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The Current Transcript for February 3, 2025

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: If President Trump wants to usher in a new golden age for the United States, the better path is to partner with Canada, not to punish us.

MATT GALLOWAY: The Wall Street Journal calls it the dumbest trade war in history. As promised, US President Donald Trump brought in tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Saturday night, the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, responded with retaliatory action. In just a moment, the Finance Minister, Dominic LeBlanc, on the shockwaves coming to the Canadian economy and what our relationship with the United States looks like now. Also this morning, you could understand why the news of late could turn someone to drink. Coming up, your mail on dry January, a mostly sober lifestyle, and nuanced conversations about our relationship with alcohol. Plus, digital divorce.

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AD: Estonia, a small Nordic country, started building a digital society about two decades ago. Today, Estonia is one of the most advanced digital societies in the world.

MG: Estonia has digitized all government services. You can do everything from vote to pay your taxes and say farewell to an ex with the click of a button. In an hour, what it would take to bring that kind of online efficiency here where we're still lining up in-person to renew a passport. But we begin with the fallout from a weekend that threatens to reshape North America. Buckle up. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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TARIFFS

Guests: Dominic LeBlanc, Carlo Dade

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[singing, child crying, booing]

MG: The sound from hockey rinks and basketball arenas on the weekend as hockey fans and basketball fans booed the American national anthem. On Saturday, US President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on virtually all Canadian goods due to start on Tuesday, though energy products are getting a lower 10% tariff. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made his announcement of how Canada would respond, he was flanked by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, and Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of finance and Intergovernmental Affairs. Prime Minister Trudeau spoke with President Trump this morning. We spoke with Dominic LeBlanc before that conversation.

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MG: The Bank of Montreal says Trump's tariffs hammer will come down hard on the Canadian economy. How bad is this going to be?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: I think it's going to be very tough. Provincial governments and the Department of Finance have looked at various scenarios. What we don't yet know is how quickly Canadian businesses will be able to respond. Some sectors will be able to respond more easily than others. But I think we shouldn't underestimate. If you take the auto sector, the auto parts sector, for example, in Ontario, or I'm talking to you from Moncton, New Brunswick this morning, people are fishing lobster in the Bay of Fundy now, and 70 or 80% of that catch gets sent to Boston. So you can see the price went up, will go up by 25% tomorrow. So big and small sectors of our economy are going to be hit in a difficult, in a difficult way. Our government, of course, responded with some counter tariff measures that we can escalate over time. We're convinced, Matt, in the end, the Americans will conclude that it's not in their economic interest to continue this kind of back and forth. The Wall Street Journal editorial this morning I thought made the case very well, but we're in for buckle up, I think, as your introduction said. We're in for a bit of a ride. But the Canadian government and the provincial governments I think will do everything necessary to support the economy and Canadian workers.

MG: You looked Donald Trump in the eye at Mar-a-Lago, and there has been endless…

DOMINIC LEBLANC: That's a pretty pompous way to describe it. I was at a dinner that he hosted.

MG: Well, you spoke with, at the very least, you looked at him and you spoke with him. And there has been endless kind of shuttle diplomacy back and forth. There have been these videos of what's going on at the border sent down to try to catch his attention as well. I just wonder why you think the efforts of Canada failed to persuade him to change his mind.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: So I've asked myself that question, Matt, and I think my colleagues have as well, because you're right. We made a considerable effort, premiers made a very considerable effort to speak directly to Americans, American leaders. We think we have a good story to tell on border security, on the increased work that the RCMP and CBSA have done in recent weeks with their American partners, the idea that there's a difference between Canada and the United States and the common desire to fight against the horrible effects of fentanyl or the Mexican cartels or other organized crime groups that traffic those drugs. There's no daylight between Canada and the United States, [clears throat] excuse me, in wanting to fight that kind of criminal activity or the horrible effects it has in Canadian and American communities. So you're right. If that was the pretext for these tariffs, we think that that argument should be rationally resolved. So then therefore, one asks the question, well, why did they go ahead with this decision on the weekend?

MG: What's your answer to that?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: I’m not a psychiatrist. I've asked myself that question. There is a thought that in his administration, there's a belief that tariffs per se are a great economic policy. It'll generate revenue for the United States. Sure. They're applying them to other countries, China, Mexico. They're threatening to do it with European countries. It's an interesting intellectual conversation or discussion to try and figure out why they're doing this. The focus for us, Matt, has to be okay, they've done it. What do we need to do to respond to get Canada out from under this circumstance as quickly as possible? And as we go through it, what do we need to do with provinces and territories and other partners to support Canadian businesses? So we're really going to focus on that. But I'm going to go down to Washington and see, for example, the incoming commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick. He told me the day after he's confirmed he'd be happy to spend the morning with me in Washington and go through all of this. Prime Minister is speaking to President Trump this morning in about 45 minutes, I think. So there still is a lot of ongoing conversation, but we want to see results from that. And you're right. We're frustrated because up to now, we haven't got the result that we think the American economy and the Canadian economy require.

MG: Do you think there's any wiggle room? I mean, in that conversation with Donald Trump that the prime minister will have, is there any wiggle room, do you think, to avoid these tariffs coming into place tomorrow?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: We don't think so. As I say, the conversation I think is going to happen shortly. But the president said, we took note of what he said publicly at the end of last week, or I think it was on Friday or Saturday, that there's nothing that Canada or Mexico could have done to avoid this. So he said that himself, which, as you say, sort of is a bit contradictory from the idea that if we could show them and work with them to tell the good story about border security in collaboration with American law enforcement that's been the case in Canada for a long time, they would be reassured and these tariffs wouldn't happen. So there's a lot of contradiction in much of what is said publicly, but we can spend a lot of time being distracted by that. The prime minister will make the case to the president this morning why this is putting at risk decades of economic and security partnership and will hurt Canadian and American businesses in a way that's totally unnecessary. We'll continue to make that argument. I'm convinced in the end, it will prevail, because it's in the American economic interest to not sort of get into this rabbit hole. But now that we're in it, we've got to go through it, and we've got to do it in a way that supports Canadian businesses and the Canadian workers.

MG: Does the fact that energy tariffs are just 10% compared to 25 suggest that the visits that Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, has made have paid off in some ways, that there is, that there are other strategies to try to deal with this?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Premier Smith has certainly been advocating for that circumstance herself. Canadian business leaders, I was in Calgary last week, met with Premier Smith, but the CEOs of many of the big energy companies from Alberta. I think it's also a recognition, Matt, that the Americans are dependent on Canada for much of their energy imports, not just oil and gas. That's the obvious one, but there are critical minerals from Ontario. There are rare earth minerals from western Canada and northern Canada. Energy, there's electricity that comes from Ontario and Quebec, but not exclusively Ontario and Quebec. So it's energy defined broadly. The recognition by the differential perhaps in the tariffs tells us that as an input into their own economy, a tariff is in and of itself negative for their economy. Many of the CEOs that I met with in Calgary last week said that their concern was that American companies were simply going to say to these Canadian companies from western Canada, you're just going to eat that 10% tariff because we're not going to pay more. That's one of the challenges of having a captive market if so much of the resource gets sent to one client. You don't have to be an economics professor at University of Toronto to know if you have one customer that buys 90% of your product, perhaps you don't have the best chance to negotiate a good price. So that's one of the challenges that Canada has faced for a long time. And what the Americans did on the weekend just lays that issue wide open for Canadians.

