At Issue - Doug Ford wants Mexico out of free trade deals

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

At Issue this week: Ontario Premier Doug Ford wants Mexico out of future North American free trade deals. Trump’s new border czar says Canada poses an ‘extreme national security vulnerability.’ And what message is the U.S. president-elect sending allies with his administration picks? Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Aaron Wherry.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton. This week on At Issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, November 14th. Ontario's Premier is suggesting Canada cut Mexico out of the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations. What I'm proposing to the federal government,

we do a bilateral trade deal with the U.S. And if Mexico wants a bilateral trade deal with Canada, God bless them. Ford accused Mexico of being a backdoor for cheap Chinese imports. The finance minister says she has heard similar concerns from American officials. Mexico is not acting the way that Canada and the U.S. are when it comes to its economic relationship with China. This week, we're asking what's to be made of Doug Ford's calls to leave Mexico out of trade agreements if necessary.

John Talley-Bear, Andrew Coyne and Aaron Weary join me to talk about that and more. We're asking what's to be made of Doug Ford's calls to leave Mexico out of trade agreements if necessary. John Talleybert, Andrew Coyne and Aaron Weary join me to talk about that and more. Plus, what does Trump's new border czar mean for Canada? I'll start with you, Chantal. What do you make of Ford's comments? You know, there is some truth to what they're saying that Freeland, Minister Freeland acknowledged that Chinese parts are making their way to Mexico. And that probably doesn't quite follow the rules of the free trade agreement. What do you make of what he said? And that is kind of an advance warning for on two scores, the first to Mexico, obviously, because this renegotiation or revision is set for 2026. It will happen.

But also a warning, I guess, to the federal government that it's going to be harder to lead a response going forward because others who have elections coming are not relying on a government that's got with maybe six to nine months to an election. That being said, I am uneasy strategically with the notion that Mexico, Canada, Ontario would start sending signals of what they would cave on at a negotiating table before they even get to it. Yeah. A little curious, too, that the federal government would say that, I think, or I mean, it's not that they're saying it's on the table, but acknowledging it because the federal government has put in place tariffs against

China. And that was something Donald Trump was quite pleased to hear. So I'm not sure, to Chantal's point, Andrew, what the strategy was there either. I think Mr. Ford is either panicking and or seeking opportunity in here of the worst and most short-sighted kind. Leave aside the issue of the tariffs. Ordinarily, I would have no problem with Mexico letting stuff in tariff-free, but there is a legitimate security issue when it comes to China. But to solve, quote-unquote, that problem by bilateralizing a trilateral trade deal is the exact worst response to dealing with the Trump challenge or threat.

What we need to be doing is working together. Canada and Mexico, not just that, but Canada and its allies generally. But let's stick with the trade deal. The worst thing you could do would be to have two bilateral trade deals, Canada-U.S. and U.S.-M to have two bilateral trade deals, Canada-US and US-Mexico, because then Mexico, I should say, United States becomes the hub and we become the

spokes. You can locate a plant in the United States and serve all three markets simultaneously. We don't want that. We want a trilateral trade deal. That's in our strategic advantage as a country. So for Mr. Ford to be going off half-cocked like this, I think, is really unfortunate and not helpful at this particular moment. I agree with Chantel that part of the problem is we've got basically a lame-duck government and a lame-duck prime minister in Ottawa. And it, I think, advances the argument for saying maybe we need to have an election sooner rather than later. Because if this is replicated by other provinces, this is hurting our national interests and it's dividing the country. If Mr. Ford had his way and we bilateralist for the sake of the Ontario auto industry, there's other parts of the country that are going to pay the price for that who are not

going to be terribly happy. So I would hope that the federal government will ignore this particular suggestion. Aaron? Well, I mean, I don't know that they've ignored it, right? You heard Christopher Ewing come out a day later and put it pretty delicately, though, to say, yeah, we have heard these concerns about Mexico and, you know, we share them. Or I think she said at one point, we have sympathy for those concerns. I think, you know, I think Chantal kind of hinted at it. It's hard to ignore the fact that Doug Ford may have an election coming up even sooner than the next federal election. And it's tempting to read it in that context. I think from the federal government perspective, I think if you go back to the last negotiation, they did have in

Jerry Dias and other people, these voices sort of outside the tent that would periodically sound more bellicose, would rattle some sabres. Maybe there's something of that going on. I think, though, as Andrew says, there's a thin line between some sabre rattling and maybe some sort of reckless getting ahead of things. I think there's also a lot of history between Canada and Mexico. Going back to the previous negotiation when Canada thought Mexico threw Canada under the bus and Mexico thought Canada had tried to throw them under the bus. So I think maybe there's some of that, too. But I also think that this just, you know, again, goes back to Donald Trump.

