The Ben Mulroney Show - Mark Carney says consensus is needed and won’t impose projects on Provinces

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulrooney show on this Monday. It's the beginning of the week. We got a lot to get to. I wanted to say a quick thank you for an incredible party I went to on the weekend. They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and I disagree. I went to a party surrounded by friends and family in celebration of two incredible women. My sister-in-law, Catherine, and the wife of my best friend, Kelly. They both turned 50 and they brought together some of the most wonderful, warm, generous, fun people in the world, a testament to the women that they are and I was privileged to be in their company. Mark Carney is busy, very, very busy. Bill C5 is the government bill called the One Canadian Economy Act.

Actually, the full name is an act to enact the Free Trade and Labor Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act. This is going to be central to breaking down interprovincial trade barriers, unlocking the potential of the Canadian economy to the tune of possibly as much as $200 billion a year in lost economic activity. And he is suggesting that if, in order to get this done, the parliament might have to sit a little bit longer. You know that one of my chief complaints has been, if we are truly in a crisis,

then nobody should be taking a vacation. They should be working on Parliament Hill. And yes, I concede MPs do a lot of work outside of the House of Commons, but there's real work that needs to be done. And I'm glad to see that if they need to get it done beyond mid-June, I think, they will continue to do that work. He's also doing a lot of work

on the idea of building national infrastructure projects. And here is what Mark Carney said about whether or not he would impose a project on a province if that province said, no, we don't like it. We will not impose a project on a province. We need consensus behind these projects and we need the participation of indigenous peoples. I'm gonna add something, I'll translate it in French. Which is, what's encouraging from the first ministers meeting in Saskatchewan is that many provinces

came together in support of projects that would stretch across provincial boundaries. So for example, the western corridor would be an

example, or the energy east partnership. That's energy east partnership, not pipeline, to be clear. And that's an example where that consensus is forming, understanding that we need to work together in order for this to happen. Much more, of course, needs to be done. So we are still getting to know Mark Carney and what his government stands for in real time. There's a lot to like, and we're going to be

talking about some of the things that I'm going to give him a standing o for a little bit later. But on this one point, the fact that there has to be a national consensus. What does that look like Mr. Carney? Nobody has asked him. Define a consensus. What does it mean? And if there is no consensus, but there is value in the project, do you commit to building that consensus? I think that's a fair question to ask. And like, what does a consensus look like? Because if Premier Eby in British Columbia says, I don't want a pipeline going through British Columbia, but poll after poll says the majority of British Columbians say they want it, then who's right?

Where's the consensus? And like, if you've got a scenario like that, then isn't it incumbent upon the prime minister to cajole and convince that premier? I haven't heard him answer that question yet. So it does concern me. Now that being said, maybe it shouldn't. Maybe I am just being a little overly critical or a little too judgmental because you have a woman like Premier Danielle Smith who has been critical in

her own ways and very forcefully of the former Liberal government and this new government, she is quite bullish on the prospect of being able to shepherd forth these infrastructure projects of national importance, even if, say, somebody like Premier Eby is against it. This is what she had to say about that. I know that this is good for the country. I know that he's on Team Canada, and I can't imagine in the end that if we meet the issues that have been raised by British Columbia, that he would go off Team Canada.

That doesn't seem to me to be the type of person that David Eby is. I think there's some concerns we have to address. We have to have a proponent. We have to make sure that we have a route. We've got to make sure we've got an indigenous buy-in. But in the end, I mean, we did get two pipelines built to the coast.

We got the Trans Mountain pipeline built. We got the Coastal Gas Link built. That was under a more hostile of federal government. And I think that it's because we addressed the objections and that's our job. We're gonna make sure that we address the objections and we're gonna get it built. So if Danielle Smith on the right side of the political spectrum is bullish on this

framework that is being laid out by Mark Carney's government, that's great. That's great. I'm, I'm, maybe I'm being overly critical. And if, if he's, if, if Carney's getting buy-in on the right, but also on the left, well, that's saying something. Here's Manitoba Premier Wab Kanu on what Canada can do to become an international energy superpower. If we look at this moment where Canadians want us to be able to build our economy, to become an energy superpower, to become the strongest economy in the G7, to be able to get our natural resources,

our ag products, our manufactured goods to market. Having tidewater and having the base load power to energize a trade corridor is a winning hand to be played. I love that. Like from the left to the right, everybody is optimistic at this point. So that's really good. But, you know, the devil is in the details. And like I said, it has felt in the past, like this liberal government is leaving itself a crack in the door that they might be able to slip

through in order to get out of building certain things. And that crack is the national consensus. out of building certain things and that crack is the national consensus. But Mark Carney is not the only person that journalists are going to for answers on what this framework is going to look like moving forward. Tim Hodgson is our new Minister of Energy and National Resources. And he told Rosemary Barton that once a national project is identified, there will be a few determining factors before they move ahead. So it's a collective, there's five in the legislation. One of them is it has to be beneficial to indigenous peoples.

