At Issue - Carney fires back at Trump’s trade demands

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Ottawa responds to the Trump administration demands for trade concessions, including lifting the U.S. liquor ban. Mark Carney and Pierre Poilivre release dueling social media videos. And the Liberals move to control House committees with their newly-secured majority. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

The Powering Politics Podcast is available six times a week, but you might not be. If you want to catch up on what happened this week in politics, join me, Laura Dangelow and some of Canada's most tuned-in political strategists to break down the week that was. Short on time, the weekly wrap has you covered with a new episode every Saturday. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, I'm Rosemary Barton this week on at issue, the podcast edition, for Thursday, April 23rd. The only talks that Mark Carney is doing are you two. videos. We have a variety of issues that we think are not consistent with USMCA right now, and we like the Canadians to comply with those things right now. We're not sitting here

taking notes, okay, and taking instruction from the United States. Look, you know what's in here? 50% tariff on steel. 50% tariff on aluminum. This week, we're asking, where do things stand with trade negotiations with the U.S.? Plus, the Prime Minister and Pierre Puehliev head online to speak directly to Canadians. So, what's to be made of the state of these tensions between Canada and the U.S. on trade and how will a new Canada counsel on the United States and a new ambassador help Canada's response? I'm Rosemary Barton. Here to break it all down tonight. Shantelle I bear, Andrew Coyne, Altheiraj. I mean, we haven't talked about this in a while, to be fair. So we were due, and it seemed like there were a bunch

of pieces moving around this week, and none of them seemed particularly encouraging, watching them from the outside. Although when you talk to people behind closed doors, they're They don't seem to think things are as dire. But this notion that there is some sort of entry fee that the prime minister says he hasn't heard that term, but certainly a concession that is required to get Canada to the actual table. What do we make of that, Chantal? Not very much. There was one point where it was said that we should make a concession to get Donald Trump's attention

because he's preoccupied with something else. Trade negotiation does not involve the president being at the table to do any of this. No, it doesn't both particularly well. But I agree with the take that the government has offered concessions back in July to try to get things moving and nothing moved. So the notion that you would go to a negotiating table and play all your cards before you show up at the table sounds like a weird take on poker nights. Yeah, I mean, I'm not good at poker, but I don't think that's what I would do either. One of the things that got the prime minister a bit riled up there at the end was he was asked again about U.S. liquor, which continues to be banned in a number of provinces in the country, including Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec. and that doesn't seem to be something anyone's willing to back down on.

I don't know if that's real, Andrew. Like, is that really the thing that's going to move things along? Well, they're certainly going to use it, hold it in reserve as a bargaining chip. It clearly got the Americans' attention. It causes them a great deal with loss of revenue. The prime minister has also got the advantage of being able to say, look, it's not me. It's the provinces. I can't really force them to do anything.

So that's rhetorical. But look, yeah, the, the, you. The entry fee nonsense is ridiculous, depending on exactly what was said to whom. We only have the basis of this for somebody leaking it to us. But I think it's somewhat encouraging that we're talking about specific irritants like supply management, like the Online Streaming Act, and not a generalized, we don't want to have a trade agreement with you anymore. We think this is all bad for America. That at least is some kind of coming down to brass tax.

We're still in a position where the Americans think at the end. of this that will still have tariffs on Canadian exports. And moving them off of that is going to be very difficult. But this is a little bit more like standard operating procedure, negotiating positions put out in public rather than sort of existential questions, at least this week. Is that part of the issue, though, Althea, is that some of this is being said in public, but presumably, you know, we don't know what the negotiations are like or what the talks are like. And certainly the prime minister is not going to negotiate in public. I think the truth is we don't actually know that there are actual negotiations happening at the moment.

Right. We know that there is engagement. I mean, we can see it with her own eyes. Jana Charette, the person who's our lead trade negotiator, has said that they're engaging. But the ambassador testified at committee today is Thursday and basically said Canada was ready to commence negotiations. When you ask the minister who's in charge of those negotiations, Dominic LeBlanc to list the negotiations that have happened since the fall, they don't provide you with any. And you know, you had Kyle Seaback, the Ontario Conservative MP at the House of Commons trying to get the ambassador to reveal the nature of the number of negotiations.

And he would not. So we don't actually know what is happening, never mind, you know, happening behind closed doors and what's being traded or not. It is very clear that the Americans are interested in putting the pressure on Canada to come to the table, possibly with those irritants that they have been talking about, and that we are reluctant for the reasons that Chantal outlined that we have been burned before and we feel we will be burnt again. Also, I found, John Isharet spoke to the Business Summit earlier this week, and she basically said that her marching air instructions are to basically preserve the status quo. So she does not want to view this and the government does not want to view this as a renegotiation. And so there is a sense that they're dragging the puck. The conservatives have lashed on to that. Now they're finding space for themselves in this conversation, which is it is very costly.

