The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Canada in the EU, Carney’s Fire Sale, and the AI Apocalypse

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

The Everything Political panel, with former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement, discusses the prospect of Canada joining the EU, what exactly an "associate" membership entails, growing concerns over AI, the AI arms race with China, calls from the heads of Anthropic and other major AI companies to slow down, and whether Canada is prepared.They also discuss Carney's investment summit, privatizing Canada's major airports, and the usual round of "Good on Yas." Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, you two. You know, one of the things that we certainly have done here on the Paken podcast is our share of 9-11 coverage in light of the 25th anniversary. Had David Cullenette on, had John Manley on, two senior cabinet ministers from back in the day. One thing we have not talked about yet is, I guess, the senior most of them all and the speech that he gave in Gander, Newfoundland the other day, which really seemed to bring the house down. Okay, you both know 90, how old is he? Ninety-two-year-old Jean-Cretchen, yeah, former prime of Canada. Tony, what did you think? I thought it was an appropriate speech. You know, the 92-year-old can still capture the room.

And I think he said some things that probably needed to be said. So it's a good moment to remember just how good a friend Canada was to an attacked nation. And I hope that that goes a little bit of a way to... to the resolution of our current situation. Great point. Martha, what did you think of Jean-Cretchen's speech? Very similar. I mean, it really was in the last bit that he did all of the solemn piece. Hey, Tony, he did all of that at the beginning. And he thanked all the people who were there and all appropriate.

But it was in that last bit when he said, and now I just want to add something personal. And he said a few things that I think Canadians really wanted to have reinforced. forced and that they really wanted the Americans to hear the American public, but also that, the American government, but also the American public. And of course, the American ambassador was there. I noticed that he gave Mr. Crechanan a great big hug afterwards, which I thought was, was pointed. I'm, I'm not sure, but I think the fact that that Mr. Crechan said things like, don't mistake our our generosity for weakness.

Don't, you know, those are the things that I think people really, really appreciated not only hearing themselves, but knowing that Americans would be hearing the same thing. And no, I thought he was great. And I was actually quite taken by the fact that the American ambassador gave him such like it was a really warm hug. I was worried that, you know, the former prime minister would, you know, he's not, he's a little frail.

but it it seemed to be genuine. So I appreciated that. Tony, is it possible that the ambassador did not understand that the former prime minister was actually trying to make a point at his expense as in get your act together, Mr. Maybe he just completely missed that message.

I don't think so. I think the ambassador is a, is a former politician, as I understand, and knows politics in any event. So I think he understood that the occasion was one where Canadians and Americans were coming together. And I don't think he wanted to ruin that moment. That would have been a bad move by the ambassador.

And he didn't. He stepped up for the occasion, I think, in this regard. Good. As one should. And he knows politics. And I know two other people who know politics as well. And that's you too. So let's talk everything political.

Delighted to welcome back to our airwaves, Martha Hall Finley, the former Liberal Member of Parliament, now head of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary and Tony Clement, the former Federal and Ontario, conservative cabinet minister from back of the day. And it's good to see you two kids again. I think where we want to start is, well, perhaps the most significant shoe to drop lately in light of our deteriorating relationship with the United States. Happened a few days ago when it was announced in Canada that we are looking into some kind of associate membership with the European Union. people who know a lot more about politics than the rest of us will note that we're actually not situated in Europe but we are thinking of joining Europe in some way, shape or form.

Okay, Martha, when you heard about this, what do you think? Well, having European allies is extremely important, right? Especially in light of the war in Ukraine. And I think the Europeans see expanding their connections to at least one country in North America helpful for that as well. This is this is this is a security thing. This is a trade thing. So it's economic. It's everything. It's all of the above. I was just listening this morning to calls from there's a meeting happening in Finland right now with calls to have the European Union, the European countries, rather the non-Arctic ones be more involved in the Arctic,

which of course is of real interest to Canada as well. And so, of course we're not European. We do have a long history of course. The English peoples and the French speaking peoples in Canada, of course, originally from Europe. So there's that historical tie. But my viewer is right now, the more friends that we can actually work together with to solve some of these big problems, the better. Tony. Well, I'm just not sure what we're talking about yet. What does this special membership mean? What are what are not only the benefits that we would be accorded, but the cost of such a thing. We already have an agreement that was that was promulgated when we were in government to the CEDA agreement, the Canada European trade

relationship. So we have commercial, you know, very strong commercial ties with the European nations through CEDA and a very tight economic relationship if we so choose to take advantage of it. So what are the advantages of some sort of associate membership? To me, when you say that, it sounds political. And I don't think we want to be tied to the politics of Europe. And I don't think we, I'm okay with trading with Europe. But thinking that Europe is going to be the only solution or the best solution to our trade war with the United States, I think is very naive of people. And I know the public seems to be, yeah, let's do it, let's do it.

