True Patriot Love - May 15, 2026


Is Canada Spending Its Way Into Troubleļ¼Ÿ - Spring Update

Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Mentioned
Mark Carney John Tory Nickel Mike Lego
Canada Needs a War Room Before Itā€™s Too Late Canadaā€™s Heritage Is Bigger Than You Know

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Length

57 minutes

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182.32

Word count

10,409

Sentence count

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Harmful content

Hate speech

8

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Mike and Paul discuss the Prime Minister's Spring Budget update, which was released on March 20th. They discuss the significant savings made in the budget, the focus on capital investment, and what the government is looking to do in order to meet the G7 deficit target of 60% of GDP for the next five years.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 we anticipate keeping spending at this click for at least five years which you know i know
00:00:07 we always want to say okay we're better than the g7 but we're also a smaller country in some
00:00:13 respect and a lot of those countries so quite frankly why are we spending at such a high click
00:00:18 and we we have to get that down faster we have to get our productivity up
00:00:22 all right thanks for being there this is tpl media i'm mike wixon today i'm joined by paul
00:00:30 micucci and uh end of last week prime minister carney released a spring budget update and to
00:00:37 talk more about that and to see what's really in there in this massive document as you can see
00:00:45 paul has done his homework uh is the update to that original budget of course on tuesday we got
00:00:51 an announcement that it was going to be amazing savings in this budget 11 billion mike so he saved
00:00:58 11 billion so he wanted originally they told us in the spring uh budget that we were going to see
00:01:03 a 78 billion dollar deficit uh he came in at 67. we'll touch on why a little bit later on in the
00:01:10 show but if you don't mind paul let's establish where we were in the last budget give me some of
00:01:15 of the salient points we were sort of uh watching over in the last budget well you know it was
00:01:22 interesting because you know he announced that we were going to be hitting deficits uh in the
00:01:27 60 billion dollar range for the next five years so that was the key thing to just we were kind of
00:01:33 being preconditioned to let us know that deficits weren't necessarily going to go down we were going
00:01:39 to see them for the near future but he was going to invest right so that was the capital investment
00:01:45 investing in canada elbows up strong canada all that good stuff they do a really good job at the
00:01:51 pr work they do on this budget the honestly the packaging of this budget and how they tell it
00:01:57 like a story is beautiful it's really well done yeah it is really well done that the group does
00:02:01 a nice job on that which budgets always haven't been this beautiful but they are well well put
00:02:06 together i that's why the the high consulting costs i assume i would assume yeah the way they
00:02:12 package it but this is terrible news i need you to package it up beautifully but yeah but remember
00:02:17 you know we were talked we talked about major projects in the spring which are back in the
00:02:23 update yeah uh which they do fill us in that they're happening they did talk about house
00:02:27 affordability and affordability fund um which is still here and they're still trying to get it off
00:02:33 the ground they haven't really got it off the ground okay let's take a look at the fall budget
00:02:38 uh some of the salient points that we kind of harped on at the time right uh certainly one of
00:02:43 them was the the deficit yeah of course you know uh the prime minister came out and he said listen
00:02:49 the next five years uh deficits are going to be above 60 billion dollars so this isn't something
00:02:55 that you're better get used to because we're gonna have to spend our way out of this uh there's a lot
00:03:00 of reasons which we've talked about on previous shows productivity etc but he also came out and
00:03:05 said listen we're going to spend on house affordability so that's one we're going to spend on
00:03:10 capital projects you know these uh major projects list that we came up with and and so these are the
00:03:16 monies we're going to put into it and we're going to reinvest in some key strategic areas in canada
00:03:24 um he didn't in the fall talk as much about kuzma as he does in the update so now in the spring
00:03:31 update he talks a lot about the fracture between the united states and why we have to spend more
00:03:37 where we're going to spend it and he starts to talk more in the update about job retraining and
00:03:43 all those good things which we're going to talk about today but you know mike before i get into
00:03:47 it he does really emphasize and when they wrote the budget which they did a terrific job you know
00:03:53 marketing wise doing it they go through a whole laundry list which we're going to put in in this
00:03:59 podcast of things that the prime minister and the government's done since they got into office and
00:04:04 i just want to go through them quickly i won't dwell on all but it's a beautiful once again a
00:04:08 beautiful timeline it really is achievement right so march 20 uh 2025 the prime minister's sworn in
00:04:16 right away he cancels the capital gains increase so that's right away in march then speech from
00:04:23 the throne he announces details of the gst relief for first-time home buyers then june 9th a kip
00:04:31 commitment of over 9 billion to meet nato's target in 2025 so right away we're going to spend 9
00:04:36 billion he goes to the g7 he has a meeting in the 15th we have on the 16th the launch of the
00:04:46 canada strong pass okay and then on the 19th we have new measures to support the steel industry
00:04:52 So we put some new measures in place.
00:04:55 Then, basically, the passage of the One Canadian Economic Act.
00:05:00 So that passes on the 20th.
00:05:02 The new EU-Canada strategic partnership of the future with the European Union happens on June 23rd.
00:05:11 July 1st, the government delivers a middle-class tax cut.
00:05:15 And then July 16th, new measures to protect and strengthen Canada's steel industry.
