The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben weighs in on Pierre Poilievre's tax and tariff plan

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. A few days ago, Pierre Poliev sat for an interview with CTV News Atlantic. And the knock on him by his opponents is, oh, he just likes to talk about how things are broken. He speaks in soundbites. He likes things that rhyme. And he's really not that serious. Well, he sat for a long interview where he detailed possible tariff responses, how he

would respond, as well as his tax strategy. And I want to go through some of this interview because in my mind, a lot of what he says makes a lot of sense. Let's use ask point blank. How would you retaliate in the face of Donald Trump tariffs? Look, President Trump is a dealmaker. He wants to win, but we're both going to lose as Americans and Canadians if we get into a trade war.

So what I would say is, how do we position the decision for him so that he understands that America can only win if it allows open unbridled free trade with Canada? So I would retaliate and I would target products and services that A, we don't need, B, we can make ourselves, and C, that we can buy elsewhere so that we maximize impact on the Americans while minimizing impact on Canadians. So yeah, like that makes sense. Let's look at our balance sheet. What do we make? What are we good at?

What do we need? And then proceed accordingly. He talked about how we need to become more self-sufficient. Secondly, I would pass an emergency bring-it-home tax cut on work, investment, making stuff in Canada, energy, home building, so that we can stimulate more economic growth here. Three, we need to become more self-sufficient. That means knocking down barriers, more intra-provincial free trade. We have freer trade with the Americans today than we do with ourselves. We have to knock down those

barriers, build pipelines, LNG liquefaction facilities to sell our stuff to the world without having to go through the Americans. If they're going to be an unreliable trade partner, we've got to find ways to sell more to ourselves and more to the rest of the world. Look, he's looking at the state of play as it is. He's not creating some fantasy world that Canada is firing on all cylinders. And not every problem that we're dealing with today

is a direct result of, you know, incompetence of this current government. A lot of it dates back generations. Inter-provincial trade barriers are, it's just who we are. Canada's biggest problem is Canada. Somebody said that on the show last week and I'm never going to unhear it because it's true. We are our biggest impediment to our own growth.

We hobble ourselves voluntarily. We self-flagellate constantly. We are, we are the source of so many of our own problems. Throw Donald Trump into the mix, and the status quo is untenable. And what he just laid out there is, show me where he's wrong. I know a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction

that everything he does and says is wrong. What did he say there that doesn't make sense to you? Because everything in what he just said makes a ton of sense to me. He goes on, he's quite optimistic, quite bullish on our future. You talk about self-reliance. Have successive governments in Canada over the decades of all stripes become too reliant, too comfortable with the notion that US will always be our biggest trade partner and they're always right there and we really, we can put it on autopilot. Yes, we live next door to the biggest military and economic superpower the world has ever

seen. So a lot of our economics have just been based on enjoying basking in that glow, but we can't rely on it. And so right now, according to stats can, we have about a 7% effective tariff on goods between provinces. We remember the Como decision, some poor guy got fined because he brought alcohol from-

Northern New Brunswick. Yes, I think he was from Northern New Brunswick to- Quebec. To Quebec. And we gotta knock down those barriers. We have to approve resource projects that allow us to get our stuff to market without going through the states. Right now, we are importing oil from the Americans and the Saudis in the East at world prices. And we're selling it to the Americans at discounts in the West.

These are problems of our own making. So West. These are problems of our own making. I guess so many of them are problems of our own making. We've set ourselves up for failure. And when all of a sudden that one thing that you counted on forever says, not so fast, hotshot, like, you got to wake up. We got to grow up as a nation. And some people don't like his delivery, some people don't like him personally, some people think he's been in politics too long.

Tell me where he's wrong here. And you don't have to like everything Pierre Poliev says or does, but he's beginning from, he starts from a position of bullishness on Canada, a belief that we can get to a better place, a belief that we can be prosperous and strong and self-reliant and have the ability to have the ability and the revenue to care for all the people who need what they need in this country. You want us to be a generous country. You want us to feed the homeless. You want us to house people. You want us to take care of our hospitals and our education system.

There's only one way to do that. You gotta pay for it. And we have the ability to pay for it. We have the natural resources and the intellectual know-how in this country to pay for that stuff many times over. There is a business case to be made for people on the left supporting Pierre Poliev.

Because he will, I believe, unleash a wave of productivity in this country that will allow us to actually pay with actual money, not go into debt, not print money, but actually pay with real revenue, all the things that matter to the left, or some of the things, because I suspect he doesn't want to pay for all of them. But tell me where he's wrong. And then of course, there's the repeal of one particular thing.

Would you if in government, change regulations or remove regulations to force speedy approvals? Yes, I will repeal the anti-development liberal law, C-69, under which it now takes an estimated 19 years to get a mine approved. So here we are with the fifth biggest supply of lithium in the world. We don't mine lithium. We have the sixth biggest supply of natural gas on planet Earth. We don't export a single cubic foot of it overseas.

We have the most uranium, the most pot ash, the list goes on, but because our laws are designed to block projects from proceeding, businesses don't put their money here. We've lost a half a trillion dollars in net investment from Canada to the U.S. This is Canadian money building mines, pipelines, business centers, factories, with paying American workers with our money. I will bring it home. We will repeal C-69. My goal is to have the fastest permits

for mines anywhere in the developed world. Yeah, again, we're fighting the world's greatest boxer in Donald Trump, having not trained for 10 years without wearing boxing gloves, and with one hand tied behind our back and wearing a blindfold. That's where we are today. And Pierre wants to start training immediately, and he wants to unleash our potential. We are going to get creamed by this guy,

creamed if the status quo is maintained. And there is a Canadian way to do this. Yes, the fastest, the fastest minds being built, but we can do so in an environmentally sensible way that protects the environment, that protects our natural resources, that protects them for the next generation. But Justin Trudeau once said only an idiot

would have what we have under the ground and not develop it. And then he didn't develop it. So what does that say about our prime minister? This is so frustrating because it's all here for the taking, for the development, for the betterment of not just Canada, but people around the world, because our values matter. Our values are as good as anyone's.

I would venture to say our values are the best. And you cannot promote them around the world if you are stuck in a hole of your own making, of your own making, of your own digging. And that's what we've done to ourselves. And so I like this vision for Canada. I'm sure there are gonna be things on which I disagree with Mr. Poliev,

but these are the broad strokes that get me excited about our future. And I have not been excited about our future for a very long time. We're currently living in a lost generation and I need a leader to help find our way. And I suspect that a lot of people are gonna hear this, it's gonna resonate with them.

I think a lot of people are gonna be inspired by this. Be really nice if we could test that theory in an election campaign, but that's for another day. Home network is here. I love it. Discover the best shows and your favorite trusted experts all under one roof. Are you kidding me?

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