The Ben Mulroney Show - Mark Carney campaigned on a crisis that is not real

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Mark Carney campaigned on a crisis that is not real with Guest: Sean Speer, Editor-at-Large for The Hub, Former senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper 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

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and thank you so much for joining us. Okay, so a little bit of a sort of background for you when when a new government is formed, the prime minister assembles and creates a cabinet, points a cabinet, and then each new minister is given what's called a mandate letter and it's broad strokes what that person is supposed to accomplish in their role. And sometimes these can be very long and very drawn out. And yeah, I guess in the Trudeau years, you got all sorts of different types of things. Oh, we're gonna do this and that, and gendered this and climate change that.

Mark Carney is actually doing something different here. He gave the same mandate letter to every single minister, and it was one page. I like that. I like it very much clear and concise broad strokes. And here is what he said. We're going to focus on our priorities, establishing a new economic and security relationship with the United States and strengthening our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world. Okay. So trade building one economy by removing barriers in provincial trade, so internal trade, bringing down costs for Canadians and helping them get

ahead. Making housing more affordable by unleashing the power of public private cooperation. We're gonna see what that build Canada, I don't know, protecting Canadian sovereignty and keeping Canadians safe by strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces. I like that securing our borders, reinforcing law enforcement, attracting the best talent in the world to help build our economy and spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in the people and businesses that build

the strongest economy in the G7. So, yes, two things can be true at the same time. One, one, I like the broad strokes of it all, but I also recognize that the devil is in the detail. So how this stuff gets accomplished is going to determine whether or not I end up liking these priorities in the future. We'll have to wait and see. But I do like the idea of trusting your minister to get the details right. Right? So you're not micromanaging. Perhaps this might signal a departure from the Trudeau years in another way by decentralizing the power of the government.

Everything was really consolidated into the hands of the prime minister and the prime minister's office for so long under Justin Trudeau. Maybe this is a signal that the ministers and their ministries are going to have more autonomy, more freedom, more leeway to accomplish the tasks that they have to accomplish. We'll have to wait and see. But Mark Carney is, I guess, finally talking to the press. Didn't do too much of it in the lead up to becoming prime minister. But talking to the press and McKenzie Gray of Global News asked Mark Carney how he on one day could say, our relationship with the United States is over,

elbows up, they want to own us, they want to weaken us so they can own us, they want to take everything that we've got and they want to take over the country. Explain that in the light of you saying, now we're going to participate in this new continental ballistic missile protection program called the Golden Dome.

We had for almost half a century, we as Canada, a relationship with the Americans, which were a steady process of deepening integration, deepening integration in economics. We went from free trade deal through to KUSMA, deepening integration in military aspects. And that process of deepening integration is over. We are in a position now where we cooperate when necessary, but not necessarily cooperate. So we have other options for that

cooperation. We are pursuing those other options. You will see a very different set of partnerships, security and economic going forth. But to be absolutely clear, when it is in Canada's interests, first best interest to cooperate with the Americans, to strike deals with the Americans' strike deals with the Americans relationships, and particularly in examples like ballistic missile defense. That may be the best option. And if so, we will pursue them. So I say this with respect to the prime minister, I fundamentally disagree with his short-sighted view of history.

History did not end when Donald Trump took over the White House. Yes, there was a trend at the beginning of my dad's time in office that went all the way until just a few years ago. Yes, we had deepening integration in a lot of ways. But it's not a straight line. No two administrations and no two federal governments are the same, which means things are going to proceed at different paces, at different times, at different tempos. Sometimes you're going to go on a straight line. Sometimes you're going to do a U-turn. Look, he's talking about deepening military integration. Well, then explain

Jean Chrétien's decision not to participate in the second Gulf War. Explain how that is an example of an increased deepening of our military integration with the United States. It doesn't because that's not how things work. And to suggest that everything ended then and a new relationship is begins today is it's untethered from reality what we have is we have a change in the relationship that change could be permanent on certain files i don't think it is we will have to see what happens in the next few years you're absolutely right uh negotiate when or cooperate when necessary but don't necessarily cooperate i'm pretty sure every prime minister has the latitude to do that as i just said jean negotiate when or cooperate when necessary, but don't necessarily cooperate. I'm pretty sure every prime minister has the latitude to do that. As I just said, Jean-Claude