There's a there's when when there's a disruption, a threat like that, you sometimes get people, you know, trying to kind of save themselves or put themselves in a better position at the expense of other people. Yeah. Chantal? Okay, but in the end, and I want to pick up on the notion of an election, the first problem is you do not have someone that has a strong mandate to negotiate for Canada. Whether you like it or not, there will be an election in this country. People read polls, and it's kind of a free-for-all. And that does argue for an election sooner rather than later, so that Canadians can decide.

And they can decide that Justin Trudeau is fine to be dealing with Donald Trump. He did okay in the previous round. But he cannot continue to pretend that he is that same person with that same level of moral authority anymore. Yeah, but when Chrystia Freeland says that, she may have a point, but it also comes across as she's trying not to antagonize the Ontario premier because there's a federal election coming. Yeah, except, I mean, A, they're not dealing with this issue until January. And the issue of KUSMA is 2026. So they do not have the right to make positions and take positions until then? But the thing is, that's not the issue. The thing is, if Mexico and Canada are going to start shooting at each other,

it only has one person at the negotiating table, neither of whom is the Mexican or the Canadian representative. It's the guy who likes negotiating. Andrew, yeah. Mr. Ford can take whatever position he likes behind closed doors. But to be making public statements like this in a way that is divisive and counterproductive in terms of a coherent negotiating strategy with the Americans, which I will stress means a united Canadian position. It means a united Canadian-Mexico position, and it needs, in a broader end, but beyond trade, it requires a unity amongst the democracies. Mr. Trump has been very clear in saying that he regards America's enemies as its allies and its allies as its enemies now. So he'll be cozying up to Russia, but he'll be doing everything he possibly can to antagonize America's erstwhile allies. And that would include Canada.

He is essentially a nihilist, and he will be looking for ways, for example, to divide us amongst ourselves. So I think we need to have a conversation amongst all of Canada's leaders, amongst the different political parties, between the provinces and the feds, on working out some kind of, it doesn't mean everybody has to march in lockstep to whatever the Prime Minister says, but it does mean we've got to figure out some way to approach this in a relatively unified fashion, because otherwise the Americans will pick us apart. Andrew, Aaron, sorry, Aaron. Yeah, look, I think one complication with having an election is that the liberals are probably banking on the fact or the idea that they can spend a few months at least

dealing with Donald Trump and sort of proving their mettle again to Canadians and then carry that into the next election. But to Andrew's point, you know, yeah, I do think the Doug Ford comments raise the issue that there is not going to be or it seems unlikely to be a united front this time around in Canada. Last time around, you know, the Liberals were able to put former Conservative cabinet ministers that were in Stephen Harper's government on their advisory panel. They had Brian Mulroney on their side. I can't imagine the Liberals and Conservatives, or I have a hard time imagining the Liberals and Conservatives working together this time. You had Pierre Polyev already, you know, tweeting that he was, you know, kind of mocking the Team Canada approach. So I do think as much as the Liberals might want to show themselves, prove themselves again in their ability to deal with

Donald Trump, the domestic debate is going to be much tougher than it was last time. But they're not going to get to prove themselves because as you heard this week, and it makes total strategic sense, the Trump team will wait out the Trudeau team until there is an election. Now, how about the notion that Justin Trudeau has been looking for a reason to explain why he should lead the country for another four years? And how about the fact that his main success has been handling Trump in the

previous episode. So if he's looking for a narrative, he needs a mandate. No one is going to take him seriously in Washington unless he gets a new mandate or is gone. And it's a legitimate debate. If you want an overarching issue to frame an election around, which party is best prepared and which leader is best prepared to deal with Donald Trump is a overarching issue to frame an election around, which party is best prepared and which leader is best prepared to deal with Donald Trump is a legitimate issue to have an election over. At issue Donald Trump's borders are, the U.S. president-elect is putting Tom Homan in charge of all U.S. border issues. Homan wasted no time raising security concerns about the Canadian border.

If you're going across the northern St. Lawrence River or come across the lake or on foot, they need to know right from the start, you can come, but you're going to be arrested, you're not going to be released, and we're going to remove you. So what's to be made of this focus on the Canada-U.S. border? What could it mean for our relations with the United States? Chantal, Andrew and Aaron, all back to discuss this. There are two issues here, but the one we'll talk about tonight is how the Trump people are concerned about people coming through Canada into the United States. Obviously, we are

also concerned about what Trump might do, which would force people to try and come to this country. But we'll deal with these comments, Aaron. What do you make of that? And what should that signal to the Canadian government? I mean, I think it underlines that Canada needs to take seriously the idea that people are moving from Canada into the United States. It's not, you know, granted, it's not necessarily a new concern going back to the sort of post-9-11 era. There was this great concern that Canada had a porous border into the United States.

