October 6, 2025 • 51 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Dan McCarthy and Murray Simser for a fascinating discussion on a question first raised during the 1988 federal election. In that year’s leaders’ debate, John Turner famously warned:
“Once a country yields its economic levers, once a country yields its energy … once a country yields its agriculture … once a country opens itself to a subsidy war with the United States … then the political ability of this country to remain as an independent nation — that has gone forever, and that is the issue of this election.”
They explore whether Turner was right — tracing Canada’s trade history from the McDonald Royal Commission and the 1988 Free Trade election, through the promises and pitfalls of economic integration, to the challenges of dealing with President Trump’s protectionist agenda. Dan and Murray share insights on how globalization has reshaped sovereignty, the missed opportunities for adjustment programs in the 1990s, and the ongoing question of how much sovereignty Canada can afford to give up in future trade deals.
Their conversation also looked ahead: Should Canada pursue deeper integration with the U.S. through a security perimeter and labor mobility, or diversify trade with other global partners? And what does it mean for Canada’s political independence when the U.S. increasingly views us as its “51st state”?
“Once a country yields its economic levers, once a country yields its energy … once a country yields its agriculture … once a country opens itself to a subsidy war with the United States … then the political ability of this country to remain as an independent nation — that has gone forever, and that is the issue of this election.”
They explore whether Turner was right — tracing Canada’s trade history from the McDonald Royal Commission and the 1988 Free Trade election, through the promises and pitfalls of economic integration, to the challenges of dealing with President Trump’s protectionist agenda. Dan and Murray share insights on how globalization has reshaped sovereignty, the missed opportunities for adjustment programs in the 1990s, and the ongoing question of how much sovereignty Canada can afford to give up in future trade deals.
Their conversation also looked ahead: Should Canada pursue deeper integration with the U.S. through a security perimeter and labor mobility, or diversify trade with other global partners? And what does it mean for Canada’s political independence when the U.S. increasingly views us as its “51st state”?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
So tomorrow our Prime Minister is going down to meet
Donald Trump for the second time in the White House,
and you know, lots of issues about what he's going
to talk about, and trade has been probably trade tariff's
have been probably one of the top issues over the
course of the last year since Donald Trump was re
(00:39):
elected to the office President of the United States. Dan McCarthy,
who has got a long history in civil service in Ottawa,
is now a traveler and a writer and has written
a really interesting article along with Murray Simpser in the
paper about youth unemployment. And Murray Simpser, who is an
entrepreneur and a technological expert, entrepreneur with a lot of
(01:02):
different companies. We're on about two three weeks ago talking
about youth unemployment and that was the subject of their article.
And at the end of the discussion we started talking
about the economy in Canada and was John Turner right
when in a debate, I don't know nineteen eighty eight.
I think it was he said that once you give
(01:24):
up your economic sovereignty, eventually you'll end up giving up
your political sovereignty. Or I can't remember the exact quote.
It may have been, your political sovereignty will be at risk.
And today it looks like our political sovereignty is being challenged.
And so I posed the question to Dan and to Murray,
was John Turner right? And they weren't ready to talk
(01:44):
about it. Then they wanted to give it some thought,
and they're back today. So, Dan, you were telling me
a little bit of the history of the McDonald Royal
Commission and the free Trade Agreement. Why don't you kick
it off? Sir?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Sure? So the free trade debate of the ninety eighties
really started in the latter part of the seventies, and
Canada had gone through a couple of crushing recessions in
the nineteen seventies, and we also saw stay inflation, rising inflation,
rising unemployment, and rising interest rates, and the Canadian economy
(02:21):
was really flat on its back and the Liberal government
at the time, led by Pierre Trudeau, was searching for
ideas about how to get out of this economic malaise
that it was in and so in nineteen eighty two
the Trudeau government struck the McDonald Royal Commission on a
Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects and Economic Development, and
(02:45):
it was headed up by Donald McDonald, who was previously
a finance minister in the Trudeau government. He followed John
Turner as Finance Minister, and the Royal Commission worked for
three years, produced a three volume report, about ninety six
volumes of submissions, seventy volumes of research studies, and it
(03:10):
was probably the most extensive piece of economic analysis ever
undertaken about the country. They reported in nineteen eighty five,
and by that time the Liberals were at of power.