Chrétien did it. There's a huge departure between my dad and the US administrations on a number of files. I know that Stephen Harper did not see eye to eye with his American analog all the time. So, yes, you cooperate when it's in Canadians' best interest. That's what every prime minister does. That is the priority of every prime minister. That's the job of every prime minister. And to suggest that that is somehow a new part of the job belies an entire history that I think our prime minister is either ignoring or misinterpreting. So that's my interpretation of the past 50 years of Canadian-U.S. relations. So that's my interpretation of the past 50 years of Canadian US relations. Now Mark Carney is riding high with his caucus and that's great.

That's what happens when you take a party back from the hinterland and bring them back to the promised land. Everybody loves him in the liberal caucus. Otherwise, they were going to be sitting on the other side of the House of Commons. So his coattails are very long right now. However, members of that caucus want to avail themselves of the Reform Act, which has been a law since 2015. And what it would do is if a certain amount of caucus members get together, they can start a series of processes that could lead ultimately to the expulsion of the leader from his post.

And that's not to say they don't like Mark Carney right now, but they want to have that possibility and that option, given how hard it was to get Justin Trudeau to do the right thing and step away for the betterment of the party and the country. Here's what Mark Carney said about the Reform Act. You know, the Reform Act, all parties in Parliament, all recognized parties in Parliament are bound by the Reform Act. It's the law of the land. And therefore, there are these four votes

consistent with the Reform Act that will take place. They'll take place at the at the first caucus meeting, which is Sunday. So it's not, it's just. That idea. Well, I observed that this will happen. There'll be these votes. All right, yeah, it sort of is, it is what it is. That's what Mark Carney said. And I totally get

where he's coming from. He's got other fish to fry than worry about a worst-case scenario that may or may not occur a few years in the future. So yes, all the world leaders, the G7 leaders are going to be getting together in Cananascus in the next few weeks for the G7 summit. And the new ambassador, a US ambassador to Ottawa, Pete, I believe his name is Hextra was on the Vashi Capuloh show. And he said why he's optimistic for a deal as early as July in terms of renegotiating our trade relationship with the United States. I was in the meeting, you know, where two-part meeting. We had the scrum with the president and Carney, which I think they handled the 51st state issue. Boom. Gone. They did it with a smile on their face. Went and had lunch. And it's kind of like, okay, let's get to work.

All right, let's get to work. There we go. I mean, maybe maybe maybe there is reason to be optimistic. We'll have to wait and see. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And we sort of accidentally stumbled on to a talking point a theme today about how the the crisis that apparently got Mark Carney elected doesn't exist. We talked about it a couple of times on the show and we're gonna do it again with somebody who's written on this very topic.

Please welcome to the show Sean Spear, editor at large for the hub, as well as a former senior economic advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Sean, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us. It's wonderful to be with you, Ben. So, you know, I was just telling Conrad Black

that I'm not gonna get overly heated in the early days of a Mark Carney government because the rubber hasn't really met the road yet. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be critical of a few things. And this idea that there was a crisis, there is a crisis with the United States, I never believed it. And so, but I didn't vote with the United States. I never believed it.

But I didn't vote for the guy either. So, but I feel bad for those who did, who believed that this was pretty much a war in all but name that we were going into. And now it hasn't materialized. Yeah, and what worries me then is that the government's identity, its core proposition is so rooted in the presumption that there is indeed a crisis, a generational one, as

the prime minister continues to say, in fact, as early, as recently as yesterday in the release of the mandate letters for the various ministers, is that it becomes difficult for him and his government to give up the notion. And the risk of course is that leads it in, I worry, some bad directions, including with respect to the pending negotiations of a trade and security agreement with the United States. It's going to involve a lot of trade-offs, some of which will be challenging, but ultimately, I think you and most of your listeners would agree that Canadian interests are rooted in maintaining mostly tariff-free access to the United States.