MG: There are people who are very, very anxious about what the next few days will hold. I heard Flavio Volpe, who represents auto parts manufacturers, this morning saying that he believes that by the end of this week into next week, you will see assembly lines shut down in Canada and in the United States. What is your government going to do to help support Canadians who could be out of work, perhaps even temporarily, by the end of this week?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: So we're very concerned about that. I had the chance to hear Mr. Volpe at our cabinet retreat in Montebello, Quebec, a couple of weeks ago. And I know he's been very much engaged with our government in exactly that context, in describing probably one of the first sectors and a critically important one for the Canadian economy that's going to feel the impact of this bad American decision. We've said all along that, and the government of Ontario, Premier Ford, has been also very clear with us privately but publicly that his government would be there to support businesses and workers that are going to face this circumstance through no fault of their own. There are existing federal programs, Matt. Employment insurance is obviously one of them. We can adjust some of the criteria, some of the access to benefits. There's changes we can make around work sharing to allow more workers to remain employed, to share, in other words, the economic risk with the businesses. All of those programs are being looked at. Like literally on the weekend and today, we have the ability to immediately put in a number of flexibilities in existing programs. I can, as the finance minister, ensure that there's liquidity in the economy, that businesses have access to the money they need to continue to operate.

MG: What about for people who worry about their rent? I mean, will there be direct supports to people who worry that if they're not working, they can't keep the lights on in their house?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Well, as I say, there are programs that exist now to support those workers. And if we need to have different programs that meet a particular need, we will. So we'll do what is necessary to ensure, to your exact question, that these workers are not, through no fault of their own, in an untenable economic position. So we've said that we'll be there to do what's necessary, and that's the case. The good news is a lot of those programs exist now. And if we have to have different ones in partnership with provinces that will very much want to step up, then we absolutely will do that as well.

MG: I know we're short of time. Let me just ask you a couple of things quickly. One is are you confident that this Team Canada approach is actually paying off, that the country is actually speaking with one voice? Because as we've heard, there are business leaders, there are chambers of commerce, there are premiers who are saying things that seem to go against the narrative that the federal government is putting out, that seem to be talking in a different way. Are you confident that we're all speaking with the same voice here?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Look, in an open democracy, you're never going to have everybody saying the same thing, and different sectors of the economy and different representatives of different groups of workers will feel and see the impact of this differently. So that's not surprising. But the basic premise, will the country remain united in the face of this economic threat? I'm absolutely convinced we will. I was very, very encouraged by the conversation with all 13 premiers we had on Saturday, late afternoon. I participated in that call with the Prime Minister. There was very much a desire to maintain a common purpose. And some premiers who perhaps have expressed previously different preferences were very much united in that purpose. So and I was and came back to New Brunswick from Ottawa yesterday, Matt. People on the airplane between Montreal and Moncton sort of saying, you know, we got to stand up for our country and don't let the Americans push us around. These are just people. There really is a shared, I think, common purpose in the country, and I'm convinced that that will endure.

MG: Let me just ask you briefly about that. What do you make, I mean, Canadians are angry. You would have heard that on the plane. You would have heard that in Moncton, New Brunswick. What do you make of how Canadians are responding, not just booing anthems, but I mean, how people are responding in terms of talking about cancelling vacations to the states, looking at buy Canadian policies? What do you make of how we, we as Canadians have responded to this?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: So it's quite touching, to be honest. It's quite moving to see how people who aren't policymakers or business leaders or representatives of large groups of workers in their own daily routines and in their own decisions as consumers are wanting symbolically and substantively to do something to support the common cause. It's that provinces are taking the alcohol, spirits and wine and beer from the United States off the shelves in provincially run liquor commissions. I was at a restaurant in Moncton last night, and the owner told me that he's taken off the menu, all of the California wine that would have been available. They're not serving anymore. His take, he's taken it off the shelves in his restaurant in Moncton. There very much is, I think, a grassroots effort to show Americans, but to show one another that we're in this together. And to your point, the workers that Mr. Volpe would represent should be moved that the premier of Nova Scotia is going to apply a more expensive toll on American licensed plated vehicles between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It's everybody's trying in their small way to say to the Americans, you know what? Decades of friendship and partnership economically and from a security perspective can't be thrown out because a particular president decides for a reason, it's not particularly clear, back to your earlier question, to do this to the Canadian and American economy.

MG: A busy day for you. I appreciate you taking some time to talk to us, and hope we talk again as this unfolds. In the meantime, Dominic LeBlanc, thank you.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: It's always a pleasure. Thanks for having me on your program.

MG: Dominic LeBlanc is Canada's minister of finance and intergovernmental affairs. Carlo Dade is director of trade and trade infrastructure at the Canada West Foundation, also incoming director, the Centre for Intergovernmental Policy, the School for Public Policy at the University of Calgary. He joins us now. Carlo, good morning to you.

CARLO DADE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How bad is this going to be, do you think?

CARLO DADE: So it's of all the scenarios that we have been studying in terms of possible tariffs from the US, this is close to the worst. Had the 25% tariff been extended to energy, it's not just oil and gas, all forms of energy, it would have been worse. But certainly, this is going to be one of the more severe shots we've experienced. It's worse than the last time the Americans did this to us in 1971, when the across the board tariff was only 10%. So certainly, there's economic modelling to show that the damage will be severe.

MG: As you understand it, I mean, run us through some of the scenarios in terms of what that's going to look like. We talked about automotive and the fact that assembly lines could shut down within days, certainly. What about other sectors in broader manufacturing and farming? The minister was talking about fisheries, for example, in Atlantic Canada. Walk us through what you think is going to happen.

CARLO DADE: Sure. So it's going to be highly dependent upon sector, as you've mentioned, but also businesses. So, for example, if businesses have taken precautions, and unfortunately, there's no sign that many Canadian businesses have done this. But for instance, stockpiling goods ahead of the embargo could help to knock the embargo of the tariffs, could help delay the onset and give businesses some time to readjust. But in agriculture, certainly. Beef. Beef is as integrated as automobiles to some degree. Maybe not seven or eight times crossing the border, but at least two or three. Each of those times crossing the border will, of course, incur new charges. So we're probably looking on something along the lines of what happened when the Americans imposed country of origin labelling rules and the beef industry took, I think if I remember correctly, around a billion dollar hit over a year. So that's certainly going to be a major impact. Oil, my colleague at the U of C, John Winter, did a modelling exercise, a redone modelling exercise from the last time we had blockages shipping oil to the US. And there, I think it's hundreds of thousands of dollars a month that were projected to lose. So you go sector by sector and the damage certainly is there. And the ability to move to other markets, well, we've got the experience with the blockage of canola in China to show just how difficult it is to move supply and production chains.

MG: Canada has announced two phases of retaliatory tariffs. There are calls for Canada to hit even harder. Chrystia Freeland, who is hoping to lead the Liberal Party, said that there should be, for example, 100% tariff on Tesla, that if Elon Musk is trying to sell cars in this country, as a close adviser to the president, he should feel this. Do you think Canada is doing enough in the face of what was announced by Donald Trump?

CARLO DADE: Yeah, Tesla. Look, there's only so much we can do. Our tariffs are largely symbolic. They're not going to deliver real economic impact or pain to the Americans. Take bourbon. We've announced that we're going to tax or put a tariff on Bourbon, Kentucky, thought to be highly important. It's a $9 billion US industry. Canada imports about 30 million. So you go across the board, our ability as a smaller economy to harm an economy as large as the US with a market that is 340 some million consumers is really, really, really limited. So the tariffs are more symbolic. If we were to cut potash, that's the only product we really have on which the Americans are fairly uniquely and highly dependent on Canada. 87%. They import 90% of their potash. 87% comes from Canada. You can't grow corn and other crops without it. But were we to do that, we would essentially be threatening the Americans with starvation. So we've got to be really careful here that we don't invite even greater tariff action or other punitive measures from the Americans. So it's a really difficult balancing act.

