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Front Burner Transcript for January 17, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hi, it's Jayme, and real quick before today's show, can you hit the follow button? Just asking because we may have just come up in a search you did for info about today's topic. Well, we do this five days a week, and in the next little bit we'll be hitting our Canadian election and U.S. politics news pretty hard. So please follow us. It helps us a lot and you also won't miss anything. Okay. Thanks so much.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right. Good Friday, everyone. It's Jayme here, and I am with my colleagues. Catherine Cullen, she is in Ottawa. Jason Markusoff, he is in Calgary. Hi, guys.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Hello.

JASON MARKUSOFF: Hello.

JP: It's great to have you on. It was another very busy week in Canadian politics. One that started -- and it feels like a month ago, really -- with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith heading to Mar-a-Lago to talk tariffs and Canadian oil with Trump and his team, then rolled into the premier's meeting where Smith did not get onside with her colleagues. There's lots of concern that this divided approach really weakens the Canadian negotiating position. So we're going to talk all about that. And finally, after what feels like literal years of will he/won't he, Mark Carney throws his hat into the ring to become Liberal leader and the next prime minister of Canada. That race has really narrowed now, so we're going to get into that. And let's do that first. Catherine, let me start with you. We are talking just before 5 p.m. eastern standard time on [Thursday]. Carney has just declared from Edmonton. He gave this lengthy, I would say sober speech that kind of took for granted that he would win the Liberal leadership race. There were a lot of hockey analogies -- it was a real through line. Major focused, almost singular focus on the economy. It drew a pretty clear line between him and Pierre Poilievre, and I think the current Liberals to a certain extent. And talk to me a little bit more about that. I think those were some of the more interesting moments.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Yeah, what's interesting here is it tells us a few things about what Mark Carney believes this campaign is going to be about, what he wants it to be about. Mission number one for any of the Liberal leadership contenders is to argue that you are the best opponent to Pierre Poilievre. And, you know, Mark Carney acknowledged, in one of those hockey metaphors...

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: And I'm coming into this match, coming into this game, knowing that we are well behind. But we're getting warmed up, and we're going to head out in that third period, and we're going to win.

[supporters cheer, applaud]

CATHERINE CULLEN: Poilievre is a formidable political opponent for whoever wins the Liberal leadership. He's trying to make the case that he is the one who can challenge, and he said, not only beat Pierre Poilievre, he said, we are going to win the next general election. Which is quite a high bar for him to be setting. But I think the thing that is going to attract the most attention: the comments about the prime minister and his team.

JP: Right.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Right? So on the one hand, the prime minister is very unpopular, a bit of, you know, leaning on trying to distance himself from Trudeau. But I think it's actually the 'and his team' that matters here. It's hard not to read that as talking about Chrystia Freeland. We're just waiting for her to jump into the race. By the way, they are friends. Mark Carney went on to say, I won't lose focus on the economy. Right? That suggests that she did.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: I know I'm not the only liberal in Canada who believes that the prime minister and his team let their attention wander from the economy too often. Je vais rester concentré... [continues speech in French]

TRANSLATOR: I will remain focused because I understand how markets work.

CATHERINE CULLEN: He's also clearly banging on this outsider drum. He's not a lifelong politician, it's true. He was running the Bank of England for a big chunk of time when the Liberals were in government. But it's clear that the Conservatives are laser focused on, you know, drawing on those Liberal ties and suggesting it is wrong to say that he is an outsider.

JP: You mentioned Freeland, Catherine. I just want to ask you, it came to light today that even though she hasn't officially announced her candidacy yet, that she is going to backtrack on the carbon tax, the consumer carbon tax, which is a really big Liberal policy that she has been a supporter of. And did we hear anything today from Carney on where he stands on that?

