Front Burner - Politics! Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago, GST holiday

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton is back to talk about Prime Minister Trudeau’s trip to Mar-a-Lago for a dinner meeting with U.S. president-elect Trump. She’ll touch on how far it’ll go to quell tensions over Trump’s tariff threat, and whether Canada can present a united front against it.Plus, the politics behind the upcoming two month GST holiday, and whether we’re getting any closer to a federal election call.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC chief political correspondent and very good friend of the podcast, Rosemary Barton. Hi, Rosie. Hey, Jamie. It's great to have you there. There's lots of federal politics news to catch up on with you.

For example, the liberals and the NDP passed the two month GST holiday bill last week. We're going to talk about that. And we've been talking on the show about the fallout from Trump's threat of a 25 percent tariff last weekend. The prime minister went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump. And maybe we should start there. Does that does that work for you? Yeah, totally.

Okay, so we are several days out from that dinner. Enough time for all sorts of accounts to come out about what went down. And just give me a sense of what you've been hearing, what we know about what happened, what was discussed at that dinner. Well, let me start maybe with Friday because there was a real blackout around this event. You know, when we saw the prime minister's plane tracking from Ottawa down further and further south, we started, everyone in the bureau,

texting madly all our sources and very few people responded. And that was, we're told, because Trump's team didn't want this public before it happened. So, I mean, I just think that's so interesting to keep that all so quiet so successfully for so long. The dinner itself came about when Justin Trudeau managed to get Trump on the phone on the Monday before when he had posted that social media post about the 25% tariffs. Yeah. Talked to him for about 10 minutes. And he said at the end of the call, you know, I think maybe it would be great if we could meet up in person before the inauguration. And Trump said, how about Friday?

said, how about Friday? And the prime minister went down with a couple of key staff members, Canada's ambassador to the United States and the minister of public safety, Dominique Leblanc. And it was, by all accounts, yes, a kind of a business meeting, but it was a very social meeting.

While Trump is called Trudeau weak, dishonest and a far-left lunatic in the past, there was none of that sort of talk Friday night, LeBlanc says. He walked us to the cars, to the front door of Mar-a-Lago. He said to the prime minister, keep in touch, call me anytime, talk soon. There was a little sort of drink portion before where they could mix and mingle with some of the cabinet nominees that Trump had brought with him.

And then they sat around one of those big round tables that everyone has seen now in Mar-a-Lago in a packed room. They were presented with menus where they could pick meatloaf or other things. There was, I'm told, an endless supply of Diet Coke at the table. Yeah. And it sounded great to me. And Donald Trump was there. And I think people have heard that he's done this in the past. He did have his iPad there.

And he is the actual DJ of the dining room. So it was very social. It was very cordial. But of course, they did talk some business, too. Yeah, I heard that he put on two versions of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, among other songs. When they did get to business, do we know how that went? Maybe another way to ask this question would be, did we get a better sense of what exactly Trump wants from us or what would stop him from slapping these tariffs on Canadian goods that would absolutely trash our economy? Yeah, I mean, I think if the question is, did we get reassurances and guarantees that isn't going to happen?

The answer is no, we didn't get that. But they did sort of get a sense of what is top of mind for the president-elect. So Dominic LeBlanc, who was there, says there wasn't a checklist, but there was certainly concern around the security of the border, the northern border that we share. And there was certainly some reassurance given to the president-elect that Canada was going to beef that up. And we've heard since things like drones, more helicopter patrols, and certainly additional resources that have yet to be announced. And then the other thing that was kind of surprising, I think, to the people, the Canadians at the table, was how much the president was concerned about fentanyl. And I don't mean that it shouldn't be a concern. Obviously,

