At Issue - How troubling are Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy?

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Trump disrupts the world order when he calls Ukraine's democratically-elected president a ‘dictator’ and seemingly sides with Russia on the war. Canada’s political leaders pitch themselves as the right response to U.S. aggression. And Trudeau unveils plans for high-speed rail. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

In Scarborough, there's this fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. We've less than anyone could imagine.

But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton. This week on At Issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, February 20th.

It's a fundamental principle for Canada and for the vast majority of our allies that nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. This week we are asking what do Trump's comments mean for Canada's support for Ukraine and for the allies the other allies Chantel Iber, Andrew Coyne, Athiya Raj join me to talk about that plus we'll talk about how the liberal leadership contenders are pitching themselves ahead of the debates next week. So what do Trump's comments mean for peace in Ukraine and for the rules-based order supported by Canada

and other allies? I'm Rosemary Barton, here to break it down tonight, Chantilly Bair, Andrew Coyne, Athia Raj. Good to see you all. There's also a meeting now planned in Kiev on Monday with a number of world leaders, European leaders, and others who are going to be there to offer support for President Zelensky. Andrew, I'm going to start with you on this one. How troubling is this dynamic and this move by

Trump to adopt even some of the same language as President Putin? Well, every time we think we've got our minds around how bad it can get under Donald Trump, he goes further. I don't think that's accidental. He always exceeds expectations of how bad he's going to be. So I think prior to maybe a couple weeks ago, people might have thought he was insufficiently supportive of Ukraine or overly eager to get a peace deal. I think it's very clear after the last couple

of weeks that that's not the case. It's much worse than that. It's not just that he gave up too many concessions at the beginning of a process in which he would be negotiating things back and forth. It's not just that. It's that he's basically on the side of the Russians. I don't think, I think that is by now a pretty well-established point of view. When you were talking about Ukraine having started the war, when you're talking about

adopting the potent line on you should have elections right now in the middle of a war zone with a fifth of your country under occupation, you know, when you start talking about making demands on Ukraine that it pay, I think Mr. Trump put it, $500 billion in reparations, whatever you want to call it. That's the sort of thing you usually do against the aggressor after they've lost the war, not a fellow democracy fighting for its life. So couple that with the discussions at the Munich conference in Europe, where his secretary of defense, where his vice president both made extraordinary remarks that basically told Europe it was on its own, not just

Ukraine, but Europe was on its own effectively in any conflict with Russia. You can see why leaders across Europe are now scrambling to on the supposition that at best, at best, the United States is no longer a reliable ally in these kinds of conflicts. And at worst, it is basically on the side of the Russians. So in light of all that very good context that Andrew put on the table there, Chantal, what does a country like Canada do? What do NATO allies do when this seems to be upending what our understanding of the

United States was or is. So one, on Ukraine, we do not have to lead. France, Germany, the UK will have that lead. Second, silver lining here, Canada felt lonely being attacked by Donald Trump. Now we just managed to make just about every former ally of the United States figure this guy under this guy, the US is not our friend. And so new alliances, new developments, things that we have not seen in our lifetimes will come out of this. But the notion that

will come out of this. But the notion that the United States can decide the fate of Ukraine without European or Ukraine's presence, I think even from a Canada standpoint I do not see a federal leader in this country backing that idea. No. Althea, your thoughts? Well, so much has changed just within a week. And to mention some of Andrew's points, it kind of sounds like the U.S. president is repeating Kremlin talking points. And so it's not just that Europeans are having to scramble, and I have to say that the French president has really kind of risen to the occasion and we see the Europeans, not just NATO countries, but EU countries, EU plus

countries, Norway included in that, coming and recognizing that they need to fill a gap urgently and Canada is part of those discussions so that's a positive sign for us. But it's like the rules-based international order that Christia Freeland used to talk so much about when she was the Foreign Affairs Minister are under attack by the very country that basically set them up. And so we are having to think about what it means here. And I say like so much has changed within a week because Pierre Poliev had a big speech just a few blocks away from where I'm sitting.

