Mm-hmm.

Uh, with voters over the age of fifty-five, sixty percent say they would vote Liberal if an election were held tomorrow.

If Mark Carney pulls off this thing that I know you talked about earlier, and maybe we'll talk about a bit, this thing of moving us closer to the EU, whether it's associate membership or not.

If he pulls off some big announcement with the EU, given the polling that I'm seeing on how Canadians feel about the EU when they don't actually know all that much about it, I think his polling would go even higher.

So Mark Carney has-- His polling's going up 'cause he's fighting with Donald Trump.

He is in opposition to the Trump administration, to the United States of America, and voters are rewarding him for taking on that fight.

But when the talks broke down on April-- or sorry, on August 21st, it didn't break down in a fight.

... more intertwined there, and he's got a, a list, a grocery list of ways in which he would like to make that happen

I know that." And then, "So don't react." "Okay." And then he says something and they can't help it.

So, you know, emotions drive politics, and a lot of people don't get this.

Conservatives especially don't get this because...

Although I would say the whole country doesn't get it at this point.

Um, but conservatives will often try and argue with facts and figures and everything.

Um, and the reality is people vote based on feelings, emotions, uh, how, how, how much you, uh, annoy them, how much you inspire them, how, you know, do they, do they like you, do they appreciate you? And so, you know, I look at the Leger poll done for Postmedia that I was writing about the other day.

Uh, we've got 74% of Canadians saying that they back the counter-tariff measures.

Yeah.

He talks to the media all the time.

Yeah.

So, look, when I was Ottawa Bureau Chief for News Talk 1010 a thousand years ago, I took part.

You know, it was a bunch of... media the gallery on Parliament Hill was really upset at how Stephen Harper was holding some of his news conferences and so the gallery a bunch of people in the gallery staged a walkout and I participated and Dave Trafford who was news director then tore a strip off me and said nobody cares how you do your job just do it your job is to be there if they're there but I also know that over the years there have been plenty of events of prime ministers premiers that don't in you know where the media is not there we're not invited to everything and it's not our right to be there That said, if Doug Ford's going to broadcast it on his YouTube channel and stream it across X and other platforms, make it look like a media event.

Media should be there.

Otherwise, it looks like something dodgy is going on.

If it's just going to be a close thing for stakeholders and city officials and for everyone to gather and talk, don't.

Do you think Olivia Chow has a problem here that she looks like either she doesn't like Jews or she just doesn't care what happens to them?

A lot of people were going to believe that.

Well, I mean, there's some reality to it.

We can hate the tariffs all we want.

He brought them in to move production to the United States.

And so the numbers that I pulled from official government stats, which I still believe that the statistics agencies in both of our countries are sufficiently independent enough that it's not going to be swayed by the politics.

Between January 2025 and this past month, we're talking in...

Autos, 12.9% increase.

But you write, we've spent years tearing down names, statues, and history, and now we're furious because Trump's doing it to us.

And I think let's fold into that the fact that we now know that Saskatchewan is not going to extort the Americans for potash and Daniel Smith of Alberta is not on board in trying to use oil as a pressure tactic either.

No, but there is the idea that is being floated and supported by those same Western premiers saying, you know what you could do is change where you're getting your natural gas from in Canada, starting around 2009.

Ontario and Quebec's natural gas, and we use a lot of it here.

Almost every home in Ontario is heated by natural gas.

A lot of cooking fuel is natural gas.

Around 2009, as fracking started to get more popular throughout the Appalachia Basin in Pennsylvania and Ohio, we started moving towards their cheaper gas.

It's not cheaper at the wellhead, But by the time you transport Western Canadian natural gas to Ontario, this stuff becomes cheaper.

But in that case, then he's just sidelined.

Uh, does-- is it having any impact one way or the other?

So generally, I would say that it's, it's the wrong way to behave, and I've, I've written that, said that to the premier, like, the, y-you know, because he's-- at times he's been taking shots at Trump when it wasn't necessary, uh, just like Mark Carney will, but Carney is not as, uh, abrasive about it.

He'll, he'll make sly comments about Trump.

And when trade talks are going well, I, I, I don't see a point in doing that.

Why, why do anything that annoys the people that you're negotiating with? But in this context where the talks have broken off, where Trump is making all kinds of loud claims and being belligerent himself, being belligerent back, well, uh, you know, uh, people have said before, "Oh, uh, Donald Trump doesn't even know who Doug Ford is." Let me assure you, he does, and the fact that he was, uh, posting about his brother yesterday and how D-Doug Ford isn't as good as his brother Rob Ford and, uh, you know, taking personal shots at him, he knows exactly who Doug Ford is and, and has for a long time.

