HANNAFORD: Carney talks big in Davos, delivers little at home
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Summary
David Knight-Legg, a former speechwriter for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, joins me to talk about his Davos keynote, and why he thinks Canada should be leading a multipolar world, not a rule-based one.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
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of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, January the 29th. Just over a week ago, Prime Minister
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Mark Carney delivered a widely acclaimed keynote speech at Davos, Switzerland, to the World Economic
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Forum, and he declared the Old World Order dead and committed Canada to be leading a new one.
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Technically, as a speechwriter from the old days for a Canadian Prime Minister, I must say that his
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remarks were well prepared and delivered. But is his analysis correct? And is the strategy that he's
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proposing for Canada capable of restoring the country's status in the world. Joining us now
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is David Knight-Legg, a strategic advisor to the Alberta government, energy, and financial services
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firms. And he is no stranger to the Western Standard. Good to have you back, David.
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Great to be here. Great to see you again, Nigel.
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And likewise, David, like everybody else who listened to Mr. Carney's speech at Davos,
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I was impressed with the remarks as a piece of prose. Aristotle applauds from the grave,
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and perhaps Thucydides too. And yet I had that feeling there's something off here that I'm missing.
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I'm being conned. And as I thought about it, it occurred to me that Mr. Carney is lamenting
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something that is the international rules-based order that never really was. He even says so in a kind
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way later. So when he remarks that we knew the story of the international rules-based order was
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partially false, so his basic takeaway was that Trump, we didn't actually name, had ended this
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apocryphal international rules-based order. And the new reality was a multipolar world in which the
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big powers did what they wanted. To me, that sounds very much like the world before the Second World War.
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So first question, isn't Mr. Carney's multipolar world actually just business as usual?
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Yeah, of course it is. Yeah. I think the appeal of his speech took two or three different
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vectors. And I think, you know, it was appealing. The thing that's surprising about the speech is it
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was a speech that would be given by a well-informed spectator. It was a speech of a political science
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professor, a law professor. In an odd way, it wasn't a speech that struck me as being given by
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a world leader. And in some ways, I think people find that refreshing. It was long on description.
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You've noted it quoted Aristotle Thucydides, hero of mine, Vaslav Havel. I think deeply misquoted
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Vaslav Havel. But as a piece of art, it was compelling because it described very effectively
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the state of the world to some extent. I think what is odd for a world leader like Mark Carney
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is that it did not draw any clear prescriptions, courses of action, and to the extent that it would
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have his actual actions over the last nine months have been completely contrary to the theory of
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the speech. And that's what's deeply problematic about it. The speech is excellent, but it's almost
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like listening to somebody that's a good cover band. You can recognize the song. You like it. But it's not
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the person who wrote it. It's not what was intended by the person who wrote it. And it's being delivered
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by somebody who in many ways represents, to my mind, the opposite of Vaslav Havel. Mark Carney wrote an
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op-ed in the middle of the Freedom Convoy calling Canadian citizens seditious. That was carefully
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chosen language by somebody that knows better. It was followed through on as a matter of sedition. And
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that his theory of the case, which he wrote in the op-ed, was then shown to be deeply problematic for civil
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rights for freedom, totally totalitarian in every way. The exact opposite of what someone like Václav Havel
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would have thought was appropriate for people that were obviously political dissenters of mandates that
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ended up being very quickly thrown out for being unscientific. These were the people, these were the
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shopkeepers that had tossed the sign out of the window, decided to stand up against totalitarian overreach in
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their country. And the first person to oppose them and demand that the politically correct
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totalitarian framing of COVID be enforced by a police state was Mark Carney, who just gave a speech
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So I'd like to come back to Václav Havel in a minute, but for those people who actually did listen to
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this speech, Mr. Carney did appear to offer a path forward, a path between what he would say submission and
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isolation. And it all sounds good, but it was supposed to be a coalition of middle power countries coming
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together to do what they could, given the polarity of China, the United States, and Russia. But this kind of
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middle power alliance sounds a bit like the deer are forming a coalition against the wolves.