But no one knows what the costs are yet. If you're a member of the European Union, of course, there are huge costs associated with being part of the European family in terms of a decline in your own sovereignty, decisions being made by bureaucrats in Brussels rather than at home by. by your own nation state and elected politicians. So I'm hoping Mark Carney doesn't mean that. But I just don't know what he means because for anything, and I've said this, whatever you do, whatever national agreement you do with another country, whether it's Canada, U.S., Canada, China, Canada, Europe, there are costs to your sovereignty.

So I'd like to know what those costs are before I come to a full conclusion, because to me, you know, Europe isn't going to be the answer. And may I say, as well, things aren't going swimmingly in Europe right now. So let's, again, let's be realistic about this. You know, there might be a change of government in France and Germany and Spain where the right-wing populists gain power in the next cycle of elections in those countries. So do we want to be Canada? associated with the AFD in Germany and the Raiment Popular or Movement Popular in France and so on,

and the Vox in Spain, or just because you have an image of what Europe is, doesn't mean it's going to stay static. And may I say furthermore that their track record in innovation is nothing compared to other countries such as the United States. I hear what you're saying, Tony, but I always assume that there was an audience of one for this policy announcement. And Martha, that audience of one was Donald Trump, as if to say, you're not the only game in town and we have other options in case you want to continue to be recalcitrant. We need other options. And so whether it's an audience of one or an audience of 40-some million, I think it's important that Canadians see that our government is aware of the fact that Canada is, look, We have this Canadian arrogance, right?

But we're small. We have a big geography, but we're not that big in terms of population. We're not that, you know, for us to think that we can kind of go it alone without the United States, one, is naive. But if we recognize that there are problems with the relationship with the United States government, I think it's totally appropriate for our government and our prime minister to be looking at other possible friends around the world. Personally, I'd love to see us engaging more. with some of the Asian Pacific countries. I think, I think, frankly, not having been behind the scenes,

so I can't, you know, double think or impose my thinking on the submarine purchase, for example. But I, frankly, was hoping that there might have been an opportunity there to really enhance a relationship between Canada and South Korea. Because we also have to worry about China. And we also want to, to Tony's point, you know, the European economy, is not exactly the one driving the world right now, right? There's a whole lot going on in a part of the world that Canada, frankly, is not very involved in, notwithstanding the fact that we are also a Pacific country, right?

So do I think, one, Tony, I totally agree. We need to see the details before understanding what this actually involves. I think it's a good thing to be moving in the direction of finding more friends, better friends on a number of levels. I would love to see more engagement with some of the other countries and other parts of the world as well for the same reasons. It's interesting to note that Iceland had a referendum just a few weeks ago, whether to join the EU and they decided not to. So can I just get my zinger in, Steve? Because my zinger is when you look at innovation, you know, the Americans, one of their innovations is they can land rocket fuselages up, you know, vertical.

and the greatest European innovation to date is the twist off bottle caps are now stuck to the bottle. That's their big innovation. So, you know, this bit of a difference. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Yeah, I always like drinking my water with the other hand, putting the bottle cap to the side. I would never want to deprive you of your zinger. But yes, no, I mean, obviously, the most dynamic, the most impressive economy in the world is the United States economy has been for 250 years.

However, we're having problems with them right now. And Tony, you know, I presume you would not object to our, even if we don't have all the details right now, it's not necessarily a bad thing to remind the United States that, you know, if you guys want to be difficult with us, we can play in the sandbox with some other people as well, you know. I think that I think we should always, I agree with you, we should always be accentuating our strengths. And part of our strengths is we have these multilateral trade agreements, with other countries, both in Europe and as Martha mentioned, we could step up, but we do have good trade agreements with some Asian countries as well. I think that's very good. We should

accentuate our natural resources and our ability to get stuff from the ground to markets, whether it's oil and gas or critical minerals. These are all things that we have. You know, Donald Trump loves talking about, you know, who has the cards. Well, we have cards too. And I think it is high time that we play some of those cards. I agree with you 100%. And we'll be back right after this. All right, let's move to Block 2 here. And when it comes to playing cards,