And if you have a prime minister and a government that are so invested in a notion of an ongoing crisis, are they prepared to make the kind of trade-off that will enable us to maintain that type of access to the U.S. market? And look, for me, the issue isn't simply a bait and switch that they got elected, they sold us a bill of goods and now they're doing something completely different. To me, there are some actually some toxic and disappointing aspects to this, not the least of which, Sean, some toxic and disappointing aspects to this, not the least of which Sean, is the idea that Danielle Smith,

who was preaching a more conciliatory tone to the United States was called every manner of sin, she was called a traitor. And then you find out that this government had no intention of keeping the retaliatory tariffs on one day longer than they needed to. And yet they're being lauded for essentially the same position that got her denigrated. Yeah, I'm afraid I can't put it any better than that. The Prime

Minister is going to have to answer for the fact that he gave Canadians the impression indeed throughout the campaign that it was his intention to go to the wall against the United States for better or for worse. And those who disputed that strategy were as you say, characterizes traitors or whatever. But meanwhile, behind the scenes,

the government was making the types of policy decisions it needed to in order to essentially forgo the retaliatory tariffs that he was talking about on the campaign trail. That dissonance should be something that journalists are putting to him. But I would say more broadly, the risk here is that he has socialized a large swath of the Canadian public, particularly those who are animated by these issues over the course of the campaign in such a way that it will be hard to make the types of trade-offs

and adjustments that we're going to have to make. Take, for instance, the conversation in the past 48 hours or so about ballistic missile defense. There are good arguments in favor of it. There may be bad arguments in favor of it. We need to have that debate, but how can this prime minister, after having told Canadians that our relationship is over. Yeah, we can't trust these people as far as we can throw them, and now we're going to

be living under a golden dome with them. Exactly, that Donald Trump is essentially a bad actor, and now he's going to have to go back to those same voters and tell them, in fact, it's in Canada's interest to hand over our defense and security sovereignty to this so-called lunatic in the Oval Office. I just worry a bit that, your dad used to say the two most important issues the prime minister has is one national security, pardon me, national unity, two Canada-US relations,

and those are subjects where you don't play politics. And the government has backed itself. Yeah. Yes. Well, I was, I was going to that's another thing that really disappoints me with his assessment that the relationship as we knew it is over, we're leading towards a deepening of economic and military integration, and that's done. And now we're now it's going to to be an ad hoc case by case basis cooperate if we can, but not necessarily. And to me that ignores 60, 70 years of history. Uh, and the personal relationship that is required between a president and a prime

minister. Yes, there was consistency for a large period of time, but within that consistency, there were differences and the, and the, you know, the military, I brought it up a little bit earlier in the show, explain that worldview, Mr. Carney, in the face of Jean Chrétien, turning down an invitation to, to join the United States at war with Iraq. That doesn't, that belies a deepening integration. And so we're in a different phase of the relationship, But it is not the relationship is not over.

And it's disappointing that that as you just said, in this all important relationship, he's not even looking at history without looking at through a political lens. Yes, Mr. Carney is an impressive dude. They'll get me wrong. But I'm not sure he can overcome geography and culture and history and language and the sophistication of our integrated supply chains and on and on and on. Canada is a North American country. We have, you know, that is our destiny.

And a responsible prime minister takes that as a given and then plans for how best to represent and advance Canadian interests in that context. This past week, Mr. Carney signed on to what I'd characterize as an anti-Israel statement with his peers in Britain and France. And I interpret that at least in part as much about leading into Canada's relationship with Europe as a comment on Israeli policy. And I just think that's fanciful. Our future does not lie with Europe, it lies with North America and securing mostly terror-free access to the United States

in a security and defense arrangement that is satisfactory to both countries. It's gonna require prudence, it's gonna require judgment, and it won't be achieved by flaning the flames of anti-Americanism within the Canadian public as we've seen over the past several weeks. This might be good in the moment, it may have helped his electoral chances for sure,

but it is not in the long run interests of Canada. Well, also, and the last point that I'd like to discuss with you, and we only have about a minute and change left, is the fact that while discussing this crisis that has not really materialized, there hasn't been a whole lot of room to discuss the homegrown crisis, or rather, series of crises that have been festering and multiplying and, and, and growing for the past 10 years in Canada. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, that's precisely the problem with manufactured crisis, isn't it? They come to eclipse the, the ones for which we have direct responsibility and in so doing and, and such, the capacity to change. We have a affordability crisis. We have a growing crisis of confidence of young people in the country itself. Our pluralism is being pulled apart by these protests and acts of violence in our streets.