00:05:22 yeah so that's up to july then he goes on and he has a laundry list of hiring rcmp going to mexico
00:05:30 and has partnerships a trip to indonesia to form an agreement with the partnership agreement
00:05:37 uh 25 billion to support workers and business impacted by u.s tariffs so all told so by the
00:05:44 time we get you know to christmas we're about a hundred billion in expenditures okay that was my
00:05:50 so we're spending money like like we're not fooling around we're committing money all over
00:05:56 then out coming out of christmas we have the canada groceries and essentials benefit
00:06:00 uh we have the launch of a 6.9 billion automotive strategy we have a launch of a six billion dollar
00:06:09 trade infrastructure strategy uh we have an agreement on environmental assessments
00:06:15 we have uh force of nature canada strategy to protect nature like there's a lot going on here
00:06:23 in a short period of time so he's had a busy year and then finally uh the 51 billion dollar
00:06:31 build community strong fund which we're going to talk about in here right so by the time we get to
00:06:37 march we're surpassing 114 billion in one year so you know 2025 to 2026 basically committed 100
00:06:47 billion 114 billion dollars out the door he has been really doling it out he's yeah doling it out
00:06:57 but here's the challenge right and here's uh this is a very interesting part right of what we're
00:07:03 seeing in the u.s and we're seeing in canada because this is kind of the thing that's coming
00:07:06 back a little bit on the u.s side because remember remember the president of the united states
00:07:12 remember he was sitting there signing all these orders executive order executive order executive
00:07:18 order the problem is there's a lag time of course everything has to get put into practice it has to
00:07:26 be i can policy created yeah i commit money to all these projects whether they're you know hiring a
00:07:33 thousand rcmp well these guys got to be hired so you have to get that done which is a huge task
00:07:39 then they have to be trained then they have to be outfitted before they even get deployed
00:07:44 there's a huge economic economic stimulus that has to go into place to get them into field yeah into
00:07:51 the field so and now talk about building something when you have these major projects you can go put
00:07:56 you know 50 million into a mind a mine but then quite frankly it'll take another year before
00:08:04 people even get the equipment get the equipment to the place get to the mine oh engineering is
00:08:09 usually at least a couple of years to understand what can be built there structurally exactly
00:08:15 now we we have this unemployment lag where we're seeing unemployment numbers bouncing around you
00:08:22 know all these uh you know they want to create new jobs but you're not seeing the correlation between
00:08:28 the spend and the jobs right now you're seeing a mismatch right you're seeing a very narrow focus
00:08:33 of spending but you're not seeing a huge impact right now now hopefully that'll catch up but right
00:08:40 now we don't see it at the moment it's all been committed but we have to wait for it all to
00:08:44 actually begin to happen exactly that's the problem paul's you get these commitments in place
00:08:51 and they extend beyond the term of the government to put them there in the first place
00:08:55 we spend all this money moving it along the next government comes in maybe it's a converse
00:09:01 government and they put a halt on it or whatever the case and we lose another we have another ev
00:09:08 disaster on our hands well pipelines right right you know look at the excel keystone pipeline saga
00:09:13 right we went through that for years now it's back on the table you know trump is now saying
00:09:18 the pipeline to wyoming they want to get going again we're kind of wavering a little we haven't
00:09:24 really said where we sit on it right now we're waiting for the kuzma negotiations to happen
00:09:30 but yeah that's a that's a case in point where government changes a whole program dies you know
00:09:36 acres and acres and miles and miles of pipeline sitting there shelled yeah yeah uh okay let's have
00:09:43 a quick look if you don't mind now he we got his report card right which he presents as uh
00:09:49 his self-evaluation is is admirable we know what he spent it's pretty significant so far
00:09:55 yeah but then the next thing he does in this budget really this update is compare us to the
00:10:00 rest of the world which is an interesting thing actually paul yeah we always do that right so we
00:10:05 always say where do we sit in the g7 which i always find it interesting because the g7 pretty
00:10:10 much for those of you you know the key members france the uk germany italy japan right and
00:10:17 they're pretty much a disaster a hot mess right it's it's very interesting how they've lowered
00:10:23 the g7 bar overall oh yeah well over the years it's it's you know it's a great brand i'm going
00:10:29 to throw this up and actually it's a great slide and it actually shows the net debt uh to gdp and
00:10:37 it's a ratio they do for the g7 and it's when you see it it says canada's net debt to gdp is
00:10:43 only 10.2 but then when you look at then when you look at the rest of the g7 look at the g7
00:10:49 it's a hot mess right with germany being coming second to us at 47 percent and then everyone else
00:10:57 is roughly a hundred percent or more so the uk the united states right so really like you know
00:11:04 they overspend you know they're like drunken sailors on the ship they're spending as much as
00:11:09 they can yeah and quite frankly so comparing ourselves this is not a good comparative right
00:11:14 and quite frankly i'd love to actually take some of these graphics and show the our us cohorts and
00:11:20 our uk cohorts and say is this really indicative of what's going on in your country i wonder that
00:11:25 yeah it feels it feels slightly well don't forget it's it's uh contextual yeah it's up against the
00:11:34 g7 yes right so exactly so we're doing better than countries that basically spend a hundred
00:11:40 percent of their gdp on debt and there's a huge divide of course between us and them doing that
00:11:45 but it just shows you that places like the you are really struggling right now right yeah well
00:11:52 we don't even we can't even imagine how unproductive they're but when it comes to
00:11:56 productivity the productivity factors they're more productive than us we're just blessed with the
00:12:02 resources that they don't have so they're countries that have more innovation more technology okay
00:12:09 which is interesting because he's saying now so this is the prime minister is coming out and he's
00:12:14 saying the in the investment flows per capita are now surpassing the u.s
00:12:23 so what should happen now this is interesting and this is in u.s dollars so he's saying
00:12:29 you know i went out i met with a bunch of countries a bunch of countries are starting
00:12:32 to invest in canada the direct investments so we should start to see the productivity increase in
00:12:39 the country now i hope he's right i do too again that's the lag we're starting to see we haven't
00:12:45 seen that now they are they are saying that that's happening and but we did see this remember this is
00:12:51 kind of the i hate to draw the analogy this is a little bit of the the president united states
00:12:56 staying on the podium saying i've signed up uh you know this company to build this plant i've
00:13:01 signed up this person to come here it just doesn't happen overnight right it has takes time so he's
00:13:07 saying that he's locking in this investment in canada and that's going to happen that investment
00:13:13 has to go back to the shareholders of the companies that are managing those investments abroad
00:13:19 the stock market is up and down and all over the place based on the maneuvering in the world right
00:13:25 now that has to be done around a war tariffs and everybody trying to reset what they're doing in
00:13:30 trade uh we're in a position at the moment where even kind of addressing that seems like an
00:13:38 unrealistic thing to do you know what i mean like it's a wish list right yeah it feels like a wish
00:13:44 list because by the time it actually arrives as i say we're several years down the road it feels
00:13:49 yeah it is and it's quite frankly because right after that they they post the slide where basically
00:13:54 where our deficits going forward projected deficits uh you know 67 billion this year 65
00:14:02 62 58 so we see these deficits uh still being around the 60 billion mark so you ask yourself
00:14:11 why are we not seeing the returns sooner that's a great question right that that should be
