The Candice Malcolm Show - What will Carney do when Parliament returns？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to The Candice Malcolm Show. I'm Chris Sims sitting in for Candice Malcolm. Sometimes

00:00:07.680 this summer. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day and your week. I hope it's off

00:00:12.240 to a great start. Lots to talk about on the show today. What's happening right now in Ottawa is

00:00:18.480 that people are slowly waking up to the fact that government is coming back. So most of us who have

00:00:23.880 kids, we're all getting ready for our kids to head back to school next week. It's going to be after

00:00:28.440 Labor Day. So a lot of families are really busily trying to finish off their last bit of summer.

00:00:33.760 In Ottawa, it kind of feels similar. So there's going to be staffers that are getting back into

00:00:38.160 town. There's going to be bureaucrats trying to get their big binders ready for their ministers to take

00:00:42.520 a look at. All that is to say, the business of government is going to start cranking up really

00:00:47.820 fast in Ottawa soon once the House of Commons comes back. And that means they're going to figure out

00:00:53.700 how to tax you more and how to spend your money. I wanted to raise this because you might have

00:00:59.780 noticed last week, all of a sudden, it was elbows down across the nation. Wasn't that interesting?

00:01:06.720 All of a sudden, Prime Minister Mark Carney is saying, you know what, we're going to drop

00:01:10.860 retaliatory tariffs because this is the wise thing to do. Weird, because the Canadian Taxpayers

00:01:17.180 Federation said that you should have done this at the outset. Because for people who don't know,

00:01:23.340 tariffs are just trade taxes. Okay? So if we have a tariff on American items, let's say a jar of pickles.

00:01:34.640 Okay? Say the Canadian government puts a tariff on American products like a jar of pickles.

00:01:41.620 That is an import tax. Okay? That means that you and I and those of us who are at the grocery store,

00:01:48.740 when we go to pick up that object, when we go to pick up that thing that comes from the states that

00:01:53.760 has an import tax, it is going to cost us more. It's on the same side of the border. If U.S. President

00:02:01.080 Donald Trump wants to slap import taxes on Canadian stuff, that's his thing. Okay? But it is ultimately

00:02:07.380 going to hurt normal working people on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

00:02:14.500 What's super frustrating here is that politicians like Carney and like many of his cabinet ministers

00:02:21.960 have been able to skate on this issue now for this long by saying stupid catchphrases like

00:02:28.440 elbows up or elbows down. That's funny for about like eight seconds, but it's not funny afterwards

00:02:35.060 because again, at the end of the day, it's not just consumers on both sides of the border who are

00:02:40.500 getting hurt because these are just trade taxes. It isn't just that industries are going to be

00:02:47.640 damaged. Okay? We're dealing with all sorts of stuff. Our farmers are facing tariffs. Okay? Our steel

00:02:53.140 producers are facing tariffs. All of a sudden, we do use a lot of steel around here. Okay? So industries are

00:02:59.860 being injured. Okay? Consumers are being nailed. And at the end of the day, you're paying for all of this.

00:03:07.380 You are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the prime minister's salary. You are

00:03:13.940 paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the international trade minister's salary.

00:03:20.180 You want to start looking at the bureaucracy? Now you're getting into really gnarly costs. Again,

00:03:26.260 you are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for the deputy ministers and all sorts of specialists

00:03:33.620 and experts who work in and out of government to manage this issue. Do you feel like the Canada-US

00:03:41.620 issue with trades and tariffs is being professionally managed? Are you getting good value for your money?

00:03:48.580 I can't help but point out that Alberta Premier Daniel Smith took a smart approach to this from

00:03:54.820 the very start. She took a basic approach whenever you're in a dispute with somebody that you actually

00:04:00.660 want to maintain a relationship with. Okay? Say things are getting heated. What's the adult thing to do?

00:04:06.740 Okay? The adult thing to do is take the tone down, take the heat out of the dispute. Okay?

00:04:13.220 Meet with them. Find some common ground. Something you both agree on. Then book your next meeting.

00:04:21.860 Something hopeful to look forward to. Premier Smith went right down there to the states right away.