Mm.

So we should be getting rid of that.

Related to that, what about getting rid of Bill C-sixty-nine? Which is the no-- It's dubbed the No More Pipelines Bill, but it also gets in the way of new power plants.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it depends on what happens over the next three days.

So, uh, Trump didn't say no more tariffs.

He said, "We will implement them.

We'll keep talking, and if things don't happen, we'll implement them on Saturday." So 12:01, August 22nd.

That'd be Saturday morning.

Um, the problem for us right now is that we don't really know much from the Canadian side, and what we're getting is all coming from the American side.

Yeah, so the headline is, "What did Carney give up to get tentative deal with Trump?" And as you've just been saying, we don't have any idea.

No, it wasn't.

And it's very frustrating.

And so the province had to change the regulations to turn it this way.

What does the Toronto Star do? They turn and they look towards someone from the Parkdale legal community system who says, well, this is clearly xenophobic and this is clearly racist.

And the Star actually went with the headline, Ford government accused of xenophobia for going after temporary residents, undocumented migrants on social assistance.

And then they say, but there's not that many of them.

Okay, but this tribunal ruling opened it up for a lot more people to go on it.

Legally or illegally.

Right.

But being an elected official, having to, uh, leave your home, leave your family, head to Ottawa, head to Queen's Park, head to wherever the legislature is, be there for the week, go home.

You're not seeing your family.

You are doing events constantly if you want to be reelected.

It is a sacrifice.

And, um, y- you know, in terms of Brock, you know, he- the hope he, that he had was that he would be part of a new government that would have a different view on, uh, criminal justice, and that he would be able to, uh, affect change.

Now, of course, they didn't win.

Um, I will accept that, but, but generally speaking, no, you're not gonna live in the lap of luxury at $30,000 a year, but if I could get somebody to give me an extra $30,000 a year when I retire from here, that'd be pretty nice.

Donald Trump never honors his agreements, and his trade people are belligerent.

Well, Howard Lutnick is belligerent.

Uh, Jamieson Greer, who's the actual trade negotiator, is a serious person, and I still think that if you put him and Jenna Charette, our chief negotiator, in a room and said, "Okay, you guys figure this out," they'd have it solved in a day.

Uh, unfortunately, there's politics at play on both sides.

And yeah, Donald Trump is belligerent.

So is Mark Carney.

So is Doug Ford.

[laughs]

Is, uh, is that the sign of a politician who is really not sure of himself?

I'll say this, uh, politicians by default wanna be secretive.

They wanna keep everything quiet.

Justin Trudeau, if you remember, he was elected in 2015, and he made us all nauseous with how often he promised open and transparent government, and then he wasn't.

Um, but Carney takes it to a different level.

These, all these MOUs, international agreements, we are strategic partners with China, we're going to be sharing, um, information with Chinese law enforcement.

W- wait a minute-

He's a bum.

I mean, was the seat in that much jeopardy if the Billy Bishop expansion had stood?

stood?If Mike Layton jumped in and ran a full campaign against the Liberals, look, if Mike Layton jumps in, you know, former city councilor, son of the late Jack Layton, stepson of Mayor Olivia Chow, if Mike Layton jumps in, there's a good chance he's gonna win whether Billy Bishop is on the table or not.

Um, Beaches East York is a fairly progressive leaning riding.

Um, it, you know, you're gonna have to be a left-wing liberal or a new Democrat to win that for the most part.

How Brad Bradford was able to do it, I'm not sure at, at the municipal level.

But, you know, uh, federally, I, I, I think it's going to go to the Liberals or the NDP.

So it's, um, Tevnier who's, um, I believe I've got his name right, who is Nathaniel Erskine-Smith's former s- uh, constituency office manager, is running for the Liberals there.

The dump day.

know that they're not going well.

Yeah, but they don't tell us anything.

We find out from the Americans.

We don't know anything.

I was talking with somebody who close to that operation said, we don't know any details.

I can't tell you if it's good or it's bad.

The woman that is now the chief operating officer in the prime minister's office.

But is he a politician when you are dealing with a Republican president? Is it smart to hire a Democrat to run your whole office?

Right.

