Front Burner - Election! Trump and Carney talk, Conservative 'civil war'

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Just over one week into the federal election campaign and there's lots to talk about. From Mark Carney's first call with Donald Trump, after which the U.S. President pulled a dramatic change in rhetoric about Canada, to infighting and chaos in the Conservative ranks.CBC's Chief Political correspondent Rosemary Barton breaks down week one of campaigning in this pivotal election.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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This is a CBC podcast. Cordial, constructive, focused on action. Exactly what we want. Hey everybody, it's Jamie. We are just over a week into this election campaign and honestly, I had been anticipating a pretty interesting race given the context, but the amount of surprising stuff that has happened here, particularly in the last few days, we have seen a Trump 180, if only in name and tone, and heard about a quote unquote civil war within the Conservative Party. My colleague Rosemary Barton is here, the CBC's chief political correspondent. Rosie, maybe you have a different

sense of this, but am I right to say what I just said there? Compare this to other elections that you've covered. Yeah, I just think a lot has happened in a short period of time. Like, I would normally expect all those things to happen over the course of a 36-day campaign. I wouldn't expect them to happen within the first week. And so, yeah, no, I think you're bang on. Well, let's talk about it then. Can we start with this call between Trump and Carney that took place on Friday? First off, any sense of how the call actually came about? So what we were led to believe, what we understand is that once that threat of the auto tariffs,

the 25 percent auto tariffs came about. What we're going to be doing is a 25 percent tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they're made in the United States, there's absolutely no tariff. There was actually a reach out by the president. The president reached out to the prime minister's office to try and set up a call. I should say that a week before when I had been over in Europe with the prime minister, we were told that there was some communication between the offices to try and get to a call.

But in this case, it was the president who initiated it. And Trump came off that call and he sent out this post that, I don't know, I was not expecting. I'm not totally sure what I was expecting, but I do not think that it was this. And he sends out this post and it called the call extremely productive and quote, we agree on many things and we'll be meeting immediately after Canada's upcoming election to work on elements of politics, business and all other factors that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada. Thank you for your attention to this matter exclamation point.

Rosie, what do you know, if anything, about what actually went down on that call? I'm not going to pretend that I know a whole lot more than what was out there, but I'll say this, that by the accounts from the Prime Minister's office, and I'm calling him the Prime Minister in this instance because that's the hat he was wearing at the time, that it was productive, that the tone was different, and that the prime minister's tone was also different. It was decisive, is what I'm told, in terms of what he wanted to tell the president, in terms of the markers he wanted to lay down, and in terms of what he wanted to get out of it. So a couple of things. terms of the markers he wanted to lay down and in terms of what he wanted to get out

of it. So a couple of things. He made it very clear to the president that there would be counter tariffs that would go into effect on April 2nd if the president goes ahead with this, and we believe that he will. He also seemed to get an indication from the president, and a number of people have now said this publicly, including the prime minister, that there may be tariffs, but there might be sort of degrees of amounts of tariffs and that he walked away from that phone call believing that Canada would be on the low end of those tariffs, whatever that

means. And I would also say that he also came out of the call with a clear understanding of what he wants to get to, the prime minister, I mean, and that is a broad negotiation about our economic and security relationship going forward. So that will have to wait, obviously, until after the election. If it's a different prime minister, it'll be a different set of terms. But this prime minister, at least least walked away with a sense of where things would go if he manages to win. And listen, you know, in the newsroom when that happened on Friday, we saw the social media post, and then we heard from Donald Trump.

The first thing that I said was, oh my God, he's not calling him governor anymore. He's calling him by his first name. He's talking about how it's going to work out for Canada in the U.S. Mark called me today at 10 o'clock. We put out a statement. We had a very, very good talk. He's going through an election now and we'll see what happens. But we have liberation day, as you know, on April 2nd, because and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us. The likes of which... I mean, maybe the bar for success is too low right now because of all the things that Trump

has said, but that was pretty remarkable. We'll see whether it holds. You and I both know that he might change his mind 300 times before next, before Wednesday, but it was definitely different. I mean, he even did acknowledge us as a country. Very low bar. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll take it. I'm curious to hear the people that you're talking to, what did they make of that 180 in tone? They do think it was a change in tone. They do think it has something to do obviously with the fact that this is a different person. This is a different prime minister. And like it or not, it is very possible that the relationship that Trump had with Justin

Trudeau was hampering Canada's ability to get to a better place, a better negotiating position. There's also a sense inside the prime minister's office that Carney does know how to negotiate, that that is what he how to negotiate, that that is what he is telling Canadians and that that was the beginning of something different for Donald Trump. Again, these are very early days. This was a first conversation. But in terms of whether Mark Carney walked away with something better, or whether he was damaged by the call, the answer is no, right?