00:04:27.860 She did the soft-soap diplomacy right away. And guess what? The tariff on Alberta energy was lower

00:04:34.740 than it was across the rest of the country. That's because it's a really good idea to try to negotiate

00:04:42.020 with your most important and biggest trade partner. Spitting in their eye, saying dumb things like

00:04:47.620 elbows up and trying to use them as a scarecrow during all of your press conferences doesn't help

00:04:54.020 taxpayers. It doesn't help normal working people on both sides of the border. It'll get you some

00:05:00.740 credit in the mainstream media. And it'll allow you to skate around other more important issues

00:05:06.580 because the media will be distracted by it. But at the end of the day, it just costs normal working

00:05:13.220 people money. I will also point out that back when Premier Smith went down to the United States,

00:05:20.180 she got right in there and she got a hold of the ears of influencers. Okay? Who speak directly to

00:05:28.020 the Trump administration and said, you know what? We can't afford this. Let's not do this. Let's make a deal.

00:05:34.020 What can we do? Let's keep the lines of communication open. We don't think this is a wise idea. That's a

00:05:40.340 smart thing to do. Now, we're back at square one. All of a sudden, it's elbows down. All of a sudden,

00:05:48.180 finally, the Prime Minister is saying, let's drop the retaliatory tariffs. At the end of the day,

00:05:54.660 normal working Canadians want our governments, plural, to be smart, to earn their pay well,

00:06:02.500 and to make a smart deal because people don't want to be punished with unnecessary trade taxes,

00:06:10.420 which is exactly what tariffs are. It is well past time for the bureaucrats and the elected government

00:06:18.580 in Ottawa to grow up, wise up, and start actually earning their pay. What's in store for us this fall?

00:06:27.380 How much is the government costing us right now? Where on earth are we going to be able to find

00:06:33.140 savings? Is the government really going to start banning the sale of normal gasoline and diesel-powered

00:06:39.220 vehicles? Why are they doing this? Let's find out. Joining me now is Franco Terrazzano. He is the

00:06:46.100 Federal Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, also my very good friend. He's stationed in Mordor,

00:06:52.260 also known as Ottawa. Franco, we've been chatting about how the federal government can save money.

00:06:59.540 And some of these headlines that we're seeing from the federal government unions,

00:07:04.020 I'm sorry, but they're kind of laughable. It seems like they're running around like chicken

00:07:07.940 little. What's the vibe on the street there in Ottawa? Well, look, I think this is going to be the

00:07:12.580 biggest fight as we head into the fall session of parliament, right? I mean, look, truth be told,

00:07:18.420 we actually don't know what Carney is going to do with spending, right? We don't know what he's going

00:07:21.700 to do with the bureaucracy. We haven't seen a budget yet. However, the Carney government should

00:07:26.900 be cutting the size and growth of the bureaucracy, right? Like the federal bureaucracy is so bloated,

00:07:32.100 it costs you way too much money. I mean, look, the federal government added 99,000 extra bureaucrats

00:07:39.220 since 2016. You're paying for 99,000 extra federal paper pushers and the cost of the bureaucracy has

00:07:45.940 gone up 77% in less than a decade. But get this folks, like Canadians aren't getting better services,

00:07:52.820 right? We just commissioned a poll from Leger that shows that half of Canadians say federal services

00:07:58.580 have gotten worse since 2016. So you're paying an arm and a leg for this bloated bureaucracy. Your tax

00:08:04.580 bill is going up. The government debt bill is going up. Yet federal services are getting worse,

00:08:09.940 half of Canadians say. So look, I think there's going to be a big fight. I think these greedy

00:08:14.420 government union bosses are going to light their hair on fire. But if the Carney government is willing

00:08:18.580 to do the right thing, it has to roll up its sleeves and it has to fire some bureaucrats.

00:08:23.140 I was seeing some headlines there. I don't know if it was PSAC or one of the other government unions

00:08:27.700 there that was saying, oh my goodness, you know, if we cut too deep, it's going to affect our DEI

00:08:33.300 program. I kind of found that funny. Here we go. Advocates warn federal budget cuts could reduce

00:08:38.660 diversity and inclusion initiatives. I'm seeing that all over X this morning as well. And I kind

00:08:44.020 of had to laugh to myself because last I checked, most taxpayers want the government to do really

00:08:49.460 basic things. They don't need them wading into grant approvals for, I don't know, lesbian pirate

00:08:55.620 musicals, for example. Yeah. Or I don't know, spending a hundred thousand dollars tracking the birth,

00:09:01.780 life and death of a grocery cart. Yes. The federal government has actually spent your money that

00:09:06.740 way. Or how about this? 20 grand for a report about the gender politics of Peruvian rock music.