And people are going to lose their job when the Americans, not just in terms of the rhetoric that you heard, you know, like the deputy U.S. trade rep talk about how Mark Carney is making this personal and he's guilty of malpractice. But when you have people who are losing their jobs because the tariffs are changing and they're becoming more punitive, there is a cost to dragging the puck. And so I think the government is kind of in this hard position where the politics are to keep the strategy that they're engaged with. There's no doubt about that. It is better to be Captain Canada. But on the policy front, are there more wins to drag it out or will the cost be so high that maybe it's not worth the cost? We don't know the answer to those questions. Except that choice is a non-choice.

That was the choice a year ago. We're going to settle tariffs. Excuse me, but I have not seen anything in the window that takes you away from the pain that Altea rightly describes. So this seems based on the assumption that there's the deal to be had that would work for everyone versus just ragging the puck because we can get a better deal. I don't think those are really the two choices. I think at this point we are in the middle of a conversation, not a negotiation, that is basically the U.S. wants to win and wants Canada to lose. That is not a negotiation.

It's the opposite of what you want. But at the same time, I looked at this council that got put together this week, which includes conservatives, union leaders, People who agreed to serve on this Canada U.S. Council, which I have always believed was a strategy to buy cover for the federal government in the previous tenure of Justin Trudeau. And now, as in, not only do we speak with one voice, but we also speak with one voice on the strategy. And I haven't heard any of the people who joined Aaron O'Toole, Lisa Raid, others, and they did so with their eyes wide open, say, we are joining because we think. it's time to not rag the buck because there's a deal in the making. Yeah, go ahead, I think there's a lot to be said for running down the clock for two reasons.

One is every day that goes by, Trump is getting weaker politically. He's now down in the mid-30s in approval ratings. He's got a lot less room to maneuver politically, a lot of us fewer people he can just thumb his nose at in terms of his own constituencies. We have divisions in this country, but we're a lot more united on this question than they Americans are for the same reason Ukraine is a lot more united than Russia. You know, we're defending our own turf here under attack. So I think there's some, and the other reason is we really have to wait and see what kind

of talks the Americans want to have. As we've been discussing, to this point, it's all been, you make concessions, we make none. At the end of the day, we want tariffs to still continue. And, of course, we have no idea whether at the end of the day they would have any interest. in actually living up to their end of the bargain, actually sticking by the things that they agree to. The later in the day, the later in Trump's term that this actually is negotiated, the better for us. So I don't see any reason to rush into a deal. 30 seconds, Althea.

Well, I don't know that there's a deal to be had at the moment. But I think that the cost of not having a conversation is something to watch, I guess, is what I would say. the first political point of demarcation between these two political parties. I agree with everything my colleagues have said. I do think the government strategy is to buy time. I do think it's politically beneficial for them. In fact, I think the rhetoric that we are seeing from the south of the border is so over the top that you could almost see a reason for Mark Carney to be like,

I need a new mandate to go to the polls because, you know, I'm being attacked personally for wanting to put the interest of this country ahead of American interest, and they want us to be a client state. And I need a mandate, and now we have a division between ideas. So I think we know what the strategy is. I think there's the debate about whether or not going forward that is the best one. Okay, got to leave this here. I know we'll talk about it again.

When we come back, we will look at Mark Carney and Pierre Puelev, taking their political messaging online. So that's not a new thing going online. but what's to be made of the battle between Carney and Paulyev over social media. That's next. I think the Prime Minister should get away from all of the theatrics, the YouTube videos, and the distractions. More than that talk. You're Folliav saying you need to explain your planning community on trade talks.

It says you're show moving too much. You need to stop the YouTube videos. What's you ever negotiated for? So is this the new preference for speaking to Canadians? Why is the PM in particular reaching out this way? Let's bring everyone back, Chantal, Andrew, and Elthia. It's not new that anybody's talking in of social media, that they're doing their own videos. I think the framing of the way the Prime Minister put his forward,

that this was sort of a future guidance, I think, was the language he used. Forward guidance. Yeah, yeah. I also thought Pierre Puehliev criticizing it was kind of a little ironic, but Andrew, please give me your take. Well, forward guidance is an odd thing to invoke because it was a bit of a bust as a policy, and Central Banks moved off of it. But nevertheless, he's trying to,

shape the debate, frame the issues surrounding it, prepare people perhaps for bad news. There's a lot of the usual boasting about his record, such as it is, and making promises for the future. I was struck by the historical and military allusions, which seem to suggest more than just trade talks are at stake here, and we'll have to find out just where we're going with the relationship with Donald Trump and the Americans. but it was quite somber in its tone. I should say, I think we should be pleased that our leaders are speaking to us in more than 30 second sound bites. Ten minutes, you've got to kind of sustain an argument. I thought Pierre Puebvre's rebuttal to it was quite good.