00:14:17 diminishing i mean and it does but not to a degree that it's a slow boat right it's not
00:14:23 like this budget is conservative in any way he's really uh extrapolating a lot of profitability
00:14:30 and growth in the country to convince him that this budget is worthwhile yes so you expect that
00:14:38 it would be the deficit would be really coming down at some trajectory and it doesn't no no we
00:14:45 anticipate keeping spending at this click for at least five years which you know i know we always
00:14:52 want to say okay we're better than the g7 but we're also a smaller country in some respect in
00:14:59 a lot of those countries so quite frankly why are we spending at such a high click and we we have to
00:15:04 get that down faster we have to get our productivity up as we always talk about does productivity answer
00:15:09 that is that the solution oh yeah 100 yeah yeah well the cat you know what's what's keeping our
00:15:16 productivity down uh technology capital investment skilled workers all the things we don't have right
00:15:22 now we have to get those in place and we got to get producing things rather than selling raw
00:15:27 materials which we're going to talk about later on the show but we can't just go getting companies
00:15:32 to come in and buy all our natural resources it just won't work we're going to be shelled as a 1.00
00:15:37 country yeah we'll have jobs we'll have jobs but from companies that are owned by foreign workers 1.00
00:15:42 which you know on the bill we did last week where we talked about the wealth fund yeah it really is
00:15:49 a key issue for canada right now the wealth fund's a great idea if it's managed correctly
00:15:53 it has the right conditions and if we keep co-ownership with foreign companies in our
00:15:59 resources well it's interesting that you say that because we're just our team is researching a new
00:16:03 show upcoming this week about the 407 right and oh yeah you take a look at the billions and i mean
00:16:10 hundreds of billions of dollars of loss that we have taken on that nobody even talks about anymore
00:16:16 just on that one project so it's you hope that these investments are carefully selected that
00:16:23 they're actually the red tape is being pulled out of the way so that our resources can be
00:16:27 used utilized properly so that we can actually get to producing stuff like you say handing off
00:16:34 raw materials to the world is bargain basement yeah it is and and quite frankly the interesting
00:16:40 part of that show which i won't uh say too much about today but you know the announcement that
00:16:46 they're looking at selling airports oh my goodness you gotta be kidding me like you're really thinking
00:16:52 about that yeah like after the disaster of selling public assets and like i mean we not learned any
00:16:59 lesson and and not to mention but the the last guys that bought the 407 frankly owned a lot of
00:17:05 airports and they kind of knew what they were doing and uh they took advantage of us in that
00:17:10 that deal as well they did uh okay so let's take a look now we've compared ourselves to the rest of
00:17:15 the world uh anything we missed uh on on how braggadocious we became at that moment no no well
00:17:23 you know one of the things that came up which i thought was interesting he wants to work with the
00:17:27 crtc to actually lower mobile uh foam plants so that that was one thing that kind of popped out
00:17:34 we did talk about it in the uh fall budget but now in the spring we're actually starting to do
00:17:39 some comparisons which you know we all know we pay too much for cell service right way too much
00:17:44 and we took a look at you know plans in the us right now so for 100 gigabytes they're around 32
00:17:50 a month okay yeah um we are we're trying to attain 75 to 85 a month i was going to say i
00:17:59 think i'm in and around 100 a month for my cell phone everything in yeah we're that's crazy for
00:18:05 a family we're like 300 for three so about 100 bucks a person which is which is crazy but uh
00:18:12 but they're you know they're trying but they're they're still trying to get to roughly two and
00:18:17 and a half times what americans pay for cell service so that's what i hear oh john tory's
00:18:22 laughing i can hear him all the way downtown i don't know that they'll reign in the cell
00:18:27 the mobile companies uh and don't forget that's a hard deal to make because they have a huge amount
00:18:33 of infrastructure built in to our country yes we rely on we and we did this to ourselves in many
00:18:40 ways we rely on the crtc's ability to only license two major players that are able to
00:18:48 um you know absorb all them everything smaller than them within a few minutes uh and and even
00:18:56 re-categorize you know there are cell plans you can get for 32 a month in canada but you you i
00:19:02 don't even know if you can call across canada with them well the funny thing is we love we love our
00:19:06 monopolies and oligopolies but we now on top of that uh which is kind of totally converse to the
00:19:13 thinking we want to sell our public assets i find it a little bizarre i've always have you know as
00:19:19 a canadian i've always thought why do we why do we think this way but we seem to that's that's
00:19:24 something we seem to enjoy okay i don't mean to drag you through this so let me let me uh get to
00:19:29 the next part which is basically the new programs the the build canada strong fund uh and the
00:19:34 adjacent things take me through some of the some of the key points there if you don't mind paul
00:19:39 because i think this is where some of the this is sort of the new meat on the bone yeah yeah a little
00:19:45 bit of is it well of course we talked about the wealth fund right so the wealth funds the the big
00:19:50 one in there um and really you know we're trying to put 25 billion into a wealth fund we're trying
00:19:58 to set up the parameters of the fund and we're trying to get canadians to start to match some
00:20:05 of that investment and get some international spending into it how will by the way i wanted
00:20:09 to ask you this paul how do we get canadians to participate in this will there be a way that we
00:20:15 can add this to our own portfolios yeah it'll just become a publicly traded option that we promote
00:20:23 to canadians to support our own country yeah it'll be like an index fund that you actually go into it
00:20:28 throws a return of seven to ten percent it's probably a good thing for most canadians yeah
00:20:33 you know they'll understand it hopefully canadians will take a more bigger interest in the projects
00:20:38 that are in canada the major projects and hopefully we as we get more money into it we reinvest in
00:20:43 those projects which which all good ideas it's how we orchestrate it and the conditions we put upon
00:20:50 it okay yeah so now the interesting part now that we look at so the major this and this is my concern
00:20:57 so just on the some of the new spring announcements yeah they talk a lot about you know getting a
00:21:02 hundred thousand people skilled workers trained up and a significant outlay like really significant
00:21:10 they they talk about billions of dollars for training and everything else but you know it's
00:21:15 interesting mike because it just came from a shower earlier on where we have 2.3 billion 2.3
00:21:22 million new canadians or new immigrants in the country who've went to school here wondering
00:21:28 what's next for them whether they're going home or what's happening it looks like they're going home
00:21:34 quite frankly there's no real plan to keep them here train them do anything with them so on one
00:21:39 hand this is kind of where we never get our story straight or we never get a plan together we have
00:21:46 2.3 million people who've come here paid money to let's call them educational institutions for the
00:21:53 most part i don't know what they are but they've come here they've paid the money they've worked
00:21:58 here oh some of those things that they signed up for were so sketchy to start with yeah you know
00:22:03 so now we come out with this and we say we're going to put all this money billions of dollars
00:22:08 to retrain people are we trying to attach these people to that training and what type of training
00:22:15 you know we don't really ever think this through so my worry is you know in this spring budget
00:22:19 we're saying okay which i understand why he's doing it i understand why the prime minister is
00:22:23 looking at as a key element because he's got all these major projects he wants to build a bunch of
00:22:28 things he's got to get going he doesn't have the skilled workers to do it you know we try to
00:22:35 to actually throw affordable housing up there
00:22:37 like we did in the fall budget.
