The Ben Mulroney Show - Are food prices going to soar if we have a tariff war with the United States?

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Are food prices going to soar with this impending Tariff War with the United States? with Guest: Matt MacDonald, National Leader, Food & Beverage Processing for MNP -Taking a historical look at the British Home Children with Guest: Craig Baird, Host of Canadian History Ehx 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

Hey Spotify, this is Javi. My biggest passion is music, and it's not just sounds and instruments. It's more than that to me. It's a world full of harmonies with chillers. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. The Foreign Interference Inquiry. We've been waiting for this, the results of the inquiry to drop for a very long time. But before we talk about it, let's hear Justin Trudeau and what he had to say a little while ago. I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and or party of Canada who are engaged or at high risk of or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference. Okay, well that was that was a few months ago. That's a heck of a thing to

say about your colleagues in the House of Commons, people who are have been entrusted to represent the interests of Canadians in the House of Commons, people who have been entrusted to represent the interests of Canadians in the House of Commons. This is a real-life Manchurian candidate situation. And it's all happening under the banner of the Conservative Party of Canada. Justin Trudeau, thank you for raising this concern. There are traitors in our midst, according to the Prime Minister, and they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

And then there's an inquiry. And here's what we learned. While Canada's democratic institutions remain, quote, robust with, quote, no evidence of traitors in parliament, the federal government should take steps to better safeguard democratic institutions and better inform the public of foreign interference threats, according to the final report from the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference. That's part of the final report by Commissioner Marie-José Hogue, and it was released after months of waiting. Big long voluminous recommendations, 51 recommendations. This is not a new phenomenon when we talk about foreign interference. It shouldn't surprise us, she said in a press conference.

States have been trying to interfere with each other since the dawn of time. What is new however, are the means being deployed by these states, the extent to which the phenomenon seems to be taking on hold, and the fact that is being talked about publicly. But our Prime Minister leveled some terribly destructive and salacious threats, accusations rather, against his colleagues in the conservative party. And a woman, an inquiry led by Madame Ugg was entrusted to get to the bottom of it.

And she said, there are no traitors. So can somebody explain to me Justin Trudeau's words so many months ago? Well, if you look at it through the lens of everything he said since 2015, and actually prior to that, makes perfect sense. How can I better divide people? I know, I'll drop a bomb that some of these people

are traitors. And it's absolutely in keeping with his mischaracterization of people who disagree with him. He's called conservatives misogynists and racists and Islamophobes and Nazis. So what's how is it any different to call them traitors? I mean, he said he's seen the credible intelligence. Well, he also saw, he also sees people protesting. But you know, what's the expression in a world of, when you're a hammer, the entire world is a nail. When you're a social justice warrior,

everybody is aggrieving you. And when you're a politician who's a social justice warrior, everybody is aggrieving you. And when you're a politician who's a social justice warrior, you're gonna weaponize those words to get what you need, to get what you want. To drive people apart. He needs to be held account for what he said. That should not get to be normalized. A prime minister accusing the opposition of being traitors? And somebody is going to tweet in and say, oh, he didn't say they were traitors.

Come on. You're going to let him wordsmith his way out of this? He called them traitors. Traitors to Canada. People who sacrifice of themselves to be members of his majesty's loyal opposition, doing their duty. But because they are opposing you, they are traitors. Because that's what you see. You're a hammer and all you see are nails.

So somebody needs to make sure that he doesn't get to skate on this. He needs to be held accountable for the words that he said, because when he speaks, his words have consequences in ways that the average persons don't. I do wanna circle back to something that we've talked about before, and we will continue talking about, was, is Jagmeet Singh, the man who famously worked with Justin Trudeau to play

keep away with your vote, make sure that his minority government was able to behave as if they had a majority mandate. Justin Trudeau has loved touting that his minority has stood longer than any minority in Canadian history. That is not a badge of honor. That is not a badge of honor. That is a demonstration that you maneuvered your way into doing something that the people said they didn't want you to do. We don't trust you with a mandate of a majority government. We trust you with just a smidge of a government, a minority government. We want to be able to hold you to account anytime we want. So when there's a scandal or a cost overrun or a level of incompetence that makes us feel that we don't trust you anymore, we're going to pull the cord. We're going to pull the

chute and we're going to have an election. But Jagmeet Singh was more than happy to help him create the artifice of a majority mandate and govern as such. But then he ripped up his agreement. And then he proceeded to vote, I think, eight more times with the government. Then he says, I'm never going to do it again. Never going to do it again. They've lost my trust.