Trump's whole thing this week of announcing more tariffs on us was a body check to say, "Get to the table with some ideas." And you heard it from US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

Um, you know, Mark Carney's claiming that he has put forward comprehensive and detailed proposals, and Greer says all we're getting is, uh, letters saying, "We'd like to talk some more." And, and, and Greer says, "No, we, we have been talking.

Let's get to a, uh, a solution." I've, I've talked to people on, on the American side of these talks and, uh, the Canadian side of the talks, and they all say, except Carney, they all say Greer, in his interpretation of this, is correct.

We're not putting forward meaningful pr- proposals because we don't want to engage.

And so the Trump administration said, "We'll make you engage or you're gonna get more tariffs." Um, you know, and you were talking about the, the lack of unity.

I know they're all putting on a good face with the premiers meetings.

Um, did the Americans do this? Did Donald Trump make this threat of 50% tariffs by August 19th to force Canada to come to the table? W- is this part of their strategy? And, and number two, the question is, um, is patience a virtue? Even if we know what our strengths are, we know what cards we have in our hand, uh, is patience still a virtue or should we be more active in this going forward, in your thoughts?

Hmm.

Uh, the latter part you can imagine.

It is backed up all the time.

But you have other bridges that you can go to.

They don't have that in Windsor, and especially for commercial traffic.

There is a tunnel connecting Windsor and Detroit, but, you know, it's not meant for, you know, big semi-trailer trucks.

So for years, the Canadian side has been trying to get this bridge built.

... yeah.

... who knows with Trump, right? I mean, you can look at him the wrong way, and all of a sudden he's pounding his table and, and, uh, sending more things that sometimes we see happen and sometimes he's, uh, is just all bluster.

Mark Carney was just speaking with reporters on Parliament Hill as, uh, you were in the news break, a- and he was saying, again, the same thing he said in the, uh, letter that he released yesterday, that Canada has submitted detailed, uh, proposals to the United States.

That's not what I'm hearing from anyone in the inv- uh, involved in the talks, Canadian or American, and Jaymes and Greer, Donald Trump's trade representative, was out on TV this morning saying the Canadian proposals normally just amount to, "We will be happy to continue discussions or engage in this." [laughs] And they said, "Look, on things like dairy, we want a fix." Every time dairy comes up, Deb, Canadians say, "Well, we don't wanna, you know, get rid of supply management," or they wanna sell us bovine growth hormones.

We have an agreement under CUSMA that the Biden administration also said we were violating CUSMA because of the way we hand out the quotas.

They have a certain amount of quota of worth of cheese that they can sell to us, but we give that quota to Agropur and Saputo and all the big Canadian dairy firms who will not import the American material because they don't want to, uh, have any competition.

With the Europeans, retailers can say, "I wanna buy brie from France," and they can bring in extra brie.

The, the Americans are saying, "You're treating us differently than others." They actually have a point on this, and this could be an easy win for Mark Carney to say, "Fine, we'll honor the agreement the way that you believe it should be done, but we want the tariffs removed." He's not doing that.

Are we sure we know exactly how we got to that point and what the deal is?

Yeah.

And it's also surrounded by, um, a lot of industrial park development.

So it's not like it's going into a low-rise residential neighborhood where you've got bungalows and two-story homes and, "Hey, uh, we're gonna put in these 33 and 45-story condo buildings." Now, this is a parking lot adjacent to the Whitby GO train station.

It's, uh, at the Brock Street exit in Whitby for people that don't know the area, but that'll help you place it.

It's...

You know, so it's not going to disturb anything.

Also, there is a lot of development going on just south of there in Port Whitby.

Mm-hmm.

So it looks to me like, uh, net, the money's going out, not coming in.

A- and with this uncertainty, it becomes more difficult to, uh, bring in more companies who are looking to invest, because they want the certainty of the access to the American market.

We're a good-sized market.

Um, and we're a, you know, a strong, healthy, you know, compared to other parts of the world, relatively strong, healthy economy.

Um, we're a leading economy, and so people want to be here, but part of why they invest here is that access to the, uh, United States market.

So Honda's decision not to expand in Alliston, in part driven by uncertainty around access to the American market.

Uh, Toyota's decision not to go ahead with, uh, uh, an expansion out in Wilmot, Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, due in part due, uh, to economic uncertainty.

He's put in place some, uh, Ontario-generated, uh, tariffs and actions.

So I went looking

and I pulled up one of your latest pieces.

This is from Saturday, Vancouver Condo Kings data, sales at generational lows, prices falling and a $3.2 billion rescue designed to halt the correction towards affordability.

