Front Burner - Politics! Trade war fallout, byelections

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

This weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video of an army of geese with orange hair, holding machine guns, defending what he's now calling "Lake America." It's just the latest provocation in this new phase of the trade war we've entered. Today, Parliamentary bureau senior writer Aaron Wherry joins guest host Jason Markusoff to discuss the Carney government's plan to weather the storm and how their decision to walk away from the deal with the U.S. is reverberating politically within Canada, from the ranks of the opposition to the Alberta sovereignty debate. Plus, the significance of Monday's three federal byelections. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts 

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This is a CBC podcast. Hi, I'm Jason Marcosoff in for Jamie. This weekend, U.S. President Don Trump posted an AI-generated video of an army of geese with orange hair holding machine guns, defending what he's now taken to calling Lake America. It's just the latest wild provocation in this new phase of the trade war we've entered. So today, we're going to talk about the Carney government's plan to weather it, and how their decision to walk away from the deal with the U.S. is reversed, cooperating politically, everywhere from the ranks of the opposition to the Alberta sovereignty debate.

We've got three federal by-elections happening across the country today, and I've got my colleague Aaron Werry here to talk with me about this. He's a senior writer in CBC's Parliamentary Bureau. Hey, Aaron. Hey, Jason. I want to start with what feels like a kind of absurd attempt to rename Lake Ontario. On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order going beyond his tweet, saying it was, would now be Lake America. We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario,

effective immediately to Lake America. And we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else. We've notified all of the various people that we have to notify. And then on Saturday he posts that AI video of machine gun toting geese. I mean, is this all as ridiculous as it sounds? Does it have any real impact, Aaron? Yeah, look, I don't know what to say about machine. gun, toad, and geese. As to the question of the lake, I mean, I guess technically, legally

now in the United States, it is now known as Lake America. We're recording this on Sunday, and just recently people have picked up on the fact that Google Maps has changed its distinction. So if you're in the United States and you look it up on Google Maps, it will now say, like, America, I take it that is just in line with the way Google does things. when it comes to the naming of geographic features, you know, look, in Canada, it's still like Ontario, that's not going to change. You know, it is, it is ridiculous.

But I do wonder whether it becomes sort of another symbolic moment for Canadians and for Canada about sort of where we're at and what the country is up against. You know, we've already seen clips of, you know, from Blue Rodeo concerts. of people celebrating the reference to Lake Ontario in the chorus to hasn't hit me yet. It feels like it's another one of these moments or another one of these kind of symbols that could become kind of as ridiculous as it is somewhat powerful within the context of everything else. Yeah, it has become more like totemic.

I mean, I'm not sure how many people in Canada know about, you know, the vagaries of 232 tariffs on steel. but what they'll talk about maybe is 51st state, is it sort of like that? Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. The idea that the president would unilaterally change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, it's, I don't know that it's more tangible necessarily, but it's somewhat more powerful, I think. You know, you've already seen Ontario Premier Doug Ford go out and put out this big sign that says Lake Ontario. Well, it's always going to be Lake Ontario, now and forever. President Trump can call it whatever he wants, but I can tell you the rest of the world will always call it Lake Ontario.

I think it is just, you know, you can imagine when people are writing books about this era, you know, five, ten, 50 years from now, that this will be one of those things that just gets mentioned as a kind of an anecdotal moment that that sort of crystallizes what's going on. Let's move on to the actual trade talks, Aaron. So Canada's chief negotiator, Janice Charette, gave an interview to our colleagues at the House over the weekend. Just briefly, what did she say about what went down at the negotiating table and how that conflicts with what the U.S. was saying? Yeah, so I think it's good to start with her answer on what she said about the moment when Donald Trump announced there was a deal, you know, came out the Tuesday night and said that Canada and the United States had a deal and they just sort of needed to finish the paperwork. and her version of events without quite, you know, completely dismissing the president was to say. When I think back to those hours, I thought that we had the outlines of a deal to use President Trump's terms. I think we had the outlines of an agreement that we thought we could work towards,

but we still had a lot of work to do to finalize that agreement to make sure that all of the details were locked down, all the eyes were dotted and the T's were crossed. And in a trade agreement, Catherine. You know, something trade negotiators always say, it's, you know, nothing's agreed to until everything's agreed to. And so I think there's a bit of a split right from the start over what exactly they'd gotten to on Tuesday night. And then I think if you put Charette's interview up against the James and Greer interview that our colleague Rose Mary Barton did, it gets down to sort of who, a dispute over who was putting things on the table at the last minute.

