Can Carney make the tough calls？ Some say not...
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Summary
We re 12 days into a 35-day election campaign, and we re already feeling the effects of President Trump's new trade tariffs on Canada. We re joined by Yaroslav Baran and Balkan Devlin to discuss the impact of the tariffs, and whether the polls are correct in the polls.
Transcript
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China's killing our canola, $45 billion gone, Western farmers bleed, Mark Carney, silent,
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made millions off Beijing's dime, he won't fight, he's Beijing's banker, not our prime minister.
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaport, a weekly politics show
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of the Western Standard. It's Thursday, April the 3rd, and we're 12 days into a 35-day election
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campaign. With me today to talk about it are Yaroslav Baran and Balkan Devlin. Yaroslav is
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the co-founder of the Pendulum Group, and in a past life he was communications director to PM
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Stephen Harper. He led party communications through three national election campaigns.
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Balkan Devlin is co-lead at Pendulum's geopolitical advisory practice. Newby on the show,
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welcome to you both. Welcome, Balkan. Glad you're with us. Thanks for having me. Good to be here.
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All right. Look, let's get right to it. We want to talk about two things today,
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tariffs, and whether you can place any faith in the polls we're seeing.
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Yaroslav, yesterday, President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries,
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but Canada was not one of them. On the other hand, there are some tariffs that are in place
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for the benefit of people who've lost the thread
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and nobody can be blamed for losing the thread on this one.
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All right, so where we are right now, and you're right, Nigel,
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there was nothing new announced yesterday vis-à-vis Canada.
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There's a long list of countries at different tariff rates.
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There's already the 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum that had been previously announced.
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There's also the 25% auto tariff that had previously been announced but came into effect today at midnight this morning.
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And finally, there's the 25% tariff, the so-called fentanyl tariffs for non-KUSMA compliant trade.
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So only 38% of Canada-U.S. trade, or at least of Canadian exports going to the states, are designated under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
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So everything outside that 38% is under tariff right now.
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Okay, well, actually, maybe that's not quite as bad as we thought.
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Are we right to be sort of thinking, well, at least we dodged a bullet?
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Look, I would argue that if over 60% of our current exports go into the states are already under 25% tariff, that's already pretty bad.
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I mean, yeah, you can argue that it didn't get any worse yesterday, but it's already a pretty bad situation.
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And we're already starting to see things like this morning in Windsor, Stellantis already announced that they're pausing their auto assembly plant that employs 3,600 people.
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I mean, mind you, they're also pausing, they're also laying off some 900 workers in American plants that supply the Windsor plant for automobiles to be assembled there.
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So it's having an immediate impact on real people.
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All right. Now, I want to turn to you, Balkan, and just ask you about the significance of the phone call that President Trump had with Mark Carney about a week ago now.
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And he issued a statement on Truth Social afterwards where he said that he, Trump, and Carney would sort things out after the election.
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That's a paraphrase, not a direct quote, but there seemed to be a strong expectation upon the president's part that it would be Mr. Carney that he was dealing with.
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Do you make anything of that, or was that just the president being the president, and
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was this a little bit of a kiss of death for Mr. Carney that he seemed to enjoy such confidence
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Well, I think it can be interpreted either way, but I think what it really signifies
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and signals the importance of the personal relationships for Donald Trump.
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I mean, if you remember, he keeps calling Justin Trudeau Governor Trudeau, but then went and called Carney as Prime Minister Carney.
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One of the reasons is, of course, his very well-known dislike of Trudeau.
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So I think one lesson that we need to sort of take out of this, whether it's Carney or Pierre Poliev, that ends up being the prime minister, the importance of having a personal relationship with Donald Trump.
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And we saw this in his first term, for example, under the former Japanese Prime Minister Abe, who developed a very strong personal relationship with Trump and navigate that first term quite successfully.
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So beyond that, I wouldn't necessarily read much into Trump's tweets and social posts.
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Sorry, did you want to comment on that, Yersov?
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Well, hey, I'll just add very briefly, Nigel, that it does reflect a very significant change in tone. Mr. Trump was rather belittling of Trudeau. You could read it in his words and in his body language and in his dismissive attitude towards Mr. Trudeau that he didn't like the guy.
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Here, there appears to have been a reset of the relationship.
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He's no longer being overtly insulting when referring to Mr. Carney.
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Well, that's kind of an interesting comment, actually, because most people who are, you know, obviously the conservatives are attacking Carney.
