Front Burner - Politics! Carney in Alberta, Stelco showdown

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Alberta this week, making a final pitch for unity in the lead-up to the province's referendum on potential separation. Meanwhile, the government is threatening legal action against steel company Stelco over layoffs related to the trade war. And the U.S. Ambassador to Canada has raised concerns about potential election interference by Canadian government officials in the U.S. midterms.  Aaron Wherry, senior writer for CBC's parliamentary bureau, joins us to break it all down.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts  

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This is a CBC podcast. Hey, everyone, Jamie here. The Prime Minister is in Alberta this week, making a final plea for unity in the lead-up to the province's separatist referendum. My colleague Erin Wary joins me today to talk about what is on the line for Carney. We'll also talk about the government's legal threats against an American-owned steel company that's laying off workers and the U.S. ambassadors' comments about potential election interference by Canadian government officials. Erin, hey, how you doing? I'm good. How are you?

Great. Thank you. It's great to have you here. As I mentioned, the Prime Minister is in Alberta this week to attend to, well, they're called Forever Canada rallies and lead up to Monday's referendum. There's one tonight in Calgary. You and I are talking on Thursday afternoon. So we are obviously talking before that appearance and we don't know what he's going to say. And I'm actually going to be at the event on Friday night in Edmonton. So we'll bring you more on that on Monday's episode. But in the meantime, you have looked back at other historical examples here of other times. Canadian Unity was on the ballot.

And how has Carney's strategy up until now compared? Yeah. So if you go back, you know, there's only now been three prime ministers who have had to face sovereignty referendums, essentially. Pierre Trudeau in 1980, Joan McCruchin and 1995, and now Mark Carney. And if you go back to 1980, Pierre Trudeau sort of built his interventions into the campaign in Quebec around giving three speeches. The whole world is interdependent when Europe is trying to seek some kind of political union. These people in Quebec and in Canada want to split it up. They want to take it away from their children.

They want to break it down. No, that's our answer. One of those was quite a significant historical speech, but his main involvement was built around those three speeches. And when 95 comes around and Jean-Cretin is trying to decide how he'll be involved in that referendum, he and his advisors go back to the Truro example and say, okay, well, three speeches, that's sort of the standard. We'll go with that. The decision that will be made is serious and irreversible with deep, deep consequences. What is at stake is our country?

And I think, you know, I wrote about this at the time when this referendum was launched in Alberta, I thought, okay, well, maybe this is the model for Mark Carney. Maybe we'll see three kind of big speeches. And we haven't really seen that. He's been in Alberta multiple times, but it's been to make announcements on the MOU, on the implementation agreement for that MOU with Alberta, for the pipeline and for the pipeline designation. We're ready to move forward for Albertans, for Canadians. And I'm proud to announce that the government of Canada is officially listing the West Coast pipeline,

now known as Pacific Link, as a project of national interest. So it's not that he hasn't been involved, but there hasn't been this sort of series of planned, conscious interventions with big speeches to sort of lay out the case for Alberta not separating. And Carney, I think, has sort of has essentially taken the approach of letting his actions essentially speak for themselves or speak for Canada or speak against the case for separation. And so now as we get into the final days of the campaign, we are now going to finally see some speeches.

On the one hand, it's interesting that they've taken that approach. And I think the wisdom of that approach will probably be measured by. what the result is next week. But I think now that we're going to see some speeches, the question that is, you know, what do we hear from him? What beyond his actions? What does an argument for Canada look like, or Saab like, rather? Yeah. I mean, I know it's kind of unfair to ask you this question, because we don't know what he's going to do tonight. But what might one want to hear from a prime minister on a night like tonight, if one's cause is keeping the country together.

I'll defer a bit to what had Nancy, the Alberta NDP leader, former mayor of Calgary, said to our colleague Catherine Cullen on Power in Politics last night, which was, I think there's two arguments that need to be made. One he needs to make and one people in Alberta need to make. The one he needs to make is that Canada works. Canada works and it's worked well for Alberta. still the wealthiest province. I don't know that the prime minister is necessarily inclined to kind of a

raw, raw attitude, but I think there is room there. You know, as others have said, he'd go back to Davos. He can make a speech. He can lay out an idea. He can obviously get people rallied behind an idea. I think this is an opportunity for him to do that in the Canadian context. You know, I know that the government has been criticized for not really campaigning much in the run-up to this referendum. There haven't really been ads or a lot of ground game door knocking to get people out to vote, for example. But on Monday, Kearney did release a short video addressing the referendum, the upcoming referendum. This year, Thanksgiving is a bit different. A week from today, Albertans will have the opportunity to make an important decision about their future.

