The Ben Mulroney Show - The political panel -- was Freeland pushed out?

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

ANDY GIBBONS   Principal at Walgate advisory .  Former vp WestJet Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former Senior aide to minister of finance Jim Flaherty If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thank you for spending a little bit of time with us. And thank you to my two next guests because without them I can't do this segment with this week in politics, our midweek panel. And we're joined by Andy Gibbons, principal at Walgate Advisor and former VP at WestJet, as well as Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park and former senior aide to Jim Flaherty. Happy Wednesday, guys. Let's start with what we were talking about. our previous segment, this open letter written to Mark Carney and signed by 95 executives from the oil and gas industry saying that thus far, over six months, he's done good job, but he's not moving fast enough. And I wonder, I don't know if you guys have read the

letter, but he's, you know, I think the oil and gas guys, I think rightly pointed out that the regulatory system that was put in place by the previous liberal government that made it So international money is allergic to Canada, investment in Canada, that system still exists. We've now overlaid a new system above that, but that system still exists. And I wonder, we'll start with you, Andy, because somebody with roots at WestJet, you know, the oil and gas industry very important. So what are your thoughts on this letter? I think the letter makes a great point.

I read it this morning, and it's good that Canadian CEOs are. finding their voice and sending out letters like this. I think governments need that. I think the opposition needs that and everyone knows where they stand. I was listening to your interview beforehand, too. And I think it's a legitimate question. Why isn't the government moving as fast on the oil tanker ban on C-69 and all of these issues that are barriers to investment?

It's great that they're identifying projects of national significance, but the industry is saying, if you like that, we can do so much more. And I think this is an emerging question. for the Carney government, which is, are you providing government answers to Canadians, or are you going to get out of the way and let Canadian businesses do what they're telling you they want to do for Canada? And I think that's a big question over the next six months for them. Regan, I know that the Prime Minister has you purring like a kitten, especially when it comes to tone and when it comes to presenting as a different kind of leader than the one that we had prior.

but on this very specific point, are you still purring like a kitten? It's not quite a purr. I do think, though, that the prime minister should be given a little more slack, given it is only September. I think the call from the oil patch should be heard and registered loud and clear in Ottawa. I completely agree with Andy with respect to how corporate Canada is behaving. It's about time we've had CEOs in this country. stand up and weigh in on public policy issues not be political in a partisan sense because i don't

think that's appropriate and certainly not for shareholders but absolutely from a from a country building sense we need more voices in public policy not less but the prime minister with respect to this issue i think where it will sting him personally uh is the fact that they're accusing him of not moving fast enough and mr carney who i know and have worked with and has observed closely as as he's entered into politics he's in a hurry and he wants to get things done in a hurry and so I suspect this letter was, they were given a heads up the Prime Minister in his office about this letter. And I suspect this letter will be used by Prime Minister Carney and his very capable energy minister, Tim Hodgson, as a means of really deriving change in outcomes, a novel.

Because as Andy knows, and Ben, your dad sure talked about this a lot in his book, moving the institution that is the government of Canada is a heavy lift. And so every impetus to move files forward in a case like Mr. Carney will be, I think, well received. But the oil patch is what they're observing is fair game, and I can't disagree with a single word they said. All right, let's move on to Christia Freeland, who has been in politics for 10 years. Anybody who presents themselves as a candidate has my initial respect, and she has been in my personal interactions with her. She has been nothing but kind. She is a hard worker.

She's well educated. She's strong. She acquitted herself well in the NAFTA renegotiation. and, you know, she will forever be linked to the Liberal Party and its successes and, of course, some of the places where they have fallen short. Make sense of what happened yesterday when we learned that she would be leaving politics abruptly to take a job as our special envoy to the reconstruction of Ukraine. Regan, I'll start with you.

Well, Christopher Lindbend, Ben, you know, she is emblematic. perhaps the most mediocre political class and governing class in the world she i'd love to know who her PR people are because she seems to receive fawning praise everywhere she goes if the prime minister has me purring she has a whole country of advocates and supporters who are outpouring for her let's remember this is a finance minister when she became finance minister who blew up the deficit to record highs this is a woman who laughed when she talked about freezing bank accounts for for those who were supporters of the trucker convoy. This is a woman who has shown no demonstrable progress

with respect to her economic record as finance minister during her time as finance minister. The facts are this, per capita contributions from Canada to Ukraine are the highest in the world. Canada's economic output per capita has been declining every single year since she was finance minister. Now she's not to blame entirely for all of that.

Of course, the long national nightmare known as Justin Trudeau is also responsible. But she was at the tiller and, you know, there is nothing in her record that is remarkable. Now, to answer your question about her mediocrity and why she's leaving now, this has been rumored for a while. I heard about this at the start of summer that she was looking to get out. I mean, you could see how liberals felt about Christopher Lund when she got single-digit support in the leadership campaign. I think she got 7.8%. And so it was made clear to her, nobody wanted her as leader.