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But he seems, and maybe this bears on what we're going to be talking about later when we come to the polls and whether they can be taken seriously or not.
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But if President Trump takes Carney seriously, he knows what he's doing.
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He is giving Mr. Carney something of an endorsement by being at least that respectful.
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I mean, I would say Yaroslav can actually comment on the polling side
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how that reflects on people's views on Carney. But I would say that there seems to be a tendency
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within Trump administration, Trump himself, to be more confrontational with center-right and
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conservative leaders that are not necessarily towing the line with Trump. So I'm not surprised
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that he sees Pierre Polyev as a tougher leader to deal with and would rather have someone he can
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go and blame on every other issue, including on social and other issues, instead of having to
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confront with a principled conservative leader that can stand up.
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Paul Jay Interesting, interesting comment. Look, there's been a lot of tough talk from anybody
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looking for votes, whether it was Doug Ford in Ontario at his recent election. And now, of course,
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Mr. Poilier for the Conservatives has taken a very strong line and just this morning had some
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very realistic suggestions about how they might proceed, offering GST freedom if you buy a car
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that's made in Canada, but generally taking a tough line with President Trump. Well, of course,
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Mr. Carney does the same thing. But in the end, is any of the tough talk realistic? Is it possible
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for Canada to be a separate economy from the United States of America?
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trade as geography is not destiny, perhaps, but it is 80% of destiny when it comes to trade.
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And we are located where we are. Our production systems, our whole trade system is oriented
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towards reaching the biggest market than ourselves. So can we aim for an economic
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Autarky, unlikely, at the risk of completely decimating our popularity.
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We have a bunch of free trade agreements with Europe and Indo-Pacific partners.
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It only budges a little bit of the trade we do.
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And Canada has been moved from a nation of traders to a trading nation.
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50% of what we produce and services and other things is sold outside.
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So it is important for us to continue to do that. But we are where we are. And one of the reasons
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why I think we should keep calm and keep on and think carefully about how to respond to this
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changing trade policy and broader foreign policy from Trump is to recognize that reducing 80% of
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our exports to 75% to the United States will make only a dent in how we secure our prosperity.
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well you know i i have friends who aren't economists and uh you know they they say things
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like uh and and actually i think uh to some degree mr polyarthur said the same thing you know this
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kind of canada ought to be the richest country and in the world we got everything we need we got uh
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we got energy we've got raw materials we've got food we've got fisheries you know why it's the old
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argument for autarky. If you've got everything you need, do you need to trade? Obviously,
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it's good if you can. It increases your wealth. But, Yaroslav, how would you answer those people
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who are saying, well, look, if the Americans don't want us, we'll just do our own thing and
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we'll build a separate economy right here in Canada? Yeah, look, we can ease off the United
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States. And look, no matter what happens, no matter how this plays out, we are going to see
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greater trade uh diversification in canada you know even if all of this gets sorted out and we
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manage to you know minimize the tariff thread or or even carve things out it's kind of like being
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bit by a dog you know you don't forget it you could be okay with dogs 10 years later 20 years
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later you know how to handle them but you're never going to forget that bite and that's really what
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happened here it's it's a sense of trust that's been or or betrayal that's going to linger and
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prudence will dictate that any future Canadian government not put all of its trade eggs into a
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single basket. And look, Canada's never, never had an autarkic economy. You know, when this country
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was first founded, it was really a natural resources appendage of the bigger British
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empire economy. And as time went on, we shifted more and more for obvious reasons, geography,
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size of market, and we reoriented towards the United States. But what happened in 1931,
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the last time that we saw major tariffs suddenly imposed by the United States? Well, the Canadian
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government imposed retaliatory or reciprocal tariffs in response to America and dropped tariffs
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back towards that original trading partner, Great Britain. So we've always been connected to some
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larger economy. That's a function of our size and the kind of stuff that we do.
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We've got tons of lumber. We've got tons of wheat. There's all kinds of
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stuff we have in spades, but we don't have everything. We don't have a whole bunch of oranges
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If the Canadian citizenry wants to continue to have access to
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everything that our consumers are accustomed to,
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we are going to have to be a trading country. It's just a question of how we map those relationships.