Brian mulroney was about a year into office, and the
centerpiece of the Royal Commission report was a recommendation that
(03:31):
the government pursue a free trade arrangent with the United States,
and it was really to address all the little irritants
that we had in trade with the United States. For
our entire history, we've been dependent on the United States
for the bulk of our economic activity, our trade and
(03:54):
so on, and the Commission really recommended deepening that relationship
with the United States much of people surprised. Brian Maroney
picked up that idea and ran with it, and by
nineteen eighty eight we had a draft free trade agreement
with the United States, and Brian mulroney took that into
(04:15):
the nineteen eighty eight election and John Turner, as you mentioned,
was opposed to free trade. During the nineteen eighty eight election,
that question became the centerpiece piece of that election campaign, and.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think this debate that I remember was really quite
a famous debate, almost as famous as the you could
have shown leadership pointed a finger from the nineteen what
was at eighty four election where Brian mulroney, yes, one
that debate. A lot of people think because of his
charge to John Turner that he could have shown leadership
(04:51):
in the appointment of a bunch of different patronage posts.
But in this debate, the Liberals were on the ascendancy
in polls, and after that debate a lot of the
polls suggested that that Turner had turned the tables and
might win. So it was a very good debate and
it was therefore an election that was really, I think
(05:14):
almost a ballot box question on whether we should have
free trade, and in the end Bramo running run So Murray,
what do you think given where we are today, where
our political sovereignty is being challenged. Donald Trump is talking
about the fifty first state. Donald Trump is talking about
economic version. Donald Trump is has been clearly making use
(05:35):
of threats to what is now called the what the
Kuzma I guess the Canada US Mexico Agreement no longer NAFTA,
the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Was John Turner right, well right. As a point of view,
as we all know, it's that the whole purpose of
economic integration and global is a is the specialization across
the world of people to drive down costs and drive
up innovation. That's always been the thesis behind periods of
(06:10):
great economic trade. Think of the Silk Road that was
essentially free trade if you think about it in the
old sense, and Asia and Europe coming together was a flourishing.
Not long after this you had an explosion of what
we call the sort of Renaissance and Enlightenment periods in Europe.
(06:31):
So anytime you have great trade, there's great wealth that
comes along with you. You think of the Venetian Florentinian
states that you know, the trade is always a good thing.
But trade in all of those stories that I just
told you also comes with problems, and those problems are
the more you trade with somebody, the more influence they
(06:52):
have over you. So my sort of short answer is
John Turner was entirely correct to point out that you
are giving up a measure of sovereignty when you are
going to enter into a trading relationship, particularly of the
scale of the FTA. Okay, which is what we're talking about.
The in mulroney terms, the free trade agreement that predated
(07:14):
NAFTA required the Canada give up a lot of its
industrial policy, required that Canada give up it's sort of
internal controls and cultural controls. I don't think people remember
what it was like before that. It was almost like
the nonsense we have between the provinces in Canada today,
and we're saying, hey, get rid of these barriers. That's
(07:36):
what we did between Canada and the United States with FTA.
I think the benefits far outway the price we paid.
Were still an independent nation. We can tell people that
we are an independently powerful country despite the fact that
we have a larger neighbor. We have an independent foreign
polsing and do what we like, and we have Iraq
is a good example of that. Great chance stood up.
I said, no, Now the question isn't where I don't
(07:59):
think should be easy, right. I think the question should
be to what degree do we want to give up
more sovereignty? And so let's talk specifically about Trump and
his behavior? You got it.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Before we go to that, because I think it's an
excellent question. Let's go back to Dan, Dan, what do
you think is uh?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Is?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Was John Turner right? What do you think of Murray's response? Uh?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Generally yes, in the broad sense, yes, and Murray's correct.
You know it was John Turner correct about free trade.
