May 5, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we talk about the mood shift in Canada, which just had a national election - the results of which hinged very heavily on Trump's statements and tariffs. Jeremy is joined by CBC anchor and Correspondent David Common. #Trump #Carney #Canada #USA #trade #tariffs #51stState #NORAD #manufacturing #tradewar
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on The
Middle podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. It can be hard
to keep up with everything coming out of the Trump
White House, so each week we picked just one thing
for this podcast and focus on it, break it down
in a nonpartisan way, just as we do on the Middle.
Our one thing this week is Canada, and it's one
(00:35):
thing Trump did. Because the election that just happened in
Canada was all about Trump. That's why the new Prime
Minister is a liberal, Mark Carney, not the conservative candidate.
Because once Trump started talking about wanting to annex Canada
and put tariffs on Canada, the Canadians, who were poised
to throw the Liberals out, decided to rally around the
party in power. Here's Mark Carney who says that the
(00:56):
old relationship between the US and Canada is over and
that Trump will never break us.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
As I been warning for months, America wants our land,
our resources, our water, our country never But these are
not these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying
to break us so that America can own us. That
(01:23):
will never that will never ever happen.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, as I've said, we'd like to have people on
the show who know what they're talking about. In our
next guest fits that Bill. He's a huge star in
Canada and an old friend of mine. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
anchor and correspondent David Common. David, it's great to have.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You on, Jeremy, it's lovely to see you again.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And by the way, so that people know, we used
to actually work in the same office together when I
was hosting Marketplace Morning Report and you were the CBC
New York correspondent, which also means that you understand US
Americans on this side of the border very well as well,
because you've spent many years on this side of the border.
So just to set the scene for us. A few
months ago, David, the Conservatives were set to win this
(02:03):
election in a landslide.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
What happened, So you're quite right. Statistically the chances of
the Liberals winning again was one percent. In fact, it
was less than one percent. But Trump changed everything once
the election results became clear, and Trump pre inauguration started
to talk and talk about Canada and used terms like
fifty first state and referring to our prime minister as
governor and the threat of tariffs and then the actual
(02:27):
tariffs things re really began to start shifting. That there
was this great concern about who would be best to
defend against what seemed like an economic attack from the
United States. And when you talk about fifty first state,
well that's annexation. That's a different sort of threat. People
became quite concerned and so Donald Trump was the unwritten
(02:49):
name on our ballot for many voters. It is almost
unheard of that a government would get re elected in
a fourth election, and that that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And why was Mark Carney seen as the person who
would be the great defender of Canada against this threat
that people saw from Trump.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think there's a few things to that. He is
not a politician. He's a former Bank of Canada and
Bank of England governor, a guy who once worked for
Goldman Sachs knows economic policy. Seen as a grown up
in the room when it comes to economic matters. That
is part of it, a calm and steady hand. It's
(03:29):
also partly what the alternative was, and that is the
Conservative Party and its leader Pierre pauliev who was all
but assured of not just election, but a majority win,
a huge win. And the tables went quite differently, Although
the Conservatives in the election ended up with a higher
vote count vote share than they have in many previous elections. Ultimately,
(03:53):
there was a big There's one big thing that I
look at, and that's that the Liberal Party leader was
seen in poll by Canadians as they were more interested
in Mark Carney than they were in the Liberal Party.
But the inverse was true with the Conservatives. They were
less interested in the Conservative Party than they were in
the Conservatives, and that dynamic, ultimately, I think was one
(04:16):
of the key things that played out.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
And Pierre Polyev was kind of seen as a mini
Trump early on before that was a bad thing, I
guess in Canada.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Certainly by some Yeah, there were things that happened even
during the campaign that sounded I don't want to say
parroting Donald Trump because that would probably be too strong,
but sounded to some people that it was a little
too close to Trump. Ultimately, you know, it's the same
in Canada as it is in the US. You have
some people who vote for one party all the time,
and you're always just fighting for the people in the
(04:44):
middle and trying to motivate those people to actually go
to the polls, same dynamic came out here. We don't
have a two party system, and yet in this election
eighty five percent of people voted for one of just
two parties. All the others just kind of went to dust.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What does Mark Carney want to do now that he's
got in power, And again, as you said, he didn't
win a majority, so he's going to have to collaborate
with at least a few members of one of the
other parties to keep his prime ministership. But what does
he want to do?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Job one is Trump. That's what he was elected to
deal with, and so he is expected on Tuesday to
meet with the President and to begin that conversation. The
long game is get Canada relief from the tariffs, and
there's been some success, not solely from Mark Karney but
from the efforts of many others to that end. The
(05:36):
most recent one, I think auto parts built in Canada
going into a very integrated supply chain, we're going to
face a twenty five percent tariff. Then the rules came
out from CBP seems like no, they will be exempted
at least for the time being. So there will be
an attempt. But look for this meeting happening tuesday in
the Oval. I think that's just about relationship building. It's
(05:56):
trying to get a respectful relation ship and a basis
from which to build.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And do you think that these are two guys that
will have a good relationship. I mean, it was pretty
clear by the end of it that Trump and Trudeau
did not have a good personal relationship at all.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Certainly not nobody's expecting them to be hand in hand
skipping down the golf course at mar Lago. But that's
not what's necessary, right They need to be able to
talk to each other. It is unlikely that the President
would treat Mark Carney as an equal, but that's in
some ways just a recognition of reality. Our economy is
much smaller than the American economy. Our economy is much
(06:36):
more reliant on the American economy than you are of ours,
and so it is not a meeting of equals in
that sense. The way in which the President plays it
is a big question, and the way in which we
can rely on what he says is another one. Because
this exists globally. It's one thing one day and then
(06:57):
another thing the next.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So it's true they're not equal in terms of the
size of the economy. But the fact is that Canada
is the largest trading partner with the United States. It's
still an incredibly important relationship economically, and we're going to
talk about that in a little bit as well as
in a security situation culturally. I mean, half of the
people on Saturday Night Live came from Canada, for one thing.