CATHERINE CULLEN: Yeah, he was explicitly asked in a question-and-answer period with journalists after the speech, what is he going to do? He really drove the idea, in his words, that you need a comprehensive plan if you're going to get rid of carbon pricing. It needs to be replaced with another tool that is more efficient, more effective. I mean, there wasn't a... you know, he didn't show up with a big axe. [laughs] I know he likes metaphors. And axe the tax there, there wasn't an explicit statement of where he was going on this. But I think it's widely understood that the main Liberal candidates in this race are backing away from this policy, again, as the Conservatives go to great lengths to try to tie them to it.

JP: Okay. And might be worth just pointing out here, he did say in that speech that he is going to roll out policy proposals as the weeks go on, so of course we're going to cover those, if and when they come. Jason, what does it say to you that he chose Edmonton to launch this campaign?

JASON MARKUSOFF: It's shades of Trudeau. I can't imagine he's going to want to be compared to Trudeau a whole bunch. But back in 2012, when Trudeau was launching his leadership campaign, he launched in his hometown of Montreal, but he actually, on his first day, made a big point of going to Calgary. You know, an Alberta city where the Liberals at that point hadn't won since 1968. That was hostile territory. The oilpatch that notoriously despises his father for the national energy program that was in place in the '80s. He wanted to come in here, say, I am ready to take on all jurisdictions and I'm going to fight to win everything. And for Carney, you know, he's not going to convince Liberals and he's not going to win anything likely by saying, I'm going to make sure that we're in second, we're not completely obliterated. He's going to say, we're going to be competitive everywhere, we're bringing hope to every region, we're going to be... we're going to fight hard, we're going to fight to win. Which is why you go to a place like Edmonton. And of course, it's also his hometown. [JP: Mm-hmm.] He wants to say that, yes, I've lived in high places -- Ottawa, Toronto, London -- and they may pay me as Laurentian elite, but I'm this hockey-playing kid born in Northwest Territories, Fort Smith, and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. And they, and so they wanted to launch it there.

JP: Catherine, I just want to take this week all together for Carney. Right? So, the speech that we just saw, the Q&A he just did. Um. Leading up to this, he had a bit of a soft launch for his campaign on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: But let's say...

JON STEWART: Oh, boy.

[audience laughs]

MARK CARNEY: Let's say... Just, just throwing out a wild hy--

JON STEWART: Look at you trying to preserve the relationship all of a sudden.

[audience and Carney laugh]

MARK CARNEY: A wild hypothetical. [JON: Alright.] Let's say the candidate wasn't part of the government. Let's say the candidate did have a lot of economic experience. Let's say the candidate...

[some laughter and applause from audience]

MARK CARNEY: ...did deal with crises. [JON: You sneaky...] Let's say the candidate had a plan to deal with the challenges in the here and now.

JON STEWART: You sneaky... You're running as an outsider.

[audience laughs]

MARK CARNEY: I am an outsider.

JP: Liberal MPs have come out to endorse him. Former deputy prime minister Anne McLellan, who served under Chrétien and Martin. Former cabinet minister Catherine McKenna. How would you say overall it's going for him?

CATHERINE CULLEN: I actually think the best thing that happened for Mark Carney this week -- I mean, you could make a case for Jon Stewart. The view count on that episode is pretty high. But I think you could make a case that the best thing that happened for Mark Carney this week is the number of people, big names who have dropped out of the Liberal leadership race, right? So we can go back and look at Dom LeBlanc; currently the Finance Minister, Mélanie Joly; Foreign Affairs Minister, François-Philippe Champagne. All of these people who brought something a little bit different to the race than he does. You point out that he is getting some support from Liberal caucus. Certainly, as it becomes clearer who is in this race, I think we're going to get more and more MPs adding their names behind the various contenders. He had a pretty good start, I think, with The Daily Show in particular, but I think the key thing to understand here is it is just a start. And the real question for Mark Carney is whether he can connect with people. You know, the pitch he made today: the system's not working as well as it should for everybody. I am focused on the economy and I'm going to... basically fix it, right? Whether he dislikes the idea that things are broken, he is suggesting he's Mr. Fix-It. And the extent to which Canadians find that credible, I mean, that is really going to dictate his success or not in this-- perhaps not in this Liberal leadership race, but certainly in a general election.