In it, he's in this classroom at a school in Edmonton. The one that he went to as a kid, he's from Alberta, of course. And he touts all the things the government is building in Alberta. He talks about how Canada is stronger together. Generations of Albertans help build this country. It's yours. It's ours. And it's worth fighting for. Happy Thanksgiving, Canada. Yeah, I was struck by the tone. It was calm to the point of muted. What did you make of it? Do you think that it's like a sign of sort of what we're going to hear from him over the weekend? I think it's probably something. we could hear built out, like it's the, it's sort of maybe the foundation of an idea that he could build out tonight in Calgary and tomorrow in Edmonton. I think a couple of things. One, the tone of it,

as you say, is very measured. But I think that's who Carney is. I think that's a lot of his appeal is that he is the calm person amid so much uncertainty. I do think, though, that it was personal, harkening back to his time as a kid in Alberta. Now, I have some perspectives on this choice. I grew up in Alberta. I went to school right here in St. Francis Xavier. And it did show a level of concern for what's going on and concern for the decision that's going to be made, you know, using the Thanksgiving, you know, his Thanksgiving Day message to elevate it, I thought it was interesting. Because you haven't really, you haven't heard as much, as I say, you haven't heard much of that from him over the last few months. And I'm interested

I guess to see whether he can build that out in a longer form when he gets to give speeches. I do think it is worth reflecting on the fact that at this very moment, the moment that these separatists have finally got a question about this issue on the ballot, you do have a prime minister who is liberal, but is also the most popular politician in Alberta right now. No more, can you sound a chest? I'm not going to say this. more popular than Pierre Polyev, who is an MP there, more popular than Premier Daniel Smith or any other provincial leaders. It's really quite extraordinary.

Yeah, I think if you're a federalist, you'd probably consider it quite a stroke of luck. Because if Justin Trudeau had somehow been the prime minister during this time, it would have been that much more delicate. It would have been that much tougher of a fight, I think, not only because of the feelings Justin Trudeau's up and, you know, what might have been challenges going into Alberta and campaigning, but he also wouldn't have been able to point to the actions that Carney has taken over the past year. And I think the other piece of it is that, you know, the Liberal Party of Canada and Alberta have a long tortured history. And the fact that a Liberal prime minister can now go into Alberta and credibly campaign for the country, you know, I'm sure liberals themselves are

quite happy about it, but it's probably also somewhat just healthy for the country that it's not, you know, such a partisan issue that Alberta's place in the Federation isn't built around the idea that a liberal prime minister can't possibly be good for the province. Like he also obviously isn't universally beloved. As you mentioned, he's been touting these energy policies, including the pipeline that he wants to build there with Danielle Smith. But it's been interesting to hear that the separatists or some of the separatists talk about him, how they think that he's playing political games with the timing of the infrastructure announcements, for example.

Like I was watching one of the kind of independence advocates, a woman named Angela Tabick, talked to our colleague Rosie Barton over the weekend. Those announcements could have been made months ago, but they weren't. They were safe for now. And this is exactly what I'm talking about, the political games that get played on the Canadian people. Albertans are not that stupid. We see through it. Do you think there is a risk that these announcements could be seen as basically just a bribe, or is that like a very small proportion of Albertans at the moment?

Yeah, I do think there is a risk of that. It's funny, I was talking to Stefan Dion, the former intergovernmental affairs minister, former leader of the Liberal Party, after the Quebec election result. And I said to him, you know, while Carney has sort of let his actions speak for himself in the Alberta campaign and, you know, building a pipeline and the MOU. And he said, well, you know, it needs to be clear coming from Carney that these actions are not being taken just because there's a separatist threat. These are not attempts to appease separatists or people who might be inclined to vote for separation. It needs to be clear that these are things Carney is doing because he believes in them, because he believes it's best for the country, that it makes the country stronger.

