The Ben Mulroney Show - The political panel -- What's the IMP program and why are Canadians outraged?

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Guest: Max Fawcett, Lead Columnist for Canada's National Observer Guest: Dimitri Soudas, Former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper   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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It's Monday, September, or what is it, the 8th today? We're the 8th. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us, wherever you find us on podcast, platforms, on streaming services, on the radio, on social media, on YouTube. We're everywhere, and we're glad that you join us wherever you find us. And very glad to have for our first this week in politics panel of the week. Max Fawcett, lead columnist for Canada's National Observer,

and Dimitri Soutis, former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. To the both of you, I say, happy Monday. Happy Monday, gentlemen. All right, let's talk about the fact that on one hand you got Pierre Poliyev. On the other hand, you've got NDP leader of British Columbia, David Eby, and both of them saying that they want to axe the temporary foreign workers program. What do you make of that Max Fawcett? I think it speaks to a really interesting issue in our political discourse.

You know, when you have that degree of consensus from different political sides of the spectrum, I find that refreshing, honestly. It means that they're having an actual substantive conversation about the issue. Look, I think everyone, most people agree that there are problems with the TFW program, especially when it comes to driving up youth unemployment, you know, is being, I think, abused by business. and then, of course, the people being abused are the temporary foreign workers. I don't think banning it is the solution or getting rid of it completely, but I think the fact that we have this unusual consensus shows that we have to have a conversation

about how to fix this program because it isn't working for anyone, really. It's not. And, Dimitri, you know, lots of hay has been made over the temporary foreign worker program, which amounts to just under 250,000 people a year. But meanwhile, there's a, I mean, I had never heard. of the international mobility program that is essentially a similar program, but it has no LMI needed. And the employer just has to offer a job to somebody outside the country.

And that amounts to almost 2 million people a year. There are a lot of people waking up learning about this program saying, what the hell if I was upset about the quarter million in the temporary foreign workers program, how am I supposed to feel about 2 million people in the international mobility program? Right. And, you know, speaking of consensus between an NDP Premier and a conservative leader federally, well, you've also found consensus between me and Max because the flip side of the coin on the temporary foreign worker program is not only does it deprive senior citizens, for example, once upon a time, used to get jobs at Walmart or our youth getting jobs at stores like at places like Starbucks or Tim Horace. They're now being deprived, but the flip side of the coin is these temporary foreign workers coming to Canada and not earning more than minimum wage. Truly, you know, in Ontario, minimum wages at $17.20. It's going to rise to $17.60, I think, in October. What are you supposed to do with 40 hours a week at $17.20? You cannot pay your bill with that. Truly, you can't pay your bill with that.

So we're abusing temporary foreign workers that are being paid minimum wage. I'll give you a specific example. So my wife and I, we run a business. We own preschools here in the greater Toronto area. And recently, one of our longstanding, who has been here, came here as a student, student visa, then got a work permit, said that, you know, in order for you to be able to keep me, you now need to pay me $30 an hour. Our rates were in the $22, $23, $24, $25 an hour.

I said we can't afford $30 an hour, but said it's okay. My consultant told me that I will pay you back the $5 an hour or the $6 an hour. So we also have to look at how this program is being misused. So basically, we're pretending in some cases that we're paying people $30 an hour, but they're giving the employer back $5 or $6 an hour. So this program does need to be reformed. There's other sectors. You know, Max said maybe it's not about completely abolishing it, but reforming it.

There's other sectors, like the agriculture sector that relies on it heavily because it's an area where you actually can't find workers. Right. So this is going to be an issue, a topic of debate in the upcoming session, which starts a week from today. Max, a lot of us were waiting with bated breath over this massive announcement that Mark Carney made last Friday. It was sort of anticipated that this was. was going to lay the groundwork for the reason he came into politics in the first place, right? We waited a long time for it, but he's the type of person who we were told works

methodically and likes to lay the groundwork as opposed to just, you know, he wants to do something once correctly. And so this was, this was the announcement that was going to sort of begin the Mark Carney era in politics. I wonder what your assessment was of that announcement on Friday. Well, I don't know about the framing there that, you know, this is the moment that defines him. But I do think it speaks to the the approach to politics that you mentioned. You know, he, he is, you know, putting, and I think we're going to get into this in another segment, but, you know, he put a pause on the EV mandate.

You know, there's funding for affected sectors. I think he is trying to slow play the president right now as much as possible while still supporting obviously the sectors that are affected by Donald Trump's craziness. And we saw a court in the United States basically say that the provision under which Trump invoked most of his tariffs is completely illegal. And so I do think that, you know, there could be a withdrawal of the tariffs, a declaring a victory by Trump saying, you know, I did what I wanted to do. I got people to the table. And we could be better coming out the other side. But, you know, I think we will see progress.

