The Ben Mulroney Show - This week in politics -- Carney and Trump spending spree

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Guest: Chris Chapin, Political Commentator, Managing Principal of Upstream Strategy Guest: Warren Kinsella, Former Special Advisor to Jean Chretien and CEO of the Daisy Group 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 Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit wagovi.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show and I want to say thank you and welcome to anybody listening on radio, on podcast platforms, on streaming apps, or if you're watching us on YouTube, we take you where we get you and we say thank you and welcome to the Ben Mulrooney show. And of course, it's Friday, which means it's time for a roundup of some of the big political

stories of the week. Very pleased to be joined this week by Chris Chapin, political commentator, as well as managing principal upstream strategy. And of course, Warren Kinsella stalwart here at the Ben Mulrooney show, former special advisor to Jacques Retzian and CEO of the Daisy Group. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Morning. So one of the one of the greatest frustrations that I had with with the Trudeau liberals was the promise in 2015 of evidence based policy. Because what that means is in the face of changing evidence you change the policy and and If you believed that we were going to get that then then you in retrospect you look back and say well

There's a ton of policies that that came into into effect that were not evidence-based In fact, they were ideologically driven. And so it really was the wool being pulled over our eyes I'm hoping for a return for that, for that expression actually means something under this new prime minister, because the changing facts on the ground as it relates to the EV mandate that dictated by 2035, every single car that was sold in this country would be a zero emission vehicle. Given the fact that the market has softened, given the fact that the cars are too expensive, given the the world that we're living in, we're never going to hit those targets. So why have that mandate in place? So the question I have for you, we'll start with you, Chris, is what's what's Mark Carney going to do with this EV mandate? I suspect then in due time, we'll see that that target stretched out. I'm not sure I'm confident the liberals are going to abandon it anytime soon, because as you know, I don't think there's a party that's more ideologically driven than them when they when they get their heels dug in. And so I suspect we'll see that 100% target

maybe punted to 2045 so they can still call it a win. Yeah. But they have to recognize that the market's just not there. And with everything going on in the world, this is a party that for political reasons, walked back the carbon tax that was supposed to be the single most important piece of policy they've ever introduced. So I think it's only a matter of time

before we see this at least punted back and then perhaps abandoned altogether. Warren, I don't think there are a whole lot of Canadians who believe that the future of the automotive industry isn't electrified. And by the way, there are a ton of cars out there, a ton of electric vehicles out there that I would love to get my hands on

if only I had the disposable income. But that future is not today. And given the fact that the Americans are shying away from the ambitions that they had on the electrical automotive industry, I mean, if they deprioritize that, then that is surely going to affect our ability, given how integrated our automotive industry is, it's going to impact us regardless of a mandate. Yeah, I mean, there's a few problems here with with the EVs. Firstly, as you pointed out, they're way more expensive than internal

combustion engines. They getting charging locations is really tough to do, especially in places like where I live in rural Canada, they're just not available. And you've got to come up with a lot of dough to charge it yourself. The subsidy is gone. And so as a result, the amount of number of people are buying these vehicles is dropped dramatically. And then just a few days ago, the the Vehicle Manufacturers Association executives met with the prime minister and said, please, please stop adding to our burden here because there's been a

collapse in the market and you're just gonna make it worse with you know your EV mandate. So there's all kinds of things wrong and you know hopefully the Prime Minister listens. This is something that came out of the Trudeau era. Carney has shown his willingness to walk away or abandon a lot of those decisions. Then hopefully that's the case here too. Cause it just too much of this doesn't work in the way that they had hoped.

Well, yeah, because also having that mandate in place forces these car companies to plan as if this is their reality. And you can't plan for the future. They can't make those long-term projections, those long-term investments in what they need to be investing in if this mandate is still on the books. So that to me is a reason, if they are gonna make a change, whether it's killing the mandate altogether

or simply changing the target date of that mandate, which I think I agree with Chris is probably going to be the compromise here, but they have to do it sooner rather than later because these companies can't just wake up and say, oh, I'm gonna do this. changing the target data that mandate, which I think I agree with Chris is probably going to be the compromise here. But they have to do it sooner rather than later because these companies can't just wake up one day and switch from electric to internal combustion engine.