And I think the essential argument is you don't want to get into this world where the prime minister seems to be acting only because there's a threat, that he's running around trying to appease people and hold the country together with gestures and that he's sort of being cornered and made to do these things. you can get yourself stuck in a cycle of seeming to have to do that. And you could get into a world where, you know, separatists in Quebec could look at Alberta and say, well, you gave them a pipeline, so what are you going to give us? And so I do think there is room there at some point for Kearney to say, look, we're not doing a pipeline because I wanted to win this referendum. We're doing this pipeline because it makes sense for the following reasons. I do, there is a risk there somewhere of the prime minister seeming to just respond to threats.

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Let's talk about Pollyette, Pierre Pollyev. Where has he been in all of this? MP in Alberta, leader of the Conservative Party. He's supposed to be giving a big speech on Friday in Calgary, I believe, the day that this comes out. Yeah, he's given, so this will be one of several speeches. I'm not sure exactly how many it is now, but he has given a few. The Conservative Party itself has longed. launched a third party group to campaign for people to vote against separation.

He's been involved. You know, it's really hard to know without being on the ground exactly what the conservative action has amounted to. Dane Lloyd, the conservative MP, who's leading that effort as they've been knocking on doors and handing out literature, there's, you know, there's definitely a possibility that they'll have some impact on getting the vote out. I think Pollyev's, Pollyev's situation is interesting because if you look at the polls that say, you know, there are people within the United Conservative Party, the provincial party in

Alberta that support separation. You would assume that at least some of that is Pierre Polyev's own base in Alberta or his pool of supporters. And so he could, in that sense, be in a difficult position. I think the other way to look at it is that he could be a valuable voice in speaking to those people and saying, look, I'm not giving up on Canada. I don't know why you would. listening to the speech he gave recently in Edmonton. If we want to unite this country, we need to give people who have lost hope in it a reason to renew their faith. I think, you know, he doesn't put it in so many words, but I think his argument is kind of like, look, you do have grievances. They're legitimate, but they're sort of based on what Justin Trudeau was doing for the last 10 years.

And Canada's bigger than that. Canada's bigger and has been around for much longer than for that. time. And I think that is, you know, you can have a long argument about Justin Trudeau and Alberta, but like, I think that there's some utility in that argument of saying, like, look, we, you know, Air Polly have fully agrees that Justin Trudeau is bad, but it's not a reason to leave the country. I think there's some chance that that could register with people. It's just a, it's hard to know exactly what that amounts to you, in part because you have so many kind of overlapping, uh, federalist campaigns in Alberta going on right now. Before we move on, I just want to talk about the other nine questions. We did a whole episode this week about the other nine referendum questions on the ballot on Monday, which are really not getting a lot of attention. But they are also questions with lots of implications and implications for the federal government. One is about the province taking more control over immigration. Four of them are constitutional questions, asking Albertans things like whether or not they want to abolish the Senate or opt out of federal programs without losing

the funding that comes with them. And if Alberta does vote yes, because the polling is way less clear on these questions, how much of a problem could that be for Carney? Yeah, I think it could be a problem in a number of ways. So part of the question with this referendum from the start has been, is this really possibly going to be the end of it? Are you really going to have this referendum and somehow that'll just end the separation conversation and everything will calm down going forward. And people have raised various doubts about that. I think the other nine questions are all sort of grounds for future conflicts,

you know, over immigration, over the Constitution, over, you know, powers between the federal and provincial government. And I think it's, are these going to be matters that Daniel Smith uses to push the federal government even further? Are we into further conflicts over different things? Or is it possible that this sort of fades away to a certain extent? All right. Let's move on to this battle with this American steel company. This Ontario-based company, Stelco, which people are sure have heard of,

but it was bought by an American company called Cleveland Cliffs in 2024. And they made this deal with the government to keep the same number of unionized employees and also most of the non-uninized employees for five years. But a couple of weeks ago, obviously, far less than five years, they announced that they're going to be laying off up to 500 workers as a result, according to them, of the trade war. The CEO of Cleveland Cliffs, Stelko's American parent company, defended the move. We will be able to continue to produce galvanized steel