00:09:14.980 Okay. Or how about this doozy, right? Eight grand studying the what sexual and gender identities in

00:09:20.820 online Harry Potter fan communities. I mean, what an absolute waste of money. We all know that JK

00:09:26.980 rolling stance on gender is pretty firm. Plus grownup Harry Potter nerds never get laid. So

00:09:32.340 I don't know why the government is spending eight grand on a report like that. But like,

00:09:36.820 look, it's not even just this silly, small examples of ways that we can go on and on about.

00:09:41.860 Uh, look when the government can't do the little things, right. You can bet the government isn't

00:09:45.220 doing the big things, right. And talking about the big things, look at the fat cats in Ottawa ballooning.

00:09:51.060 Okay. So there are now nearly 147,000 federal bureaucrats taking a six figure salary, right?

00:10:00.180 That's about 40% of the entire federal workforce. And I'm putting that in scare quotes, nearly 40%

00:10:07.380 of the entire federal bureaucracy has taken a six figure salary, right? So look, um, the federal

00:10:12.500 government is broke more than a trillion dollars in debt. And I know that Canadians, uh, just can't

00:10:17.540 afford to keep propping up a bloated federal bureaucracy. I wanted to point out those ridiculous

00:10:23.780 examples of waste because inevitably we'll hear something like, oh, well, okay, fine. What do

00:10:29.380 you want to cut first? You know, food for orphans or help for war widows? Like, okay, how about we start

00:10:36.260 with cutting the fact that they're giving out grants literally that he wasn't joking there folks,

00:10:41.860 like the gender politics of Peruvian art music, uh, rock music. Number one,

00:10:46.660 you paid for that grant. Number two, you're helping in some way to pay for the bureaucracy,

00:10:52.340 which considers such grants and then hands them out. I'm not even touching on the fact that like

00:10:57.140 stats Canada and other bureaucrats have their own podcasts, which next to nobody listens to.

00:11:03.380 And they talk about things literally like gay ghosts and whether or not outer space is sexist.

00:11:09.380 Like this is the dumbest waste of money. And I'm pointing it out because Franco, I can hear them

00:11:14.660 right now. I can hear people asking you if you're in a mainstream media interview, especially of,

00:11:19.460 oh, well, you know, won't this cut too deep? Won't this affect services? Like,

00:11:23.380 are you already getting questions like that? Are you just bracing yourself for them?

00:11:27.220 No, we're already starting to get it right. We've got, we did a bunch of interviews when we

00:11:30.340 released that, uh, Leger poll that showed that more than half the Canadians want the government to

00:11:35.220 cut its size and cost of bureaucracy. That half of Canadians, despite the bureaucracy costs going up

00:11:40.420 77%, you still have half of Canadians say that federal services have gotten worse since 2016. So

00:11:46.900 look, um, we're already, we're already starting to get that pushback already, but you know, my,

00:11:51.780 my quick point pushback to that is, are you serious? The federal government added 99,000 extra

00:11:56.900 bureaucrats and still Canadians are saying federal services are worse. Okay. So clearly adding more

00:12:02.900 government bureaucrats doesn't mean better outcomes for Canadians. That's step number one. I mean,

00:12:07.940 look, we already talked about the extreme amount of waste, right? Especially a lot of wasteful spending

00:12:13.540 going overseas, right? We talked about some of this, but no 8,800 bucks for a sex toy show in Germany

00:12:18.820 called whose is this a 12 grand for seniors in other countries to talk about their sex lives in front

00:12:25.380 of live audiences. I see Chris is laughing because she knows the government doesn't have to spend any

00:12:29.860 money on that, right? You want to hear seniors talk about their sex lives. You just go to, uh,

00:12:33.860 two for one Tuesdays at any Swiss LA near you. Um, or how about the 1700 bucks spent on a musical

00:12:40.660 about lesbian pirates, right? So we're, we're joking. We're kind of, um, laughing because if we didn't

00:12:45.940 laugh, we would cry over this government waste, but let's look at the big picture and I'll stick with

00:12:50.340 spending money overseas. Okay. So in the most recent year, the federal government spent about $11

00:12:56.020 billion on foreign aid to other countries. Okay. Almost 11 billion or a little bit more. Now in that

00:13:01.780 same year, the government spent about $6 billion through the entire department of veterans affairs.