00:22:39 Affordable housing has a lot of warts and he knows it.
00:22:42 He knows that potentially building more affordable housing
00:22:46 will even sink rental rates even lower
00:22:49 because now you're having the government compete
00:22:51 against the private sector for rental properties,
00:22:54 which is a very precarious situation.
00:22:56 I think they're kind of dabbling in it.
00:22:58 They're looking at it, they're saying,
00:22:59 oh wow, how do I kind of figure this out?
00:23:02 So no, I got to get these other projects working. 1.00
00:23:04 So I'm going to try to get skilled workers because because of the baby boomers and the 1.00
00:23:09 skilled workers in Canada right now, they're all aging. 1.00
00:23:12 I need to actually put some more money there.
00:23:14 So they put some more money there, but do they have the bodies to do it?
00:23:17 And so they have apprenticeship programs.
00:23:19 They have education programs.
00:23:21 They have all these programs.
00:23:24 But traditionally, the sad thing in Canada, most of our training programs become boondoggles
00:23:30 for the provinces, right?
00:23:33 the provinces don't necessarily make great choices no they use it they use it for election favors
00:23:40 for the most part let's call it what it is it's a boondoggle for the most part so any
00:23:44 in canada traditionally training monies has been used for kind of boondoggle money it's gone out
00:23:49 the door and so maybe the reason i you know did the immigration show earlier maybe that's just
00:23:55 going to happen again and they don't really foresee anything happening with this training money
00:23:59 so therefore they're not attaching it to the the uh new immigrants that are waiting around
00:24:05 to see what happens i'm very curious that they haven't attached it it's a bit nebulous as well
00:24:10 like that they haven't attached it is one thing but that it's fairly nebulous in what they're
00:24:16 going to do with that money and how it's going to be distributed yeah which it always is right so
00:24:20 then then these programs show up across the country where you know certain groups get the
00:24:26 money and you know their centers show up and a bunch of guys show up in the morning and they get
00:24:31 you know uh they get a hard hat a pair of work boots and a lunch pail and a hammer and then they
00:24:36 say goodbye to them and then they go pick up their money so it never helps because quite frankly you
00:24:41 don't get skilled trades and therefore you don't move forward the other thing is when when we're
00:24:45 talking about trades i'm sorry to keep stopping you along the way but it it hearkens on other
00:24:51 shows that we by the way subscribe to the network because a lot of the stuff we're talking about
00:24:55 is attached connected directly to other shows we've done and this is one that comes to mind
00:25:02 when it comes to housing and retraining one comes before the other i think i think you need people
00:25:08 working before housing starts to take care of itself we seem to want the government to step in
00:25:15 and take care of our inability to buy a home when what we really need to do is get productive and
00:25:21 get back to work doing things that are higher paying jobs more stable careers and i think i
00:25:28 hope that that's the mission overall i don't know free training does it because you point out the
00:25:34 fact that it often gets uh misspent uh it's it's money into the wind it's a it's a small stimulus
00:25:42 that usually goes to a very few individuals yeah people yeah a small group of people and that's
00:25:48 traditionally what happens in Canada we all know it there's no but I think it's a misnomer to say
00:25:51 no point in trying to hide it anymore we know what happens to the money right so and it's it's
00:25:57 unfortunate but it's happened for decades and you know people just I think they've got tired of it
00:26:02 so they just kind of turn a blind eye for the most part I think it does happen I mean until it gets
00:26:09 so ballooned out of control that we then ask ourselves how did we let this happen yeah you
00:26:15 You know, then it's, you know, on the floor of some provincial house for a couple of days.
00:26:21 Then it just vanishes.
00:26:22 Then it vanishes and we do another program the next year.
00:26:25 But, you know, Mike, it's very interesting because the idea, the concept is solid.
00:26:31 So I understand the concept.
00:26:33 The concept is that we have all these projects and we have them all across the nation now to build the infrastructure to do the projects.
00:26:42 And I think that's where the, again, the missing link in this budget, which I said was the same missing link in the fall budget, is they need to connect them now.
00:26:50 So if I have a capital project, a mine, a plant or whatever in another city, and I don't have the infrastructure to locate the people, I first have to move the trades and the companies that construct into those areas, incentivize them, get them to build so people can go live there and survive and enjoy and have a family and the schools and everything else.