(07:21):
But talk about the kinds of cooperation that Americans may
not think about that exists between the US and Canada.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
When you go to the gas station, gas is the
price that it is in part because of Canada. And
the reason for that is your refineries, where most of
our oil is refined. It comes down in pipelines. Your
refineries were built to handle the type of oil, a
very thick oil that comes out of our oil sands,
Alberta primarily, but Saskatchewan as well, comes down into the
(07:51):
United States and is refined there. But they sell it
to the Americans at a huge discount, way less than
you would get on the global market. And as a result,
the price that is paid. And the reason that oil
was completely not completely exempted, but was largely exempted from
(08:12):
Trump's tariffs comes down to what it would do to
the price of gasoline. Yeah, America has become very energy
independence thanks to fracking and other measures, but still relies
very much on Canada to help fill the void. And
because the refineries were built in many cases to handle
the type of oil coming from Canada. If the oil
(08:35):
wasn't coming, the refineries would not actually function quite the
same way. I'm getting this is hyper technical and actually
beyond my understanding, but it has been explained to me
by some in our oil industry. Why US refineries need
Canadian oil?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Okay, so oil gas? What else?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's a big one. There's all sorts of other cooperation.
Military is one of them. We have a continental defense
program called Norad. If the Russians send bombers towards you,
they're coming towards us first. We've had a, you know,
decades long relationship between our militaries are as much smaller,
much less well funded than yours, and yet that cooperation
(09:14):
absolutely key. There's all sorts of other things. The auto
industry would be one of them. The most American built
car there is in terms of what is built in
the United States, is a Tesla, and it's something like
seventy two or seventy three percent American parts. The rest
are coming from places like Mexico and Canada, and Canada
has a huge auto parts industry. Just in time delivery,
(09:36):
things are arriving at factories all over the place. That
has been a source of tension. The Trump presidency very
clearly wants all vehicles sold in the US made in
the US, but as things stand right now, that's not possible,
and it would take years of developing new supply chains
for that to become possible.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, and we should note that the USMCA, which is
the new NAFTA, was negotiated under the first Trump residency.
He got the trade deal that he was looking for
with both Canada and Mexico, and now he's saying that's
not fair.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
The deal that he has said is Canada taking advantage
of the United States is a deal he did, right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, So do you expect any of that cooperation to
change now? Just given the sort of frostiness of the
relationship between the Trump administration and Canada.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
You know, there's a difference between a political relationship and
a relationship between people, and the political relationship is really
really important, but Canadians are are deeply entrenched. I mean,
you talk about Saturday Night Live. That's just one example.
They're Canadians all over the place. It's a good chance
anybody listening knows of one Canadian who lives in their
hometown at least who moved theres there temporarily. We're all
(10:51):
over the place in the United States, so there's a
key tie between people. I have relatives all over the
place in the US.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I have relatives in Canada too, by the way, in
my favorite city in Canada, Montreal, so I get to
go up there and have the food whenever I want.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, and it's good food. It's good food, and it's
a very unique city in many ways lovely. But look,
the frosty relationship you refer to, it hasn't been tested.
These two have never been face to face before. So
let's see what happens in the oval. Let's see what
the tone is. Let's not expect miracle work to be done.
(11:29):
Let's look at what that tone is going to be.
But Mark Carney did say at the beginning of this campaign,
Canada's old relationship with the US is over right, and
to some degree Canadians should probably pay attention to that.
That our economy is perhaps overly reliant on trade with
the US. I mean, it's easy. We're right next door.
(11:51):
Most of our highways and pipelines and everything else run
north south, even though we're in East West Country. We
are built to trade with American states, and we are are,
for most American states, the number one trading partner.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Well, in a minute, we're going to talk about some
of the ways ordinary Canadians are changing their behavior because
of Trump. We'll be right back with the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation anchoring correspondent David Common on One Thing Trump did.
