The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Are Tariffs, Provincial Trade Barriers and Climate Action On the Ontario Ballot?

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

The Agenda's week in review debated Premier Doug Ford's tariff rationale for an early election, examined why Canada needs to take a real stab at reducing interprovincial trade barriers, and asked whether climate action still matters to voters. Guests include Jeffrey Simpson, Jessica Green, Monte Solberg, Sabrina Nanji and Richard Southern talking with host Steve Paikin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. I think what we saw today on day one of the campaign was a race to define the race. Obviously Doug Ford thinks the ballot box question is about Donald Trump and the threat of terrorists. To Kim's point though, this is something that he has refused to rule out since last May. If you ask his political rivals, NDP's Mart Stiles, liberals' Bonnie Cromby or the Greens'

Mike Schreiner, they say this is self-serving. Doug Ford already has a majority mandate and what he needs to fight the terrorists. They're willing to support him on a terror fighting plan. They think that he's just trying to get out ahead of whatever the RCMP is looking into into the green belt, that it's politically advantageous for him to go to the polls before the feds for many reasons. We know that Ontario tends to elect opposites at Queens Park and the Hill. So there's a lot of reasons why this would be advantageous for Doug Ford. I think, as my co-panelists have pointed out,

the onus is now on his rivals to remind people that we've had this premier for the last six years and are they happy with the state of healthcare, education, cost of living. So it really feels like it's a race to define the race. Richard, I mean, I'll be honest. I think there's a political risk for the premier using this justification. And I think, you know, my fellow reporters may have poked some holes in that rationale

just today on day one of the campaign when they said, okay, you want a mandate to deal with Donald Trump? Well, have you arranged a meeting with him yet? He announced the tariffs weeks ago. No, he hasn't. Did you meet with him during his first mandate when he also levied tariffs against Canada? No, I didn't meet with him or talk to him at the time.

You know, I don't think Donald Trump cares who the premier of Ontario is. And I would suggest maybe a lot of Ontarians understand it's kind of a federal issue to deal with Trump. So I think there's some risk for the premier in doing this and maybe some of it shone through on day one of the campaign today. Let me follow up with John on that. Mr. Ford did say at one point, can you imagine Bonnie Crombie or Mara

Stiles across the table from Donald Trump negotiating on tariffs? It would be an absolute disaster, which presupposes, of course, that he will be doing that when we all know course that he will be doing that when we all know he really won't be doing that. So how far does that explanation really go? Well okay so two parts to that. What do you say that the premier will follow in the footsteps of all the premiers who've gone before and negotiated deals with past presidents United States? Or you could say it doesn't really matter what he says it's what do people believe? What do they

think? Who do they think? Who do they want? So, in an instance where you think you're worried about the future and what Trump might mean for Canada, it comes down to who is the person you want to be premier that you believe whatever the role is would be the best spokesperson, the best representative to protect you. Now, but that's what's really cynical about this decision to call the early election. It's that Donald Trump isn't gonna know who Doug Ford is through his entire four years in office. He's not gonna sit across the table and negotiate with him.

Doug Ford's never gonna be involved in the conversation like that. What he's preying on is an expectation that the electorate aren't gonna really care. They're not really gonna tune into this election and we're gonna have as low voter turnout as we did in the last election. Which all of us know is extremely low. It is cynical. And it's cynical that he called this election in the first place. That's the trouble that I'm trying to raise here.

We had about 40% turnout in the last election. I mean, but there are ridings where it's as low as 24%, right? I mean, across the GTA, there were 24% turnout in Brampton and places like that. I think there was very, very low numbers. And I think that's the risk that the premier is going to be coming up against is if we don't see that low turnout, people might show up with a different result. It was the big risk too, is that, is he talking about the issues that Ontarians really care about?

I mean, you look at the polling, people care about, you know, healthcare. I think affordability is number one. And these are issues that the premier, you know, the opposition would say is maybe a bit weak on, and here he is talking about Trump. I think that could be a risk for him. Having said that, Kim, the premier, as John said, legally, constitutionally, is entitled to call the election when he wants to. We have a fixed election date law, but there's a loophole in it allowing him to go early.