00:27:11 in grocery stores and then quite frankly i can move the people into those areas and they can
00:27:16 start to flourish by building the properties similar they can create new small towns listen
00:27:22 we did it mining towns we we particularly did it in the 30s 40s and 50s we were good at it yeah at
00:27:27 one point we were good at going in the north and building towns and uh infrastructure my own family
00:27:32 relocated to timmins it was a mining town there you know there was another fan uh uh part of my
00:27:39 my cousins and and my aunt and uncle were military so they followed that route you know yeah well
00:27:44 let's talk about military right a huge part of uh what's coming up quite frankly and sectors that
00:27:50 we're spending over 25 billion on the first one is defense it's 7.7 billion we're spending it right
00:27:57 now and that's you can see it right we're we're starting to fix up bases we're actually you know
00:28:03 buying planes equipment everything every week we're seeing another announcement on defense
00:28:08 spending it's true which is something we're doing but again people and marrying those people
00:28:13 to the project to the to the expenditures is the challenge right now and that's the disconnect
00:28:20 that's where we need to get better at it right yeah it does feel that way yeah uh on the major
00:28:26 projects uh you know okay so you've got defense uh in the industry overall uh the strategy there
00:28:34 is basically to support uh tariff laden industries by the looks of things things like steel
00:28:39 uh farming uh automotive automotive yeah all of those sectors well you know we're spending out
00:28:47 of that 25 billion that's going out right now is 6.9 of us on automotive which again i'd like you
00:28:54 know to sit down and under fully understand which it's not in this budgets it's you know they talk
00:28:59 a little bit about it but they don't talk about what's going to happen to automotive i think we're
00:29:03 we're waiting for kuzma so we've allocated some money we have a relief fund going to the automotive
00:29:09 workers we have uh and the employers to say hold on to these people till we figure out what we're
00:29:15 doing in the summer so there's kind of a uh like a hold fee being paid right now it's kind of what
00:29:21 it feels like it is it's like construction when you're trying to keep that construction manager
00:29:24 and you say to him go home for three weeks you know here's a whole fee so just stay at home wait
00:29:29 for my project to start so they're they're kind of doing that with automotive you can see it circling
00:29:33 and they're talking more about electric vehicles they're talking about what's going to happen
00:29:37 but it really is the missing link if they're going to try to rebirth auto uh in the country
00:29:43 i don't know if it's sustainable with only a couple million cars sold a year maybe it is maybe
00:29:48 it isn't but somebody pointed out and i saw this in the globe the other day that our automotive
00:29:53 might become more like mexico in the sense that we might be parts manufacturers we might be
00:29:59 component manufacturers maybe the battery element of it but you're right there's no real there hasn't
00:30:06 been and even from the auto industry there hasn't been really any talk of what the strategy is
00:30:13 and i guess kuzma is the hold it is the hold so that that whole group of people that
00:30:18 the committee that they put into place with you know dominant leblanc and the group that's
00:30:24 continually going to the u.s not making a lot of headway right now you know they're going to come
00:30:29 back and tell us at some point if that is even going to happen but you know just keeping in mind
00:30:34 that the u.s is i think they're got their mindset that automotive is going back and the more you
00:30:40 know i listen to stuff in the u.s the more they're talking about the rebirth of the auto town and the
00:30:45 auto sector you know and for those of you you most canadians know how auto parts is essential
00:30:52 to ontario right now but those you know magna inter magna plants and everything going with that
00:30:58 group you know where they're going how they're going to survive what they're going to end up
00:31:03 making you know i'm sure they're waiting to through the summer to see and once again kuzma
00:31:07 must be the link on that because of course mexico is the other hub you know we develop it here we
00:31:13 get it manufactured there we yeah do parts assembly here but you know will we get back to
00:31:20 building entire cars or how will that look it would be i'd be very curious to see what the plan
00:31:25 is yeah once again i don't think we'll hear anything until kuzma no so that's sitting you
00:31:29 know uh basically our critical mineral strategy um that's another one we're going to talk about
00:31:36 that in a minute really hasn't been well defined we outlined the projects we outlined some of the
00:31:41 things we're putting money into um but we've we've allocated five billion dollars for critical
00:31:48 minerals now what's going to happen with that where it's going to be spent when it's going to
00:31:53 get live that's another thing that that we're waiting to see uh and of course uh clean energy
00:32:00 was one of the topics that came up here yeah okay do i talk energy or clean energy that's kind of
00:32:09 my question i mean yeah we really right now are being propped up as we will we'll talk about on
00:32:15 this budget yeah by oil prices at the moment um oh yeah he caught a break well not a break he you
00:32:21 know the the world sort of uh sent this budget a little bit of a break in an unfortunate way
00:32:28 when uh the war in the middle east kicked in then quite frankly you know everyone knows they're
00:32:33 paying at the pump oil skyrocketed which then meant the fees and they come to canadians uh
00:32:39 through the distribution of oil um that just blew up right to the point where it's actually
00:32:47 uh cut our budget shortfall by about 17 billion dollars so the question arises in my mind can we
00:32:55 as canadians have that money please because it's cost us so much for gas couldn't you
00:32:59 you doesn't isn't there like a media correlation that you could make instead of claiming that your
00:33:04 budget is going to be less in deficit this is an emergency for Canadians and he's using that money
00:33:10 to offset a deficit at a time where this really could make a difference at the gas pumps for
00:33:15 Canadians and for business overall in Canada yeah no it is it is true so you know the interesting
00:33:22 part is we ended up, we ended up, uh, having a deficit of $67 billion. So, but that is primarily
00:33:30 because we had $17 billion of, you know, revenue come in from oil. So 84 billion. So our deficit
00:33:39 was really 84 billion. And then we got 17 billion. We had budgeted for 78 billion. Right. So we
00:33:48 really are six billion over over right i know we want to make the you know we hey we did better
00:33:54 than we thought and no no we don't want to do that paul why are they doing that that's not that's not
00:34:00 ideal the the joy of numbers sometimes right they can they can show one thing but the reality is
00:34:05 you know the oil and gas prices have uh come back now we have taken some of that saving so
00:34:13 So, you know, he, the prime minister and liberal government have tried to take some of those savings and put them into programs to help Canadians of lower income.
00:34:22 Right. Even all Canadians with reducing the taxes on gasoline at the pump and some of the food programs that you're getting, food rebates, GST rebates.
00:34:32 So those have actually come back to Canadians. The problem is you add all these other programs, whether it be the the the wealth fund, whether they be jobs training.
00:34:42 all the things we're spending in addition that we didn't budget in the fall are actually coming
00:34:47 to roost now and actually driving that number higher. So we've exceeded the deficit that we
00:34:52 originally have. And then we deducted the $17 billion off for what we got in oil revenue.
00:35:00 And voila, we have a $67 billion deficit. I've seen this kind of math before.
00:35:05 Yes. Okay. Let's take a second and drill down,
00:35:08 no pun intended, on some of the major projects that were outlined for us in the plan by the
00:35:14 Prime Minister. Where do we stand with those now? Still going on, right? And we've committed
00:35:19 six transformative strategies, 15 projects, 60,000 jobs is what they're calling for.