(12:37):
Welcome back to One Thing Trump Did exclusively on the
Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In this episode, we're
talking about Canada following their election the other day, which
was all about Trump. I am joined by Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation anchoring correspondent David Common. David, we've heard that the
Canadian tourism to the United States is down something like
seventy percent right now? Is that? What are you hearing?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yeah? I don't That would seem like a big number
to me, and it may be in specific states, but
there's no question that border crossings by land and by
air are down to the extent that airlines on both
sides of the border are cutting back service because demand
has plummeted. That this summer, people who may have gone
to Disneyland or Disney World are going to choose something
(13:22):
else instead, go somewhere else. Instead, we're seeing US states
and US cities where Canadians were the number one visitors,
seeing intention of something very, very different. And that extends
beyond travel. I mean supply lines, food, all sorts of
(13:43):
things people are looking for in the USA label. I
would not want to be selling American strawberries where I
am in Toronto right now. They basically show up and rot.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I mean on the travel and tourism side, Canada is
the top source of international visitors to the United States,
about twenty million visits last year, generating, according to the
US Travel Association, twenty point five billion dollars in spending
and supporting one hundred and forty thousand American jobs. On
the issue of goods, I mean this is something that
(14:14):
started a few months ago, These boycotts that were happening
of American products. People were taking like Jack Daniels whiskey
off the shelves in Canada. So is that kind of
thing still happening.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, I still can't get Jack Daniels on the main
liquor stores here. It's the province essentially, which runs many
of the liquor stores, just pulled them and has said
that they're staying off until the tariffs come off. It's symbolic.
You know, we're not the most massive market for Jack Daniels,
but it's something.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Is there a product that you actually miss that you
can't get right now that is an American product that you're.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Like, ah, you know, to be honest, there is probably
a product that I don't even realize as American that
I've been buying all these years because we are so integrated,
are so integrated, and that goes on the same side
of the you know, on your side of the border.
You know, it's not like it's just maple syrup that's
coming from Canada. There are things that you don't know.
The car you drive, there's a good chance twenty percent
(15:11):
of it it may have been built in Indiana or Michigan.
There's a good chance twenty or thirty percent of what's
in it was built in Canada.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You know, David, just a couple of months ago, we
did a live special with the CBC. I was in
Vancouver with ian Hannah Mansing and we were live across
the US and Canada taking calls from both sides of
the border. And one of the things that was so
interesting is there are so many Americans who were calling
in and just apologizing to Canadians because they we love
(15:40):
Canada and like, it didn't feel right to treat your
good friend in this way. I wonder, now, are Americans
like being spit on the streets of Toronto, like if
they come and visit the Canadians treating ordinary people?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, no, no. In fact, I've had American visitors in
my own studio coming in, people who made choice because
of what's going on to come and visit Canada, and no,
they've been welcomed, and frankly, if somebody did even say something,
let alone spit on them, I would hope our society
would just go to town on that Canadian because that's
(16:13):
that is not going to help anybody. Individuals are not
setting policy that would be deeply problematic for basically everybody
I know.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
On that same show, by the way, we had Kevin
O'Leary from Shark Tank on as a guest, and you know,
he's kind of open to this idea of Canada as
a fifty first day Maybe not exactly, but he's sort
of a little bit more pro Trump in that sense.
And he brought up the fact in the show that
Canada doesn't even have real free trade among its own provinces.
(16:44):
Do you think that, Well to explain what he means
by that, and you think that might change because of
Carney coming in.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah. So, Look, these are what we call interprovincial trade barriers,
and they can mean all sorts of different things. It
may mean, you know, a nurse in one province can't
go and practice in the other without rewriting a whole
bunch of exams. Or it may mean that wine from
British Columbia can only be sold in certain volumes in
(17:14):
Ontario across the other side of the country. Or it
may mean that there is protection of certain industries as well.
I think dairy for instance, which has come up at
free trade negotiations as well. And so those inter provincial
trade barriers, there's long been talk basically as long as
(17:34):
I've been alive, people have been talking about we've got
to take them down, and nobody's ever done anything. This
could be the impetus of bringing some of them down.
Carneus said he will make it a priority, but it's
not up to him. You know, we have a system
which is not exactly politically exactly like you're south of
the border, but it would be the federal government in
(17:56):
the US can't impose everything on this states. The states
have certain areas of responsibility. We have the same sort
of thing. There's a constitutional division of powers, and so
some of these things are up to provinces, and some
of the provinces cling pretty dearly to a number of
these things. Some are the easy ones, like, you know,
a truck, how many how much weight it can have
(18:18):
on a particular axle. Okay, that that should be unified.
That should be an easy job to get done. But
some of the other ones are you know, political sacred cows,
and provincial politicians may be loath to do something about it.
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Well. Do you think though, that as Canada sort of
tries to figure out, Okay, could we have a little
bit less reliance on the United States, just in case
they do something like this again? Do you expect Canada
to try to be striking more free trade deals with
other countries around the world.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So yes, the answer is yes, we will try to
strike down the barriers between provinces first of all, but
that's it's not going to replace America. You know what,
we trade with the US. And then there's just the
ease of trading with the US. Again. All our infrastructure,
our rail lines, our roads, everything are built to trade
with the Americans and yours with US.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
So that is that is going to be a long
term game if we actually had to replace that. And
the reality is it's just trying to be less reliant
on a single trading partner. So yeah, you build up
relationships with others. But here's where things get a bit funky.
You know, we have, like you, an Atlantic port and
a Pacific port. So who are we going to trade
(19:32):
with If we're not going down to the US, We're
gonna go out the West coast and probably to China.