00:13:08.020 Okay. So let that sink in the federal government spent almost twice as much on foreign aid as it did

00:13:14.500 through the entire department of veterans affairs. Okay. So it's one thing to highlight some of the small

00:13:19.620 wasteful spending as we are, but look, I mean, on the big things, the government is wasting huge sums of your

00:13:25.060 money, taking money out of your pocket and wasting it, not just here in Canada, but of course, uh, out

00:13:29.860 of, uh, out of country as well. In fact, global affairs, Canada might be the worst waste offender

00:13:34.020 in the entire federal government. And that's saying a lot. Yeah. If we had our own version of

00:13:38.980 Doge, which people keep asking us to do up here in Canada, that's probably where we should start

00:13:43.540 is global affairs, Canada. And I really wanted to highlight what he just said there, folks.

00:13:47.780 Franco just said that we're spending almost twice as much on foreign aid. Okay. Sending money out of

00:13:53.860 country than we are on Canadian veterans. And I will point out that doesn't just include our own war

00:14:00.500 veterans here in Canada. It's RCMP as well. It's managing their pensions. It's helping them with

00:14:05.700 healthcare. It's helping them with PTSD. Like these are Canadians. Okay. It isn't like, but we're spending

00:14:12.580 almost twice as much overseas. What a huge waste of money. There's another stat that you blew my mind with

00:14:17.940 recently, Franco, and I still can't quite grok it. Um, and that is along the lines of this. If we had

00:14:24.820 kept the growth of the bureaucracy in line with our own population's growth. Okay. So we're not slashing

00:14:32.340 and burning. Okay. We're still growing it. Okay. Still adding more bodies to the, you know, bureaucrats.

00:14:38.260 But if we'd kept it in line with population growth, we'd save like billions of dollars per year.

00:14:43.700 7 billion. You would save more than $7 billion every single year had the bureaucracy had just

00:14:50.580 grown in line with population, uh, since 2016, right? The bureaucracy, then just the number of

00:14:55.860 bureaucrats, uh, went up about 38% while Canada's population grew by about 16%. Okay. So if the

00:15:02.980 bureaucracy had a grown just in line with population, uh, taxpayers would save more than $7 billion every

00:15:10.180 single year. Now, you know, it's not just the number of bureaucrats that taxpayers are paying for.

00:15:15.300 It's also the cost that keeps going up, right? The perks, the salary, all that kind of stuff.

00:15:19.860 I mean, let's look at, uh, some egregious examples, the bonuses, right? Taxpayer funded bonuses have

00:15:25.140 caused Canadians, uh, more than $1.5 billion since 2015. Now, number one, why is the government handing

00:15:32.580 out bonuses? Like this is not the private sector. Why are you handing out bonuses? Number two,

00:15:37.300 in what world is an organization that is $1 trillion in debt. Think it has any money lying

00:15:43.860 around for bonuses, but then the government is, is handing out bonuses, uh, for clear failure.

00:15:48.580 Okay. We all remember arrive scam, right? It initially launched for 80 grand. Then the simple

00:15:54.820 app blew to up to a tab of about 60 million. Well, government executives working on arrive scam

00:16:00.660 took $340,000 in bonuses or the bank of Canada. It has one job. Some say the bubbles in an arrow

00:16:08.820 truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt in your mouth. Sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the

00:16:14.020 same red light, rich, creamy, chocolatey arrow truffle. Feel the arrow bubbles melt. It's mind bubbling.

00:16:21.700 Keep inflation low and around 2%. Well, when inflation reached a 40 year high and Canadians

00:16:28.740 couldn't afford groceries, the bank of Canada printed up $20 million in bonus checks, or how

00:16:35.460 about the Canada mortgage and housing corporation? Okay. Uh, another crown corporation has said many

00:16:40.660 times, you know, it's to an effect of like, oh, we have one objective overall housing affordability for

00:16:46.500 all. Okay. Well, um, since 2020, they've handed out more than a hundred million dollars in bonuses

00:16:51.860 and we've been struggling with a housing affordability crisis makes no sense.

00:16:58.260 Yeah. Makes zero sense. You are awarding government failure with taxpayers money.

00:17:03.460 What gets me is that even their own, see, for people who don't, haven't worked in government

00:17:08.020 departments have their own little way of monitoring themselves poorly and they set their own little

00:17:13.460 objectives on what they want to do. They aren't even meeting their own internal like objectives

00:17:19.620 most of the time, like their little achievement grid or whatever they want to call it. Most of

00:17:23.860 the time or quite often, they're not even meeting those things, but they're still handing out bonuses

00:17:28.900 even by their own measure. They're failing. I wanted to shift gears here because you are right

00:17:33.700 there in Ottawa and people often refer to as the kids coming back to school. So for most people

00:17:39.220 who actually have their own kids and stuff in the house, kids are going back to school next week.