00:35:29 Again, these don't happen overnight. And it's an expenditure for Canadians of about $125 billion.
00:35:36 So, you know, this is an LNG. It's for the Nickel and Crawford project that's happening up in Timmins. It's for the Darlington nuclear plant in Bowmanville. It's for the mines in Quebec and Alberta and the Tolstin hydro expansion and Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories.
00:35:59 so you know these are 15 strategies they also still have slated the alto alto high-speed rail
00:36:06 yeah i noticed that i'm still on the list and you know the corridor for conservation um which is in
00:36:14 the northwest uh british columbia and the yukon so these are all things uh in churchill plus which
00:36:22 is in manitoba so a lot of projects still slated um slow progress so but they're on the books they're
00:36:29 they're referred to um and the major projects office that have been set up are managing them
00:36:34 now you know on the critical minerals front there's an investment that's going on now it's
00:36:40 not as substantial as you'd think so you know canadians always think oh we're into critical
00:36:45 minerals we are making as a as a country we are making an investment in critical minerals but
00:36:52 you know graphite mines in quebec quite frankly we're loaning 46 462 million in debt servicing
00:37:00 to finance we have 149 equity financing in it for the nouveau mon graphite so that's happening the
00:37:08 rio tinto um project that's happening in quebec we we're making a 25 million uh investment in as a
00:37:17 country titanium or lithium uh in alberta that's a project we've talked about on a previous show
00:37:25 with stan it's a good it's a good project it has a lot of challenges because it's new technology
00:37:33 these are all loan mechanisms paul they're loans there's some equity there is a high component of
00:37:38 equity but it's not a you know i thought it would be a higher amount and i'm always kind of um
00:37:43 surprised how how and uh you know we talked about how our critical minerals are lifeline for a
00:37:51 country you know i think we need to reassess whether we're making enough of an investment
00:37:57 and what we're going to do with them so you know it's one thing to say you have critical minerals
00:38:03 it's another thing to say where you're going to how you're going to process them where you're
00:38:08 going to sell them what products are they going to go into right and how they're going to make
00:38:12 you a powerhouse again you know i i don't mean well you would hope that these various arrangements
00:38:17 have been made around the world by carney at the moment position us well with those resources you
00:38:23 hope but you know once again we don't see that yet well and on previous shows we've talked about it
00:38:28 mike a lot of these resources and these critical minerals countries have already left ahead of us
00:38:33 so we're still telling it out there for example they are you know and we talked about it on
00:38:37 previous shows how you know china australia you know whether it be lithium or it'd be graphite
00:38:43 you know all these materials are are already being mined in other countries in a substantial
00:38:50 way right so we've got to do startup if you look at it from a business standpoint you get into
00:38:55 startup mode spend a lot of money enter the market late so you have to enter the market at a lower
00:39:01 price generally speaking there's no other way to win yes and then start to build your way back
00:39:07 and become, you know, existent in that industry,
00:39:11 not even just a winner, just existent, ongoing,
00:39:15 is a huge front load of debt and investment.
00:39:19 It is, and quite frankly, you need to create it.
00:39:22 We've talked about this before,
00:39:23 but you need to create it as almost its separate project
00:39:27 and almost set up a command post to make it happen
00:39:32 because the urgency is critical.
00:39:36 It's not only critical minerals, but it's critical that we get going on this because, quite frankly, the world is starting to pass us by because we're moving at a too slow a pace on this.
00:39:46 And when I look at the investment we're making, my one recommendation coming out of the budget is we put more money into this.
00:39:52 We put more money into the mining sector for the critical minerals that build Canada today.
00:39:57 So what are the things we need to use at home, whether it be in defense, whether it be in housing, whether it be in electronics, manufacturing?
00:40:04 what are the critical minerals we need to get place in place today for our country and then
00:40:09 what can we sell abroad directly what contracts can we get in the short term and you know that's
00:40:14 the challenge because as we're doing it you got to imagine there's a bunch of other countries doing
00:40:18 it and you know not to totally unrelated but before this we did a show on immigration it's
00:40:24 a great show but it was a scary show because as we're creating an immigration policy the eu is
00:40:31 already ahead of us and they've already got an immigration policy that they've deployed for the
00:40:35 people that are kind of abandoned in their country so they're already rolling out there's we're just
00:40:41 starting to figure out what to do so again as canadians we got to be moving at that pace
00:40:46 uh an interesting way to position this budget is to take a look at it from that perspective that
00:40:53 the rest of the world is also rebudgeting realigning certainly everybody in the g7
00:40:58 is doing a realignment of how they spend and what they spend
00:41:02 and how they're going to fortify.
00:41:04 So you hope that our plans lock like Lego
00:41:07 with some of these alliances that we've made out there
00:41:10 and that, by the way, Kuzma comes up and doesn't throw a wrench,
00:41:15 no pun intended, in the mix.
00:41:17 Oh, yeah, for sure.
00:41:17 And change some of these plans.
00:41:20 The next thing on the list for me was
00:41:22 the section talking about benefiting Canadians.