I'm hard-pressed, though, to see it as sort of the biggest issue either for us or for them. The biggest issue for them remains the southern border. And the biggest issue for us remains our southern border, because we may have to concern ourselves with people trying to flee the United States again and come here. You know, part of the reason for amending the Safe Third Country Agreement under the Biden administration was to deal with that northern border. They're States again and come here. You know, part of the reason for amending the safe third country agreement under the Biden administration was to deal with that northern border, their northern border concerns, the U.S. northern border concerns. But I would wonder whether that agreement is still going to hold up through, you know, four years of Trump. Yeah, Andrew? Yeah, because it was always

a question whether the United States was genuinely a safe third country. It is clearly and manifestly not a safe third country. So we are going to be faced with I don't know how many people coming north. Remember, the plan of the Trump government is to round up and put into detention camps 15 million people. And the task of that is so enormous, it's ridiculous. It's likely to lead to massive resistance in the United States. But one form of that resistance may well be thousands, tens of thousands, I don't know how many people coming north to try to escape their fate

of being stuck in camps for however many years. We can't possibly admit that many, but we can't possibly prevent them all either. We have a 9,000-kilometer border with the United States. If they're really determined to come, we've got a real problem on our hands. And one of the problems administratively is, are we going to have any kind of safe third country type of arrangement we can possibly, in good conscience, maintain. So this alone, leave aside trade issues or defense issues or anything else, this alone is a five alarm fire of an issue. Though I will say, and I readily admit it's different, but when Trump was president the

first time around, he attempted to enact a ban on certain Muslim countries. And at the same time, there were plenty of people in Canada who thought the safe third country agreement should be suspended. It was not. And Canada did welcome some of those people, or at least the prime minister opened his arms to that. I'm not sure that that would happen again. Andrew. This is orders of magnitude worse. OK, Chantal. I don't think it's terribly useful to go back to the first Trump administration for what the future bodes to tell you the truth. I've seen nothing in that campaign or in the appointments that were made over the past two weeks that goes in that direction.

So maybe it's best to leave it alone. But second, we did have a border issue. It's not what they think about our border for people going south. How many people do you think are going to wake up in the morning looking at the equivalent of concentration camps in the U.S. and say, I'm going to go south? The problem is on our side and how we are going to handle this. And I don't know if we are going to stop looking at the U.S. as a safe third country. But for sure, things are about to happen there that have nothing to do with what you saw in that first term. I take your point, and I think it's right. But my point was there

were already questions at that time about that ban and what they would do with the safe third country agreement. And it did lead to court challenges in this country, but it didn't lead to the end of the agreement. I'm not saying it couldn't happen here. But what's the worth of the agreement when you've got thousands of people overrunning your border that you can't possibly man for its entirety. I mean, what are you going to do? The Roxham Road was one place, and it became a major issue in this country. You're thinking the entire Canadian-U.S. border with thousands coming across. That's a completely different proposition logistically. And for, well, for this government anyway, and I don't know where Pierre Poiliev stands,

but for a government that is moving towards reducing immigration targets, I'm not sure how they would then manage, of course, if someone's seeking asylum, it's different. But obviously there would be constraints around that too, Andrew. Well, our whole immigration policy over the years has been predicated on the idea that we have oceans on three sides of us and we have a manageable border on the south. And a lot of times we pat ourselves on the back for what are either well-regulated or liberal-minded immigration policy we have

because of those assumptions. Well, the oceans are still there, although they're less and less of a barrier with modern transportation. But that fourth wall is now about to crumble. And a lot of it's going to test, I think, a lot of our assumptions about ourselves. It's going to test our liberal mindedness and it's going to test our peace, order and good government theory of ourselves. This is a serious challenge. About 30 seconds, Aaron. Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that might deter people from coming to Canada is the idea that, you know, authorities here are going to stop people and then transfer them back to American authorities.

And I suppose the question then becomes, will American authorities still accept them? So first of all, will Trump, you know, will the Trump administration keep the safe third country agreement in place? And then the flip side of that is, domestically, does the safe third country agreement still hold up to legal challenges? You know, yes, I think Chantel's right. The first Trump presidency is of limited precedent at this point. But I think it is worth noting that compared to the Trudeau government's tone last time around, that tweet after the de facto Muslim ban, now you're hearing Mark Miller say things like, not everyone is welcome here. I think the tone is an implicit acknowledgement that the practical situation and the political situation has changed a lot.

