The Ben Mulroney Show - Mark Carney will have to keep his Elbows Up in his meeting with Donald Trump

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Mark Carney will have to keep his Elbows Up in his meeting with Donald Trump 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. Thank you so much for joining us. And this is normally the time of the show where we turn the microphone over to you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. We're going to be talking about Mark Carney meeting with Donald Trump. This is, I give credit where credit is due, and our Prime Minister is moving with very quick speed to get down to Washington to start addressing what he got elected to do, which was deal with Donald Trump. Many times, Mark Carney has said that he would only talk to Donald Trump if Donald Trump recognized our national sovereignty, that we were two independent nations discussing

issues of common interest. However, Donald Trump keeps reiterating that Canada as the 51st state would be beautiful. Let's listen to an interview that he gave very recently to NBC News. Let's move on to Canada. You have long talked about making Canada the 51st state. There's obviously a new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who you spoke to after his victory. He says that you didn't talk to him in that call about making Canada a 51st state. No, he called me. He was very nice and I congratulated him. He had a victory. It's a very close victory. It's, you know, there's no majority or anything. So that's going to make things a little bit

difficult, I think, for him to run. But he nevertheless had a victory, and he's a very nice man, I think. Do you plan to talk to him about making Canada a 51st state? He wants to come and see me. He's going to come this week or next week. So will you talk to him about making Canada a 51st state annex in Canada? I'll always talk about that. You know why?

We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. We don't need their cars. In fact, we don't want their cars. We don't need their energy. We don't even want their energy. We have more than they do. We don't want their lumber. We have great lumber.

All I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics. We don't need anything that they have. All right. So that's what Mark Carney is going to go visit at the White House. And that being said, California Governor Gavin Newsom was on with Vashi Kapilos on CTV. He said he's actually quite hopeful about the upcoming meeting between the two leaders. Before Trump came in, the economy was booming, inflation was cooling.

Now all of that has changed as a consequence. He's beginning to change. And that's now been reflected not just in the rhetoric, but also, I think, in the reality of his engagement. And that's why, again, I feel a little bit more confident and optimistic, particularly as it relates to the new prime minister engaging with President Trump this week. I think it's actually a good week to engage, and I feel like things are about to cool here.

And of course, we're saying this with vigilance and with authority, formal authority, it's the largest state in our union, but with hope and expectation that we can come out the other side with some more rational policymaking. All right, so I want to hear from you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Are you as bullish on the future for Canada-U.S. relations improving as Gavin Newsom? Or is this a fool's errand? I've heard competing things from Mark Carney. You can't change Donald Trump, he said. Well, if that's the case, what are we doing?

Now, that being said, I don't believe things could get any worse than they were under Justin Trudeau. Like that was a toxic, corrosive, negative relationship that deeply and negatively impacted our nation. Mark Carney is a different man. Same party, different man. So there is hope in that difference.

But Donald Trump has shown that even in the face of the pressures of, say, the stock market pushing back on his tariff policies He just pivots he pivot and say oh, it's still great. It's gonna be great It's good. It's not great now. It's gonna be great tomorrow. And so in the face of those sorts of how is he gonna convince for example? Donald Trump that The United States does not subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. That is a false talking point that we cannot get him to stop using. And that is the driving principle

that he has towards all these other ideas. Let's welcome Stanley into the conversation. Stanley, happy Monday to you. Happy Monday. I think the relations will get better eventually. But to your point, he's throwing out all these numbers from the beginning, from the time he got the second term on Canada and how he subsidized us. All we call him

is the crazy orange man down in the States. Don't we have economists to put down something, you know, put it in the media? No, these are the numbers. This guy's a damn liar, you know, and he's lying like you're saying. If not, his numbers are correct. So if we can't fact check him, what are we doing? Yeah, I mean, and listen, that's where the negotiating skill

is supposed to come in, right? I don't know enough about Mark Carney to know whether he is in fact a good negotiator or not. I don't know enough about Mark Carney to know whether he is in fact a good negotiator or not. I don't know that negotiation necessarily came into the skill set required to be the governor of the Bank of Canada. I don't know if he had to be a negotiator to do that job. So I don't know enough about Mark Carney yet, and that's a whole other kettle of fish. But if he is a skilled negotiator, then surely I think you're right. Being able to get the president to appreciate the error of his of his view needs to come into play. Jim, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, Ben, how you doing? I'm well, thank you.