it's a concern for everyone. But it was really one of the primary topics of conversation. And I say that it's surprising because Canada is not a huge source of fentanyl for the United States. But it was still something where he wanted to see some joint action and some shared action. Right. I think in 2023, I believe 43 pounds seized here at the border versus 21,000 pounds at the Mexico border. So very big difference. Did we get a sense or did anybody get a sense about whether there were other things that that were motivating Trump? Like, is it just security at the border or is it other stuff too? So, for example, does he want the revenue from the tariffs to do the stuff that he wants? Because it strikes me that that's a harder problem to solve. You can always do stuff at the border. We're going to

put more helicopters. We're going to do this. But the second thing is harder. It is. And I think you're right to point that out. It was also very clear at that dinner that tariffs are really an important part of how Trump is going to manage economic and foreign policy. And sitting beside Justin Trudeau and Dominic LeBlanc was Howard Letnick, the new Commerce Secretary nominee, who also is very pro-tariff. And you're right, there was some conversation about how important that would be as a source of revenue to deal with all the other things that Donald Trump wants to do. So when the Canadian government talks about tariffs, it can't just be about things that Canada could do to help secure the border. The idea is that they have to talk about how tariffs would damage the American economy as well. That the economies are so intertwined,

whether it be the auto sector or other things, that slapping a 25 percent import tariff on stuff from Canada would actually be damaging for the American economy. And that's where they feel that they did manage to get some of that message through. OK. I just saw this morning that Trump has appointed Peter Navarro as his senior counselor for trade. And Navarro previously helped renegotiate NAFTA. He also spent four months in jail for refusing to comply with a House committee subpoena investigating the January 6th attack. He's a big Trump loyalist, right? And so what does his appointment and some of the other guys that Trump has appointed so far tell you about, you know, how this could play out? Yeah, I mean, this isn't great news, the Peter Navarro nomination for Canada, in part

because you might remember back at the G7 that was held in Canada in Charlevoix, Peter Navarro said that, Chris, there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that's what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference. That's what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau. He then apologized for that. But I think it's fair to say that Navarro doesn't have the best view of Justin Trudeau. And he in particular is he believes that those tariffs were one of the most successful applications of defensive trade policy in US history. So that's the kind of fellow that

is talking to Donald Trump, as well as Howard Lutnick, as well as others, who all seem to be of the same view that tariffs are an effective negotiating position, certainly, but also can really benefit the American economy if you're trying to make it about America first, which is Donald Trump's slogan. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people, and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples,

I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to ask you a bit about our response to this domestically. You were talking earlier about how the strategy, the message has also been trying to convince the Americans that this would harm their economy. Ontario is launching a major U.S. ad campaign. For generations, this ally to the north has been by your side. Ontario, Canada, a partner connected by shared history, shared values, and a shared vision for what we can achieve together. Stable and secure.

for what we can achieve together. And Ontario, of course, would be hit very hard if these tariffs go ahead, largely because the province is the heart of the auto industry. It traded close to $500 billion with the U.S. in 2023. And just tell me a bit more about what we're hearing from our provincial leaders. Are they in lockstep with the prime minister's office here?

Probably more than they were a week ago, right, when this initial social media post went out and then the prime minister had to scramble to host a Zoom meeting with the premiers. I think they came out of that meeting, the premiers, much more on the same page than they had before. more on the same page than they had before. But there are still potential cracks in that Team Canada approach. Danielle Smith, you might remember, said she might send police to patrol the Alberta border. I would imagine it would work very much the same way that our fugitive apprehension team has, that we would put resources together and work with our counterparts to make sure that if we're seeing any illegal activity happening, either coming into Canada or going on away from Canada into the United States,

that we have the ability to apprehend those individuals. François Legault in Quebec has said the same thing. I'm saying it's since 2017 that we have to do something. Remember what happened at Troxam. So it goes both ways. We have to secure the border. So there are premiers who are, you know, willing to play ball to a certain extent,

but they're also looking, let's be honest, to get things out of this from the federal government. Let's talk about the federal opposition leaders. So on Tuesday, Trudeau had a meeting with them. Conservative leader Pierre Polyev initially said that normally when a prime minister goes to the United States to meet a president, they're looking to make gains. What gains did we hear from Mr. Trudeau? None. He's just trying to limit losses. He called it a failure. And what have we heard from him since? Yeah, I mean, this is a very unusual thing, right, that they all would sit in a room and discuss something particularly unusual for Pierre Poiliev to be there because of his, you know, strong opposition to Justin Trudeau and everything he does. Let's call it that.