Now who does that help rights? That would be my question, right,
who does that help both when it comes to Canadians
or Americans and the Chinese? And that that's not We're
not the only.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Ones, right, And you can't even trade with Mexico without
either getting in the water or going through the United
States or.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Going through the US. Yeah right, yeah right.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
What are your listeners telling you right now when you
do actually talk to callers, which I know you're even
doing this weekend on Cross Country Checkup? But what are
your listeners tell you about all of this?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, look, we have a gamut of people who call in.
Some people are still really angry about this, and it
has it is like a life changing moment for them,
particularly people are older, and we saw that come through
in our own election. But people who are younger, who
don't have, you know who are thinking about other things
(20:34):
like affordability, trying to buy a house in a really
expensive almost impossible to own market, all sorts of other
concerns that sort of loop around the affordability question. It
it's a different it's a different scenario. So there is
not We're not a monolith, just like Americans. My Americans
certainly aren't a monolith. I think there is a range.
(21:00):
There are many people who say that everything has changed.
I guess the journalistic skeptic in me wonders if the
momentum will sustain, and that depends in part on the circumstance.
How's that meaning going to go between Carney and Trump
and is it going to sustain itself?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right? And then I saw that Carney is having King
Charles come into Canada to do something for his well.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Called it's called symbolism, Jeremy, It's called symbolism. Yeah. So
when we kick off a new parliamentary session, the Governor General,
who is like the royal representative in Canada, typically is
the one who comes out and reads this speech from
the throne, which says, here's what the government's priorities are. Well,
(21:51):
this time he called up the King and said, hey,
how about you come and do It's been a long
time since that happened. The King, in fact, has never
done it himself. But look, that's all symbolism. It's it's
it's saying, hey, we've got friends. We've got friends, and
we'll use them.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You know, David, I remember having a conversation with an
American who's lived in Canada for a long time who said,
the one thing that kind of annoyed him about Canadian
politics is that the reason for being is we are
not the United States like that. That it's that is
the that is Canadian politics one o one is We're like,
(22:28):
we're not the identity, right, what what is it what
is it that you want? Well, we're not the United States.
Do you think that that's true?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, you don't. It does go back to like an
identity question and what is what is a Canadian different
from an American? And often the question the answer is, oh, well,
we're just We're just not We're not them, right. It's odd,
it's it's it is intangible. In some ways. There are
things that we can point to, like universal healthcare and
(22:57):
a different culture around gun and end but a lot
of people will bring it back to what is built
into our constitution called peace, order and good government. And
it is a constitution not built on conflict, not built
(23:19):
on escape from tyranny or taxation. And it seems odd
to say a couple of centuries later that somehow that
makes a difference, And yet somehow it does.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
David, before I let you go, when I came up
to Vancouver to do this live special with the CBC,
as you know, it was quite controversial. People didn't even
people in Canada didn't even want us to have this
conversation about Trump saying this should be the fifty first state.
They were really really angry. In Hannimancing was showing me
his email was like every second he was getting another
angry email. And then right before the show, I was like,
(23:59):
I'm going to go have a coffee to get ready
for this. I'm gonna walk outside. I'm gonna go to
Tim Hohrton's. Of course, I'm gonna get my latte or whatever.
I'm gonna walk around. Vancouver was a nice day. And
then I thought to myself, maybe this isn't the smartest
thing for me to be doing right now. I'm probably
one of the most hated people in Canada for doing
this too in the first place.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
The thing is you weren't the target. It wasn't because you,
an American, were engaging in this conversation. It's that we
as Canadians were entertaining it at all. And look, the
logic behind the question around the fifty first state was
intentionally trying to be a bit provocative, but it tells
you just how much walking on ice there is on
(24:40):
thin ice around here to the idea of being taken
over by another country. Yeah, to have another country's values
imposed on us that you felt there was something palpable
and that my colleague and Hannah Mansing was getting a
gazillion email all at once.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Well, and the thing that we said and Ian and
I had to do some He had to do a
lot more of this himself, but he and I had
to do some sort of commentary with press about it
in advance of it. Was that this was an opportunity
for Canadians to be heard by Americans on one hundred
and eighty public radio stations and on c SPAN with
(25:22):
how they felt about this. This is the only opportunity
that they really had ordinary Canadians to be to hear that.
And also it was an opportunity for Canadians to hear
I think like ninety five percent of our American callers say,
we don't want this, you know, Like, so I think
I'm happy that we did it, but I totally understand
it. It was a very controversial thing and I appreciate that
the CBC allowed us to do it. In the end.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, No, it was a good one and it was
a good conversation to have. There's no question. I think
just some people stopped hearing once they heard fifty first
state and just.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Went right right understandably.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
So you should still wear a bulletproof veest.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, when I come to Vancouver, right, David common anchor
and correspondent with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, David, So great
to see you, Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Good to see you, Choo, and thanks to you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
For listening to One Thing Trump Did. It was produced
by Harrison Fatino. Our next middle episode will be in
your podcast feed later this week. We're going to be
talking about the changes that we as a society can
make to better accommodate people with disabilities. It's been thirty
five years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed
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(26:33):
reviews are very helpful. Our theme music was composed by
Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson and I will talk to
you soon.