That's good. So I'm going gonna start off by saying that it's, it's a fart in a windstorm. You can't have a rational conversation with rational people, it doesn't work. Yeah, but he's, if I take your point and that Donald Trump is irrational, he's not surrounded entirely by irrational people. Like there are people who have his ear who are rational.

But it's kind of, and I'm going to revert it back to Canada. And it's not going to be a popular thing on your station. I voted conservative all my life and I don't want to go this route right now. Pierre didn't listen to his advisors either. And what happened to him? Yeah, well, I mean, look, I think they're going to be doing the postmortem of what happened with Pierre in the coming days and weeks. We're gonna be talking about that later today, actually. Thank you for allowing me to do the plug at the end of

the show with Peter McKay, the former Progressive Conservative Party leader, and we're gonna talk about what goes into the decisions that need to be made by the Conservative Party. But thank you so much for that. Dan, welcome to the show. Good morning. happy Monday. Happy Monday. Trump is 100% uncontrollable and it's a waste of time to be guessing about it.

And it will be better than where we were at Armageddon about a month and a half ago. But he's gonna keep pressing buttons and getting attention and pushing. it's his negotiation tactics. For example, over the weekend, he announced 100% tariffs on films, on foreign films. Well, that was aimed completely at the Canadians. In that sense, are you going down?

No, no, not necessarily. There's a lot of movies being shot in Europe, for example. Listen, how are you gonna make a Harry Potter movie in the United States? How the heck are you gonna make a Harry Potter movie in the United States? How the heck are you gonna do that? But look at where the majority of the Hollywood industry is. I mean, we have the film festival in Toronto for a reason and it doesn't matter.

It's Carney that's meeting with him this week. So these are the sorts of things Trump does. You gotta love him for it and we'll see what happens. Well, I thank you for the call. And look, I can only speak to what I knew about what my dad did. And there were some really important files where my dad and his team needed to change the president's mind, literally change the president's mind. I'm thinking back to acid rain, for example, I'm thinking towards the first free trade agreement where my dad had to say to

the president of the United States, you're going to have had to say to the President of the United States You're gonna have to go explain to the people of the United States why you can do a nuclear arms deal with your greatest enemy The Soviet Union, but you can't do a trade deal with your greatest ally Canada and he was able to put it in a perspective that allowed That allowed the president to use his leverage to get the deal done. And I think about our Arctic sovereignty. When the Americans want to be running their nuclear subs

through our Arctic waters, my dad and his team were able to remind the US that those waters belonged to us. And so if Donald, that is the soft power and we're able to remind the US that those waters belonged to us. And so if Donald, that is the soft power that comes from a good positive relationship, a trusting relationship with the US president. Is the US president capable of trusting

a Canadian prime minister? I don't know, time will tell. But that's why Mark Carney won the job. So I think we've got to wish him well. Rob, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. How are you? I'm well. Thank you. I think Canada got trumped again. How so? Because you have to ask yourself how much of this is just theater because these two have been doing business together for years. What do you mean? Well, there's lots of business dealings between Trump and companies that he works with.

And there's been so much money flow back and forth. So what's your theory? Well, I have to wonder if this is a lot of smoke and mirrors and that this has all been kind of talked about beforehand. Oh, so you're suggesting that the fix has been in since the beginning, that Donald Trump wanted Mark Carney in there because they know each other and they're pretending to be fighting and they're pretending, but all things, when they're behind closed doors, it's going to

be like two old friends. Yep. All right. Well, that's gonna be like two old friends. Yep. All right, well, that's a theory. Thank you for putting it out there. I have no, I've seen no evidence of that. I mean, I do know that, I don't know enough about Mark Carney's business holdings.