They're not exactly buds. Yeah. No, no, no. They're not besties. So, you know, he went to that meeting and he got the same briefing as everyone else in terms of what happened at the dinner and what sort of the prime minister's hope was. He again reiterated that request that he made to the premiers. Let's not put all our cards on the table and let Donald Trump see them.

Let's try and remain together and defend our country instead of giving him openings. I want to see an all-hands-on-deck approach to make sure that we are fighting to protect Canadian interests. We were reminded, please, do not say things that aren't true, don't play into Trump's narrative. I'm trying to transform this situation into a partisan fight. I would say that Pierre Poiliev, you know, was there and then he came out

and not, you know, an hour later was again saying what he had said this past weekend. Right now, we're going into this problem in a state of weakness. Prime Minister has broken our immigration system, broken our bank, broken our borders. We need to fix what he broke to put Canada first. This is, I think, a curious posture for Pierre Poiliev. Not that he obviously wants to blame Justin Trudeau for everything. That is sort of what he's managed to establish since becoming leader and has worked, if you believe, public opinion polls. But I do think that there's a question here about whether that position then becomes problematic for the country and ends up harming the country as opposed to the prime minister.

minister? It might be too soon to answer that question, but I think it is a real concern strategically for the leader of the official opposition to be criticizing the prime minister, but also potentially then playing a little bit into Donald Trump's hand. And I think that's something that will be worth watching in the coming weeks. Because also, you got to think that he, that Polyev is thinking that this might be his problem relatively soon, right? Because, you know, he has a commanding lead in the polls. And even if the election happens as late as next fall, it will overlap with a Trump government.

So what, like, calculations, if any, do you think that he's running right now? Yeah, I think I think you're exactly right. You're spot on. He is trying to show that he is strong. Right. And and that is indeed what he what he's always trying to do, that he to project strength as a leader and perhaps to send a message to Donald Trump that things would not be easier with Pierre Poiliev just because he's a conservative leader, that he would push back as much as possible. The other thing that came out of his weekend press conference about this was a familiar slogan. And that's why I mentioned it earlier saying,

let's put Canada first. I don't know what that means practically, but I know that it's something that Pierre Poiliev is suddenly saying, as though he is the one that could best defend the country. So a more aggressive approach, I think, compared to what Justin Trudeau has done here with the president. But again, he doesn't have any powers to do anything at this stage. So I'm not sure whether that would continue to be the approach were he to form government. the approach where he'd form government. I think it's probably fair to say that Trudeau and the liberals haven't been having the best run lately, like in the last several weeks even. I mean, yeah, overall, for sure. Yeah. But we're going to talk about why the last several weeks also didn't go so hot for them. But do you think this was a good play to go to Mar-a-Lago to sit down with Trump?

Is there a sense that Trudeau's leadership on the tariff issue is landing with Canadians? Yeah, I don't know if it's landing with Canadians, but I will say that it was, I think, a political win. Like, I don't think you can see that in any other way. He needed to get in that room. He needed to get in front of the president-elect and those other people who will form his cabinet. He needed to be able to make his case. And by all accounts, the relationship is pretty friendly. And that's, I think, a pretty good starting point when you're dealing with someone that is this unpredictable. I do think it was a win. I think, though, that there is a lot of risk involved here because we don't know what's going to happen. And Justin Trudeau will have to wear the outcome regardless. And so that opens up all sorts of other possible political consequences for him.