00:17:44.020 Now, when do your kids, your MPs actually come back to school? And I wanted to ask what's,

00:17:50.740 what's first on the agenda in your mind? What are the main things that they need to tackle

00:17:55.060 once the house starts sitting again? Yeah, well, the circus will be back middle of September.

00:18:00.580 And look, like I said before, I think the biggest fight is, is going to be around the bureaucracy.

00:18:04.980 And I think it's going to be around spending and, you know, whether the government will cut spending

00:18:08.820 or what have you, just because we're hearing that the budget, the federal budget will finally be

00:18:13.300 tabled sometime in October, but we've already kind of talked about the bureaucracy. I want to shift to

00:18:17.540 another fight that I see coming and that's around the government's ban on the sale of new gas and diesel

00:18:24.020 vehicles by 2035, right? So by 2035, the government wants to ban the sale of all new gas and diesel

00:18:30.340 vehicles. And the reason I think this is going to be a big fight is twofold. So number one is that

00:18:36.580 this ban starts in 2026. So it starts in a couple months where I believe about 20% of all new gas and

00:18:43.700 diesel vehicles sold or all new vehicles sold will have to be electric. So the ban is starting

00:18:48.980 next year. But the second reason I bring it up, why I think this is going to be such a big issue is

00:18:52.660 because Mr. Polyev and the conservatives have vowed to launch a national campaign against the

00:18:59.620 government's ban on the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles. So I think that's going to heat up real

00:19:03.860 quick once September rolls around. Yeah, that's a big meaty one. I know here in Alberta, the Alberta

00:19:09.940 government led by Premier Daniel Smith is doing the right thing. They've added this to their list of

00:19:15.300 very serious grievances that they have with Ottawa saying that we want this fixed, like right now.

00:19:20.660 Like they're not playing around. They're getting pretty mad about this. Okay. There's a lot of

00:19:24.660 people that are pushing for more autonomy. I will put it that way here in Alberta versus Ottawa.

00:19:30.420 And the one of the main two big reasons here why people are fighting this so hard. Number one,

00:19:36.100 you know, the government has no place in the garages of the nation. Okay. Like why is the

00:19:40.500 government getting up on people's grill telling them dictating to them what kind of vehicle they need

00:19:45.220 to drive? I'll put it this way. So if you're, you know, hauling cattle here in Alberta,

00:19:49.780 or if you're a commuter out there in Ontario, you're trying to get into downtown Toronto or

00:19:54.100 something like that, you're driving into London, like that's up to you. What kind of vehicle fits

00:19:59.540 for your work and family requirements? Okay. And the government is just bad at doing things. As you

00:20:04.900 just described very fulsomely with the bureaucracy, they're big, they're wasteful. They don't know how to

00:20:09.860 do stuff like they couldn't organize a two car parade. So who are they to say this is going to fit for

00:20:15.140 your family. It can. And secondly, the main reason why the taxpayers federation is fighting this

00:20:20.420 is that we can't afford this. Like we don't have the money or the energy to make this thing actually

00:20:27.380 work. The, the math just isn't mathing. As you say, um, the federal government itself already says

00:20:33.540 that if they made a full switch, it would cost something like $300 billion. Yeah. Up to $300 billion,

00:20:39.860 which is absolutely banana pants. Crazy. I mean, look, yeah. Number one, I think when you hear,

00:20:45.300 uh, these politicians talking about banning the sale of gas and diesel vehicles by 2035,

00:20:49.780 you got to ask yourself, you know, how much is your tax and power bill going to go up?

00:20:53.700 Because this is nuts, right? Like, as we just mentioned, a report that was published by

00:20:58.260 the government department, natural resources. Um, look, this could cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

00:21:03.780 Like where are they going to get the money from to, you know, build all this infrastructure,

00:21:07.540 transmission, power lines, all this kind of stuff, like the tens of billions of dollars

00:21:11.860 in taxpayer subsidies, going to multinational corporations to build battery plants, right?