Like this will be a conversation we have at some point that Mark Carney is still in a lot of of meaningful ways a question mark for a lot of Canadians. Now, I am not disputing that he is the prime minister. He is my prime minister. I want him to succeed. But I don't know what motivates him. I don't know enough about him to know what's going to happen when he goes behind a closed door. So, well, I guess I guess he'll be he'll be road tested as he goes. Cam, welcome to the conversation. How do you think this meeting is going to go? Well, the numbers from both sides of the border, first of all, if it's brought up,

the United States doesn't subsidize us in any way. You take away the oil, it's actually Canada that has the deficit in goods and services. The oil can only be gotten in three countries. Canada is one of them. And if the Americans had to pay market value for the oil that they get from us, those numbers would be even more skewed. That is absolutely correct Ben. So Canada has an opportunity here, okay, to be a world star. The problem that I find out,

that I see is we have to go out and market ourselves. It was good that Premier Smith immediately got on a plane to go to Japan and Indonesia. Japan wants Alberta beef. Japan wants our oil and gas. We have to do that throughout the world. Secondly of all, the pipeline issue and everything like that, we don't really need the pipeline. We only have a little bit of hibernia so then Europe can be supplied. So Canada is sitting in a position and then Trump said anything about the 51st state when he is in the White House, I would say get up and leave.

And when United States finds out that the man that told them that the Canadians burned down the White House, even before we were a country, was totally lying to them. And we have to fall back on that the United States President also said, hey, Canada has nothing to offer us water, oil, cars, lumber, whatever. Yeah, well, Cam, there is a lot of work that has to be done, not the least of which is really taking everything down to the studs and giving the president and his administration a little bit of a history lesson. Like, without coming off as condescending, we're going to have to explain that we are not Americans masquerading as something else, just waiting for the day where we can finally

be who we've always been. We are a different country with a different outlook, different values, different history, different institutions. We're different. We're not the same. And it's not an artificial line that was drawn with a ruler, any more than the US-Mexico border is an artificial line. I mean, if one's artificial, the other has to be artificial too. And for some reason, on one of them, he wants to erase it magically, and on the other, he wants to build a wall and a trench, and he wants to keep everybody out. So I don't know that you can have one without the other,

but sometimes logic is not the way to go with this president. Tony, welcome to the show. Hey, good morning. Good morning. Great, Joe. Thank you. I just want to say something quickly. You know, you're a student of history, and I am a bit,

and this is a big week in history, 80th anniversary, VE Day coming up. And I think honestly, that's probably the last time this country really packed a punch. You know, and when Donald says $200 billion, we've been riding their coattails for how many years since World War II? You know, they've provided our security and there are some nasty people out there. We've got Russians and Chinese and our Arctic. We can't defend ourselves. We haven't even tried. We've had a prime minister for 10 years who's gone out of his way to agonize Americans, especially Donald. So I think we're going to get

a better reaction from Mr. Carney. I was disappointed Mr. Poliev wasn't more successful. We'll see how things go. But I think Carney is at least realistic and they're going to find a way to work together. But I don't blame Donald for wanting Canada. I mean, I spent some time in the UK and one thing I thought was that Canada seemed to be a very happy sort of in-between point between the UK and the US, you know, we'd be a good fit for the US. So I don't blame Donald. But again, it's negotiation. But he's got a point. We've got to get our act together, don't we? Well, that but that's been his point since since he first took office again. And, you know, we dragged our heels and we had to deal with the liberals getting their personal house in order before we could have an election. And that turned out to be very good for the liberals. But fundamentally, if if if the two leaders can't come to an understanding that. Canada as a 51st state is is it's not to be discussed because it's an impossibility.

Like it's an what we're all. So these these 10 provinces and three territories are all of a sudden gonna become one state? Make that work for me. Just make that make sense. You're gonna absorb eight million francophones into the United States, and what are you gonna do to protect their language rights? What are you gonna do?

Like, make that make sense. There's way too many questions, and if you just think about it for one second, just one second, it falls apart, because it cannot happen. Tom, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do. He's going to basically say, here's exactly what I'm terrifying. Haha. And currently, he's already played his cards.

