On this episode of The Western Standard, Corey talks about his recent trip to the Siksika Indian Band Reserves, and the backlash he got for taking a video of the conditions on the reserve. He also talks about why he decided to make a YouTube video of it.
00:07:37.440While the old one is, you know, trying to buy a potato masher at Canadian Tire, Mark Carney, on Monday, he had a glass of wine with French President Macron, then he jumped in his wide-body jet, crossed the English Channel, had a cup of tea with King Charles, and went to 10 Downing Street to have another cup of tea with Prime Minister Starmer, and then went out to the Arctic.
00:08:01.840And then, you know, went back to Ottawa, then came out to Alberta where he met with Premier Smith, who gave him a list of, I think it was either six demands maybe, and had a press conference and then flew back to Ottawa where about half an hour ago he killed the capital gains tax increase.
00:19:48.480and the tariffs, of course, that he's just back and forth and in and out on.
00:19:55.380Do you think these tariffs are going to dominate the news for the rest of the campaign?
00:19:59.180I do think they're going to be a huge issue,
00:20:01.100and I think we're going to have to talk about how we're going to respond.
00:20:03.900And it's been interesting to see Mark Carney has taken a somewhat different approach
00:20:08.440than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
00:20:12.700and even than the Conservative leader.
00:20:14.760And he's admitted, which I think is just reality, that our economy is one tenth the size of the United States and that we can't necessarily do dollar for dollar tariff retaliation forever.
00:20:25.580And so I think we're going to have to have a conversation about how else we strengthen this country, how we deal with things like internal trade barriers and getting energy to market and all of those other things, building pipelines.
00:20:36.420And that really needs to be the conversation.
00:20:39.120Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's going to be a lot of the liberals saying, well, there's a scary man in the White House.
00:20:43.900And, you know, there's this possibility he's talking about the 51st state.
00:20:47.800And, you know, Polly, I was going to kowtow to the Trump administration.
00:20:51.420All of it, you know, not not true in terms of kowtowing.
00:20:55.980But I think, unfortunately, the liberals are going to try to keep the focus on Trump, whereas the issue needs to be how do we strengthen the economy and how do we respond to this American administration?
00:21:07.980that's clearly going to be very nationalist in its economic focus,
00:21:11.860clearly going to have tariffs as an economic policy for the next four years.
00:21:16.260They're introducing this global tariff on April the 2nd.
00:21:19.420So, of course, that's going to be the issue.
00:21:21.160But what we should be talking about is the lost decade that we've had over the past 10 years
00:21:25.780under the Liberals because they have failed to deal with internal trade,
00:21:29.060they've failed to deal with energy development, and we have to deal with these issues.
00:21:34.140Yeah, and with the tariff thing, I mean, a lot of people have to understand
00:21:37.960because they started the big Team Canada notion,
00:22:16.360And, you know, tariffs that are imposed here in Canada on American goods
00:22:19.980are going to be paid for by Canadian consumers.
00:22:23.100They're not being paid for by Americans.
00:22:25.500It is possible that some people will decide not to buy these American products
00:22:29.720and therefore that will hurt American companies.
00:22:32.400But what's going to happen in large part is that consumers are just going to pay more in Canada
00:22:36.500because those are the only options for a heck of a lot of goods and we're just going to have to pay
00:22:41.940more and all of that money is going to go to the federal government because they're collecting the
00:22:46.080tariffs and another question is going to be what are they doing with that money you know what are
00:22:51.240the different parties going to do with this tariff money that they're planning to collect
00:22:54.960of course the smartest approach would be diversifying our economy trading more with other
00:22:59.720nations breaking down internal trade barriers you know there's a study the imf is showing that our
00:23:05.320Internal trade barriers in Canada are, in effect, a 21% domestic tariff.
00:23:10.200And if we were able to get rid of those, the positive economic impact of making sure we have genuine free trade within Canada would offset the negative economic impact of Trump's 25% tariffs on Canadian goods that he's somewhat implemented already.
00:23:28.860I'm planning to go further on April 2nd.
00:23:30.740But absolutely, we should be talking about everything else we can do other than self-harm.
00:23:36.220And as you said, just shooting the boat and just, you know, taking different shots and eventually everyone's going to sink.
00:23:44.660Well, do you think the courts will realize the futility of maintaining these tariffs?
00:23:48.060I mean, I remember a case that, you know, within provinces or trade barriers, I should say, between them anyways.
00:23:53.380The case, the man in New Brunswick, I tried to bring some beer from Quebec and basically he was charged and convicted.
00:23:59.020And even the judge said, well, yeah, technically by the law, you know, constitutionally we shouldn't do that.
00:24:03.240But just for the sake of the public good, we're going to punish this man anyways.
00:24:07.020Like, we've got to get realistic in this country then.
00:24:09.260Do we have a constitution for, you know, streamlining trade between the provinces or not?
00:24:13.720Well, we have an internal free trade deal in Canada.
00:24:16.300The problem is there's about 400 different carve-outs.