MG: I have to let you go, but Donald Trump's only been president for two weeks.

CARLO DADE: And we've got 250 more to go. Unfortunately, we had time back in March. Had we in March when he seized the Republican nomination began preparing, it was clear that tariffs were coming. You had Oren Cass on the show, and thank you for doing that. That's going to be one of the most consequential conversations we've had. But we would have understood what Dominic LeBlanc, who still doesn't seem to understand. The tariffs were coming. We're not dealing with the US We think we know. So yeah.

MG: Right. Buckle up, as we said earlier. Carlo, thank you very much.

CARLO DADE: My pleasure.

MG: Carlo Dade, director of trade and trade infrastructure at the Canada West Foundation. Your CBC news is next, and then we'll come back to this story. Our national affairs panel awaits, and we'll head to Windsor, Ontario, to talk about that city's relationship with Detroit and the auto sector that’s based there. That’s coming up in six minutes. Stay with us.

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TARIFFS

Guests: Drew Dilkens, Stephanie Levitz, Ryan Tumilty

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

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DOUG FORD: Ontario alone, we're the number one trading partner, number one customer per se for 17 states, and number two to 11 others. We do $500 billion of trade on both sides of the border, split equally down the centre.

MG: That's Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaking with CNN over the weekend. One of the Ontario communities that sees much of the business he mentioned is Windsor. Drew Dilkens is the mayor of Windsor, Ontario, and head of the newly formed Border Mayors Alliance. Mayor Dilkens, good morning.

DREW DILKENS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You told The New York Times that these tariffs would be, in your words, life altering and completely catastrophic for your community. Why did you use that language?

DREW DILKENS: Because I sincerely believe that any sustained tariff of 25% for any period of time is going to have a dramatic impact on the auto sector and the egg sector in my region. And so this is going to cause big ripples in the fabric of my community. And that is why we formed the Border Mayors Alliance, because communities like ours are going to be hit first, and we're going to be hit the hardest.

MG: How quickly will those ripples be felt?

DREW DILKENS: Well, no one's quite sure. It's expected within a matter of weeks, I would say not months, but weeks. You will start seeing the auto manufacturers adjust their inventory as the price of vehicles start to rise. Depending who you believe, the price of a vehicle is going to go up between 3 and $7500. And so even if it's $3000, that's going to have a bit of a chilling effect on the consumer market. People are going to wait in the sidelines and say, let's just see what happens here. Let's not spend that money right now. This may be short lived. And they're going to sit on the sidelines, which will have manufacturers adjust their output, which means people will be going on layoff. And it could be a very, very painful time while things start adjusting.

MG: The executive chairwoman of the auto parts maker Linamar has said that auto production could shut down in North America within a week. Does that timeframe seem reasonable to you?

DREW DILKENS: I would certainly defer to Ms. Hasenfratz’s judgement. She certainly has her finger on the pulse of the auto industry and the parts sector. But when you hear a company like Linamar make a comment like that, I think we should all lift our head up and open our eyes real wide because it's a very telling piece of the story, what those who have billions of dollars invested, how they're seeing this particular decision by the president of the United States.

MG: And so what are you telling people in your city who are going to see if these tariffs come into place, their life altered?

DREW DILKENS: Yeah. Listen, I think this is all about sticking together. I believe in the Canada first approach. I believe in not eating our own here and, you know, and becoming very difficult between different levels of government. We have to have one unified approach as a country. We have to make sure, and I believe the prime minister's approach with retaliatory tariffs is the appropriate one. I believe the consumers approach to look at buying Canadian is also an appropriate one. And I think what you see even the Border Mayors Alliance doing is reaching across the border to mayors on the US side to try and activate and amplify their voices for their communities who are going to also feel the pain and the impact in a negative way, amplifying all of these voices in the chorus that get to the president of the United States to say this trade war is going to have casualties on all sides.

MG: What are the conversations that you're having with people on the other side of the bridge or the tunnel in Detroit? Are you speaking, for example, with the mayor of Detroit?

DREW DILKENS: Yeah. So we've been reaching across from coast to coast in the country. We have over 20 mayors in the Border Mayors Alliance all the way from Surrey, BC, all the way to New Brunswick, with many stops in between. So we are reaching across the border. And it's not just the mayor of Detroit. It's the mayor of Dearborn, Sterling Heights, where there are many places in Michigan where there are cities with automotive factories. And it's about amplifying their voices and making sure that they understand what the impact will be. I mean, if you look at US media, just do a scan of US media, there's a small story, but it's certainly not top of the fold headline like you see all across our Canadian media because we understand what the impact is going to be very, very acutely. It's almost a side story at this particular point in time. And I tend to believe that folks are just in disbelief, like this can't really be real and certainly, is this really going to still happen tomorrow and how long will this actually last for? Because it makes no sense. You know, Matt, on one of your sister shows on CBC I was listening to over the weekend, and one of the guests described this I thought very appropriately. He says, what we basically set up with this tariff or what the president has set up is a circular firing squad. And I thought that was a perfect, perfect statement to describe this situation where everyone's going to lose. No matter where you stand in that circle, you're going to lose. And it's just hard to imagine an elected official wanting to do harm to those that have actually brought him into office.

MG: Although many people, I mean, I spent a lot of time in Dearborn before the election. There are many people there who voted for Donald Trump who wanted the reshoring of the auto industry. Presumably, they had a sense that this is what Donald Trump was going to do.

DREW DILKENS: Yeah. So let's talk about that. That's really interesting. And the reshoring of the auto industry, the repatriation of all sorts of manufacturing and the threat of using tariffs to accomplish that goal. The most senior well-recognized economists around the world will tell you this is a short-term issue that may have some minor benefits in the very short term, but long term is destined to lose because the value of the US dollar will go up. They will sell less to the rest of the world, and it will actually have an undermining impact. The tariffs will have an undermining impact to what it is the president's trying to do, that there are other ways. If you want to repatriate production back to your country, there are other ways to do that. But a wholesale tariff on your two largest trading partners or your three largest trading partners is not the way to go about it.

MG: We’re going to be down in Windsor later on this week to do the program from there. And one of the things that we're interested in is telling Canadians about the relationship between Windsor and Detroit in some ways as a microcosm for the relationship between Canada and the US. For people who aren't familiar with your part of this country, how close is that relationship?

DREW DILKENS: Well, I always use to use the example of, you know, during COVID when we had lots of conversations about the proximity and the border being closed. I say from my office to the border crossing, the Windsor-Detroit tunnel is literally about 200 metres. And so from where I park my car over to one of my favourite restaurants in Detroit with a Nexus card is nine minutes door to door. And so Detroit for us is just an extension of our backyard in the city of Windsor. That's where the football teams are and the concerts and the dining and the shopping. All of that exists really, really close to the border. And so everyone has built up their life really close to the border in this community because they have access to all the major amenities on the other side. And it's just a, it's a good quality of life.

MG: So is that relationship different now? Do you see somebody having built a fence through your backyard?

DREW DILKENS: Well, certainly, it's an act of aggression by the president of the United States, but I certainly don't hold that against my American friends. Between the countries, we are each other's largest trading partner. There's no two closer friends. We share the world's longest undefended border, which, you know, is nothing but a series of fortified gates. There's no fence along this, you know, world's longest undefended border. And so it's not the people of the United States. It's one person pushing an agenda that is misguided, that will not have the impact that he hopes it will have and actually will have the opposite. It will undermine not just people in my country and in Mexico, but will undermine his own citizens that voted him into office. And it'll be interesting to watch how fast he reacts once those folks start paying more for everything that they buy in the United States as well.

