The Paikin Podcast - Frank McKenna: How to Deal with Trump

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Frank McKenna, former Premier of New Brunswick and Canadian Ambassador to the United States, joins Steve for this special edition of The Paikin Podcast in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. They discuss McKenna's experience as ambassador, dealing with George W. Bush, how he would deal with Trump, whether Trump's unpredictability is constrained by markets, and whether we live in a more dangerous time than the height of the Cold War. They then discuss Brian Mulroney's Meech Lake Accord, how McKenna regrets not supporting it, whether he regrets not running for the federal Liberal leadership, his $20-million donation to St. Francis Xavier University, and the world young people are confronting today. 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] 

Hi everybody, Steve Paken here, and welcome to Antiganish Nova Scotia and the campus of St. Francis Xavier University. We came to this university today because the former Premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna, just gave $20 million to this post-secondary institution. So we had a chance to interview him, at which time we also talked about a couple of things that were really animating him. First, Donald Trump. For our former man in Washington, our former ambassador to Washington, this diplomat had some fairly undiplomatic things to say about Donald Trump. Also, the one issue in his public life that to this day still haunts him. Find out what. Frank McKenna on the Paken podcast, one-on-one, coming right up.

Your wife, the last thing she said to me before I came up on stage was, be sure you ask him some tough questions, okay? So, whatever questions here you don't like, you can blame Julie. Exactly right. You were, do I have this right? You were the ambassador in Washington when George W. Bush was the president of the United States? That's correct. Okay. I think he kind of liked Canada in a way that the current guy doesn't necessarily like Canada. So let me ask, if you were down there right now doing the job of being our person in Washington,

what would you be doing right now today to advance our interests, given the reality of who's in charge down there? Wow. To start with, we've had a long history of, presidents and prime ministers who have had very respectful relationships. I had the privilege of talking to Bush frequently about Canada. We went there. I was there just after we made the decision not to go in the Iraq war with them, which was one of the great unforced error of our times, the United States invading Iraq. Jean Crechean made the call not to go away. It made the call on that, and boy, was it the right call. And this current crowd down there would be apoplectic about it. Bush was very cool and calm. He said,

Frank, I respect your prime minister and your sovereign country. You have the right to make the decision that you make. And I just thought that was wonderful. He was very respectful. I became a better friend and fan of Bush's after he left office. And I left office. We got to know each other. We got to do events together. A lot of people had a negative view of him in Canada. would be a little red meat for us, but he actually turned out to be a really nice, self-deprecating guy, a really good guy. How much did he care about the Canadian-American relationship? A lot, and he just followed in the footsteps of others like Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton helped save our country. People forget about the referendum in Quebec and how close it was, and Bill Clinton actually came here, I think was a Montebello, and gave a speech about this great country, Canada, and really put his fingers on the scale and helped us out. Obama has turned out to be a great friend of Canada's. In fact, I think we're seeing him next Friday night. He's going to be in Toronto. But he's a great friend of Canada.

We've always had great friendships. So what would I do with the current president? It's very difficult because he has such a narcissistic personality. People would say that he's got malignant narcissism, and I think that that is almost diagnosable. He needs constant attention, and he'll say the most negative things just to get attention. You know, when attacking countries, attacking personalities, somebody dies, and he demonizes them before they're even buried. I mean, these are not normal things. It's not normal behavior.

Speaking of which, it's not normal for a former diplomat to be speaking so undiplomatically. Are you okay with this? Yeah, I was never a very good diplomat. And, yeah. But I've been worse since. Look, I think Canada's playing it well. We were fortunate in his first term that we had Brian Mulroney, who never stopped working for Canada, quite frankly,

and worked on Trump and family and people that he knew there. on the part of Canada. And now everybody is working this hard in Canada. But it's so hard to remain calm and keep your cool when such provocative language is used. You know, your country contributes nothing. Your takers not give, you have nothing we need.

You have nothing that we need. We're going to make you the 51st state. I don't like Christopher Allen. She's a terrible woman. Your former prime minister, don't like him. He was a weakling and everything. It's just, this is not normal behavior. Trashing other leaders and trashing the memory of people.

So I think we're doing the right things. Keep calm, carry on, be respectful. Don't rise to the provocation. I was telling somebody, this is like having both of the Kachuk brothers playing hockey. You just got to, you've got to reason. resist the smack talk, the trash talk, and just play your game. And so that's what's going on in Washington now. It's just a lot of trash talk.

