The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 4 - Jean Charest, Jason Kenney, Tasha Kheiriddin

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Best of the Week Part 4 - Jean Charest, Jason Kenney, Tasha Kheiriddin Guests: Jean Charest, Jason Kenney, Tasha Kheiriddin, Regan Watts, Eric Kam 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

Now streaming on Paramount Plus. Name's Conrad Harrigan, family man. And if you cross my family, well, you'd better pray. From the underworld of Guy Ritchie. We shake the right hands, break the wrong ones. Comes the next great crime series. And when someone forgets their place, I've got a man for that.

For himself. Starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. We've got everyone where we want them. Mob Lad, new series now streaming on Paramount+. table account. From there, you'll unlock first come first serve spots at select top restaurants when booking through open table. Learn more at open table.ca forward slash visa dining. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show best of the week podcast. We had so many great convos this week, including conversations with former premiers, Jean Charest and Jason Kenny. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And as always,

you may be listening on the radio, you may be listening on the iHeart radio streaming app or you may find us in podcast form. We like to throw up as much content over the course of a day as possible. Just search up Ben Mulroney or the Ben Mulroney show on your podcast platform of choice and have at it. You know, if if you'd ask me a few months ago whether national unity would have been on the election docket as a priority is something we should be paying attention to a few months ago, I would have told you you were insane. But here we find ourselves with with with Alberta musing about what could come after a liberal election and the thoughts that perhaps national sovereignty is indeed a threat looming on the horizon. Someone who knows

very well about the perils of a national sovereignty debate is our next guest, the former premier of Quebec, Jean Charest. Mr. Charest, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Ben. A real pleasure to hear your voice. So I was caught off guard by a piece in the National Post where Danielle Smith had written a letter to François Legault, the Premier of Quebec, suggesting that they form some sort of common front for greater provincial autonomy within Canada. In a letter she was proposing something called

provincial autonomy. And this is something new to me. What do you make of this letter, this outreach? I think it's very good news. I really, really think that that's a positive signal in terms of how the country works. One of the consequences of this whole story with Donald Trump then is that it's going to force us as Canadians to look at how we operate

our economy and make, I think, really have a hard look at ourselves. But also, Ben, it includes two other things. One is what position we have in the world and what we want to do. And the third one is how we operate our federal system of government. In my view, we have a good solid federal system, but it's as though the provinces and the feds have lost the operating manual over the last few years. I say this, and it's not just because you're the son of Brian. I worked in Brian Mulroney's government. just because you're the son of Brian. I worked in Brian Mulroney's government. I mean, the relations with the provinces were pretty good. I mean, not just good, they were outstanding. We did a lot of things and a lot of changes, but there has to be leadership on that. And they want to have to engage. And that Premier Smith would reach out to Premier Laveau means that that if Quebec and Alberta works together great things can be done for the country. Well indeed and one of

the striking things is I've always viewed it maybe this is a novice perspective but you would know more than I that Alberta sometimes the priorities of that province run counter to what we're told by the leadership in Quebec and I think specifically about pipelines, you know They are very important for Alberta to get their resources to our coasts so that they can They can develop their economy and by extension the Canadian economy and then we hear from people like Yves Francois Blanchet saying these are not in the interest of Quebec. And I have to wonder whether this rapprochement between Quebec and Alberta is an effort to

perhaps, I don't know, get the two provinces to see that they do have things in common. They can work together specifically on these nation-building initiatives like pipelines. Like pipelines and let me speak to one very very relevant example. We have a free trade agreement and let me speak to one very, very relevant example. We have a free trade agreement and we're able to secure a free trade agreement with the United States because of the support of Alberta and Quebec, even if in the 1988 election campaign, Ontario then voted against. The aggregate vote in Ontario was opposed to free trade, Quebec and Alberta

together, were the two key provinces that made it happen, which is for me the most salient example of how we can get great things done. Now, Yves-Francois Blanchet, let me let you in on something about Blanchet. He's a separatist, right? Yep. Do you not know? He knows exactly what he's doing when he denounces oil and gas and pipelines. He's poking a stick in the eye of the rest of Canada and Alberta to try to irritate them and promote the separatist cause. And the sentiment on this issue has changed a lot on Quebec. There's a lot of

leadership in Quebec who understand very well the necessity, the urgency for us to build infrastructure, including pipelines to be able to sell our energy to the rest of the world. And so Blanchette is doing this deliberately. But other people in Quebec have to speak up and we're seeing more and more of that happen to Favour this kind of project. Well, I think people have to remember and it takes me a moment every now and then to remember that Even if he were to win every seat in Quebec, he does not speak. He doesn't form government in Quebec He is the premier but give me the lay of the land and give the listeners of the show the lay of the land of But give me the lay of the land and give the listeners of the show the lay of the land of

Where voters are swinging or looking to place their votes in the next provincial election because I've heard That the the party cable cup party que becois is in its ascendancy and possibly Looking to form the next government Well, let me run through that the The government now is a government of La CAC. It's a coalition of Federalists and Separatists led by Francois Legault, who's a pretty rapid Separatist and says, I'll suspend my belief and lead a government that is going to be sort of a coalition government. He's in his second mandate. They've made a lot of unpopular decisions.

