Thanks. All right, folks. Well, this has been a live

00:58:19.280 edition of the Candace Malcolm show. If you're still sticking around at this point,

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00:58:58.960 but thank you so much. I'm Candace Malcolm. This has been the Candace Malcolm show. Thank you and God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - February 04, 2025

Trump lifts tariffs and Bob Rae bombs on Fox (ft. Franco Terrazzano & Kris Sims)

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