00:21:16.740 Like how is the government going to pay for all this? Well, the only answer is, is the government's

00:21:20.500 going to take more of your money, but like, look, this is such a half baked idea. I was reading,

00:21:25.700 doing some research before we had this little chat, Chris, and what is it? Canada would, would require

00:21:30.820 what 14 large can do nuclear reactors, right? Like this is, this is nuts. The only silver

00:21:37.220 lining is that this plan is so half baked. The plan is so unrealistic that like, hopefully

00:21:42.580 just a reality wins out in the day and the government just can't move forward with this

00:21:46.260 ban on the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles. I wanted to point out that with Alberta breathing

00:21:51.380 down their neck, this might actually help. Uh, I know that last week the Alberta government

00:21:55.780 did the right thing and they came out and said, we're going to use every tool in the toolbox here,

00:21:59.140 folks to fight this thing. They're even now going to take the federal government to court,

00:22:03.460 which is outstanding. Folks might remember the so-called no more pipelines law, bill C 69.

00:22:08.980 We've had some wins in the court front in some of those fights. So that's a really good thing to see.

00:22:13.780 So I think it's really good for them to tackle this in every which way possible,

00:22:17.780 because like you point out, we just can't afford this. This isn't something so simple

00:22:22.420 as grabbing an extra power bar and plugging it into your outlet because you got a few more,

00:22:26.820 you know, video game systems or TVs. No, like electric vehicles draw a lot of power.

00:22:31.860 We unfortunately do not have an abundant, affordable energy system right now. Even here

00:22:36.820 in Alberta, where people might think that we're just swimming in it. No, we have warnings that

00:22:41.460 we're going to have a brown out in winter if people use their hair dryers in the morning. I'm not

00:22:46.340 joking. So like, we do not have the cash for this. Do you think, Franco, I got to try to be a

00:22:51.700 little bit of a strategist here. Carney has the room. Okay. He's got the capital to come into the

00:22:58.500 room and say, you know what? That was the last guy's plan. I'm the new guy. I'm the new prime

00:23:03.140 minister. This was a former prime minister, Justin Trudeau's plan. Stefan Guibo, you be quiet. No,

00:23:08.340 shh. You're not talking at cabinet meeting today. Like he has the room to do that. Doesn't he?

00:23:13.780 Well, the, the reason I'm going to say, yeah, is I mean, just look back what's happened over the

00:23:17.380 last couple of months. I mean, during Carney's early tenure as prime minister, I mean, he's already

00:23:22.020 gotten rid of the consumer carbon tax. I mean, we all know that Carney is changing the carbon tax.

00:23:26.580 He's going to hammer Canadian businesses with a hidden carbon tax. But look, I mean,

00:23:30.020 he got rid of Trudeau's consumer carbon tax, if we can call it that. He also did the same thing

00:23:35.220 with the capital gains tax increase, right? Remember the government wanted to go forward

00:23:39.220 with an undemocratic and illegal capital gains tax increase. Well, Carney got rid of that too. So

00:23:45.380 I do think there's some political room for Carney to maneuver here and say, Hey, that was the last guy,

00:23:50.340 you know, I'm a new guy here. And I think Canadians will give him some grace on that. If he's

00:23:55.540 moving in the right direction, but let me just say, look, um, you know, obviously there's a bit

00:24:00.260 of a honeymoon phase whenever you have a new elected government. Okay. That'll last a little

00:24:04.660 bit of time. But if you look at some of the polling, like I saw some polling released, uh,

00:24:08.580 I believe over the weekend, right. That shows that, uh, Canadians top concern again is the cost of living

00:24:14.340 right. Uh, quite significantly pulled more than, uh, what's going on in the United States. So again,

00:24:19.860 cost of living is the top concern in the minds of Canadians. So I don't think Canadians have

00:24:24.580 a single ounce of appetite for anything that will come from the Carney government or Ottawa

00:24:30.340 that will make people's lives more expensive. So even if the government had a little bit of

00:24:34.100 a honeymoon phase, I don't think that is going to last a long time, especially if the government

00:24:39.460 is going to make people's lives more expensive, which it has for years.

00:24:43.620 I lastly wanted to touch on Franco. This is great stuff. Uh, speaking of making people's lives

00:24:47.700 more expensive. This is what I think if I were a betting lady, um, I would think that Carney has

00:24:53.620 the capital to say, you know what, uh, we're kicking this whole EV thing as they call it so

00:24:58.340 far down the road that it's not going to affect us anymore. We're lifting the mandate. Um, the car

00:25:03.140 dealerships don't need to have a 20% sales. I am noticing there's even a little bit of sprinkling

00:25:08.900 of the softening of language in there. They're using the term availability a lot now where they

00:25:14.100 weren't before. So I am sensing something in the forest changing there. If I were a betting lady,

00:25:19.780 though, I think the big fight is going to be the industrial carbon tax because Carney wrote a book

00:25:25.860 called values. Like he was the former UN special envoy to the United nations on topics like this.