I want to raise an issue with you too where we may be at a certain point in the history of this planet where there are no cards left for anybody to play. And on that score, I want to talk about artificial intelligence because we have heard some pretty ominous predictions related to AI,

including the latest from the founder of Anthropic who says, we have got to put the brakes on this phenomenon, lest some truly devastating things happen to humankind, as in the end of everything. We are hearing just the most apocalyptic predictions coming from some of the folks who are high up in this world. Now, okay, Tony, you pick it up here. If you were sitting around a cabinet table today, and you understood that there essentially are no regulations or regulations. rules around AI today, what kinds of questions would you be raising? What kinds of issues would you be raising at a cabinet table to say, we probably should do something about this, folks?

Yeah, just let me state just for the, for as you do, sometimes my, my own personal interests, I do have a small investment with a small AI startup. So I am involved in that industry to a very small extent compared to the numbers that are usually involved. but nonetheless. We love the full disclosure thing here. That's great. Yeah. Yeah.

So, but no, I think that there's a couple of things I would note. First of all, you had the three major open AI and Anthropic and so on, sending a signal that they don't want to stop, but they want to slow down to have a more measured pace. And so I think we have to take some heed to that. There were a couple of whistleblowers who came forward, one of them who quit Anthropic, because he said that they had crossed a threshold and that there was a danger by the end of the decade of all of the annihilation of the human species. So, you know, I would like to think that to policymakers take that seriously. The third thing I want to say is this is part of a geopolitical contest.

And so while American AI companies, which are still in the lead, even a smaller lead than a year ago, but they are still in the lead. China is building huge AI platforms, and they intend to take the lead. And whilst, you know, open AI or anthropic may want to slow down, China is not going to slow down. And so there is a geopolitical factor here that I'm sure concerns the Americans. I note that President Trump did not want to have this conversation. He thinks that having the most brilliant president in the history of the United States is what America needs, and he's that guy. No one takes that seriously, but that's the U.S. administration.

Yeah, he does. But that's the U.S. administration position. You shouldn't slow down when the Chinese are breathing, you know, at your heels. So it is complex because of the geopolitical factor. I think overall, I think we should, policy makers should be having this discussion. Canada, I weep for Canada on this, Steve, because we were the start of the AI revolution. We, Jeffrey Hinton, Nobel laureate at the University of Toronto and his team and other teams at the U of T and other academic institutions were the start of this most recent AI revolution.

And yet all the innovations seem to be happening in the United States or China. So I know Evan Solomon is working hard as minister for AI, for Canada to come up with us, you know, a sovereign solution and to up our AI game. I hope that's successful because I think that we do have bright people here who are, I'm a case in point. I work with startup people, Canadians who want to be in the AI business and have some great ideas, but we don't have the capital. So that's a big problem for Canada. So I've given you a bunch of different things, but I think that's my position. I get you. I get you. Martha, this very much, to me anyway, has echoes of one of the most concerning international phenomena when we were younger, which is to say the arms race in the nuclear space. And suddenly now you've got the biggest powers in the world all chasing after each other in hopes of creating something that has the potential to wipe out humanity. I'm just wondering, you know, I understand the president's obligations to the tech bros because they've funded his campaign. campaigns to such an outrageous extent.

But, I mean, what do we do here? Do we really want to create something that's going to result potentially? I appreciate that they're saying it's only a 10% chance, but do we not want to put some regulations around something that could wipe us all out? Well, I mean, talk about opening up a fascinating, worrisome thing. With Tony, I will do my full disclosure. I am on the board of Tellis. And Tellis does, in fact,

provide significant AI-based services to many of its customers. And we have now a couple of sovereign data centers in Canada. So as a company, it's actually interesting, really interesting to see how the private sector is evolving to address some of these concerns. I think Evan Solomon is doing what he can. And your initial question, Steve, should governments be paying attention to this and doing something? A hundred percent. My gosh. Right? If there's a role of government it's to protect your citizens. So absolutely these conversations need to be had. I'm pretty sure, you know, Minister Solomon and the prime minister are pretty well aware of

some of these challenges. My worry is that Canada has a history of, let's, what are the rules we should apply? What are the, what, you know, what's the law? What are the regulations? That doesn't matter for the bad guys, right? The bad guys don't care about the law. They don't care about the rules. And so we in Canada, we're so naive sometimes.