Okay, so let's talk about their other recent move that actually probably didn't go the way that they wanted it to go. This is the GST holiday bill that was passed last week. It means no GST on things like kids' toys, booze, restaurant meals for two months starting mid-December. And just can you walk me through the reaction to all of this? Yeah, so this was two measures, and I know we'll talk about the second piece after, two measures that the government announced to try and deal with the cost of living crisis for Canadians, but also to try and deal with their own sort of political crisis in that nothing that they are doing to help Canadians seems to be resonating or translating into increased support in the polls, whether it be dental care, you know, the beginning of pharmacare, all those other measures that they've done to try and free up

money in people's wallets, just not really doing it. So this they've done to try and free up money in people's wallets, just not really doing it. So this was an opportunity to try and push through, to bust through that narrative. And the GST holiday for two months, they thought, was something that, you know, around the holidays would really help Canadians and would help small businesses after the holidays when people stop going to restaurants and buying things. small businesses after the holidays when people stop going to restaurants and buying things. The problem was is that lots of economists criticized it and thought it was kind of,

you know, an expensive play to buy votes. And they had to find a way, obviously, to get support for this to happen. The bloc wasn't into it, and clearly the Conservatives weren't either. So they turned to the NDP to get support and got it passed. But in order to do that, they had to hive off the other big part of this, and that's those $250 rebate checks. Yeah, and just for people who might not be familiar, tell me a little bit about what happened there and then why that didn't happen. So those checks are supposed to go out in the spring. And they are for Canadians who worked last year, and that's really important, and who made $150,000 or less. So that's a lot of people, right? That's close to 19 million Canadians. It's a very pricey measure, over $5 billion.

And it's just sort of free money, right? And again, you could just hear the criticism of people saying that they're just trying to buy votes. But the reason it didn't work out is because both the NDP and the Bloc Québécois took issue with the fact that it is really targeting people who have jobs, as opposed to seniors, retirees, who may be a little cash strapped, given the situation right now, didn't take into account Canadians with disabilities who didn't get the tax credit bump they wanted in the last budget. We said very clearly, we will not support checks that exclude the vulnerable.

People are hurting right now. Seniors are hurting amongst the most with their fixed incomes and the high cost of living. So we will not support unless there's a GSD holiday first and that the checks are fixed to include the people who are most vulnerable. And so left out a whole bunch of people, students even, who maybe didn't work in the past year. And that's where the rubber has hit the road now. So the government needs to decide either it's going to go forward with this and it's going to have to negotiate with one of these parties to include more people, or it's going to have to abandon it altogether. But I think it's important to remember here, Jamie, that the goal of this rebate check was not to hit those people. It was to, in the government's mind, to talk to the people who hadn't got anything yet, the people without kids, the people who do was to, in the government's mind, to talk to the people who hadn't got anything yet,

the people without kids, the people who do make good money, the people that they need desperately to vote for them. And that's why it was towards working Canadians who make pretty good money. And that's why it was so off-putting to the two parties on the left. so rosie given everything that we have talked about today how the trudeau government is handling tensions with trump uh their recent attempts to shore up more support. What does all of this tell you about where we are headed vis-a-vis an election? I know you hate these questions. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, no, I get it. You have to ask. I mean, first of all, there's a handful of opposition days. The conservatives will make theirs confidence motions for sure. I wouldn't expect the government to fall. There's a fall economic statement that is going to happen at some point in the next couple of weeks that will give us a sense of how the government's been

managing the economy, given that it's borrowing all that money for those measures we just talked about. There's probably a cabinet shuffle happening, I would say, before the inauguration in the United States, maybe in January. And why am I saying all those things? Because those are all things that are building towards the government having an argument, something to show to Canadians for an election. If I was a betting person, and I'm not, I would still say possibly this spring. But I do know increasingly liberals and conservatives think it's possible it will still hold till this fall. I don't see that scenario. But certainly for the liberals, they need more. They need all the time they can possibly squeeze out of this. Because

as you say, things are bad and nothing seems to be helping them improve it. As you say, things are bad and nothing seems to be helping them improve it. Okay. Rosie, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Jamie, thank you for asking. All right. That is all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.