He pointed out that, you know, there's been no new pipelines built, there's been no new trade agreements negotiated, there's been, you know, very little progress on housing, they're spending more, the deficits are up. These are substantive complaints. They're rebuttable on the Prime Minister's side, but we're having contests. of arguments and facts rather than just people yelling at each other and calling each other names, and I think we should be pleased about that. Althea, are you pleased about that? I'd love to see our political leaders talk to us in complete sentences, so I'm not going to

criticize that. I agree. There was a trade agreement signed approved. It was Indonesia, but it was started under Justin Trudeau. That's right. That's why I said negotiated. Yes. So it's pretty clear, and I believe the prime minister's office,

or at least the advisors around him, I have acknowledged, that the prime minister has, for many months, been thinking about opening this new line of communication to Canadians in the style of FDR and the fireside chats that Americans heard on the radio. I think from that you can gather that the prime minister may be preparing the landscape to deliver bad news, whether or not Mark Carney's. sees himself as a wartime leader, I do not know. But I do know that a lot of voters did vote for Mark Carney last spring because they really did feel that the United States posed a dangerous

threat to Canada, not just economically, but in some cases in terms of our physical security, our territorial integrity. And so he was playing to Do's strengths. And it's almost better that you open a channel of communication when you have no reason to because it sets forward an expectation that the Prime Minister will be communicating directly to Canadians in the weeks and months ahead. Now, FDR did about 28 to 30, depending on how you count of these. And the point of making them noteworthy and newsworthy is that they don't happen too often. So I don't expect the Prime Minister to have a weekly radio address on YouTube to Canadians. But I think it is interesting what he felt he needed to say.

And I think more interesting will be what the next one is about. Yeah, Chantal? I don't disagree with the initiative. I will hold the Prime Minister up to his promise to talk to Canadians about what hasn't worked. So not the great things that he feels that this government had done. I did not believe I would see a day when a government going into a negotiation with the United States of all places would have the Prime Minister show a toy soldier of someone who actually went to war with the United States. I'm sure Stephen Harpy was happy for having spent so much time educating Canadians about the war of 2012. But I am still reminded, let me be old-fashioned, of Pierre Trudeau giving a weekly news conference,

which actually would serve the same purpose, but would probably bring out more information in the sense that people would actually ask questions and maybe get some answers than a YouTube 10-minute lecture. So I guess the test of it is going to be overtime. He did do a press conference today. I mean, he did an announcement and took questions today. It'd be nice if you show up in question period a little more often. Yeah. Go ahead, Chantelle. QP, but also a set down news conference is not the same as taking questions after a housing announcement.

Yes, I agree. But he did take some questions. And Andrew, yes, you would like to see him in question period more. As would Pierre Puele of, as he made the point today. Yeah, I mean, it's, so on the one hand, they're speaking in complete sentences. On the other hand, it's careful message control, but, you know, so were the fireside chats. So what you need is the full spectrum. There's nothing wrong with them wanting to get their own message out in their own way,

as long as they're also making them available, making themselves available, for situations where they're not able to control the dialogue and where they're going to have questions thrown at them, whether by reporters or by MPs, that they're not necessarily fully framed and ready to, to answer. They have to think on their feet. Yeah. Althea? I agree with all of that. I mean, I agree the news conferences are important. I think, you know, one of Justin Trudeau's shining moments, if you will, was during COVID and the news conferences outside of his residence that kind of gave people comfort.

And I think that is something else that Prime Minister Carney is going after. But I do think, you know, we do need to recognize that media reach, traditional media reach is not what it used to be. You know, we are banned from meta platform, Instagram, and Facebook, and the prime minister can reach a lot of people using his own channels of communications. And so while I do absolutely believe in the role of journalists and democracy, and I find it shameful, the prime minister is not going to question period as often as he should be, in my opinion. I do also see a value in them wanting to communicate through their own channels because they will reach a lot of people

who may not be reading us. Last quick word, Chantelle. And it does put the onus on him to show up again, one, and to show up saying something more than what he said the time before.