By the way, allow me to brag a bit. When he was elected in 2018, after 15 years of provincial liberal government, and in good part led by me, he inherited then a $7 billion surplus. Surplus. I mean, you're never going to see that and that's because I've always been a fiscal conservative and we govern very tightly. His last budget clocked in with a deficit at almost $14 billion. This guy's a spender. Now, in the next election campaign, they become very unpopular. It's the second mandate.

High chances they will be defeated. The Paxi-Quebecois is seen as the parking space and the alternative. But the PQ continues to say that if they're elected they're going to hold a referendum in the first mandate, which no one in Quebec wants. No polling says it would want that. And the Liberal Party of Quebec is in the middle of a leadership race right now and they're going to choose, they have very good candidates, they're going to choose a new leader by the 14th of June. And then you have the extreme left party called

Quebec-Saraday, which doesn't exist the 14th of June. And then you have the extreme left party called Quebec Sardinia, which doesn't exist anywhere else in North America. And these are very extreme left wingers who are also out there and unpopular. So chances are it may be a minority. If it's a minority, it'll be interesting because everyone will be at play. And this election will happen by an October,

should happen in October of 2026. So you know, you have seen firsthand and you have fought for the Federation up against some pretty sophisticated separatist organizations and movements and people with deep roots in Quebec. So what do you make of the call, or I don't know if these are accusations,

that Danielle Smith in Alberta is stoking those separatist tendencies in her own province? I mean, I tend to believe that that's not what she's doing at all. She's recognizing that those things exist, and she's doing her best to create the conditions where they would be diminished in the future, but recognizing that they are there. Well, you're quite right. She has to deal with that. You know, dealing with a separatist movement is like salmon fishing and pulling in a 40-pound salmon with an 8-pound line.

And you can pull it in, but you've got to be very careful. The separatist movement is very much based on emotion, and I think Danielle Smith is doing her best to deal with that. At the same time, people in Quebec, and I certainly a number of leaders in Quebec, understand the frustration of Albertans who, when they were trying to build a pipeline to diversify their markets and sell it to Europe or Asia, didn't get a lot of help from the frustration of Albertans who when they were trying to build a pipeline to diversify their markets and sell it to Europe or Asia Didn't get a lot of help from the rest of the country. And now that we're in a debate in a crisis with the United States over Trump and tariffs and that people raise the idea of imposing

An export tax on energy that they're irritated by that. Yeah, well, we're going to Mr. Premier, we're going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank you so much for giving us. So the lay of the land on the Quebec side of the equation and after the break on the Ben Mulroney show, we're going to be joined by somebody who knows a thing or two about Alberta. Former premier Jason Kenny joins us after the break on the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for joining us. We don't know how you listen. You may listen on the radio, you may listen through a streaming app, or

you may listen to us in podcast form. I don't care how you listen, I'll take it anyway. I can get you. And in our previous segment, we spoke with former Quebec Premier Jean Charest. And now we're going to go to the other side of the country with a former, another former Premier, the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenneyney who was also a cabinet minister Mr. Kenny welcome to the show. Good to be here Ben. I'm glad I can bookend the show with a leader from Alberta and a leader from Quebec because that's really the topic of conversation that I find really fascinating today with Danielle Smith's outreach to Francois Legault of Quebec talking about building sort of a

provincial partnership between these two important provinces in Canada. I want to get your sense of what you think could come from deepening a relationship between Alberta and Quebec. Well, that's not a new concept. Peter Laugheed and René Lavec had a alliance of sorts back in the, during around the time of the Patriot of the Constitution in the early 1980s.

But Quebec and Alberta have always been the traditional defenders of the Constitution as originally conceived as a federation with a division of powers and have always been a little skeptical of what Ottawa overreach into how that federation works. So there has been a little skeptical of Ottawa overreach into how that Federation works. So there has been a traditional alliance. In fact, the night I was elected Premier in 2019 with a big majority, I spoke in front of my victory party with a bunch of pretty well-liquored up Alberta Conservatives in French for five minutes. That was a bit of a risky

gambit. I used that national platform to say to Quebecers, hey, let's renew that relationship, that partnership as the defenders of the Constitution of federalism, of respect for the provinces, but let's also be partners in prosperity. Quebec benefits about $13 billion a year from equalization payments, which overwhelmingly ultimately comes from Alberta's energy sector. So I said, look, we don't begrudge you that we're generous, but help us develop and sell those resources. That means oil and gas pipelines. I went took that message to Francois Legault just a couple of weeks after becoming premier. He said, okay, I can't work

with you on oil, but I will on gas. And he shut down all the gas, he turned against LNG. So let me just say, Quebec has not always been the most reliable strategic partner for Alberta. But we seem to be in this era of Trump tariffs, looking inward and how can we succeed and optimize sort of Canadian success within our own borders. And I saw a poll recently that suggested that 60% of Quebecers now support the idea of pipelines, despite what the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, tends to say. Not that he has a say in this, but I've got to wonder whether this is part of Danielle