They have to have the time to pivot. But I wanna move on to our next story, which is defense spending. And people like myself, very happy to hear that this government is taking seriously what we've been very unserious about for far too long, preceding Justin Trudeau, which is investment in our military and our veterans. And however, that comes at a cost.

And last week, I think the number that we were talking about was $150 billion over the course of many, many years, but now the actual numbers are coming in and it's over $70 billion over the course of four years. That's on top of the $130 billion in additional spending that Mark Carney promised on the election campaign. I don't know where we find this money. Warren, like he is a smart guy.

He came back, he came into politics because he felt he was up to the challenge of writing the Canadian ship. But this seems like an enormous, an enormous hole to dig ourselves out of financially. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I come from a military family and I've always favored this. And we need to, in an increasingly dangerous world, you know, we need to be doing our fair

share and going back for many decades over successive governments of all stripes. We've not been doing that. So it looks like we're going to meet 2% finally, but now they're talking about 5% and I'm with you. It's like, okay, well, where does the dough come from? If you dig into it, there's a bit of funny business taking place. So my understanding is to be credited,

towards the 2% or the 5%, if you build, for example, then a bridge that leads to a Canadian Forces base, you get credited against your percentage there. I'm not sure that people would consider that actual difference spending, but better wages for the men and women in uniform who work to protect us, support that, better equipment, support that. But some of it, I think it's a little loosey goosey. I guess the devil's in the details.

Yeah. Chris, most conservatives should be on board with this increase in funding for our military. I know I am, but again, like the priorities that were laid out in the election were already to the tune of $130 billion. The rubber's gonna meet the road or rather, an immovable object is gonna to hit an unstoppable force. And I

don't know what's going to happen. But but this this prime minister who's riding very high on the hog in terms of, of popular support right now. I don't know if those numbers stay as high when he finally has to come out and say, you know what some tough choices have to be made. And by the way, not for nothing, Warren, your your boss had to make some of those tough choices back in the 90s. And he weathered that storm. So maybe there is a way for him to thread this needle, Chris.

Yeah, there's a reason, Ben, we haven't seen these commitments hit for decades, because it requires tough choices. At the end of the day, budgeting in politics and in governance is about making tough choices and deciding how you the day, budgeting and politics and in governance is about making tough choices and deciding how you spend tax dollars, right? And so when you go from, you know, the measly one, 1.2% we were at to committing to spending two or 5%, you can't make that revenue appear overnight. And so we've either got to find ways to drastically increase revenues, or we're going to run massive

deficits, which I think this story by the C.D. Howe Institute alluded to, because we simply don't have that money. And so that's where if we want to get to a balanced budget or we want to run an efficient economy, tough choices are going to have to be made. And I think that's going to certainly wear on the prime minister. Warren, in about 30 seconds, give me what your boss did to deliver tough news to Canadians, and yet still remain viable in successive elections. He was straight with them. And we had a mandate for it. In the Red Book in 1993, he said, we're on our way to third world economics in this country, you know, and we needed to make some desperate and significant changes. And so

he had a mandate to do that. The Prime Minister, Prime Minister Carney's problem is he was less clear about that in the election campaign, that some big cuts might be necessary or some big changes. And so that's going to create a political problem for him, I think. All right. Well, don't go anywhere. When we come back, we're going to talk about a different kind of political problem. Could there be a third party rise in the United States? And could that come out with a bank rolled by Elon Musk? That's coming up next on The Ben Mulroney Show.

