The Ben Mulroney Show - Why are Canadian Politicians afraid to go after Supply Management in Canada?

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Are Donald Trump's worldwide tariffs going to explode food prices in Canada? with Guest: Sylvain Charlebois, Canadian Researcher and Professor specializing in the Food Industry -The Economics behind this Election so far with Guest: Sean Speer, Editor-at-Large for The Hub, Former senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper 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

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See online for details. Well, it is the Ben Mulrooney Show and I am Alex Pearson of the Alex Pearson Show. So don't be confused. Mr. Ben Mulrooney, who is in Washington, DC doing a little, I don't know if we call it undercover work, but he's certainly trying to find the story throughout the spin on a lot of the talk as what's being said about Canada, the tariffs, Trump next moves and all that stuff. So look, he's looking for the story. By the way, you don't have to miss anything.

There's been a lot going on. So if you want to catch up on some of the things that have been going on, because this has been an incredibly busy news cycle. Just go to the podcast, you'll find that on Spotify, Apple Music, or Amazon. Let us get into some of the things as to what tariffs will impact when it comes to our food.

Right, let's get into that. We bring in Sylvain Charlebois, he is of course, you know him, joining us. Good to have you Sylvain. Hey, nice to be here. Alrighty, let's get into this, because I know you watch this carefully. I know you've actually been commenting on this quite a bit

as to what will be impacted, what won't be, but we are in now widespread tariffs. And so what are we looking for as far as what we're doing and what they're doing and the impacts on the food we're buying in the store? Well, it's been complicated. But to say the least, I honestly, I think everyone was holding their breath on April 2nd on Wednesday. And, and frankly, the the agri-food sector came out not winning but we did dodge a butyl on Wednesday.

We weren't affected by more tariffs although we are still affected by tariffs in the US with non-USMCA goods, wheat is part of that so we're hit by tariffs. We're also hit by tariffs coming from both India and China as well, affecting pork, affecting grains and lobster and seafood as well. So things going out, we're still not out of the woods at all. Now coming in, affecting us, counter tariffs, Mark Carney did say earlier this week that he has no intention in applying counter tariffs affecting food prices in Canada, which is really good news because the bad news, and this is the one thing we've been watching since Wednesday, the American dollar has been a hammer.

It's just being slaughtered right now on world markets. But guess what? The Cain dollar is not moving. It's still at around 70 cents. So everything that we import- I was going to say, it can't go much lower, but I'm like, yes, it can. Yeah. I mean, I thought that perhaps you could get a couple of points here and there, but it's

not moving at all. So everything that we buy from anywhere around the world, a lot of people are just looking to buy anything but American, which is fine. But all of these products will remain quite expensive because of a weaker dollar. And not to mention, we got to watch this looming inflation that's also coming into play. And if it heats up, you know, that will be an impact to watch this looming inflation. That's also coming into play and if it heats up You know that will it be an impact to beef comes into the conversation And I kind of you kind of chuckle when you hear the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

You know talk about it and he's like saying well look they're not they're not buying American beef or agriculture Here take a listen our farmers are blocked from selling almost anywhere. We can't, 1.4 billion people in India, we can't sell them corn. Europe won't let us sell beef. Australia won't let us sell beef. Why? Because of hormonal chemicals. Yeah, no, no, that's not why.

It's because they want to just protect. I know, they want to say, oh, what, the seeds are different, right? Other people in the world are using seeds that insects, come on, this is nonsense. This is all nonsense. What happens is they block our markets. When we open those markets our volumes grow, our farmers will thrive and the price of groceries will come down. Mm hmm. Okay. So what I would say, Mr. Silvani-Shalawaz, let's maybe take Mr. Howard Lotnick out for

some Alberta beef, because why would I or anybody in this country buy beef or buy American beef when we've got the best in this country? That's right. Well there there is this long lasting dispute between the EU and us, both Canada and the US, in terms of agricultural practices, the kinds of medication, antibiotics, hormones being used in a livestock sector, they're not in sync with what's going on in the EU at all. And so I think we need to recognize that. There's a different culture around livestock production in Europe compared to Canada or North America. So this is what Mr. Lopnick was referring to. Of course genetic engineering is a huge topic in Europe. We call them GMOs. They're not very, it's not a very friendly market to genetic engineering. We all know that and Americans know that.