Because otherwise it's going to be a useless exercise. So he has put some obligation on himself by doing it. Well, lots of people watch and listen to you, just so you guys know that. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we'll talk about the battle over parliamentary committees after the liberals proposed changes to the makeup. That's next. In Parliament, there is a longstanding principle.

A party that has the majority of seats in the House also has a majority in committees. This is what Canadians voted for in the last election. They wanted a strong opposition that could act as a check on this lower government. Here to break down that battle over parliamentary committee changes. Chantal, Andrew, Nelthea. This does sound very nerdy. but that's the kind of thing we like. But it does have real consequences. And I talked to Andrew Schiro on the weekend, and obviously they're very frustrated,

probably with good reason for this, and trying to make the case that this should actually reflect the results of the last election and not, in fact, the makeup of the House. I don't know if anyone has strong views on this. Althea, you might. I feel like you might have strong views. I think it's overreach.

First of all, we need to acknowledge that this majority comes from Florida. Crossers, it does not make it illegitimate, but it's not like they had a majority at the polls. I can understand why they would want to reset committees. I don't blame them for doing that. I think it's a little bit much to add two liberal MPs to every, mostly every committee that has a liberal chair because you want to ensure that you have a natural majority without asking the chair to weigh in. Then on committees where they have an opposition chair, the liberals are also giving themselves an extra person, so they also have a much larger majority on those committees.

I could see them wanting to have one extra MP on these committees, but two, I mean, come on. And I do think you have to like peel back the layers a little bit. This prime minister definitely has an authoritarian streak. We've seen this with all types of legislation. I was struck after the by-election when he referred to his MPs in English as his deputies. At first he was saying that. I thought it was just an error in translation. He means deputy, and then he's just saying it in English.

But then he keeps repeating it. So I'm starting to wonder if he actually thinks members of parliament are his deputies to do his bidding in the House of Commons, which is not the third job. Maybe he's just like super bilingual all of a sudden. No, no, no, no. You know, and there's like everybody is like, does not want to say anything critical about this prime minister. It's quite shocking in this town, I have to say. So I find it very troubling. that the liberals are going down this road.

That took a whole other term, which was very interesting as well. Chantal and then Andrew. There is some functional logic to the notion that a majority in the House of Commons is reflected in committees. And why is that? Because committees parse through legislation. It's not just about holding government's feet to the calls on scandals. And you would have...

a kind of dysfunction, an opposition minority, which is a majority on committees, rewriting bills, if the Black Quebec, the conservatives can agree, absent the NDP, which has no seats, to bring it to a house where the liberals can defeat all of those changes. So from a practical point of view, but also, I believe the point of getting a majority was to achieve just that. there are arguments for it. Now, I noticed that you said Mr. Shear was not happy about this, but I didn't hear you say that he was calling for an election to have the will of Canadians on this. And I'm guessing that the opposition does want to engage in one of those lengthy months long stopping Parliament from functioning.

The cloud over their heads is the possibility that it's a possibility that it's a lot of, some point you say, let's stop this and go to the polls. So I'm waiting to see how far the opposition parties want to take. Yes, no, that didn't come up in our conversation, funny enough. Last word to you, Andrew. Well, we can debate whether a majority achieved by floor crossing is the same or different than a majority achieved in the election. I'll just say nobody voted for a minority or a majority they voted to elect members in their audience to represent them. But what it does show to me is why we shouldn't necessarily want majority governments that sometimes people pine for because of course it's the is the firm smack of authority. What it really is is a complete loss of accountability.

Even in minority parliament, it's very hard for committees to actually do their jobs. For example, when they demand documents from the government and governments of either political party refused to release them. But when it's a majority, it just completely goes to sleep. It shows you, again, how centralized and top-down power is in this country in particular. Britain, from which our system derives, has the same tradition that majority governments have majorities in the committees, but they don't get to choose the chairs of the committees. The chairs are elected by the, the chairs are elected by the House as a whole, by a secret ballot. Australia has the same tradition of majorities to choose the majority of the committee in the House of Representatives, the lower house,

not in the Senate because it's elected by proportional representation. So in both of those governments, prime ministers, even in possession of majority, have to deal with real centers of power that they They can't necessarily control. In our system, when it's a majority, it's completely controlled. See, I knew you'd all have things to say about that. I can always count on you guys. That is at issue. That's at issue for this week.

Are you worried about those trade negotiations with the U.S.? Are you concerned about the makeup of parliamentary committees? What did you think of Mark Carney's online address to Canadians? You can let us know what you think about any of those things and more. Send us an email. We're at ask.c.c.c.com. Remember, you can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll be back in your podcast feeds next week. Thank you for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.