MG: Drew Dilkens, good to speak with you, and looking forward to being in Windsor later this week. Thank you.

DREW DILKENS: Look forward to seeing you, Matt. Thank you.

MG: Drew Dilkens is mayor of Windsor, Ontario, head of the Border Mayors Alliance. And as I mentioned, The Current will be down in Windsor later on this week, hopefully coming to you live from that city on Thursday. To help make sense of everything that's unfolded over the course of this weekend, we thought it prudent to bring together our national affairs panel. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in the Globe and Mail's parliamentary bureau. Ryan Tumilty is a politics reporter for the Toronto Star. Good morning to you both.

BOTH GUESTS: Good morning.

MG: Stephanie, Justin Trudeau is set to speak with Donald Trump in a matter of minutes, apparently. Donald Trump has signaled not to expect much to come out of this call. Last night as he was returning to Washington, DC, he was adding things to the list of grievances in some ways, talking about how American banks aren't able to operate here, that the Americans can't sell dairy in this country. What do you think is going to come out of this call, if anything?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: That's a great question, right? I mean, the Canadian government for the last several weeks has been on this full court press with the Americans trying to present facts to them that say, you know, if you impose these tariffs, here's the implication of this. You are arguing that you're imposing the tariffs because of fentanyl. Well, here's how much fentanyl. You're arguing that you're imposing these tariffs because of illegal migration. Well, here are the actual numbers on that. None of these facts actually matter to US President Donald Trump, it appears, or certainly have not stopped the imposition of these tariffs. So the question is what are these two guys going to talk about this morning? What case does Justin Trudeau have left to press with Donald Trump? Or is it going to be another round of actually, these are the reasons I'm imposing the tariffs. And if you don't do another set of things, they're going to stay in place.

MG: Ryan, it's interesting. In speaking with the finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, just earlier, he seems to be trying to wrap his head still around what exactly the United States and what Donald Trump is looking for. What is this about? Do you think that there is any clarity on what this is actually about?

RYAN TUMILTY: You know, I think people are reaching for other things for this to be about because those things could be solvable. But I think we're getting pretty clear indications that this is about Donald Trump wanting to raise money for the US Treasury. These tariffs will be bad for the economy on both sides of the border. That part is clear. Every economist you talk to says that. Donald Trump does not like being unpopular and he's about to raise gas prices and grocery prices. But it will also bring in a bunch of money to the US Treasury that he can then use for a promised tax cut. And, you know, I think it may be the time for Canada to start opening up to that possibility that this is about, this has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the president's own policy.

MG: Where does that leave us then?

RYAN TUMILTY: It's a great question, and I'm really glad I'm not finance minister right now. It's going to be very difficult. And I think ultimately, what, you know, I don't think through the time we have seen Donald Trump as president, in his first term and now in his second term, what we consistently see is a man who does not enjoy being unpopular. And he is willing to lie about his popularity when he is unpopular. You know, we saw that in his response to the 2020 election. We saw that on the first day in office back in 2016 when he lied about crowd sizes at the inauguration. What he is doing, though, is likely to make him unpopular. There are a lot of businesses that are going to lose out a lot of Canadian business. There are a lot of American consumers who are going to end up paying high prices. I think at this point, you know, Canada has to make the case that what he is doing is going to be worse for him than not being able to proceed with that tax cut because he doesn't have the money.

MG: It’s interesting. There are comments coming out from the White House Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, saying we've noticed that Mexico is serious about Trump's executive order, that Canada appears to have misunderstood the language in Trump's executive order, and that Trump has given Canadian and Mexican politicians an enormous amount of leverage. Stephanie, do you think there is any wiggle room to avoid these tariffs coming into place tomorrow?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: No, because it doesn't seem, as we've sort of already discussed, what's the wiggle room? This idea that we've misunderstood, it's pretty clear. Here are tariffs. They are being imposed. What's to misunderstand in this equation? You know, to pick up on Ryan's point, if there's wiggle room, it's going to be not in the calls that Justin Trudeau has with US President Donald Trump. It's going to be the calls that hopefully everybody is having with state governors and the governors going to Donald Trump and saying, hello, this is a Republican state and this is what you're about to do to this Republican state. That kind of pressure is going to take time to build. I mean, as the mayor alluded to in your previous interview, Matt, the imposition of these tariffs will take time to trickle down through the economy. It's not as though they're going to be, you know, put in place immediately, we will all feel the pain on everything immediately. This will roll out over time. And at this point in the game, it really feels like we're looking for a solution we can implement at the national level sort of immediately to stop this. It's no longer an immediate game. It's going to be a medium to long term play for the Canadian government to try and get these tariffs removed.

MG: Steph, what did you make of the prime minister's speech on Saturday night? A speech that in many ways was initially targeted towards Americans. He spoke to Canadians as well, but he tried to speak to Americans. What did you make of that?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: It was too long until he started speaking to Canadians. To think that US President Donald Trump is watching, with all due respect to CBC or CPAC, at 9:00 on a Saturday night, that's not happening. It feels like we're at this inflection point in Canada that we're on the verge of, if not already, into a national unity crisis exacerbated by an economic crisis. The messaging now needs to be internal focusing, explaining to Canadians, okay, here's what we think is about to happen. Here is what we're doing to try and not just mitigate, again, the imposition of the tariffs themselves, but any economic damage in the meantime. If we're getting all the way to the end of that before the prime minister is saying, hey, you know, we've got this under control, I can say, Matt, you know, over the weekend, every community chat group I'm in, all the mom chats, everyone was panicking. Is there going to be a run at the grocery store? What about toilet paper? If I'm going to Florida for spring break, if I shop there and bring it back, is that suddenly going to be more expensive? There's a lot of anxiety here in the Canadian public, and I think lots of folks are looking to their leaders to address that anxiety and help deal with it.

MG: Ryan, a venue where that could be addressed is in parliament. Parliament is not sitting right now. If it were to be recalled, what could happen considering the possibility of a non-confidence vote that could bring down the government and trigger an election in the middle of all of this?

RYAN TUMILTY: Yeah. I mean, the Liberals, the government has the tools it needs for its initial response to these tariffs. So, you know, the government can bring in tariffs on American products as it intends to do without Parliament. What it can't do without Parliament is spend that tariff money on Canadian jobs, on Canadian communities, you know, put it back into the hands of Canadians to limit this economic blow. They need parliament for that. I think the open question here is what would happen if parliament comes back? Because all of the opposition parties have said for some time now that they will bring down the government at the first available opportunity. And if they do that, this government can do even less to respond to tariffs than it can do now. So this is not ideal timing. I think the fact that the prime minister is, you know, in his last couple of weeks on the job is not an ideal time. But I also am not sure that recalling Parliament is the magic answer unless there is some sort of negotiation between the government and the opposition parties.

MG: Do you have any indication that those opposition parties are interested in working with the government on this?

RYAN TUMILTY: I mean, the Conservatives have put forward ideas. I don't know if those ideas trump an election. And the NDP, though, has certainly sounded more open to working with the Liberals in the past few weeks on a tariff response than they were in early January.

