Western Standard - SHOW US THE DEAL： Shuv Majumdar on Why Carney Walked Away

00:00:00.000 I'm joined with Conservative MP Suv Majumdar. Thank you so much for making the time to speak

00:00:14.000 with me today. Quick question for you, your party is calling for the resumption of Parliament. What

00:00:18.800 exactly can that achieve given the fact that Parliament's only a few weeks away from resuming?

00:00:24.320 Well look, we've been told that this is the biggest crisis since the Second World War,

00:00:28.080 And even now, in the aftermath of the negotiations that the government walked away from, we're dealing with the mass anxiety of two and a half million Canadians whose jobs are export dependent to the United States.

00:00:45.160 Hundreds of thousands of workers and their families are now looking at pink slips.

00:00:51.040 We're not sure that they will have a plan to get through until the end of Christmas.

00:00:55.660 The reason Parliament needs to be convened is because of the scale of the issues that this country is affected by in these negotiations.

00:01:03.380 Canadians deserve to understand the terms of the deal that the Prime Minister walked away from.

00:01:09.040 Canadians also deserve to understand what the plan is to ensure that their viability will be there.

00:01:13.220 The tariffs that the Prime Minister announced, the counter-tariffs the Prime Minister announced yesterday,

00:01:18.140 have major consequences in the grocery carts of Canadians.

00:01:22.900 and Canadians deserve to understand exactly what's on the line.

00:01:26.300 And then finally, this is a moment in which our country needs to build true resilience.

00:01:30.660 They've had a year and a half, the Prime Minister's party,

00:01:34.160 to move major projects on our resources, on our manufacturing base, on taxes, on job growth.

00:01:41.260 They haven't done any of the work that Canada needed to build strength in advance of these negotiations.

00:01:46.740 So if the Prime Minister is right, and this is a time of a trade war,

00:01:49.820 If this is something that is a major crisis to our country in its future, then Parliament should convene as quickly as possible to be able to review the facts and pass legislation that would be catalytic and game-changing in the way that Canadians deserve.

00:02:03.760 So in terms of measures, the government has announced, I think, tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of U.S. goods imported to Canada.

00:02:11.700 You guys have called it a tax on Canadians, but I think your party in the past has had different views on dollar-for-dollar tariffs.

00:02:17.340 What is the current party's view right now?

00:02:19.820 Listen, a year and a half ago, in the context of the trade negotiation and where Canada was at,

00:02:24.300 dollar-for-dollar tariffs made eminent sense. In today's context, a tariff is considered a tax,

00:02:31.500 and that's the Prime Minister's own vocabulary. It's also a vocabulary that's important to

00:02:35.740 understand. Here we have taxes being placed on feminine hygiene products, on all kinds of 1.00

00:02:43.340 appliances. We're talking day-to-day things that everyday Canadians are going to bear the price.

00:02:48.380 and let's not make any mistakes about this or any misdirections about this. The people who will pay

00:02:55.980 the most are the most economically vulnerable in this country when it comes to any counter tariffs

00:03:02.220 the Prime Minister imposes. They're the ones who are going to have to shoulder this decision,

00:03:06.860 and they're the ones who demand, who have every right to understand what's the cost that they

00:03:11.820 can expect for this tariff to be for in their day-to-day lives. That's a disclosure the Prime

00:03:17.980 administration publish. And if it doesn't have, if they don't have that, those figures

00:03:22.520 handy, then they should just, they should just say so.

00:03:25.200 So on reconvention of Parliament, it does reconvene on the 20th of September. Let's

00:03:29.640 say that this date was moved back a few weeks, or actually moved forward in a few weeks and

00:03:35.760 we had a Parliament as early as next week under the current context. What would be some

00:03:40.620 of the first proposals you'd be looking for the government to introduce that would require

00:03:44.760 Parliament's approval?

00:03:46.960 We could pass immediately an end to the industrial carbon tax, which would have anti-inflationary

00:03:53.060 pressure across the country.

00:03:54.820 We know these counter tariffs will have massive inflationary pressures across the country.

00:03:58.220 This is one antidote to lower the price of food, of fuel, of everything produced.

00:04:03.080 We could pass a major Natural Resources Act.