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on The
Middle podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. It can be hard
to keep up with everything coming out of the Trump
White House, so each week we picked just one thing
for this podcast and focus on it, break it down
in a nonpartisan way, just as we do on the Middle.
Our one thing this week is Canada, and it's one
(00:35):
thing Trump did. Because the election that just happened in
Canada was all about Trump. That's why the new Prime
Minister is a liberal, Mark Carney, not the conservative candidate.
Because once Trump started talking about wanting to annex Canada
and put tariffs on Canada, the Canadians, who were poised
to throw the Liberals out, decided to rally around the
party in power. Here's Mark Carney who says that the
(00:56):
old relationship between the US and Canada is over and
that Trump will never break us.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
As I been warning for months, America wants our land,
our resources, our water, our country never But these are
not these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying
to break us so that America can own us. That
(01:23):
will never that will never ever happen.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, as I've said, we'd like to have people on
the show who know what they're talking about. In our
next guest fits that Bill. He's a huge star in
Canada and an old friend of mine. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
anchor and correspondent David Common. David, it's great to have.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You on, Jeremy, it's lovely to see you again.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And by the way, so that people know, we used
to actually work in the same office together when I
was hosting Marketplace Morning Report and you were the CBC
New York correspondent, which also means that you understand US
Americans on this side of the border very well as well,
because you've spent many years on this side of the border.
So just to set the scene for us. A few
months ago, David, the Conservatives were set to win this
(02:03):
election in a landslide.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
What happened, So you're quite right. Statistically the chances of
the Liberals winning again was one percent. In fact, it
was less than one percent. But Trump changed everything once
the election results became clear, and Trump pre inauguration started
to talk and talk about Canada and used terms like
fifty first state and referring to our prime minister as
governor and the threat of tariffs and then the actual
(02:27):
tariffs things re really began to start shifting. That there
was this great concern about who would be best to
defend against what seemed like an economic attack from the
United States. And when you talk about fifty first state,
well that's annexation. That's a different sort of threat. People
became quite concerned and so Donald Trump was the unwritten
(02:49):
name on our ballot for many voters. It is almost
unheard of that a government would get re elected in
a fourth election, and that that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And why was Mark Carney seen as the person who
would be the great defender of Canada against this threat
that people saw from Trump.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think there's a few things to that. He is
not a politician. He's a former Bank of Canada and
Bank of England governor, a guy who once worked for
Goldman Sachs knows economic policy. Seen as a grown up
in the room when it comes to economic matters. That
is part of it, a calm and steady hand. It's
(03:29):
also partly what the alternative was, and that is the
Conservative Party and its leader Pierre pauliev who was all
but assured of not just election, but a majority win,
a huge win. And the tables went quite differently, Although
the Conservatives in the election ended up with a higher
vote count vote share than they have in many previous elections. Ultimately,
(03:53):
there was a big There's one big thing that I
look at, and that's that the Liberal Party leader was
seen in poll by Canadians as they were more interested
in Mark Carney than they were in the Liberal Party.
But the inverse was true with the Conservatives. They were
less interested in the Conservative Party than they were in
the Conservatives, and that dynamic, ultimately, I think was one
(04:16):
of the key things that played out.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
And Pierre Polyev was kind of seen as a mini
Trump early on before that was a bad thing, I
guess in Canada.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Certainly by some Yeah, there were things that happened even
during the campaign that sounded I don't want to say
parroting Donald Trump because that would probably be too strong,
but sounded to some people that it was a little
too close to Trump. Ultimately, you know, it's the same
in Canada as it is in the US. You have
some people who vote for one party all the time,
and you're always just fighting for the people in the
(04:44):
middle and trying to motivate those people to actually go
to the polls, same dynamic came out here. We don't
have a two party system, and yet in this election
eighty five percent of people voted for one of just
two parties. All the others just kind of went to dust.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What does Mark Carney want to do now that he's
got in power, And again, as you said, he didn't
win a majority, so he's going to have to collaborate
with at least a few members of one of the
other parties to keep his prime ministership. But what does
he want to do?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Job one is Trump. That's what he was elected to
deal with, and so he is expected on Tuesday to
meet with the President and to begin that conversation. The
long game is get Canada relief from the tariffs, and
there's been some success, not solely from Mark Karney but
from the efforts of many others to that end. The
(05:36):
most recent one, I think auto parts built in Canada
going into a very integrated supply chain, we're going to
face a twenty five percent tariff. Then the rules came
out from CBP seems like no, they will be exempted
at least for the time being. So there will be
an attempt. But look for this meeting happening tuesday in
the Oval. I think that's just about relationship building. It's
(05:56):
trying to get a respectful relation ship and a basis
from which to build.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And do you think that these are two guys that
will have a good relationship. I mean, it was pretty
clear by the end of it that Trump and Trudeau
did not have a good personal relationship at all.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Certainly not nobody's expecting them to be hand in hand
skipping down the golf course at mar Lago. But that's
not what's necessary, right They need to be able to
talk to each other. It is unlikely that the President
would treat Mark Carney as an equal, but that's in
some ways just a recognition of reality. Our economy is
much smaller than the American economy. Our economy is much
(06:36):
more reliant on the American economy than you are of ours,
and so it is not a meeting of equals in
that sense. The way in which the President plays it
is a big question, and the way in which we
can rely on what he says is another one. Because
this exists globally. It's one thing one day and then
(06:57):
another thing the next.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So it's true they're not equal in terms of the
size of the economy. But the fact is that Canada
is the largest trading partner with the United States. It's
still an incredibly important relationship economically, and we're going to
talk about that in a little bit as well as
in a security situation culturally. I mean, half of the
people on Saturday Night Live came from Canada, for one thing.