and how exactly those last minute things are framed. So there's a question about, you know, I mentioned earlier, this treatment of medium and heavy-duty trucks. Howard Lutnik has come out and said, well, the Canadians threw this on the table Friday at 4 p.m. And Janice Shrette's response was essentially, yeah, we did bring it up Friday at 4 p.m. But we also brought it up on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,

that this was a consistent issue for the Canadian. So it wasn't a last-minute demand. There's a question over, to what degree the U.S. wanted to influence Canadian trade policy with other countries. And then there's this third issue of what's called discoverability, the ability to find French content on major streamers that there are Canadian laws about. And to what degree that was an irritant for the U.S. and the U.S., James and Greer's comments were this week that that was never a red line. We highlighted it, right? I mean, our view is you should let capitalism do its thing and let people pick. But we know that this is important to Quebec. So for us, this is not a red line. It's been presented in the Canadian press, like some big thing that we held the line on.

It's not true at all. I mean, we don't. It's totally fine. We think that we understand why you would want to have discoverability for Francofoam material. Okay. Just to go back to the timeline a little bit. And Janice Charette's comments this week are more, you know, her sort of reading of things as well. it was still on the table. This was still something the Americans were bringing up at the last minute. It is true that Canada said from the very beginning that while we were prepared to look at the financial obligations associated with streamers and content providers, that the issues of discoverability and prominence measures to protect French language to promote Canadian culture were never, never going to be on offer. And it is also true that right up until the final negotiating session,

Friday night, the Americans were still asking for us to remove those provisions. And so, you know, it's hard to square exactly the two versions of events, but I think it's pretty clear at this point that there were some significant differences right up to the end. Toward the end of that House interview with Charette, she said that Canada's negotiators had their pens down, but their doors open. And Carney, too, he said that Canada is open to going back to the table when the Americans have the right attitude. But a new Abacus data poll found that 71% of Canadians supported the decision to walk away from the deal. Given that, do you think Carney will have a

tougher time going back to the table and selling the public on a deal? Yeah, this to me is the big question going forward because as much as Canadians might rally behind a tough response and the rodeo songs might be turning into nationalist anthems, Mark Carney still has to figure out what to do with the longer in negotiation with this, you know, how do you get to a deal? What kind of a deal? Do you make a deal? And there was some reporting before things fell apart that Janice Charette had sort of warned the American side. Look, this could be kind of a cliff where if these negotiations fall apart and the United States

applies these tariffs and then Canada responds that it actually at that point gets harder for Canadian negotiators to make a deal because political opinion would be so kind of riled up and negative. And I think that is something of a challenge now because, you know, the question now is like, what deal would Canadians be satisfied with at this point? What appetite is there to make any compromises? I think there's an obvious and an understandable emotional reaction. But on the economics of it, now how do you manage that if you're the federal government? How do you either deal with no deal or try to find a deal that Canadians will accept? And I think that's, it gets, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to get too far ahead of yourself, but I,

you do look at the sort of reaction over the past week and wonder, how does this ever get put back together again? So in the absence of, you know, getting back at the table, we still have these tariffs and now counter tariffs as well, which are going to have effect on Canadian businesses. But there was this $7.5 billion relief package aimed at businesses and workers affected by the trade war. What does that relief look like? So I think the federal response is sort of twofold or maybe even threefold. One is obviously counter tariffs. I think they're still figuring out exactly how they want to apply those. And we may see those going to affect September 8th. Then there's the

you say the relief package. And it's sort of split into two fronts. One is support for businesses that they're trying to move through regional development agencies and the business development bank and a diversification fund. And then there's another tranche, which is aimed at workers,