00:04:06.480 One thing that we had proposed in the past was to call the Sovereignty Act, but it would

00:04:10.120 establish national energy corridors, the capability to make shovel-ready decisions

00:04:15.560 within six months, partner with First Nations, and unleash the natural resources of this country.

00:04:21.000 We would be passing legislation on manufacturing, whether it's in support of AutoPAC 2.0,

00:04:25.960 which would empower our auto industrial base, but also for defence production, which is something

00:04:31.400 that Canada needs to be more aggressive about in terms of supplying the world

00:04:36.760 the support it needs in the challenging times that we're in. There are major decisions that

00:04:43.320 that need to be made on lowering taxes, whether it's corporate or personal, or even looking

00:04:48.460 at the way in which our country does business from province to province, there's hundreds

00:04:53.100 of billions of dollars of value that Canada needs to be building.

00:04:56.480 Now, when you look at the last year and a half, you think, well, listen, all of this

00:04:58.980 stuff should have been done.

00:05:00.100 The problem is none of it's been done.

00:05:02.520 There are 500 projects sitting in the major projects office and not a single solitary

00:05:06.100 approval on any of them.

00:05:07.900 And so parliament could move decisively and boldly in the way the people of this country

00:05:13.300 deserve to build the resilience this country deserves, especially at a time that's very difficult.

00:05:19.200 So on the tariff response and tariffs, I mean, look, whether it was a year and a half ago or

00:05:26.180 today, tariffs have always been a tax on American and Canadian consumers. Anyone who applies a tariff

00:05:30.520 is inflating the costs and taxing the costs onto the consumers. But of course, you referred to a

00:05:38.000 changed context. What exactly made it more appropriate a year and a half ago to apply

00:05:42.460 dollar-for-dollar tariffs that doesn't exist in today's context and the reason being you guys

00:05:47.260 don't support as a conservative party uh the dollar-for-dollar measure the government's

00:05:51.320 introduced now the issue that we're looking at here is that what it seems to be the negotiation

00:05:56.420 was resulting is a one-sided tariff that would de-industrialize our economy here we had a

00:06:01.800 negotiation in which we would in which we were discussing uh permanent taxes and permanent

00:06:07.680 disadvantages to key Canadian sectors, auto, lumber, steel, aluminum. That is an arrangement

00:06:15.240 that is incredibly one-sided. Why is it that a Canadian producer should pay a tax to go to the

00:06:21.120 United States and a U.S. producer doesn't have to pay a tax to come to Canada? That was a result

00:06:25.940 after a year and a half of extraordinarily weak negotiation by the prime minister. The prime

00:06:30.140 minister failed to build massive domestic strength that would have allowed us to have much more

00:06:35.320 leverage and confidence in dealing with both Washington and with the world. The prime minister

00:06:39.040 spent adventures in Europe and in Beijing rather than actually finding ways to engage the entirety

00:06:45.940 of the United States of America for the deal that would have worked for our people. This is a context

00:06:50.480 in which we had now been negotiating on terms that we did not define. You'll remember that

00:06:54.880 it was the American administration that came in with these massive unjustified tariffs to try and

00:07:00.160 bring the prime minister to the table around North American negotiations, primarily because he was

00:07:04.940 playing a wait-and-see approach. That approach created a sense of extraordinary weakness for

00:07:09.800 our country when it came to the negotiating table and then to negotiate on terms that were not

00:07:13.800 favorable to us. When we're talking about counter-tariffs or non-tariffs, the critical

00:07:18.800 thing we need is to understand exactly what was on the deal, exactly what were the terms that the

00:07:23.940 Prime Minister walked away from. And from that, we could take a measure of the kind of economic

00:07:27.800 response that the Canadian people deserve in the defense of their industry, in the defense of their

00:07:32.220 livelihood and in the defense of their sovereignty. And so in an array of tools today available,

00:07:37.400 counter-tariffs is one tool, targeted counter-tariffs are other tools. There are many

00:07:40.720 other tools that we have as a federal government that we should be able to understand that we will

00:07:46.640 be employing. We should also understand what the cost is for the people who are most vulnerable.