(07:21):
But talk about the kinds of cooperation that Americans may
not think about that exists between the US and Canada.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
When you go to the gas station, gas is the
price that it is in part because of Canada. And
the reason for that is your refineries, where most of
our oil is refined. It comes down in pipelines. Your
refineries were built to handle the type of oil, a
very thick oil that comes out of our oil sands,
Alberta primarily, but Saskatchewan as well, comes down into the
(07:51):
United States and is refined there. But they sell it
to the Americans at a huge discount, way less than
you would get on the global market. And as a result,
the price that is paid. And the reason that oil
was completely not completely exempted, but was largely exempted from
(08:12):
Trump's tariffs comes down to what it would do to
the price of gasoline. Yeah, America has become very energy
independence thanks to fracking and other measures, but still relies
very much on Canada to help fill the void. And
because the refineries were built in many cases to handle
the type of oil coming from Canada. If the oil
(08:35):
wasn't coming, the refineries would not actually function quite the
same way. I'm getting this is hyper technical and actually
beyond my understanding, but it has been explained to me
by some in our oil industry. Why US refineries need
Canadian oil?
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Okay, so oil gas? What else?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's a big one. There's all sorts of other cooperation.
Military is one of them. We have a continental defense
program called Norad. If the Russians send bombers towards you,
they're coming towards us first. We've had a, you know,
decades long relationship between our militaries are as much smaller,
much less well funded than yours, and yet that cooperation
(09:14):
absolutely key. There's all sorts of other things. The auto
industry would be one of them. The most American built
car there is in terms of what is built in
the United States, is a Tesla, and it's something like
seventy two or seventy three percent American parts. The rest
are coming from places like Mexico and Canada, and Canada
has a huge auto parts industry. Just in time delivery,
(09:36):
things are arriving at factories all over the place. That
has been a source of tension. The Trump presidency very
clearly wants all vehicles sold in the US made in
the US, but as things stand right now, that's not possible,
and it would take years of developing new supply chains
for that to become possible.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, and we should note that the USMCA, which is
the new NAFTA, was negotiated under the first Trump residency.
He got the trade deal that he was looking for
with both Canada and Mexico, and now he's saying that's
not fair.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
The deal that he has said is Canada taking advantage
of the United States is a deal he did, right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, So do you expect any of that cooperation to
change now? Just given the sort of frostiness of the
relationship between the Trump administration and Canada.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
You know, there's a difference between a political relationship and
a relationship between people, and the political relationship is really
really important, but Canadians are are deeply entrenched. I mean,
you talk about Saturday Night Live. That's just one example.
They're Canadians all over the place. It's a good chance
anybody listening knows of one Canadian who lives in their
hometown at least who moved theres there temporarily. We're all
(10:51):
over the place in the United States, so there's a
key tie between people. I have relatives all over the
place in the US.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I have relatives in Canada too, by the way, in
my favorite city in Canada, Montreal, so I get to
go up there and have the food whenever I want.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, and it's good food. It's good food, and it's
a very unique city in many ways lovely. But look,
the frosty relationship you refer to, it hasn't been tested.
These two have never been face to face before. So
let's see what happens in the oval. Let's see what
the tone is. Let's not expect miracle work to be done.
(11:29):
Let's look at what that tone is going to be.
But Mark Carney did say at the beginning of this campaign,
Canada's old relationship with the US is over right, and
to some degree Canadians should probably pay attention to that.
That our economy is perhaps overly reliant on trade with
the US. I mean, it's easy. We're right next door.
(11:51):
Most of our highways and pipelines and everything else run
north south, even though we're in East West Country. We
are built to trade with American states, and we are are,
for most American states, the number one trading partner.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Well, in a minute, we're going to talk about some
of the ways ordinary Canadians are changing their behavior because
of Trump. We'll be right back with the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation anchoring correspondent David Common on One Thing Trump did.
