The Ben Mulroney Show - Are Canada and India friends again?

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Guests and Topics: -PM Mark Carney and the G7 fallout -Michael Hyatt on the G7 from a business perspective If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thank you for joining us here on Wednesday. We love having you help us build this show And we've given you another way to find the show. You can follow us, obviously, on the radio, on streaming apps, as a podcast. But now we have a YouTube channel, the Ben Mulroney Show. But I think it's just Ben Mulroney Show on YouTube. And we post content all day long.

And you can enjoy it to your heart's content. The G7 summit was really looming large on Mark Carney's calendar. On anyone who was going to win the election, it was going to be the Canadian Prime Minister's chance to host the world, to host our friends in the G7 in Cananaskis, Alberta. Mark Carney won the election, so Mark Carney was the host.

And fair is fair, he acquitted himself, I think quite honorably, with a ever evolving changing world in the Middle East, which saw the President of the United States leave right after dinner on the first night. It was still, I believe, a productive meeting, very helpful for Canada, because whoever was going to win the election, we were going to have a new prime minister. And so I think this is very important. As many connections as Mark Carney has, as many of these world leaders as he has already interfaced with, this was the first time that he met them as the prime minister of Canada.

And so to build those peer-to-peer connections, and not just with the members of the G7, but all the extra all-stars that were invited. Zelensky, you had the Prime Minister of Australia, you had the President of South Africa, you had, I believe, the Mexican president was, at one point, invited. A lot of people were there.

Modi was there as well. This was all beneficial. In one fell swoop, he was able to interface probably one on one with all of them. And so that in and of itself makes it a very important and very successful summit. The fact that nobody blew up, the fact that the theatrics were kept to a low level.

The fact that the language and the tone between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Canada, the fact that those things were kept respectful and within the norms of what we would consider normal, I think, is a breath of fresh air. And so all of that goes, all that credit goes to Mark Carney and his team. The fact that we now have a 30-day clock, I think we're on day 29, where the United States and Canada have agreed that in 30 days, we're going to sign a new, what do they call it, security

and trade agreement or something like arrangement. This is not the renegotiation of NAFTA. This is something different. But anything we can do where we can find points of alignment with the Americans, I think is important. And remember, we were told that our old relationship was over and we were gonna build a new one. I dispute that view of what's happening right now. Signing a new deal doesn't mean the old relationship is over. When NAFTA was signed, which was a complete, and I mean a complete and total departure

from how we used to do business with the Americans. When the first free trade was signed and then that agreement grew with NAFTA, that was a complete departure of how we used to deal with the United States, far greater than what we're dealing with right now in terms of how much trade we started doing with them. So yeah, it's a pivot, it's a change, but a lot of it has to do with the personalities of the two people running the country. So I dispute that world view. I think it discounts a lot of the work that was done by previous prime ministers.

And I think it tries to make exceptional what is, you know, it's a high stakes environment, but that's the job. And this is not a different time. It's just different people with different circumstances. So there's that. But by and large, you know, there are some key joint statements from this 2025 G7 summit on critical minerals.

The nations agreed on strategies to secure and diversify supply chains for clean energy technologies, emphasizing the need for sustainable and ethical sourcing practices on artificial intelligence. You'll remember that even on the day before the summit, the prime minister of England and the our Canadian prime minister had a had a one on one dealing specifically with AI that continued at the summit, where a statement was released outlining principles for the responsible development and deployment of AI, focusing on safety, transparency, and the protection of human rights. All of that very interesting. I think in Canada, we have a tradition

of making bold pronouncements like that and just allowing the world to lap us. We love big checks and we love ribbon cutting and we love being the first to the party to say this is important. We are at a pivotal time in our history and this is a technology that will change everything. And then we let other countries do the heavy lifting. You know, one of the founders, one of the creators of AI is Canadian. Name one world beating Canadian AI company. I can't.

A lot of them are American. Some of them are Chinese. I'm sure there's some in other countries around the world. I have not yet heard of a single large language model that comes from this country. So we get the beginning of the race, right? We're in the blocks. We train for it, I guess.

And then we just don't run the race. And that is not specific to the liberal government. It's endemic of the entire country. And we have to, but the liberal government could make the lay of the land easier for innovators in this country to take advantage of the bold pronouncements of the government. They also add a key statement about quantum computing.