00:24:19.320And so we have legislation that's been tabled in Nova Scotia, which Premier Tim Houston has put forward,
00:24:25.180which essentially says Nova Scotia is willing to take down all of its internal trade barriers with other provinces
00:24:32.180if another province follows suit and passes the same legislation.
00:24:36.040In other words, if Alberta or Ontario decides that they're going to pass that legislation,
00:24:41.080all of these trade barriers will be taken down between those two provinces.
00:24:45.060We should be looking at doing that, but we should be doing this at lightning speed.
00:24:48.460Our politicians have known since December that Trump was looking at tariffs, that we were going to have a devastating impact on our economy, and they should have been preparing.
00:24:57.960And our politicians have been twiddling thumbs for months, not really doing anything, talking a lot, flying around the country, talking tough.
00:25:06.900Some premiers, you know, with different talking points than others, but they've just been talking and flying places.
00:25:13.060And, you know, whether the Trump tariffs, no matter how much they bite, no matter how long they're in place for, there's stuff that we have to be taking care of at home and that we should be taking care of at home and that we haven't been doing and our politicians just aren't getting the job done.
00:25:28.460Well, I'm going to say the two words that no federal government or federal politician will ever say.
00:25:35.240It's one of the areas where, you know, Trump kind of just shoots at everything and he goes off about, you know, this trade deficit and calls it a subsidy, which is a load of baloney.
00:25:44.080But he does have a point when it comes to Canada's dairy protectionism.
00:25:48.000And the supply management harms us actually province to province, too, because the provincial dairy boards don't allow us to ship our own dairy products from province to province.
00:25:57.820you know, I don't hold up much hope, but isn't this an opportunity at this next 38 days or so
00:26:03.100when a government, you know, a contender for government could finally say maybe it's time
00:26:06.680to move past this rotten system? It's absolutely time to move past this rotten system. You can look
00:26:12.780at so many different statistics and so many different studies that are showing, for example,
00:26:16.820milk in Canada is 20% more, costs 20% more than milk in the United States does. And there's every
00:26:24.540reason that the americans are annoyed because they can't access our market we have all kinds
00:26:29.520of tariffs and quotas that that suggests that the americans can't export things like milk and
00:26:35.820and eggs and poultry products into canada unless it's within a certain quota and the percentage
00:26:42.140that they can send it to canada is so small that it's essentially non-existent and you know
00:26:47.760politicians they're this is a system that's a relic of the 1970s they're all saying they want
00:26:53.640defend it because there's some special interests in a small part of Quebec that, you know, is
00:26:58.400crucial for a few seats in certain regions of Quebec that really wants to keep this system in
00:27:02.800place. But it's consumers that are the ones that are paying the price for not doing this, because
00:27:07.480we are paying more for dairy, for eggs, for poultry, and we could be paying less. And also,
00:27:13.080a country like New Zealand had a similar supply management system in place. It's about 30 years
00:27:17.980ago they got rid of it they transitioned and their exports of of their dairy products their
00:27:23.700poultry their eggs have increased 10 times what they were we are uncompetitive in the world and
00:27:30.160there's a reason that we're not exporting our dairy or poultry and our eggs and that's because
00:27:34.640prices are too high there's too much protectionism we've got to tear down those walls and as free
00:27:39.800trade has shown we can compete with the best in the world but we just have to get our trade barriers
00:27:44.920down we have to be competitive and the longer we keep the supply management in place the more the
00:27:50.620higher the prices are going to be for consumers the more we're not going to be able to export to
00:27:55.080other countries and the angrier the trump administration is going to be and in this case
00:27:59.320very rightly so and the americans have been critical of our supply management through multiple
00:28:03.960administrations all right well i'm going to pivot a bit and get a little more regional i i believe
00:28:09.400you're in ontario are you not i am yes i just want to double check that before i start asking so i
00:28:14.280mean, I'm familiar with the broader issues. I'm very familiar with Alberta issues. And we know
00:28:17.980that Alberta's electoral landscape probably isn't going to change dramatically. In fact,
00:28:22.540the two Liberal seats we have, very good chance they're just not going to be here. Those members
00:28:26.660of Parliament didn't have a good term while they were in. So Ontario and Quebec, I mean,
00:28:31.740particularly Ontario, though, is going to be the battleground. There's no getting around that.