00:07:51.660 We're talking about baker shops and small manufacturing facilities of 15 people that now

00:07:58.340 are questioning whether or not they're going to have the aluminum supply to produce what they can

00:08:02.100 who are now wondering if they're going to be able to maintain their business margins if they're

00:08:06.040 selling sweatshirts into the United States for the next three to four months. There's a lot of

00:08:10.020 people getting hurt. And so, you know, with respect, the tools that we would need to deploy

00:08:14.680 are based entirely around what the state of the negotiation is and what we think and how long

00:08:20.160 this is going to take. And so it doesn't pay to be reckless and emotional when it comes to

00:08:25.180 implementing policies like counter-terrorist or tariffs. What I'd like to note, though,

00:08:29.740 is that on Saturday, when the prime minister had his first press conference, he talked about

00:08:34.180 major counter dollar for dollar tariffs, and then walked it back just a couple of days ago

00:08:40.280 to say, okay, something more targeted. And it's like, okay, well, are we talking about,

00:08:46.400 like, what are we actually talking about here? And how does that fit as part of a broader plan

00:08:50.340 to build the strength of our own economy? So in terms of the collapse of the most recent

00:08:54.300 negotiations that many people believed were heading towards a deal that would have cut out

00:08:58.100 the recent set of tariffs that have eventually been introduced now.

00:09:02.180 You said in your letter to the Prime Minister earlier today

00:09:05.120 about inquiring on the cost of this response

00:09:08.460 that we're now seeing from the Canadian government side.

00:09:11.620 Do you believe that Donald Trump was negotiating in bad faith?

00:09:14.620 And do you accept the premises that Mark Carney introduced

00:09:19.060 in his press conferences and his later statements

00:09:21.120 about why Canada pulled out of the negotiation in the last minute?

00:09:26.080 It's a really good question.

00:09:28.100 And that's why we're asking for the prime minister to release the deal, because all we have seen

00:09:33.380 are subjective interpretations of who said what. And there's only one way to know. And we're not

00:09:38.180 asking for trade secrets to be released. We're not asking for leverage to be compromised. The

00:09:43.780 Canadians understand what the Canadians propose. The Americans understand what the Canadians

00:09:47.300 propose. And the prime minister can release the deal, table it to parliament, and let Canadians

00:09:52.500 judge for themselves exactly what the terms were. You know, we heard that there were questions about

00:09:57.460 economic sovereignty and cultural sovereignty. These are obviously important things to defend,

00:10:02.920 whether it is last-minute chicanery with respect to higher-end Ford products or whether it is 0.95

00:10:11.820 something about food labeling. The issue is we don't actually know the facts and all we're being

00:10:15.360 told is through leaks and through reports rather than an actual comprehensive presentation.

00:10:22.900 The prime minister has many ways in which he can share that with the country and with the opposition.

00:10:28.000 He has selected to take none of them.

00:10:30.440 And so that lack of transparency, I think, is unbecoming in a time in which he's calling for unity and trust in the country.

00:10:36.560 One of the surest ways to accomplish that, especially after we've seen governments of the past take international emergencies only to consolidate power, put out spending and isolate their political opponents.

00:10:49.960 that transparency and truth is built on trust,

00:10:54.260 and that's something that we're looking forward to doing here.

00:10:56.480 A very important question to highlight,

00:10:58.020 given your position in opposition, sir.

00:10:59.900 I find that with the context of tariffs,

00:11:03.460 the unique context of the tariff situation,

00:11:05.620 the domestic reaction in Canada becomes a quite unique situation.

00:11:08.860 Perhaps the current Liberal government of the day

00:11:10.600 becomes a bit more open to the energy industry than in the past

00:11:14.420 in terms of the number of projects

00:11:16.360 because of the change context under the tariff umbrella.

00:11:19.960 So being as it is, there was this rumor for a while that the Online News Act would be dropped as part of this negotiation process of actively reopening mainstream social media platforms to media organizations in Canada, which I know the Conservative Party has supported for a number of years now.

00:11:40.320 do you feel that that is a loss of sovereignty in terms of the government's ability to make

00:11:45.920 decisions on how it wishes to regulate the media or internet industry or do you feel that as a net

00:11:52.000 positive win in terms of bringing direction of public policy from the government close to you

00:11:56.900 albeit with foreign pressure long before this negotiation on its own merits bills c11 c18

00:12:04.640 means to control what Canadians consume and away.

