The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - Why Carney's EV Tariff Move Just Handed Ontario to Poilievre

00:00:00.000 Ahoy everyone, Wyatt Claypool here, back on the whiteboard today to do a comparative analysis

00:00:06.400 between Ontario provincial politics and Canadian federal politics. This really matters right now

00:00:13.660 because, for some reason, Prime Minister Mark Carney and the federal liberals just declared

00:00:19.500 political war on Doug Ford's progressive conservatives by removing the tariff on

00:00:25.020 Chinese-made electric vehicles. I don't know why Carney did this. Maybe someone in his inner circle

00:00:31.660 is trying to sabotage him by having him tick off one of his closest political allies, but it's

00:00:37.920 happened and we're going to go through some of the videos of Doug Ford lashing out at Mark Carney

00:00:42.840 before we turn to the whiteboard and talk about why this is so bad for Mark Carney if a snap election

00:00:50.260 gets called in 2026. But before we get into it, I just want to remind you guys, if you like the show,

00:00:56.660 make sure to like the video, subscribe if you are not yet a subscriber, and of course leave a comment

00:01:03.100 about what you think about what's going on, and of course you can also join the channel if you want

00:01:07.660 to make it more sustainable for me and allow me to rely less on the YouTube algorithm when it comes

00:01:12.840 to revenue. Anyways, let's get into this first video of Doug Ford. I believe he was at some sort

00:01:19.520 of trade union type event, but regardless of where he was, he started sounding off about Prime

00:01:26.260 Minister Mark Carney lifting the tariffs on Chinese-made EVs. Now, we still have a tariff on

00:01:31.920 Chinese EVs, and we've capped the amount that can be imported into Canada to 47,000. The tariff is

00:01:38.480 still like 6% or so, but it's a far cry from where it used to be at 100%. But here is Doug Ford reacting

00:01:46.020 to it as it was being announced. I'm not too sure if President Trump wants Chinese spy vehicles

00:01:51.120 coming across the border, but I'm betting the answer is no. You know, when you get on your cell

00:01:57.220 phone, it's the Chinese that are going to be listening to your, and I'm not making this stuff

00:02:00.980 up, they're going to be listening to your telephone conversation. I find it ironic, I find it ironic

00:02:07.280 that the Prime Minister is using a burner phone and all the staff over in China, but we're making a deal

00:02:13.480 is Huawei 2.0 to come back into Canada, and we get nothing but potential job losses in our factories

00:02:23.760 right across the border. I was a bit mistaken. This is not a trade union event. This is like the

00:02:29.660 Rural Ontario Municipal Association, but still, Doug Ford is clearly not going to be taking this lying

00:02:36.220 down. And even though I do not like Doug Ford, because he's really not a conservative, yeah, he has

00:02:41.180 the progressive conservative label, but he's always been what I would call like a small L liberal, not

00:02:46.580 as liberal as like a Mark Carney or like a Bonnie Crombie would be, but he is pretty liberal, like

00:02:53.420 maybe a little bit more pro business than them. But even in his pro business kind of mindset, it's more

00:02:59.560 of like pro subsidies for businesses he likes. But regardless, this was a very strange sort of fight

00:03:06.340 for Mark Carney to spark. And people can say all day long, well, no, no, no, we didn't, we didn't try

00:03:10.920 and pick a fight with Doug Ford. Doug Ford's just reacting poorly to us having, you know, a better

00:03:15.880 trade relationship with China. I know people are out there criticizing Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe for

00:03:22.520 saying some nice things about Mark Carney after the China trip. You do have to kind of understand the

00:03:28.520 political situation Scott Moe is in. The Chinese had 100% terrorists, and I think they were basically not

00:03:34.420 even buying any Saskatchewan canola oil. And so he was happy that they negotiated a deal that got rid of the

00:03:42.040 canola oil tariffs. At the same time, China dumping 47,000 EVs into the Canada's market every year is not a

00:03:50.700 great trade off, especially considering that they're a hostile foreign nation we should probably be attempting 1.00

00:03:55.980 to trade less with in general. Doesn't matter how fair the trade deal is, they're up to no good and you don't

00:04:02.040 trade with people who are up to no good. You try and reduce the amount of trade you do with them.

00:04:06.440 I would far rather trade more with the United States and less with China. But Doug Ford posted

00:04:12.060 this a few days ago, reacting to the deal. He says, make no mistake, China now has a foothold in the

00:04:18.660 Canadian market and will use it to their full advantage at the expense of Canadian workers.