Unfortunately, when he came out and said, water and electricity will not be on the table and as soon as he said that I just shook my hand and go come on because if I would like to see him go to the table and say what do you need from me yeah and you know as you know in December this past year we just signed the the water treaty again 37 million bucks a year for the Columbia River. We can easily hold that back. Yeah all right we're gonna we're gonna I I'm first I have to drop that call thank you so much because it was getting a little bit hard to understand you. Yeah I'm not I wasn't aware of of of Mark Carney saying that those things are not on the table. I don't know why they wouldn't be on the table. I get that he's positioning

himself as saying we've got to diversify our trading partners, but not to the exclusion of the Americans. I mean, if we if there's something that they want, and they can afford it and it's it's a good deal for Canada, it should be on the table, regardless of who who the client is, regardless of who's buying it from us, so long as we're not selling it to somebody who is not aligned with our interests generally. And I know Donald Trump talks a mean game. He's not our enemy. He's not our enemy. He's a nuisance. And he's certainly not doing us any favors economically right now. But if we can get on the same page and see that rowing in the same direction makes sense, he's going to there won't be the problems that are currently on the table.

Nathan, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Hey, good morning, Ben. Donald Trump, he knows it's never going to happen. He's well aware that we will never be the fifty first date what he's doing is actually really smart he's getting us so distracted so enamored with the full thing we can't concentrate on the on uh... the shiny object anymore work

or sorry we're chasing shiny object we're not chasing we're not discussing what matters which is economy's tariffs i can tell you i i was in the u, I was in Michigan from Thursday until last night. Not one person that I spoke to had any clue about this whole tariff thing. Yeah, there is absolutely nothing being the rest of the world. I hate to say it, they have no idea about this. Well, even even an hour away from us in Michigan, dude, regular people have absolutely no idea that that's a thing.

Oh, he didn't get it. He did not get elected on this. This is something that was a bait and switch. He got elected and then decided to make this the focal point of everything he did. And I think a lot of Americans who are prone to supporting the Trump agenda are saying, well, this wasn't part of what we were supporting. And look, my contention has been that if you take the 51st state nonsense off the table, our problems with the United States are very, very similar to the problems facing most Western countries as it relates to the United States, which is tariffs. Yes, our economy is more integrated to the Americans and say the UK, but our problems come from the same source.

Take the 51st state nonsense off the table, which is noise versus the signal. The signal that we're dealing with as it relates to Donald Trump is the signal everybody's dealing with. We've got time for one more. Frank, welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben.

I think Trump's gonna use more of a calculated and careful diplomatic approach for Carney for a number of reasons, including the following. In that first 100 days in office, Trump has got one of the worst approval ratings for the last 80 years. So it's a political maneuver on his part. And I think he's listening to his cabinet,

other Republican senators and looking at the fact on how they're criticizing him on how he's dealt with his allies. So I think the chickens are come to roost. He started to realize, you know, the midterms are coming along next year, and this could really be damaging to him if he doesn't change his approach. Well, listen, what you just said is what I hope for as well. But again, hope that's all that's all we've got with somebody who doesn't telegraph what they're going to do, because I don't believe that Donald Trump is very transactional, right? It's like what what suits me right now,

what's going to benefit me right now, even if that decision flies in the face of a decision he made previously, if it suits him in that moment, he's going to do it, which means there's no track record to really gauge him by. So I think all we have right now is hope. And our last caller, I think, outlined my hope very, very closely. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show. And boy, oh boy, this next conversation is going to be a doozy. There's a new study that came out of Ontario education workers. And apparently this industry is rife with violence, harassment and burnout.

And these workers are in crisis, according to this study. Most of the violence and harassment felt by Ontario education workers was student initiated with 67% of respondents reporting at least one act of physical force. 77% experiencing harassment that includes profanity, cruel comments, false accusations of sexual and racial harassment, homophobia, demeaning jokes, and general disrespect for authority. And the report also highlights issues as it relates to parents. 47% of respondents said that they've experienced at least one instance of harassment from a parent. 13% reported being threatened with physical

force by a parent. I'd love to hear from you or if you're a parent or if you are a teacher. 13% of teachers said they had been threatened with physical violence. That number feels insane, but let's take them at their word. Do you believe that things have gotten this bad? Can you believe that things have gotten this bad? So I'd love to hear from teachers on this.