Smith's plan. If I can show common cause with my with my analog in Quebec on issues say of us supporting Quebec with regard to their secular law challenge at the Supreme Court, then maybe that might open the door to even more dialogue on these vital infrastructure plans for the entire country. dialogue on these vital infrastructure plans for the entire country? Well, if that's what she's doing, I certainly don't agree with the principle of it, because Albertans believe in pluralism. And the idea that you can ban somebody from working because they're wearing a cross or a yarmulke or something is to me offensive. So I would be taking the opposite side of that. But, you know, look, as I say, Quebecers are practical people.

And by the way, the kind of people who vote for Legault's party are the people in the suburbs and the regions. They drive F-150s. They drive Ski-Doos in the winter. Quebecers have a history of being, you know, explorers and resource workers. So the notion that all of Quebec opinion, you know, Ben, there's this expression in Quebec, la pense unique, monolithic thinking that comes out of these lefty bohemian types in the plateau, in fancy parts of Montreal. They don't define the thinking of the whole province. Regular,

ordinary, Mesim-adams, tout le monde, ordinary Quebecers, they want economic security, opportunity, affordable energy, and I think they can see Alberta and Alberta's energy resources as a huge advantage to them in that regard. I am in conversation with Jason Kenney, the former Alberta Premier, and Jason, it does seem like there's an increasing amount of daylight between the conservatives and the liberals in this federal election campaign on the subject of these national infrastructure projects like pipelines. And Mark Carney coming out just a couple of days ago, saying that a liberal government would not get rid

of Bill C-69, which you've had a lot to say about in the past. So it's really hard for me to understand the liberal policy on resource development, where he says one thing to Danielle Smith and then something else in front of the press. What's your take on it? Yeah, well, more problematically, he says one thing in Western

Canada and English and another thing to Quebec in French, which of course is the ultimate sign of a pilot, a federal politician who's faking it to make it, you know, I think one thing people want is the real deal somebody who said says it like it is in both languages in front of whatever kind of audience. And, you know, I've known Pierre Pol known Pierre Polya since he was 16. He worked on my first campaign when he was in high school. I can tell you, he's consistent on these and other issues.

As Premier, when Trudeau brought forward this Bill C-69, the so-called Impact Assessment Act, I'm the guy who branded it the No More Pipelines law because what it did was to create an endless, never-ending environmental approval process at the federal level, which hijacks provincial areas under the Constitution, like regulating natural resources, and which politicizes the process by allowing the cabinet to override the decision of an independent regulator. Now, I know to ordinary folks, that's not like the kind of issue that comes up around

the kitchen table, but the flight of investment from capital, the declining prosperity of our country, the fact that we have the worst growth rate on a per capita basis in the developed world over the past decade, these things are all linked to the lack of certainty and speed. The third largest oil reserves in the world, third largest natural gas, second largest uranium, the largest potash. We have huge critical minerals. We haven't even moved a shovel on the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario. Since this law came into place in 2019, not one major project has been approved, as I predicted, which is why I sued the federal government, went up to the Supreme Court,

who agreed with Alberta's position, my position, that it was an intrusion into the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada said that it was an unconstitutional law. So my message to Mr. Carney is, you don't have a say in this anymore. The court has spoken. You have to repeal this law to comply with the Constitution. And by the way, when did the liberals, how did the liberals get off on pretending to be the great champions and custodians of the Constitution when they're in violation of it? This is no different than Trump saying he's going to ignore certain court decisions.

I only have a couple of minutes left, but I'd love to dovetail off of that into the conversation about sort of growing resentment in Alberta that may or may not turn into a sophisticated separatist movement. I mean this pipeline thing, if the polls are to be believed, Mark Carney and his liberal government or party could sweep into government, in which case Alberta may not have the ally that Daniel Smith says is required in order to tamp down on that movement. You know, you've made your life in Alberta. What are you hearing on the ground? Well, Ben, there's always been a small minority who play with the idea of separatism. And sometimes in the polling and just in the chatter, that gets louder and bigger to maybe somewhere around 30 percent.

But most of that is kind of a proxy for just deep frustration with that Ottawa policy. And let me tell you, when your dad was prime minister and when Steve, certainly when Stephen Harper was prime minister, there was little or no talk about Alberta separation. Justin Trudeau did a lot to drive divisions in this country. He openly campaigned against Alberta and its largest industry. When Mr. Carney supports a cap on oil sands emissions, it's basically a cap on production. So he says he wants to basically eventually shut down Canada's largest industry. So these are really sensitive issues. I don't think Alberta will ever separate.