which is new flexibilities for employment insurance, funding for training, and some measures, I guess, still end up businesses for workforce retention. It's kind of a, it's pretty broad. package at this point. I think we'll see how that develops and how far it has to go. I think we're in a pretty fluid situation at the moment. We also don't know whether there might be further measures

taken by the United States. I think this is, you know, as much as people might want, again, to walk away from the table, getting the support package right is going to be a challenge going forward for the government. Right, because Dan Kelly, the CEO of the Canadian Federation of independent business, he's said that the tariff package probably missed the mark. He says that at least half of small businesses won't be able to apply for the relief. Do you think that is going to be, or there's going to have to be more coming on the relief side of things? I mean, I think the government may have to adjust this on the fly. If I understand the argument from the CFIB, it's that there's sort of too many programs and that the programs that are

there, the thresholds aren't really feasible and the rules around it aren't really feasible. I thought one thing that was interesting in the statement that that Dan Kelly put out was that he sort of invoked the pandemic times when the federal government had to make a lot of policy up on the fly and change it according to circumstances. Usually in a situation, you see the federal government spend a lot of time thinking about a policy and then putting it in place in it sort of being solid for years to come. What you saw during the pandemic was a lot of get policy out the door, see how it works, see what the issues are, change it,

and maybe put out a slightly different policy or adjust the policy days later. It wouldn't surprise me if you see a situation somewhat like that because I'm not quite sure that, again, everyone knows exactly what's coming down the pike from the United States. So while there's, you know, TBD on the response, on the public's response to the relief response, but certainly on Carney's position on trade, people seem like they're overwhelmingly in support. So that leaves the question of how does the opposition reply to that. We've seen the conservatives call on Carney to release more details about the trade negotiation and convene Parliament again without delay. Canadians deserve to know what is the deal that the Prime Minister at first planned to accept and then later decided to reject. Release the proposed text.

Let's be clear. There are no national secrets in that text. It's already been shown to the United States administration. The President has seen it. His negotiators have seen it. The United States has seen it. Canadians deserve to see it. what's your view on how they're responding to this?

I think they're taking up some space that makes sense for them to demand transparency and details and explanation and to want to reconvene Parliament, that sort of thing. I think on the specifics of it, it's a bit more challenging. You know, politically you can sort of see not only their demand for transparency making sense, but also given the consult. that were raised around the negotiations that maybe Carney was headed for a deal that wasn't going to be super popular, that was going to require some pretty big compromises. You can see why the opposition, the official opposition, would want that deal to be out there. I think you've heard, though, the pushback from people saying a couple things. One, just on a practical level, these negotiations aren't having. with, you know, one piece of paper being exchanged back and forth. And, you know, there being a piece of paper you could put out that showed every term that Canada was ready to agree to, that these are much more sort of, I guess, chaotic or dynamic situations where there's different pieces of paper and different commitments being made verbally.

And so just on a very practical level, it may be very hard, if not impossible, for the federal government to put out a piece of paper that says, here's exactly what we had agreed to. But also on a larger strategic question, you know, you may not want to be in a situation where you're putting out a piece of paper that says, here's what we would agree to, because that surrenders some of your strategic negotiating leverage. And so I think there are some real barriers probably to the federal government doing what the conservatives want them to do. I think that said, I think the conservatives are trying to find a way into this.

I think it's challenging. Without criticizing the government, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because of the government's trade stance overall. Yeah, I think it's challenging because, you know, I've been meaning to go back and look at how opposition leaders handled things during World War II because I just don't know when the country is all sort of geared up towards this big thing that is bigger than sort of partisan politics. How do you sort of fit your role in there? I think they're making not unreasonable requests necessarily in terms of more transparency, but I think it's a challenge. So there's this pretty shocking leak with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance calling Polyeva nonentity in the trade talks.

And in that same leak, he refers to, quote, a random MP who has a good relationship with us has been a pretty effective advocate. Now, he's talking about conservative Jemil Giovanni, who's Vance's friend from college. And he's been taking a very different tack on trade and this response last week. Can you tell me about what he's been saying and how that's fitting into the broader conservative message? Yeah. So first of all, just to touch on this JD-Vance leak a bit, I did think when it came out and he said, oh, the conservative leader, Pierre Palli, has been a non-entity. I confess that I thought, well, but of course he's a non-entity.