00:41:25 what does this section do that is significant really well there's a bunch of stuff mike and
00:41:32 i pulled it out because there's a there's a laundry list of uh i call them small changes
00:41:36 but they're you know they're big in everyday life for people so uh basically middle class tax cuts
00:41:44 for two income families up to 840 this year so we're going to see some tax changes first time
00:41:51 home buyers are saving up to 50 000 um for gst on new homes so we knew that one that one was a
00:41:58 that one was an adopted conservative member an adopted conservative program the removal of well
00:42:04 we keep saying this uh consumer carbon price uh driving gas prices down almost 18 cents that was
00:42:11 one he did right when he got in office i mentioned earlier yeah and that was you know basically that
00:42:16 was a conservative policy that he conceded to but you know they still complained that he didn't take
00:42:21 it out the carbon tax off industrial um basically uh reducing uh gas station uh gas tax yeah so
00:42:30 dropping 10 cents a liter can you imagine now if you hadn't done that what we'd be paying we'd be
00:42:35 well over two dollars a liter yeah that's crazy when you think about it and we could still get
00:42:39 there imagine that so it would be closer to 210 215 a liter by the time yeah yeah 12 million people
00:42:45 are going to receive hundreds of dollars uh from the grocery and essential benefit plan
00:42:51 so they're they're like like usual we're going to get well some of us are going to get a check in
00:42:57 the mail 38 or 40. i think it's going to be several hundred dollars so it's going to be a little bit
00:43:03 but you know that's kind of a stop gap for what we're seeing so if you think about it we're going
00:43:08 to take in 17 billion dollars you know from what we earned from having paying higher gas and then
00:43:15 then we're going to redistribute some of that back to lower income families no no paul but that
00:43:19 money is already spent don't you see well it was not a saving no it wasn't saving um you know we're
00:43:27 gonna we changed some of the uh which i thought was a good thing so banking fees we put caps on
00:43:33 saw that that is a good thing which is good so i think that was something that was getting out
00:43:37 of control many countries uh i think we're following suit many countries have also enacted
00:43:41 that so the g7 yeah nsf funds uh only have a fund uh a charge of ten dollars i think it's capped
00:43:48 uh and 50 more debit transactions at a cost of no more than four dollars per month
00:43:56 right so we capped the the trans so those are some good things um again we talk about skilled
00:44:02 trades programs and automotive federal benefits, uh, basically for about $5.5 million of low
00:44:13 income Canadians. So that's a good thing too. So, you know, we, we brought back the strong,
00:44:19 uh, Canada strong pass for people exploring Canada. So I think that's good to get some tax
00:44:24 benefits. And of course, a much needed tax relief for Canadian brewers and wine distributors.
00:44:30 that was uh that was a good one to read in there as well it was because that has been
00:44:36 there's a struggling group right there oh my goodness yeah the people the industry shrinking
00:44:42 to begin with the the border you know our sale to the u.s so heavily impeded that industry really i
00:44:51 i think was hanging by a thread in many ways and i could be wrong but it sounds like the right
00:44:56 decision their disability became uh in this uh making life more affordable aspect disability
00:45:03 we sped it up made it easier for people to get disability benefits i think all parties were
00:45:08 really happy about that in the budget and i know pierre poly have commended mark carney on doing
00:45:13 that so i think that was both parties thought that that should be decent yeah yeah you know and
00:45:19 can we talk a little just but you know before we finish up one of the key issues that we really
00:45:24 don't talk about enough is the 51 billion we're putting into infrastructure investment so you
00:45:30 know this is the money we're going to stream into into uh our provinces our territories to do roads
00:45:37 bridges so that's the downstream funding to get our infrastructure back and this is a unique
00:45:44 opportunity for us to do that so you know in bad times you know we've been through it in our
00:45:49 lifetime mike you know one of the key things is to get people working by doing these big
00:45:54 infrastructure programs and also take the time to reinvest in some technologies that speed them up
00:46:01 right absolutely highway construction is a great example of that if we have 51 billion my my advice
00:46:08 right now is not only to do this and put the money out there for equipment and people and everything
00:46:13 else let's actually enhance our technologies to do this in the future going forward so that's
00:46:18 fantastic idea it doesn't take a year to build a road it doesn't take you know a year to resurface
00:46:23 a bridge it doesn't take and that's all technology equipment and all those enhancements that we can
00:46:28 get and develop and help have you seen some of the construction advancements that uh come out
00:46:34 of china for example and the the way that the so there i think it's japan that is building roads
00:46:39 that are recycled bottles somehow like uh sorry if it wasn't japan but i i just saw the it is and i
00:46:45 And I thought to myself, wow, they've really come a long way because the durability of these roads, let alone stopping the fill of land.
00:46:54 What an incredible but they invested in the technology, as you point out, to be able to do that.
00:47:00 They did. They did. And I think we now that we're doing this, I think we really have to think through what are we going to do again?
00:47:06 this is to me this is the disconnect and when we do these budgets what roads highways bridges
00:47:14 water sewer are we going to put in and where and why and what does it do to increase our
00:47:18 productivity and what does it get us to what can we get out of that region and how we're doing it
00:47:23 it's one thing to take all your money and throw it into the major cities well the major cities
00:47:27 quite frankly they have manufacturing they have people they have finance and housing but if they're
00:47:34 not increasing our productivity then that's not where the major push should be right right if if
00:47:39 we're trying to do mining or build or uh whatever industry we're trying to retrain people stimulate
00:47:46 that industry take that sector that's where you're saying we should be building this infrastructure
00:47:52 and and you know perfect sense equipping our companies to actually help and grow and diversify
00:47:57 to do that so you know if we identify a company that actually you know is doing uh you know road
00:48:04 uh asphalt or whatever can we get them to actually look at a new technology okay let's put some money
00:48:10 into that company and investigate new technologies from around the world that are faster better more
00:48:16 durable last through our winters don't erode with salt those are all the things that are being tried
00:48:20 and tested in other countries and that's where we need to kind of move forward to get our productivity
00:48:25 higher sounds like solid advice uh i'm sure you took a look at the financial statements i did
00:48:32 anything squirrely in there paul micucci no no you know there's some of course you know we do have
00:48:39 as we talked about you know on our previous shows you know our elderly benefits you know
00:48:45 just to focus on them but we're still going we're growing up past 90 billion dollars a year we have
00:48:52 an aging population i think we all know that you know at some point we're going to have to address
00:48:56 this issue right i don't think that's any surprise to anyone that we're going to have to look at that
00:49:01 and figure out a way how we're going to adjust as time goes on because the the increase every year
00:49:07 is is quite substantial right and so i understand it's a big voting block but quite frankly it makes
00:49:13 up you know out of our direct expenses for the the canada it makes up almost two-thirds of our
00:49:22 direct expenses from a canadian budget perspective not reflecting two-thirds of the population being
00:49:29 of that age of course exactly 25 of our canadians are above the age of 65 right so it's disproportional
00:49:38 and it grows at a substantial amount every year above inflation and above cpi it's funny until
00:49:43 you mention it when we look at the budgets i forget about how serious that is for this country
00:49:47 yeah many other countries right now as well but that boomer that aging population um and we've 0.97
00:49:54 thought about it for years paul like when's how many years ago did you start hearing oh we've got 0.69
00:49:59 an aging population we need to repopulate we need oh yeah i mean it's been years and years now boom
00:50:04 bust an echo remember the book right yeah right yeah yeah so uh anything else in the budget that
00:50:10 uh kind of ei you know ei we continue to budget a significant amount of increase for ei you know
00:50:16 I think we all realize that we are going to see a significant amount of
00:50:20 unemployment coming up. Um, it's kind of hovering. So if he, you know,
00:50:24 it really becomes how fast we can get these projects into play to get this
00:50:28 number down. Um, and then, you know, healthcare transfers, uh,
00:50:32 they're not going up. So we have no, you know,
00:50:35 we've stabilized our healthcare transfers.