MG: Stephanie, when he was asked Saturday night whether he would recall parliament, the Prime Minister said we have the tools to support Canadians at this time. You just heard the finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, talk about how EI could be expanded. Perhaps there could be other programs put into place as well to directly support people who, as I said, I mean, are worried about, and what you've heard, worried about keeping the lights on, worried about buying groceries and being able to afford the vegetables that we might get from the United States. Are those programs and the plans and the tools that the prime minister talks about, are they sufficient in this moment?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: We can't know because one of the things that could in theory happen in Parliament is scrutiny of those decisions, accountability for the decisions that are getting made. I don't mean to cast any shade on the civil service, which I'm sure is working, you know, overtime to try and come up with plans and programs and policies here. But in a democracy and in a Westminster system of government, we are supposed to have accountability to parliament, which is to say that the prime minister is supposed to be able to put things forth, and every other political party which represent in this case the majority of Canadians, Matt, ought to be able to have a say on that. The partisan bun fighting that has been our parliament for the last few months raises questions about whether that would be possible in today's parliament. But there is room for scrutiny of these decisions and absolutely accountability for them. And both of those things are lacking at the moment, at least in the public eye.

MG: Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, spoke over the weekend from Vancouver. Have a listen to a little bit of what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: We are in this state because we sell twice as much to the Americans as we sell to ourselves. These interprovincial barriers are destructive. They kill jobs. They drive up consumer prices, and they cost the average family $6000 a year. Let's knock them down.

MG: Stephanie, where does this situation leave Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: It leads them in a place where the idea this is a change election, which is, you know, Canadians are just simply tired of the Liberal government. They're ready to vote in somebody new. For a while, that narrative meant that there was no, maybe from the Conservatives point of view, how much policy do they have to put in the window? How many ideas do they actually have to put forward for Canadians? How much evidence need there to be that Pierre Poilievre was in fact ready to become prime minister? The situation now has changed in that regard. There's pressure on Mr. Poilievre in a way that I think did not exist prior to present as a Prime Minister in waiting to propose ideas. Just take this away from this is all Justin Trudeau's fault, he has ruined the, you know, he has ruined your life, to more of the change narrative, which is here's what I would do differently and why you should vote for me. Because the story has changed. The ballot box question has potentially changed. We could be in an election that is about economic disaster in this country as opposed to a broader change narrative, which is always sort of more and more fis in its texture.

MG: Ryan, do you want to pick up on that? One of the things people were talking about over the weekend, and again, this is formal, informal chatting, what have you, is that what is the question if we go to the polls now? Is the question about change? Is it about carbon tax? Is it about Canada? Where does that leave the election whenever it's going to happen?

RYAN TUMILTY: Yeah. You know, I think for at least a year and a half now, the Conservatives have planned an election around sort of three ideas, you know, a carbon tax election, affordability, and Justin Trudeau is terrible. Justin Trudeau is exiting the stage. His replacements, whoever they are, are all promising to move away from the carbon tax. And affordability is still going to be an issue, but it's going to be an issue for a different circumstance. So I think the ground shifted under the Conservatives’ feet a little bit. And as Steph points out, they're going to have to adapt. They are in a good position to adapt. They still have a substantial polling lead even with the tightening that we're seeing. They have $41 million ready to go for the next election before they fundraise a dime. So, you know, they're in a good space to shift. The question becomes does Pierre Poilievre have other gears? We've seen opposition leader Pierre Poilievre. He is very effective. I'm not sure, you know, now, we're going to have to see Conservative leader candidate Pierre Poilievre and see how he does there, especially reacting to changing things on the ground.

MG: Stephanie, I want to go back to something you said earlier, which is that this is a conversation in some ways about a national unity crisis. Have a listen to the premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, speaking on Fox News over the weekend, talking specifically about border security.

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DANIELLE SMITH: We've already taken action in Alberta to make sure that we're shoring up as much as we can, to have the dogs at the border and the commercial vehicle inspection and teams of sheriffs and drones. That's what I think the president wants to see, is that we're taking it seriously, that we're going to stop the flow of drugs and guns and people across the borders.

MG: I asked Dominic LeBlanc about this, about just the idea of everybody speaking, you know, from the same page of the same book in some ways. Why did you use that phrase national unity crisis?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Piere Poilievre made an observation a couple of weeks ago where he referred to the fact that it felt like we currently had 10 foreign affairs ministers all going out and selling a different message to Americans and with no overarching coordination there. And that's a salient point. It seems as though who is directing traffic at this moment in time? Is it the Prime Minister? Is it Dominic LeBlanc? Is it the provinces? You can't fault them for looking after their own interests. Of course, they're going to.

MG: They spoke even before the Prime Minister did on Saturday night, some of those premiers.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Not only did they speak, they all rolled out responses, which I guess we were told later that, you know, they had flagged that to the Prime minister's office. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to announce this thing. But from the get go here, it has seemed as there's not a coordinated national effort on this. And the risk then becomes, you know, and we've already seen it, I think, with Danielle Smith for a while, where her advocacy for Alberta's interests, she is willing to advocate for that potentially at the cost of other provinces. There is no doubt that the 10% tariff the Trump administration wants to place on oil and energy products could hurt Alberta far more, will hurt Alberta far more than other provinces. But the sense that we're in this together and that it's not one provincial self-interest trying to trump another provincial self-interest, that stuff's risky. And, you know, we had that problem, if you will, during COVID too, because you had all of these provinces with different regulations. And it made no sense. I remember at the time, people would say in Ontario, well, why can’t I go do this thing in British Columbia when I can't go do it in Ontario? That creates a tension when you get to any potential bailout money, let's say, that comes from the federal government. Well, is that going to be equitable? Is it going to be by industry? You're going to see a lot of people saying, well, what about this and what about that? We don't need that national fight. It's not helpful to our psyche and it's certainly not helpful for a go forward for the Canadian economy or perhaps is it. We learned during COVID, the federalism that we enjoy in this country doesn't always work in situations like this.

MG: Ryan, we're just about out of time. Briefly, what is your take on that? I mean, you have the premier of Ontario is out campaigning now because he's in the midst of an election campaign. As announced this morning, he's going to tear up the contract with Elon Musk's Starlink to bring Internet to rural communities. Are we all, we as Canadians all speaking from the same page of the same book here?

RYAN TUMILTY: We're speaking from similar pages. Everyone has said that the tariffs are wrong. Everyone has said that they shouldn't be in place and that the US is making the wrong choices. But as Steph points, provinces have different, you know, different values here and different industries they need to protect. And that's hard. And we don't have a prime minister who is in a position to really rally them around. He is a lame duck prime minister. He is on his way out the door. You know, and it is hard to follow someone who is leaving.

MG: We will see where that leaves us. There's a lot to talk about. And in the meantime, it's been a weekend. I'm glad to have you here both to sift through it. Thank you very much.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Thanks, Matt.

RYAN TUMILTY: Thanks.

MG: Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in the Globe and Mail’s Parliamentary Bureau. Ryan Tumilty is a politics reporter with the Toronto Star. Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

JACK WILLIAMS: It's a struggle all the time. It has been most of my life. But I'm quite happy, I guess I would say, to how I've been doing. I mean, I've been doing quite well with that. I didn't drink for 57 days.

MG: It's the 3rd of February. Dry January is over. We spent some time in January talking about our broad, our relationship with alcohol and how that's changing. That listener wrote in about his struggle to quit drinking. He was not alone. We will sift through some of your mail coming up about recalibrating that relationship with alcohol, whether dry January is actually a thing or not, and as we get into February, the busy news agenda ahead, how we're thinking about booze. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current on CBC Radio and on the CBC Listen app. Stick around.