Like leader of the official opposition is not a factor in negotiations, nor should he be. So I thought that was kind of a bit of a-eat-eastern. Yeah, exactly, right? Like, I thought that was a bit of a cheap shot or at least kind of a red herring in the whole discussion. But then you have, yes, this whole sort of Jamil Giovanni factor, which is he's been very critical of Doug Ford and Mark Carney. He referred to Doug Ford as a liberal. He said they were putting politics in front of what's best for the country. And he's been critical of the tariff retaliation.

We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue this anti-America, you know, his see fit. And this is the kind of reason I'm trying to talk into. our government and some of the liberals who have just gone way off the reservation on this. You know, the ball is in Prime Minister Mark Carney's court. Like, I've offered to help him. I think it would be awesome if we went down there together. I think we'd get a lot done working together. But he's got to decide whether that's something he wants to do or not.

You know, that's a challenge for Pierre Pollyov to manage because I think, you know, you're always kind of trying to weigh, like, how much can you let an MP sort of speak their own mind before it's, you know, undercutting you, I guess. Let's go to the X. The C&E Grand 5050 is on now. Get your tickets today at CNEF50.com for more chances to win big and support a great cause. You could take home the guaranteed minimum grand prize of $250,000, or even more as the prize grows. Every ticket helps fund the C&E Foundation's community and youth programs.

Please play responsibly. RAF 156-8077. Come and celebrate Toronto and do everything you want to have the X. So on the day this podcast comes out, Aaron, I know you'll be working late because there are three federal by-elections. There's North Vancouver, Capilano, and BC, beaches east York in Ontario, and Jakutomi-Lifiorg in Quebec. The first two are considered safe, liberal territories, but the Quebec riding, which was previously conservative, could go a few ways. How important are these by-elections?

So I will always say that we should be hesitant about reading too much into by-elections. But the Shakutumia Lefjord bi-election is quite interesting insofar as it was a conservative seat. Former Conservative MP Richard Richard Richard Martel was a fairly prominent former hockey coach, something of a star candidate. And so his exit from the scene could make it harder for the conservatives to hold the seat. it was almost a three-way, almost a perfect three-way split in the last election. And so now it looks like the, the likelier scenario is that it's a toss-up. You know, going back to Pierre-Polyev, if the conserves don't retain the seat, there will inevitably be questions about why not.

Does this suggest some serious weakness? If the liberals hold it, or if the liberals win it, rather, you know, that's another sort of shot in the arm for Mark Carney. It's another, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, uh, it's a, uh, to the majority to make things a bit more comfortable. So there are some some interesting stakes there. I think the other, in the other writings, again, as you say, the liberals are likely to win them? It will be interesting to see sort of where the other parties end up in those, uh, two byelections, you know, you know, in beaches, for instance, are we going to see some signs of life from the NDP there, for instance. Those are the kind of undercurrents, I think you're looking for in those by-elections. But yeah, I think it's fair to say most sides will be on Shakutomi, and that's the one where, depending on where it goes, that'll be sort of the

storyline coming out of by-election night. So with regards to that Quebec riding, we have this issue of, you know, the trade accusation, that there was some Quebec language content up for debate that the Americans were trying to negotiate away some requirements for digital services companies. Trump wrote a post on social media denying that they were a sticking point like Carney said they were. Trump wrote, this lie was made up by a weak and ineffective prime minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost from the people of Quebec, unquote. Does Trump have a point where partisan political considerations in Quebec a factor in these talks with this by-election looming?

It's really hard to answer this question, I think, definitively. I mean, it would be hard to imagine that you're not. ever going to think about public reaction to what you do in a trade negotiation. You know, the question's been asked sort of a different way, which is, did Mark Carney sort of take the opportunity to walk away because Doug Ford wasn't happy with what was on the table? It's really hard to untangle something as complicated as a trade negotiation and say, oh, this is, you know, the exact percentage of this consideration and this is the exact percentage of that consideration. It's really hard to know. I think my own sort of feeling would be that

it'd be a heck of a gamble, I think, to walk away from a trade negotiation because of a by-election and one writing. But that's pure speculation on my part. It's really hard to untangle these things. Yeah. On the other hand, though, you know, it seems like released accusations there that a lot of what happened with the federal government squishing the idea of extending the Toronto Island airport was to defend against a loss in Beaches, East York, right? Yeah. And I don't want to look, there's, it's very possible that there's politics happening in politics. But it's really hard to know, you know, I think going into this, one of the thoughts people had was, well, if supply management's on the table, how's that going to affect Shukubami?

