The Paikin Podcast - Morning Brief: Carney’s Alberta Concession and Trump in China

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Steve Paikin and Caryn Ceolin discuss Mark Carney’s expected industrial carbon pricing deal with Alberta, the political balancing act around western alienation, and Donald Trump’s meetings with Xi Jinping in Beijing as the war in Iran continues. This is your Morning Brief for Friday, May 15th. 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] 

Happy Friday, Karen Cieland, Steve Paken with you. It was a late night for you again, Steve. I know you were up late listening to Drake's new album. That is not what I was up late doing. No, I'm afraid not. No, last night it was Master Ceremonies at the Donner Prize, which is a great literary prize. Tony Keller from the Globe and Mail wrote a great book about immigration,

about how we turn the taps on too much, and now we're turning them off, and he won $60,000 from the Donner Canadian Foundation. So start writing your books, Karen. Start writing your books. There's money to be made out there. I don't know if I can live up to that. That's an incredible achievement.

Not bad. I couldn't tell you one Drake song. Is that terrible of me to admit? I'm so sorry. Maybe don't admit that. I think I just did. What's going on in the news? Well, Prime Minister Mark Carney is in Calgary today.

He's expected to announce a lowering of the ceiling on the industrial carbon price for Alberta. It's expected that the two sides have reached an agreement where Alberta will now have to reach an industrial carbon price of $130 per ton by 24. I mean, that is a significant come down from the previous federal mandate of $170 per ton to be reached by 2030. I mean, this is not a small thing that the prime minister is doing for Alberta. I mean, does it signal that Alberta is calling the shots right now in Ottawa? Calling the shots, I think, is putting it a bit strongly, but it certainly suggests that Alberta has the prime minister's attention

and that as far as he is concerned, he is being, I think he's being extra judicious because he well understands that 300,000 signatures on a petition is a significant number, and he doesn't want to do anything to stoke the fires of separation. Having said that, I found the most interesting thing he said yesterday had nothing to do, actually, with that, and had to do with his reaction to the court decision, which said that the whole separation referendum had some legal issues.

And the prime minister came out and said, a day after Premier Smith of Alberta said that the whole thing was anti-democratic, the judge's decision was anti-democratic, The Prime Minister said, you've got to take Indigenous rights into account if you're going to do something like this. So I find that an interesting, a bit of a shot across the bow at the Alberta Premier, but yes, the numbers are, the numbers are, the numbers are what the numbers are, and they've got to figure all that out. Yeah, and it certainly puts the Prime Minister in a challenging spot. I do want to return to the issue of the industrial carbon price itself, because I wonder if the Prime Minister risks perhaps irritating other provinces. I mean, this was a point that was raised by Premier David E.B. of BC.

He said, look, we, for instance, compete with Alberta for resource projects. If they've got a lower industrial carbon price than we do, like that is something that a project proponent is going to consider before moving ahead. And so other provinces, he says, are now at a competitive disadvantage, and they're going to be competing with Alberta for investment dollars. But Alberta's got the lower price. Karen, that's all true. And now I'm going to give you a very fancy-pants political science,

that I learned 45 years ago at the University of Toronto, but which is true today. We have in this country something called asymmetrical federalism, which means not every province is treated equally, right? Quebec is treated differently on a whole host of issues, and it may well be that Alberta is going to be treated differently as it relates to this issue here.

Asymmetrical federalism means not every single province is treated exactly the same way. And it does give, that's just the way we've governed this country, ever since 1867. And if the prime minister in his judgment believes that a certain province needs a special or different or distinct deal that's different from the other provinces

in order to keep peace in the family, he may do that. Does it present a challenge for the prime minister, though, if other provinces start putting up their hand being like, hey, we want the same deal as Alberta. Of course it does. And this is the joy of governing Canada. This is one of the most difficult, decentralized,

I was almost going to say impossible, not necessarily impossible, but difficult countries to govern in the entire world because of the separation of powers. And every prime minister faces this at some point in his or her tenure. Hoping we can return to, because we spoke earlier this week about Donald Trump's visit to China. He's wrapped up that visit now today. Two days of talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Two things stuck out to me. One, the president didn't appear to make at least publicly any concessions on Taiwan.

I'm sure that comes to a relief to Taiwan. and its supporters in Washington. The other thing, Xi Jinping didn't appear to take a more public role in wanting to help the president and the war in Iran. I mean, what were the takeaways for you? He went further than that, actually. The leader of China said this was an ill-advised war that should not have been started in the first place. And if the president of the United States thought that the leader of China was going to come to his rescue and say some things or do some things to help him out of the pickle that is of his own making, I'm not sure we saw that.

You know, it's an interesting compare and contrast, which is what I often like to do on these segments. Almost 10 years ago, Donald Trump took his first trip to China during his first term and walked into China in a much stronger position. And today, you know, he's finishing up a trip in which he looks, frankly, like the weaker partner in a deal. Iran's a mess. None of the things that he wanted to achieve in Iran appear to have been categorically

achieved. I know he took a, you know, a superstar fleet of business executives with him, and he will no doubt be championing all of the so-called progress that he thinks he's made as a result of this trip. But to me, the first trip to China nine years ago seemed to be a lot more successful than whatever he's coming home with on this one. Yeah, China is certainly stronger today. Xi Jinping has a central amount of power in Beijing.

I mean, would China not feel as emboldened? had Trump not alienated allies like us here in Canada, who see China now as kind of a position of global stability. I think the big question is, are the United States and China enemies? I don't know that we know the answer of that question. There's certainly adversaries. There's certainly competitors for primacy in the world right now. Are they enemies?

Some days, some days they are. Okay. Listen, I'm away a few days next week. Top of next week. I'm on a road trip. So I will see you Thursday of next week. Okay. We will see you Thursday.

Enjoy your long weekend. Thank you. We'll try not to. Okay. Bye, Steve. See you. That was your morning brief for Friday, May 15th, 20206. Now let's see what the rest of the day has in store for us.