00:04:23.120 The federal government is inviting a flood of cheap made in China electric vehicles without any real

00:04:28.400 guarantee of equal or immediate investments in Canada's economy, auto sector, or supply chain.

00:04:35.140 Worse, by lowering tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, this lopsided deal risks closing the

00:04:39.960 door on Canadian automakers to the American market, our largest export destination, which would hurt our

00:04:45.440 economy and lead to job losses. Now, it is quite ironic, and this statement goes on for a little longer,

00:04:51.600 it is ironic to hear Doug Ford suddenly cares about our relationship with the United States, 0.99

00:04:55.980 considering he, like, scuttled our last trade talks by running those really stupid Ronald Reagan ads 0.99

00:05:01.360 to mock Donald Trump. But regardless, at least he is in generally the right frame of mind now. 0.99

00:05:08.560 I'm a free trade guy, but the free trade has to be with the rest of the free world. We do not freely

00:05:14.400 trade with countries that are not free because they do not have our best intentions at heart,

00:05:18.980 or whatever is in our best interests. Now, it's not like Australia just sits around wanting the

00:05:26.200 best for Canada all the time, but they're not going to deliberately screw us over, lock up some of

00:05:31.800 our people, steal our intellectual property, spy on us. There's kind of problems with China that just 1.00

00:05:37.460 goes past them not liking us enough. But regardless, this is a good line from Doug Ford overall in terms of

00:05:45.500 who is going to win the rhetorical game in Ontario. And by the way, Scott Moe giving some props to

00:05:52.060 Carney for organizing, getting rid of the tariffs on Canadian canola oil, doesn't really do anything

00:05:58.380 for Carney in Saskatchewan. He has one seat in Saskatchewan. Now, maybe he keeps that seat in the

00:06:04.600 next election. I'd actually rather think they're still going to lose it regardless. Maybe there's

00:06:09.440 enough canola producers in that area, they're going to be happy with Carney. But it's not like Carney's

00:06:13.720 going to start making big seat pickups in rural Saskatchewan or even in Regina and Saskatoon.

00:06:19.320 They tend to be big conservative strongholds still. And so he's ticked off Ontario and Doug Ford

00:06:25.980 for basically no seat pickups in Western Canada. Now, here is a new interview that's come out with

00:06:34.220 Doug Ford about him being asked about saying the, you know, his criticisms of the Chinese,

00:06:40.100 the Chinese EV dumping as being like spy vehicles all over Canada.

00:06:44.360 What evidence do you have that these Chinese EVs would spy on Ontarians or listen to their phone 0.98

00:06:49.560 calls? What are you basing that on?

00:06:51.020 Oh, it's very simple. When the prime minister and his team are over there, they use burner phones.

00:06:56.580 You're making a deal with a country with burner phones. And the prime minister did mention

00:07:02.740 when he got elected that the number one country for national security threat is China. And we know 0.56

00:07:11.160 when you hook up your phone, they're going to be listening. Simple as that. And anyone who doesn't

00:07:16.340 believe that is very, very naive. So we're going to...

00:07:19.000 By that logic, are you concerned about the Chinese made phone in your pockets or your iPhone is made in

00:07:26.520 China? Are you concerned with that?

00:07:28.120 I'm concerned about cybersecurity and the threat of China. That's what I'm concerned about. So we're

00:07:37.160 going to always make sure that we think twice before we have countries come in here and we get

00:07:44.100 nothing back. We get absolutely, Ontarians get nothing back but a threat of jobs. 0.51

00:07:50.700 And also that was a complete misnomer point that reporter made. It's like, so are you not afraid

00:07:55.520 of that iPhone in your pocket that's made in China? Like, okay, well, there's a difference between

00:08:00.100 an iPhone that's never been activated and is going to be downloading all of its like software off of

00:08:06.900 the US or Canadian app store and a, you know, a, the Huawei phone that some people have that are

00:08:14.380 literally owned by a partially government run Chinese company. That is like a lot of Chinese 0.99

00:08:19.560 companies, especially the EV manufacturers have ownership stakes from the Chinese government who

00:08:25.580 also can dictate what they produce, how they produce it, what information they hand over.