Most Albertans, the vast majority of Albertans are proud Canadians. We welcome huge numbers of Canadians from across the country, but we need fairness. Thank you very much, Jason Kenney. My pleasure. The all new, all electric Can-Am Origin motorcycle takes you everywhere. Sleek power for the streets, and deep adventure routes for the trails.

Discover your origin today. Learn more at CanAmMotorcycles.com. McDonald's new cheesy jalapeno and bacon quarter pounder with 100% Canadian beef is here. So if you crave beefy burgers with a pretty peppery punch and pickled jalapeno peppers pile in a perfect bunch and if you plead please if a cheesy taste came in threes with cheesy jalapeno pepper sauce poured with ease and if smoky strips of bacon make burgers better, you'll love our cheesy jalapeno and bacon quarter pounder. Get this beefy, bold, bacony, melty mouthful only at McDonald's for a limited time. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and as we as a nation deal with Donald Trump and the fallout

of quote unquote liberation day and the stock markets plummet and our factories close and we worry about our auto workers and we worry about our economy in general, let's turn our eyes to China for a moment. Because there have been some head-scratching moments in this election campaign that really make, they demand answers to questions that we have to ask. And the question that I've got is what's Mark Carney's relationship to China? This is not I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat here. When he decided he was going to stand by his candidate, who openly mused that his conservative opponent should be kidnapped and renditioned to

China and whoever did so would be eligible for a one million dollar reward. He stood by this guy and it was only after the RCMP threatened that they may investigate that the candidate himself decided to resign. It wasn't even Mark Carney's idea. And there have been stories about Mark Carney's relationship and views on China that have been populating the internet for quite some time. Nothing wrong with those in a vacuum, but in a political campaign, they take on a new dimension. So here to discuss, we're joined by Tasha Carradon. She's a political analyst as well as a writer. Tasha, welcome back to the show.

Oh, thanks, Ben. Nice to be here. So I don't think I'm being unfair. I we don't know enough about this man writ large, but on this one important file, I think I think there are questions that demand answers, I don't believe we'll ever get them. But at least not from Mark Carney and or the Liberal Party. But yeah, talk to me about how you see his I don't know, is it a weakness on China? Well, I think there's a vulnerability on China. And I think that it stems from a couple of things. One is, you know, there was a lot of talk

about his association with Brookfield. He was chair of that investment firm for a few years. And Brookfield has made significant investments and has relationships with China as do any major international brokerage would have. But the difference is here of course is Mark Carney is Prime Minister and he wants to stay Prime Minister. So these kinds of interests then attract a lot more scrutiny. He has been an advocate of a lot of policies

such as net zero and other things that the Chinese are not really that, don't embrace that that much but he's put it in the same space as a lot of people who are very favorable to China, people like Dominic Barton for example, former Canadian ambassador to China who's had a lot of good things to say about China and we know that in the last 30 years there's been something the Chinese have done called elite capture whereby they basically cultivate relationships with important people in different countries. Mr. Johnston, David Johnston, the former head of the commission that basically didn't find anything on China and then got discredited right. He was also someone who had a good relationship with China. So this is this is a problem that people point to and then when something like this situation

Mr. Chang raises its head they say okay is there more there there we don't know but the call on Chang on that candidate was a terrible one he should have turfed him right away why did those alarm bells not go off that's the question people are now asking. Well, absolutely. And now every time something comes up, whether it's, you know, things he said, years ago, while visiting China, sitting for conferences and comparing the the capitalist Western system to to the Chinese system and saying that the Chinese actually have some advantages to their system. Or this, something that I read this morning on Black Locks reporter, it said, Prime Minister Mark Carney, only weeks before seeking the liberal leadership, lobbied Beijing's mayor

to quote, deepen cooperation, according to a Chinese account of a meeting disclosed yesterday by the Epoch Times. Carney lobbied as chair of Brookfield Asset Management, though cabinet at the time had censured China for unfair trade practices that could quote cripple our own industry. Now, again, he had a fiduciary duty to the shareholders of Brookfield.

I do not begrudge him that, but I see things like this. And I keep wondering, just give me the state of play and we don't get it. And I guess for a lot of our listeners for whom this may go over their head, or they may say, well, why should I care about that? I've got other things to worry about. Why should this matter to the listeners of the show? Well, it should matter because it matters to the Canada US relationship. And beyond the fact that China has intimidated our diaspora for the better part of 30 years, has threatened people like Parliamentarian Michael Chung

and his family back in Hong Kong and China. Beyond that human rights aspect, there is a very clear sense that Donald Trump's main focus with his foreign policy is actually is China. The reason he is cozying up to Russia is to pry away that relationship between Russia and China. The reason he is imposing tariffs and massive tariffs mostly on countries in or around China is because he wants to break that manufacturing capacity that China has a dominance that it

has in certain areas. His focus is the Arctic because he sees it as vulnerable. China is sending five new icebreakers. They're commissioning five icebreakers. What ice are they going to be breaking? Let me ask you Ben, it's the ice in the Arctic, right? So Canada is a vulnerability for the US vis-a-vis China. And if we don't get our act together on that infiltration in our own country, Washington will not be amused. So if when you send signals like this, they get noticed and they don't like it.