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DRINKING

Guest: Jack Williams

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. After a month that felt like perhaps several months, February has arrived. Some of you may have had your first drink of the year over the weekend after dry January. Maybe you will stretch the stint of sobriety out a little bit longer, maybe even for good. We've had a couple of conversations on the program recently about people wanting to change their relationship with alcohol. This is a broader thing in society, but we wanted to take a look specifically at how people are working through that. We spoke with Geoff Turner. He's the host of the CBC podcast, On Drugs, and he got very personal about his own experience.

SOUNDCLIP

GEOFF TURNER: I consider myself kind of OG dry, dry January guy. I was doing it a long time ago, like 20 years ago, before people called it that. I think there came to be a realization for me that it was a trick that I was playing on myself where, you know, it gave me a bit of a reset and an opportunity to say to myself and to say to the world, yeah, you see, I can quit any time I like. But the trouble is when I'd be back, it would be really pedal to the metal, almost like catching up on lost opportunities to drink.

MG: Geoff now hasn't had a drink in over a year, and he and I spoke about the idea of alcohol use disorder as a spectrum rather than simply a black and white issue.

SOUNDCLIP

GEOFF TURNER: I've never been a pee your pants, wrap your car around a telephone pole type of drunk. And I sometimes say to people, like it almost would have been easier for me if I was a really sloppy drunk. People then, some people close to me saw what was going on, but it wasn't necessarily obvious to the world. And I think maybe it would have been to my benefit. And that's why people call it the grey area, because it's just not obvious.

MG: He gets into this in great detail in his podcast, On Drugs. Would recommend that you listen to that, especially the first episode of that new season. We also spoke with Maureen Palmer and her partner Mike Pond. Mike has struggled with alcohol abuse for five decades. He is managing to maintain what he calls a mostly sober lifestyle. Maureen wrote a book provocatively titled “You Don't Have to Quit”, and she and Mike believe the words we used to talk about problem drinking are actually doing some people more harm than good.

SOUNDCLIP

MAUREEN PALMER: If we view relapse as a failure, it's against the monolith of abstinence.

MIKE POND: We’re viewing it as if you have one drop, that’s it. Down you go, right? You can't stop. Well, what we find is that you can. And so what happens is when you do drink is what's been termed abstinence violation effect. So I've been abstinent. I’ve violated it. And the effect is there I go, I'm a loser. And I got to start all over again and it's a fail. And I, you know, I might as well just keep drinking. Everybody is going to be mad at me. And so that's the effect that can compel a person to just keep drinking and drinking.

MG: These conversations generated a lot of response from you. And so here to read some of your mail is one of our producers, Magan Carty. Magan, good morning.

MAGAN CARTY: Good morning, Matt. It's true. We got a lot of mail. This first letter is from David Seymour. He calls himself a grateful listener in Ontario. David writes, I am someone who has struggled with alcohol for many years. I was struck by the refreshing way your guests talked about this topic in an honest and forthright way. I understand this is a journey, but rarely have I heard it spoken about like this. Normally, with discussion around alcoholism, it seems abstinence is the beginning and end of the conversation, instead of talking about the falls and the shame associated with your failure, which just pushes your behaviour into secrecy and heavy, heavy shame, and the acknowledgement that falls happen and it doesn't mean you are an awful person. Your conversation offered me a very welcome feeling of support and the belief that I can and will be better.

MG: Tina Johannsson writes, your broadcast brought me to tears as it took me back to so much of what my experience with alcohol once was. I'm still coming to terms with some of what I went through, but I can attest that after just celebrating 10 years of sobriety, this is a long overdue excellent decision for my life and for those I love. I had to laugh when Geoff commented on the rock star who got to live out his partying life as I too went through a time of questioning why I had to make this decision when others didn't. No offence to Keith Richards, but I now know that we made the right decision and are in fact on the winning side of this one.

MAGAN CARTY: Next one is from Gary Westover. I found this discussion interesting, instructive and provocative. Not only did it elicit my ambivalence on this subject, it stirred painful memories of a loved one whose life was marred and tragically cut short because of their alcohol addiction. Years later, the painful effects of this loss on those of us left behind are still being felt. I really want to believe that with respectful, compassionate, effective care, some problem drinkers may be able to learn to drink without damaging their lives and the lives of those around them. However, experience tells me that there are a whole lot of others for whom there is no grey.

MG: Susan Wenner writes, I have struggled with alcohol use disorder for the past 30 years. It's always been my happy crutch. White wine just about every evening, 5 p.m. onwards was my time to crack open the bottle and sip the night away. It was my best friend, but then turned into my worst enemy. Alcohol controlled me by slowly isolating me from friends and family. Alcohol is very sneaky. It sucks you in with euphoria, then dumps on you like a betrayal from a close friend. It wore me down, turned me angry and confrontational to my partner, put me asleep by 9 p.m., then woke me up again. The worst part of drinking to excess every night was the 3 a.m. wake up. Like clockwork, I would awaken and berate myself for once again drinking too much. I recognized I was headed down a very bleak path and stopped a year ago. Not an easy thing to do, to learn, to live in the moment without alcohol, to dim your senses or take away life's challenges. I am able to drink normally now. A glass occasionally out for dinner or celebration and that's it. I feel one must not have an addictive personality to be able to accomplish this feat. So in that sense, I am extremely lucky.

MAGAN CARTY: Glen Tremmel writes, quit demonizing our simple pleasures and just stay out of our liquor cabinets and our lives. Dry January is about the most stupid idea ever conceived. January is a cold month and evenings are long. There are few pleasures better than enjoying a good drink like a scotch in a warm house on a cold, dark winter night. If they're going to do this, then claim May as dry May. The days are longer, and people are tending to gardens long before the summer months when we enjoy tall cold drinks out on the decks. Addiction is a serious problem. We need governments to stop taxing alcohol. No government should be profiting from people who are addicted.

MG: Andy O'Reilly in Alberta writes, today is day 816 without alcohol. I drank away my marriage. My relationships with many people have suffered greatly. Trying to get help was near impossible. By the end, I was putting away a bottle of liquor per day for many years. There were 18 full garbage bags of empty vodka bottles when I had my home cleaned.

MAGAN CARTY: Larissa Loiva from Vancouver writes, I've struggled with guilt and shame over my drinking and have concluded that moderation and rethinking the way I drink is the most effective approach for me. After much reflection and therapy, I felt ready to change my habits in December. I went into the holidays with a mindset of less is better. And while I didn't stop completely, I probably had half of what I normally would have. I've also had a number of days where I didn't drink at all, which is huge for me. The thought of stopping drinking completely is terrifying to lots of people and probably puts many folks off changing their habits because they can't imagine something in the middle.

MG: Stephen Cost writes, and this is a brief letter, to the point, sober for 27 years. There is no such thing as dry January.

MAGAN CARTY: From Charlotte Sixsmith, I am a 74-year-old gal. I stopped drinking completely on August 31st, 2014. The reason was a good one. My first grandchild had been born, and I never ever wanted him to say Grandma's drunk. The answer for me was a drug with the commercial name of Campral or Acamprosate saved my life. It turned off my desire to consume alcohol. I've had the joy of being sober for 10 plus years. I have a clear head, sleep so well, lots more money in the bank. And I now have three grandsons who will never ever utter those words, grandma’s drunk.

MG: We have one last letter. This is from someone who heard the conversation with Maureen and Mike just as he was beginning to make changes in his own life. Jack Williams wrote, I recently stopped drinking December 1st, 2024, after a heart attack. It is a good choice and a scary journey to healing. Jack is on the line now from Marathon, Ontario, to tell us how that journey is going. Jack, good morning.