Donald Trump's new cabinet choices are shaking Washington, choosing Representative Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, despite Gaetz being investigated for sex trafficking involving a minor in drug charges, though he was never charged. Former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. Gabbard has expressed support for Russia and been called a Russian asset by Hillary Clinton. What's to be made of Trump's selections and what do the choices tell us about the priorities of his administration? Let's bring everybody back. Chantal, Andrew and Aaron. I know this isn't like really Canadian politics, but they are pretty, let's call them bold choices.

Let's call them bold choices. And Robert Kennedy Jr. was also named later, late this afternoon to head up essentially the health department in the United States. Andrew, what do these things tell you about the direction he's going in, provided these people all get, of course, approved? Yeah, well, bold is one word, insane is another. It's either genuine madness or it's a power play where you essentially force the Senate Republicans to accept madness as a token of fealty to the emperor. Trump, until now, I think you could describe him as a nihilist. I think this marks the transition to Neroism. Caligula appointed a horse as consul, but the horse probably had less potential to do damage than some of these appointments. I mean, if you were trying to think of the worst possible appointees to each of these posts,

for a defense secretary, you would get maybe a guy who's never run anything to run a $1 trillion budget, 3 million personnel, with the fate of the world as its mandate organization. Or if you were trying to pick the worst possible director of national intelligence, you'd get a known security risk and potential Russian asset. Or if you were trying to get the worst possible attorney general, you'd get a suspected or alleged statutory rapist. Or if you were trying to get the worst possible health secretary,

you'd get a vaccine denier with a tapeworm in his brain. So the madness of it is so apparent and so obvious that, as I say, the only potential method in that madness is the degree to which he wants to cow the Senate and bend it to its will. I suspect it may not even have that. It may just be Trump doing what Trump wants to do. I mean, should we say anything else? I don't know, Chantel. You know, I'm laughing, but obviously these are... No, I always knew Andrew would cover that ground, and I don't disagree with anything he said.

That being said, from a Canadian perspective, a number of these people have already had bad things to say about Canada or predictions about our next Canadian election, i.e. Justin Trudeau's going down, let's not pay any attention to him, which is a lot less polite than the way our political leaders have treated the American election. Was it on this show? No, it was some other show where we ran a clip of Justin Trudeau saying how pleased he was to work with Donald Trump again.

But I'm thinking about this committee, this cabinet committee that met for the second time this week, and that last week or the week before, after the election, spent a lot of time telling us everything is going to be okay. It's all great. It's almost business as usual. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall to hear what they talked about those appointments and how many friends they have amongst those people. Yeah, I mean, they didn't have many of them yet, but they're meeting next week. And I imagine that there's not a lot of friends in that group, Aaron. And I don't know, do you need to have friends at that level? Or can you do all the business with the people around them,

which is sort of, I think, what they're banking on? I mean, I think you do have to be able to work with them in some capacity. I think, though, the, you know, look, this is a different group. If you go back to Trump one, there was this idea that there were, quote unquote, adults in the room. There were these kind of highly credentialed individuals who were not sort of card carrying members of the MAGA movement, who were there, who were going to keep an eye on things and keep Trump from sort of exploring his most extreme sort of impulses. That is clearly not the case this time around. And my hunch, my assumption would be that that speaks to the way Donald Trump wants these next four years to go and how much he wants to do and how much he's willing to do. And I think, as Andrew suggests,

this comes back to the U.S. Senate. You know, in pre sort of 2006 times, you would have said, well, there's no way the U.S. Senate will allow these people to be confirmed. I think it would be foolish at this point to assume that they won't be. Yeah. You know, not only because this is a loyalty test, but because I think we've seen that the idea that a political party will sort of act as a gatekeeper and sort of stop its leader from doing certain things, I think has been disproven over the last eight years. And I think, sorry, just to finish, I think that you will now, this will be, as much as it's a sign of the Trump sort of White House, I think you will

also get an indication of where the Republican Party itself is at. Andrew, yeah. Just two quick points. One is they may stop the Gates appointment, for example, because he's personally hated in the Congress, and then say, well, we've shown our independence, and then they'll wave through the rest of them. And the second is stay tuned for worse appointments to come. Well, no one even mentioned Elon Musk, the world's richest man, sitting at national security briefings for some reason no one understands. Anyway, okay, more to talk about

in the future. Thank you all for being here. That's that issue for this week. How are you feeling about some of Trump's choices for his cabinet, for his administration, for his top jobs? Let us know. You can send us email, ask to cbc.ca slash podcasts.