They've lost everybody's trust. And at the next available opportunity, I'm going to vote no confidence. Well, now with the looming tariff threat from Donald Trump, maybe not. I'll just start off by the fact that I've spoken with a lot of workers who are deeply worried about what the Trump terrorists might mean. They say, you know, I will sometimes I lay awake at night saying if that therapist through do I lose my job and what's going to happen to my kids? What's going to happen to my family?

And we think about the analysis is out there. If those Trump terrorists come in place, there are hundreds and thousands of Canadian jobs out there. Okay, enough, enough, enough. I've heard enough. I've heard enough, come on, come on. Don't talk to me like I'm stupid. I get really upset when you talk to me like I'm stupid. You are, Mr. Singh, you are opening the door

to doing exactly what you've done time and time again, which is keep this government alive. Because you fear the electorate and the consequences of your actions that are gonna lead to the decimation of your party. And I wish we could get to Yves-Francois Blanchet because he spoke the truth. He said, under no circumstances, never, absolutely not,

we are not going to go down this road. Absolutely not. This is a government bereft of vision, bereft of a mandate, bereft of a leader, bereft of ideas. And we are not, well, he didn't say that. I'm saying that. Anyway, he spoke the truth. And had I been a better timekeeper,

I would have aired you that audio Welcome back and before the break we were talking about His jug meat sing looking like he's giving himself some cover to allow for the possibility that he may end up supporting the Carney or Freeland or let's just call it the Trudeau government in in Spending their way through through the tariff threat that is looming on the horizon thanks to Donald Trump. So we talked about his word salad nonsense justification

that would allow him to do so. The flip side of that coin is Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet. And I didn't have the time to play it for you before the break, but this is what, put aside that he's a separatist. This is what somebody who has the courage of their convictions sounds like. I see no way I would support any astute of the government.

I suggest, I believe that the intention would be to create a context in which the government would get one week, oh, two weeks, three weeks, and then they remain there longer than supposed through hell in terms of parliamentary work. If the liberals want things to become clear and want to help people, they should simply start the election sooner. Nothing prevents Mr. Carney or Mrs. Friedland, when this person is selected as the leader of the liberals, to say on March 10th that we are going into election.

We have improved the situation by two weeks, but I'm not getting into any tricks. Tricks. Yeah, great. Good on him. Good on him. Listen to that. Let that sink in, because that's the tale of two different leaders. Food insecurity and the affordability crisis are brought into even more stark relief with the backdrop of the uncertainty of what's going to happen to our economy, were we to be levied 25% tariffs by Donald Trump. And so joining us to discuss the cost of living, the cost of food, and the implications of going to the grocery store today, tomorrow, and in the coming weeks is Matt McDonald, national leader of the food and beverage processing for MNP. Matt, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show.

Thanks, Ben, for having me, great to be here. So there's a lot of reasons why our food costs what it costs, inflation, the carbon tax, you name it. Well, the CEO of Metro Grocery Store says that the weak loony is putting pressure on food costs. Yeah, well, I mean, I think there's a bunch of things that are putting pressure on food, food costs. And the reality is, is that when the loony was stronger, we still had pressure on food

costs. So I think it's one of the, one of the factors for sure. I, you know, I wish, I wish more people were as passionate about this, just listening to you talk. Because I think that we could actually bring about some, some The agri-food industry in Canada represents $140 billion in climbing, just under 9% of our GDP. So it's a big area of the economy, and it's something that affects you and I and everyone that puts food on our table. I think what we've done in publishing this report is trying to show more light on how it affects the everyday Canadian and how external threats like what Trump is threatening with these tariffs, they just shouldn't be as effective if we had