(12:37):
Welcome back to One Thing Trump Did exclusively on the
Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In this episode, we're
talking about Canada following their election the other day, which
was all about Trump. I am joined by Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation anchoring correspondent David Common. David, we've heard that the
Canadian tourism to the United States is down something like
seventy percent right now? Is that? What are you hearing?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Yeah? I don't That would seem like a big number
to me, and it may be in specific states, but
there's no question that border crossings by land and by
air are down to the extent that airlines on both
sides of the border are cutting back service because demand
has plummeted. That this summer, people who may have gone
to Disneyland or Disney World are going to choose something
(13:22):
else instead, go somewhere else. Instead, we're seeing US states
and US cities where Canadians were the number one visitors,
seeing intention of something very, very different. And that extends
beyond travel. I mean supply lines, food, all sorts of
(13:43):
things people are looking for in the USA label. I
would not want to be selling American strawberries where I
am in Toronto right now. They basically show up and rot.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I mean on the travel and tourism side, Canada is
the top source of international visitors to the United States,
about twenty million visits last year, generating, according to the
US Travel Association, twenty point five billion dollars in spending
and supporting one hundred and forty thousand American jobs. On
the issue of goods, I mean this is something that
(14:14):
started a few months ago, These boycotts that were happening
of American products. People were taking like Jack Daniels whiskey
off the shelves in Canada. So is that kind of
thing still happening.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, I still can't get Jack Daniels on the main
liquor stores here. It's the province essentially, which runs many
of the liquor stores, just pulled them and has said
that they're staying off until the tariffs come off. It's symbolic.
You know, we're not the most massive market for Jack Daniels,
but it's something.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Is there a product that you actually miss that you
can't get right now that is an American product that you're.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Like, ah, you know, to be honest, there is probably
a product that I don't even realize as American that
I've been buying all these years because we are so integrated,
are so integrated, and that goes on the same side
of the you know, on your side of the border.
You know, it's not like it's just maple syrup that's
coming from Canada. There are things that you don't know.
The car you drive, there's a good chance twenty percent
(15:11):
of it it may have been built in Indiana or Michigan.
There's a good chance twenty or thirty percent of what's
in it was built in Canada.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You know, David, just a couple of months ago, we
did a live special with the CBC. I was in
Vancouver with ian Hannah Mansing and we were live across
the US and Canada taking calls from both sides of
the border. And one of the things that was so
interesting is there are so many Americans who were calling
in and just apologizing to Canadians because they we love
(15:40):
Canada and like, it didn't feel right to treat your
good friend in this way. I wonder, now, are Americans
like being spit on the streets of Toronto, like if
they come and visit the Canadians treating ordinary people?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, no, no. In fact, I've had American visitors in
my own studio coming in, people who made choice because
of what's going on to come and visit Canada, and no,
they've been welcomed, and frankly, if somebody did even say something,
let alone spit on them, I would hope our society
would just go to town on that Canadian because that's
(16:13):
that is not going to help anybody. Individuals are not
setting policy that would be deeply problematic for basically everybody
I know.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
On that same show, by the way, we had Kevin
O'Leary from Shark Tank on as a guest, and you know,
he's kind of open to this idea of Canada as
a fifty first day Maybe not exactly, but he's sort
of a little bit more pro Trump in that sense.
And he brought up the fact in the show that
Canada doesn't even have real free trade among its own provinces.
(16:44):
Do you think that, Well to explain what he means
by that, and you think that might change because of
Carney coming in.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah. So, Look, these are what we call interprovincial trade barriers,
and they can mean all sorts of different things. It
may mean, you know, a nurse in one province can't
go and practice in the other without rewriting a whole
bunch of exams. Or it may mean that wine from
British Columbia can only be sold in certain volumes in
(17:14):
Ontario across the other side of the country. Or it
may mean that there is protection of certain industries as well.
I think dairy for instance, which has come up at
free trade negotiations as well. And so those inter provincial
trade barriers, there's long been talk basically as long as
(17:34):
I've been alive, people have been talking about we've got
to take them down, and nobody's ever done anything. This
could be the impetus of bringing some of them down.
Carneus said he will make it a priority, but it's
not up to him. You know, we have a system
which is not exactly politically exactly like you're south of
the border, but it would be the federal government in
(17:56):
the US can't impose everything on this states. The states
have certain areas of responsibility. We have the same sort
of thing. There's a constitutional division of powers, and so
some of these things are up to provinces, and some
of the provinces cling pretty dearly to a number of
these things. Some are the easy ones, like, you know,
a truck, how many how much weight it can have
(18:18):
on a particular axle. Okay, that that should be unified.
That should be an easy job to get done. But
some of the other ones are you know, political sacred cows,
and provincial politicians may be loath to do something about it.
We'll see.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Well. Do you think though, that as Canada sort of
tries to figure out, Okay, could we have a little
bit less reliance on the United States, just in case
they do something like this again? Do you expect Canada
to try to be striking more free trade deals with
other countries around the world.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So yes, the answer is yes, we will try to
strike down the barriers between provinces first of all, but
that's it's not going to replace America. You know what,
we trade with the US. And then there's just the
ease of trading with the US. Again. All our infrastructure,
our rail lines, our roads, everything are built to trade
with the Americans and yours with US.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
So that is that is going to be a long
term game if we actually had to replace that. And
the reality is it's just trying to be less reliant
on a single trading partner. So yeah, you build up
relationships with others. But here's where things get a bit funky.
You know, we have, like you, an Atlantic port and
a Pacific port. So who are we going to trade
(19:32):
with If we're not going down to the US, We're
gonna go out the West coast and probably to China.