00:08:30.600 It's not a, they are just not a solid trade partner. They're not a solid national security

00:08:36.180 partner. They're not a solid anything partner. So again, I am forced to agree with Doug Ford here,

00:08:42.020 even though I actually think he runs his economy like a bag of hot garbage, like with high taxes and 0.72

00:08:47.500 high regulations, a lot of issues that are going on in Ontario's economy. It's not because of free 0.74

00:08:52.060 trade. It's not because of exactly China or the United States. It is Doug Ford's fault, but it

00:08:57.260 doesn't make him any less right when it comes to not wanting free trade with China on many different

00:09:03.140 fronts, especially when they're trying to now like integrate into our, you know, they're wanting to

00:09:07.840 integrate with us on cultural and security issues. It's a really foolish thing to be doing. 0.92

00:09:12.680 And I always want to bring you to one more clip from Ontario media. And then we're going to be going 0.80

00:09:17.840 over to the board and talking about why this is such a stupid move for Mark Carney. But first, check 0.99

00:09:23.220 this out.

00:09:24.500 Well, Premier Doug Ford had some surprising comments about the state of the relationship with Prime

00:09:28.940 Minister Mark Carney. The Premier says Ontario was not informed in advance about that trade deal with

00:09:34.920 China and that the Prime Minister never called the Premier once.

00:09:38.760 It's quite the contrast to a once chummy relationship. Premier Doug Ford says his government was

00:09:45.660 blindsided by Prime Minister Mark Carney's new trade deal with China. First, the Premier wasn't invited.

00:09:52.420 If he wanted me there, he'd ask me there.

00:09:55.520 Then Ford was informed by a cabinet minister about the deal instead of the Prime Minister himself.

00:10:01.180 Prime Minister knows my number and I thought we had a good enough relationship that he'd give me a quick

00:10:06.800 text or a little bit of communication. That never happened. That's fine. Like I said, I know where I

00:10:13.420 stand with him.

00:10:13.960 It's unclear whether this is a blip or a full breakdown, but critics say the result was the same.

00:10:19.780 Ontario was left out.

00:10:21.660 And now we don't need to watch any more of that. You know, thank you to I believe actually that CTV

00:10:25.800 News or Global who did that coverage and was pretty good. And also it's even worse for the Liberals because

00:10:32.680 during this period of time where Doug Ford is being frustrated not being invited to the is not being

00:10:39.960 invited along to the trade talks with China, as well as the fact that he, you know, was not even informed

00:10:46.900 about the deal that was made until hours before. The Conservatives, the federal Conservatives are now

00:10:52.040 moving in to repair their relationship with Doug Ford. Now, it's not because there was some rift where

00:10:57.740 Poliev had mistreated Doug Ford. In a lot of ways, it was because Doug Ford's just always been a liberal

00:11:02.840 and he's just kind of always had friction with the far more conservative Pierre Poliev. But now that

00:11:07.780 Mark Carney has mistepped with Doug Ford so much, you know, maybe the Conservatives and the and the

00:11:13.360 Progressive Conservatives on Ontario aren't going to become, you know, lock arm allies. But Doug Ford's

00:11:18.840 going to stay out of Poliev's way, potentially, if a 2026 snap election ends up occurring with Pierre

00:11:25.860 Poliev promising to bring back the tariffs on Chinese EVs, or if not, just impose a moratorium

00:11:31.520 on Chinese EVs entirely. But now that brings us over to the whiteboard here. We're going to first

00:11:37.920 start off talking about the Ontario provincial election results from 2025. Then we're going to

00:11:43.680 move on to the 2025 Canadian federal election results in Ontario, because it's very interesting to

00:11:51.340 see the overlap between Ontario PC voters, Doug Ford voters, and Mark Carney voters. So let's just

00:11:59.900 quickly go through the list here. In 2025, Doug Ford was able to win the provincial election very handily

00:12:08.320 with 42.9% of the vote. I'm not going to round up because I got a lot of space today.

00:12:16.060 Okay. And he absolutely demolished the Liberals who were led by Bonnie Crombie, who only ended up

00:12:22.420 getting as a percentage of the vote, 29.97. I guess I could also go, I'm not going to go second

00:12:33.120 digit. I'm not going to be, let's not be pretentious today, guys. Let's just stick to the

00:12:38.480 other thing I'm going to, or I'm going to have to keep doing it. But we had 29.9% for the Liberals and

00:12:44.160 Bonnie Crombie. Merritt Stiles and the Ontario NDP ended up having 18.5% of the vote, although

00:12:52.460 they actually did better than the Liberals just simply because their vote was more efficient and

00:12:57.120 was more targeted around that kind of urban Toronto GTA area, where the Liberals did better by more

00:13:03.780 than 10 points, but it just wasn't resulting as many seats. They only ended up getting how many seats

00:13:09.100 here, eight, and then the NDP got 31. So that's first past the post for you guys at times.