He came off that call looking pretty good and hearing the right kinds of things from a very unpredictable president. I just want to clarify one thing you mentioned, this impression that Carney was given that we are going to be on like the low end of tariffs. Are we talking about the auto tariffs, which may or may not ramp up to 25%. Are we also talking about all these other tariffs that are apparently coming midweek on the day that Trump has christened Liberation Day? I think from what I understand, and I should say, I also spoke to the Premier of New Brunswick

on my show on Sunday, and she sort of reiterated this, as did the Prime Minister on Friday, that in terms of the broad universal reciprocal tariffs that Trump has talked about, where he's talked about 25% on everything, that the impression that they were left with was that it would not be 25% and that it would not be everything. The President did not indicate pulling back on the tariffs on autos or steel or aluminum during the call. be everything. If you still have 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, as we do now, and there's an

additional 10% on those tariffs, that is still devastating, right? That is still a huge problem for Canada. If the auto sector tariffs are still 25% on parts, that is still potentially devastating for the auto sector. So I think we are dealing with the best in the worst case scenario. And that is why it was made very clear to the president that Canada will have to retaliate because a tariff is a tariff. And what Canada's goal here is to get rid of them entirely.

And just on this point that this conversation between the two men was like the first touchpoint in what Carney sees as a comprehensive discussion to come, I know in Quebec, Bloc leader Yves Francois Blanchet was concerned that this could mean that supply management was on the table, which restricts dairy, eggs eggs and keeps prices at a certain level. But he just said to Mr. Trump, in order not to have a bad message afterwards, that everything was on the table, including lumber wood, supply management, culture. He also said that Cardy has no mandate to announce comprehensive negotiations will take place after the election. said that Carney has no mandate to announce comprehensive negotiations will take place

after the election. Where did he take the mandate to say such a thing, which might prove very dangerous? And I just wonder, first, you know, what you make of that criticism coming from Lachette, but also, like, has Carney given any indication of what that comprehensive discussion actually looks like to him? What does that even mean? Yeah, well, first I'll talk about the supply management, the dairy eggs and poultry. That is not on the table, according to Mark Carney. We will never have discussions with respect to supply management.

It's off the table. And what one needs to ensure that is to have a government and a prime minister with that commitment with a strong mandate. Thank you. He would be a fool to put it on the table during an election campaign where the liberals are set to do very well in Quebec. So for now, that is not a thing, but it is a thing for President Trump. It has been from the very beginning of his first term where, as they were wrapping up the first renegotiation, that was still an issue. So we know that it is a problem for the Americans. Mark Carney says not happening. In terms of the comprehensive discussion, I mean, beyond saying he's looking for renegotiation economically and security based,

I am not sure frankly what he's talking about there. Beyond also to say, he has also hinted publicly at the idea of a sector-by-sector trade deals or deals. So maybe it's not as comprehensive as KUSMA. Maybe it's something else. Maybe we try to protect certain industries and not all because we're not going to get the president there. One of the things that Carney has said time and again is that he's not negotiating in public, that he's not showing Donald Trump all his cards. And so that means that Canadians, frankly, are a little bit in the dark when it comes to what he's talking about here. But I would say

in terms of the bloc leaders criticism of whether he has a mandate, of course he doesn't have a mandate. That's why he's had an election. That is why he is now calling really publicly, Jamie, for a majority mandate in order to be able to push forward on all these things. So that's what this election is about, trying to get him the mandate that he wants in order to continue with these talks. Alan Rarig was found dead in a parking lot in Oklahoma. He'd been shot twice.

Once to the head. You'd think his wife would be devastated. Not exactly. She was either the black widow or bad luck. This is the unbelievable story of a femme fatale with a trail of bodies in her wake. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is Fatal Beauty. Available now on the Binge. Search for Fatal Beauty wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. So we've talked about how this call objectively did go pretty well for Kearney. I think it's safe to say that he's in a unique position.

He has this advantage at this moment because he is the prime minister. And when it comes to dealing with Trump, it's not theoretical, right? Voters can see him do it in real time. I also think that this has given him the opportunity to position himself as the change candidate, even though he's heading up this party that's been in government for a decade, because as we've talked about, he can show that the president, for example, is no longer calling our prime minister governor, which is a change. But this is not the position that Pierre Poliev finds himself in. And so what unique and challenging position do you think this puts him in?