stronger food security and a stronger gate-to- gate solution from our primary producers and our farmers all the way to our large retailers. Yeah, so Matt, tell me, what is the state of play on the ground today and how can we improve it so we're not at the mercy of so many influences? Well, I think, and again, we highlighted this in the report, Canada has one of the most dynamic and best in class agriculture environments and communities in the world. And so why would we

be lagging behind in our production? And there's a bunch of reasons, one being under investment, right? We need to attract more government and policy investment, more capital from the private markets, and just create a more entrepreneurial, market-friendly environment for our kind of everyday Joe on the street to start a business and to build into something successful. And I think one of the things that we highlighted

in our report that it jumps out to me the most is we're giving away a lot of real dollars to other countries in that processing, right? We're allowing, we're pulling the goods off of our land and we're shipping it externally instead of processing it here and selling it here. And that's where our next story takes us, because in reaction to these tariffs, there is a movement by politicians and advocates for Canadians to quote unquote, buy Canadian. And that's harder to do than one would think, because it might be a Canadian company,

it might be a Canadian product, but we might have to ship it offshore before it comes back, in which case it may get it may get hit with a tariff. That's right. And really, you know, one of the things that we tell clients, and I think the everyday, you know, grocery shopper can relate to this is we all go to the grocery store and we see something like pineapple that's cut up in a plastic container. And that's what that's what value add would be. You can buy a pineapple whole, or we can cut it up

and sell it to you in a plastic container. And that's when I say, when I talk about value add, why are we selling the pineapple? I don't think we grow a lot of pineapples here in Canada, but why are we selling the pineapple to other countries, having them cut it up and put it in plastic, and then ship it back and sell it to us. And that's what we wanna advocate for more competition and more transparency and more just real dollars

going into that middle market. And I think that's where some of the other countries have over invested in automation and things that drive, innovation and jobs for that mid market. Yeah, but the Ontario premier Doug Ford suggested, I believe last week, you know, if you're at the grocery store and you see a product, maybe take a second or two to look to the left

or look to the right and purchase the Canadian version of that product. It may cost a few more cents, but it's gonna help us in the long run. But not every product that we see on the grocery stores has a Canadian analog. That's right, that's right. And I think, you know, I think that each consumer

needs to make their own decision for their own buying patterns, but definitely if there are opportunities to buy local and buy Canadian, the reality is, is that that's what the messaging from our Southern neighbors is being suggested in the reverse, right? And I think what I want to advocate for and what we as M&P kind of stand before in that mid-market is how can we help Canadian businesses to fill those gaps?

So there are opportunities. So if you do see a hole, go take a risk, start a business, fill the hole. And that's what we want to try to advocate and build confidence in our local and domestic economy to say there's opportunity here to be a processor and to drive change domestically. And we need to do that. So where do you at MMP see those opportunities? Where are those holes that Canadians could jump into and fill? Well, on a product side, I think that we have a, we have, as I said, we have a,

we have a very dynamic and growing agriculture business. And so, you know, we see a lot of companies that are gaining a lot of traction from, from the kind of that better for you space where we're looking at alternative proteins and, you proteins and ways that we can build healthy snacks, the baked goods section. And there are a lot of gaps where US players are coming in. And it's funny because you're seeing US players coming in and you see US players going out because doing business in Canada is not the same as doing business in the United States, not only from a taste and kind of what works in the market perspective, but our geography is a lot different.

And that's where I think we have a competitive advantage that we know what it takes to do business in Canada, we're Canadians, and we're up to the challenge, but we need to rise to the opportunity. And you know, if and when these tariffs hit, assuming it's as bad as we think it's going to be across the board, 25%, how quickly are we going to, are we going to see the impact of them on our pocketbooks when we go to the grocery store? I think, I think potentially immediately, right?