I think that the prime minister said that that typically would mean indigenous ownership as a standard. There'll be some situations where that might not be mean indigenous ownership as a standard. There'll be some situations where that might not be what indigenous people want, but that's sort of a standard and that it will need to honor our obligations to climate change. Yeah, okay, well, what are those obligations?

That's another thing. Like, you know, we've got some very high standards in this country, so high in fact that they've made us less competitive with other jurisdictions who are doing actually better on climate change files. And so do we have to go back to the table and look at that stuff? I think maybe we do.

And specifically, there were a number of Trudeau era pieces of legislation that tamped down on Alberta's potential. Here is what the new Minister of the Environment, Rebecca Schultz of Alberta, said about this idea of consensus. And where was that consensus back in the day? You know, I think that's one of the challenges is what does the federal government define as consensus, our premier is

working very closely with premiers across the province to look at places where we can find common ground to get things built and make sure that we are working in the interests of provinces across our country. But of course, you know, like when I, if we want to talk about consensus, there certainly wasn't consensus when the liberals brought in Bill C-69, Bill C-48, an oil and gas production cap, a clean electricity regulation.

So that should be, quite frankly, all the rationale they need to step away from those policies. Yeah, that's very well said. And again, so the minister just laid out some of those environmental policies, are those the standard that we're going to hold ourselves to? Because if they are, that's going to significantly limit what we are able to build as a nation. So again, devil's in the details. And so many of these pieces of legislation are intertwined. And one is the cause and the other is the effect. So there's a lot that they are going to have to overhaul if we are

going to unlock the potential of this nation. That being said a lot of good came of on this file over the weekend. I'm patient, I'm optimistic about how this is gonna shepherd forward. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show and want to remind you that you may be listening on the radio, you may be listening on a streaming app, or you may be listening to us in podcast form on Apple podcasts on Spotify or Amazon. And now you can find us on YouTube. The Ben Mulroney show is wherever you are. And wherever you are, we say welcome. So in the previous segment, we sort of laid out this new bill that is going to, is in front of Parliament right now, the One Canadian Economy Act. It's a piece of legislation that certain details were ironed out during the first ministers meeting when the premiers and Mark Carney agreed on the criteria of what would constitute a project in the national interest. So there's buy-in from

everyone on that front and now they want to move ahead with creating a framework for that. And Mark Carney has gone so far to say that this is so important that they are willing to extend the sitting of the House of Commons to get this passed. This is what I was talking about last week when I was expressing frustration. If this is a crisis, then the House of Commons should be sitting at least a little while longer. And it's nice to see that this government agrees that there is stuff that needs to be done in Ottawa.

The government, yes, continues to function even if the House of Commons is not sitting. But this is something that in this crisis that we're in, that we were told we were in, this piece of legislation needs to get passed. However, there are some people who are taking issue with Mark Carney. We just talked about this before the break. Some of it good, some of it wait and see. Jason Ken Kenny over the

weekend tweeted this, I'm astonished that Prime Minister Carney contradicted the constitution, settled law and the national interest today by handing provinces a veto over interprovincial pipelines, at least rhetorically. Here is the first question from a journalist and the Prime Minister's response at his news conference outlining Bill C-5 today. Question, let's say there's a pipeline project that you determined is. Question, let's say there's a pipeline project that you determined is in the national interest, but there's a province along the route, say Quebec, British Columbia, that doesn't want it. Are you going to impose it regardless? And the answer was certainly not. If a province doesn't want it, it's impossible. So I want you to give us a call here

at the Ben Mulroney Show. Give us a call and join the conversation. How do you want this to go? Do you want the federal government to just take the reins and not let the provinces dictate national projects, or is it important to get the stakeholders, all the stakeholders to buy in? Look, it's really hard to get every province to agree on one thing. You've got different governments at different stages.

Some are new, some are long in the tooth, some are high in the polls, some aren't. You've got the political spectrum to deal with. You've got personality clashes, you've got priority issues that are different from province to province. Very hard for everyone to agree on everything. And so again, I go back to what I was saying. Yes, we need a consensus. Of course, we're a federation. But what does that consensus look like? And give us a call and join this

conversation. What if I mean, I'm hearing that the polls in Quebec for the first time, a plurality of Quebecers are open to the idea of a pipeline going through their territory. of Quebecers are open to the idea of a pipeline going through their territory. So if the people want it, but the government doesn't, well, who's right? And the same goes for British Columbia. If the political winds are telling the province or the government that they should stand against a pipeline,

but the people of the province stand behind a pipeline, then what are you gonna do? That's when I think you need a strong federal government to go in there and negotiate and figure out how best to get this pipeline done. Not to accept what they say as no, how do we get to a yes? How do we get to a yes in any one of these conversations? This time it might be British Columbia,

there might be a time where it's Ontario, there might be a time where it's one of the Atlantic provinces. The government should be the tip of the sword in piercing through any problems to create that consensus. And that's why I still want somebody to ask Mark Carney, the question that I've been asking rhetorically here on the show, what does a national consensus look like?