Let's find the right rules. Let's find the right. We need to be way more aware of the fact that there are bad guys. And with AI, my worry is that it's actually getting out of control out beyond the control of either the good guys or the bad guys, right? And so with nuclear weapons, we at least had deterrence. We at least had that sense of, I know that if you launch missiles at me, it could be mutual destruction.

I'll send some to you. They'll pass in the air and we'll destroy the world, right? And people recognize that that was problematic, to say the least. I'm not sure, like, I'm actually quite worried that this is already, it's happening way more quickly. I think you're hearing some of the commentary. The evolution of this capability, these capabilities, is happening way more quickly than anybody thought.

Although you mentioned Jeffrey Hinton, Jeffrey Hinton has been warning of this for a long time. Yes, he has. Right? This is this sort of the tech bro's joining on, you know, with this concern is a bit newer. But it scares a hell out of me because if they know, if they feel that there's something really wrong here, they know better than any of the rest of us. Can I just add one further to what Martha has just said one example I just read today on, on. how fast things are moving. The U.S. military confirmed at the date of this taping that certain forces in Yemen,

I'm presuming it's the Houthis, were able to create through AI missile trajectory data for missile attacks on U.S. installations and U.S. forces. And so they were using AI to rather than engineers to do this. And so this is, this is the forefront now is, is unfortunately war. You know, we're seeing AI being deployed by Russia in Ukraine. And we're seeing it used by Iran and the Houthis and other forces. You know, so this is, as to Martha's point, that's, that's, that's the reality of today. It's not a theoretical.

The bad guys have this capability. Yeah. Yeah. I guess what really concerns me. Yeah, go ahead, Martha. I'm just going to say, Steve, because I could, I could be super, like, we could all be super grumpy and we could be throwing up our hands and saying we're hooped. I could say, I'm really glad I have a place that's on an island in the middle of nowhere

with, you know, off-grid capability, right? Not great for gardens, but anyway. But I also think that if you look at history, humankind has had millennia of figuring stuff out. I do think this is a message my mom gave to me from when I was starting from when I was a little girl. Don't underestimate the capability of humankind to solve problems. You know, when I was a kid is we're not going to be able to feed the world. We're overpopulated. People should stop having children.

Well, of course, now we feed way more people in both in terms of numbers and percentage of the world's population. So there's a part of me that wants to kind of carry on with that view that maybe we can use AI to keep AI from killing. Well, that's a lovely idea. And of course, the positive applications for AI are limitless. And wouldn't we just love to, yes, wouldn't we just love to let AI loose on solving healthcare problems that we have? Well, I'm involved in a health care, healthcare company that is using AI just for that. and I'm involved with another AI company that's using it for education. So there are benefits to AI.

Let's make that point, too. For sure. But I mean, there's two things that concern me about this. And number one, you know, the people who are actually building these artificial intelligence, applications, things, whatever we want to call it, I mean, even they say this is happening so quickly, they are having difficulty understanding what they're actually building. may they may cease to be able to have control over what they're doing. So that's concern number one.

And then if you consider, I mean, at the end of the day, our political leadership are the people who are going to have to kind of get a handle on this thing. They don't have a clue what this is about. They don't have a clue. I mean, I think we can all well remember Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, or Meta, as it is now, testifying before Congress in the United States. And one senator, I think it was Orrin Hatch from Utah, said, how do you actually make money doing this thing?

You give it away for free. Now, if that's the level of understanding that people were bringing to social media platforms a decade ago, this is exponentially more difficult to understand than that was. I mean, Tony, do we have any hope that politics, as we know it today, has an ability or an understanding of getting their arms around this and figuring it out? Well, I think that's a valid question. And further to that question is when you don't understand, understand something when you try to regulate it, you know, bad things can happen too.

So, so I think that's, that is a worry that I have. And again, since we're talking about Europe, Europe likes to be in the forefront of regulating. They think they're the best regulators in the world on everything. And so they have regulated AI. Basically, the innovation of AI is not possible in Europe. they go elsewhere. Startup people go elsewhere if you're a European. So that's that's a warning sign as well. You got to somehow hit the balance where you still are having, you know, beneficial beneficial innovation. And at the same time, there is some concern over what we've discussed that things go in a very bad direction if you're not careful. Well, and I can't, to me, a huge part of this, is the human element, right? The idea of these machines taking over willy-nilly and somehow

developing this, this, you know, mass destruction mentality, I'm still way more concerned about the human element. You know, in the 1930s, full regulations allowed Hitler to be democratically elected. He was elected completely according to all the rules. Then when he was in power, he changed the rules, right? Like, he actually managed to change the regulations. to allow him to do more and more of what he did. All of that meant nothing when he attacked the rest of Europe, right? Like, this is a worry I have as a Canadian. The naivety that we have of what are the regulations, what are the laws,

how do we do this, we're looking to our government to help fundamentally. We're going to have to realize this may be well beyond that. How do we protect ourselves? And we'll be back right after this. Canada is at a crossroads. Technology is transforming how we work, how we live, and how Canada competes. As AI accelerates that change, moving quickly is not enough. How we move forward matters.