[music]

JP: And tell me a little bit about what the Conservatives are already doing to counter that narrative that he put out today.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Yeah, I mean, and their campaign against him goes back months and months. But they put out a new ad today -- although digital only -- that is all about, as they like to call him, Carbon Tax Carney. I mean, when you think about the way that Pierre Poilievre operates, one thing he has really-- that's really driven his politics is trying to define his opponent in, you know, the starkest, most dramatic, negative possible terms.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: In the next election, I will be running against Justin Trudeau. Whether his name is Justin Trudeau, or his name is Chrystia Freeland, or Carbon Tax Carney or Carbon Tax Clark, they will all be Justin Trudeau.

CATHERINE CULLEN: They have already put out several videos. But this ad in particular, driving home the idea that Mark Carney wants to not only continue with the carbon tax, but drive it up. As we said a moment ago, we don't actually know what his plan is going forward. Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives aren't going to let that bother them, right? Their point when they compare all of the Liberal candidates to Justin Trudeau, is that it's not just about Justin Trudeau's personality. Their argument is it is about his policies, his record. And they want to suggest that everyone in this race is going to have to wear Justin Trudeau's record, hoping that Canadians will say, well, we've been doing that for a while, it's time for something new.

JP: Mm-hmm. Just sticking with the Conservatives for a little bit longer, I did want to talk briefly about an exchange that happened online earlier this week. So, former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole wrote a post on Twitter thanking Liberal cabinet minister Anita Anand, essentially for her service and her dedication, particularly in relation to her work with the military -- O'Toole is a veteran. Anand had announced recently that she is not running again. Anyhow, Jenni Byrne, a senior adviser to Poilievre and major, major player in his campaign, tweeted, quote, "For anyone unsure why Erin is no longer Leader of the Conservative Party..." Anand "supported DEI" -- diversity, equity and inclusion policies -- "like rank, name and pronouns. Tampons in men's rooms, etc..." This then -- I found this really interesting. It set off a wave of responses, including within the Conservative Party. One Conservative told Jenni Byrne this was "exactly how not to behave in those inevitably fleeting moments when you feel that you are on top. Be humble in leadership." And I just, what did it tell you about where things stand in the Conservative Party today?

CATHERINE CULLEN: Jenni Byrne takes no prisoners. She is not afraid to air dirty laundry. She punches first. If she does not like you, you will know it. She and Erin O'Toole, they used to get along. You know, they were friends. I think we can safely say they are not anymore. But here's the thing. She is winning right now, right? The Conservatives' poll numbers, they have such a dramatic lead. Pierre Poilievre, you go back to the leadership -- which she helped run -- he did incredibly well in the leadership. So I think there's a chunk of the Conservative Party who on the one hand is saying, well, maybe take no prisoners, no holds barred. Maybe that's what we need. There's another chunk who is saying, we're going to live with this very public infighting, even if we find it distasteful, because it may take us, it is likely to take us to the promised land. I will say also it sends a very public message about what happens if you get on Jenni Byrne's bad side.

[music]

JP: I want to move on to the tariff stuff. Jason, Donald Trump's inauguration is on Monday. Premiers from across the country met with Trudeau about this on Wednesday. And there was a pretty clear divide that emerged around the right approach. It was essentially Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on one side and everybody else on the other side. Smith essentially said that putting tariffs on or blocking the sale of oil and gas to the U.S. would provoke a, quote, "national unity crisis." And Jason, talk to me a bit about what she's talking about here.