And in it, one of the scenarios he painted was that we should move towards closer economic integration with the United States as a way to address the tariff threat. I'm not sure, following the Ukraine comments, that that is a sellable position anymore, even to conservatives. Like, the party of Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party, is not recognizable at all. And so many conservatives in this country who are Ronald Reagan's fans don't see themselves in the MAGA Trump party and don't see themselves in part of their own party as well. So I think we are having to think about what it means for not just our economic security

but our defense security because we cannot trust our former allied partner. Chantel, you want to do? What's interesting is that I and I know you may want to get back to that but Stephen Harper wrote a letter today that actually said the last thing to do is to move towards further integration economically with the United States. So at some point, it was a letter that, by and large, sounded like what conservatives used to be like. And curiously, it did not seem to come in support of this notion of Mr. Pueylieff that we should move towards further integration. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that in the next block. But I, Andrew, I do want to get back to Ukraine, because my colleague, Evan Dyer, wrote a piece

comparing the language that President Trump uses about Canada to the language that President Putin uses about Ukraine. I don't know. I mean, that is something that immediately springs to mind, right? That if he's willing to let Putin run over Ukraine, what is he willing, what is he saying about this country? Yeah, I do think we have to be fair to Mr. Palliever though before we go onto that, which is that was one, he gave the United States two options, one of which was let's trade

even more. I don't think there was any talk of a formal integration or anything like that, but just we'll trade even more. But his first option was, he was talking in terms, it sounded to me like he was putting on the table using our natural resources as a quote-unquote leverage, in other words, using it as a bargaining chip. So I think it was a broader discussion than just let's have a closer integration. And we can come back to whether that's any kind of useful idea. But no, look, all the alarm bells should be ringing when you see the likes of Stephen Harper, when you see the likes of Lloyd Axworthy talking as if we are not literally necessarily the next Ukraine in terms of military invasion,

but certainly in a very bad place right now. The thing that used to be our great advantage and strength that we had proximity to the largest superpower in the world and the largest consumer market in the world, that is no longer an advantage, it is now a liability. And one of the liabilities, certainly, I think we're going to have to discuss is what use is a free trade agreement with a country and administration that simply refuses to honor anything it signs? Are you simply at that point, does it simply become an entanglement,

does it simply become a lever for that country to use essentially economic blackmail on you? We always want to be free traders. We always want to be in our own interests. We want to be as open to foreign competition as we possibly can with every country that we possibly can. But formal free trade agreements with this kind of administration, where you're making concessions in return for them making concessions, well, administration, where you're making concessions in return for them making concessions, well, you can't count on their concessions ever actually amounting to anything. So we've got to be looking extremely seriously, even at just the economic level, but let's

not kid ourselves. If the United States and Russia are now essentially on the same side. We are wedged in between them with the very attractive prize of the North, the Arctic, in between us. I'm not worried at this point about anybody invading Toronto. I'm extremely worried about the United States, Russia, China, any of these powers setting up shop in the North, essentially just thumbing their noses at our sovereignty,

extracting resources and what have you. Quick, quick 30 seconds, because I saw Althea shake out not in agreement and then we'll leave it there. Well, we just don't have the capacity to defend the land that we claim as our own, right? And so we are having to think through a kind of sci-fi scenario about what uncoupling means, not just economically to the free trade deals that Andrew is talking about, Kuzma, but also about all aspects of the way

that we participate, whether that's NORAD, whether it's the health of the Great Lakes. What does it mean if you cannot trust any of the information or your partner that you have built a relationship over 100 plus years? I think that that is the planning scenario because you don't know what's gonna happen next week or next month and you have to prepare for that.

Okay, quickly Chantal, then I gotta take a break. But that also takes into account the assumption that this is where the US will want to go over the next four years. I'm not convinced that you can carry public opinion. Is everyone, as anyone asks, the US, if they want us, like Americans? I'm not convinced that they do. Okay, we're going to leave it there.

When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the stuff you guys alluded to there and also the liberal leadership race, leadership contenders getting ready for the debates next week. We'll talk about what they're pitching now is the right response to Trump and how Pierre Poilier is doing much the same. That's next. You know the media is now saying that I should change my entire platform because of the tariff threat. In fact, in fact, in fact the Trump tariff threats have proven conservatives right on everything. Here to break down the latest on the liberal leadership race and how the parties are addressing

the Trump tariff threat, Chantel Andrew Inelthea. Chantel, I'll start with you. I mean, what's interesting is the way everyone is making everything they're doing about Donald Trump. And Pierre Poiliev, apparently they don't call it a pivot what he did Saturday. I'm not sure it's a pivot. What did you make of where his speech got us in terms of his approach to Donald Trump? I think it got the Conservative Party the clips it wanted for advertising and that the

people in the room were a great backdrop for that. Whether it was a pivot or not, I don't think it made a significant impression. It came on the Saturday in between two storms, no control from the conservatives over that. But the long weekend in most provinces that actually extended to Quebec because of snow. And I saw no real effort to pitch any of that except to spend the past