And I don't think that's going to change even with tariffs. Yeah, it's hard to see, I guess, where that changes. Maybe it changes when we get to the old renegotiation of Kusma, Uzma, whatever the heck you call it in whatever country you might call it. But there's going to be obviously a long conversation about different things. The one thing, and certainly Trump went on and on and on about it, and he has a few times, is about our supply management. He hates our supply management. He's always hated our supply management.

But you know, Sylvain, it is a third rail for politicians in this country. But where do you see this fight going? What's the bargaining chip here? How do politicians play with it? Carney's been very, very, he's categorical about this. It's going to be protected. Oh, yeah. I well, in fact, all leaders are saying the same thing.

Have you ever wondered, Alex, why? Why all politicians, all of them are supportive of supply management Mr. Bernier he's not who's that Maxime Bernier this is this is a hill he was willing to die on the reason he's no longer elected is because he's against supply management do you think others would want the same thing that's that's why I'm wondering where this one goes like is this becoming it if this becomes a debate question next week this could be Jagmeet Singh could be back in. This morning I was doing an interview with a reporter and I did get a really good question

and she was asking why, why is it that all politicians are on the same page with supply management? It's because they can't afford to be against it. Yeah. Politically, it's just, it would be political suicide. The dairy farmers of Canada are incredibly resourced. They have a lot of money and a lot of power and they know well, all the skeletons are. Yeah. Well, yeah. And they know where you are too. So whenever you talk about this, they get, they know where to find you.

Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, I've been at this for 25 years. I absolutely get it. It's not going to come from changes are not going to come from our political classes, going to come from guys like Donald Trump. Yeah, look, hey, if you want cheaper milk and butter and those things, it would be something that politicians want to deal with. But they've got to first get over their need for votes.

I want to talk about this food pyramid. So Robert F. Kennedy, the Homeland, what's his portfolio? It's health, he does the health stuff, I can't remember his actual title, but Robert F. Kennedy announcing he's looking into creating a food pyramid. Take a listen to what he says. And what I said is we want a three page document

that essentially says you should be eating all foods. Yeah. And then and then give the schools the option of getting those whole foods locally so that you're not dictating exactly what the diet is. But you're dictating broad categories and saying these are the kind of things we don't want a lot of plastic packaging. Right. We want hot foods that are hopefully made on site. We should have nutritionists in every school in this country like they do in Japan and other nations that are supervising the food production and the nutrition of those kids. I've got about 45 seconds. I'm sorry to do this to you, Sylvain, but you know, going back to basics. Pretty much. But this, I don't think this is gonna end well at all for the Trump administration.

I mean, you got terrorists going against some farmers now because China is retaliating this morning. A lot of farmers aren't happy and now you have this health guru, RFK Jr. saying, you know what, what's going on with farms and everything that we're actually processing is not good for you. We need to change things. So I think the food industry is going to have a talk with RFK Jr. and Mr. Trump at some point. Well, I think a lot of conversations are going to happen from here until then, but stay tuned.

Great to have you here with us. I'm Alex Pearson in for Ben Mulroney. He is in Washington DC. And of course we'll come back on Monday and share what he has learned. And certainly everything is impacting this election. And when you take a snapshot of this election and what we're looking at, it is a much different snapshot than we have seen in the past. There is a definite generational divide.

When you see the polling, everything 60 and under is leaning towards Poliev and then the older generation, 60 and above, seem to be leaning towards Mark Carney. Top concerns, according to the liberals, would be talking about Donald Trump, but if you actually go and talk about these things with younger generations, they're talking affordability, they're talking about housing. And so I don't know what this election looks like after the fact, but there's a very clear divide, very different needs. And so what happens with the tariffs, our response to it, and what happens as far as moving forward? Who's got the better plan between Pierre Pauliev and Mark Carney?

Let's bring in Sean Spear, editor-at-large for The Hub, a former senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Great to have you, Sean. No, it's always a pleasure, Alex. Thanks for having me. Okay, let's talk a little bit about what we're seeing in the polling, which I think is still pretty volatile, but the one clear picture we have almost gotten from day one is the divide in this country. It's kind of a haves, haves not story. Is that what you're seeing? Yeah, what's fascinating, Alex, is for listeners who've been following politics for a long time, we've always thought about our politics through the lens of fault lines, linguistic