JASON MARKUSOFF: This week seemed to have really changed the dynamic with Danielle Smith and the rest of Team Canada, and made a lot of people question whether she is on Team Canada at all anymore. I mean, the prime minister and all the premiers from all the provinces and territories got together. Everybody else, even if they don't agree. Like Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe doesn't agree with this idea of an export tax on oil as a possible threat of retaliation. She didn't sign on. She said, this is so egregious, so offensive to us that you're even considering using oil as a bargaining chip, my province's oil as a bargaining chip. I will not take part in this. Every, look, every province, every premier. This is a weird negotiation. Very rushed, very frenzied. Especially with how, you know, at the seams, the Liberal government is, everybody's sort of doing their own thing. But she, you know, this bookended this remarkable week where she took time from her own personal vacation to go down to Mar-a-Lago and be the first premier to do so and meet Donald Trump directly, getting set up with businessman Kevin O'Leary [JP: Yeah.] to, to say something. We don't know exactly what she said of course. [CROSS-TALK]

JP: Yeah, and we don't know, like we don't know if she said to Trump, don't worry. Yeah.

JASON MARKUSOFF: But we know she talked, we know she talked oil. We know she promoted the idea of buying more oil. We don't really know how tough she was with him. But she's certainly not been as tough as, say, Doug Ford, who's advocating for every bargaining chip to be on the table, every tool to be on the table.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG FORD: You know, Donald Trump is a brilliant negotiator. That's what he's done his whole life. That's exactly what he's done. And he's sitting there with a big smile on his face thinking, wow, I'm going to divide and conquer. Remember one thing: United we stand, divided we fall. We need to be united.

JASON MARKUSOFF: She has not been making that point. She has almost seemed like playing-- as playing more of like a good cop. Trying to make nice with the Republican administration, trying to make nice with Republican governors. Which there are some, you know, tactics and positives, too. But a lot of premiers, even Newfoundland's Andrew Furey, who supports, or who has an oil-- a lot of oil in his own backyard, said he supports having all tools, all bargaining chips on the table.

JP: Yeah, and just... you basically have said this already, but just to put a point on it, people are worried that she is watering down the leverage, right?

JASON MARKUSOFF: That's right. Doug Ford is saying, why are you taking things off the table? We need to, you know, fight back hard and, you know, threaten everything, make sure that there's, you know, they know that we're going to be hitting back hard on this. She wants to soften, ultimately they'll say, this negotiating stance. And there's a reason why she's, she might be doing this. I mean, while Doug Ford, we've heard him threaten Ontario holding back its electricity exports, which are substantial and insignificant, that's not the main economic driver for Ontario.

JP: It's manufacturing, right? Yeah.

JASON MARKUSOFF: In Alberta, it's oil. [JP: Yeah.] So I don't know if we'd hear in the same way if there, if the feds and others were talking about the idea that, you know, that using the automobile sector as a bargaining chip with the, in trade negotiations with Trump or a trade war with Trump, that Doug Ford would be as sanguine as he is in saying everything should be on the table in the same way. So for Danielle Smith, there's this history of being combative with Ottawa. I mean, certainly this week she's had more harsh words for Trudeau and the feds than she has for Trump and his crew, this crew that's proposing 25% tariffs on everything Canada ships south of the border. But it's a habit of hers. But also it speaks to how important the oil sector is for Alberta. Sanctioning it, applying sanction, not only does it rub historic wounds, it will also have direct financial and economic impacts on this province and the people who live here.

[music]

JP: There is a tweet from Andrew Leach, a professor at the University of Alberta, that I found very helpful. He tweeted, like, "If you want a Team Canada approach, that has to mean sharing the costs. It can't mean a policy response that disproportionately hits one part of the country for the benefit of Canada." The argument being that Alberta can't take the whole hit here. I want to talk to you about how this rift between Alberta and the rest of the country could play out as we move into an election here. Today, when Mark Carney was talking, he did talk about how he thought Poilievre was the worst possible person to send down to Mar-a-Lago to negotiate with Trump. And then he made sort of a joke where he said that he could think of another politician, that kind of came to him in the last 24 hours. And I think the obvious assumption is that he was talking about Danielle Smith there. And so, how is this going to play out for the Liberals and the Conservatives? What threat does it pose to the Liberals? What threat does it pose if you're a Conservative?