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Oil for oranges. Is that the deal? Yeah. Okay. Look, changing tack slightly for a moment,
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but coming back to this, I thought Mr. Carney's failure to drop Paul Chang was very revealing
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about his judgment as a party leader. Now, obviously, Mr. Chang withdrew on his own,
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or perhaps after he had been approached by a party operative and said, you know, sir,
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you really need to drop out. However it happened, Chang is gone, but it was not Mr. Carney who
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told him to go. In fact, he stonewalled. He just said the man had served honorably for 25 years
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as a police officer. He continued to enjoy Mr. Carney's confidence, so no more questions.
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I thought that was very revealing about his judgment as a party leader,
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but then it was pointed out to me that it could also be considered revealing about his commitment
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and connections to China. Yaroslav, how say you? Oh, I say this. These kinds of situations are
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a test of leadership. No party leader wants to dump a candidate. It's embarrassing, frankly,
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and you want to try to avoid it whenever you can. But on day one of this controversy,
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Is he gone today or do you think he can make it to tomorrow
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that this is not going to, this can only end one way.
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This guy cannot be a candidate whose name can't be on the ballot by E-Day.
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It's just a question of how long they limp along.
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Mr. Carney had an opportunity to take decisive action to show leadership and to show principle
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and frankly Canadian values by making his decision on day one, I'm the leader, these
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comments do not or these actions do not reflect my values or the value of my party, this guy's
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That shows to me that he is not as seasoned a campaigner as one would ideally like to
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see um on the uh on on the front ticket and uh he also lost three days of of policy roll-up he
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he had a 25 billion dollar housing announcement that barely got any press because the only thing
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the journalists were interested in talking talking to him about was how on earth can you still
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continue to support this candidate look and the conservatives are not immune to this the
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Conservatives have also had to dump a couple of candidates.
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But in contrast, Mr. Paulyov was immediately decisive.
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As soon as something came to light that he thought would be problematic,
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nope, done, boom, you're not a candidate anymore.
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He went to his next rally two hours later, and he was on message,
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We learned today that only weeks before seeking the liberal leadership,
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Mark Carney lobbied Beijing's mayor to deepen cooperation. That's in quotes,
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deepen cooperation, according to official Chinese records. Now, should we be concerned that if
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things stay sour with the United States, Mr. Carney's backup plan is to do more business with
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China? What do you think? That would be a terrible mistake if that's the plan. It's, you know,
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jumping, you know, from frying pan to the fire situation.
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And if we think, and if Carney thinks, you know,
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getting in bed with the Chinese Communist Party is going to be the salvation,
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I think that would be one of the biggest mistakes that Canada can do.
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Unfortunately, you know, given his previous dealings,
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both in his role as a banker and a manager for Brookfield and others. My concern is that
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Carney and liberals would want to try to pivot towards China. And this is basically cutting
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your nose just by your face. So it would be a big mistake. And I would be very much concerned about
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his ability to make tough choices. As Yaroslav pointed out, this was supposed to be a very,
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very easy call um i mean there's nothing uh you know ambiguous about this particular situation
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the the the deadline for candidates are not you know over i'm sure they could easily at that point
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find uh another candidate for that particular writing and he couldn't make that particular call
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um and i'm i'm i'm starting to wonder and being skeptical about when he has to face uh making
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tougher choices when you're in with donald trump will kind of be able to take those tough calls
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but rather than being defensive and try to stonewall the issues as he did.
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Well, let's switch gears now and talk about the polls.
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The polls consistently show the liberals ahead these days.
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And it seems, I'm going to say it seems inexplicable to me
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because Pierre Polyev draws crowds by the thousands
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in New Brunswick, he filled an aircraft hangar with 6,500 people. Last night in Kingston,
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there were 4,000 people there. That's not his estimate. That was the press's estimate. So,
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you know, if even the press is conceding that he's getting big rallies, you can probably
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take that for sure. Mr. Carney's biggest rally, I think, is about 850 people, and it's only
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happened once. Usually, it's a polite little gathering like a book launch in the back of
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Barnes and Nobles, and yet the polls say the Conservatives are about to get creamed,
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like we're talking a majority liberal government. None of this seems to make any sense to me.