All right, well, from some very serious issues, potential issues, to what I think is one of the most unserious political campaigns I've seen in a very long time. We got to talk about about Jagmeet Singh here. Like what what kind of here. Like what kind of show is he running here? I remember in a few, it wasn't last campaign, but sometime before 2015, I mean, he campaigned on Twitch by playing video games with AOC. And I thought, okay, sure.

And now he's gone even farther down that crazy road by being interviewed about the ludicrous position of the NDP, the anti-Semitic position of the NDP, the anti-Israeli position, the anti-democratic position by an OnlyFans porn model. Yeah, I didn't have this on my bingo card for 2025. I really did it. The woman's name is Jessica Wetz

and she has an OnlyFans page with explicit content. I was joking to your producer, I've never spent this much time on OnlyFans because I wanted to see what was this really. Oh boy, I don't know why the NDP didn't do that because you know she can talk to Jagmeet Singh about serious or more serious issues. You can agree or disagree as I do with with her position, 100%. But the point is, I don't know who thought it was a good idea to have this individual as a spokesperson or a person connected to the NDP.

Because if those are the values of the NDP, I don't know. I mean, people check out OnlyFans, but it's politics, man. This is not, it can be porn adjacent, right? The thing that you picked off. Ah. Look, I can't get too, I can't be too hard on her on her career and say she can't have opinions. I used to be an entertainment host, right?

So I get, I get people have every right to their opinions. And there are people in places that you would least expect to say some really incisive and insightful things. This is not that, to me, this is akin to the idea that there's no such thing as bad press. This is terrible press, this is awful press. And I'm not even talking about the offensive perspective they have on the only democracy in the Middle East.

By the way, this woman, were she to show up in Israel, would be thrown off a roof, or not Israel, she'd be protected in Israel, she'd be thrown off a roof by Hamas. But, so who's running the show? Have they given up? Is this, are they just trying to go out in a flame of, not glory, orgy, I suppose? I think they're trying to get out in a flame of not glory orgy, I suppose.

I think they're trying to get attention from the kids, right? The kids are all right. Jagmeet Singh was the first politician to really make use of TikTok. It didn't help him either. I think he wants to be cooler than thou. I don't think he's in the back of his campaign bus where he's in a sort of muscle pose. I'm not sure what the flex is because yeah, they're kind of desperate. If they think an influencer is going to get them attention, it better be for the right reasons. And this one is for all the wrong reasons, including, like you said, she's basically saying in this video, Canada should not do business with Israel. I mean, excuse me.

We can go down that rabbit hole a little bit later and explain how that's a practical impossibility and also hypocritical given how I'm sure that this woman interacts with Israeli products every day of her life and doesn't know it or doesn't want to know it. Natasha Keridan, we've got to leave it there. Thank you. Thanks so much, Ben. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. In anticipation of Pierre Poliev joining us in studio today for a long-form interview, we should remind people that he actually just gave a very substantial speech here in the city of Toronto.

He laid out a number of key points that are worth discussing. Before we discuss them, let's bring in somebody who actually heard the speech. And that's my good friend, Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park, Inc and former senior aid to the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty. Regan, welcome to the show. Bonjour mon chum. All right. So Pierre talked a lot about Donald Trump. And he talked about some non negotiable red lines for Donald Trump.

Let's listen. As I said, Canadians have the right to know what red lines for Donald Trump. Let's listen. As I said, Canadians have the right to know what red lines I will draw in order to protect our country in these inevitable negotiations that any future prime minister will have to have and have quickly. So let me be clear. First, I will protect our control over our border, our security, our resources, our farmers, including our supply managed farmers, our fresh water, our automotive workers. Also, we will protect our sovereignty, our laws,

our currency, our dollar, our land, our waters, our sky, our culture, our official languages, and our resources and Indigenous rights will not be under the control of any other country. This is non-negotiable. We will protect our culture, our official languages and our resources and indigenous rights will not be under the control of any other country. This is non-negotiable.

We will protect Canada's sovereignty in any negotiations. That's some strong language. I haven't heard that level of ratcheting up by Pierre Poliev since the beginning of the campaign. He also committed, Regan, to hitting the 2% of our NATO commitment, saying that any extra revenues from expanded trade with the US will go towards our defense. Now, Regan, you and I talk about this campaign daily.