Happy Friday and welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to this week in politics, the Friday edition with Chris Chapin and Warren Kinsella. All right, gentlemen, let's talk about Donald Trump's big, beautiful bill. It passed, it's gonna become law. And Elon Musk feels that all the work that he did on the Department of Government,

what's the E stand for? I can't remember Doge efficiency. There we go. Was all for not and it was a big plank in Donald Trump's election campaign. Now, rather than sit here and talk about whether or not that was a good idea or not, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump in part because he was going to be focused on waste redund redundancy, and putting money back into the pockets of Americans that was lost in the swamp of Washington. And that now, according to the guy who spearheaded it, is that's not happening. That was a waste of time, waste of energy, waste of resources. Do you think that that is going to cause a schism within MAGA, those who

wanted it and didn't get it, and those who just side with Trump reflexively? Warren, what do you think that that is going to cause a schism within MAGA, those who wanted it and didn't get it and those who just side with Trump reflexively? Warren, what do you think? I don't think it will. He got it through. We kept hearing from the US media that he was going to be in trouble in the Senate. The bill went through the Senate and then we heard he was going to be in trouble in the House and he got it through the House. So he's got a mandate. He said he was going to do this, in fairness to him. And full

disclosure, I campaigned for Kamala Harris last summer. He was very open. He said this is what he was going to do. And what amazes me is the number of Americans, if you look at the polling, who don't know what's in the bill, and what them in the big, great, big, beautiful piece of legislation. And millions of them are going to lose Medicaid coverage. Millions of them are not going to be able to get food stamps in order to provide for themselves. It's going to have real significant impacts on Americans' lives, but 77 million Americans voted for it and they're gonna get it. And I take everything that Warren said at face value,

but Chris, you know, as popular as Donald Trump is, so too is Elon Musk very popular with a particular type of person. And they were all in with him on Doge. And so to hear the leader of that faction within MAGA saying we were betrayed more or less, he's not using that he's not using that pointed language. But that's what's that's that's really the gist of it. I have to assume that there are going to

be some jaded MAGA followers out there because of this. You know, Ben, I'm not sure I think it's gonna be a very interesting few months. Usually, I have a pretty good read on these things. But when it comes to Trump and MAGA, it's it's just, it's such a different beast. We've seen this over the last 10 years. The loyalty he has amongst his followers that they could be out there telling people they support a bill, they have no idea what it includes, I think just speaks volumes to their ability to get in line with him. But Elon does present a really different faction of that party, a much younger faction of that party, the more libertarian wing of that mega movement.

And he's been quite vocal, you know, for months now in his opposition to the president and, you know, specifically overspending. I think Elon's been quite vocal that he thinks government spending's ridiculously out of control and that they're, you know, heading off a cliff that they will not be able to recover from. And so I know we might talk on it later, but I think the only way you could see a real schism in that mega movement and that it could hurt the president is if somebody like Musk were to, you know, start his own party and really, you know, either start his own party or just sink millions and millions of dollars in targeting primaries of Republicans

that really puts a scare on them. It's almost as if you know what we're gonna be talking about next, Chris, because yeah, Elon Musk has been musing publicly about creating a new party, a third party in the United States. Let's listen to him in his own words. So what am I doing in politics?

I don't wanna be in politics. I want to be clear. That is not my preference. I like, I just like building stuff. I like building products that people love. And I, you know, I derive joy from seeing people enjoy the products that my companies make. Actually don't like politics at all. I hate politics. But the stakes are so high here that I have had no choice but to take a stand. Well, and so he's talking about creating a party for the 80% in the middle.

And look, there is a rational brain can appreciate that yes, there should be rational brain can appreciate that yes, there could, there should be a way for that seed to find purchase. But anybody who has followed politics in the United States Warren knows that the institutional power of the two party system is intractable and unchangeable. What do you think? Well, you know, Musk is saying in the clip you played that he hates politics.