Again, it would be great if Canada got on board with that. Migrant smuggling was another one. The G7 reaffirmed their commitment to combating migrant smuggling networks, enhancing international cooperation to protect vulnerable populations and uphold human rights. This is all this is all great stuff. These are great words that we need to see put into practice. transnational repression a joint statement was issued condemning acts of transnational repression, including extraterritorial threats and harassment and

reaffirming support for human rights defenders worldwide. That seems to me very pointed and very specific to India and Canada's issues with India extending its power onto our border and into the lives of Canadian citizens and you know going so far as to end the lives of Canadian citizens or threatening the lives of Canadian citizens. going so far as to end the lives of Canadian citizens or threatening the lives of Canadian citizens. That's what that sounds like to me. Another one, because I think it took place in Alberta

and it's in the summertime or close to the summertime, wildfires. The leaders addressed the increased frequency and severity of wildfires committing to collaborative efforts in disaster response and climate adaptation. So this is all good stuff. This is all very good stuff. But back to the issue with India,

our prime minister took a lot of flack for inviting Narendra Modi to the summit. And I can absolutely understand the outrage in certain quarters, as well as the belief that there are other ways to rebuild the relationship with India without going so far as to invite India to probably the most exclusive club in the world,

the G7 Summit. But I learned yesterday that Modi has been invited to every G7 Summit since the last one in Canada. The last one in Canada he wasn't invited to, Charlevoix he last one in Canada. The last one in Canada he was invited to, Charlevoix he wasn't invited to, but the one after that he's been invited to every one. So to me, if he has been invited before, I'm not going to give this prime minister any flak. But here is Mark Carney talking about rebuilding Canada's vital and ever increasingly vital relationship with India.

In terms of the bilateral relationship, which is your question, I think the meeting today was important. But I would describe it as foundational as a necessary first step and exchange of views, frank open exchange of views around law enforcement, transnational repression. It's two examples, an agreement to provide the necessary foundations to begin to rebuild a relationship based on mutual respect, sovereignty, trust. And that begins with what was agreed, you asked for concrete, which is that we will move to appoint high commissioners again.

All right, look, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And in a lot of cases, we dug ourselves into a hole or found ourselves in a hole. And I commend the prime minister for appreciating that there is hard work to be done, and it has to start somewhere. So he started it at the G7 summit on home turf. I can't imagine a better place to start it. So I give the Prime

Minister passing grades, possibly even high flying grades, more to come on the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for spending part of your Wednesday with us. You just heard my take on how I think the G7 summit hosted by Canada and Mark Carney went in Cananaskis. And there are only so many things that we can say at this point, because the knock on effects of the summit have yet to be felt. So I'm only looking at it from a perspective of was it a good for was a good first foray into this sort of diplomacy by our Prime Minister? Yes, I think it was. I think that there are immediate benefits, as I just said, his

connection is introduction to all of these world leaders that he will be dealing with. And his government will be dealing with on a daily basis. I think on both of those fronts, it was a home run. We went through some of the joint statements that were released. And the as I said, it's a great first step, but what those implications will be politically, financially, on the markets, on the business community, that is yet to be seen.

So we're joined now by Michael Hyatt. He's an entrepreneur and an investor, and he's a current senior advisor at Northleaf Capital Partners. And I wanna discuss with you, Michael, welcome to the show, how you think from a business perspective, this introduction by Mark Carney

to his fellow world leaders went. It's almost really a bit of no news is good news. I kind of, I'm kind of aligned with you on this, but there was no big blow up, which I thought was good. You saw the stuff coming about, you know, Ukraine, Russia and the sanctions, joint communicates, that was all fine. What I found most interesting was a couple of things. Number one, after Trump left after day one, you're kind of left with the G6. And I think that was actually probably a good thing, although it wasn't

scheduled, because I think they probably really needed to figure out amongst themselves from a business perspective how they're going to trade and work together. Because what's happened is that you know in Trump's second administration he's come forward and said look America first and I'm going to kind of basically change the entire game about how people trade with the US do business with the US and I put a lot of people on their in their on their back heels right so I think that they really have to figure out how to work with the US but how to start diversifying their economies Yeah, Canada is particularly in a in a in a very difficult state because we spent the last 10 years doing in my view

As an investor and entrepreneur building companies here like a lot of things to chase business out of this country We had bad tax policy bad housing policy bad immigration policy. We just did a lot of things I mean that I would go to dinners, like last year with like 40 different CEOs, and I'd ask, who has thought about leaving this country in the past year? And the first time in my entire career, every hand would go up. Yeah. Like, it's really disfartening because our country on a bad day is good, right? Yeah, exactly. And we've been happy to, like, we've been happy to be stagnant. And we keep relying almost on the echo of the greatness of the past of Canada, forgetting

that there are real world today implications of being mediocre. Right. But how do we bring the only question that matters is how do we bring investment back to Canada? I mean, the past administration in Canada did a really great job of alienating a lot of, you know, we didn't do a great job at India, didn't do a great job with China. You know, I don't think we did the greatest job in the US either. I think we just placated on that. I mean, dare I say something? I was thinking back, when did we really shine on the global stage? And it probably wasn't since your father had a very strong standing. If you go back to what he was doing with Thatcher and Reagan and he put us as a statesman, I've been thinking, what do we need now? Since