JACK WILLIAMS: Good morning, Matt. How are you today?

MG: Well, I'm okay. How are you doing?

JACK WILLIAMS: I'm doing good. I'm recovering. I'm back to work and doing quite well now, health wise anyway.

MG: That's what we like to hear. That's great. Heart attack is a scary thing, and that can lead to any number of things that people would go through. Why did that coming out of it lead you to want to stop drinking?

JACK WILLIAMS: I think mostly because of my health. You know, I've been going through a lot of trauma last few years, you know, having some hard times in my personal life and work and stuff too as well. But the choice was made for me because it's a good way, a healthy way to move on, especially with the work I do. You know, I'm a first aid CPR instructor. I’ve been teaching CPR for about 20 years. So I got to think, you know, positive about moving on after especially what happened to me in December.

MG: Tell me a little bit about, if you don't mind me asking, and I say this just because you heard, you know, our conversation around drinking and how people are rethinking it and then decided to write to us. Just how would you describe your relationship with alcohol?

JACK WILLIAMS: I would say it's a struggle all the time. It has been most of my life, but I always kept that balance in my life as well, working and supporting my family. And I've been quite successful in my career. But, you know, after seeing your program, when I wrote in, it kind of really touched me. You know, I mean, I really felt for the people that were on the program, people that were being interviewed. And I really, really feel and know where they are.

MG: You said that you were able to keep that balance. I mean, one of the things we've talked about is this idea of grey area drinking where it's not a problem, but it kind of lurks in the background and it is sort of just always around you. Does that sound familiar?

JACK WILLIAMS: Yeah, it does, especially growing up as a child. You know, there was a lot of drinking in my own home with my mom and my siblings and that. But when I got into my teenage years, I didn't want to be that way myself. But I made a lot of good changes. I went to school, and I got educated and started working at a young age. So I think the motivation that I have in me and still do keeps me going.

MG: In the letter that you wrote to us, you said it's a good choice to stop drinking, but it's also a scary journey to healing. What's scary about it?

JACK WILLIAMS: I think that what's scary about it is what's going on around you, the people you're exposed to, the things that you see or hear, you know, especially with COVID happening and all the social problems that we have in our communities right now. It's people are going through a lot of trauma. And I think the thing for me being scary is even, you know, the withdrawals, you know, the anxiety we get. But I'm quite happy, I guess I would say, at how I've been doing. I mean, I've been doing quite well with it. You know, I do get the urge to when I get really stressed out. So I'm trying to live a life now without stress. Just move on and be happy. I'm not young anymore. I'm getting older. You know, I'm a grandfather now. I've got grandkids that I love very much. I’ve got a family. But I think the scary part is succeeding, and I think I'm going in the right direction.

MG: Yeah. You said in your letter that the 1st of December 2024 was when you stopped drinking. How's it been going since then?

JACK WILLIAMS: It's been going good. I didn't drink for 57 days, and one day, I woke up and I opened a bottle and had a drink. And that was just not long ago. Probably last week. But the next day, I really had the regret where I shouldn't have done it.

MG: Do you know why you did that? I mean, can you understand what led you to that having gone, as you said, sober for 57 days?

JACK WILLIAMS: You know, I think I did it because I was really stressed out. I just woke up that morning. I was already anxiety. I had, you know, I was a little frustrated about the way things are going sometimes, not just for me, but for people that I'm close to as well. But I really felt like at that moment, why am I doing this? You know, I was questioning myself, doubting myself.

MG: And so you had some regret after that drink.

JACK WILLIAMS: I did. Yeah. And I haven't drank since now. And I'm doing, I'm back on that track again, and I hope I stay there. You know, I try to make good changes. You know, I'm doing a job right now. I live in Timmins, Ontario, but I travel a lot in my work. But I want to move on and I want to motivate people. You know, I want to continue teaching health and safety courses, CPR courses. You know, I got a lot of good stories to share. And, you know, I'm a good role model, I think anyway, to others that are going through rough times.

MG: One of the things we talked about on our program was we had a couple of people, Mike and Maureen, and they were talking about this idea of grace, that, you know, you can be mostly sober, and that if you have a drink or you have a day for, in Mike's case, where he would have a few drinks, that it wouldn't be seen as a failure, but it would be seen as part of a continuum, and that you kind of apologize to yourself for yourself and you continue on. Does that make sense to you?

JACK WILLIAMS: It makes a lot of sense to me.

MG: That you don't beat yourself up over something.

JACK WILLIAMS: No. Like when I said I found it regrettable, I did have. I felt bad, you know, because I'm on medication too for my heart attack. And I just need to take care of myself and I want to live. You know, I want to live an old age to enjoy life.

MG: What is the message? I mean, part of this is about speaking to other people. You wrote to us, but then you agreed to speak with us as well publicly. What is the message you have to somebody else who might be listening, who can hear themselves in you and hear, you know, the struggles that they are going through, but also just they're trying to figure out what their relationship with alcohol would be like in future. What would you say to them?

JACK WILLIAMS: I think my message would be, you know, don't give up. Move on. Don't be so hard on yourself. You’re not the only one that's in that position. I am and I was and I still am, but I'm happy the steps I'm taking. I'm really proud of myself. You know, feel good about yourself. You know, smile more and do things you love. Make those changes to be happy.

MG: Jack, I'm really glad you're doing okay. And I'm really glad that you would take the time to write to us, but also to speak with us. Thank you very much.

JACK WILLIAMS: Thank you for talking to me today.

MG: Take care of yourself.

JACK WILLIAMS: I will. You too.

MG: Jack Williams was in Marathon, Ontario. Just some of the mail that you sent us on this subject of alcohol and our larger relationship to it. Magan, thank you very much.

MAGAN CARTY: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Magan Carty is a producer here on The Current. If you want to comment on anything you hear on the program, get in touch. You can email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca.

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E-ESTONIA

Guest: Ryan Androsoff

MG: This is The Current. My name's Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

AD: I use my electronic id card to access public and private services online, like filing my taxes and checking my son's progress in school. My husband just used his card to register his new business, my father to apply for a farming subsidy, and my mother to do her health records at home. And I can pick up her medications using my card. So our lives have become so much easier.

MG: That’s an ad for e-Estonia, which powers all government services in that country. The small Baltic nation hit a big milestone at the end of last year. Its government services are now 100% digital. Every service that government offers can now be done online. The one holdout was divorce, but as of December, that too can be done more or less with a click of a button. You're divorced online. Meanwhile, in Canada, it can be a headache just to get your driver's license renewed. Ryan Androsoff knows some of these headaches firsthand. He was co-founder of the Canadian Digital Service, which is an organization within the Canadian government that helps digitize and improve government services. He's now vice president of Learning and Leadership at the Institute on Governance. It's a not for profit think tank based in Ottawa. He's in our Ottawa studio. Ryan, good morning.

RYAN ANDROSOFF: Matt, good morning. Great to be with you.

MG: Good to have you here. This is really interesting in part because of what is being not just promised, but executed by the Estonian government. Help me understand this. There's no line ups, no phone calls. Every single service that the government of Estonia offers is now online?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: Absolutely. You know, Estonia has been, I think, really viewed as a global leader on what people might call digital government. And it has been a concerted effort for 20 to 30 years now where they have said kind of a cross-partisan consensus in Estonia to say this needs to be a priority. And as a small country, this is really where they wanted to differentiate themselves in terms of saying we are going to be the best most digitally connected, digitally accessible government in the world.