Well, politics hates him too. He's now on the outs with Donald Trump who absolutely owns the Republican Party and his brand. The passage of the bill this week makes that clear. Donald Trump is the Republican Party. So Musk making noises about creating a new party. Well, the last guy to do that really was Ross Perot back in 92, when your dad was prime minister up here in Canada.

And we all know how that ended up. It ended in failure. It cost Ross Perot a lot of money, went nowhere. The last time Musk tried to do something like this was in the month of April. He got involved in a Wisconsin judge race, like up to and including him handing out checks to people for a million bucks. It was just crazy. And even then he couldn't pull it off. So like, I think the system in the United States is pretty intractable. And I think Donald Trump's grip on the Republican party, it's not going to be changed by, by Elon Musk.

All right. The last point I want to to I want us to explore is a fairly fairly sensational has a fairly sensational headline to it. I don't know who the author is. And Warren, maybe you can help me with this. It's Carney a bootlicker for Trump's demands. Just ask Lloyd Axworthy. Is Mark Carney and full disclosure, our Warren Kinsella wrote this article, but that's that's a quite quite a an epithet to call the prime minister of bootlicker. Yeah, and that was yeah, I can't stand this calmness. No, that was that was the word that Lloyd acts for the use, you know, the former minister of foreign affairs, a giant of the Liberal Party for decades representing Winnipeg and

you know, he was a big deal and he just let it rip this week. And a lot of us were shocked by what he had to say. He was very, very upset with Mark Carney for ditching the digital tax on Sunday night because Donald Trump wanted that. And I think Lloyd was, who I've known for a long time, I don't think he was preoccupied with the digital techs, quite so much as Carney acting so quickly at one of Trump's demands. And what does this mean for things like social programs or for supply management? So I mean, that's for a lot of us, we were shocked by, you know, Axworthy using that kind of word, you know, he kind of threw it down. Yeah.

But Chris Chapin, I've got a lot of very smart friends and one in particular sent me a text saying that what my take on the capitulation of Mark Carney on the DST was no such thing. It was a masterful negotiation where Mark Carney gave up nothing and allowed Donald Trump to believe he got everything. Now we've also had people on this show say that we're living in a time where no matter

what Mark Carney does, whether it's in keeping with his election promises or anathema to those election promises, it is proof positive that Mark Carney is right. So how do you see this? Is there a scenario that you can see where Mark Carney actually was a genius in walking back the DST?

I could certainly see the argument for that, Ben. I mean, I think it was one of those things that if you looked at what Trump had put in the window that we needed to walk away from in his eyes, whether that was the digital sales tax or supply management, for example, and I think those are two of the things the president's been most vocal on. The Prime Minister for political reasons was never walking away from supply management.

He was not throwing in the towel and throwing in every seat they have in Quebec to give up supply management to the president. So I certainly do buy into part of it that I think if he knew he had to give up one, if that's what brought the discussion back to negotiations and not the abandonment that we saw from the president a week or so ago, then I do think there's a world where it could be a master class.

The problem is we're not at that negotiating table, so we don't really know. But I certainly see, I certainly can see where that argument could come from. Yeah. You know what? You need to give the president wins. I'm going to, I'm going to have to amend what I said a couple of days ago, where I was categorical that we got nothing for it. For all I know, you're absolutely right.

Part of the conversation was we're going to give you the DST, but you're going to back the F off on supply management. Now I don't know if that happened and we'll have to see if it does happen. But if that does come to pass, if we learn and if we see that Donald Trump has tempered his objection to supply management, I think we can reverse engineer an argument that that was part of this negotiation, in which case it will be a win for Mark Carney. But until I see that,

what I see is a guy who looked quite feckless. We're gonna have to leave it there, gentlemen, but I do hope you have a great weekend. I wanna thank you for always coming onto the show and contributing. It's always a lot of fun. Thanks, man. Thanks, guys. Ever tried walking and tasting greatness at the same time? Meet the Walking Shwarma, Osmo's legendary shwarma,

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