I, you know, the, the challenge is when you're, you're, you're kind of shadow boxing here, trying to guess where is this tariff, where is that? And the things that we've said to our clients is, I wanna stick with, what are the definitive barriers that are in front of us? It's hard enough to run a business today. I don't wanna deal with a montage of what ifs. And so you should be running your business in a way that says, if an external threat

comes in, these are the contingency plans. And so one of the things that we've done as M&P is to help our clients come up with sensitivity analysis and how do we pivot? Mark, Matt, we're going to have to leave it there, but thank you so much. I appreciate it. Okay. thank you so much. I appreciate it. OK, thank you so much, Ben. I love talking to this next guest, but actually I hate it as well.

I love it because I learned something I didn't know before, but I hate it because it reminds me of how little I know of our Canadian history. And I think I know a significant amount, but he knows a heck of a lot more. Please welcome to the show the host of Canadian History X, Craig Baird. Welcome back, my friend. Thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. So today we're going to be taking a historical look at what's called the British Home Children. And before we jump into it, let's hear from you. We've got a clip of you talking about the British Home Children. Emma, Mary Ann, and Clara Bennett arrived in Canada on July 25th, 1870. Little is known of their parents, but upon their arrival, they were sent to our Western home at Niagara-on-the-Lake, a distribution center for children. Emma was the oldest of the three.

She was 11, followed by 9-year-old Mary Ann and 5-year-old Clara. Their brief time at the distribution center was the last time the girls would be together. They didn't know where their sisters were, and their world became one of isolation, away from those that mattered the most. Mary Ann was lucky enough to find a home with two kind people in Welland County. She wrote to Mariah Rye back in England in 1871, I'm glad to tell you I have a good home and hope my dear sisters have as good a home as I have. My mama would like to have them near me so that I can see them sometimes.

My mama and dada is very kind to me. Please write and tell me where my sister is. Emma, who was placed with the Lyons family in Niagara County wrote on July 17, 1871, ''Mrs. Lyons has allowed me to write you to ask you to inform me where my sisters are. If you please, I would be much obliged if you could be kind enough to answer my letter.'' Clara, the youngest, was placed far from her sisters in Montreal. Did the sisters ever find each other again?

While I can't say they did for certain, If they did, it wouldn't be until they reached adulthood and were no longer part of the resettlement program and no longer indentured servants. They were three of tens of thousands who experienced this type of hell. I mean it's heartbreaking and as polite as those letters are, it belies what seems to me to be a terrible system. People are going to hear far more on your show, the Canadian History X, when it airs on the Chorus Radio Network. But Craig, the British Home Children program, I guess, was an immigration program for destitute

British children? Yeah, essentially that's what it was. It was kind of started by three different organizations and like with so many things, it had the best of intentions. It was to get children away from things like, you know, the London East end, which was full of crime and poverty and send them to Canada

to work, to learn skills and to start a new life. But for a lot of these children, first of all, they were taken away from everything they had known. Sometimes their parents didn't even know that they were shipped away until after they'd actually left because their parents would put them into these, these children homes because they couldn't afford to take care of them with

full intention of eventually taking them out of those homes. They thought it was a stopgap measure. Exactly. Yeah. They thought, you know, it was just for a time until we get back on our feet and then we'll be a family again. But you know, a lot of these children were

sent away and wouldn't see their parents again until adulthood. If they did it all, I mean, often there was one in my episode, he, he found out his mother died well after the fact. He had no idea that she had died. And so they'd come to Canada and some would be in good homes, but a lot were just treated like livestock. Like they were just there to work, they were beaten,

they were abused, and you know, some were just told you're sleeping in the barn with the cows and the pigs and they weren't treated like part of the family. They were just treated like something to be there to work. So this went on from the 1860s to the 1930s. I mean that's a long time to run a program. Was there any oversight into the program? Were the Brits tasked with checking in on some of these kids to see how the program was working? There was some oversight. It mostly came in Canada where you would have inspectors and the inspectors would usually go to these farms once a year. But the problem was you knew when the inspector was coming. So they, you know, the farmer or whatever

would tell the child, you know, don't tell, sit down with them a good person, say that, you know, you like living here. They would give them new clothes. So they looked like they were, you know, happy and everything. The inspector would come see these children, talk to the children.

