At Issue - Can Carney’s auto strategy save the industry from Trump?

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney drops Canada’s EV mandate as part of a plan to strengthen the auto sector in the face of U.S. trade threats. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives strike a new collaborative tone. And Stephen Harper's calls for unity.  Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton. This week on at issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, February 5th. Our objective is to remove all tariffs in the auto sector to build the strongest North American auto sector. That's what we will build together. But we recognize that that is not the current objective of the U.S. administration. Their approach has changed. Is they're right?

So we have to prepare for all possibilities. We must take care of ourselves. This week, we're asking what's to be made of Ottawa's new automotive strategy. Plus, have the conservatives change their approach to Parliament? So what's been made of this new auto strategy? What does it tell us about the PM's approach to the U.S. and to climate change? I'm Rosemary Barton, here to break it all down tonight. Chantellea Baer, Andrew Coyne, Elthia Raj.

I'm going to start with Althea because I happen to know she was on the technical briefing earlier this morning listening to all the details. And I want your thoughts on the strategy, of course, itself, Althea, but also the timing of it. Well, that technical briefing call did not go well. And the prime minister's office called me after to say, no, no, don't worry. We did do modeling. And this is not a suggestion. This is what the prime minister has signed off on.

And this is a plan that's going forward. And it's not up for real consultations when it will be gazetted. Anyways, that being said, I think the prime minister is showing himself to be a pragmatist. I think this is good politics in the sense that everybody likes getting credits and the credits were very popular. And when the credits were pulled back, actually, the sales of a vehicle dropped. Also at the same time as Elon Musk kind of showed himself to be not necessarily who we thought we were and people had bad feelings about Tesla or some people did. So I'm not sure which one was more influential, but they coincided around the same time. The move itself, I think, says

I actually think the policy itself is pretty good. On the climate front, though, it is a huge step back. I think it's getting harder and harder for Prime Minister Carney to stand in front and defend his reputation earned mostly before he became Prime Minister as this climate, not only say activist, but somebody who took climate change incredibly seriously. The laws on the book still have the Paris climate targets and even the beefier targets. and even the beefier targets the Justin Trudeau signed onto, but there is no way this government is going to meet them,

especially if they're going to prove a pipeline. And it looks like really that is the direction in which they're marching. But that being said, what they are doing is less worse than what people feared. And so that is why you also have some in the climate sector coming out and praising them for at least not destroying all efforts, which is what some people feared the EV mandate, if they got rid of it and didn't replace it with anything would go. And they are following an example that Europe also went through in just last December.

So it's all in all, I think it's a really good day for the liberal government. Chantal? So first, if we were trying to continue to walk in step with the U.S. approach at this point, we would have gotten rid of EV mandates and that stops there. That is not what happened today, which is interesting in the sense that we are going the European model way. So emissions will be calculated. Those rebates, Antea is totally right, will be popular, will move cars. It's an interesting day when the auto industry, the Premier of Ontario,

with the leader of the province where it most matters, but also a number of the number of, of people on the green side of the equation say this is not a bad move. And I'll offer you one token of that, Stephen Gilbo, who has no seat and cabinet to protect anymore, actually had good words for this announcement. So, yes, it is a step back, but it is not a retreat in the American sense of the world. And it does send the message that Canada is willing to look at a different auto industry model away from the big three that we sometimes bail out, by the way, for lack of

innovation. And that's a gamble on the fact that the future in the auto industry is probably going to be EVs notwithstanding what the U.S. market goes through over the next four or five years. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a gamble, Andrew. And it's also interesting to see the prime minister say, we hope that the tariffs don't remain with the United States on the auto sector. But if they do, here are all the things we're going to do to pivot sort of away from them. What do you make of that move in particular? All the things. It's insanely complicated. You've got emissions standards.

You've got subsidies that apply to some country's cars, but not to others, at price points that vary, depending on whether they're made. And then we've got some system of tradable credits where if you make cars here, you get the credits, and if you import them, you have to buy the credit. It's better than the policy it's replacing. The EV mandate is practically unachievable and insanely costly if they tried to achieve it. So give thanks that that's gone. It's much less good policy than just charging a carbon price

and let people figure out for themselves how they want to reduce their emissions, including by buying electric vehicles. That is the necessary and sufficient policy, but apparently we're not capable of that in this country. It doesn't make a lot of economic sense, But we're kind of outside economics right now. We're kind of in a wartime economy. The United States President has declared war on our auto industry for reasons nobody can really divine,

where he doesn't want any cars to be made in Canada. He's declared war on his auto industry at the same time because they would other things be equal, prefer to keep making cars in Canada. The calculation, the thing that might make it all halfway sensible is he may not be here for long. Let us hope. If he goes and if the Americans go back to something resembling their sense, then there may be a case for policies like this that help the industry ride it out until then. But don't look for a lot of economic sense in it beyond that.