He was right in the respect in the sense that
we didn't see productivity gains across the board in the
Canadian economy. We didn't see a massive inflow of business
investment into Canada. We didn't see Canadian businesses invest massively
(08:50):
over the decades in the in their own businesses.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
UH.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Canadian R and D is anemic, yes, compared to the
United States. And just for example, in the second quarter
of this year, industrial investment in machinery and procedures in
Canada reached the lowest level ever and recorded data. Now
they've only been recording this data since nineteen eighty one.
(09:15):
But it's a situation that the National Bank called appalling,
and so in some respects we didn't get the games
from free trade that we wanted. On the other hand,
the nineteen nineties was really a golden economic decade. Massive
job growth, interest rates fell, the economy boomed. If you
(09:35):
were aged thirty in nineteen ninety, you're probably doing very
well today because there was there were lots of jobs,
wages were rising, interest rates were low, housing prices were manageable,
and so on. So it's really a mixed bag. But
I think that at the end of the day, every
Canadian politician today is John Turner. So in that respect,
(09:59):
John Turners our honor concerns about the deal were correct,
but on the smaller pieces some things he was right on,
perhaps not so much on others.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
On every politician today is John Turner. That's an interesting comment.
I really appreciate that, Dan. I think that we've got
some pretty important decisions that people have to make. So
I want to get involved in this conversation a little
bit more if I could, and that is to let
you know that I was at Harvard Business school in
nineteen eighty eight, and I did a thesis, a mini
thesis on Canada US free Trade Agreement, and I read
(10:34):
not all, but a lot of those twenty six or
thirty volumes of the McDonald Royal Commission, and I put
it into a paper in an argument. And you may
remember that the McDonald Royal Commission recommendation and what Ronald
Donald McDonald thought was really important was not only free trade,
but generous transitional adjustment assistants. And he had two main
(10:57):
parts of his adjustment assistant because he thought it would
be economically challenging. Is we went through this adjustment. One
was a lot of transitional assistance for people that were
going to lose their jobs, unemployment of turns, et cetera.
But it was also a guaranteed annual income. Brian Maroney
took the free trade portion but did not take the
adjustment assessment adjustment assessment assistance recommendation or obviously the guaranteed
(11:21):
annual income. What happened in the nineteen nineties, and you're
quite correct, and that economically candidate, right, is our currency
went from above par in the late nineteen eighties to
around sixty seven cents in the nineties. So some people
think that what actually spurred a lot of the economic
(11:42):
development that took place in the nineteen nineties in Canada
wasn't necessarily free trade or just free trade. It was
that we took a low wage strategy. We reduced our
pricing of labor and all of our goods by about
thirty percent and one of the more dramatic changes in
our currency value over time, and we did not put
in place any of that adjustment assistance, you know, in
(12:03):
the in the two thousands, during the Harper time period,
our currency went back up to above part and at
that point in time we started to hurt because we
didn't have a lot of that adjustment assistance. So I
think it's kind of interesting. Was free trade the solution
that led to that economic incredibly good decade, or was it, frankly,
(12:25):
the fact that we had the Canadian peso crisis that
we we had, you know, Paul Martin and Jean Careccia
completely restructured our government and a lot of the transfers
to provinces and other things, and the Canadian dollar because
of both of those things, went from above par down
to sixty seven cents, and we had this low dollar strategy.
(12:47):
What did the two of you guys think about that?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, well, no, I think you're right. I think I
think that there are there are so many other factors
at play here. The currency devaluation is one of them.
The other is, frankly, that in two thousand and one
the whole world change when China joined the World Trade
Organization and in effect joined the Global Trading Block, and
(13:13):
Canada and other Western nations were opened up to Chinese
imports and to a somewhat lesser extent, their market came
open to our exports. And at the same time, in
the early two thousands, oil prices boomed, and so the
you know, Western Canada was on a roll with the
(13:33):
expansion of the petroleum sector. The oil sands had come
on stream in the mid nineteen nineties to a much
larger extent, so that by two thousand, Canadian oil protection
was far higher than it was currently. The auto exports
boom to the US. Now I wonder, now, given what
(13:55):
you've just said, I wonder if that was as much
to do with the with the state of the Canadian dollars,
what with Canadian autoworkers productivity. But it's a very interesting question.