416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. I'm not surprised that we're living in a world where there is an increased sort of an upswing in violent tendencies by students. Most of the violence and harassment was student initiated according to this study. 67% of Ontario education workers who responded reported at least one act of physical force that they encountered. But then you hear like 77% of people experiencing harassment. That one 77% like what's what's unique?

Like I work in a radio station. And I can say without a doubt I've experienced zero amounts of harassment. Now let's get it online, but, and yes, I'm a privileged white man, so of course it's going to, like, who's going to harass me? But I just, I don't see this place as being rife with with harassment. So if at a radio station, I'm experiencing zero, but in a school. Seventy seven percent are experiencing experiencing harassment. I am I missing the definition is it not landing with me?

Do do I get I mean, I've got tough skin. I got thick skin. Maybe maybe I get harassed and it just doesn't register with me. I don't know. But give us a call 416-870-6400-1888-225. Talk. I would love to hear from teachers on this. Parents have you if you're a parent, have you ever confronted a teacher? And if so, confronted a teacher. And if so, I mean, was it a verbal assault? Did you threaten them? What would push a parent to physically threaten a teacher?

What lengths do you have to go to? I remember a video that I saw online of a parent who just, who went crazy at a sporting event. I mean, we've seen a lot of those. Parents go crazy at sporting events because sporting events are intrinsically and innately emotional, especially for parents whose child is experiencing the highs of success

and the lows of defeat, and the parents go on that ride with them. But what's triggering parents to turn it up to 11 and threaten violence to a teacher? What's going on there? I keep going back to this 77% experiencing harassment. I'm just going to say it. Have we lowered the bar so much that what was once, you know, it's a bad joke, is now quote unquote harassment. I'm not saying the bad joke is right. I'm not saying it should be said, but have we

taken it from the area of bad taste and moved it into a place where we're labeling it harassment so that it is now included in something like this. Like, have we lowered the bar for what is considered moving from, oh, they hurt my feelings to they have harassed me? Harassment is a very specific thing. And maybe we've just broadened the definition to such a point that we're now hearing 77% of people are experiencing harassment.

I'm not trying to be callous. I'm not trying to say people have thin skin, and I'm not saying that bad behavior should ever go unchecked. I'm just, what passed for a bad joke or a person having a bad day is now harassment. I don't know. This number of 77% is so high

that I've got to wonder whether we've, I mean, have people gotten that much ruder? I don't know. Hey, Aaron, welcome to the show. You are a parent married to a teacher, so I know you got something to say on this. Oh, for sure I do. I find a lot of it is, in part, it's media-driven,

the way that people look at teachers and they think that they're spoiled and that they don't do work. And you've got parents that are beating up on the teachers at home and then the kids get into the classroom, and that just goes forward. So your wife is a teacher. Has she experienced what I've been describing? She has, has she been verbally assaulted or anything or abused? No, but she, there is a lack of discipline now in the school and the way the kids get

away with things and it just escalates, it snowballs. That's a problem that we need to tamp down on for sure. Thanks so much for the call, Aaron, and thank your wife for all that she does for us. And Mark, welcome to the show. You got about 45 seconds. All right, well, I think it's a two-fold problem here. Of course, there is a huge issue with parents

and a lack of personal responsibility with kids. They blame their teacher. They blame the school system. It can't be my good little Johnny. He's such a good kid, right? But we also have a fact of, I feel like there's a strong issue of, we've had a generation now coming out of school, these new teachers that are just scared of any type of confrontation. I see it, I'm in the sales world and anybody we hire, they can't look you in the eye. They can't have a difficult conversation, they just don't want to have any type of

confrontation so they avoid it. And this is where we get the compounded issue. They avoid it two times and here we are. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. The My Choice sales event is back at Nissan and the choice is yours. Choose our best-selling Rogue, always ready for adventure. Or the Dynamic Sentra, packed with safety features.

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