00:50:37 We're not doing anything more on the federal level.
00:50:40 I'm a little shocked by that based on the feedback that we get from Canadians
00:50:42 about the healthcare system. Yep. Um,
00:50:45 but okay yeah i mean if if we're not increasing spending i guess that's a good thing i hope that
00:50:53 means that we've also solved the health care problems associated with you know all of these
00:51:00 uh major critical complaints that we've heard over time you know uh hallway care
00:51:06 huge wait times surgery wait times all of this sort of stuff i don't know that that has been
00:51:13 taken care of yet i don't know if money is the solution to that yeah so we have around 60 billion
00:51:18 from the federal government on health care transfers a year that's flattened quite frankly
00:51:23 they don't i don't think anyone anticipates from the provincial i know most provinces have really
00:51:28 said to the the health care sector hey we're done yeah you know it's going down it's got a dip they
00:51:33 can't provincially uh go any further and from a federal perspective they they've capped off so
00:51:40 you know we have an aging population we have a stagnating or flat healthcare expenditure it's
00:51:47 it's one of the bigger issues that's upcoming in canada we don't talk about from a from a revenue
00:51:52 perspective you know just uh they've done a good job of keeping a corporate tax for corporations
00:51:58 and small businesses flat i think they've done a decent job they continue to actually show a
00:52:05 increasing uh personal tax revenue increase oh okay yeah so that continues to grow every year
00:52:12 we see that kind of clicking up clicking up it's interesting because we now have a conundrum where
00:52:17 we have an aging population less people playing paying a higher amount of income tax we have a
00:52:23 bunch of new uh immigrants who are leaving right we're exiting and therefore we think our tax base
00:52:30 is going to go up i don't really understand i've looked at the assumptions around the uh the uh
00:52:37 actuarial assumptions that are based in that number i don't tend to agree with it but that's
00:52:44 the assumption they make in the budget so just to be aware that could be a number that we see
00:52:50 change change throughout the next couple years and hopefully won't go down substantially that's
00:52:55 That's a pretty cool observation actually to make because you're right. This kind of shows where the extrapolation of projection on these numbers can meander a little bit.
00:53:06 Yeah, yeah. If we have 2.3 million people exit the country and we have a bunch of people crossing the finish line that are leaving the workforce, hopefully they stay in Canada and retire in Canada. 0.71
00:53:19 if they decide not to retire in canada we'll lose some of them depending on where they would go
00:53:23 i don't know where they go but uh that's a challenge and we have to always keep that in
00:53:27 mind as we're doing these but so we have some you know as we go as a country we have some definitely
00:53:32 challenges you know housing affordability quite frankly um from this budget i still you know i
00:53:37 mentioned it before i still struggle with some of the uh logic on why we're spending some of that
00:53:43 money i think would be best suited other places um but once you stimulate an economy and people
00:53:49 have money and they have jobs homes begin to sell again yes the market opens up to people
00:53:56 pre-buying homes which i think is the major stagnation right now is nobody's getting in on
00:54:03 pre-sales certainly condo pre-sales are dead uh subdivision pre-sales are at their all-time low
00:54:09 over the last 10 years so delinquencies have actually almost doubled in like three years
00:54:16 so we're seeing more and more you know even you know we just did a show we took a look at
00:54:21 brampton for example being the highest delinquencies in canada right now for for power of
00:54:26 sales yeah a lot of mortgages were written up there that didn't make sense you could feel it
00:54:31 these were yeah monster homes at huge uh huge rates that uh you know selling prices that were
00:54:37 outrageous so yeah not surprised actually to see that but once the economy is stimulated once we
00:54:43 are productive that's how housing becomes accessible to people not through building
00:54:51 i don't know how the government does this except offset okay taxes we'll take the hst off up to 50.
00:54:59 i mean that spreads out into billions of dollars but to the average person it doesn't mean much
00:55:04 if they don't have a decent paying job exactly exactly and i think that is honestly mike the
00:55:10 the the government and the prime minister right now that's the biggest challenge that is to get
00:55:16 his caucus to get his ministers into play to try to figure out what to do to stimulate each of those
00:55:21 areas and actually try to integrate them it'd be interesting right now i know they they love
00:55:26 committees and they love to form things it'd be interesting to try to figure out or to for the
00:55:32 government to sit down and try to figure out how to integrate all these ministries into one
00:55:38 integrated strategy and where to go and um you know we did a show on norway the other day um
00:55:44 and after we did the show i you know i came away and we were talking about the fact how they create
00:55:49 equinor they created a wealth fund and they grew and grew and you know you came away and you thought
00:55:54 wow that is a real strategy of a government talking about the long-term viability of their
00:56:00 country yeah and every party that comes into power stays with this constitutionally so that
00:56:06 forevermore that country can grow and the citizens will not allow them to change it no because the
00:56:11 citizens have seen the benefit of reaping the rewards of the oil in the country we have the
00:56:17 ability it's not too late for canada we can do this it's just getting the integration in place
00:56:22 to make that happen and getting everyone to buy into it there's your spring budget update paul
00:56:28 thanks for uh tearing it apart and by the way in case you wonder uh how big that budget is
00:56:33 this is the working document that 167 pages oh thanks it's a good read yeah well for you thank
00:56:41 you so much for uh making it clear for all of us though don't forget to subscribe tell a friend
00:56:46 about where you saw the video you can share it of course comment and uh if you would like the
00:56:52 notes that paul made for today's show we'd be happy to send those along to you so just reach
00:56:57 out to us visit tplmedia.ca thanks we'll see you next time thanks paul thanks
00:57:03 You