What do you think the impact of these new statements and perspectives are gonna have? Well, Ben, I think there was a lot in the clip that you played and there was a lot in the speech. I think what you heard this morning and the clip you showed, you just shared is a big chunk of it is a political leader who is looking at the country and he listening to what people are having to say. And there's a big segment of the population who are concerned, and rightly so, at the actions and behavior of President Trump. And an area where Mr. Poliev

has always been strong, but perhaps has not cut through the message as clearly as he would have liked, is his view and his position on how he would manage President Trump and how we would protect the country in the face of threats from President Trump. And later in the speech talked about how he would build a Canada that would be resilient beyond trade with the United States. And so, you know, for me, I think the speech represents a turning point in the campaign. It's no secret that the polls have certainly tightened, and the Liberals have perhaps pulled ahead and generated a small lead. However, people are worried. They're worried about President Trump. They're worried about are worried. They're worried about President Trump. They're worried about his tariffs. They're worried about what it means to be Canadian.

We hear the term elbows up. Everybody has their own way of communicating and sharing their patriotism. And I think what you heard today from Mr. Polyaev is his way of demonstrating that he's both heard Canadians from coast to coast while he's been on the road and his plan to respond. I don't think it's unfair to say that when, when Pierre Poliev speaks, whether you agree with him or not, you know what he stands for. He's been very consistent, right? But on the other side of the equation,

and again, I don't think this is unfair, you have Mark Carney, who, he'll say something one day, he may have said something different than the day before before or he may say something different the next day. Here's what he said yesterday about the Liberals and whether or not they will repeal the anti-pipeline Bill C-69. We do not plan to repeal Bill C-69 to answer your question directly. What we have said and made very clear 10 days ago formally with the First Minister's meeting is that we will move for projects of national interest to remove duplication in terms of environmental assessments and other

approvals and we will follow as the federal government the principle of one project one approval to move forward from that. So what's essential is to work at this time of crisis to come together as a nation, all levels of government, to focus on those projects that are going to make material differences to our country, to Canadian workers, and to our future future and work closely together. A regan he's mastered the technique of saying something then wrapping it up in a word salad and then finishing it up with a slogan. And if you ask Danielle Smith, he told her something very different a few days ago. So for a guy who says he wants to jumpstart the economy, he's not being very clear on how we would actually do it.

So good points, Ben. I'll just start with bridging back to where you started the question, which was with Mr. Poliev. His speech was clear. He knows exactly what he wants to do and knows where he wants to take the country. You know, Mr. Carney, who again is an entirely credible economist, you know, on this campaign, he reminds me of remember that CBC show Degrassi Junior High, he reminds me of Joey Jeremiah on the first day of school walking through the cafeteria. He's very awkward, socially insecure, struggling to find his place. And I think Mr. Carney's comments on Bill C 69, which is a law, just for your

listeners, just so they know, it is a law that this Liberal government passed several years ago that make it virtually impossible for pipelines to be built in Canada. That is not hyperbole. Industry has come out and said it is next to impossible, which is why they're out looking at other places to invest their capital. Mr. Carney yesterday reinforced that he was not going to repeal that act in spite of what he has said privately based on Daniel Smith, Premier Smith, her comments, that he would not going to repeal that act in spite of what he has said privately based on Daniel Smith, Premier Smith, her comments, that he would be open to pipeline development. So it's not, it's hard to see where Mr. Carney lands, but I think part of it is his Joey Jeremiah tendencies when he's in front of the cameras and in front of media, it's just still new for him. And so

his positions are, I think are actually quite clear. Mr. Carney is a central banker, is used to using very precise language. I think he believes exactly what he said in that clip, which is he's not gonna repeal Bill C-69, which leaves Canadians, I think, with a very clear choice. If you agree that resource development is the way for our country to move forward economically, to reduce our reliance and dependence

on the United States, then you need more resource development. And until that bill is repealed, it's very, very difficult for Canada to move forward. And for me, I think it's a critical issue that people need to understand. With that bill, pipelines don't get built. Yeah, mines don't get built. Resources don't get extracted, which means less wealth, less tax revenue, fewer jobs for Canadians to have the things we like, which are roads and bridges and hospitals and police stations and fire stations and community centers and museums and hockey rinks. And have the things we like, which are roads and bridges and hospitals and police stations and fire stations and community centers and museums and hockey rinks

and all the things that we have as cultural infrastructure and civic infrastructure that make this country great. Regan, what do you make of the premier of Alberta's plan to have a post-election panel to gauge Albertans appetite for a referendum? Because on one side you've got people who are saying, she's stoking the sovereignty flames and on the other you've got people saying no it exists as she's doing her best to to tamp it down but she does need to know

where people stand. You know National Unity, Ben, it was your father who used to say and he was right that the Prime Minister of Canada has two jobs. One is to work with the United States, and two is to preserve national unity. And it is unclear, or if it's not clear for your listeners by now, I'm not sure when it will be, but the country, after 10 years years of liberal rule has left us more divided. We had that we have had the the the strokes of separation from Quebec and recently from Alberta for the better part of the last 35 years. There's been different periods where that has died down. But Canadians are anxious. And you know, we were talking about B about Bill C-69. That is an existential threat to the province of Alberta and its ability to get resources to market. And after 10 years, the Liberal government,

Canadians have to ask themselves, do we want to keep drifting? Do we want to stay divided? Do we want to keep talking? Or do we want to have leadership? Do we want to build a nation? And do we want to have action? Yeah, and I want to get one more question. And I'm sorry, but block leader Francois Blanchet said that there are still so many things we don't know about Mark Carney. Now you knew him before he ran in politics. And look, I feel like I'm a broken record here, but we don't know enough about this man.