And the problem is that the president sets the tone, but everybody's trying to suck up to him. And so they're trying to be nastier than he is, which is a high bar. Have you ever met him? No, I did not. I've been in rooms with them, and I was supposed to go to Mara Lago when I was ambassador to an event, a fundraising event, and Global Affairs Canada said, no, no, no, we don't want you going there. If you had five minutes with them alone in a room, what would you tell them? What I would tell them is that we're not the enemy, and that we contribute as much or more

than we take from the relationship, and that we are all... stronger working together, Fortress North America, and that one and one really can make three. And that he would be smart to sit down with us and work respectfully on defense issues, on critical minerals, on energy security. We signed the original free trade agreement in 1979. I was a signature to that, and it was a controversial decision, but it was all around energy security. We provided energy security in that agreement. And then we went on to have the the tripartite agreement, which became NAFTA because Mexico became

Mexico. But we always gave as good as we talk. You have to realize the Americans do give us market access. We provide 4 million barrels of oil a day, which they transform into jobs. We provide 70% of their aluminum, which they turn into jobs. We provide their pot-outers. We provide their pot-out.

85% of it, which they turn into crops and jobs. We provide nickel and we provide natural gas. 25% of our natural gas goes to the United States of America. 36% of their tourism come from Canadians going to America. 100, no, 1,000 nurses a day across the border in Windsor, Ontario, going to work in American hospitals. We're givers, contributors in this relationship. And that's what I would want to remind them.

And the final thing that I would say to them, Mr. President, you should listen to your people. A week ago, in Buffalo, New York, a hockey game between Buffalo and Boston. And no other reason than out of respect for Canada, they sang the Canadian anthem at the hockey game. They always do in Buffalo. They always do in Buffalo. And when the sound system went down, our friends in Buffalo, New York are American, Canadian friends

joined together and sang the national anthem. That's what the relationship is all about. As persuasive as you can be, my hunch is he might not necessarily take the advice as well-intentioned as it was, and he doesn't seem to listen to Cabinet colleagues or advice from others as well, but he does like markets,

and he does listen to markets. Do you think markets are still acting as kind of democratic guardrails against some of his worst impulses? I think so. Unfortunately, a lot of guardrails have been destroyed. Supreme Court, one of them. It's become a partisan court. All the regulatory agencies now have become highly partisan. It was a very active attempt to make the Federal Reserve partisan.

And that's not healthy in a democracy. It's not healthy at all. And my hope is that Congress ends up acting as a governor. Haven't yet. No, they haven't yet, but we're getting into a pretty important time in terms of the electoral cycle where that could become more important. You've noticed three weeks ago there was a vote in Congress where a number of Republicans crossed the floor and joined Democrats voting for a resolution saying there should not be tariffs on Canada.

We do have friends down there. He also listens to the business community, and the business community know how corrosive and destructive it is, not to have a trade relationship with Canada. You know, we're biggest customers to each other, and I think that America is a stronger country by having us as their partner. So I think ultimately common sense will prevail

when he tried to do his reciprocal tariffs on the world, the market reacted badly, the market for bonds went crazy, and stock market crashed. So I think that ultimately will guide and make sure there's some common sense. Okay. Let's broaden our lens a little bit, look at the world, and by extension Canada's place in the world,

and that is, Janet Stein from the University of Toronto has said on this show that she thinks the world is a more dangerous place today than it was at the height of the Cold War. What do you think? Yeah, I'm a big admirer, Danison. In this case, I agree with her as well. And it's so, there's so much volatility and so much chaos. You've got North Korea with a nuclear weapon, not only that, but attempting to create long-range missiles that'll reach the United States.

You've got, at the core of this, I'll just say it again, we always said, for seven, we've had what we call Pax Americana for 70 years, where the United States was a force for good in the world and helped to solve problems and bring people together. The United States led in the construction of most of the multilateral instruments in the world. The WTO, for example, the WHO, for example, the United Nations, for example, the Paris Accords, for example, trans-Pacific partnership, for example. all of these wonderful instruments that help to mediate disputes and provide guardrails for relationships the United States headed them up they are now spearheading the effort to demolish them all

WTO is effectively destroyed the WHO as well they pulled out of the Paris Accords trying to crush NAFTA etc etc etc so you've got the policemen of the world gone rogue and that I think has resulted that in rogue players having license to do whatever they want. So you've got Russia with Putin, knowing now that the United States is not going to be a major obstacle,

basically trying to take over Ukraine and probably move into Eastern Europe. Fortunately, the Ukrainians are dying for us on the battlefield. And this small country, way smaller than the Soviet Union, the much smaller armed forces, are fighting the Soviet right to a standstill. Is there a role for Canada in the Middle East and what's going on there right now? Well, I think we'll have to pick our spot. You remember 50-some years ago, Canada was instrumental in the Suez Canal crisis. And we deserve and did receive a lot of acclaim for that.