JASON MARKUSOFF: I mean, you know, a lot of this is going to be clarified in the coming days and weeks. Right now, we're kind of like, you know, trying to like chase jellyfish and trying to nail them to a wall. The problem is, jellyfish sting. Once Trump is in office, there's been threats that he might do something on day one. Who knows? I mean, he has a lot of issues I'd imagine he'd want to deal with. Launching a trade war with your closest ally may, you know, not be on the top of a rational leader's list, uh, but we shall see with that. So coming into a federal election, you know, Poilievre is in a tight spot. He was asked Thursday whether he sides with Danielle Smith on keeping the idea of any export tax on oil as a bargaining chip off the table. And he really danced around it.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: I think that the first thing that President Trump should do when he gets into the Oval Office is to send a big bouquet of flowers to the Liberal government in Ottawa. By blocking pipelines and LNG plants in Canada, the Liberals have forced Canadians to sell almost all of our energy to the United States, giving President Trump massive leverage in making these tariff threats.

JASON MARKUSOFF: He said we should just, you know, it's just important that we remain, have a strong oil sector and we should have more export markets in the first place. He really tried to avoid taking sides in this Conservative rift between Doug Ford in Ontario and Danielle Smith in Alberta. You know, come the election, we're going to have-- it's going to be a very different landscape.

JP: Okay. Catherine, [CATHERINE: Yes.] any final thoughts on this very busy week in politics, about this or really anything else that you would like?

CATHERINE CULLEN: Yeah, it. [laughs] You know, it's interesting, like this week has been so dramatic. Last week, and it really was only last week that the prime minister resigned. But I really think Monday and what flows from it, Donald Trump's inauguration is just going to be so pivotal for Canada. The question of just what these tariffs look like when they come. Are they gradual, or are we getting hit with 25% across the board, right away. You know, tariffs, let's be honest. I know Donald Trump says it's the most beautiful word in the English language. It's not a sexy word, Jayme. [laughter] I never remember how to spell it. And then I remember you can't spell tariffs without F-F-S... I don't know if we can [Jayme laughs] say that on a podcast.

JP: You can say it.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Yeah. [JP: Yeah.] But so. But I think the thing is, like, it may not seem... the intensity of it may get lost in some of the language around it, but the potential impact on the Canadian economy here is enormous. I mean, we are talking about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of people losing their job in this country. We're talking about the federal government needing to come in with economic supports. This is a big moment. Our economy is being tested. And what played out with the premiers this week, I was at the first ministers' meeting where all of this was happening. To some extent, our national unity is being tested by Donald Trump as well. [JP: Mm-hmm.] You can look at this two ways. You can say we are coming together because people are mad about that 51st state comment. You know, the prime minister said on Thursday, haven't seen this much patriotism outside of an Olympic hockey game. So there we go -- we started with hockey, we can end with hockey. But the truth is--

JP: Oh my God, guys, [Catherine laughs] so many hockey metaphors!

CATHERINE CULLEN: But the truth is, it's also, it's also exposing the cracks in the federation. And so I think the thought going forward for everybody has to be that we need to try to be very clear-eyed as we look at what is in front of us. These are uncertain times, you know. Nobody panic, but try to be... again, if we want to go back to the beginning, try to be sober in our thinking about how significant the weeks ahead, the months ahead are going to be for this country.

JP: And it also is incredible how just in a few short months, I mean, I think at least, the ballot box question that people are going to be taking with them to the polls has really, it's really changed. And so that will be very interesting to see how that plays out in the Liberal leadership race and then in the coming general election. Guys, thank you so much. This was great.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Thank you.

JASON MARKUSOFF: Lots of fun, thanks.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right, that is all for this week. Front Burner was produced this week by Allie Jaynes, Joyita Sengupta, Lauren Donnelly and Mackenzie Cameron. Sound design was by Sam McNulty and Marco Luciano. Special thanks to Emma Godmere. Music is by Joseph Shabason. Our senior producer is Elaine Chau. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Lokos. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you on Monday.

For more Front Burner transcripts, please click here.

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