00:12:11.000 Like you look at the kind of YouTube news producers

00:12:13.340 that Canada had had over a year, a year and a half ago

00:12:16.120 and how many that's diminished to.

00:12:17.920 I think that we've seen like only a third are still standing

00:12:20.000 from what they used to simply because of not being able

00:12:23.860 to access Canadians' social media.

00:12:25.880 So long before any of these things were part of the negotiation,

00:12:29.140 these were decisions Canada needed to take

00:12:31.060 for its own independence and for its own cultural sovereignty

00:12:34.180 and for its own free speech.

00:12:36.360 And that lives outside of the context of these negotiations.

00:12:39.960 Long before these negotiations,

00:12:41.820 Canada needed to radically get to the business

00:12:44.640 of unleashing its resources.

00:12:46.420 Right now, not to wait months or years,

00:12:49.140 but to do it right now.

00:12:49.980 We were saying that a year and a half ago.

00:12:51.440 Long before, excuse me, these negotiations,

00:12:56.300 conservatives have been calling on repealing

00:12:59.780 massive regulation and tax pressures

00:13:02.800 that are suppressing our economy, whether it's in our commodities or in our manufacturing base.

00:13:07.680 All of the big decisions that Canada needed to make, animating its defense industry and

00:13:12.480 its capability to defend itself, its Arctic and its southern border, all of these decisions

00:13:17.840 were ones that needed to be taken together and presented to North America and to the world as

00:13:22.720 part of a comprehensive negotiation for a Canada that is sovereign, secure and free.

00:13:27.520 These are decisions that should have been part of a wider negotiation.

00:13:32.000 I think that we see parts of it being introduced on terms that we did not decide,

00:13:37.200 which is fundamentally a position of weakness that the Prime Minister created.

00:13:40.960 But at the end of the day, to your point on these online issues,

00:13:45.040 Conservatives have long felt that free speech is important in this country.

00:13:48.240 But now let's get something for it.

00:13:50.240 So on the topic of oil and Alberta's position in the negotiation or the leverage towards negotiations,

00:13:59.100 I just want to ask, what would a conservative government be pleading towards Daniel Smith, if anything?

00:14:04.500 I know there's this talk about leveraging oil exports as one more tool on the table.

00:14:08.640 Other premiers of other provinces have made that clear that there will be something in the national interest.

00:14:13.500 Daniel Smith's pushed back a lot in favor of her own industry and her own provincial interests.

00:14:18.360 How would a conservative government of the day posture in this scenario?

00:14:22.500 Respect the provinces.

00:14:23.520 I mean, I'm an Alberta member of parliament.

00:14:27.160 it. I understand how important it is that we have a market for oil and for our oil industries

00:14:34.040 that are actually governed by rules. That's what makes us a long-term successful investment. That's

00:14:40.040 what makes us a reliable partner. And other provinces offering up things like Alberta's

00:14:45.940 energy should think about where that energy goes through. Even in Ontario, the Alberta energy goes

00:14:50.540 through a pipeline in southern Ontario to the United States, and the province of Ontario is

00:14:56.740 a beneficiary. I think a lot of the rhetoric that we've seen of provincial leaders going

00:15:01.740 in different direction is principally because a prime minister has failed to do what Prime

00:15:06.520 Minister Mulroney had during NAFTA, which was to articulate to the premiers exactly what is a

00:15:11.020 federal remit and what is a provincial remit, and to have actual consultations with his

00:15:18.600 counterparts, his industries, his opposition leaders to maintain a sense of what Canada

00:15:24.080 it needs to act on collectively.

00:15:26.680 And so when I see premiers like the one that you described going after my province and

00:15:31.040 my industry, I understand Danielle Smith's pushback, and I think she's absolutely right

00:15:35.080 to fight that fight.