I think that if we get to the point where hostility cease, we'll be part of a multilateral group that will help to keep the street of Hormuz open and government. But no, right now, we just can't get in the middle of a shooting more. It's a very irrational environment that's taking place now. Hey, folks, you know that Ottawa loves a great debate, competition, innovation, affordability. And if there's a policy angle and a panel attached to it, even better. But here's one thing that's really not up for debate. Canada's banking sector is anything but static.

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For all the essential information, head over to this special website. CBA.ca.ca. forward slash trust. That's cba.ca.com slash trust. And now back to the show. Can I take you down memory lane a little bit? I want to, I mean, we're here in the Maritimes, and I want to ask you some questions about your time in public life. You were the Premier of New Brunswick from 87 to 97.

When you left office, was there one thing, where you said to yourself, dang, if only I could have been around for a little longer, I could have got this done, and I didn't get it done. Yeah, you know, it's a very good question, and you can drive yourself crazy on reflecting on what more you should have done. But I pretty well blew out the gas tank. I entered public life knowing I was staying for 10 years, so it became a sprint for me.

It was never a marathon. It was a sprint. So we were taking everything on and built a new highway system and introduced kindergarten and balanced the budgets and created an investment management corporation to manage the public money and a corporation for shared services and all of the things that I cared about. There were a lot of things I would have liked to have done. I probably would have wanted to tackle the universities at some point and tried to bring some daylight into the governance of universities.

Well, you did mention that in your speech. You said it's time they get the cobwebs out, right? Yeah. And they haven't done it yet? Nobody. It's the same problem everywhere. Universities, such a force for good in so many ways. But in a world now that's going at warp speed, I think universities have to move faster and

be more responsive to the societies in which they exist. And by the way, we talked here. Andy talked about liberal arts education and you know this university and that's why we have to be very agnostic about who will get these high-end scholarships because we

might end up giving a scholarship to the next Sir Jeffrey Hinton who's the founder of AI but we might give a scholarship to the next Margaret Atwood as well or we might give a scholarship to an ethicist who tells us about the implications of AI

because at the end of the day we We just can't, we need broad-minded citizens. We need people who are not only capable of linear thinking, but of people who are capable of bringing all of the pieces together as well and leading society. Because, you know, as a politician, Lisa knows this. If you were just rational, you would say, look, I want to fire 50,000 people, I'm going to increase taxes, or I'm going to balance the budget,

and to hell with you all. But when you go door to door, you find out people who are vulnerable and who are hurting. And you'll see somebody at a door who's got a 50-year-old adult special needs person. They've been looking after their whole life. And then you start to say, well, maybe I don't know everything about this. So it's a lot more complicated, and you need people that have a big view and a wise view of the world. We should just say for the outside audience here, you're talking about Lisa Raid, who is former conservative cabinet minister and the chair of your board.

here. And a wonderful contributor to Canada. I do want to ask you about your relationship with Brian Mulroney, since we are at a university that you two both attended and your names are on various institutions at this university. And I know you ended up being great friends, the two of you, a couple of Irish Catholic boys, as you describe yourselves. But, okay, here's where I get my, Julie, here's my first mischievous question, okay? It wasn't always that way. When you got elected as the Premier in 87, he was in the midst of trying to put together the Meach Lake Constitutional Accord and I think if memory serves you were the first Premier to kind of criticize that and to say hmm not sure about this true or false

true and he didn't love you for it true or false who he did not love you for doing that true or false he did love you for doing that just let me take you back we ended up ultimately adopting the Meach Lake of court. But we took time to do it because I had not been elected during the course of that, and I had all kinds of people saying we need to improve the protection for Acadians, et cetera, et cetera. It was the biggest mistake of my life. Brian Mulroney deserved to have Meach Lake implemented, and by taking time, I permitted others to enter the race to enter the, the, the, to enter the debate who ended up being much more critical.

Clyde Wells, Newfoundland. Clyde Wells, namely. Gary Filman to some extent, but Gary Filman would have been fine. But by me taking more time, I ended up allowing Clyde Wells to come and destroy the accord and take away from Brian Mulroney what would have been his greatest achievement. So that's been a regret of mine all my life, okay? Number one. But number two, Brian Mulrooney never.

demonstrated to me the slightest bit of malice about that. The first day that I was elected, the first day that I went to a first minister's meeting, made a point of walking down from the chairman's chair and walked up to me and threw his arm around me and put his ring down next to mine and he said we're just going to get along great and what can I do and he was like that the entire time I was in public life. He was the best friend Atlantic Canada ever had. He's the one responsible for paving our four-lane highways from Edmondston, New Brunswick, all the way down here to Anaganish. He's the one responsible for the bridge to Prince Edward Island.