00:28:35.500What issues do you think are going to be the ones that they're going to try and move the needle with
00:28:39.640over there it's really going to be a matter of leadership and who's going to lead us through the
00:28:44.760challenge with the united states uh with the trump administration the tariff threat i think that is
00:28:50.440going to be the number one issue it's interesting you see polls here in ontario and it's actually
00:28:54.720showing that young people are still um you know more young people than not are still hanging with
00:29:00.400the conservatives because there's so many issues that young people are concerned about particular
00:29:04.860housing and lack of housing affordability. It's the older voters, the 55 plus, 65 plus that seem0.95
00:29:11.120to be flocking back to the Liberals. And a lot of that might just have to do with, they think
00:29:15.860Carney's a steady hand. He's got a, you know, a significant resume, things like that. We'll see
00:29:21.200what happens during the campaign. Obviously, Carney is untested on the campaign trail. He's
00:29:26.080never been a politician before. The debates will be fascinating to see. But I think there's a lot
00:29:31.000of people here in Ontario that were glad to see Trudeau go, glad to see the carbon tax go, glad to
00:29:36.960see the capital gains hike cancelled. And the Liberals are essentially running against themselves
00:29:41.600over the past 10 years. I mean, they're abandoning all the things that made them unpopular. This is
00:29:46.620classic Liberal politics. You know, this is how the Liberal Party has thrived and survived for
00:29:52.320over 100 years and have done well in Ontario in the past because of this. But I think absolutely
00:29:59.320We are going to have a very interesting campaign.
00:34:49.080And they could just, you know, there's no win, it seems,
00:34:51.020when the Canadian politicians kind of jump into that.
00:34:53.480But it was interesting with Carney going to Europe
00:34:55.500as his first visit upon becoming prime minister,
00:34:57.540and even some of the hints that maybe Canada could be looking at joining the EU.
00:35:02.160Do you think that might pop up throughout this?
00:35:04.200I mean, it shows a pragmatic approach of a new trade deal and getting away from the United States, following that theme of distancing from the Trump administration.
00:35:12.000I mean, I definitely think, look, we signed a free trade agreement with Europe 10 years ago under the Harper government, and it's still not fully implemented.
00:35:19.720So the federal government has really dropped the ball on that.
00:35:21.980We've got to get going because we should be trading more with Europe.
00:35:25.300So if the leaders want to talk about it and if Mark Carney wants to talk about trading more with Europe and things like that, you know, I think that's a good thing.
00:35:33.200But I don't envision us joining the European Union going forward.
00:35:37.040I don't know if they're going to want a North American country trying to join the European Union.
00:35:41.360I think, you know, Canadians want their independence.
00:35:43.720They want, you know, Canada to be its own country, not the 51st state, not a member of Europe.
00:39:09.780They were smuggling large volumes of cheese from the American border to the Canadian side
00:39:14.020Because Canada's processed and other cheeses are so bloody expensive because of our supply management that it actually spawned a smuggling industry.
00:39:23.640And I know this from owning a pub and one of our main sellers was pizza.
00:40:15.240We get on this high horse, oh, Trump threw these tariffs on us for no reason,
00:40:18.920and that's true, and he made an attack on Canada, and that's true.
00:40:22.340But people are a little more subdued, realizing, well, we started it
00:40:24.980when we put the tariff with China anyways, with them, of 100% on Chinese EVs.
00:40:31.380And I've seen some other people try to defend that and say,
00:40:33.240well, that was a deal that Canada did both with the United States and Canada
00:40:36.080to block those chinese evs well okay i gotta didn't the latest news say that the deals between0.99
00:40:41.560the united states and canada on trade don't really hold much water anymore do they so i i wouldn't
00:40:46.340worry about that uh maybe it's something else we can negotiate on but the reality is too is there's
00:40:53.100no domestic market they put that uh tariff on chinese electric vehicles to protect canadian
00:41:01.120electric vehicles but we don't make any like we got these battery factories that are going under
00:41:06.040all over the place we got we got all these subsidies trudeau's throwing all over ford
00:41:09.740was supposed to be making electric trucks they backed off on that we're protecting a market that
00:41:14.040doesn't exist but so we've pissed off china over that and there wasn't a bunch of evs coming in0.99
00:41:20.880anyways but it's basically on principle it's ticked them off now and uh in the meantime again
00:41:26.180Now they've thrown a pile of counter tariffs on things like canola, lentils, a bunch of oil seeds and things like that that are very essential.
00:41:35.060They were one of our biggest purchasers overseas.
00:41:39.520And now the farmers are going to have a lower market, which just like we need more economic pressure.
00:48:19.820They are the ones that, again, they can change fast, particularly provincially.
00:48:24.200I mean, the Wild Rose Party I was very involved with, we went from 4% to official opposition, to collapsing, to merging, to forming the UPC.
00:48:32.140But UCP, those seeds of that little party, though, when it was 4%, I mean, people dismissed them, but it turned into something.
00:48:38.520Will the PPC, though? I'm not seeing it so far, but we'll see.
00:48:43.260I mean, Reform Party, for those of us old enough to remember, sprouted out of nowhere, it seemed, in the 80s.
00:48:50.040And it really made an impact on the scene under Preston Manning.
00:48:54.060And that, we're going to see some interesting stuff happening.
00:48:58.260I mean, I'm going to go ahead on things a little bit and talk about what will happen if the Liberals win.
00:49:05.140And I've been putting that on X, you know, and people have also been pointing that out.
00:49:10.880The regionalism, the explosion of discontent we're going to get, particularly in the West, is going to be something else.