00:13:16.200 But we had Mike Schreiner and the Greens in this election, not too bad for a Green party in Ontario,

00:13:22.660 and they ended up getting 4.8% of the vote, and they ended up keeping the one seat they already had.

00:13:29.440 And remember here, the Doug Ford Progressive Conservatives won 66 seats, and even then,

00:13:35.000 an Independent won a seat, and that Independent was also Conservative. And then you even have the

00:13:40.980 New Blue Party getting 1.6% of the vote, despite it being a snap election that they weren't fully

00:13:46.620 organized for. So Ontario is a pretty Conservative province in terms of its vote. But the problem here

00:13:53.160 is that although the Progressive Conservatives are doing well, and the more left-wing parties are down

00:13:57.740 here, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives rely on a lot of federal Liberal voters. They're voting

00:14:04.100 demographics tend to be older than the Federal Conservatives, and those older voters tend to

00:14:09.980 be the overlap voters with the Federal Liberals, because we're going to be doing an analysis in

00:14:14.680 the future, but generally speaking, voters 60 years old and older are disproportionately likely to vote

00:14:20.960 Liberal, and more middle-aged, younger middle-aged voters are disproportionately likely to vote Conservative,

00:14:27.180 except in Ontario, where Doug Ford does very well with 60-plus voters as well.

00:14:32.040 But now let's look through the federal numbers and where Polyev and Mark Carney were in this last

00:14:38.520 election, when it comes to Ontario specifically, of course. So, of course, the Liberals won Ontario in

00:14:45.940 the last federal election with a decent margin over the Conservatives. They ended up winning Ontario

00:14:51.200 with exactly 49% of the vote. That was followed by Pierre Polyev and the Conservatives getting 43.8% of the vote,

00:15:04.480 and then we don't even need to... Are we going to throw the Greens in? I guess we can. But then we also had the NDP under Jagmeet Singh doing really, really bad in Ontario. They only got 4.9% of the vote, almost doing

00:15:20.880 just as well as Mike Schreiner's Greens in the provincial election. And then Elizabeth May's Greens got 1.2% of the vote. They never ended up winning a seat in the election, but they ended up having one competitive seat that they put a lot of effort into in southwestern Ontario around, I think it was like the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo area. They had like one seat they were competing for.

00:15:44.340 But notice this. Immediately, even though the Conservatives lost Ontario by 4.2%, they became 4.2% below the federal Liberals, they actually still had a higher number than the Ontario PC Party did in their provincial election where they were dominant.

00:16:04.720 They actually got 0.9% more of the actual percentage of the vote than the Ontario PCs did. But the thing is, the Conservatives here, notice how the Liberals are at 49% and the Conservatives are at 43.8%, but the NDP is non-existent.

00:16:22.720 Obviously, the vast majority of those provincial NDP voters, because the NDP was so pathetic in this last election, they mostly went towards the federal Liberals.

00:16:36.180 Obviously, most provincial Liberals, went towards the federal Liberals. And then with Doug Ford's PCs, you would have had, I would say, around one-third of them, around 33% of this number, also went into getting the Liberals that 49% result.

00:16:54.720 Now, considering that the NDP, under whoever ends up winning the NDP leadership, whether it's Heather McPherson or Avi Lewis, I think Rob Ashton just embarrassed himself recently.

00:17:06.020 He can't win. Like, he was running against AI everywhere, and then he was using AI on his campaign. It's pathetic what he was doing.

00:17:13.120 And it's either Avi Lewis or Heather McPherson. They're obviously not going to only get 4.9%, simply because they're not going to be as pathetic and simpering as Jagmeet Singh. 0.99

00:17:25.700 So, if we are to assume these results holding firm, because if you've seen any recent Ontario election polls, this is pretty much what they still are like.

00:17:36.340 They haven't budged an inch since the last provincial election. If we have, instead of the NDP getting 4.9%, let's just say getting 8%, and if we have the Doug Ford PCs giving maybe not an entire third of their vote to the federal Liberals,

00:17:53.160 but maybe just a fifth of their vote to the federal Liberals, you could see a result where the federal Liberals end up underperforming this 49% result by quite a bit, maybe only coming in at 42 or so,

00:18:07.640 and the Conservatives beating them in Ontario in a federal election, because it looks like that is currently where we are going.