00:15:36.740 In terms of something I've heard from one of our own commentators at the Western Standard,

00:15:41.520 Corey Morgan, essentially suggesting that a West Coast pipeline would have been a very

00:15:46.660 convenient thing to have settled down by now in terms of Alberta's oil interests and in

00:15:52.440 terms of having to even skip this whole you know diversify away from the United States at a time

00:15:59.080 where a deal is yet not yet to be reached I'm certainly not in Carney's shoes but I mean

00:16:05.080 if you're playing pipeline leverage something that clown should have done a year ago

00:16:09.500 is fast track the one to the west coast I mean the thing is you've got another suitor over there

00:16:14.920 you know you want to keep the girlfriend on it's just as long as they know there's another one

00:16:18.620 making eyes at you over there. And, you know, they're going to say, well, let's develop our

00:16:22.720 relationship further. And he's dragging his heels on getting it to the bloody coast. It's talk and

00:16:27.820 talk and talk and talk. I mean, we wrote that recent article on Carney's accomplishments. I

00:16:31.500 think it was one of our smallest ones to date, wasn't it? Do you feel like there could have been

00:16:36.280 anything realistically done to accelerate the process of the West Coast pipeline within Mark

00:16:41.660 Carney's term, correct? So the last year and a half, could there have been shovels in the ground

00:16:45.840 by now if the government had done anything differently. Yes, yes, yes. I think had

00:16:52.200 conservatives been in power a year and a half ago, a West Coast pipeline would be well underway.

00:16:57.300 That is because we were proposing shovel-ready, pre-approved economic corridors, energy corridors

00:17:05.060 that were pre-partnered with First Nations for long-term prosperity and open to proponents for

00:17:12.980 decisions within six months. Maybe 12 is more realistic, but at least six months would be the

00:17:18.460 goal. And we would have moved on this right out of the gate. And Prime Minister Carney had the

00:17:23.240 opportunity to implement that legislation, but failed to do so a year and a half ago because it

00:17:28.000 was not in his interest to see so. Instead, he created a long list of demands, a complex

00:17:35.040 negotiation with Alberta to finally get to the outcome of a pipeline that may be built.

00:17:39.260 And I think that's the best that the premier can do in these circumstances.

00:17:43.640 I can only imagine how different the world would look if conservatives have been able to implement the big decisions that the country needed a year and a half ago, not just for our resources getting to market with pipelines in every direction, not just with the kind of infrastructure that is necessary, not just with the investment facilities that we were describing that would have brought in hundreds of billions of dollars that our country needs to grow to build infrastructure, ports,

00:18:08.620 all the stuff that the country has been seeing in decay over the last last 10 years.

00:18:14.280 So the answer to your question, yes, it would have been very different had the federal government moved with actual urgency the way the country needed.

00:18:21.340 Well, it seems to me that there still is a gap between where conservatives want the country to go and liberals are putting their country currently.

00:18:27.900 Of course, Mark Carney maybe has closed the gap on a few issues, a few adjustments, a few changes of faces.

00:18:32.520 But I'm more interested to see, you know, where can a Conservative Party under Pierre Pagliav pick up points that have been lost in the near past and in the future?

00:18:41.940 Where can growth happen in terms of actually being a viable alternative in the next election, be it in four years or in a shorter period of time?

00:18:52.060 How do you feel like the future is set up for you guys?

00:18:54.560 and what kind of cards do you think you're going to have to play

00:18:56.700 to win the trust of the Canadian public, as Mark Carney already has

00:19:00.240 and as Doug Ford seems to be doing,

00:19:02.360 given the back of this tariff situation and the anti-Trump sentiment

00:19:05.940 that is dominating the mainstream political dialogue?

00:19:10.360 I think most of the country appreciates that all parties are united

00:19:15.240 in the defense of the country from external attack and unjustified attack.

00:19:19.740 I think all parts of the country also deserve to have a constructive opposition

00:19:24.100 in times that are quite perilous

00:19:26.120 for the future of our country

00:19:27.180 and our people and our livelihoods.

00:19:29.060 And a constructive opposition

00:19:30.420 is not always an easy needle to thread,

00:19:32.940 but it does stay loyal

00:19:34.920 to the people who are most impacted

00:19:37.080 by the decisions of those in Ottawa.

00:19:39.720 The decisions that have been made

00:19:40.820 by those in Ottawa over the last year and a half

00:19:42.600 have been to the detriment of our people.

00:19:45.260 The decisions that Ottawa is considering today

00:19:47.100 deserve to be debated in Parliament

00:19:48.620 in a way that's fruitful for the future

00:19:50.660 of our people and our country.