week saying there was no pivot nothing happened move on people so I'm assuming that's the message that nothing happened. What do you make of that Althea because everyone else you know Mark Carney was here with me on Sunday talking about how he to tackle Trump. Christy Freeland is putting forward lots of policy about how she would take things on. Well, no one has said that Mr. Poliev should abandon his entire platform. I don't think I've read anybody say that or heard anybody say that. But people have been talking about how he has pivoted or refocused his message, and

you saw that with the Canada First underneath the lectern just there, and having to retool the messages, some of which he's been repeating for two years, towards the new threat. And I just want to, you know, he did talk about how the United States should be better served with nobody, would be no better served with anybody but us, to Andrew's point, but then he also floated this idea that we should integrate more. I just wanted to clarify that. I think what is most interesting is just the time spent attacking Mark Carney. Whether it was in the speech,

whether it was in the press conference that he gave, I'm losing track of time today or yesterday. The way he's trying to tie Mr. Carney as being like the economic steward of the liberal government over the past five years, which is factually inaccurate. But they're throwing everything at it because clearly they are worried. One thing I will stress is accurate is when Mr. Poliev makes criticisms of Mr. Carney's economic plan, which was unveiled this week, where he says a lot of it is borrowed from Justin Trudeau.

And he's right, it does sound like it is borrowed. The same suggestion that they're going to run deficits and they're going to invest more, they're going to catalyze private sector money to create larger projects. Well, Justin Trudeau ran on the same promises, and they didn't seem to have worked out the way he intended. So why does Mark Carney think it will be different for him? So I do think there are some factual things that Mr. Polly Abazade on the table that have legs, and there are other things that he's just, I think,

trying to throw spaghetti at the wall trying to see what will stick. One of the things that they've used now is the word sneaky. That's what they now keep calling Mr. Mark Carney. Sneaky. That's the adjective they're trying to attach to him. Andrew, your thoughts? Well, back to the speech. The speech itself, I think on its own, was pretty good.

I think struck, in my reading of anyway, struck an appropriately defiant note against Mr. Trump, in particular the phrase about the barony burden, parity price. One of the things that Stephen Harper's earlier intervention has put on the table, which I think is really important for anybody leading Canada at this moment, is we're maybe limited in what we can do to the United States in retaliation, but what we can communicate is our own resolve and our own willingness to pay the price for our independence. And that's very important for all of our political leaders to be doing.

And the rest of it, you know, yeah, there were some swipes at the opposition, Mr. Carney, but much less frankly than is the typical Paliever speech. Most of it was pretty mainstream conservatism. It wasn't things about the World Economic Forum or Bitcoin. It was about, you know, strong defense, fiscal discipline, discipline free markets and free enterprise so if we were just judging from the speech you would say okay that's a pivot and that's where he's going except all around it he's being careful now to cozy up to people like rebel the rebel news organization which is hardly anyone's definition of a

mainstream conservative outlet you know even suggesting it I read in reports even suggesting that he might be open to extending subsidies to them. I don't think anybody, any news organization or professed news organization should be getting subsidies but certainly not the rebel. So it's a very much a mixed bag. We will have to see what happens going forward. It would be in his interest, you would think, to be projecting a more mainstream image,

a more prime ministerial aura, but his own calculation seems to be that he needs to keep the further fringes inside the tent. Today in a press conference, he did not take any questions from quote unquote mainstream media. He took a question from Radio-Canada. Because no one was around from that. No one was there to ask questions in French. That's right. I don't think he's... That was my point about taking the speech from Saturday,

which was meant and did fit the prime ministerial mold and spending the rest of the time trying to diminish it, is on MPs. piece well the one who speaks in Quebec because the other ones have become ghosts spent the week saying there was no pivot well then why did you bother bringing all these people in the middle of storms after Valentine's Day to deliver an important speech if you're not gonna say anything about it except they was same old same old on Mr. Carney, I find it very generous to describe what he unveiled or did he really unveil anything in Scarborough as an economic plan. I'm still waiting for a real economic plan because that kind of didn't fit the profile.

No, it was more like a framework for what an economic plan will be when it comes. I would agree. Okay. We're gonna take a short break but when we return we'll talk about the government's high-speed rail announcement and what to make of the timing. That's next. A reliable, efficient high-speed rail network will be a game changer for Canadians, slashing travel times by half, getting you from Toronto to Montreal in three hours. So is this about securing a piece of liberal legacy, possible response to Donald Trump? Will it go ahead under a new government?