You know, we saw the major projects office announced in Calgary. You know, the major projects list includes a pipeline to tidewater. There are things happening that are meaningful. I understand that they're not going at the pace that some premiers would like them to. I understand that Doug Ford wanted that, you know, that magical highway under the ground to be part of the list. That was never going to happen. But, you know, I think this is more progress in six months. than we saw in six years under the previous government.

Demetri, one of the things that did surprise me, when that list of, what, 36 or 32 projects of national importance was leaked to the globe and mail, don't know if it's the final list, don't know what, so it gave us an idea as to what this government was thinking. You know, my assumption was that that list wasn't going to surprise any provincial leaders, because I'm sure that they were going to be part of these conversations.

So to learn that Doug Ford was not happy, that he was disappointed by the list. That was surprising to me. I just assumed that that list would have been made in consultation with the provincial leaders. So first of all, the consensus, Max and I had on the first topic has just been shattered for the second one. Because I don't think that things are moving as fast as they were promised they were going to move. Mark Carney promised lightning speed. To the best of my knowledge, light travels faster than sound.

And setting up an office does not yield results. This list, let's be cautious about this list. This is one of several lists right now. And what example I can give is, you know, the nearest comparison I can make to the current crisis is the 2008, 2009 global economic crisis. We're at the time, the government of the day, the Harper government, tabled its budget on January 27th, 2009. By March, money was flowing.

What is the purpose of that? The purpose of that is to stimulate the economy. So Mark Carney, on the other hand, wanted his bill, Bill C5, which is the major projects legislation that allows him to overrule existing guidelines so that he can move fast. we're now almost mid-September, and still not a single project has been announced. Today he's in Youthland Labrador. Here's an opportunity, for example, to announce the corridor between Labrador and Quebec as it relates to the new hydro project that they're upstarting. So it's not moving fast enough.

And the biggest challenge for Mark Carney, the absolute biggest challenge for Mark Carney right now is the word Trump is not as scary as cost of living. It's not as scariest crimes. It's not a scariest housing crisis. So just saying Donald Trump no longer has the same elbows up effect and people, some people at least are saying, where are the results? Yeah, I think, listen, we're going to take a break here. We've got lots more to get to, including the EV targets have changed, but that mandate

still remains in place. I'm going to ask my guess why they think that is. So don't go anywhere. Much more to come with our panel after the break on. the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and I'm back with my panel, my this week in politics panel. And Max, I want to start with you because I think a lot of us assumed that one of the big

announcements that Mark Carney was going to make was he's going to scrap the EV mandate that dictated that by 2035 every single vehicle that was sold in this country was going to be an electric vehicle. And rather than get that, we sort of got that. this a slower pace, a slow role where they've punted the ball for a year and they're going to take, what, six months to re-examine the mandate? I got to wonder why. I got to wonder why you would expect that the automotive industry that is already battered in this country needs some certainty in terms of planning for the next quarter and the quarter after that and a quarter after

that. They do. They desperately need certainty. And that's sort of the challenge here is those the original timelines in the EV mandate come they don't come from a different government they come from a different political universe you know you had the White House that was aligned with with the Trudeau government on helping these car companies manage the transition to electric vehicles and now you have the Trump administration which could not give a flying fig about any of that they don't even think it's real and so Carney has to help the the auto sector kind of cover this gulf between where we are now and where it knows it has to go and it's not just you know people like me saying that this is the sea CEO Ford, Jim Farley. He had a EV. He brought one over to test it out. And he said, we're in a global competition with China. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford. So the electric vehicle transition is happening. The question is timeline. And so scrapping the entire mandate doesn't really make any sense. Because then it simply reverts us to status quo ante where, you know, we're not helping these carmakers meet the existential challenge that will define whether they exist or don't exist in the future. Dimitri, do you subscribe to that? Have we found consensus again? No, we have not. And I will just remind you, you gentlemen were too young back in the day in the 1950s, but it is exactly what North American automakers were saying about Japanese cars

being allowed to come into Canada, the Hyundai's and the Toyotas. So instead of relying on EV mandates, why don't they just innovate? Why don't they just do what a car manufacturer is supposed to do? Take it to market. Do your research, do your development, and offer something to consumers that will be better than what is currently on offer. As for the liberals, you mentioned Ben that they're punting it. But isn't it exactly what liberals have done on environmental policies since Kyoto? Just create these big targets.

You know, we're going to be the best of the best of the best on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. And then four years later, oh, we're just going to push it to four years later. So they've completely scrapped the 20% target by 2026. And they're saying they are reviewing, reviewing the 2030 and the 2035 targets. I'll bet you a nickel that by 2029, they're going to scrap the 2030 targets if they're still in government. At the end of the day, on an issue like electric vehicles, it is the auto sector that ultimately must provide a product that is viable to the consumer, a product that is better than what is currently on offer.

