Canada’s political shift

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 18th of March.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Up first, Canada gets a new Prime Minister.

CARNEY: I, Mark Carney, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that I will truly and faithfully and to the best of skill and knowledge execute the powers and trust reposed in me as prime minister.

That’s Mark Carney taking the oath of office on Friday, stepping in after Justin Trudeau’s nearly decade-long tenure.

Carney is a longtime central bank governor for Canada and the U-K. Now he takes the helm as Canada counters a growing trade war with the U-S.

REICHARD: Joining us now to talk about it is Stockwell Day. He’s a former Opposition Leader in Canada’s Parliament, and later served as Cabinet minister. He’s now a political consultant and commentator.

Stockwell, good morning.

STOCKWELL DAY: Good morning, Mary, good to be with you.

REICHARD: Well, we’re glad you’re here. Quite a shift in the polls of late in Canada. We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, talk to us about who Mark Carney is?

DAY: Mark Carney was the governor of the Bank of Canada. That’s when I knew him, and then he was acquired by the Bank of England. I felt he always had aspirations politically, came back to Canada, or more correctly, to the US, with a very large investment firm and was its chief advisor. He had different titles there, he was also an advisor to now retired Prime Minister Trudeau. So that’s been his background.

REICHARD: We know that he is new to politics, and so it makes it an interesting moment because earlier this month, American tariffs on Canadian goods and materials went into force…and Canada responded with its own tariffs. Now where do things stand right now in this trade war?

DAY: To be really frank, it looks a little bleak. The history of successful trade wars on any side, that’s a thin history book. And so I very much, of course, side with my Canadian colleagues. Canada does not want to become the 51st state, and we bristle a little about that, but a trade war on the way, we are prosecuting it right now. I just am not convinced it's going to work.

REICHARD: How do you think Carney will lead that is different from his predecessor Justin Trudeau?

DAY: Honestly, I don’t think they will be much different. They are both globalist in their world view. They are both elitist. Matter of fact, Mr. Carney was one thing—I’ll give him as a point for honesty—he was accused of being globalist and elitist, and he said, Yes, I’m guilty, I’m both. And Mr. Carney, like Mr. Trudeau, is going to try and align things globally, which usually tend to be against and in opposition to the US on many counts. That’s not going to do well. So it’s going to be economic business as usual, but people were so anxious to see Justin Trudeau gone that it seems like anything would be better, and that’s what the polls are indicating right now.

REICHARD: When we last spoke in January, you and I, polling data showed support for the Conservative Party increasing as the Liberals polling went down. That’s totally flipped around now. What do you think is behind that? Is it nationalism alone or is it something else?

DAY: Well, and nationalism has been a key factor. If it hadn’t been for President Trump and his tariff attacks, then there would have been some movement upward in the polls, because everybody, including liberals, wanted to see Justin Trudeau gone. He was the most unpopular Prime Minister, probably since his father before his father stepped down. Now, with President Trump launching what Canadians see as a direct attack that has increased in terms of sort of anti American sentiment, which usually the liberals in conjunction with mainstream media, which in Canada tracks very significantly to the left and for liberals at any time, because of that media backing, Mr. Carney is not facing any questions that would be difficult. He’s not facing any questions about all of the mergers that he ordered and organized over the last few years with major coal and energy producing companies outside of Canada. he has mainstream media siding with him. They’re all kind of holding their breath, thinking they'll just quickly call an election and get through some tough questions unscathed and therefore be able to keep up some momentum in the polls, because broadly speaking, the electorate will not hear anything negative concerning his worldviews.

REICHARD: Not only is Prime Minister Carney new to politics but he’s an unelected politician…for now. Canadian law calls for elections no later than October, although they could be scheduled for sooner than that. What will you be watching for in the meantime?

DAY: I’ll watch for an early election. It is possible in Canada to be, actually, to be Prime Minister and not yet be elected. That’s just some of the quirks of how our system works. It’s happened only on very rare occasions. And I think Mr. Carney is smart enough to realize that the impatience that people will start to have if he’s not answering any questions about the direction in which he’s going to take the country, that impatience will grow. So my guess is that he will call an election sooner or later, and hope to sail through, as I said, relatively unscathed and using the US tariff attack is kind of a shield. He’ll try and position himself as Mr. Canada, when he’s actually Mr. United Nations.

REICHARD: Wrapping up here…before you mentioned that Canada was taking the wrong approach responding to American tariffs. What do you think would be a more effective approach?

DAY: We say there’s chaos, but in some types of war, chaos creates opportunity, and that’s what President Trump is using. And he’s narrowly zeroing in on the, for instance, the agriculture sector in Canada, which is highly protected. So what we should be doing as politicians is going to that sector, our own agriculture sector, and say: Look, we’re not going to remove all the protective tariffs, but some of the Ag. sectors in Canada enjoy protection as high as 250% and we say that those Ag. sectors, we’re going to start taking a few points off of that. And the Trump administration is also concerned about the border. We need to see significant resources going into the border, and we need to deal more effectively with the fentanyl situation. We also need to be far more aggressive on the investigative side, give our very good police agencies more resources, and also use the courts to show that serious drug crime is going to be seriously prosecuted. So hit some of those areas. Give the president some wins. And I’m not saying fake wins, those are true wins that won’t hurt Canada, and I think we can soften the tariff blow that he’s presently hitting us with.

REICHARD: Stockwell Day is Canada’s former opposition leader and a political commentator. Stockwell, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

DAY: Thanks Mary, bye now.

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