when we have a deal with the United States to be able to export galvanized steel from Canada to the United States. And the government, they gave this ultimatum. You need to stop the layoffs. This isn't the deal that we had. Or you face potential legal action. And the company is saying, like, they're going to go ahead with it

and that they're not in violation of the agreements. And the layoffs have actually started. So this is, like, affecting people on the ground right now. Talk to me a little bit about this fight that's been brewing and the possible legal levers that the government could potentially pull here. Yeah, so the key here is that the sale of Stelco to this American company had to be approved through the Investment Canada Act by the federal government. And through that, there were conditions that this company is supposed to abide by going forward. And so the federal government has raised the possibility or the threat, I guess, of pursuing the legal process through the courts to pursue some kind of remedy.

In Melanie Jolie, the industry minister's assessment, you know, there's basically there's a few things that could come out of this. There could be financial penalties for the company. They could be forced by the courts to abide by the conditions or there could be a forced sell-off of their assets. We've hired the best lawyers in Canada to help us to deal with that. And we will fight to keep the jobs in Hamilton. And that is the position of the government.

And meanwhile, if Stalko wants to come back, back to the table to negotiate. I'm always open to that. As you say, there's been this exchange of letters where the federal government has said, you're not abiding by the conditions. The company has come back and said, no, actually, we think we are. And I think at this point, as we speak right now, everyone's sort of waiting to see what the federal government is going to do, how the federal government's going to answer this. Are they going to go forward with a legal challenge or is there there's some other option here. And just going forward with that, like, what are the potential like pros and cons of that for the government? So look, anytime there are headline making

layoffs in a key industry, the federal government is going to face some criticism or some pressure to address the problem, answer for why it's happening, explain what they're going to do. But because there's this direct federal involvement through the Investment Canada Act, in this case, they have direct levers they could potentially pull. And I think from a business perspective, and by all means I'm not a business-minded person, you can get Peter Armstrong on to talk about that. You know, on the one hand, you don't want to send a message that an American company can buy a Canadian company and then lay people off and allegedly. break their conditions under the Investment Canada Act, and there be no consequence for that. On the other hand, you know, Mark Carney's big pitch is to foreign investment, to come into Canada and invest. So you also don't want to look like you're hostile to foreign investment. So I think

there's a bit of a tightrope there for the federal government to walk. But the politics of this probably lean pretty heavily on doing something because the trade war context, you know, the threat the country is facing is so significant. And this seems like such a symptom of that. And I think you can see it and know how the federal government has handled this and spoken about it already, that there is some onus on them to do something. Right. Carney went quite hard at Stelko and the company, I think earlier this week. Our thoughts are with the, the work. and the families who have been portrayed by the company? I mean, probably also doesn't hurt that the CEO of Stelko's parent company,

this American company, has publicly championed Trump's 50% tariffs, describing them as a necessary measure to protect American steelworkers. And he has said that he's prepared to immediately call back laid off workers at Stelco if Ottawa can reach a, quote, Fortress North America trade pact with the U.S. So also, like, you have people, unions, et cetera, making allegations that this is like a politically motivated stunt to try to pressure the Canadian government into a deal with the U.S. Yeah. At the very least, it certainly adds to the emotional and political heft of it. Yeah. I do think, you know, Mark Carney coming out and saying, I believe his words were that he, you know, the company had had betrayed Canadian workers.

You know, Carney himself pointed out that the CEO had quote unquote applauded Trump's terror. I thought it was striking from my perspective because I don't think Mark Carney has generally, as we said earlier, tried to be the calm one and not tried to add to the tension or add to the drama of this moment. So I thought it was striking that he went as far as he did in criticizing this company. But it certainly adds to the political pressure on the Carney government to do something because this isn't just a company laying people off or even just a company laying people off because of the American tariffs. It's a company laying people off because of the tariffs that the CEO himself has applauded.

That's a pretty rich moment. You know, the company, the CEO in an interview, I think with the CBC, he did say that he was open to selling Stelco. For a good offer, yes. Which, you know, has been interpreted as him saying that it's kind of for sale, whether or not. That's really what he meant. But I mean, both the federal and the Ontario NDP have called to nationalize the company. We are in an emergency situation to save Canada steel industry.