But I just think, I just think there's so many
other factors that need to be brought into this new
raised one which is the level of the currency.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Murray, you were on Parliment Hill at the time, and
I want to come back after the messages to the
question that you asked, because that is the most important question.
But what do we do next? But but let's come
back if we could, uh to the politics of the situation.
You know, historically in Canada it was the Liberal Party
that was always for free trade and famously Laurier was
for reciprocity back you know, after World War One or
(14:34):
World War two, but even you know, before that, there
were attempts at to free trade and and Canada was
created primarily by John Johnny McDonald as a opposition to
more integration with the United States and free trades. It
was always the Conservatives historically that were you know, for
Canada and more more interaction with and and economic integration
(14:57):
with Britain, the Kingdom in the Commonwealth. And it was
the Liberal Party that had been more interested in free
trade historically with the United States. And Donald McDonald, as
Dan was talking about, was very famously one of the
best and most well thought of finance ministers in a
liberal government. What happened with the politics during the nineteen eighties,
(15:22):
eighty eight election and on into the nineties that you
think led to this conservative switch to support for free trade.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
So I take a look at it from the macro perspective,
less from the micro perspective that is the politics. I
actually think that the politics are what they are. I
don't think politicians are innovative in any way. As we
discussed that free trade came out of a commission, not
out of politician's mouth. They adopted it because it sold
(15:51):
well on the day. Now let's go out from politics
to the world. There's a couple of macro massive changes
that took place. I think we did take a in
the post Bretton Woods world where you know, the gold
standard for the US dollars was taken off and we
allowed currencies to float in a serpentine relationship. There was
(16:11):
a massive adjustment period that had to take place, and
this is where simultaneously we started to do a lot
of trade with Asian So what you had was compression
on prices, all of the emptying of all the manufacturing
that existed here. And then finally the death blow in
the nineties, the Internet comes on stream and an entirely
new world of services open up. And it was my
(16:34):
generation that you know, graduated at that very moment. So
when I look at this, I see a past where
free trade wasn't optional. It was a necessary thing for
us to be able to adapt to the moving to
the East, as it were, of all the manufacturing. Okay,
that was the first thing. The second thing was the
(16:55):
innovation economy that began to grow as the Internet came
on stream in Canada, as you guys pointed out, did
really well. And then third you have September eleventh that
takes place and you destabilize the entire world tectonically, and
we're now just seeing the final breakup of geopolitics and planet.
(17:17):
Those three major events had more effect on the choices
you made. Free trade was great solution, The NAFTA was
great solution to expand it during the nineties, during the peace,
the post Cold War piece. And now here we are
with Kuzma renegotiating. I don't think it matters one lick
what's going on in Canada. I think it really has
(17:40):
more to do with what's going on in the globe
and how our politicians respond.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, it's interesting because I completely disagree with you, and
that's what makes for a great conversations. Absolutely, I think
that the concerns were historically against free trade. I think
that you've got, you know, a right wing in the
UK that is against free trade, against Brexit. You've got
a right wing in the United States that is very
nationalistic and very protectionist and is against free trade. And
(18:05):
I think that if it was Trudeau or Cretcha the
Liberal Party that had recommended free trade coming out of
the McDonald orough Commission, it never would have happened because
the country would have been completely split. And because it
was Brian mulroney and the Conservative Party that adopted free trade,
and the Liberal Party, even though John Turner put forward
(18:26):
a very strong fight, there were a lot of Liberals
that supported it because economically they were and historically they
were in support of growth of business and of more
globalization and of more economic integration, et cetera. And so
that's why I think Brian mulroney won that election. I
think that's why he won the Free Trade Agreement, the
free trade debate, and so I really think it's interesting
(18:47):
when you've got a conservative, a person on the right
that is supportive of globalization, of opening up, of economic integration.
It's like Nixon going to China. Then you've got the
opportunity to have that free trade agreements put in place
when the Conservative is more protectionist, as in what's happening
(19:08):
in the UK since, you know, since the whole Brexit fight,
and even today with Nigel uh whatever, what's Nigel's last name? Right, No,
the with the Reform Party in the U Nigel Farrage,
who looks like you could become government again and uh.