00:18:18.220 Doug Ford, if he starts siding against Mark Carney and saying that he's attacking working class voters, and that he is, you know, going to be flooding our markets with Chinese-made EVs that are spying on people, 0.77

00:18:31.960 you're not going to have this big vote transfer the way that Mark Carney did in this last election.

00:18:37.100 There's just not enough provincial Liberals and NDP voters for Mark Carney to win Ontario.

00:18:42.440 He needs those PC voters, and this is a great way of turning those older Doug Ford PC Liberal Switch voters into federal Conservative Poly of voters in retaliation against Mark Carney's deal he made with the Chinese.

00:18:58.020 In fact, I want to quickly clear this board, and then I'm going to bring up a data point from the recent Abacus data poll, which isn't the perfect poll,

00:19:06.840 but it's already indicating that this is where polling may be going when it comes to Ontario.

00:19:12.440 And now we're back with Abacus data's Ontario sample, and I want to demonstrate that this is already indicating a shift away from the Liberals in that province and towards the Conservatives,

00:19:24.960 and this poll was conducted before the Chinese EV deal that Doug Ford ended up going after.

00:19:30.620 So the current Abacus poll sample for Ontario, because obviously it's a federal sample, although pretty much all federal samples have a really big Ontario sample since it is the biggest province,

00:19:42.440 Right now, Abacus data has their number 44% Liberal, so they are still leading, but they have the Conservatives at 43%, maintaining everything that they had in the last election at the very least,

00:19:59.000 And like I was saying, they have the NDP at 8%, and we have the Greens even at 2%, and the PPC at 1%, which really, if the PPC is at 1%,

00:20:11.580 It probably means that they're only going to get half a percent in the election, and you're going to see the Conservatives move up to 44%, or even 45%, because less PPC running isn't just you take the 1% for the PPC and give it to the Conservatives,

00:20:25.020 is that you give the Conservatives at least 1%, plus all the PPC volunteers who are going to maybe be able to go out there and door knock and drive out another 1% or 2% of people.

00:20:35.560 Like, even a sort of like a dead-on-arrival campaigns staff can make a bigger difference when you actually pool them with the party and the candidates that have a better chance of winning.

00:20:48.200 But this is what their current Ontario sample looks like, and this is a result that would actually result probably in the Conservatives winning the majority of seats.

00:20:59.660 Because remember, this number, the 44%, is going to be heavily concentrated in Toronto.

00:21:06.800 So, the Conservatives do not win any Toronto seats, but what they do win is that they are competitive, although I'll say that the Liberals are good in the GTA as well.

00:21:19.700 The thing is that the Conservatives are good in the North, the Southwest, they are good in the East, outside of Ottawa, and they are also good in the GTA.

00:21:30.420 So, that's why we end up seeing 43% result in more seats for the Conservatives than the Liberals, because although Toronto is seat-rich,

00:21:41.280 if that's all, if your 44% is concentrated to winning Toronto and most of the GTA and Ottawa,

00:21:47.800 that means that there are literally dozens and dozens of more seats that are basically free and open to the Conservatives.

00:21:53.940 And with 8% for the NDP, that actually may be them clawing back a couple of Toronto seats that they used to have back before the 2025 election.

00:22:03.560 So, that's where we are right now when it comes to the whole situation in Ottawa, or Ontario.

00:22:10.300 I think we are going to be seeing this fight between Doug Ford and Mark Carney heat up over the next little while,

00:22:16.220 unless Mark Carney is just willing to write another big subsidy check to the Ontario auto sector, which is going to tick off a lot more people,

00:22:24.660 I don't see them repairing their relationship.

00:22:27.580 Doug Ford tends to be pretty vindictive.

00:22:29.780 Remember, in the 2019 election, he was really put off by the fact that the then Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, didn't want to campaign with him,

00:22:37.980 and so had a chip on his shoulder going into the 2021 election, as well as the 2025 election,

00:22:44.680 and now we're only coming off down the other side of that hill now, as he starts his new feud with the Liberals,

00:22:50.720 for not talking to him about the Chinese EV tariff removal.

00:22:54.400 Anyways, with that all being said, thank you guys for watching, like, share, subscribe, consider joining the channel membership program,

00:23:01.880 and I will see you guys all later.

The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - January 20, 2026

Why Carney's EV Tariff Move Just Handed Ontario to Poilievre

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