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Is that what you're getting at when you say that it's a bit delusional?
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Yeah, look, I think Canada has the greatest opportunity economically in the planet because
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we're only, you know, 45, 50 million people. We have 77 to 80 percent of our trade depends entirely on
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the United States. The next largest trade block we have is about 10 percent, which is all of the EU and
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the UK together. And after that, China is around 4 percent. And then you've got, you know, single digit
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percentages around the world. So far, since Mark Carney was elected, we've had virtually no serious progress on the most
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important trading relationship that we have. So you can give a speech citing Thucydides, and this is what
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you'd expect of a law professor, political science professor, is an excellent speech for somebody who's
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a spectator. It was a terrible speech for somebody who's got to renegotiate Kuzma in the summer. It was a terrible
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speech in multiple levels. First of all, it was the wrong speech to give because it drew a false moral
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equivalence between great powers as if China and the United States are the same sort of problem
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because they're hegemons. That's deeply reckless for anybody who sailed out. It's especially reckless
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for the leader of Canada. We have a series of actions that are being taken by his government
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that are deeply counterproductive right now in the relationship that we have with the United States.
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They're counterproductive on the three things that matter most, energy,
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national security, and economic security and trade. So again, a speech is very important,
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but the person who gives the speech is as important as the speech when the purpose of the speech is to
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outline or compel action. And what had happened with this speech is this speech had followed very
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quickly after a series of concessions were made to the world's most totalitarian state, China.
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China in a juxtaposition with the relationship with the United States, very intentionally drawn
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by the prime minister and recklessly so. So I think that the problem with the speech is not the quality
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of the speech. The delivery of the speech was exceptional. Aspects of the speech were very appealing
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in that it described the current moment in the way that a great political science professor would
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describe it. But for Mark Carney, the prime minister of Canada, to have given that speech in light of
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the deep confusion around his interpretation of what the shopkeeper with the sign in the window
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in Václav Havel's book, Power of the Powerless was intended to address. Mark Carney himself represented
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in his op-ed against the Freedom Convoy, complete totalitarianism in the name of natural political
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dissent. In the current moment, that Václav Havel comment is all about the political correctness that
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is dominant in a place like Davos and has been dominant in the rhetoric and the positioning that
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Mark Carney has had on green issues and finance and things like GFANS. So it's very awkward for someone
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like Mark Carney to be the one giving a Václav Havel quote. The Thucydides quote on strength
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is fascinating, but Thucydides, but he seemed to draw an unusual parallel. Thucydides' arguments on
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strength weren't Nietzschean. Thucydides' arguments and strengths were descriptive, and they were
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descriptive in a way that was compelling courage in the face of challenges. And what I've seen in the
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Carney government is so far, and I'm hoping that this will change, especially in the next few weeks,
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and I hope quickly, there has to be a new level of honesty in this government on the cause of our
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economic decline and our problem with trade. The rapid rise in the decline of Canadian cities and the
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rapid rise in violent crimes across Canada, the rapid rise in physician-assisted suicides,
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the 50,000 kids that have died out of fentanyl and opioid overdoses in the last decade of this,
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you know, complete nihilism with respect to drugs and the drug trade, the rapid growth of criminal and
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terrorist syndicates across the country. Donald Trump is not to be blamed for any of this. This has
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happened under a government that's adopted deeply progressive flawed ideas about what to do in the
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face of crime. They've created more debt in, I think it's the first seven years of their government
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than all of their governments put together, and Mark Carney's just delivered the worst, you know,
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peacetime deficit or the worst non-emergency deficit in the history of the country. So you've got
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extraordinary debt, you've got the worst performing GDP per capita performance in all 40 OECD nations,
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the worst performance in GDP growth in the G7 for the last 10 years. You've got extraordinary
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problems with crime, you've got the worst results in the public service in spite of the fact that in
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the last 10 years they've bloated the public service more than 45% and made it 75% more expensive. There's
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almost no metric right now that you can point to that you could say the problem that Canada faces is
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Donald Trump. Almost every single one of these metrics that are affecting our quality of life,
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our national security, the ability of people to feel safe walking in our cities, you know,
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the rise in anti-Semitic crime. It just goes on and on and on. This has to do with a series of failed
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policy ideas and failed presumptive ideological ideas that Mark Carney has been in the forefront of
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in his party and that his party is responsible for. And what they discovered when they ran the last
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election is that people, especially the older demographics that depend on mainstream media that
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is funded by the government, will see their lives and see their opportunities through the lens of the
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framing that the government's given. And what was convenient was to say, you know, there's this scary
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person running the United States and we're going to stand up to them. And I think there's a certain
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amount of sort of political real politic and strategic nous in the way that they ran that election.