Yeah, I mean, the incumbent, uh, who is Mark Carney, however brief it was, nine days, right, before he called the election, is still the incumbent. And the advantage, uh, in instances like this is that you are prime minister, that you have a responsibility to act on behalf of the country, even when the government is in a caretaker mode. So you're limited in terms of what your response can be, but you have to respond when there are urgent things in front of you, like these tariff threats. It allows you to do the things that prime ministers also do during this moment, not just call the president, get the premiers on the phone, call Doug Ford and talk that through, and to be doing, taking

the actions that yes, you have to take even though there's an election, but that make you look like you do know how to do the job and you will continue to know how to do the job if you get elected as another mandate. And that is hugely complicating factor for Pierre Poilieff, who has never been prime minister, who wants that job, but who is forced in this space where it's really hard to define him, right? Like he's being forced to act like the opposition leader in some circumstances during this campaign. There have been some little shifts. I noticed on Friday that he said,

I was glad to learn that the president and prime minister spoke today. And like all Canadians, I hope they had a successful talk. I look forward to hearing about the results that they achieved in that. Which to me was interesting because he does know that the best outcome here for Canada is that it did go well. And so he can't be seen to be overly criticizing Mark Carney in those key moments. But sheesh, it is a real awkward spot for him as this campaign unfolds. Tell me more about how you see the conservative campaign responding to this particular issue, to this moment that they're in.

It feels and has felt in this first week to me like this is a campaign that was designed and planned by Pierre Poiliev and his campaign six months ago, 12 months ago, that they wanted to come up with ideas to deal with what was the number one concern for Canadians and that is cost of living and they are now taking the same campaign planks whether it be expanding the limit on your tax-free savings account. Under my government, you will be allowed to contribute another $5,000 every single year, as long as that money is invested in Canadian companies.

Whether it be cracking down on crime. And we will ensure the monsters who kill our people and endanger our communities go to jail for life. A new conservative government will impose life sentences for the most serious cases of fentanyl distribution, gun smuggling, and human trafficking. And they're now trying to fit them into a different picture frame and the picture frame is Donald Trump and the picture doesn't quite fit, right? And so every time they talk about their policy planks, which are important and substantive, they have to kind of mention Donald Trump as the reason to why they're doing it, but yet they don't quite make sense.

And I think that that is a real struggle that we're seeing in real time. The other part of that, of course, Jamie, is they don't want to talk about Donald Trump too much because, you know, public opinion polling suggests that if the ballot question is only Donald Trump, that is not to their advantage. So it is a very difficult corner that they find themselves in. There has been much reporting this week about how the conservative campaign is currently in a state of disarray and dysfunction. The term civil war was used by one anonymous conservative source quoted in a piece written by some of our colleagues, Catherine Cullen and JP Tasker.

Would you like to take a stab at summing up what has been going on here inside the party? Yeah, that quote actually came from someone I talked to. So a couple things. First of all, conservatives don't generally talk like this. They are very disciplined, particularly during campaigns, and they keep their dirty laundry in the house. That is not what's happening now. There are a couple things going on. Cory Tenyke, the campaign manager for Doug Ford, the former director of communications

for Stephen Harper, gave a speech at the Empire Club where he talked about how what was happening with the conservative campaign and how it really needed to refocus solely on Donald Trump. Look, I think for the conservatives, you know, in the campaign cockpit, every buzzer and alarm is going off and the plane is like going and it's like pull up, pull up, pull up. Like almost forget about the liberals and just talk about the president and the threat the Canadians are feeling. You've got to get on the question that is driving votes like or you are going to lose

Cory tonight and and pure Polly of conservatives, I would say have a very complicated and perhaps not warm relationship. So there's some sort of, you know, internal sort of drama going on inside the conservative circles, right? There's that piece. And then there's the, and then there's just the reality that a lot of people in the war room and elsewhere are very concerned about the polls. You know, they went two months ago, three months ago, they had a 25-point lead, and now they are not leading.

And so people were trying to question, I think, whether the strategy that I just talked about still makes sense or whether they need to be doing something differently. On top of that, there's all this information coming out from various sources to all of the different colleagues that helped out on that story about the toxicity of the workplace, the campaign war room itself, and the way people are being treated. So these all sound like sort of inside baseball politics stories. But I think they tell you two things. One, that that people are very worried, right? They are very worried, and they are not sure how to turn the tide.

And two, the fact that this is happening just a week into the campaign tells you just how worried they are and and that they feel like something might be slipping away. It's only a week in, you know, things can change pretty rapidly. But that is, I think, what conservatives are trying to communicate to the media and to other conservatives. This argument that the conservatives need to pivot immediately to Trump and how to fight Trump, it's not clear to me that if they did that, that could work either. There are problems, it seems, with that too.

