At Issue - Carney juggles risk and reward with China trade push

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Mark Carney juggles risk and reward as the Liberals chase closer China trade ties despite blowback over his human rights comments. Pierre Poilievre's push to derail Alto's high-speed train plan. Plus, Avi Lewis's uphill battle to convince Canadians they still need the NDP. Rosemary Barton hosts Andrew Coyne, Althia Raj and Aaron Wherry.

It's becoming pretty clear that U.S. President Donald Trump is ripping up the political playbook. And when it comes to what it all means for Canada, well, as they say, it's complicated. But our podcast, two blocks from the White House, is a way to make sense of it all. Join me, Willie Lowry and senior Washington correspondence Paul Hunter and Katie Simpson every week as we break down the headlines from Capitol Hill with a Canadian spin. Find and follow two blocks from the White House on your favorite podcast app, including YouTube. This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton.

This week on ad issue, the podcast edition, for Thursday, April 2nd. There are fundamental issues in terms of China's treatment of the Uyghurs in the past, and they've been rightly called out. If Mr. Carney does not have the courage to stand up against slavery and genocide, what does he have the courage to do? So tonight, we're asking, does the Prime Minister need to further clarify Canada's position on forced labor and China. And is Pierre Pueleev taking the position to get rid of a high-speed rail for electoral purposes? So what to make of the government position on China? How could

this impact trade with the United States? I'm Rosemey Barton here to break it all down tonight. Andrew Coyne, Altheiraj, and in for Chantelle-A-Barre tonight. Erin Wary, good to see everyone. Thanks for being here. I should say that this, the prime minister was perhaps going to get into this problem regardless, but he was sort of put there. by Michael Maugh, the floor crosser, who's now a liberal MP, who didn't really make it clear what his own position was on forced labor in China at a parliamentary committee, and the Prime Minister was left to answer some of these questions. Andrew, what did you make of the way that the Prime Minister answered them

and what he was doing to sort of address the mess that he got put into there? It seemed kind of late and reluctant. I mean, Mr. Ma insists that his comments were misinterpreted, and it's room for some grounds to believe that maybe it wasn't quite as stark as it came across, but for a party with the liberal's history of playing Footsie with, or at least not being particularly vigilant on the, whether the human rights front in China or in Canada in terms of Chinese interference, Chinese intimidation of the Chinese diaspora,

they sort of have an obligation to kind of go the extra mile to make sure that people don't see them as being, looking the other way at these kinds of abuses. You know, with the finance minister and various officials now crossing over to China for a business, another business meeting, another business mission, it sure seems like all times. Like, you'd never think that China had taken two of our citizens hostage

and used them for diplomatic purposes. You'd never think that they'd been accused credibly of being the most active agents and interference with our politics. This was the sort of thing that people warned about when we started getting back into trade relationship with the prime minister's trade agreement with them. The agreement on its face wasn't anything terribly objectionable,

but the issue and the concern has always been once you get back into that game, you make yourself vulnerable. You start playing the Chinese game again, and that's the concern, I think, that these sorts of incidents raise. Yeah, and probably all the more reason Althea, why the government has to be very decisive and clear at its statements on some of these issues. Well, like with India and with the premise of comments earlier on China, I think the government has been actually quite clear with Canadians

without having to explicitly say it out. And maybe what you're suggesting and what some Canadians are suggesting is that he does explicitly spell it out. But he has made the calculation that he will pay a smaller price, in Canada for not calling out the Chinese government over its treatment of Uyghurs or calling out the Indian government over its foreign interference in Canada because there is an economic price to pay. And the Canadian government would rather ensure that we have free-flowing markets and that we don't have a mysterious virus that shows up on some product or some reason to close the border with China. and, you know, that's really quite clear.

I think the other thing that pops up from Michael Ma's questioning of a witness on this issue is why was Michael Maher at that committee meeting either? And that speaks to a whole other issue about the Liberal Party and the government not being really well organized. I mean, these questions have been percolating for weeks, if not months. And so this is like this should not have been new or a surprise to the government. Yeah, I mean, I did go back and look too, because the prime minister's answer to that other question was about the motion that was voted on inside the house around whether there was a genocide against Uyghurs and their abuse. And at the time, the government, cabinet, also abstained from that position. So I don't know if that was calculated on the part of Prime Minister Carney, Aaron, but that is kind of how to deal with what Althea is saying governments tend to do this to try and balance the two things. Yeah, I think to a certain extent it's always been an eternal question in terms of our dealings with China, maybe not eternal, but for at least, it's at least longstanding. But I think, you know, I think it's useful to remember that the impetus for stabilizing relations with China and India, for that matter, was, you know, the reason that we've been, the reason that has dominated sort of every decision over the last year, which was to diversify trade and trying to minimize our exposure to the United States. And so I think this is a reminder that there are, we've been, the reason that there are.