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But I also think that that's bordered very quickly on complete cynicism. And the fundamental problem
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with Mark Carney's speech is not that it wasn't an excellent speech or that it was descriptively
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accurate of the moment we live in. It's that the person giving it doesn't represent remotely
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the ideals behind what Vasilevavel was speaking about. And as a result, it struck me very much
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like the elbows up thing, tactically effective, but deeply cynical.
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So what is the game? Is he a true ideologue? There are things that he has been associated with
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that would make you think that he was a green prime minister and that was all that mattered. We have
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to save the planet when there are so many arguments that if the planet has to be saved,
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it isn't going to be Canada doing it. Is he just getting electric cars from China so that we can
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have lower emissions? Or is there something more deeply cynical? Is he trying to make Canada a
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different kind of intentionally? Trying to make Canada a different kind of place?
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Look, I don't want to believe that of anybody that gives a lot of their time and energy and
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effort to public service. I think that at the end of the day, they must want to create a better world for
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our kids to inherit. I mean, I think that's the point and that's the purpose of most people that
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engage. I think that what happens is the first order sort of instincts of anyone in politics is
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to win elections, hold the power so that you can then exercise it in the manner in which you think
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can secure the future for our kids and create a better society. I think one of the things that I was
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hopeful about with Prime Minister Carney is that when he ran for the election, coming from outside
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the country as he did, I was actually hopeful that that was a strength and that he would see that
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certain things about his party's ideological positioning, particularly with respect to energy
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and energy security, had gone way beyond any sort of rational rapprochement between the environment,
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energy and economy, and it had become completely dogmatic in ways that were just ridiculous. The
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C-48, C-69 represents that. But he got rid of the carbon tax, he got rid of the capital gains tax,
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some of the things that were deeply harming the economy. And so my hope was, and it still is,
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obviously, because he is the Prime Minister, that he has great people around him that are giving him
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good advice that the mistake that he made by calling the Freedom Convoy seditious,
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the enormous mistakes they've made by maintaining C-69 and C-48, which are just poking the bear in
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Alberta in terms of the new run for independence. You know, these are things that I am hoping that he
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will see his way through to something that's far more centrist and far more representative where most
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Canadians are at. I thought the speech was excellent. Most of my friends have sent me notes saying,
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we really like your speech, congratulations, you've got a great Prime Minister. So you have,
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it's hard for me to say, I think the speech was morally confused. And that it's like, you know,
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a cover band covering a song that I like, you know, I love hearing anybody give Vaislavelle's Power of the
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Powerless airtime. And I think there's something deeply moving about his language. And I think there's
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a lot about his language that's pertinent to the current moment, especially if you think about
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these unbelievable places like Iran and Russia and China under socialist Marxist or Islamo-Marxist
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Catalitarian regimes. You hope that there's more Vaislavelle and Thucydides and some of those comments
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going on. But what I hope in the case of Mark Carney is that he looks at the opportunity right now to
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change Canada, to upgrade Canada's current political approach and policy approaches to a freer economy,
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where we can go back to being one of the most prosperous nations instead of the least prosperous.
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Well, but that takes us back to the very public choice that he made to go and embrace China.
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I mean, with his earlier experience through Brookfield with China, no doubt he knows his
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ways around the corridors where the decisions are made. But I find, just speaking for myself here,
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the idea of dumping the United States, even if you don't like Mr. Trump, who won't be there in three
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years' time, to embrace a nation with the ideals and practices of the People's Republic of China,
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I find that quite abhorrent. We have a bad history with China. That makes me suspicious of what Mr.