So government always mandating these things and government-telling farmers or government-telling people outside of the downtown Toronto, downtown Montreal, and downtown Vancouver bubble. Because let me remind you, folks, Canada is not just Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Yeah. Go ahead, Max, last word to you on this one. Well, it's also Calgary. But no, I agree with Dimitri here. You know, I think a better path for, for the government, if it wants to support the automakers in this transition, is bring back the subsidies, not for not for the expensive cars, but for the affordable cars, but, you know, develop more charging infrastructure, really support the demand side of this. So that you have consumers saying, hey, I really want to buy one of these. And then the automakers have to respond to that pressure rather than a top down pressure of the government saying, you have to

hit these targets by this year. That seems like a better strategy. I agree. I think the mandate, I subscribe to what Dimitri said about the mandate, but I also agree with you, Max, on the demand side. All right. Dimitri, explain to me what an austerity budget, but also an investment budget is that Mark Carney has said that's in the offing. It feels like that's sucking and blowing at the same time. So it's like me saying, I'm going to go on this extreme diets to lose 50 pounds in a week, but I'll be hanging out at McDonald's and all you can eat buffets on the weekend. It's a way of Mark Carney to say I will be both a left-wing liberal and a right-wing conservative. The reality is the following. He's going to get blowback on both of those. Why?

First of all, his austerity cuts. 15% over three years. And I always like to go back and compare to when we were in government. We did 5%. Five percent. Five percent. in three years. And there were consequence, political consequences for that in some regions of the country. His ministers are scrambling to find 15% savings. The public service that has bloated over the last 10 years, I mean, I will just give you one data point. Over the last 10 years, our public service has increased by 100,000 more public servants today than we had in 2014. And the cost of the public service in 2014 was 39.6 billion. It is now approaching 65 to 67 billion. So almost doubled. His challenge, his real challenge, who's going to vote for his budget? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, let's put that to Max. Max, who's going to vote for a budget that is both an austerity budget and investment budget, which pretty much tells me it's going to be neither? Well, you know, I like Dimitri's metaphor there, but I'm going to push back on it. I think you can have more calories and still be on a diet, you're just, you're just trading bad calories for good calories. So it would be like someone cutting out the junk food and eating lots of chicken and good proteins. You know, their calorie count is higher, but they're getting stronger, more muscular. And I think that is what the Carney government's trying to do here. They're saying we're going to cut the spending that doesn't improve or increase our economic capacity, but we are going to make

investments in places where it increases our overall long-term capacity to grow jobs, to, to, to, trade to you know to build the economy i think that is not incompatible those are not uh those are not necessarily in conflict i agree that there is political consequences here you know that you see the nDP votes starting to tick up in polls um i don't think they're going to vote the government down here that there's no chance of that they have no money um but there there will be a cost to pay down the road for this the question is whether that cost is higher or lower than the gain that is produced yeah by the changes and i don't know how much of a political cost there's going to be because the more I look at, there is, and Max, I'm going to come to

you first on this. But, you know, when I hear a story, and this was a head scratcher, of all head scratchers, that the liberal cabinet was going to have as their invited guest as a speaker, the architect of the much maligned Project 2025, which in the United States was this massive conspiratorial, you know, silent hand that was going to replace the entire civil service with Maga-believing foot soldiers of Donald Trump, I had no idea how how this speaker came into the orbit of the liberal cabinet. But what was even more dumbfounding was the deafening silence or lack of criticism from anyone in the press corps, any significant pushback by the press core when in your own province, when Danielle Smith even shared the stage with someone like Ben

Shapiro, people were calling for her head to roll. So to me, this is. I don't know how much political pushback there's going to be because there's not a whole lot of willingness to be as critical of this government as I think we are of other people of different political stripes. Well, so two things. The reason why there was a difference in the pushback

to Daniel Smith and Mark Carney here is it was pretty clear that Daniel Smith shared Ben Shapiro's values. She likes him. She appreciates him. She listens to him. She is a fan of his worldview. It is very clear that the Carney group, And I think the decision to bring this guy in was just completely tone deaf.

I don't know what they were thinking. If you don't have the read on Trump by now, you're never going to get the read on him. And bringing in someone who worked peripherally with his universe is not going to help you. It was a very stupid decision. But they were bringing him in as kind of counterintelligence, right? How do we understand this crazy guy who is trying to destroy our country? How do we bring in this guy that we like? Okay.

So Max, I'm going to stick opinion in you. And Dimitron, give you the last word. You got about 30 seconds. Okay. Yes, dumb idea. And if you're looking to do counterintelligence, you don't do it in broad daylight. You have a private meeting and you don't do it in front of a forum with 50 cabinet ministers and the rest of the country watching. I will conclude with saying this. And whether we like it or not, yet again, there is the double standard. If conservatives do exactly the same thing, they are labeled as, you know, extremists. When liberals do it, oh, they're open to listening to everybody who has something. to say. All right, we're going to leave it. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Great way to kick off the week with the both of you

and looking forward to our next chat. Until that. Thank you. distracted by fall foliage, standard. Guy announcing the radio ad now wanting a Subaru? Uh, yeah, standard. Subaru. Uncommon come standard.

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