He's the one responsible for Ibernia. He's the one responsible for ACOA and so many things here in Atlanta, Canada. And we never, in spite of the fact that I was wrong and was not, you know, I've learned a lesson from then. I'd tell premiers now, I'd like to tell any premier, if somebody's taking a hill a great, great cost, don't screw it up. And that was the mistake I made. And in spite of that, we became great friends, and we had no politics came between us, ideological issues between us, and we had St. of X binding us together.

And I dare say that we talk probably every week, right up until the week that he died. And there were wonderful conversations between two people who I think respected each other and shared a common bond and a huge amount of respect. Why do you think he forgave you for ruining potentially his greatest achievement? Well, that was Brian. He was a big person. And he was an Irish Catholic, and he believed in forgiveness and redemption. And I think he knew that I was not motivated by malice. I was a strong supporter of all of the elements of Meach Lake,

and I think he knew that I just ended up being elected into an environment that was difficult for me. He respected that. But I've spent the rest of my life trying to atone for that mistake. Well, while we're on the subject of regrets, I'm going to ask you if you have another one, and I'm going to take you back 20-plus years. There was a moment when you thought hard about running for the federal liberal leadership,

and had you run, I for one think you would have won it and you would have become Prime Minister, and you opted not to do that. Any regrets about that all these years later? No, I have no regrets about that. I was lucky enough three or four times to get close to the altar. In fact, Brian encouraged me a number of times, and Prime Minister Kretien was good enough to encourage me a number of times.

I said, to Kretien, I said, I'm not sure I'm smart enough for this job. Frank, trust me, you don't have to be all that smart to do this job. But, no, look, I had 16 years of public life. And that's 16 years where you're not the best husband, not the best father that you should be.

And I wanted a chance to reclaim some of those years. And I wanted to have really wonderful years with my grandchildren. And so I was able to get out of public life with, I think, my honor intact. And as we say in the firm, once you escape the trap, don't go back for the cheese.

So I'm totally comfortable with my decision. Okay, very good. And we'll be back right after this. Let's do a few more minutes here on the event that has brought everybody in this room together here. And that is, the very first book I ever wrote was called The Life, the seductive call of politics. And I got that title, you won't even remember this,

but I wrote this book 26, 27 years ago, and you gave me the title. It was during my conversation with you when you talked about how much you missed the life, the life of a politician. I wonder if, as a kid, growing up in

Apahawk in Southern New Brunswick, 78 years ago, and famously had to live it as grandparents' home because you had so many siblings, you all couldn't fit into one house. Could you ever have imagined being in a position to contribute $20 million to a university? No, never. No, I mean, the truth is just never. That would have never crossed my mind.

No. Look, I was lucky. I grew up in a big family and a poor family, but we were close. We were family, and we all worked together on the farm, and we all worked. I was reminiscing with Tim Hines. the law of numbers, you know, we had 10 our household. He had 13 siblings, 13, and his parents, so 15 in that household. So that was the nature of the communities that I grew up in.

And no, I never would have thought that possible, ever. I mean, those are astronomical numbers. Well, that's my follow-up question. Because if I've been asked at once, I've been asked it 20 times today, how does Frank McKenna have 20 million bucks to give away? Yeah. What's the answer to that? Yeah.

Well, the answer is... is that I don't. Does Sane effects know that? No. A little late to tell you, I just signed a big I owe you over there. No, but my kids do. Don't you? No, look, I've worked.

I just want to say something. The reason I wanted to do, I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I grew up. I never complained. We always had some food in the table, and we had cousins in Boston, gave us her clothes and everything. We looked like unmade beds, but we always had clothes. But I was the luckiest guy in the world. I had three heroes when I was growing up. I had Louis Robeshoe. It was a wonderful premier of the province in New Bruns. Very inspiring. And I got to replace him. My second hero growing up was Rocket Richard. I adored him.