And in the absence of that consensus, do you commit to being the leader who will champion and build that consensus? I wanna hear a yes on that. If you create a framework as a government that lays out the priorities, that lays out the checklist of what constitutes a national, and you get the private sector to come in and say we're gonna pay for this, and then all but one or two provinces say they're gonna do it?

Well then it's your job to really get those two guys on side. That's what leadership is in a federation, in my humble opinion. Andrew, thank you so much for calling into the Ben Mulroney Show. Good morning Ben. Good morning. Good morning. So I was talking to your screener and I think this is a referendum issue. It's real simple. Let the people speak. The politicians need to listen to the people, not the other way around. So you think if there's one province outlier on a national, that's preventing us from having a national consensus, what, there should be a referendum in that province? Absolutely. But the people, the people are the stakeholders, not the politicians. Yeah, I mean, it's an if it could be done quickly, I would be down for it.

But if it's if it's going to be a year, year and a half before we see that referendum, then I think it's got to be leader to leader, premier with the Prime Minister to get that done. Well, wouldn't be when is the Prime Minister to get that done. Well, wouldn't be wouldn't be the Prime Minister right now. Isn't he all about doing things in a in a like as quickly as possible? So if they can get a bill of the five pass quickly, they should be able to write up a referendum. It's one question.

Yeah, I just I listen, I don't know enough about it. It feels to me that if it's if it would be specific to a to a province, then that would fall under the under provincial jurisdiction and it would be up to that premier to call that referendum or not. I'm like I said, I don't have a depth of knowledge there. So I'm just speculating. Not a bad idea, though. I do appreciate it. Thank you very much. Let's welcome Robert to the conversation. Robert, thank you for calling into the Ben Mulroney show. Hello, sir. Hello. I think everything needs to be monetized. So they have to say, if you get if you agree

to it, you get this amount of money you share in the revenue. If you don't, then you have to answer to your population and say this is the reason why you didn't get this money. Yeah. But see, that goes back to what what I was saying Robert, which is that would require the Prime Minister and his government to be that side of the argument to say, hey, listen, we're telling you, the people of let's say, British Columbia, that if you do not participate in this and you scuttle this pipeline, your province will be missing out on their share of the revenue, which we are conservatively estimating at X billion of dollars a year. But they have to answer to the population basically of the province and say, well, we're

not going to have our health care is going to be so much higher premiums basically, because we didn't accept that amount of money. But when he it's like dealing with a little child, you know, you say, if you do this, you know, you get this allowance or whatever, if you don't, you don't get it. Listen, I get it 100%. I'm just trying to square that

with what the prime minister said when he said, quote, if a province doesn't want it, it's impossible. And my fear is if this scenario plays out, then a premier EB says, I don't want it. And then our prime minister says, well, then it's impossible. I don't want to see that. I want to see our prime minister go back, go back into the ring and say, premier EB, we got to get you on side. How can we get you on side?

You basically say, you're saying, you don't play premier EB. We're going to bypass you. We're either going to go through the Yukon or we're going to go. We're going to cut through Washington and Idaho and you're going to lose. Yeah. I mean, listen, that could happen too. I just, my fear is that the groundwork has been laid for this government to have an out. Oh, look at this. Well, they don't want it. So we can't build it. And we need a consensus. You have to tell these premieres, whatever, there's always going to be consequences and you have to answer to your population. And You have to tell these premiers whatever, there's always gonna be consequences

and you have to answer to your population. And you have to explain to them why you guys didn't share in the money. And look, one of the arguments against my fear is that we've seen how much spending this government wants to do. And now they want, we're gonna talk about it later in the show,

the massive military spending that has been far too long punted to the next generation. That is for me a massive positive. But how are we going to pay for that? We pay for that by massively building out the Canadian economy massively expanding having to explode. And one of the ways to do that is Nash natural resource development. So if Mark Carney wants to balance the books, he's going to balance it thanks to these projects, and these projects have to include pipelines. Thank you everybody for participating in that conversation. The best high concept sci-fi rig of her all in the universe is back.

What the hell? How long was I out? Close airlock seven! Rick! Seth, please let me out. Rick put you in there for a reason, sweetie. Mom justice! Get back here! This is for your own good!

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