He is exercising what you might call his home court advantage. Isn't he entitled to do that? Sure, that's the crass politics. When you're the premier, you get to call the election when you want. Now, all of that being said, Marat Stiles and the New Democrats have been fired up and ready to go on this election campaign. We've seen this on day one, the difference of how Marat Stiles showed up at her campaign launch versus, you know, with a crowd around her,

with really great energy talking about her skills as a negotiator against US multinationals. You know, the things that matter, the things that brought her here from Newfoundland originally, a better life for her and her family. She also pointed out that Premier Ford, Doug Ford, has not been that good of a negotiator when it comes to deals like Ontario Place and the Science Centre that have left Ontarians lagging. But I also say that when I've looked at where the donors are coming from, where the candidates are coming from, where the race is going to intensify, you know, she raised about, she's got about $10 million

sitting in a campaign war chest, raised by 220,000 unique individual donors from across the province. Those are arms and legs that get us into traditional and non-traditional NDP territory. Even if it's minus five outside? Even when it's minus five. You know, these are folks who will go out, go knock on those

doors, they've got their toe warmers and their hand warmers, they're ready to go, and they're out on the hustings now. And it's really a fascinating place. And the comparison that we saw today, this introduction to Ontarians that the first day of the campaign brings, where you had Mauret Stiles and then you had Bonnie Crombie. Now, Marat Stiles knocked it out of the park. Bonnie Crombie was standing in a parking lot and basically trying to hold onto her hat.

It wasn't quite the good image. Equal time for Dan on that one. Well, I think Bonnie's coming up on this program very soon and she'll deliver, I think, the clear message she's going to deliver throughout the campaign. And the reality is that voters in this province know who Bonnie Cromby is. They haven't got an idea who the leader

of the New Democrat Party is. She hasn't shown up to work for the last four years. I know that your viewers know who she is, but the reality is people across this province know who Bonnie Cromby is because she's an electric leader. She's got a lot of charisma, a heck of a lot more than we had as liberals in the last election. I think we're going to see a very different outcome in a very of a lot more than we had as liberals in the last election. I think we're gonna see a very different outcome

in a very different 28 days ahead of us. ["The New York Times"] CFTA 2017 is actually the replacement of the agreement on internal trade from the early 90s. So we've kind of been using an internal free trade agreement for about 30 years. And the 2017 iteration, I think, it was a huge mark forward in advancing. They introduced this concept of, it's called the 2017 iteration, I think, was a huge mark forward in advancing.

They introduced this concept of, it's called the RCT, where you hash out these regulatory differences that Jeffrey was alluding to. And these things are really technical and require folks to come together and hash out the subject matter experts to hash things out. And they're kind of unsexy issues when you really get into them. We're talking about the differences in what high vis apparel is across the provinces. Excuse me, what is? High visibility apparel.

Oh, okay. We're talking about the contents of first aid kits. We're talking about varying driver qualifications for a long combination of vehicles. But you need the folks in the room who have the domain expertise. And that's what the CFTA and its RCT are really helping out with. Too many acronyms here, with. Too many acronyms here Ryan, too many acronyms. How did the lives of your members get better as a result of these agreements? So I think it's still very much a work in progress like Ryan mentioned things like first aid kits.

Before the most recent internal trade agreement you had rules where every province had different requirements for what is in a first aid kit. So if you were producing first aid kits as a company and you were selling to Quebec, it had different requirements than Ontario, than Alberta, than BC, and it started to make very little sense to produce for 10 provinces, you're just going to produce for one and stay in your backyard. So in recognizing across the board, the kits that apply in BC should be able to apply to Ontario,

that sort of thing makes life easier. As good as the, or as much progress as the agreement has made though, there are still a lot of barriers that remain very frustrating, in particular, credential and certification recognition, getting labor to move across borders. While we recognize that a plumber in Quebec

can be a plumber in Ontario, there's still licensing requirements. There's still some fees that are there. There's still paperwork that needs to be filled out. And that's still really slowing things down. Jeffrey, by your eye, you pointed out at the top of your last answer, this seems to sort of rear its ugly head over and over and over

and over. How can we expect to have free trade with other countries when we can't seem to figure it out within our own borders? Well, the last Ryan who spoke put his finger on something in my part of the world, in Ottawa. If you go across, sorry, on this side of the border, you see lots of Quebec companies building things, developers, you see people, Quebec plumbers,