At Ontario Tech University, tech with a conscience is in their DNA. As Canada's number one undergraduate research university, they bring students and researchers together with government and industry to tackle today's biggest challenges with integrity. From human-centered AI and energy security to health technologies, cyber security, nuclear innovation, and advanced manufacturing, their research is guided by purpose,

delivering impact for people and our planet. They are developing talent with the skills and judgment Canada needs next. From hands-on learning with industry, upskilling, re-skilling, and executive education. technology will change our future and Ontario Tech is preparing the people who will shape it for the better. Learn more about tech with a conscience at this website, Ontario Techu.ca.ca. That's Ontario Techu.com.ca.

Let's park our deep concern slash terror on that last subject and move into Block 3 and talk about something that I'm interested in getting your two, the two of you to give us a take on this thing because I think even in my own head, I can't tell whether this is something that's kind of cool or something that's really a lot of showbiz and not much more. So I need you two to weigh in. Martha, while you have the floor, we have just, I guess, started in Toronto, an international investors summit at which some of the heaviest hitters, certainly from the United States, but around the world, are showing up, presumably because the Prime Minister of Canada is the kind of person who can pick up. the phone and get some of those heavy hitters to come to a meeting and talk about potential investment

plans. How do you regard what's happening right now in Toronto? Well, fundamentally, every economist will tell you our productivity problems, our economic problems are related in almost every case directly to the lack of investment, right? We need more investment. We need more Canadian investment. We need more foreign investment. We're just not, I go back to the comment I made earlier. We're a huge country geographically, but we're just really not that very big. And yet, and I just was so frustrated listening to some of the protesters because there were protesters last night and I think today as well, you know, we need, we don't want foreign investment. We don't want to sell out to the, to Wall Street. We don't want to, you know, we need to focus our efforts on health care and

and on education and on looking after people. And I just, I want to say, and you're going to afford that how exactly, right? Like we need a prosperous economy in Canada to be able to do the things that are so important to us as Canadians. But key back into a prosperous economy and we need investment. I personally think that it's pretty great, that we have a prime minister who is so well connected globally that we now have such an extraordinary group of people with such extraordinary capability financially, economically,

and frankly also politically, all gathered in Toronto, the fact that they all had dinner at the art art gallery, of Ontario. I love the AGO, by the way. So I thought that was pretty cool. I think it's actually really impressive. What's going to come of it. We'll see. But I also want to point out to the naysayers. Oh, these are all foreigners, right? We've had several announcements just in the last week, Canadian banks, Canadian pension funds. I'm stressing Canadian investors coming up and publicly saying, we are putting in 50 billion here.

We are going to put in X billion dollars over here. We're going to set up a fund for X billion to focus on this for investing in Canada. This is spurring on Canadian investment. There is an element of, yeah, bring all these investors from around the world. But I see it encouraging some of the Canadians, the Canadian pension funds, the big eight. So it's actually very, to me, I think this is very much what the country needs. we'll see what happens in the details. We'll see what happens in the details.

Devil's always in the details. You just mentioned naysayers and I wonder if the next guy who's about to speak is one of them. No. No. Look, I'm not going to naysay potential domestic and foreign investment announcements. So why would I? You asked at the beginning, Steve, whether this was showbiz. Yes, of course, there's going to be a little bit of showbiz.

the prime minister announced that he wanted to get a trillion dollars. I'm presuming that's Canadian dollars or 720 billion U.S. dollars of investment out of this. So I'm presuming that's already baked in that these announcements will add up to a trillion dollars already, that that was already organized beforehand. And we're just seeing the fruits of that organization on an hour by hour basis. So that's fine. and the only other point I would make is that I think of the 100 invitees, 39 are U.S.-based investment organizations. So to the extent that this is a success, it's only going to be a success because Americans

are investing in Canada. Well, again, but that takes us back to our European Union conversation, which is to say one does wonder, at the end of the day, whether or not it's an audience of one that the prime minister had in mind as if to say Donald Trump, not only do we have other friends besides you, but even some of your fellow Americans are so excited about Canada right now. They want to come up here and do business with us. I'm not so much worried about what Mark Carney is trying to signal to Donald Trump on this particular matter. I'm more worried about Canadians sort of taking

the bait that our future is European. when our future really is North American. I'm sorry, but that's the reality. Of course it's both. It has to be all of the above. And I think, you know, Steve. The majority of it is going to be American. Because geography speaks volumes, right?