fault lines, regional fault lines, even class-based fault lines. But what's emerging in this election is an intergenerational fault line, as you said in your introduction. For the first time in my memory, we're seeing the different parties line up clearly along the lines of age. The conservatives are performing strongly with younger Canadians, the liberals with younger Canadians, the Liberals with older Canadians, and if you had to pick a generational cohort to be the basis of your support, the old ones have some advantages. Namely, they have a higher propensity to vote. And so I think one of the reasons we're seeing what we're seeing in the polls, particularly if you ask voters who themselves self-declare or self-re report that they intend to vote, the

liberals have the advantage. All right, well let me let me give you some observations because I did go to the rally in Oshawa and I certainly have seen them in Hamilton and Winnipeg. These things are massive and I can tell you that the base is not just motivated, they are like crawl across broken glass motivated, they are getting involved, broken glass motivated, they are getting involved, they know that they have to vote. And you know, while the young vote is not known to be, you know, reliable, I don't get that sense this time.

I feel like they understand how important this is. Yeah, well, that's certainly the bet the conservatives are making, isn't it? That the dissonance between the polls and the size of the rallies and the enthusiasm, the energy that you're referring to, is the basis for their confidence going into the eventual E-Day. That polling in different parts of the world in the past several election cycles has demonstrated a kind of capacity to struggle with you know people who are increasingly not attached to traditional phone lines, people who aren't getting their news and information from mainstream sources, etc, etc. And so, you know, if you do talk to people in and around the conservative campaign, I wouldn't say that they are,

I wouldn't say that they're cocky, but there is this sort of quiet self-assuredness that what they're seeing with their eyes may prove to be more accurate than what we're seeing in the polls. Yeah, I didn't take a cockiness. I was like, I took it as a, they're, they're hoping this is real. They're like, we were onto something, right? Because we look back in time to Justin Trudeau's campaigns, and they were pretty energetic. But I think these ones are rivaling that.

The last time, I think, a conservative drew these kinds of crowds, or big crowds, would have been Brian Mulrooney, and that was at 2,500. So there's definitely something going on. But we're talking about an election where we're told it's all about Trump, but affordability plays so, so high. And I think trust also, you know, has to play in this as to who will actually deliver. What to you? I mean, I look at these issues, Sean, and to me, they are this almost the same in the sense of like tariffs and taxes will just

exacerbate the already existing affordability problems, right? So whomever takes over, whether it's Mark Carney or Pierre Pauliev, this is not, like words aren't going to deliver, um, you know, results. The people need help and they actually need a plan. And so when you look back and I think, you know, Carney has taken an awful lot of Pauliev's ideas and I think you have to look back to, you know, who he's surrounded by as to who actually will deliver. But what are you seeing as far as actually getting deliverables into people's hands? Yeah, we even following politics for so long has such experience.

And, you know, I think probably like me, one of the takeaways from those years of experience is that people actually understand their own interests pretty darn well, that we shouldn't take for granted that they have a wrong perception of their own experiences. And so when we see this strong support for change amongst younger Canadians, it is borne out by the facts. I mean, just between 2022 and 2023, for instance, Canadians between the age of 25 and 34 actually saw their median wages fall.

Every other age group in the country saw an increase in their median wage, but if you're between 25 and 34, some of the very people you saw out at the rally last night, you experience a net decline in your wage. That's even more acute for men in that age category. So you really do get the sense here that, as you put it so aptly, that there is a kind of have, have not dynamic playing out this race that really is rooted in generational experience. And not to put it too bluntly, but one gets the sense that older Canadians almost have

the luxury of concerning themselves with Trump and the tariffs and watching the news 24-7 about what's coming out of the White House, whereas younger Canadians are focused on pretty basic needs, housing, employment, income, you know, the types of things, the bread and butter issues that typically move election campaigns. And so in that sense, Pierre Pauli's policies so far have really spoken directly to those needs. And I think the party is, is, is is hoping as you say that ultimately That desire for change Trump's if I can put it that way The focus on President Trump and if I could just make one other point about this. I'm 43 years old

My parents are in their 70s. Um My parents have ostensibly as much interest in my success at this stage in their life as they do their own and I think for a lot of boomers who are watching Trump, they're focused on Trump, they're focused on the threats and provocations of the country, I hope over the coming weeks they're actually talking to their children and realizing the extent to which their children find themselves in a pretty extraordinary moment of precarity and that that ultimately influences the way

that those older Canadians themselves are thinking about the election. They're not just casting a ballot for themselves, they're really casting a ballot for their children and their grandchildren. Yeah, look, if Donald Trump takes over, the younger vote just wants to make it. They just want to get dinner on the table. If they can get the dinner on the table, then they can worry about the other stuff, right? Just before I let you go, Sean, I want to ask you about the response to Donald Trump's tariffs, right?