The tool of public ownership is available to the government, and this is the time to use it. Kearney hasn't ruled it out. Do you think that that is something that this government would actually consider? So in normal moments, in normal times, I think you would say, no, Mark Carney is not going to nationalize a steel. company. And I do think the argument for nationalization probably needs to be spelled out a bit more in terms of why exactly we need to go all the way to nationalization at this moment. Is that really the only option? Is that really the best option? Does it actually make sense? Is this the only way to save the Canadian steel industry? But on the flip side of that,

I do think it says something about this political moment that people feel emboldened to throw out an option that dramatic. Yeah. Because it does seem like a moment when extraordinary measures are sort of are required. And so I think it's interesting just from a kind of discourse level that the nationalization argument came so quickly and so fast. I think it's indicative of the kind of public mood and the political mood, which is that things that we might have considered a few years ago, you know, sort of radical ideas,

are now being thrown around pretty quick. and pretty enthusiastically. Okay, let's wrap today with election interference. There was another story this week involving relations with the Americans. U.S. Ambassador P. Kokesra said on a podcast called The Really Big Show, that's the podcast, that the administration is, quote, closely watching Canadian activities because it appears that, Some of this from our perspective and the way that we view our elections could be inferred to be election interference.

He singled out Doug Ford. Clearly, the actions of the province of Ontario a year ago in running political ads against our administration are interpreted. Justin Trudeau, I'm not sure why. And Carney's industry minister, Melanie Jolie. Minister Jolie talking about, of course, we're going to go and target tariffs and retaliatory tariffs in politically sensitive states. So I guess this is just like yet another sign that the relationship is going great, hey? Yeah, yeah. Things are great. Things are good. I mean, I think there are a couple of serious points here that could be discussed. One is what actually directly constitutes election interference? especially in a situation where American action is affecting another country.

You know, Canada isn't just an uninvolved bystandard to American policy right now. Canada's being directly affected by it. I don't, if you listen to the ambassador's comments, he never quite goes as far as to say that something definitely is election interference and it's definitely what's happened there is against the law and we're going to pursue it. So it feels like a bit of a warning. I think it recalls something that Peter Navarro, a trade advisor, said a few weeks ago, he also made a comment about lobbyists, Canadian lobbyists in Washington and don't interfere in our elections.

Memo to candidate, you cannot do that, okay? That game is up. And if you interfere in our elections in Maine or Michigan, you will pay even more dearly. I don't know that anything that any Canadian official has done to date really meets the bar of election interference. But I do think there is probably a bit of a warning there that Canadian officials need to be mindful, that they don't want to get to the day after the midterms and somehow be blamed for Republican losses somewhere. Yeah. They don't want to put themselves in a position where they're vulnerable to that attack. So even if nobody's really gone that far to date, it's probably something to keep in mind for the next few weeks.

The other thing I would throw on the table is that, you know, back in April, the vice president of the United States went to Hungary during Hungary's election and campaign with the incumbent now former Prime Minister, Victor Orban. So I'm not quite sure how to square that with what the ambassador is now talking about in terms of concerns about election interference. Yeah, well, let me give you, let me give you another one, you know, those comments that Peter Navarro made about lobbyists and why. Washington. Two weeks ago, the Globe and Mail reported that Alberta separatists were coordinating with Republican operatives to help them win the referendum vote. So that, you know, strikes me as a bit hypocritical as well. Yes. So I'm not quite clear where the American position is on this. I think there's always, look, if you're really going to get down to, there's always been a certain amount of migration back and forth in terms of political strategists. So I don't quite know

where the American lines are on this exactly. But as I say, it's something to at least keep in mind if you're a Canadian official of not, you don't want to put yourself in a position where you get blamed for something and you get caught up in

some kind of post-election narrative about why the result was the way it was. Right. And, you know, some of these lines I think are being rewritten in the air, right? So yeah, you don't know. Aaron, that's a great place for us to end. Thank you.

Anytime. All right. That is all for today. Front burner was produced this week by Joytha Schengupta, Kevin Sexton, Mitchell Stewart, Matthew Amha, Ali Jains, and McKenzie Cameron. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabbison. Our senior producer is Imogen Burchard. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe Locos.

And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you on Monday. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca. Podcasts.