Of course. But I don't, I actually think that most people in Canada, including in the government, don't really care what Donald Trump thinks anymore. Because he's so unreliable. He's so fickle. I have said for months, our biggest allies,

our most important allies in this trade war are Americans. They're American businesses, American consumers, because the tariffs and the uncertainty are not good for them either. So the fact that we have such a significant number of significant potential American investors is really important for the overarching trade war because they're not interested in investing in a country

whose economy is being hurt by the American government and vice versa. These are people who would actually support free trade. These are people who, with their investments, would want to be able to say politically in the United States, this is nonsense, right? We've all benefited from NAFTA, from Kuzma, USMCA. And so I think that political force is also really important for us.

I take your point on that, but I wonder if the other side of the equation in this is all of these heavy hitters come to Toronto and they probably would be saying to the prime minister, look, we've been anxious to do some investing in Canada for a very long time, but your lack of productivity, your regulatory environment, exactly, your overly regulatory environment are things that, you know, send a signal to the marketplace that you're actually not that interested in us.

I wonder if part of the prime minister's motive here is to be able to sort of have some currency from all of these heavy hitters coming to Toronto so that he can go back to cabinet and say, folks, we got to change the way we do business here or else none of this stuff that I've just orchestrated is going to happen. Right. And I sure hope so. I sure hope so because, I mean, we've seen a couple of announcements in the last couple of weeks about some of the changes to the regulatory environment for some of the big projects.

Look, it takes, there's so many examples of trying to get a building permit or trying to get a project approved in the states, you know, nine months. And here it'd be seven years. We can't compete with that kind of stuff. do we need to figure out how to make sure we protect our environment from a rational, reasonable perspective, our indigenous communities, of course. But please, we have to get more competitive in how we do things. Yeah. And so I think that's really important what Martha's just said, that our regulatory environment is not fit for purpose anymore. And it deters investment,

especially large investments. The other thing that I think I would love to see Mark Carney tackle is our oligopolis, our banking oligopolis, our airline oligoplies, our telecom oligopolis. This also hurts competition and hurts productivity. And, you know, I think we've got to, everybody knows this, Steve. Somebody's got to do something about it. But that means that oxes are going to be gourd, right? And, you know, Mark Carney is very close to the bankers. I get that. But, you know, a little bit of competition, I don't think is for Canadian consumers to have lower bank fees. I'd be in favor of that. You'd be in favor of that. Okay. I want to raise now with you,

one of the things to emerge from this summit, and this one I suspect will be a lot more controversial than anything we've talked about so far. And that is the notion that the prime minister is prepared to sell off Canadian airports that are at the moment in public hands to outside investors. And I guess the question becomes, what is the, what is the virtue in selling our airports to private investors? Tony, you want to go first on that? Yeah, I mean, I think, again, it's a, it's a worthwhile idea. So the devil would be in the details. But the, the, the advantage of that, again, is outside investment. There's, you know, airports cost a lot to run and to recapitalize and to overhaul.

And can we get more foreign monies rather than the landing fees being the only source of the revenue, which means our costs are sky high, right? No pun intended for travelers like myself and others. So, yeah, it would be another source of capital. And there are plenty of excellent examples around the world where airports are run as a private public consortia or strictly by the private, you know, regulated, but by a private consortia. And Canadian companies have, have participated in that.