aren't a lot of good options necessarily on the table at the moment. That said, I don't think, you know, to Althea's point, I think that's probably right that the Canadian public is not necessarily going to punish Mark Carney if he sort of, you know, chooses his words carefully in answering questions like he did over the past week. But I do think there's probably some limit on that. And at some point, Canadians might start to be uncomfortable if it seems like the prime minister is, you know, equivocating or sort of backing down from, you know, a principled position, which is, I think, still the sort of thing, even if we're dealing with the world as it is,

I think Canadians probably still want to see values and principles in our foreign policy. Yeah. Andrew, how much of it is complicated by the fact that the U.S. President is now investigating the use of forced labor in other countries and how he is going to tariff those countries if needed? I mean, it's kind of mind-boggling how all those things are intertwined now at this point. Yeah, and just the larger issue of Donald Trump changes everything. The kinds of threats that he represents, I mean, that file is one among many. It certainly means a certain amount of pragmatism has to inform our foreign policy more so perhaps than in the past. I understand that.

But there's questions of proportion. I did the math at the time of the trade agreement, and my recollection, if they, get the desired 50% increase in exports to China over the last next five years, I think it is. Chinese exports go from 4% of our total to 5%. Okay, that's a gain of some degree, but how much are you willing to sacrifice in terms of a coherent and principled Canadian foreign policy? We can't necessarily change China, but we can at least prevent China from changing us. And that is the concern is, do you just completely haul yourself out?

one of the points of the Prime Minister's Davos speech was supposed to be not just forming alliances with middle powers, but that if you do so, you give yourself a bit more license, you're a little less dependent, you've got to give yourself a bit more license to be able to take those kinds of principled stance. Now, maybe in his defense he'll say, look, we're just getting started on that project. We need to get more trade diversification generally, let alone to China. and maybe once we get to that position, we can afford to be a bit more of the Canadian foreign policy of old. Quick last word to you, Althea.

I guess two things. One, part of that Davos speech was also talking about the government having a principled policy, which included values such as defending human rights. So I think there is a natural contrast there. The other thing I think that's worth saying is to Pierre Puehliev, the clip you ran, where he's talking about genocide and slavery, there is no huge gulf between these two political parties in government. I fully expect the conservatives to be wrestling with the very same questions that the liberal government is wrestling with.

So the issue is tone and scale and they're all, you know, like what is Pierre Paulyev saying about what's happening in Palestine and Gaza, for example? You know, that genocide comes with obligations that no Canadian government seems willing to take. And with regards to the Uyghurs, even Justin Trudeau, you know, was pretty muted in his criticism on that issue. So this, the trade debate is really, really about how forthright do we want our political leaders to be with us, I think is really the question. Okay, we're going to leave this part of the conversation there. Thank you for that. When we come back, the opposition leader takes a hard line on high-speed rail. It's still in its early planning phase, but could the project see an early end of the

the line. I'm confirming that a future conservative government will cancel this $90 billion boondoggle altogether. So does the political pressure put the project at risk or is it full steam ahead for the high speed rail? Here to break it down again, Andrew, Althea and Aaron. Forgive my puns. Althea, obviously this is, you know, it's going ahead if the liberal government continues. They are committed to this. What do you think is behind Pierre Paulyev's position on canceling high-speed train. I think there are political calculations at play along the route. A lot of those writings are actually swing writings, and there's a lot of nimbism. My inbox is flooded with it. People who are concerned with the train basically breaking off communities or farmland or not being

given the fair value of that land. A lot of that land is now not just farmland, but also land that's ready for suburban development is worth a lot more. So there's part of that. There's also a feeling that they can exploit the issue in other parts of the country by saying, see what the people in Toronto and Montreal and Quebec City are getting? And you in British Columbia and you in Saskatchewan are getting nothing. So it's an interesting strategy. It has never really been super popular.

It is expensive. They are trying to get ahead of the boondoggle thing. I'm not taking anything with what Pierre Paulyev said. I do think that they believe that the costs will increase. and will be a hard thing to sell, and I can say we were against this from the beginning. Yeah, I think $90 billion is the top of the estimate right now. I'm not saying it won't cost more than that, but that's where he's pulling that number from. Aaron, what do you make of the decision by the opposition leader to go after this particular thing?