And you know, even though most economists think that the
(19:28):
Brexit was a complete mistake, there's still huge support in
the UK for it. So I think that's kind of
interesting that it was the Conservative Party that was able
to move it. And I worry that that right now,
the fact that Donald Trump and the Republicans are in
power in the United States, not Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton,
(19:50):
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, whoever it might have been on
the Democratic side, it's going to be really tough for
us to negotiate a good continuation of fusela Amy. I
think that Murray asked the most important question, which is,
so what do we do now? So let's take a
make a break for some messages. Come back in two
minutes and discuss that. What there is our Prime Minister
(20:11):
Mark Carney do when he sits down with Donald Trump
tomorrow in the Oval Office. Stay with Z Everyone back
in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on Sagay ninety
six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
We'll come back everyone to the brand Crimey Radio. I've
got Murray Simpser who runs a really interesting company that
is trying to develop this I don't know what it is.
It's an app or it's a change of society. I'm
not sure exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
What bietal network? What a societal network?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Oh so maybe I was Wait, it's a societal network.
That is, he's trying to get us all to participate
in democracy through his app, and it's called Citizen, and
I think it's really quite exciting. And Dan McCarthy, who
is his co author in a really interesting article about
youth unemployment and the challenge that we've got there and
(21:18):
some of the solutions, who's got decades of incredibly senior
experience in the Ottawa Civil Service, and he's therefore a
very deep thinker about what's going on politically and from
policy wise standpoint in Canada. So we do have this
question about was John Turner right or wrong? And I
think he was right, and our economic sovereignty was given up,
(21:42):
and our political sovereignty has been challenged. Whether that was
in the end the right thing to do or not.
I think we'll be judged by by history, and so
far it's been judged by history that it was the
right thing because of the economic growth in Canada, but
the political sovereignty, because of Donald Trump, has for the
first time really been challenged, and I think that Murray
(22:02):
was right. Probably the time that it was challenged the
most in the past was during the Iraq War, and
there was a lot of pressure and that may have
been a free trade that may have been just because
of Western alliances, and the fact that Jean Crecia was
able to take at that time an independent action and
(22:23):
not support the United States in Iraq I think was great.
I wonder, frankly, if Donald Trump was president at the
time whether it would have been as easy for Canada
to have taken an independent point of view on the
invasion of Iraq. But that's probably for another discussion. So
today we've got a situation where the political sovereignty of
(22:44):
Canada is being challenged, whether it be the extreme of
becoming the fifty first state or just someone that's trying
to tell us, you know what we can do in
regards to recognizing Palestine, where we were told by Don
Trump we were wrong by being told that we need
to play a role in Haiti, which we so far
(23:04):
have not done and have told many people who don't
have the resources to do. By being told that we
need to increase our spending to signally above the two
percent of GDP, et cetera. So, Mrie, what do you think?
What does Mark Carney need to do to stand up
to Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Are you back?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yep? Murray under you What do you think we got
to do?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
I think that I think I still think that we
give too much over to the individual players in both economies.
Trump and say Carney in this case, they're going to meet,
They're going to talk. I think you need to understand
your opponent. Trump is a guy who is not threatening
Canada's sovereignty in the sense that he's interested in threatening
(23:56):
the sovereignty of this country. Trump is a guy who
if you read his book, you.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Know Murray let me interrupt you. You know, there was
a big article in the Globen Maal this past weekend.
Goldie Hyder of the Business Council said, with Trump, it's
relationships that are the key. You've got to be in
the oval office. And it's better to be in the
oval office talking than out and being threatened.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Murray, it is and and and if you're if you're
not at the table, you're you're on the menu.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Dan, what do you think about you know Murray's argument
that that he was thinking that relationships didn't matter, it
wasn't important what was going on between the people. But
at the same time he was saying, you've got to
be at the table or on your on the menu.
So what what's your advice to Mark Kearney with all
these risks.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Well, I think that I think that Murray's correct and
that you you're either at the table earlier on the menu.
But I also think that the relationship are extremely important.