You know, as we talked about before, Carney has that advantage of being the incumbent. They have been dominating the Trump stuff. The other move here would be to try to convince Canadians there are other issues that they should care about. What do you make of that argument? Yeah, I mean, I think that's where they're staying. You know, the top two issues for Canadians, and people listening can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what we see in public opinion polling, Donald Trump and cost of living. Those two things are deeply connected, but the conservatives are making a bet that talking more about cost of living is the safer bet for them,

because they've spent so much time talking about it for the past two years, and again, because they are not sure that if you stack up the liberal leader and the conservative leader next to each other, the Canadians will choose the conservative leader to take on Donald Trump. I also think that Pierre Poiliev is, he's deeply invested in the campaign as it is now. A lot of these are his ideas, things that he's worked on very hard. And so he's committed to them. And that is also a problem in terms of how flexible you need to be in this moment. And maybe he's right. Maybe that is what Canadians

are concerned with. But in a week where we're now heading into another week dominated by the trade war and tariffs, it is hard to imagine a leader going out and talking about, you know, capital gains tax. I am announcing today the Canada first reinvestment tax cut. No capital gains when you reinvest the money here in Canada. What do you think? Or again, the tax-free savings account, it comes across as I think a little bit out of step for where Canadians' heads are at.

I also, you know, I was listening to Corey tonight talk on the Curse of Politics podcast as well. And, you know, one thing he said, which I found interesting was that... Even having him continuing to be the attack dog for the campaign is a strategic error. Like at the core of what's going on here is they have a candidate with an unlikeability problem. And he thought that was a problem too. I would be curious to hear if you think that's a fair criticism that he's making. Yeah, I mean, I think one place to watch for that is not so much in his announcements and

his press conferences, where you see someone who is trying to be a little friendlier to the media and speak to workers. Where you see that is really in his rallies that often happen later in the evening, where there are, to be clear, thousands of people showing up. Really impressive turnouts, a huge ability by the Conservative Party to organize. We've seen them in Ontario and British Columbia. But in those rallies, the rhetoric from from Paulyev is more like the Paulyev that everybody kind of knows. Attacking, criticizing, and even in some cases, being really harsh about the state of the country.

My friends, our country, life has never been more expensive, our streets have never been more dangerous, our economy has never been more vulnerable, and we have never been so much under the American thumb as we are after the lost liberal decade. But the choice in this election is whether... And in those instances, yeah, you see the opposition leader, which I don't think is necessarily what he wants to project. And you also see someone who's willing to criticize the country at a time when the country doesn't necessarily want to hear that

criticism. Where he does, I think, have some space and where we may see him go in the next couple of weeks is to continue to talk about change. And you see now that his slogan is, Put Canada first for a change. And he keeps talking about change. And that's because that change is the biggest motivating factor in any election. It's the thing that gets people out to vote against someone as opposed to for someone. The problem though, as you know, is that there has been some change in the Liberal Party. You know, on April 1st, the carbon tax will be gone and people might go to the gas station and see that right away. And it'll be hard for Pierre Poilieff to talk about change when there is change,

even if it's not as broad and significant as what he is offering, that things have shifted a bit. So, you know, this is obviously not the campaign he wanted. If he was running against Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump was out there, I don't think he would be having these troubles, but he's not. And I'm not sure that they have adjusted to that yet themselves. Final thought before you go, what else are you watching for this week? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously the obviously the April 2nd, the tariffs, how big are they? If they are big, does Mark Carney have to wear that?

How does he explain it? How does he respond? What are the counter tariffs? That's a real test for him. But I'm going to throw one other thing out there and it's probably not on Canadians radar. But on Thursday, our friends at Hadou Canada will host this live leaders interviews. They interview all the leaders in succession live. It's not a debate. It's like a comparison analysis. And that'll be fascinating because we know that Mark Carney is not excellent in French

and he had a couple of bumps on the road when it came to Quebec stuff last week. So I will be really interested to see how he does there and whether it matters because Quebecers have sort of said, oh, well, that was just a mistake, don't worry. So how he performs in that interview and how Quebecers view the leaders when they're all stacked up one against another, because of course, Quebec is central to winning government for the Liberals and a battleground to watch for sure. Rosey, thank you as always. Hopefully we could make another date. We can.

Okay, I'll count it. Thank you. I appreciate it. So before we sign off today, a bit of news from the campaign trail. The conservatives are calling for Mark Kearney to drop liberal MP and candidate for Markham Unionville, Paul Chang. Their demands come after it was revealed that Chang, speaking with Chinese language media, had encouraged folks to turn in Joe Tay, the conservative candidate in Don Valley North, to Chinese authorities and collect a cash bounty on Tay's head. Tay, who was born in Hong Kong, has been targeted by the Chinese government because

of his pro-democracy activism. Carney has not commented on the Conservatives' calls, but Chang did, apologizing and saying that his comments were deplorable, going on to say as a former police officer he really should have known better and that he stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong. Also, stay tuned for our episode tomorrow as we've been talking about on the show. A big part of what has been propelling this liberal lead is the collapse of the NDP vote. So we're going to have a discussion about the tough road ahead for the NDP and how they got here. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.