MG: And so it's everything. I mean, I mentioned divorce, but what are some of the other things? It sounds obvious, but what are some of the other things that you have access to online now?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: I mean, it's everything from being able to sign legal documents to being able to access social benefits to being able to vote in elections. I was, years ago, I was at a conference in Slovakia, and I was with an Estonian official. We were literally in a taxicab going to the airport together and they were having elections happening. And he voted from the taxi cab from his laptop. I mean, that is the degree of digital interconnectedness that they've been able to build by having that infrastructure in place.

MG: As you understand it and as somebody who has tried to do that here in this country, how is that country able to build an online system that lets you both bank and get married and divorced and get your health records and vote from a taxicab?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: So on the technical side, the big innovation that I think Estonia put a lot of focus on to in the early years was the data infrastructure so that they could actually be able to connect services to validate people's identities and allow them to have that kind of seamless interaction. It's a platform they call X-Road. And X road essentially is this layer of data protocols and software that let all the different systems, both from the public sector but also the private sector as well, all be able to talk to each other. And from a citizen perspective, what that means is every Estonian has an e-id card. And originally, it was a physical card with a chip in it. These days, I think they've largely moved to kind of a fully online type of credential that would sit on your smartphone, but that lets you essentially kind of plug into the Estonian digital ecosystem. And so whether it's everything from accessing government services to doing your online banking to getting a library rental from the local library, all of those are using the same data protocols on the backend. So that technical piece has been a really important fundamental building block that has led Estonia to be able to build these very integrated digital services on top of it.

MG: How do you go about trusting, telling people that they can trust having a digital id? This has been the subject of great concern and more in this country where people were worried about If I have one id, what does that mean for who I am, that the government might be able to control me, that other people might be able to hack in. How do you convince people that this is a good thing?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: Yeah, absolutely. And I would say it's one of the challenges, frankly, that we have in Canada right now, is we haven't put in place that single digital identity. And part of that is just the nature of our structure of government, right? We have a federated system. The provinces in most cases are the ones who actually hold people's vital identity information. And there have been fits and starts. And I would say British Columbia is probably the leader in Canada right now in terms of putting in place that digital id. But you're right. It's become, frankly, a bit of a political issue now where people are worried about Big Brother. I think what's interesting about it is if you talk to the Estonians, what they would say is they actually feel more secure in knowing what information government has about them, because as an Estonian, because you've got this integrated data system, you essentially can log into a portal and see all the information that government has about you, but also very interestingly, who's accessed your data most recently. So it gives you as a citizen, some actual insight into how government’s using your data. Right now here in Canada, you largely have no idea what data your government has on you. You have to file ATIP request to try to get access to it. And so I think the interesting part of this story is the countries around the world, and Estonia is not the only one, that have moved towards these types of digital identity systems, they've done it I think in a very smart way where, you know, cryptographically, they're quite secure. But from a citizen perspective, they're actually opening up a bigger window into government so citizens have more transparency on how their data is being used.

MG: Let's talk about that security, because aside from Big Brother and the concerns that people might have around government knowing where you are and what you're doing and what have you, there are real concerns broadly. But if all your information is being held by one entity, those concerns would be exacerbated when it comes to hacking. Russia sits right on the border with Estonia. Russian hackers have targeted that country before. Is there not a huge security risk in having everything about you in one place?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: So it's interesting because this is obviously a key concern for the Estonians. There was an Estonian delegation here in Ottawa back in November, and I was talking with a few members of the government there, and they were saying this is top of mind for them, right? They are next door to Russia. There are real security threats in terms of cybersecurity. There was a major cybersecurity attack in Estonia by Russia in 2007, and they've essentially been under continuous cyber attacks since then. And they would actually argue that their approach makes things safer in a few ways. So again, on the technical side, it's not one database. You know, we might think about this as, you know, the single digital identity means there's, you know, one big database file sitting somewhere that you can get into. It's actually a distributed ledger. It's not blockchain, but it's a similar concept to blockchain where the different databases are actually split up by services, but they have a common protocol that lets them talk to each other. So, you know, you can kind of think about it as a boat with different compartments. If one gets breached, it doesn't mean the whole boat goes down. The other side of it is the Estonians have also been thinking a lot about, you know, physical security in times of war. And moving to a fully digital infrastructure means that they actually are able to have copies of their most vital digital records in different physical locations. They actually have this concept of data embassies where the most critical information from the state doesn't have to always just be within the Estonian borders. So that if they were facing a real national security threat, they would be able to reconstitute and still be able to continue to deliver services. So again, I think they would, you know, perhaps counterintuitively argue that that move to fully digital actually makes them more secure in times of crisis.

MG: It's a small country both in terms of size and population. Aside from that, what is it that they know that we don't? I mean, right now, you have Elections Canada officials saying that online voting is not on the radar here. You still need to line up perhaps four hours to get a passport renewed. So what do they know that we don't?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: Yeah, and you're right. I mean, Estonia gets pointed to a lot, and I think it's worth recognizing that it's small geographically. It's small in population. Just a little bit about the size of Ottawa. And I think Estonia also had this benefit of post-Soviet union. They essentially got a do over. They got a blank slate to be able to build this. But I will say there's a couple of key lessons, I think, from the Estonian story for Canada. Number one is you have to get your digital public infrastructure layer right. And that's things like having connectivity, having digital literacy in your population, having digital identity and having cyber payment systems so that you can actually do those services. I think importantly as well, they've really recognized trust is critical to this. You have to have trust in government and institutions if citizens are going to give you consent to be able to digitize their services. And I think importantly, you know, they would argue that trust isn't about big flashy innovation. It's about small incremental improvements to services that people can see in their real lives. And they've spent two plus decades doing that to be able to get to the point where they are today. And I think the last piece of this, which is really important and I think about a lot as we're in an election year, is we need political will behind it. And they have had over two decades worth of governments who had a political consensus to say beyond partisan lines, we think it's important for us, for the future of Estonia to digitize our state. And I think here in Canada, these issues are sometimes seen as not being very sexy. They're viewed as kind of under the hood plumbing. And I hope as we move into an election year this year, we can think about if we're going to be serious about this here in Canada, how do we actually build up that political consensus that we have to invest and put energy into modernizing how government works here in 2025?

MG: I have to let you go, but just very briefly, I mean, one of the hurdles here is that there are many places in this country that still don't have high speed Internet.

RYAN ANDROSOFF: Yes. And I think that's a basic table stakes for this. I mean, you have to have connectivity. You have to have digital literacy for your population. And these are the types of things that I think we've got to see investment at all levels of government if we're going to be able to catch up to where we need to be.

MG: Do you think Canadians want online divorce?

RYAN ANDROSOFF: I don't know if anybody particularly asking for that, but I do think Canadians in general want to be able to have government services that feel like they're in 2025 and not in 1985.

MG: Well said. Ryan, thank you very much.

RYAN ANDROSOFF: Thanks so much, Matt.

MG: Ryan Androsoff is vice president of Learning and Leadership at the Institute on Governance. That is a non-profit that is based in Ottawa, a think tank looking at our digital future, perhaps, and what that might look like. He was in our Ottawa studio. That is The Current for this Monday. It's the 3rd of February. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. A reminder, if you missed anything on the program, including our conversation with the Finance Minister, Dominic LeBlanc, about conversations between the Prime Minister and the US President, the tariffs that seem to be hurtling towards us coming into place tomorrow and the response from Canada, you can find that on our podcast. Just go to wherever you get your podcasts, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Click follow for us, and then you'll be able to get the latest in that conversation. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Monday, February 3, 2025 Episode Transcript

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