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Carney's goals really are. And you're making the case that we should give him a chance, I think. And
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I think we've given him a year. Why are you not as cynical as I am, David?
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Well, look, I think there's... I don't think you're cynical, Nigel, first of all.
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Well, I think you're hopeful. And I think one of the things that you're very good at is pointing
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out what you think is not working. And I think that's the appropriate role of a good journalist,
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is to sort of find whatever you think the gaps are between what's being said and what's actually
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being done. And I think that's the biggest challenge for the Carney administration in Canada right now.
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I think that Canada needs to do business with China. China's a very important trading partner,
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but it's only 4% of our export GDP. The United States is 77%. The issue is not whether or not Mark
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Carney has a conversation with China about their tariffs on canola. That was a conversation that
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needed to happen. The issue is the craven way in which Canada seems to naively bend the knee to China
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so easily and so often and in so many ways. The open border with respect to Chinese triads in the Port of
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Vancouver and the fentanyl trade is disgusting. And it's something that has been allowed to
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metastasize. It's one of the worst cancers in Canadian society, and yet it's somehow swept under
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the rug and not talked about very openly. We have 50,000 kids that are dead because of the fentanyl and
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opioid crisis in this country. And when this was raised by the Americans as part of their concern on
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the border, it was poo-pooed by our media. It was treated as a pretext. And instead of us just
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acknowledging, we have a huge crisis and it's a moral crisis. So 50,000 young lives are gone in
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this country. Where do you read about this? You know, I find it absolutely extraordinary that we
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have something, death at that scale with a known supply chain that we seem completely incapable of
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actually changing our laws to deal with. It's well known across Vancouver that the Mexican cartels and
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the Chinese triads are in bed with each other. The Chinese look after laundering and they look
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after the port and the cartels do whatever they want. The embarrassment to me of this issue being
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raised and having our leadership scoff at the idea that we were potentially a fentanyl problem when they
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knew it was all the southern border. And yet the amount of fentanyl that they said that we had found
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crossing the border was less than the amount sitting on one shelf in one super lab that gets busted with
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the help of the FBI six months later. I mean, it's just, it's extraordinarily embarrassing when you
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look at the crisis, the different pillars of crisis, the relationship between China and the United States.
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I was stunned when Meng Wanzhou was taken by Canada and put under house arrest at one of her
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three mansions in Vancouver and they illegally took hostage two of our diplomats. The fact that their
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ambassador wasn't sent packing the next day was extraordinary to me. The Chinese see Canada is
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incredibly weak and pliable and I don't know why. And I know there's a lot of good work done. There's an
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incredible young journalist, Sam Cooper, who does exceptional work on, on the Canada's overall security
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issues, but he is, he is very, yeah, we know Sam. Yeah. And there's others that have done that too,
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but I think he's, he's exceptional. And, and so I think that for Canada to do any kind of business
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with China, we've got to not be seen as weak and naive. And unfortunately I think we are seeing that
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way. And I think we're seeing that way with respect to their secret police stations. We're seeing that way
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with respect to the way that they have been able to override any kind of common sense on some of the
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people that are put out for parliament. And you know, CSIS has talked about this. So that's in the
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background. I understand why you would say you're cynical. I think that as a nation, we've got to be
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able to do deals with all countries. I'm a free trade maximalist. You know, I think Canada should be
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working very hard at creating global market infrastructure. I think that for instance, when China,
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when the U S took over Venezuela and I wrote an op-ed on this, defending it is illegal,
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uh, that what they did was legal when they were in addition to Maduro. Um, uh, you know,
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China lost around 550,000 barrels a day from that, uh, incident from Venezuela, Venezuela on heavy crude.