So I just think there's so many factors involved that it's really hard to pin it on one specific thing. That would be my hunch. I mean, I wasn't in the negotiating room. So we're sort of speculating to a fair degree on this. So Jason, now I'm going to play my Frontburner guest host card and ask you a few questions. You're what? You're what? Sorry, this is a privilege that comes with being a guest host.

Bring it wary. So you wrote a piece a few days ago about how the trade war has played into the Alberta separatism debate. Let's start by talking about the federalist side. You noted that one prominent unity group, Forever Canadian, pulled in more viewers for a live stream last weekend than they ever did at the height of their campaign. So is it possible that Donald Trump has sort of motivated Albertans to get behind the federal government? Are we seeing, I guess, almost a literal rally around the flag moment? It seems like there's a lot of that. I mean, you have to consider two things when you're talking about Alberta in this whole trade war.

The first is that Alberta is not as affected as other provinces because our big exports, oil, gas, and cultural products are not affected. And so, you know, we've not been living the trade war like Ontario, Quebec or BC or a lot of other parts of the country. have. But if you look at polls, we're not that far off of where other provinces are in terms of our response and our sentiment toward Donald Trump and his trade war. The same polls that are showing 71% support for Carney walking away from the deals nationally are 61% in favor of Carney doing that. And while, yeah, fewer Albertans are in favor of it, still a lot of Albertans who don't typically vote for Carney are supporting what he does. And that's a reflected too in some of the polls, a lot of the polls, that show massive support for voting against this separatism option, this referendum to have a referendum.

The federalist side remains overwhelmingly popular in this province. And as Thomas de Kassik, who is the leader of that petition group and that pro-Katting group forever Canadian you were mentioning earlier, says, you know, when people feel threatened, when unity feel threatened from an external threat, there are going to be more people trying to fight against this. internal threat, the Alberta separatists. So it's not too surprising that groups like his and people would be flocking more to federalist causes when there is this dual flank threat to fight. On the other side, I take it the separatists are also trying to mobilize around this. You talked to Jason Levine, a pro-independence YouTube host who said this moment could win over some undecided Albertans, quote, what they're painting.

close attention to is whether or not Canada can work. And this will be a strong indication that quite possibly it can't work. Unquote. What kind of mobilization are we seeing among the separatists this past week? You know, like a political of opposition, you have to work with what you have. And maybe their best argument is this idea that Canada can't work. There's a fear among some separatists. And I mean, some Albertans who are probably not separatists as well, that while Alberta has been pretty immune from this trade war so far that this latest phase and some of the reaction drags it into it, be it the counter tariffs, the retaliation that might come, or this potential that some people like Doug Ford and former Alberta Premier Jason Kennedy have suggested is using oil and gas as a leverage, maybe applying an export tax on the U.S. to make oil more expensive. if Alberta's brought into this crisis more, if we're really starting to feel the efforts like we haven't before, that would hurt. And what Jason Levine is trying to do as well is lean into the inherent distrust of liberals.

His side especially, and even broadly, Albertans traditionally have a distrust of the federal liberal party and going back Justin Trudeau and well beyond that. So if they say it's if this is a way for them to blame them and say we could have done better without, you know, in this fictional world, where Alberta would have been on its own negotiating tariffs, we could have done much better. That's maybe fertile ground for some of their supporters and some growth in their side among people who are inherently disillusioned by almost anything the liberals do. All right, Jason, that's all my questions for now.

Okay, so in that case, let me take back the hostick from you and say, Aaron, thanks for joining us again. Anytime. That's all for today. I'm Jason Markisoff. Thanks for listening to Frontburner. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.