The country faces real challenges. And I think Mr. Carney can be up to those challenges, but the first order of business is to define the right ones, not make up ones that don't exist. to those challenges, but the first order of business is to define the right ones, not make up ones that don't exist. No, you're absolutely right. I'm so glad you wrote the piece. I'm so glad that you came here to discuss it because yeah, two things can be true at

once. We can have this discussion about why this was a deeply cynical electoral ploy and that we wish him well. We do hope he succeeds because if he succeeds, we all succeed. And I do hope Sean, that you come back on the show again sometime. Yeah, it will be my pleasure, Ben.

It's always great talking to you and congratulations on the show's success. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart

shopper and delivered to your door? A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool? Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart groceries that overdeliver. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And I want to hear from you our listeners give us a call here at the Ben

Mulroney show because this story out of Quebec is it's a really interesting one. It's I think a snapshot of where we are as a society today. There is a bar in Quebec. It's a really interesting one. It's, I think, a snapshot of where we are as a society today. There is a bar in Quebec. It's called Le Bar Sport de le Vegas on Saint-Anne Boulevard in the Limouillou district. And the owner of the bar posted something on Facebook, which is since taken down. Essentially, he said he's not interested in hiring any woke

employees for his bar. He wants no woke people. He said, what did he say? He said, I'm gonna be very clear on my position. I don't want someone who during the pandemic would have called the police if their neighbors had visitors. That's generally speaking what he's looking for.

And he may be buttoned up against a little bit of an issue because the charter of human rights and freedoms prohibits discrimination when it comes to hiring, particularly regarding an individual's political beliefs. That's in addition to race and sex and age. That's according to an employment lawyer. And the owner of the bar says, you know what? I don't care. If you think you weren't hired because of your politics, you can take me to court. And I think this is really it.

He said, I should have the right to hire whoever I want. And I want to build the business I want to build. I kind of, I respect that. And because politics is ubiquitous and everything is political today, it's kind of hard to not see somebody's politics. I saw, but so give us a call here at the Ben Mulroney show and let us know if you were a, if you're a business owner, do you, do you pay attention to these sorts of things? If you get some indicators that somebody may not share your worldview in a job interview, what do you do? What people are calling this controversial, but shouldn't you be able to hire whoever you want for whatever reasons you want? I mean, if you can, if a 7-Eleven can say no shirt, no shoes, no service, can't the owner of a bar say no woke?

I don't know that, I don't know that that's a bridge too far. I saw a video on social media yesterday about very similar to this. And it was a, it was a person, a trans person somewhere in the States I saw a video on social media yesterday about very similar to this. And it was a person, a trans person somewhere in the States who said that for about months and months and months, it was a he was trying to get a job, wasn't getting any callbacks. And then he changed one thing on his resume. He took his pronouns off and immediately, immediately the next day, got a callback.

And I've heard that a lot. I heard that through, you know, on predictable voices online who said, you know, people who, young people especially, who lead with their pronouns, a lot of people who hire just see that as a headache waiting to happen. This is somebody who's going to be triggered and is gonna need safe spaces. And again, painting with a very broad brush, I concede,

but that to them is a red flag. And we live in a society where you gotta interact with people and you might not like the person you're interacting with and the person you're interacting with may be someone you need to please because they have the job that you want. That's all I'm saying. Hey, let's welcome Bill to the show. Bill, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you doing?

Well, thank you. I completely agree with the bar owner here. You know what? We we're so divided as a society now. And it's just kind of, you I, I don't like doing this, but mixing two politically, uh, polar opposites, it's just not a good workplace and it would cause some problems. And I completely agree with the, like some of these people were far out and yeah, they were actually literally calling up, uh, health departments and the police on neighbors. Yeah. It's not how society should function. Yeah. And Bill, I can see a scenario where this guy, he's got a, what looks like a pretty conventional sports bar, right? Like, and they're, depending on how political somebody is,

sports in and of itself is misogynistic, racist, sexist. I mean, you name it. The it is, the ist is there, the ism is there. And you know, this guy might just wanting to protect himself and say, I don't want somebody who sees all that stuff all the time. I want somebody who comes here. And when I turn on the TV, that's a sport.