And so when that happened, it was only a matter of time when she left. I wish her luck on her role as special envoy for Ukraine. I don't know if anybody cares what she has to say about the issue. But she does deserve some credit because she was part of the G7 finance ministers who took action against Russian interests around asset seizure and whatnot. And that is perhaps the only thing that she can speak to, in my view, worthy as her time as finance minister. But farewell. And I look forward to seeing Steve McKinnon, who's an exceptional minister in her place at transport.

All right. So that is Regan's very specific interpretation. But could this be then, could this be the prime minister's, a magnanimous attempt to give her something, another mountain to climb? Andy, the floor is yours. Well, he should give her whatever she wants, because if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't be Prime Minister today. So had she not sent that letter and had she not resign that morning, Mark Carney would not be the Prime Minister of Canada.

So whatever she wants, he should grant it to her. Let's be charitable today and say, you know, Christia Freeland in the Ukrainian diaspora globally is quite prominent. Yeah. And she is close friends with Vladimir Zelensky. Well, yeah, Andy, this could be the, this could be the, this could be the, the job that she's really well suited for? She may, I mean, we don't know.

I thought the announcement was a bit clumsy, to be honest. I mean, if she's truly being recognized globally to work on the reconstruction of Ukraine, that's an incredible thing for a Canadian to be doing. And that should be celebrated. But it wasn't clear that that's what she's going to do. Yeah. So it was a bit weird. It was a bit clunky.

Is she going to resign? When, maybe not. So it wasn't clear what was happening with this job and what exactly it was. was but she is prominent in the ukrainian diaspora globally and if she can make a difference there that that is we should be proud of that as Canadians and our role there um you know i'm aligned with regan on some of these things uh i'm sure if she could have a redo she would have divorced just Justin Trudeau two years prior i'm i don't know that but surely she has some she would have been prime minister and she will always be a co-author of the Trudeau

decade that that is going to be an inescapable thing oh yeah no we we we and and reagan's right there was a moment when she resigned where where people were rallying behind her as if she hadn't been co-signing everything that Justin Trudeau was putting forth for 10 years um but uh you know like I said I think she tried to reverse engineer political skills where there there were none this job at at from what I can gather could could be something that doesn't necessarily require those skills and the ones that she has, she could be very well suited for. I don't know. I'm trying to be optimistic here for her because, like I said,

I've got personal feelings about Christia Freeland that make me want her to succeed. But we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to be talking about peacekeeping, Canada's role in the world from a perspective of the military. And should we be dipping our toes and trying to bring peace, trying to keep peace in Haiti where there is none already? Don't go anywhere.

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and thank you very much for Andy and Regan for sticking around for part two of this week in politics, the Wednesday edition. I want to talk a gentleman about Canada's military preparedness. I think I pulled over the car a few weeks ago when I heard Mark Carney say that he was going to be giving our brave men and women in uniform as well as those who preceded them as veterans, a 20% bump retroactive, I believe, in salary to remind them. of the appreciation that our government and our country has for their sacrifice. But that doesn't mean we are yet ready to tackle the issues of the world, either both as a Canadian military force or as part of a larger peacekeeping mission. So when the U.S. government comes to the Canadian government, says we really think that you guys should go into the failed state of all failed states, Haiti,

to keep the peace, I think that might be putting a cart before the horse. Andy, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, in 2024, Canada had 17 military officers and nine police officers globally and UN peacekeeping missions. I mean, I think there's more people at the Tim Hortons on Bank Street in Ottawa, not the busy one, by the way, the not busy one. And in 2016, the Trudeau government committed that they'd have 150 active and engaged military and police officers. So, you know, it's a kind of a sad joke, the state of Canada. And I'm worried about this one because, you know, we do have a reputation as freeloaders and unsurious contributors. And that's not a Donald Trump opinion.

That was a Barack Obama opinion. It was a Joe Biden opinion. So I'm really concerned about that because if Marco Rubio is asking us to make this small contribution and we're either in and we're incapable of doing it, never mind the merits of it, that's a real problem for us. because they do pay our security bill. And if that's what they're asking one of their strong allies to do, it's a big problem. The merits of Haiti or not is a separate issue. But if we're incapable, that's the issue we have to solve.

But what I don't understand is why the ask even came in. I mean, they have been complaining that we are not paying our fair share, that we are not funding our military. They must know, it's a bad faith question to put that to us. us because we're not ready for something like this. And they know that. We're getting there. We're getting there thanks to the investments that are coming, but that's going to take

a while. Ben, I'm not sure I agree that it's a bad faith question. And as much as I hate to say, I told you so, I talked about this in November, actually, in Politico with Nick Taylor Vasey about what Canada could do to get ready for the incoming Trump administration. One of the things that Canada has always done, and Andy and I've talked about this offline, And your father, Ben, his record on this is literally the gold standard, which is we have always taken on files that the Americans appreciated and needed some help with. And when I think about Haiti, I think about when I worked for the Foreign Minister of Canada, Lawrence Cannon, and after the earthquake in 2009, we hosted a conference, a reconstruction conference in Montreal, where Secretary Clinton, who was then working with President Obama, allowed Canada to take a lead in convening an organization.

organizing the reconstruction efforts post-earthquake. Unfortunately, those reconstruction efforts have been problematic since then, not least of which is because of the Clinton Foundation and where some of that money went. But that's a different show, not this show. But with respect to Canada, I'm sorry, if we have our security bills paid by the United States, and the United States asks us to do something that is in our wheelhouse,

A, peacekeeping, Ben, but B, we are a bilingual nation. Yeah. And Canada is uniquely positioned to serve in a place like Haiti around peacekeeping and reconstruction. And guess what? We're at the G7 and the G20. And when you're at the big boys and girls table, sometimes you have to pay big girls and boys bills.