Quebec electricians. You go on the other side of the border, which I do often. You don't see any Ontario companies because there are restrictions in Quebec that prevent that. So that's a wonderful little tiny microcosmic illustration. The kinds of things the Ryans are talking about are useful, but there are a lot bigger things that could be done. For example, it has been suggested that we need one national securities regulator.

Well, Manitoba wants one because they've got some insurance industries and BC wants one because they have mining and Quebec wants it because it's Quebec's. And they are all afraid that Toronto would suck it all up. Here's another idea. Drug costs. Okay. At the moment, every province has its own drug formulary and it negotiates with the big companies for the best price it can get.

These are all hidden by the way. But if the provinces all got together and said, no, we're going to have one negotiator for us, let's say two provinces negotiate on all of our behalf, you'd be negotiating on behalf of 40 million people instead of nine or 10 in Ontario and whatever is in Saskatchewan. So there's lots of those big things that could be done that would actually save money and efficiency, but the provinces are too determined to hold onto the jurisdiction that they have and not share it even with other provinces to the detriment of the whole country.

jurisdiction that they have and not share it even with other provinces to the detriment of the whole country. And it is very ironic, I think, that Donald Trump, who's disliked by 75% of Canadians according to the polls, that was before he threatened the tariffs. It's probably 80 or 85%. Now, we can thank him for once again focusing attention on this issue. for once again focusing attention on this issue. Does our interest in saving this planet depend on how well we are doing economically in the moment? So I'm going to make the argument that those two things go together. You know, we've had this long-standing kind of bifurcation between jobs in the environment, economy in the environment, and it's pretty clear that that's not true. I mean, there was a report

released by the International Accounting Coalition that said basically we can expect possibly up to a 50% reduction in global GDP by 2070 because of climate change, right? There's been similar predictions about the drop in Canadian GDP, obviously that large, but... Here's World Economic Forum here. 1.7 trillion to 3.1 trillion dollars by the year 2050. That's what it could cost. Right, so that's a huge number, and that's not, you know,

that is about climate change and the economy in the same sentence, in the same breath. So I don't think that we need to separate these two out and say, oh, well, we can't deal with climate change until we deal with the economy. Those things are one in the same. And it's time for all of the parties to get on board with if we're going to have a climate plan, we need an economic plan. And if we're going to have an economic plan, we're going to have a climate plan, we need an economic plan, and if we're going to have an economic plan, it's going to be a climate plan.

Monty, that argument has been made by environmentalists for a long time, for 20 years now, and it does not appear to be convincing the Canadian public. They still seem to think there's a choice between the environment and having a good economy. What's the problem? Just some context here. In the last decade, according to the Business Council of BC, Canadian economy has grown, real GDP has grown less than 1%.

So that's the here and now. And that to some degree reflects the outright attack on regions of the country by the Liberal government with respect to their climate policy. We've driven away foreign direct investment. We're hurting people's paychecks. We're hurting their ability to get jobs. So there does need to be a plan that incorporates the current situation of the economy, which is that Canada does produce a lot of oil gas. big swaths of the economy are dependent on it, our standard of living. It can't be about something that were promised in terms of jobs 20 or 30 years down the road.

It needs to be something that aligns with where the Canadian economy is right now. And I think if you have a solution to climate change or progress on climate change that aligns with that current situation we have with the Canadian economy, you're going to have much better chance of getting buy-in. But you certainly face all kinds of skepticism, I think, when you say that down the road there will be renewable jobs. There will be all these green jobs, but no real evidence. Jessica, you want to come back on that? Yeah, I do. I mean, I think, first of all, I think it's very easy to make broad statements

about how environmental regulation hurts the economy, but we know that climate change hurts the economy, right? So last year, summer 2024, cost us $7 billion because of the fires and other various climate disasters.