I know ACON, for instance, did that with Czech airports, you know, in Prague and elsewhere. So, you know, we, we as Canadians have invested in that, and I'm sure there are other Canadian funds that have also. And yet that kind of investment has not been open for Canada and Canadians with our airports. So as a matter of public policy, I think it is definitely worth looking into. Martha? I think it's, it's been a long time coming. I 100% support this effort. The private sector is better at running businesses than governments. And right now, we in Canada need to spend money, which does not grow on trees. We need to spend billions of dollars on our national

security, defense, and on our trade infrastructure. Some might say, say an airport is part of our trade infrastructure. Yes, it is, but we don't need a government to run it. And if airports can be run effectively, efficiently, and with good service, and it is, there is, it does matter if you run a really good airport. There are different airports internationally that have become hubs because they do their job really, really well. You know, people look, the opportunities for, for Calgary.

in Edmonton, for example, from an international perspective for doing more hub work, could be very interesting, for example. So to me, this is the high time. I would love, frankly, to see more of the government focusing on the things that don't necessarily, are not necessarily profitable, like investing in national defense and security with my tax dollars and let the private sector do more of what the private sector does best. So the airports are a great example. Okay. Since you two are sort of like minds on this one, I'm going to play the curmudgeon here. And I will play devil's advocate. I just got to keep looking down here at my

phone because I just got a text from the Minister of Finance's press secretary who says the economics of the assets the government holds is dumb in some instances. And I think the airports is part of some of those holdings that he thinks the government does not need to be into. New ownership structures like these, he says, are common, generally positive in other jurisdictions. I didn't know this. 75% of airports in Europe are privately owned. Right. And we all vacation there, says the minister's assistant here, and it's not the nuisance that we

fear that it will be. He says, too soon to criticize this, details remain, stay tuned. I'm going to put an example on the table, though, that I'm sure both of you remember well, and that is the government of Ontario, 35 years ago, built a toll highway that was both profitable and good to drive on. And then, Tony, the government that you were a part of decided we're going to sell that thing because we've got a bit of a budget shortfall here, and we can get $5 billion from the private sector to own it, maintain it, and run it. and after that, the costs to drive on that highway went through the roof. And beyond that, we now discover that the highway's worth, I don't know, 12 or 15 billion dollars,

not the five we sold it for. And people said if we had to do it again, we shouldn't have sold it, that it was penny wise and pound foolish. Well, they're wrong. Discuss. They're wrong. So here's why they're wrong. Number one, the highway itself doubled in length using private sector,

money. So it's not, when you're thinking of the 407 highway, it was a very short highway, sold for $3 billion, but the requirement for the, for the buyers was you had to extend the highway to its current extent. And they had to maintain the highway. That doesn't come from Ministry of Transportation dollars, hasn't for 30 years. It comes from the private sector, which saves the Ontario taxpayer billions of dollars. And furthermore, there's always another, I hate to, I'm not trying to ask people to eat cake, but you know, you can always use the 401. Nobody's forcing you to use the 407. So there is another route that people do have choice.

That's true. All of the 401's department. So all those things. I hear all the arguments all the time. I was the transportation minister when this was going on. Everybody thinks I did it. I don't know. I'm not the finance minister.

Why does everybody think that I made the decision? You didn't do it. The decision. Not me. But in any event, I do support the decision. and I think it has actually worked out well for taxpayers, but it has led to a group of people who constantly harp and criticize that this thing is in the private sector.

I guess that's always going to be the case if you sell an airport or sell LCBO or do whatever, you know, you're always going to get people that wanted the status quo ante. Martha. I think if it was not, if the process wasn't managed as well as could possibly have been, if we could have sold it for more. If we, and I'm not going to challenge Tony on the, on the details of it.

That doesn't mean it was the wrong thing to do, right? Hindsight is, is interesting, right? But I find hindsight, like Tony said, doesn't include, yeah, but they had to build it a lot, had to extend it. They have to maintain it. People tend to cherry pick on these things. Fundamentally, it's really important for us as taxpayers

to look at our governments to say, what is it that you can do best and what is it that you're not that good at? No, I take your point, but what happens if we get... But I just say, I think what happened, I think there were some concerns about what happened with the 407, but let's turn it the other way around and say, maybe the lessons learned in the 407 situation could help us manage the sale of four airports more effectively. I just wonder if we end up selling Pearson Airport and then suddenly all of

of these, you know, new airport utilization fees are going to find themselves in the cost of traveling. And unlike the current situation where I think the airport, you know, they've got to break even, obviously. It's a public organization that's sort of a public agency that owns and operates it. But, but they don't have to make a return to shareholders, the likes of which will be the case if, you know, a hedge fund, for example, were to buy Pearson Airport or Trudeau Airport in Montreal or whatever. Still going to be a regulated institution. It's still going to be a regulated institution. It's still going to be regulated. Absolutely.

100%. It's still going to be regulated. Look, when people object to privatization of hospitals and you go, 90% of what happens in a hospital is actually private, right? The food service, the laundry service, all of that. So much of it is already private. That jello doesn't pay for itself, you know. But that is a bigger concern. But that's my point.