Yeah, Elthia. I think what we can look at today's announcement as is a short-term band-aid, because it's not like the EV mandate, what it hoped to do was to change the way the Canadian auto sector in this country functions. And that maybe made sense when Joe Biden was the president of the United States and both administrations, Canada and the United States, were kind of rowing in the same direction. But this is not that at all. Like, this is basically a temporary fix that encourage,

that almost as much as encourages auto manufacturing in this country, encourages Canadians to purchase car from other countries with which we have free trade deals. So it's not hugely, it's not hugely forward thinking. And I think the proof will be in the pudding, whereas, you know, do the investments that they make now actually deliver? The other question really to ask is, like, what is part of this $3 billion fund? We have no idea who it will go for, what projects.

And I do think there's been a lot of money through this a strategic investment fund, but there's not a lot of transparency. And I think as the months and maybe the years go by, taxpayers really need to know what they've invested in and where that money has gone. The other thing... Yeah, go ahead, Andrew. The other thing that might make, again, a smidge of the sense is if the president is determined to destroy our auto sector and you're trying to shelter something here, you might as well shelter the part of the industry that he doesn't want, which is electric vehicles. Yes.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. For one, two, a lot of details and there are big details are missing in action. And I think part of the announcement or part of the Cousman pre-negotiation stance. i.e. these are things that we will be doing if this is where you want to go, i.e., we don't want

your auto industry anymore. So I don't think we have seen the full picture. I'm not sure that the government has a handle on the full picture yet, but it is a move that does signal that if we're going to keep anything, we're not going to keep the fuel-based auto industry that the American administration seems to love. We're going to try to get the South Korea, Chinese, European-style EVs, which is probably where the future is in any event. Okay, we're going to leave this part there.

Thank you all. But when we come back, we will talk about whether there is a new spirit of collaboration inside the House of Common. So as we made up this new approach, particularly from the Conservatives, will it last? What could it mean for Canadians? That's right.

Conservatives are here to work with the Prime Minister and with the government to get to knock down these unjust tariffs and fight for our workers, fight for their jobs and fight for our economic independence. Canadians need hope right now. They need hope. You want to sneak by here? Good to see you. This is not hope. This is not hope over here. We've got a, we're working.

We're actually going to work. You better start. We've got, uh, this is the, these are the group here that have given you the most expensive groceries in the G7. So have conservatives changed their approach to parliament? It sounded like it at the beginning of that clip. By the end, I wasn't so sure. How could liberals take advantage of this moment here to break it all down? Chantal, Andrew, um, and Althea. Andrew, you know, part of this started at the conservative convention over the weekend, this tonal change, certainly from Pure Poliaf, but also identifying areas where, um, they're willing to actually do things, whether it be bail or, or other, or the GST rebate, for instance. What do you make of this in terms of a different posture for conservative?

Well, I think to some extent the moment and the public demand it. People are so spooked and rightly so by what's going on south of the border, and depending on events, they may continue to be. So this may be one of those rare things where it actually does last, depending on what happens in the states. It's good politics for Poyabre in a number of respects. One is it looks statesman-like. Secondly, you get to talk about the issues

that you'd like to talk about. You get the media to focus on you, which is hard for opposition leaders to do. So he got in there to talk about the cooperation, but it was on things like affordability, et cetera. Thirdly, you sort of put the Prime Minister on the spot to try to respond in some similar fashion, and that's always good to try to seize the initiative.

It's certainly a lot more useful and helpful than Jamil Giovanni going down to, quote, unquote, negotiate on behalf of who who knows who on with who knows what mandate. But he must have, I presume he went down with the leader's authorization. And I think what was going on there was to focus on the Canada U.S. trade deal as being, first of all, the be all and the end all rather than something that we have to be able to take or leave. And secondly, to blame the government for the absence of one so far.