Mark Gurney decided to swing back. Paul Yev suggested actually a pause on it till after the election, but he did say he would take the GST off the sale of new Canadian-made vehicles. Now, we don't make Canadian vehicles in this country, but we do have Canadian vehicles like the Toyota, RAV4 and those kinds of things. As an economist, which plan are you happier with? And do you think it was, do you think it was the right thing to do for Carney to swing back?

I've got about a minute. No, I don't think it is. I mean, this is worthy of coming back and joining you at another time. I think Alex that the political incentives right now are tilted in the direction of kind of a maximalist response to the Trump administration's provocations that might feel good in the moment, but it amounts to not punching him in the nose, punching ourselves in the nose. And so I actually respect and appreciate Pierre Pauliev exercising some leadership yesterday, not just kind of

succumbing to the lowest common denominator and actually saying we need a plan that's rooted in Canadian interests and that means not necessarily just jumping on the the moment and and committing to retaliatory tariffs which are going to do as much harm to us as they are to the Americans. Yeah well buckle up we'll see. Just quickly, just I've got about like 15 seconds, do you think Harper if Pauli have one, would Harper get involved in help with negotiations and Rona Ambrose and those people? Would they be part of that? I honestly, I think that's a great idea. Alex, in fact, given that the conservatives are underperforming the liberals on this

fundamental question, I think announcing who an emissary would be on behalf of a possible public government might be a key way to assure people that he has a plan to manage Trump post-election. Okay. Well, go tell them. I gave them an idea. Thanks so much, Sean. I appreciate your time.

Have a nice day. That is Sean Spear, editor at Large of the Hub, former senior economic advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Great to have you here. It is Friday. I am Alex Pearson. Not to be confused with Mr. Ben Mullerine. He will be back with you on Monday.

He is in Washington, D.C. and. He will be back with you on Monday. He is in Washington, D.C. And, you know, he's following the story or seeing where the story takes him because we need to cut through some of the noise, some of the political spin and find out, you know, what's the story, what are we gonna be facing? And is there some way that we can, you know,

open discussions and possibly calm the waters? Because there's a lot of fallout on this, certainly, and we're following it. And it really is, I think, in this election, we call it the most consequential election for a reason, because I am of the mind that if we don't make the right decisions in this election, then we will never, I think, recover this country.

And so it's important that the talk is actually walked this time, because sound bites don't actually save us. And certainly, I think, you know, one of the things we have to worry about is, you know, with Alberta, and again, I get it, it's easy to pick on Danielle Smith, it's easy to kick Alberta around I'm not sure why it is, but they have some very real grievance

you know there they want to get their product to market and And every which way in this country whenever they try to get their you know Energy gas, you know, whatever out they can't do it energy, gas, whatever out, they can't do it. Whether it's dealing with political foes, certainly the Trudeau government did everything in its power to stand in front of the way of Alberta resource. But on top of that, we have had decades of lobbyists from the United States, activists. We've had so many people getting in our way that we don't have anything built. And so when Premier, you know, Danielle Smith says, look, we're relying on the United States

because we just can't get the pipelines built. You know, this is our own, this is what we've done to ourselves. When you do see this problem of limitation, of being able to continue to develop your economy. It's harming your citizens. You're not able to create those jobs. And then you're still expected to support those transfers. That creates its own tension. And so the nice part is that our fellow premiers now understand that part of the reason Alberta

has become so reliant on the United States is they wouldn't let us build pipelines east and west and north. And so it's creating a different conversation. We would love to build more pipelines to the US and build them so. But I think we're now opening up a conversation where we'll be able to build them in all directions and then be able to open up more market. Well, I hope so. It would be nice. I mean look, the bottom line is we get different answers on different, you know, depending on where the politician is in that country, specific to let's say Mark Carney who's promising to build back and promising to finally get energy developed. It's no specifics.

He doesn't mention the word oil and gas. But he also says two different things depending on where he is. If he's in Quebec speaking French, he says, well, Quebec's got license to do what it needs to do and wants to do, which so far has been to stand in the way of pipeline and infrastructure development, right? There's only a tiny, small portion of the energy east that was not finished, and that's because Quebec stood in its way. And polling shows actual Quebecers do support energy development.