I think it's interesting on a couple fronts. You know, last year, Peripoli, I've put out a video where he posed, he talked with a statue of John A. McDonald and raised the question of whether we could ever build something like the Canadian in Pacific Railway right now and, you know, raise the specter of Stephen Giebeau chaining himself to a tree to stop such a thing. And here we have a big, major, ambitious railway project. And when it comes down to making a decision, Mr. Polyeuf is opposed to it. I think that's an interesting question for Pierre Polyev in terms of, you know, when we talk about wanting big things built in this country, are we just talking about pipelines? Or is a rail, you know, can a railway

actually, you know, fit into that. I think his position would be somewhat stronger if he had an alternative to it. Because I'm not sure that there is anywhere between Windsor and Quebec City, any strong feeling that the current rail service is perfect and couldn't be improved upon. And so I think if he was saying, look, I'm not going to do this $90 billion project, but here's what we can do instead. He'd have a slightly stronger position. As it is, he sounds a bit like, you know, one of those people who's standing

in the way of a major project, which I thought we were supposed to be doing away with. Yeah, I mean, Andrew, we're both from Manitoba, and I would imagine people in Winnipeg are kind of perplexed as to why this would be so important for the country. So maybe that is simple to explain to some Canadians. Yeah, or people in Calgary, Edmonton, for example, where there's been talk of high-speed rail for many years. Look, sometimes, I won't, you know, I've done the riding-by-riding granular politics of it, but sometimes, good politics and good policy can align here. It is good, sensible, conservative economic policy to oppose these kinds of massively subsidized mega projects. Every time they look at this,

they've been talking about high-speed rail line for decades, and every time they do a feasibility study, it comes back with the estimated cost having doubled. $90 billion, I guarantee you, it will be way more than that when they finally build it years late and over budget. On top of which, operating subsidies that will have to cover it year after year after year, on top of which they're going to let via rail run it, which has not been a sterling service under its existing mandate. So there's lots of reasons to suspect this is not going to be a particularly wise use of taxpayer funds at a time when we have a lot of fiscal pressures. The provinces face all kinds of pressures on the health care front, the aging population front, which ultimately winds up also costs in the

federal government. We have a massive military buildup. that everybody agrees is unavoidable now in the very dangerous world that we now find ourselves in, is the priority use of $90 billion of funds, or whatever the final amount comes to be, to slightly reduce the time travel from Toronto and Montreal while leaving the rest of the country uncovered.

There are lots of very good reasons, and at a time when people are perhaps wondering what the conservatives stand for, and are they populists or what are they, I think a little traditional conservative of economic policy that clearly differentiates themselves from the liberals, raises a line, the liberals won't cross and steal from them, I think makes good sense. Althea.

Well, just to be clear, because I don't want to like slight via rail, but like one of the reasons the trains are always late is because they don't actually own the rail lines so make way for the freight trains. Part of the biggest part of the issue. Which is one of the issues of this project was so interesting. What is interesting to me is that this project, was actually selected, it's not on the list of the first-tier list of major projects, but it was put on the list of possible projects that the government is interested in fast-tracking

because it was hoped that this would be a project that Canadians would resonate with, that all the other projects were natural resource projects up north where there were a few people that would see benefits, but here you would have potentially millions of people changing the way they travel. Instead of flying from Toronto to Montreal, they could take a train that would take them three hours to get from one city to another. Montreal to Ottawa to Ottawa would be less than an hour. And so that would galvanize public attention. And that's why it was on that list. And the previous feasibility studies have always looked at a high frequency train, which is a train that doesn't go that much faster and makes more stops. And you had bedroom communities around

Toronto really liking that idea because it meant that probably more people would move to their communities. I don't think we can see this as just, you know, I think this is a, you know, I think this is the start of a project that, you know, Popsley could also mean that Edmonton and Calgary get a high-frequency train, that the government is committed to trying to make Canadians travel in a way that is environmentally more sound and also changes the population patterns of this country. And so in that way, it is a highly ambitious project, to Aaron's point, But it seems interesting to me that this is the cleavage point. Look, the largest cleavage point we've had so far on a big policy issue between the

conservatives and the liberals. Last 30 seconds to you or there, Aaron. Yeah, look, I think it's entirely fair to ask questions about the timeline of this project, about the cost, about the feasibility, about the wisdom of pursuing it. But I do think we're seeing a bit of evidence of why sometimes it's hard to build big things. And I think instead of it being a referendum on this project, I think the larger question is how do you improve rail service? How do you build big things in this country

that will actually be wise and useful? And, you know, not necessarily turning this into do you want to spend $90 billion on this particular project? Yeah. If they could attach it to Winnipeg so I could get home quickly, that would be something I would then look at. Okay, thanks everybody. I appreciate it. We're going to take a short break here, but when we come back, we'll look at the path forward

for the New Democrats as Avi Lewis takes the helm of the party. That's next. I've been meeting with New Democrats for almost seven months, and they asked me to continue now meeting with Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Here to break down the challenges ahead for the NDP, Andrew, Althea and Aaron, all back. One of the things that he said on the weekend, Aaron, was that when he met with caucus, they said, don't rush to get into the House, go ahead and keep meeting with Canadians, which obviously is important to building support and getting to know Canadians.