That's football, or that's hockey, or that's this or that. And you know, if we don't play the same number of women's hockey games versus men's hockey games I don't want somebody who's gonna criticize me for that I think that's a fair problem to foresee don't you absolutely you know what and I don't watch any professional sports now because I do think they've been criticized but I loved watching them because you know what I just want to forget about the care of this world. And I just wanted to watch, you know, my league game or whatever sport it was.

But you can't even do that now. No, no, somebody's going to take issue with it. Hey, Bill, thank you very much for the call. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Frank, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, Ben, always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. So what do you think of this guy? Do you think he's in the right for saying no woke employees at my bar? Well, like I was saying to your screener, you apply to any government office and they will specifically ask on the application,

are you of a specific race? Are you of a specific gender? Are you over a specific sexual orientation? You know what I mean? Yeah. How government offices can ask for specific individuals. Yeah. It somehow is controversial when he's asking what he wants for his own personal. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a whole worldview on that side of the political spectrum that if you just point out something just like you did, something very simple and easy like

that, it collapses under its own weight and under its own hypocrisies. And you're absolutely right. All right. Thanks, Frank. You take care. And let's welcome David into the conversation. David, is this guy well within his rights or does he need to be reeducated? I believe he's well within his rights that he should hire who he thinks he would build to help build his business the way he should. But at the same time, he's got to be careful too, because here's the things what I was looking for work. I whenever I apply with my legal name, I never got a call. I

changed one thing in my name, I started getting calls for those same jobs Yeah, and it's like okay. I can understand because you talked about that Person with the pronouns you drop that thing you'll get jobs and I could see some employers will say oh that's gonna be problems Oh, I think this person's gonna be like this so they don't want to call. Yeah, they don't want to call you back So I think the guy should, but uh, build his business the way he should, but and hire who he wants, who he thinks is the perfect fit. But at the same time, he does have to uh, uh, tread lightly. Yeah. I think, I don't know that he should have telegraphed this like I, from a strategic standpoint, I don't know if this was the right tactic to let everybody know that this was on your mind. Cause now he doesn't

have plausible deniability. You know, if he had just kept his mouth shut, he could have, he could have made sure that anybody with a pronoun or anybody who was, uh, you might've had, um, uh, a social media footprint that he didn't like. He could have just said, thanks so much, but we've already filled the role. Now he sort of painted himself into a corner. Uh, thanks so much for the call and, uh, let's, uh, let's welcome. Who do we have?

We've got Rob. Rob, welcome. You know, this is another example of why woke is dead or dying. People have had enough. The gentleman is well within his rights to hire who he wants. I would see it as a liability when you get into pro now. You don't know what they're going to do once they're hired. This is a product of 10 year liberal government, 10 year democratic government in the States, two of my brothers are American and people have had enough. People have had enough and you're going to see more and more changes. Well, listen, I appreciate what you're saying. I think you, you, you assess the situation well except woke is not dead in Canada, not by a long shot. Thank you for, I agree. handbook is any emails, I'm in the service industry.

Um, we, you can't put he, she, or he, he, or him on any emails. And so that's why we, cause I don't want to assault any customers. We'll play an email. Also, we lose the business because we lose the business. So we lose the business because we lose the business. So we lose the business because we lose the business. So we lose the business because we lose the business. So we lose the business because we lose the business. industry. We can't put he, she or he or him on any emails. And so that's why we because I don't want to insult any customers will find email also, we lose the business because of it.

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. It's a risk. It's a risk to my business. Well, and but the risks for employers are greater today than they ever have before the cost of the insurance costs are higher, HR costs are higher, there's so, you know, tending to the feelings of your employees is just, it's, there's a lot, it takes more these days than it ever did before. It used to be a place where people would punch in and punch out, not anymore. And so the, so it's an investment. If you've got to get the right person for the job, or you're going to be right back at the drawing board. And if you get the wrong person, you could be paying for it for a long time.

100% because I tell all my employees to leave their political views at home. Oh yeah, well, easier said than done, my friend. Hey, thank you very much for the call. Thank you to everyone for calling. The best high-concept sci-fi rig of them all in the universe is back. What the hell? Oh, sh**. How long was I out? Close airlock seven!

Rick! Seth, please let me out. Rick put you in there for a reason, speed. Mom, just... Rick! Get back here! This is for your own good! Rick and Morty.

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