Again, who's knocking that barrier down? Because it matters. Mark Carney, he should be asked. You can't say in English Canada, yes, we'll get pipelines, but we're gonna do all these things and then tell Quebec something different. But Danielle Smith is right.

We've had every barrier put in our way to get our resource to market. If that continues, we will be in deeper trouble than I think a lot of us realize. The other thing I think that we need to be watching in this election is what happens if the West again is completely locked out. Like the politicians, Mark Carnate spending their time in vote-rich Ontario as well as Quebec, but you know, whatever the vote is, and again, if we get a liberal majority or a liberal win in any way, I think the West is just gonna, I think the West is gonna explode and I think we'll be dealing with unity issues that we always assumed would just

be with Quebec. Listen to what BC Premier Christy Clark says about this issue as far as understanding the anger of our friends in the West. You know, I don't think there's any doubt as a result of 10 years of federal government completely ignoring and refusing the requests from Western Canadians around resource development, around economic growth, around kind of a fair share for Canada. You know, 10 years of not fighting for national unity in Ottawa has meant that we are now in this situation where you've got a premier in Alberta who is profoundly hostile to Canada,

right at a time where we need national unity more than any other. So I've said this on your show before, Vashi, most important job of any prime minister is unity, unity, unity. Indeed it is. And well, we won't, we won't say she's back in, uh, in politics, right? Former BC premier, I should say, uh, again, talk is cheap and we've had so much division. Justin Trudeau angering the

West, I think even more so than his father, right? But her comments are also echoed by BC Premier David Eby who, you know, speaks for something that we hear all the time and I think in the East we ignore it and I think we do so at our own peril. It's just they completely feel like they have no voice in our nation's capital. It's important for the Prime Minister to understand the unique impacts of the President's actions on British Columbia. The risk always with Prime Ministers and with federal parties is to get trapped in Ontario. They're in Ontario all the time.

They're in Ottawa. They're beside Quebec, literally just over a bridge, and they forget about the West. And so my message to the Prime Minister will be that you have to be on top of issues in Western Canada and in British Columbia. And your response, whether to support workers or industries or whatever it is, needs to include British Columbia. So I'm glad he's coming, and I look forward to our visit.

Yeah, look, it does matter. We have so many issues west of Ontario that just completely aren't being talked about right now. You know, it would be nice if Mark Carney would weigh in on our canola farmers. They're being punished brutally by China. It's as if they don't even exist. Well, they count. So that is, there's ignoring that and ignoring the issues and ignoring the constant pleas of the West. They're not whining about it. They want to have a voice and be a seat at the table. So when we're talking about unity, it actually means unifying all of us. And we've had way too much division in the last decade, way too much division. And that's going to take a long time to heal. And then when we talk about the unity issues and certainly we heard this in Oshawa at the

rally which drew 6200 people, we did talk about the unity of this country even when singing the national anthem, in all thy sons command. It was bellowing out, it was bringing the country back to the place that we, I think, remember, but certainly even, you know, don't crap all over our history. You know, stop rejecting the people who built this country and brought us together. You know, unbox our founding father like Sir John A. Macdonald. Put the John A. Macdonald the John A. McDonald statue back up. I mean, you agree with that?

What do you think? Look, it was John A. McDonald who first had the vision of resisting American annexation. His entire life was dedicated to a great East West nation. That's why he put together confederation and why he built the railroad. An East West railroad

was designed to bind us together with iron and steel. That is exactly what we need to do now. We need East West pipelines, roadways, transmission lines and other resources that will link our nation from East to west

and reverse the hopeless reliance the liberals have made us face with the Americans. We have a lot to be proud of in this country, and again, we've got to get out of our own way and keep convincing us that we are the problem. No we're not. We are the answer and the solution to a lot of the world's problems. The other one, you know, he keeps doubling down on this, is when we talk about responding to Trump, it is Carney, Pauliev says, who is the preferred choice

because he keeps us weak, because he won't do this stuff. President Trump wants to keep our economy weak by supporting Mark Carney, keeping theals in power for a fourth term. But what's good for President Trump is not what's good for Canada. We need a new government who will put Canada first for a change. And that includes standing up for and uniting around our brilliant history. And that history includes John A. Macdonald. There we go. You forget your history, John A. McDonnell. There we go.

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