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Does it make sense to you? It's a mixed picture, and it's still very early. We're not even through
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the first full two weeks of the campaign, and things have changed quickly and dramatically
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already that means the situation is volatile and is still changing and can still change
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part of it was the departure of of uh of mr trudeau he personally had become deeply unpopular and was
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an anchor pulling down the liberal brand so his departure already has had a bit of a rebound effect
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for the liberals and they're back to kind of you know arguably more normal territory for you know
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for a major you know pretty dominant party in canada that's part of it but another part of
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it is trump the instability the uncertainty by uh from the white house that's caused a whole
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lot of personal economic anxiety across this country and you'll remember nigel during the
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pandemic we saw a phenomenon in canada and internationally where incumbent governments
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were getting re-elected because there's an external threat you can't do anything about it
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yourself so you kind of hunker down batten the hatches and you're looking for comfort you're
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looking for familiarity wherever you can find it so um incumbents tend to get favored when there's
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an external threat it's kind of like putting on your cozy sweater your old running shoes that
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maybe you shouldn't run in anymore but they're still very comfortable when they're on your feet
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after the pandemic we saw the opposite we saw governments incumbent governments getting thrown
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out that was you know inflation and supply chain problems and whatever so it seems that trump is
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having this same kind of external threat batting the hatches kind of impact on the canadian uh
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electorate they're looking for comfort they're looking for familiarity rather than taking any
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more new gambles with and look let's face it it's always a gamble when you're throwing one set of
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bums out and uh and electing a new government is that going to last i don't know in and i would
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I would say it's probably still going to be a pretty volatile situation.
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Crowds at rallies are always a big, big indicator of the public mood.
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And also the polling, all the pollsters are still saying that when they test not just
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the top numbers, but the underlying factors, things like cost of living and economic uncertainty
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and availability of housing are still very much present in people's minds.
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Yeah, number one on their mind might be Donald Trump and is my auto plant going to be shutting down next week, but inflation and cost of living and no longer being optimistic about the future of your country is still there right under the surface.
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The liberals leapfrog forward largely because the NDP collapsed and all went to him.
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So the messaging that Mr. Paulyev used to become very popular and vault forward two years ago is still working for him.
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So what we've got is the population that is prepared to vote for Mr. Carney, but doesn't care to go to listen to him, which doesn't seem like a very strong, I would say he's not having that great a campaign.
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This is why this issue of the strong polling does concern me.
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If there's not a lot of excitement, as you've noted, there isn't.
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So that's probably what's going on right now with liberal numbers.
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The National Post had an entertaining opinion on this.
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They said that when the NDP collapsed, the vote moved over to the liberals.
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But he said that the NDP were strongly favored by young women.
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And apparently young women don't like Pierre Polyev.
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I see a lot of young women who do, but we're talking about a polling company that's equipped
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to research this thoroughly. How much do you trust those polls? And do you think that the
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female vote is an issue for Mr. Poliar? I think, broadly speaking, this really checks well with
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how both the demographic, generational, and the voting between men and women seems to be diverging
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So it tracks with the rest of it, with men,
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particularly young men, moving towards more conservative positions
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and parties versus young women tend to move towards more left-wing parties.
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But I think even the bigger divide here is generational.
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If you look at the polling numbers, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
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but the real divide is between those who are over 55 versus those who are not. Those who are over
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55, their primary concern is the fear of Donald Trump. Those who are under 55 are concerned about
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housing, the affordability, the ability to have a family, and all that. So there is this particular
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divide, and it will probably come down to whether the young people who, in general, are less likely
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to go and vote compared to more older voters, will this time come out for a change and vote
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for it, or whether the older voters, voters over 55, who tend to, in this stage, seem
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to be motivated by fear, would come out and vote to what they see as a safe pair of hands.
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So we're almost out of time, Yaroslav, but what would you say to this?
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Do you think that's the way the girls are seeing it?
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It's like, oh, your dad, you may not like him, you know, you may not like everything about him,
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but, you know, at least you feel that he's got your back.
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But to Balkin's point, there used to be a phenomenon in Canada that young people tended notch about,
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Young people are voting now and they're planning to vote now
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It's the baby boomers who could actually afford not to vote
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if they're lazy that day or they don't feel like it
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because it might impact their RSB, it might impact their investments,
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It's young people who are freaking out at the idea
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how are we going to settle down? So young people are voting, and they're the ones
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most tapping into the kind of messages that Mr. Pauly was talking about.
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Well, gentlemen, this has been great. I want to thank you both. But before I do that,
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just a quick word from our sponsors. This episode of Hannaford was sponsored by New World Precious
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Check them out at newworldpm.com. Yaroslav Balkin, this has been a most entertaining discussion.
00:26:59.980
I would like to have you back again before the election is over, but for now,
00:27:04.200
Well, thank you again for joining us and for the insights you've offered.
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