I'm not sure that's the hardest part of the job, but it's certainly a challenge that he has to do at face right now. What did you make of how he's approaching these first couple of days in the job? Yeah, look, I think it makes sense politically for him to put off the question of running until he's absolutely sure there's a seat somewhere that he can win, and I think it might be a while before he finds one. You know, the most interesting part of his first week remains the provincial reaction and the moves by leaders in Alberta, NDP leaders in Alberta,

Saskatchewan and arguably BC to distance themselves. I think from him and his agenda, I think there's absolutely a role for a federal NDP representing the ideas that Avi Lewis has put forward on the federal scene. I think it will, you know, add to the national debate about how we're going to solve some of the problems in front of the country. But I think there really is this question of what it means for the NDP provincially in terms of is the federal NDP going to be a net negative for

them. And I think it's an interesting test for Avi Lewis because, you know, beyond the sort of intra-party conversation, you know, something a national federal leader has to do or, you know, that we might expect of them, is to knit together disparate interests and find compromise and points of agreement. And so, you know, I think it's an interesting test of whether he can do that as a federal party leader with the views of New Democrats in Saskatchewan and Alberta and British Columbia. Yeah, Althea, you were actually there. and certainly the people I was talking to who were there were very excited, and that was the first time they'd been excited in a long time.

I don't know how that translates into anything else other than the excitement in that room. But give me your sense of how Mr. Lewis has to take this on now. There is opportunity. There are a lot of challenge, to Aaron's point. He's not rushing to get a seat in the house because they've looked at the seats, and there is basically no guaranteed win. The seats said he had more chances of. possibly Toronto Danforth or Parkdale Hyde Park.

Well, there's people in them. So he also has to raise a lot of money. He raised over $1 million during this leadership race, but the party is basically about $9 million in the whole. And it's not clear that they can actually take out a loan if there's a snap election without paying that back. So he is going to have to raise like $2 million every quarter to keep the lights on, at least a million dollars every quarter to keep the lights on.

That means he's going to be on an ambitious. cross-country tour to do that. But I do think his message, actually, has the possibility of resonating with a lot of people. And I was struck by Conservative Leader Pierre Paulyev's response to Avi Lewis. You know, they're both kind of going after the same people. And Mr. Lewis told me in an interview that, you know, that party had tested their, or his, gross restore message.

He basically wants the Canadian government to set up grocery stores like. the commissionnaires that the U.S. Army has on its basis where people can go and buy discounted goods. And he said hundreds of conservatives handed over the information. And when they called them, they were shocked to discover that this was an NDP message. And you can see, you know, Pierre Paulyev had an interview that dropped on Thursday, diary of a CEO in which he talked about his vision for the working class. And as he was speaking, I was imagining Avi Lewis has all these counterpoints to Pierre Puelev's points. that, you know, people are telling you this.

Avi Lewis is a very anti-elite stance because this is a system that keeps the rich from getting richer. And if we have more public offering for cell phones or more public offerings for grocery stores, if the public sector can help make your life cheaper, they are doing so in response to other people who are trying to prevent you from having that because they want the wealth in their hands. And so I think the next election will be really interesting because they're both kind of going after the same voters with radically different messages. Andrew, last minute, do you? Yeah, that tells you something about how clouded and confused the conservative messages got, if nothing else. If people couldn't tell that a proposal for publicly run grocery stores wasn't coming from the conservatives.

But look, he's articulate, he's smart. He is unafraid to present himself in his positions. he doesn't try to sugarcoat them or water them down. People can respect that over time. It's going to be a while. He's going to have to focus on fundraising and things like that and introducing himself to the public in the short term. I think they need to bide their time because trouble is coming down the bike.

It's a great time to be a liberal right now. But as events continue, both on the international front and on the economic front, life is going to get a lot tougher for the liberals. And at some point, people may be more willing to look at the NDP message. It's not a message I find terrible appealing. I think a lot of these things have been tried in the past, in decades past, and there's a reason why they were discarded. But memories are short.

Political affinities and ideological moorings are not very tight these days. And we may be surprised by how many people are willing to give them a look if the situation is dire enough. That's at issue, the podcast edition, for this Thursday, April 2nd. Remember, you can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live, Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back here. next Thursday. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.