Now who does that help rights? That would be my question, right,
who does that help both when it comes to Canadians
or Americans and the Chinese? And that that's not We're
not the only.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Ones, right, And you can't even trade with Mexico without
either getting in the water or going through the United
States or.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Going through the US. Yeah right, yeah right.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
What are your listeners telling you right now when you
do actually talk to callers, which I know you're even
doing this weekend on Cross Country Checkup? But what are
your listeners tell you about all of this?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Well, look, we have a gamut of people who call in.
Some people are still really angry about this, and it
has it is like a life changing moment for them,
particularly people are older, and we saw that come through
in our own election. But people who are younger, who
don't have, you know who are thinking about other things
(20:34):
like affordability, trying to buy a house in a really
expensive almost impossible to own market, all sorts of other
concerns that sort of loop around the affordability question. It
it's a different it's a different scenario. So there is
not We're not a monolith, just like Americans. My Americans
certainly aren't a monolith. I think there is a range.
(21:00):
There are many people who say that everything has changed.
I guess the journalistic skeptic in me wonders if the
momentum will sustain, and that depends in part on the circumstance.
How's that meaning going to go between Carney and Trump
and is it going to sustain itself?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right? And then I saw that Carney is having King
Charles come into Canada to do something for his well.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Called it's called symbolism, Jeremy, It's called symbolism. Yeah. So
when we kick off a new parliamentary session, the Governor General,
who is like the royal representative in Canada, typically is
the one who comes out and reads this speech from
the throne, which says, here's what the government's priorities are. Well,
(21:51):
this time he called up the King and said, hey,
how about you come and do It's been a long
time since that happened. The King, in fact, has never
done it himself. But look, that's all symbolism. It's it's
it's saying, hey, we've got friends. We've got friends, and
we'll use them.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You know, David, I remember having a conversation with an
American who's lived in Canada for a long time who said,
the one thing that kind of annoyed him about Canadian
politics is that the reason for being is we are
not the United States like that. That it's that is
the that is Canadian politics one o one is We're like,
(22:28):
we're not the identity, right, what what is it what
is it that you want? Well, we're not the United States.
Do you think that that's true?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, you don't. It does go back to like an
identity question and what is what is a Canadian different
from an American? And often the question the answer is, oh, well,
we're just We're just not We're not them, right. It's odd,
it's it's it is intangible. In some ways. There are
things that we can point to, like universal healthcare and
(22:57):
a different culture around gun and end but a lot
of people will bring it back to what is built
into our constitution called peace, order and good government. And
it is a constitution not built on conflict, not built
(23:19):
on escape from tyranny or taxation. And it seems odd
to say a couple of centuries later that somehow that
makes a difference, And yet somehow it does.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
David, before I let you go, when I came up
to Vancouver to do this live special with the CBC,
as you know, it was quite controversial. People didn't even
people in Canada didn't even want us to have this
conversation about Trump saying this should be the fifty first state.
They were really really angry. In Hannimancing was showing me
his email was like every second he was getting another
angry email. And then right before the show, I was like,
(23:59):
I'm going to go have a coffee to get ready
for this. I'm gonna walk outside. I'm gonna go to
Tim Hohrton's. Of course, I'm gonna get my latte or whatever.
I'm gonna walk around. Vancouver was a nice day. And
then I thought to myself, maybe this isn't the smartest
thing for me to be doing right now. I'm probably
one of the most hated people in Canada for doing
this too in the first place.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
The thing is you weren't the target. It wasn't because you,
an American, were engaging in this conversation. It's that we
as Canadians were entertaining it at all. And look, the
logic behind the question around the fifty first state was
intentionally trying to be a bit provocative, but it tells
you just how much walking on ice there is on
(24:40):
thin ice around here to the idea of being taken
over by another country. Yeah, to have another country's values
imposed on us that you felt there was something palpable
and that my colleague and Hannah Mansing was getting a
gazillion email all at once.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Well, and the thing that we said and Ian and
I had to do some He had to do a
lot more of this himself, but he and I had
to do some sort of commentary with press about it
in advance of it. Was that this was an opportunity
for Canadians to be heard by Americans on one hundred
and eighty public radio stations and on c SPAN with
(25:22):
how they felt about this. This is the only opportunity
that they really had ordinary Canadians to be to hear that.
And also it was an opportunity for Canadians to hear
I think like ninety five percent of our American callers say,
we don't want this, you know, Like, so I think
I'm happy that we did it, but I totally understand
it. It was a very controversial thing and I appreciate that
the CBC allowed us to do it. In the end.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, No, it was a good one and it was
a good conversation to have. There's no question. I think
just some people stopped hearing once they heard fifty first
state and just.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Went right right understandably.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
So you should still wear a bulletproof veest.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah, when I come to Vancouver, right, David common anchor
and correspondent with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, David, So great
to see you, Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Good to see you, Choo, and thanks to you.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
For listening to One Thing Trump Did. It was produced
by Harrison Fatino. Our next middle episode will be in
your podcast feed later this week. We're going to be
talking about the changes that we as a society can
make to better accommodate people with disabilities. It's been thirty
five years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed
into law. If you like this podcast, please rate it
wherever you get your podcasts and write a review. The
(26:33):
reviews are very helpful. Our theme music was composed by
Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson and I will talk to
you soon.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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