And when the United States government asks us that, it's absolutely in our wheelhouse. We have the capacity to do so. Okay, hold on. That's the question. Hold on. That's the question. Do we have the capacity to do that today?

Then if the United States government is asking us to do it, we don't have a choice, especially when they, in diplomatic world, governments typically don't make these asks public. And so the fact that the United States has made this ask public tells me two things. One, they haven't got an answer yet back from the Canadians. And B, or two, they're not sure how the Canadians will respond. And they're probably hedging their bets that they think the Canadians will not answer in a way that they like.

Andy may have some views on this, though. Yeah, I mean, Ken, how many people do they want? I mean, I went through the stats, Ben, 20, what did some math here? 25 people are engaged in U.S. peacekeeping mission, so we can't do that. But I think the government should be honest with its allies and Canadians. I'm not saying they're being dishonest, but they should say we're not in that place right now. We have a lottery building to do. We're not meeting our international obligations.

We're on a path to do so. Yeah. So I find it, I'm with Regan. The fact that this is public in this way, it tells us something about the Americans and how they view us and the fact that, you know, they still consider us derelicts in this regard. And that's really sad for Canada. And listen, I appreciate the need to restore order in somehow put Haiti on some sort of better path that they're on. But there's no peace to keep there.

The gangs run the entire country. There's nothing that we can do with our 25 peacekeepers. They've got 25 gang members per block. I don't know what we're supposed to do. So, Ben, we sent enough troops that brings peace, order, stability to the country. And we go to the United States and say, look, we're prepared to do this. However, we also need you to bring other like-minded nations. And I think there's some African countries right now who have peacekeepers there.

But let's go and find some other like-minded nations among the G7 and the G20 to bring stability of Haiti. Haiti is a regional security issue that if Canada took care of, we'll have tangential benefits for things like trade. the U.S. has already initiated the process to review the U.S.MCA. And guess what? It's a give-to-get piece. And if Donald Trump, or pardon me, President Trump and his administration see Canada as stepping up and taking care of a regional security issue and Senator or Secretary Rubio is very well liked in the White House. And he says to the president, my goodness, Canada are really stepping up. It's not perfect, but they're working with us.

That will have benefits to other things that we deal with the American. Fair enough. All right. Let's kind of move to a different story, but same topic. There's a piece in the star. that highlights that millions of Canadians are struggling in the affordability crisis, even with new government programs. And so, you know, I look at this, you know, I keep talking about, you know, Canada, people keep saying Canada has an open door, and we should have as many people. There's such a big country.

We can welcome the world. And I say, it's not a big country. It's like an elevator, right? And right now the elevator is full. And if we invite more people on, what's that going to do the elevator? It's going to crash down and everybody inside is not going to do well. and so to me it's we have so much that we have to take care of here and yes we can walk and chew gum at the same time but I don't I don't know I appreciate everything you just said

Regan but when I see how many struggles we have as a nation when I see how many problems we have I look at the military aspect and right now it looks like a nice to have not a must have if that makes sense? Well, look, Ben, the most recent stats, and I read the story that your producer sent over this morning, it is unacceptable to me that we have something like 8.7 million Canadians who are impacted to some varying degree around food security. And, you know, feeding a population is like one of the most basic things

that government has an obligation to do. We have, in this country, we feed our people, we provide health care. public services, libraries, roads, schools, bridges, all that other stuff. But the fact that we have food insecurity in what is the breadbasket of the world, Canada has one of the world's world-class agricultural sectors and food production sectors. And the fact that we have people in this country who are struggling to feed themselves and their family, for me, is unacceptable and unconscionable.

It's just a further indictment on the long national nightmare. Andy, I give the last 45 seconds to you. Well, look, if you're a politician, it's hard to look at, a food bank lineup that stretches around the corner when there's a hotel full of asylum seekers and i say i'm not against you know being compassionate and no one is in canada but this is a very hard problem and like we talked about last week you know crime immigration and affordability are the issues that will really dog this government for the next six months and whether or not they have answers to it and again what's the government's answer to it versus the people's

answer to it. And right now, and I think we've seen this over the last couple of weeks, Ben, is it's a lot of, it's a lot of government answers, a government office, a government program, a government this, a government that. And I think Pierre can, Pierre Pauliev can score some points on this over the next few months and he's trying his hardest for sure. All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. Really appreciate the conversation. Enjoy the rest of your week. You too. Thanks, Randy. Ready to flip your idea of Shwarma?

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