At what point is that going to be a liability for him? Because I know that they're trying to play keep away, but at some point, aren't voters, even those who support him are going to say, you know, you are an unknown. Look, Mr. Carney is a I worked with him, that when he was the Department of Finance, I worked with him when he was at the Bank of Canada. He's been very good to me personally, I do not have a bad word to say about Mr. Carney personally, he's an eminently decent person, and a proud Canadian and an accomplished economist. However, it is not Mark Carney, the person that is unknown for me.

It is Mark Carney and his ideas. Mr. Carney is not my enemy. He's my political opponent and his ideas for Canada. We talked about pipelines and other things are wrong for the country. I will. He is not, I believe. I got it. I let me wrap this up. He has not been clear with the country on where he wants to take the economy.

He's not been clear with the country and how he's going to stand up to president not been clear with the country and how he's gonna stand up to president. All right, we gotta go. We gotta go Mr. Blanchet is right This episode is brought to you by FX's dying for sex on Disney Plus Based on the podcast of the same name dying for sex tells the story of Molly who is diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality, with some encouragement from her best friend Nikki. FX is Dying for Sex, now streaming only on Disney+.

Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, shootout, walk off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 or older or older Ontario only please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling visit connects Ontario.ca Welcome back we are indeed on the chorus radio network we're

also on all podcast platforms as well as the iHeart radio app and we talk a lot about politics we talk about Trump we talk about tariffs we talk about issues that are very important to everybody. But every now and then we want to talk about issues that are only important to one person in particular. And that comes in the form of the dilemma panel, where we ask you our listeners to write in and tell us your personal issue, your personal dilemma. And then a group of us get together and we try to solve it. And if we don't solve it,

well, we apologize, but we also hope we make it entertaining. So you can reach us by emailing us at askbenn at course and dot com. And joining me now to talk about well, what did I just talk about the Liberation Day and Trump and the tariffs and the election and what what's what Canada is going to look like moving forward. We're joined by somebody who never holds his tongue. Dr. Eric Kam, economics professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Eric, thank you so much for joining us. Benedict, I have to give you credit. You found a way for work to pay for you to go watch an Alexander Ovechkin hockey game. Way to go. Oh my goodness. Listen, my dream, my dream, Eric, is if, when and if he breaks that record,

I want Wayne Gretzky on the show the very next day. That's something I'm working on. If I can get Wayne Gretzky on the Ben Mulroney show to talk about, you know, one of those, there are very few of those, very few of those moments in sports where the unachievable is achieved and to be able to talk to the great one

on the day after Ovechkin breaks his record, that would be a thing. Ben, really quickly, I was in line at Tim Hortons, and the guy in front of me orders a Wayne Gretzky. And the girl behind the counter goes, what is that? He goes, nine cream, nine sugar. All right, let's go. Let's let's talk about the hero now, shall we? Trump liberation day. It happened yesterday. I'm not quite sure it's, I think it liberated a lot of investors from their money. But beyond that, I'm not quite sure why it was Liberation Day. How are the markets reacting today? down and heading further down. And I think that's what's so frustrating to me in a sense is that Mark Carney has come out like Superman in a cape.

And I don't know what he's bragging about. Our auto industry is about to collapse. 80% of our vehicles go to the United States. I see somewhere between 200 and 400,000 lost jobs in the auto sector. And you've got this guy running around Canada saying you see I saved you I have no idea what he's talking about. We are headed for a recession that we haven't seen in a long time Ben Well, not only that yesterday stood in front of cameras on Parliament Hill and he gave us a list of slogans of like we're gonna retaliate

We're gonna be strong and we're gonna fight this together and we to support workers, and he didn't put any meat on the bone. And in normal times, we would demand details. During these Trump tariffs, we should demand even more accountability. And during an election campaign with a candidate whom most of us do not know, it should be the height of accountability and detail and we're getting none of it. You're getting absolutely none of it. You know what you're getting?

You're getting someone shoving their CV in your face. And I rarely want to come off as somebody who brags, but as someone who has a PhD in economics, I am not trained to run a country and neither is he. Those are two very different skill sets, especially somebody who has the audacity to get up in front of a full room and say he's going to build a half a million homes a year or about 1500 a day. He is so trying to sell himself on what he did yesterday, which is exactly what he should do. He's a man of the day before yesterday with no answers for tomorrow, Ben.