Chantal, Andrew and Althea back to answer all of that. I mean, high-speed rail, if you could get from Quebec to Ontario, in the kind of time they're talking about, it would be... We could all get together in person every Thursday. It would be manageable. Is it an actual thing, and what do you think this is about, Althea? Is it an actual thing? It could be. If the next three governments assume that they have majority mandates,

want to see it go through. So the thing that was announced this week is just basically another five-year study about where the route would go, etc., etc. They have been talking about this since Margarno was transport minister, and they debated and basically like left it on the back burner because they couldn't figure out if they wanted high frequency or high speed or if it was going to be a public-private partnership or if it was going to be all public. I do think they wanted to get it out the door because Trudeau has been kind of making a

lot of big announcements, I think, in terms of framing his legacy. We saw that with the Haida Gwaii Nation announcement earlier. But I also think that they wanted to get it off the books so that it would be one thing less that whoever becomes a liberal leader can say that they're committed to. And it was very clear, both Ms. Freeland and Mr. Carney said yes, that they would continue this project. Yeah, it also sets up this- I don't know if it's going to happen because we've been talking about it for the past 30

years. Totally. It also sets up the question to Pierre Pauliev, would you cancel it or would you keep it? I don't know whether that would make a difference in terms of votes, but Chantal? So I am not going ever to be on that train coming to do it in my lifetime. And if it ever happens, I will not even be around to watch it from whatever scene you saw. Maybe it happens really fast, we don't know yet. Let's agree on that for one.

I think the announcement went through because Christian Freeland and Mark Curley were also in support of it going through and why? Because it is a popular idea and where, Southern Quebec, Southern Ontario, what is that? The prime real estate that you want to win in an election and very popular in business circles. So when you put all that together and it was a step in a process that had already been started as to whether it sees the light of day, I can't tell you, except to sadly say we are not doing well on traveling between Montreal, Toronto, places where it should be easy and where business needs to travel. Having given to that, taking a plane that actually takes off or getting a train that

arrives on time, almost impossible. Yes. And Chautat knows this firsthand over the last two weeks. Yeah. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. The worry of my life. Yeah.

That's why we don't force her to leave all the time. Andrew. There's two issues, the policy and the timing. The policy is frankly crazy. There's a reason why we've looked at this repeatedly dozens of times over the last 30-40 years and every time we do we come back with a higher and higher and higher number for whatever cost. I think the latest estimate is 80 billion, 100 billion, 120 billion dollars. Whatever that is, whatever it is now you can count on it being vastly greater than

that when the thing is finally built. This is so we can subsidize people to leave other forms of transit that we are also subsidizing but won't be subsidizing quite as heavily as we'll now be subsidizing the train. Wouldn't it be better as a country, a more sensible policy if we drained all of the subsidies out of all of the different modes of transport and let people choose which transport to take based on the real costs of them? To be doing this kind of cost to the enterprise at a time when we're being asked, first of all, to foot the bill for a rapidly aging population and all the massive increases in

the healthcare costs that have come from that, at a time when we have to make extraordinary new investments in defense spending, to be doing, to be putting it on this kind of hugely uneconomic project, I think, is nonsense. But leaving that aside, to be doing so at the moment when the government is effectively hiding from parliament. It has shuttered parliament because it's afraid it will lose a non-confidence vote. He has no legitimacy to be unveiling at this moment this kind of policy. Fine, put it out there. It does have legitimacy, it does have legitimacy, Andrew.

I take your point about the complaint that Parliament's not there, but the government still has legitimacy. He has the legal power to do so, but to be doing so at a moment when he cannot face the Parliament, he knows that his government has effectively lost the confidence

of the government. Fine, put it out there as a campaign proposal, but don't pretend that this is in any way some kind of, that this is now a done deal or settled proposition. This is a suggestion. Okay. Well, we don't know if it's a suggestion because we don't know what the nature of the contract is. You know, how is he financially tying the hands of the future governments, and how much is that gonna cost taxpayers? I do think that is a valid question.

Yeah, okay, last point, Chantel, then I gotta go. But we also know that that is part of a process that did not happen to be announced this week and was announced when parliament was sitting. So if the opposition parties were fighting against it, I didn't notice. Okay, I gotta leave it there. That's that issue for this week.

Are you going to watch those liberal leadership debates? Or do you want to see high-speed rail in Canada? A couple of good questions for you this week. Let us know. You can send us an email at ask at cbc.ca. Remember you can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern, back here in your podcast feeds next week. Thanks so much for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.