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Um, Alberta can actually provide all of that. If we reinstate the Northern gateway, uh, we could provide
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all of that back to China. It would be a $16 billion a year trade for us. It would give us
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additional leverage in China. We go as 15% more of our output, uh, going in the direction of a, uh,
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another, uh, superpower other than the United States. It would give us diplomatic leverage in China that
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actually matters to the Chinese. And it would have been something that I would have loved to have seen
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come out of the China conversation. So I don't want to be hypocritical in saying there are things that I
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would love to see us do deals with China. And I think the Americans would have expect us to do
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that. Uh, the president Trump was asked about this in Seattle. I'm glad they're doing deals to China.
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Uh, you know, people are realists and Canada needs to be realistic, but I didn't see us do a massive
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energy deal with China. I saw us allow, uh, EVs into our country. The problem with EVs, by the way,
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for those who think that the Americans are, are simply trying to be economic bullies, EVs are like, uh,
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iPhones on wheels. You know, they, they are extraordinary data collection machines. Um,
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all of the BYD EVs have been kicked out of one country in particular because of the security risks
00:23:09.080
in the metadata that gets transferred back to China. Uh, there's a lot that I think Canada has
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just been on a vacation from history and the, and the hand is therefore naive about China. And the
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reason for that is because we're completely protected by the United States from the geopolitical
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realities that they take on. And so I would, I would love to see us just understand what the
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Americans have told us several times, which is they're integrating energy security with military,
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national security, with trade security. And Canada continues to make a series of steps that I think
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are just naive to the point of reckless with respect to all three. And so we've got to finish our
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F-35 purchase instead of holding it up for yet another after 20 years, you know, internal, you know,
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uh, evil gazing around what we're going to do on this. I think we have to expand NORA to include naval
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security in AUKUS. I think we have to integrate what we're doing in the Arctic with what the Americans
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are going to be doing with Greenland. I think we have to get on with, with a proper trade negotiation
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that acknowledges some of the risks that the Americans want us to address. And I think we have
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to get rid of this decade long experiment with green alarmism and get on with just building Canada's
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global energy infrastructure. And if we don't, we're going to start to see the country fragment.
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Well, I think that's what a lot of people are, are speculating about right now. And for all the
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reasons you've given, we're almost out of time. Let me just ask you this. Uh, I believe you're traveling
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in your own business trip to the Middle East. Where are you today?
00:24:51.320
Yeah. Middle East right now. I'm in Abu Dhabi right now.
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That's incredible. It's, uh, you know, uh, the, the Emirates were a dream, uh, back in the fifties and
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they, they made it into an extraordinary reality. Uh, there are, there are several countries in the UAE.
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Dubai is very well known. Abu Dhabi is the largest and the, and the energy rich, uh, nation. Um,
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you know, Alberta, Alberta could easily be the wealthiest, uh, uh, nation in the world actually
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with 5 million people and more, more oil than Russia, China, the United States put together
00:25:31.320
and as much gas as Qatar. And this is what I think, uh, Prime Minister Carney has got to be
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very careful about right now. You can't continue to tie the hands of one of the world's largest
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energy superpowers, Alberta, behind their back out of some dated idea of what, uh, Eastern-based
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federalism looks like much longer before you're going to start to just create strains that will crack.
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The first thing we should do is, what we do is build something in Calgary that's taller than the
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Brookfield building. That's what I, that's what we say. Well, the Burj Khalifa here is, uh, you know,
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Dubai built the Burj Khalifa actually as a tribute to, uh, to the gentleman from Abu Dhabi who built the
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Emirates. And, uh, uh, you know, it's extraordinary to see what that, what that level of vision can
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create. And that, that's what I hope for Canada. It's what I hope for Alberta. Um, and I, I think that
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Mark Carney has a lot of potential. I was one of the very few, I liked the, like you, the, the speech,
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the way that I like a song, but I, I thought that it was being played by a cover band, not somebody
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that can speak for Vasslav Havel after writing about sedition when it came to Canadian dissent on COVID.
00:26:47.320
David, we'll leave it there. And thank you for that. When you get back, if you want to find it,
00:26:53.240
finding a 57 Buick, so you don't give all your personal information to the Chinese, you'll join a
00:26:59.160
few. All right, ladies and, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, David. For not for the Western Standard,