00:19:54.100 In fact, side news, I think you may have seen that the prime minister is going to go speak at the European parliament in the next couple of weeks rather than address his own.

00:20:02.420 I just think that's I think this is an abrogation of responsibility when it comes to his his his role as leading this country for for pure poly of his number one focus today is on the national interest.

00:20:14.640 He wants us all to be able to deliver the kind of adult perspective that the country and the people demand in encouraging the government to make the decisions that it must.

00:20:25.680 Accountability is not a bad thing.

00:20:27.320 Democracy is not brittle.

00:20:29.100 Our capability as a country to ask thoughtful questions, to make better decisions is always there.

00:20:34.000 And we always stand together as patriots.

00:20:35.920 I think the future is bright for the party.

00:20:38.020 I think the future is bright for Mr. Polyev.

00:20:39.960 I think that this is a moment in which our country deserves the best debate and the best ideas and the maximum urgency to act on the people's behalf.

00:20:51.640 And I think Canadians are going to be impressed as they see more and more of that.

00:20:54.840 Last question, and specifically on the European file, translating to a bigger part of the government's project, which is the diversified trade from the United States.

00:21:03.720 What are some points that you have appreciated

00:21:05.300 at some of the government's policies

00:21:06.940 and what more would you want to see

00:21:09.220 in terms of diversification of trade?

00:21:10.920 Obviously posturing closer towards the European Union,

00:21:13.860 posturing towards Europe,

00:21:15.120 posturing towards China, India as well.

00:21:19.080 What areas are you looking for more

00:21:21.260 and what kind of, maybe not deals,

00:21:24.920 but what actions have you seen

00:21:26.620 that you've appreciated from the conservative party lens?

00:21:29.640 Look, I think that trade diversification is a good thing for the country.

00:21:35.360 I think the prime minister and his cabinet have been attempting to do so both in Asia and in Europe.

00:21:41.000 But I'm not sure they're doing it on the best of terms.

00:21:43.320 Like the prime minister spent most of the last year going to places like Europe, giving speeches in Davos, trying to organize a middle power project, proposing a synthetic currency.

00:21:52.880 I don't know what that is, with middle powers, that would be an alternative to the United States dollar, which kind of acts against our own interests, given the United States debt that we hold.

00:22:02.860 Asia is a market that is massive.

00:22:05.280 The Indo-Pacific region is one in which growth will define, will be defining the next half century.

00:22:11.260 It is the fastest growing region of the world.

00:22:14.020 Canada has a massive Pacific coast with all the propositions that that involves.

00:22:19.900 And it's bigger than China.

00:22:21.160 And to your point, there's countries in the region where I think trade diversification could work.

00:22:27.160 The problem is that 75 percent of trade today is American for Canada.

00:22:31.320 It's the number one issue that the prime minister needs to focus on resolving.

00:22:36.240 It is the biggest relationship that is tied to the geography of North America, a geography that defines our economic and our national security.

00:22:43.820 And so while trade diversification in other regions are good, the work that needs to be done with the United States of America, which is much bigger than Washington, it's California, it's Texas, it's Florida, it's New York, it's an industrial heartland where we have agricultural and manufacturing potential.

00:23:02.660 These are all places that we need to be focusing on securing our trading relationship so that we don't hollow out our economy.

00:23:10.500 And so I'd like the Prime Minister to continue on his diversification for trade, sure, but bring home actual deals where you can measure it in Canada with the actual jobs that are being made for Canadians, with actual investment dollars that you can count for massive Canadian projects that need to be unleashed,

00:23:30.500 unleashed, and for actual markets where Canadian goods and services can be measurably seen

00:23:38.420 being offered in.

00:23:41.220 Those are really clear ways to see what this international diplomacy will lead to.

00:23:46.860 Right now, all I have seen, sadly, is that it's led to nice networking for the Prime

00:23:52.760 Minister and nothing burger for mom back at home.

00:23:57.300 Sivam and Jumjar, thank you so much for your time today.

00:24:00.500 Appreciate you. Thank you for this.

Western Standard - August 28, 2026

SHOW US THE DEAL： Shuv Majumdar on Why Carney Walked Away

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