I always wanted to play hockey for the Montreal Caneans. That was my real ambition. I loved Rocket Richard, and I was on a board with John Belavu once, and he knew how much I loved Rocket Richard, and he brought Rocket Richard in, and Rocket Richard said, Mr. McKenna, I've always wanted to meet you. And I kind of swooned. I wanted to meet him, and the third hero I had in my life growing up was Yvonne Durel,

who was a world champion boxer and it's from New Brunswick and everybody loved him and I had a chance to defend him on a charge of murder. So I was lucky in life and I became premier of the province of New Brunswick the people in New Brunswick put faith in me on that and then Ambassador to Canada and I just vowed that any time I could give back

I was going to give back. And then I ended up being in positions where I would make money and we didn't need money. because we live very modestly. So everything that I made stayed in the bank. And so I am here today as the poster child of the miracle of compounding. And I keep telling my children and grandchildren, if you just take a buck and put it in the bank and compound it over time,

it'll, well, Chuck knows. It turns into a lot of money over time. of money over time, right? And so the miracle of compounding. So all of the money that I've made has been since I got out of public life and I've just left it all on the table and just rolled it over and over and over. So we're happy to do this and we're going to be doing lots more things giving back until the day we die. Well, I know you do give to Manne Allison in New Brunswick and the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas and University of Moncton. And University of Moncton. Okay, so you do do stuff for New Brunswick.

Yes. But does it cause any difficulty for the former Premier of New Brunswick to be giving away $20 million to a university in Nova Scotia? People, I think people know what my passions are. So I did give $5 million to UNB, and we've created the McKenna Institute at UNB, and we've raised $80 million. So they haven't done shabbling. So they're okay.

Right. And at Mount Allison, I gave a million, but we raised 10. So they're okay. But it's not just that. It's just, and our family all agree on this. We meet and we talk about it. We've put together a foundation and we're growing it. And we have two obsessions, things that we care about.

One is St. of X. It's the kind of family school. and then everything New Brunswick. So we put a million dollars in the Merrimachia a couple of months ago and we've got lots more that we'll be giving. New Brunswick will be the focus of all of our giving. You know, where I live in Toronto next to my good friend, David Peterson, on Gibson Street, and I've got a lot of wonderful friends in Toronto.

And in Toronto, everybody has a lot of money and they give and give and give. but here we don't. We don't have a lot of people. There's only a few who give. So I've made it clear to all of my friends. There will be nothing in my life for Toronto. You don't need it. Everything in my life is for New Brunswick and St. of X. And they get that. And they do get that. Let's finish up on this. You did mention that this place is very much in a way the anchor for your broader family. And you perhaps not facetiously said in your speech earlier that although you are making an historic contribution, of this place, this weekend is really all about two grandchildren of yours who are going to graduate

tomorrow from St. Effects. I get the feeling, though, that back in our day, we had more fun, going to post-secondary. I get a feeling that when we graduated, we were not traumatized by what was waiting out there for us in a way that they are today. I wonder if you could just conclude by saying what concerns you have about the world that your grandchildren and others are graduating into right now, which just seems a whole lot more screwed up than the world we graduated into. Well, that's interesting.

I don't know where, Al, you guys are right? Yeah. I think it's fair to say that you've had lots of fun. Hey, Hannah, I don't think you guys have missed out on the fun part at all. at university. But what you said, Steve, I think is true and not true. So we were here during the Vietnam War. And we, some of our classmates were Vietnam veterans who were back here on campus.

And this was a seething cauldron of activism, like all universities across North America. We were caught up in that. And it was extraordinarily traumatic. that period of time when so many young people were either draft dogers, we had draft dodgers here and Vietnam veterans here. And it was a very dynamic environment and I remember it well. The other thing that we had an issue, you laugh at this, I think, because it's not an issue today, but when I was here,

I was the head of the student council. And this was the, I did Meach Lake, Free Trade, where I was very supportive with the prime minister is doing, I've been the middle of Kuzma negotiations, everything under the sun, but the most traumatic, and I did half a dozen murder trials, but the most traumatic moments in my life were a student council president trying to get girls in our room. The big issue at St. Avex then was what we called open housing and the ability for us to have females in residence, okay?

And we had priests running this place. And I was a young Catholic. I had a scholarship to come down here and be a priest. That didn't work out very well. But so the church was really important in my life. You know, I wasn't a crazy Catholic, but it was important. When the priest said something, you know, that mattered to me. You might meet them in confession next day.

And getting along is the difference between 1,000 our fathers and 10. So I was caught there, but the students were moving on and we wanted open housing. So that was a fight to the death, and it was a really traumatic period of time. It was so traumatic for me. I ended up getting strep throat and ended up in the infirmary here and everything. It was a really stressful period of time. The ultimate irony is that my oldest grandson, Jay, who came here, was the head of his residence. And he called me up one day, and he said,

look, you've got a lot of experience with same vaccine. Can you tell me this? And I said, how do we do this? And I said, how? He said, we would like to get girls out of our residence. I said, you're asking the wrong guy here. But isn't that funny what goes around? Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I know you want to join me in thanking Frank McKenna, not just for his contribution today, but for this interview. Thank you very much.