All right, Eric, let's move on because we are now living in a world of economic uncertainty, the likes of which we haven't seen in, I mean, I don't know how long. And now we're hearing that banks are more likely to deny mortgages for workers threatened by Trump tariffs. So this is a warning from brokers. And I know we're probably weary about the government infusing money into industries to keep them afloat. But stories like this make me think that maybe it might be necessary.

Or should we take a different tactic? Because I'm hearing from Pierre Poliev that I'm not hearing him talk about backing the industries. I'm hearing him talk about loaning money to the workers to get them through this time. Well, first of all, I hope that the Bank of Canada and the Chartered Banking System takes a deep breath and looks at this carefully. We cannot do what we did during the pandemic and go and print 70% of all of the currency that's in circulation.

If we do that, we're going back to an inflationary spiral. So I just wish that everybody would take a deep breath. Trust me, I'm worried about workers too. It's all I'm ever worried about when I talk about economics, but we can't do anything less than 24 hours after somebody drops a bomb on our economic situation. If we have to have payouts and buyouts to people that cannot manage because of this, because of structural barriers, that's one thing. But it can't be something blanket and unilateral like we saw during the pandemic, Ben. So I'm really hoping that while that may be inevitable, it may be inevitable that there

has to be some transfer payments or handouts. We don't do it today and we don't plan, as they say, don't do anything 24 hours after an exogenous shock. And I would say let's extend that to at least a week or so. And let's really see where this is going. Okay. Before we just actually jump off the pier and start printing out money for free. Well, if you're anything like me and Eric, I suspect you are

that when you hear liberal commercials, promoting themselves as as knowing how to build a strong economy, that's something that they're beating that drum really, really hard. I struggle to understand how they can then explain away this next story, where 20% of people's paychecks should go towards savings. However, on average, people in this study said that they only managed to put away 7% of their earnings in a whopping 85% of people surveyed feel that they are living paycheck to paycheck. It's the new norm. It's up 60% from 60% last year. Again, explain to me how over the past 10 years, you've been building a

strong economy, you've proven that you can build a strong economy, and these are the results. Well, they're lying. So first of all, that's right, the definition of insanity that you and I have been saying, if you want the same thing, just keep throwing the same solutions, right? So we know that they can't excuse the last 10 years. Only Mark Carney wants people to say, look over here, don't look over here. Number two, they brought in two policies, immigration and low interest rates. Immigration failed immensely, low interest rates. Okay, so you keep consumption at a significant level, but we know that provides zero economic growth. And let me tell you, that $200 away from insolvency or 85% of the people aren't saving garbage, nobody's saving. Right now, the average savings rate in this country is negative.

People are spending about $1.10 to $1.12 of every dollar they make. Our economy is severely broken, and if we don't find a way to ignite some long run economic growth, Ben, I'll say it again, long run economic growth, we are in for a depression that we haven't seen since 1929. And is that that's not fatalistic of you to say, is it? No, it's not fatalistic. The problem is, is that people keep saying things like you just did. I'm not blaming you. It's the new norm. It's the new is that people keep saying things like you just did. I'm not blaming you. It's the new norm. It's the new norm that we're an economic insolvency. It's a new norm that people can't afford houses. It doesn't have to be this way.

But it will be this way if you take old ideas and try to run them up the flagpole again. We need new ideas. We need new ways to approach a dynamic economy. The person you spoke to in the studio yesterday has some new approaches. The other person has no new ideas and Canada is missing that point right now. Well, yeah, well, Pierre did say Mark Carney and his in his speech prior to coming into studio yesterday said Mark Carney is all resume no policy and you're you're an economist. We touched on it off the top. Is there anything he's saying besides the policies that he's lifted from Pierre Poliev,

is there anything he's saying that you say, okay, that could put us on the right track? No, I have heard nothing from the liberal campaign that I believe in right now, because all they're doing is rerunning old ideas and old policies that got us to where we are today. And if anybody is happy with where the economy is today, I can't help you. It is time for economic growth. We basically have had none, Ben,

none for the last four years. How long can a capitalist economy go on without any type of growth before it starts to undermine the money market and the labor market? Well, you've seen the money markets get undermined, the biggest leading variable we have, stock markets, they're crashing. The economy always follows what the stock market does. So before you let the labor market go to hell in a hand basket, please, somebody, let's try for some economic growth and the liberals have no answers. Oh, yes, but with Donald Trump looming on the horizon,

they're the ones who can handle him because, you know, they've handled everything so well up until this point. So I can't help people who don't want to help themselves, but hopefully people like yourself with letters after your name may be able to sway them a little bit. Eric, thank you so much for joining us today. Stay healthy and enjoy the nation's capital, Ben. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulrady Show podcast.

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