your father was prime minister, it's almost like we need that statesman again to bring us back to that world stage and get investment back into this country. If you ever had a time or a call for a states person to really, you know, bring together the global economy to Canada, this is it bring together the global economy to Canada. This is it. This is the time. How do we get that to happen? Well, so based on those joint statements, and I read some of them earlier, you know, joint statements on critical minerals, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, those do seem like if, if they are the starting blocks of a race, if Canada is actually willing to

run that race, then that could signal sort of a lot of movement, a lot of growth in our economy. But it feels to me over the past 10 years, we have a tradition of being really good at the start of a race by saying all the right things. Like I look at open banking as an example. We were some of the first, we were one of the first countries in the world

to say open banking is the future and people deserve to own their own to say, open banking is the future and people deserve to own their own banking rights, their banking ID, and they can take their, they should be portable. And then we did nothing on it. We allowed the world to lap us. Australia took the lead and they are now a quantum leap ahead of us when it comes to banking in the 21st century.

So we're very good at saying the right things, but then we do very little to foster an environment so that the reality matches the words. Yeah, so look, that's exactly right. So the biggest one that came out of this meeting and the biggest one you brought up is actually artificial intelligence. We have some of the most early and advanced artificial intelligence guys like

Jeff Hinton from, from UFT, but what did we do? Right? We kind of allowed him to go to Google and sold his patents there. We start things, we do great things, and then they trickle into the U S but why does that happen? Because in the U S my friends move their companies there because they get phone calls from governors, from senators saying, come on down here and I'm going to give you all of this. There aren't any MPs or people in Canada

or premiers calling Americans saying, I'm going to give you all this. Now we tend to do that in the automotive industry, but if you look at the tech industry, which pays, you know, gazillions of dollars, we're not doing that. We're not giving people a reason to build here strong enough, right? Yeah. So for example, last year, all the government wanted to talk about is you entrepreneurs need to pay a lot more capital gains and pay blah, blah. And it was just like, why don't we punish you some more and tell you to get out of the country?

So I guess we're reversing that. We're trying to get it going here. But their idea about driving AI and quantum computing is completely correct. Now, are they going to back that up with helping you actually build that ecosystem here so we can flourish, right? Because I'll tell you something about artificial intelligence.

It is underrated what is coming. And it's going to be shocking. And if anybody's listening to this right now, you wanna see how fast it's moving, Google something funny called Will Smith eating spaghetti, right? Okay. 2023, 2024 and 2025. That's a ridiculous thing to look up after you're listening to this. But if you look at how fast the meme on the internet shows that an AI can just show Will

Smith eating spaghetti, it's a random silly thing. But the version in 2023 was really weird and awkward. 2024 was pretty good in 2025 is getting indistinguishable from reality. Yeah. So it's a rate of change. Yes. So impressive. And look, we in Canada, we could be the AI data center capital of the world with our if we if we build a stadium to allow that to happen. Exactly. So is Mark Carney the agent who can get us there? His resume and his connections and his experience in the banking world suggests that he has an appreciation for what we are lacking in this country

and possibly the depth of knowledge to help us fill those holes, fill those gaps and create a pathway to that. But then you hear, you know, you recognize that he might be either tethered to or beholden to a caucus that walked in lockstep with a prime minister who believed the exact opposite. So that's why I feel the jury is still out,

that these bold pronouncements will not mean anything to me until I see what they mean in practice. Now you're in you're in the business world. Are the do you think that the the markets are warming up to the idea that he could be that guy? Or is it still wait and see? Look, I think he could be that guy. I want to be fair to him. He did a couple of the fact that he made AI quantum a big part of this is is a great green flag. The second green flag he's done. He's actually made a minister just for AI.

Is that real? Actually I'm going to meet him next week. So is that real? Is that not? How much scope does he have an authority that is it just platitudes? I don't know. I mean he's been prime minister for 20 minutes So we got to figure out what really happens here. What I'm hearing in Ottawa is that he's running this place pretty aggressively like a business. And that was getting a little excited as an

entrepreneur. So I want to be fair to the guy. Although I'm not a fan of his party. We all want his success, right? That's one of Canadians. But at the end of the day, I'm cautiously optimistic he's going to do the right things. And look, the guy has to cut the size of a completely unproductive government. I mean, we have, it's bloated, you know, we are housing the mess. We have a world standing as being a mess. To be fair to the prime minister, he's been handed a lot of crises to deal with. The only thing I'll say is a lot of them are crises of our own making of our own doing. And so we it was our responsibility to get ourselves out of that mess. But Michael Hyatt,

a real pleasure to talk to you. I hope we have you back on again soon. Thanks, guys.