The children would say, no, I really like it here because they knew if they told the truth, there was a good possibility they would be beaten after the inspector left. So the inspector would see it and go, okay, everything's fine here. And then go on to the next farm. It was only usually when neighbours would complain

and say, you know, I saw this eight year old handling a herd of cattle in the snow. and then they would kind of do a surprise visit and in those cases the child would be taken out of that home but then just put into another home where the same situation could happen again. Yeah. I want to go back to something you said about you know parents putting their kids in a temporary home thinking they could come back when they got back on their feet finding that their child had been shipped to Canada or Australia or somewhere else. What sort of recourse did they have? Nothing really. They essentially were signed, I don't know if they, I guess they would probably sign documents, but essentially you were

saying to these group homes or these children homes that you're gonna take over custody of my child until I can come back and claim the child. And often the child was just sent overseas. Sometimes there was actually cases of children who were just out in London's East End being picked up and taken away, you know, and then sent over to, to Canada.

And again, it was started with the best of intentions of getting these children away from poverty, but with so many things, it gets warped. And it lasted until, like you said, the 1930s. And it wasn't really stopped because of public backlash or people saying, oh, this is horrible. It was because of economics. And there were so many unemployed people

that they wanted to stop all these children coming in and taking jobs. Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask. What stopped it? And like this was not a small program. How many children were involved in this, in British home children? Well, it was a hundred thousand that were sent to Canada. I mean, they were also sent to South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, but Canada, just because of our proximity, was by far the most. It was about a hundred thousand children

who came over here and most did stay in Canada. Some went back to United Kingdom after they reached 18, but a lot did stay in Canada and started lives here, married and had children and became part of Canada. But, uh, you know, we're living in a different time now. We look at, uh, we look at events like that through a different lens with different values and, and, and we tend to judge those sorts of things very poorly and unfavourably. Uh, the children who were sent to Australia have received an apology for the program. Um, Canada has not yet, but feels to me that

there's even more that could be done. Has the British government ever apologised? Yeah, the British government apologised in 2010, about a year after Australia did. And then Australia and the British government apologized in 2010, about a year after Australia did. And then Australia and the British government actually set up a fund so that people in Australia could go back to United Kingdom and see family, you know, obviously well into their senior years, but they could go back and see family and that would all be paid for. And Australia did give money to people as kind of saying, you know, we're sorry that this happened. But Canada, other than proclaiming 2010, the year of the British home child, releasing a stamp and kind

of labeling it as a national historic event has not really done anything to apologize for, for what happened during those years. I'm shocked that the current government hasn't, hasn't done that. It seems like it's very on brand for them. hasn't done that. It seems like it's very on brand for them. Yeah. I mean, when it came up, it was the conservatives who were in power and chose not to apologize. But like you said, we did get a new government where we did have a lot of apologies for a lot of things, but for some reason we never had this British home child, Paul, apology. Is there a community, an organization in Canada today for the commemoration or the remembrance

or for them, you know, the descendants to communicate and connect? There is a website that I use especially for this research and it's called Home Children Canada and they do have a lot of information. They're actually a charity that was established in 2012 to elevate the profile of home children and to preserve the memory. But the problem is, as with so many things, a lot of these children have passed away and we only have a few left.

So you're kind of running out of time to, you know, make amends to the ones that are still around. Well, Craig Baird, people can listen to this story and so many more on Canadian History X, available on the Corus Radio Network and on Curious Cast. And I wanna thank you so much for joining us and for teaching us something new today. It's a terrible story, but something that I

think just adds a little, another layer to the story of Canada. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Home Network is here. I love it. Discover the best shows and your favorite trusted experts all under one roof.

Are you kidding me? Every Thursday, watch heartwarming programs like an all-new Extreme Makeover Home Edition at 8. Who's that for? We are so lucky to be a part of this. And Honest Renovations, starring Jessica Alba and Lizzie Mathis at 9. Changing these homes, we can change families. There's no place like it. Home Network, stream on STAC TV.