00:25:31.780 He mentioned during the campaign, he mentioned during his leadership campaign that he wants to

00:25:36.500 strengthen and change the industrial carbon tax and talk about hitting your bottom line. Talk about

00:25:42.020 making the cost of living cost more. Where are we with this? Yeah. So look, um, I think you've

00:25:48.180 kind of outlined it pretty good, right? That Carney isn't ending all carbon taxes. He wanted to change

00:25:54.020 the carbon tax and I use his word, not mine. So, uh, look, the Carney government got rid of that

00:25:58.740 consumer carbon tax rate that directly applied on, on fuels like gasoline. You know, every time you went

00:26:03.460 to the fuel, uh, to fuel up your car, that was more expensive. It was applied directly on your heating

00:26:07.700 bill, like a natural gas, for example. So the Carney government got rid of the consumer facing carbon

00:26:13.460 tax, but you know, throughout the, uh, two election campaigns, I guess, Carney ran both for liberal

00:26:18.500 leadership and then the general election. Uh, many times he referred to essentially increasing that

00:26:24.420 hidden carbon tax on Canadian businesses like, um, oil and gas companies, refineries and utilities.

00:26:30.100 Now look, um, Carney tried many times to be like, Oh, don't worry, folks. You won't have to pay for that

00:26:35.460 carbon tax. It'll be large businesses that pay, but you know, fortunately Canadians aren't buying

00:26:41.220 Carney spin, right? We, we released some Leger polling that shows that 70% of Canadians understand

00:26:47.300 that businesses will pass most or some of the costs on a consumers through higher prices. In fact, only

00:26:52.580 9% of Canadians believe Carney that businesses will pay most of his carbon tax costs. And I mean, look,

00:26:58.500 it's pretty obvious, right? When you carbon tax refineries, that makes your gasoline and diesel

00:27:03.380 more expensive. When you carbon tax utilities, that makes your home heating more expensive.

00:27:08.820 And when you carbon tax fertilizer plants, well, that drives up costs for farmers and makes your

00:27:13.860 grocery haul more expensive. But you know, if I can tie in the cost of living and what's going on

00:27:19.460 between Canada and the U S and our trading relationship right now, uh, remember the white

00:27:23.940 house, uh, regardless of who is occupying the white house, whether, whether Republican or Democrat,

00:27:29.140 they're not bringing in carbon taxes, right? They, they, they're not. So look, uh, a carbon tax

00:27:34.660 on Canadian businesses will push Canadian entrepreneurs to cut down production here and

00:27:39.380 to set up shop south of the border where there is no, uh, national carbon tax. Okay. So in effect,

00:27:45.380 Carney's carbon tax is the worst of all worlds, higher prices for you and fewer jobs for Canadians.

00:27:52.420 That's a great point. And we need to stress it's in your book, actually,

00:27:55.380 which I will point out is excellent. You actually mentioned it. Sorry. Um, but it is really good

00:28:01.380 because there were some things in there that even I'd forgotten. Um, so you point out in there that

00:28:05.860 even like Barack Obama, okay, backed off on the idea of a national carbon tax. So the United States

00:28:12.500 isn't on the brink of having one anytime soon. I think that's putting it mildly here and back up here

00:28:17.540 in Canada. If people, I personally think coming from British Columbia, if they want a really tangible

00:28:23.460 example of how this increases costs. Okay. In British Columbia, they have what we often refer

00:28:29.940 to as the second carbon tax. Now it's technically a government fuel standard that forces companies

00:28:35.220 to get into this credit system, meaning those companies pay more for the fuels that they are

00:28:42.020 providing. Okay. Both gasoline and diesel. Those companies are not eating the cost. They are not eating

00:28:50.260 the cost of those increases. So on average in British Columbia, that's why when you cross the

00:28:55.380 border, it goes up here from Alberta. On average, it's costing around 18 cents extra per liter of

00:29:01.140 gasoline and diesel. Now that isn't the same sort of industrial carbon tax, but I'm just showing you

00:29:06.660 that they will pass on the cost because the companies can't eat it and it winds up making normal

00:29:11.620 people pay more. Do you think I was really heartened to hear that Leger poll. Do you think people are

00:29:16.500 getting the message that the government can't just hide this? Well, I think people always knew

00:29:21.380 that carbon taxes make life more expensive, right? The only people who tried to pretend like it didn't

00:29:25.940 were the political pundits or academics or the government politicians and bureaucrats themselves

00:29:31.300 who tried to twist themselves into a pretzel, trying to explain that somehow carbon taxes made

00:29:36.020 people richer. But of course they didn't. And Canadians never bought that spin. And that was one of the fatal

00:29:40.980 flaws of the carbon tax that Trudeau tried to shove down everyone's throats, right?