If only Jamil Giovanni and people like him were negotiating it, we'd already have it is the implicit message. So there's a supposedly bipartisan, helpful move that is neither helpful nor particularly bipartisan. Chantelle. I frankly do not put a lot of stuck on this spirit of cooperation. I believe it's driven by polls and the sense that the one thing that is clear from everything we've seen and everything we've read is that if the liberals can only demonstrate or show a narrative that shows that Parliament isn't working. that it's being bogged down by parliamentary games on the part of the official opposition. Mark Carney is totally able to walk to Rideau Hall and say, I need a mandate to do what I need to do because they're playing games in the House of Commons.

And if you look at polls and you're a conservative or a new Democrat, the last thing you want at this point is an election. I then also believe, though, that if Mr. Poitiever, wants to revert to style, he may have a problem with caucus. And why do I say that? Because this week, a lot of caucus members got different marching orders on how parliament should work from Stephen Harper. And those marching orders went to unity and cooperation and being constructive. And that does mean that in the future, in the next few months, if we are going to revert to the usual, let's just ambush the government style,

there will be caucus members who will use Stephen Harper's words to say that's not where we want to be or what we want to do. But do I believe there has been a sudden conversion, and by the way, on the Chivaini thing, whether Pierre Puelly have authorized it or not, the last thing we need

are for opposition members to suddenly freelance and say we're going to renegotiate, the relationship and come home to say Donald Trump told me he likes us. He loves us. He gives me a break. He loves us. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, we sure heard in Calgary, Althea, a lot of conservatives worried about the possibility of an early election knowing that that wouldn't be an ideal outcome for them. So, I mean, Chantal's notion there, I think, is pretty plausible. What do you make of the approach here? I entirely agree.

There's not an ounce of me who believes that if the polls showed something different, that the leader of the official opposition, Chapoyev, would be acting differently. Oh, you're sick. They are... Oh, come on. They are convinced that if there was an election now,

the liberals would win a majority, and they do not want an election now. They need time. The leader of the official opposition has terrible polling numbers, personal polling numbers. They need time to build a team. They need time to recruit candidates.

They need time. They need time to give Mark Carney a record that they can prosecute. And so they are playing for time. And it is remarkable, honestly, at the tone shift in the last week. Like Michelle Rumpelgarner, who was just, who's a Calgary MP and was calling, and the immigration critic for the party, was calling the immigration minister incompetent just a few weeks ago. And now she is writing a letter, released publicly, saying that she is writing this in the spirit of collaboration

and making parliament work for all Canadians. And then at the same time, you watch question period, nine times I was in the House on Wednesday. the liberals are accusing the conservatives of being obstructionist, whether the liberals want an election or not, the threat of them demonstrating to the conservatives that they are willing to go means that they can get their agenda passed in the commons with a lot less headaches than they had in the fall. And let's remember in the fall,

they really only passed one new piece of legislation. So it's politics that work here. I'm really sorry, but that's basically it. But Andrew, I mean, that is good for a government that is going to need, whenever the election is, something to campaign on. They need some of their agenda to get through here. Yeah, I mean, I do think if they could,

they wouldn't mind going to an election in the spring because things are only going to get more turbulent and troublesome for them from now on. First of all, Foyevri is raising his game noticeably. And so that's going to give them trouble. Secondly, the NDP is going to resolve their leadership question for Guterrelle, and they're going to be a bit more of a force to be reckoned with. And thirdly, we're heading for all kinds of.

of crazy mayhem from Donald Trump, inevitably. And so, you know, there's a case we made if you're a liberal for getting the election out of the way beforehand. They certainly seem to have gotten a lift out of the Davos speech. Right after I recall, I'm saying they weren't getting a partisan, they were only getting a personal lift for Carney, but it does seem now to be translating into support for the party as a whole rather than just him, at least most recent poll suggests. So, yeah, that puts them in the driver's seat. Last 30 seconds to you, Chantel.

I'm not taking for granted that the NDP leadership will see a boost in the poll, a poll for the NDP in any way, shape, or form. And I believe the liberals would like an election, but that they totally understand that there's no patience out there for an election that isn't based on some probable cause to have one. And that's nonexistent at this point. regardless of, you know, the parliamentary games, I agree with Althea.

I watched question period. And unless someone told you there was a big change, I saw no change. We're going to take a short break here. When we come back, we'll talk about Stephen Harper's legacy and his most recent message of unity in response to the United States. That's next. In these perilous times, both parties, whatever, there are other differences. Come together against external forces.

that threaten our independence. The question for Canada is not how we feel about what the U.S. is doing. It is how will we adapt? To be clear, these realities mean that we must reduce our dependence on the U.S. in order to protect our sovereignty. So what's we made of Stephen Harper's message to Canada?