So that $3.2 billion, the government rolled this out so badly that both David Eby and Mark Carney had to admit, we explained this badly because everyone took the $3.2 billion.

And this is their fault, not ours.

They didn't explain themselves correctly.

People looked at the news release.

Let me ask you, because

Yeah.

Um, I, I've spoken to people at the highest levels of the Navy who say that they're on board with the idea of a, of a mixed fleet.

Uh, some in the government push the idea.

But I've also had others tell me that no, Mark Carney and the people around him at the top, such as, uh, the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, and, uh, Carney's Chief of Staff, uh, Marc-André Blanchard, that they're so Eurocentric that they're definitely going with the German bid.

We'll find out at 4:00.

Um, naval officials that I've spoken to say both submarines are good, they're capable, they can do the job.

So regardless of what the outcome is, uh, it is, uh, a win for the Canadian Navy.

How much does a submarine cost, Brian?

All right, so tell us what the plan is, uh, from, from your perspective, what the real plan is.

So, uh, there, like in Toronto, there was a glut of condos in, um, Vancouver.

I believe the problem's probably even bigger in Toronto than in Vancouver.

But what they've decided to do as part of their housing plan with the province of British Columbia, um, is, you know, they're doing the normal things like they're doing with Ontario, which is a fund to lower development charges, but still give the municipalities money that they need for infrastructure.

Um, we know here in Toronto, ch- and Vancouver is not that much different, that development charges have gone up and up, and that creates a, a barrier to housing because if a third of the cost, uh, before a shovel's in the ground is, uh, you know, fees to the local government, it makes houses less affordable.

But what they also said was that they're going to buy 2,200 condos, con- empty condo units that have not been sold.

They're gonna buy them from the developers and turn them into affordable housing units.

[laughs]

What if they figured out in England, let's say, how to make an EV for kind of the price that China is pushing? Would you be against importing EVs from England?

No, but that's not going to happen because they don't use slave labor.

They don't, uh, subsidize the product.

They have...

There's another problem with Chinese, uh, vehicles.

Um, at times there are components that are made with slave labor, forced labor.

We can't really be allowing that sort of thing in while denouncing it and passing laws against it.

Um, so what is the answer here? To have the government just say no completely to China? Um, and is that the only country you're worried about?

Do you think that's a bad idea or is he, in fact, as a premier, in, in his lane, so to speak?

Um, it depends, and I'm not trying to be political here.

Uh, premiers can and should be going to Washington on a regular basis and not during, just during troubling times like this.

There's a reason that MPs from all parties also go to Washington on a regular basis.

Jamil Jivani's, uh, you know, uh, visit a couple of months ago should not have been controversial.

The liberals decided to make political hay out of it.

MPs from all parties go all the time.

Can we point to successes?

In fact, almost avoiding any questions that have come his way.

way.So, [laughs] you know, M- Mark Carney is, um, i- in favor of the term technical recession now, but when he was governor of the Bank of England and he was asked to, you know, there was talk that, uh, Britain was going into a technical recession, he said, "Well, the definition of a technical recession is technically that you have two quarters of flat or negative growth, and that is simply a recession." So [laughs] he called it a, um, an actual recession when he was bank governor in Britain, uh, and now he wants to, to hide behind the term technical.

I didn't like it when the Harper government tried to claim it was a technical recession in 2015.

Back then, most of the media spent their time explaining to you why it was a real recession.

Now most of the gallery in Ottawa are spending their time telling you, "No, no. It's, it's, it's just a technical recession." Well, as the Conservatives ad say, "Oh, so you're technically unemployed.

You're technically homeless." Um, i- it doesn't matter which measure you're looking at, the economy is weak.

I mean, they were crowing about the jobs numbers on Friday, and they said, "See? See? We have job creation.

Uh, I, I don't know how far it'll go, but this seems like a good move to me by the feds.

But you can't do anything about the fact that some people are bad people, but you could not accommodate them.

That's true.

And so conservatives were asking questions about this program, and they've asked for a crackdown for quite a while.

This is the program that back when Jason Kenney was Stephen Harper's immigration minister, that they changed because the program gives people access to health benefits that Canadians don't get from their, uh, provincial health plan.

So it's actually a better health system than what you will get when you do leave and go on the provincial plan.

You get your physio paid for, you get your eye care paid for, psychotherapy, wellness counseling, home care visits, all these things are paid for.

And so back in the Harper years, they tried to, uh, make the, the program more in line with provincial health systems.

Why isn't it like that?