That's a bigger concern because you're not going to be able to provide health care without taxpayer, money. We know that. That's a really great example of government needing to be involved. Air travel, not so much. And for like a decade, the extra fees for the Vancouver airport, as they were doing their renovations, were astronomical, but people still paid for them, right? I would, frankly, if you're going to sell the airports, maybe have some serious discussions about why landing fees, for example, are much more expensive than apparently many other airports. I think there's an opportunity here, Steve, just, and my hope is it makes sense. Let's make sure that the people involved do it well.

Well, that's it. Let's make sure we get a good buck for this thing. Because if Jamie Diamond thinks a small little Billy Bishop Airport on the waterfront of Toronto was worth $750 million, you know, Pearson's going to. got to be worth, I don't know, exponentially more. So let's hope it happens well. We got one more question for this tandem in just a second. But first, we want to do a little business here, and that is to say we do love the fact that so

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So thank you, Anne, very much for supporting our efforts here. Somebody else who wanted to remain anonymous, but just said, give a general shout out to Ashburn, which is in the north end of. Whitby, Ontario. I'd never heard of it, but I'm happy to put Ashburn on the map for a second time. Bruce Burchard from Toronto. Thank you for your support for what we're doing here. There's a fella named Mirko Petrichovich from Waterloo, Ontario. He says, I'm really enjoying your podcast, nicely done. And if you wouldn't mind mentioning Steve, that I lead ink-stained wretches, all the better. And ink-stained wretches is one of these really good groups that

advocates for press freedom and local journalism. They've got a website, Inc. Hyphen Stained That's W-R-E-T-C-H-E-T-H-E-S dot org. Inc-H-Stained Retchus.org. Check out what they're doing there. Jane Leslie, thank you very much for your help, Jane. I've really been enjoying your podcast. She says, I'm happy to subscribe. I'm in Picton, Ontario, in beautiful Prince Edward County.

It sure is beautiful out there. Jane, thanks for sending a few shackles our way as well. Patreon.com forward slash the Pacon podcast. And a reminder, of course, if you want to check out any previous editions of what we've done here, all of our shows are archived on the website stevepakin.com. We have now arrived at the time in our show where we like to offer somebody a good on you, as in good on you for doing what you did. And we really love it when you two pick somebody who doesn't happen to be in the political party

of which you've spent so much time in your lives. So Martha, start us off here. Who gets your good on you this week? Well, I get a double whammy of neither one is in the party that I was, I represented when I was in office. And just to be clear, we at the School of Public Policy have done a major report for the government of Alberta on the economic and fiscal impacts of a potential separation. That's about to be released. It hasn't been yet.

So I'm refraining on comment in terms of what it contains and my own personal views at this point on that. But the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, led by Candace Lang, has asked, had asked, and they have agreed, Jason Kenny, conservative, and Rachel Notley, NDP, to co-lead the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's campaign with respect to Alberta separation. And the fact that the two of them said yes, and are outdoing stuff together, I think is worth a good on you. They have risen to the occasion given the, well, what should we call it? Significant political antipathy, the two felt for each other before this. Yeah, good on them for doing that.

Thanks, Martha. Okay, Tony, who gets your good on you? Well, we were already talking about Prime Minister Kretchen, so that was going to be my good on you. But since that one is already taken by the start of our program, as you know, I was for various reasons in Nashville last week. And I just have to give a good on you to Governor Abbott of, sorry, the Governor of Tennessee, not Governor Abbott, the Governor of Tennessee, who signed off on Nashville International Airport, now being known as Dolly Parton International Airport. So I actually arrived.

I arrived at Nashville International Airport, and I left it being called Dolly Parton International Airport. And at Dolly Parton, it was such a treasure for all of us around the world and for her to be recognized in such a way. You've got to have a good on you for the governor and for everybody who made that happen in Tennessee. Well done, Tony. Well done.

Tony, you know what? Technically, you've broken the rules here because Bill Lee is the governor of Tennessee and he is a Republican. Right. So you're not exactly being- I'm not a Republican, Steve. Steve, I'm not a Republican. That's fair to say, although if you lived in the States, you wouldn't be. I'm a Canadian conservative.

Okay. In which case, we'll see if we can get your grandfathered in on that one. Kids, great to be with you as always this week. Martha Hall-Findley, Tony Clement. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, everybody. Peace and love and we'll see you next time. Peace and love.

Thanks, guys.