Let's bring everyone back, Chantal, Andrew Nalthea. It's so rare that we hear from Stephen Harper. So that also is remarkable. He's celebrating the 20th anniversary of forming government, and he got his portrait unveiled and all the rest. But he obviously had some things to say, Chantel, some important things to say about the country and things that he thinks the country should be doing in this moment. What did you make of what he was saying? I talked to gave Prime Minister Carney a good week on many levels.

The first being that clear appeal to unity, which was that. directed that the conservatives, that the two parties need to come together. But also the last speech, the one to a conservative partisan crowd, where he insisted that Canada should go tariffs for tariffs against the U.S. That is a more aggressive posture than that of the current government, but it's immensely more of an aggressive posture than that of the current leader of the conservative party on the entire Trump issue. So I feel he bought Carney a lot of wiggle room. And I do believe that he robbed Pierre Pueleve of the afterglow of that resounding 87% vote that he got at the convention.

So I would say there are many conservatives this week who left Ottawa with nostalgia in their heart. Why? because they didn't feel that their current leader stacks up against Stephen Harper? Andrew. There are some leaders who have better records as former prime ministers than as prime ministers. Stephen Harper was a fair-to-middling PM. He's turning into a very good former PM. We remember that intervention in the spring when morale was shaken

and he said I would rather put the country into poverty than yield to America, something to that effect. It was pretty stirring. a guy whose patriotism used to be questioned. Remember he was the author or one of the authors of the firewall letter. I remember a journalist, a reporter asking him at a press conference once, do you love Canada? It turns out he loves Canada a lot. And he's been quite stirring, I think, in some of his appeals. As Chantelle mentioned, he's certainly making life a little difficult, not only for the conservatives, but for some sections of the business community,

who are just all about, put all of our eggs in the Kuzma basket, don't say anything to disturb Donald Trump just, you know. So to be saying, as he's saying, well, actually, we need to be thinking seriously about how we're going to diversify our trade, he's taking a different path. Yeah, it also was stark because it is, I think, as Chantal said, Althea, what a lot of conservatives want to hear from the current leader. And so to hear it from the former guy, the former boss, I think that meant a lot to a lot of people and maybe to people who weren't conservative either. Can I just go back on what Chantanthal originally said? Because I think we would, would have made comparisons between Pia Pue Pue Liev's speech and Stephen Harper's speeches

regardless. But I actually think that what Prime Minister Harper gave Pia Pia Pia Palliav is kind of covered to go into areas where he seemed to, he did not want to go before his leadership vote. Like, it was remarkable that we had a whole convention and the word Donald Trump was never spoken from the stage of the conservative convention. Separatism was alluded to as in like there are legitimate grievances, but, but fighting for the country, the way that Stephen Harper spoke this week, that was not there. And I think Stephen Harper has kind of raised the bar and told Pierre Polly of this is what

you need to do if you want to become prime minister. At the same time, I think he also did Mark Carney's favor, not just because at the conservative shinding on Wednesday, the former prime minister of Ireland started praising Mark Carney from the stage. That was a little weird. But he basically urged businesses to do things that this government, the current government, needs them to do, which is stop waiting for the situation in the United States to rectify itself. Again, he's echoing the Davos speech, almost word for word in some ways, at least theme for theme, and saying, basically, we need you to diversify. Like, this will only work if you step up. And so I think in a way he's helping the conservatives lay out policy in places where they haven't,

in places where the liberals even themselves haven't. So I don't necessarily see it as a negative thing, But I do think it's like pushing the conservative leader down a certain path. At the same time, also kind of saying we have the leader for the times at this moment. That I thought he went out of his way, especially on Tuesday, with that message. Quick, quick last letter, Chancho. Yeah, the problem is that conservative strategists, and I agree with them on this, totally believe that if they're going to fight this on the battlefield of Trump, Canada, U.S. relations, etc., they can't win against Mark Kearling with Piapli.

And that is the biggest problem. Okay, got to leave it there. That's why they need time. Next year, the year after. That's that issue for this week. What do you think about Ottawa's new automotive strategy? What did you make of Stephen Harper's call for unity? Did that resonate with you?

You can let us know, as always. Send us an email at ask.cbc.com. Remember, you can catch me on Rosemar Barton Live. That's Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. We will be back here in your feeds next week. for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.