00:29:44.980 It's like Trudeau tried to tell us that carbon taxes could make us richer and people didn't buy it

00:29:49.940 because Canadians know, everyone knows that you can't give the government 20 bucks and then somehow

00:29:55.620 magically get $50 in return, right? It was always magic math from the beginning and Canadians didn't

00:30:01.220 understand it. So look, if the Carney government wants to continue pushing carbon taxes, it's probably

00:30:06.580 going to try to do it in a very sneaky hidden way, try not to talk about it. But that's why the Canadian

00:30:10.900 taxpayers federations here shouting, nay, nay, we are going to talk about it. And you're going to

00:30:15.300 have to answer and tell Canadians, you know, how much you're hitting carbon tax on Canadian businesses

00:30:20.100 is going to cost, right? And like Simmer, I'm glad you brought up the fact that like a business isn't

00:30:25.780 just a piggy bank for governments, right? They can't just continue to pay tax, tax, tax, tax, tax,

00:30:30.660 and nothing happened, right? Either number one, they're going to pass some of the costs on to

00:30:34.580 Canadian consumers through higher prices, or number two, they're just going to cut production,

00:30:40.100 not reinvest in Canada, not hire more Canadians, more of our neighbors, and they're just going to

00:30:44.660 go somewhere else around the world that doesn't have these high carbon taxes like the United States.

00:30:51.620 Franco Tarazano, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Thank you so much for joining us

00:30:56.100 on the Candace Malcolm Show. Hey, Chris, thank you. You bet. So folks, you heard it there. So we've got

00:31:03.460 members of parliament, okay, who are paid big bucks, they're going to be coming back to Ottawa very soon.

00:31:08.740 And they've got an agenda. We're encouraging them to focus on three things, cut the size and cost of

00:31:14.980 government in order to balance the budget and fight the debt. Scrap this ban on gasoline and diesel

00:31:21.220 powered vehicles, which nobody wants and we can't afford. And third, get rid of your plans to create

00:31:28.740 a big bad hidden industrial carbon tax. Because at the end of the day, what Franco said is right.

00:31:34.740 Normal working people are still fighting to afford basics. And it's easy to gloss over something like

00:31:40.340 that. But when you really think about it, it becomes more real. Okay, so around 50% of Canadians

00:31:47.460 are within $200 of not being able to pay the very bare minimum on their bills. That means covering

00:31:54.660 the bare minimum on their credit cards, keeping the lights on and keeping some food in the house. Okay,

00:32:00.100 close to 50% of Canadians are in that situation. We've got record amount of people demanding help

00:32:09.060 at food banks now. Okay, the highest level of growth that these volunteers are seeing at food banks

00:32:15.860 come from working families. What that means, put normally, is that a parent who's holding down a

00:32:22.820 job is still counting on donated jars of peanut butter to feed their kid. That's what increased

00:32:29.700 demand from working families at food banks really means. So at the end of the day, it is the cost of

00:32:35.860 living that is going to be front and center. And I would encourage everybody watching here to send an

00:32:41.860 email to their member of parliament, tell them that you want them to have smaller government, less waste,

00:32:50.180 lower taxes, so that people can afford normal things in life. And for those of you who are thinking,

00:32:57.140 oh, well, it doesn't matter what I say, these MPs won't care. That's not true. Because it was average

00:33:03.380 people that made even Mark Carney blank on the carbon tax. If you look around at gas stations this summer,

00:33:11.380 it's about 20 cents cheaper than it was last summer. That's because the consumer carbon tax is gone.

00:33:17.940 And you folks made even Mark Carney say, I need to get rid of this and come up with a hidden one.

00:33:24.580 So you speaking up and demanding something really matters. And what also really matters is sharing

00:33:29.700 messages like this. You won't hear this sort of talk happening at will on most mainstream media channels.

00:33:37.220 You won't hear discussions like this. You won't hear advocacy like this. So make sure you head over to

00:33:42.900 Juno News, subscribe to Juno News, like, and share this video in order to spread the word.

The Candice Malcolm Show - August 25, 2025

What will Carney do when Parliament returns？

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