And just to go back to Brian mulroney for a moment,
I think that a great deal of his comfort level,
of comfort level and willingness to take on pre trade
as a signature initiative of his government goes back to
(25:17):
his decades of working with American corporations and his comfort
with the American business elite that at the end of
the day, he wasn't frightened by the prospects of having
to go head to head with the Americans in any
business venture. And I'm not saying that John Turner was,
but I think that Brian mulroney, through his business career,
(25:38):
had always been very comfortable dealing with Americans. And I
think that those relationships were developed throughout his life and
culminated in a very close working relationship with Ronald Reagan,
with George Bush and the entire Republican elite in Washington.
But as to what Mark Karney should do, I think
(26:01):
I'm going to differ with you, Brian, and and also
to where I think that Murray may end up on
this on this topic, and that's that I really think
that Mark Karney should move beyond KUSMA and what I
see is rather limited objectives of negotiating away the terroffs
on steel and aluminum and software, lumber and those that
(26:26):
are currently put on the auto sector. And that leading
aside the fact that Trump is, to put it mildly
mercurial and unpredictable, and you could use far worse adjectives.
I really think that given the geopolitical situation in the
world today, that Canada should really examine closely the prospect
(26:52):
for a grand er bargain with the Americans that encompasses
more than simply those three or four tariff irritant areas
the recurrent experiencing what Trump.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, that's really interesting. The US Ambassador to Canada has
effectively been arguing for that of late and has been
suggesting that what we need to what what what Canada
should be doing is is negotiating a far wider ranging
agreement with the United States to include the Golden Dome
and UH and nora AD reconfiguration and national security issues.
(27:24):
How how far, how far ranging do you think this
would go? Dan? And isn't that economic integration molding into
political integration?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Well, I think that part of the part of the
concern over the past several decades about economic integration with
the United States was the fact that Canada was dealing
with a very weak hand, or dealing from a weak position.
And I think that if if the last six months
have shown us anything, that there's a that there is
a strong economic and other nationalism forcing through Canadians vanine
(27:59):
right now, and with the Carney government willing to step
up on defense spending and security arrangements globally, I think
we have a stronger hand right now with the Americans
and that we should look at a at a broader
arrangement similar to what Mark Carney himself talked about back
(28:20):
in March when he had a phone call with Trump
and the two agreed to look at a comprehensive defense
and security arrangement. And by July though that had gone
away and it was never quite clear of what had happened.
And you're right, Pete Hoakstra, the American ambassador, was talking
about that as recently as a couple of weeks ago,
(28:41):
although he himself has now said it's unlikely to happen again.
Not sure whether Canadians pulled that off the table or
Donald Trump himself pulled it off the table. But if
you look around the world where we're searching right now
for friends and economic partnerships, leaving aside the United States
(29:03):
for a second, we look to China, but there's issues
with that relationship. Where we can look to India, obvious
problems with that relationship. Mark Karney has been to Europe
now four times since being elected Prime Minister, and you know,
the EU has its own internal difficulties and instabilities. And
(29:27):
then there's the United States. And I think that on
examination that the issue with the United States on the
negative side, is one person, Donald Trump. All the other
factors line up, I think in Canada's favor. And you know,
Mark Karney can sign a free trade agreement with countries
(29:48):
like Indonesia till the cows come home. Those will never
replace the impact of our trade currently with the Americans.
Canada exports nearly six hundred billion dollars in goods a year,
two hundred billion dollars in services. Our trade last year
with Indonesia was two point nine billion in total. It'll
take an awful lot of Indonesia's and icelands and countries
(30:11):
like that to even put a dent in the trade
that we do with the Americans. So I think that
the Cousma tax and particularly those focused on steel, aluminum cars,
soft with lumber, very important to those specific sectors. We
have a far bigger relationship with the Americans in trade,
(30:32):
in security and defense, even on matters such as immigration
and international migration, and I really think we should be
talking to the Americans about those Trump will be gone
in three years hopefully, but we're going to be tethered
to the Americans for time infinitum.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
So you know, I've had people on my show that
have said that geography is gravity and that there is
no way that we can fight the fact that we
are spread out. I think something that statistic is that
ninety or ninety five percent of US live within one
hundred miles of the US border across Canada. So Canada
is not necessarily from a population standpoint, this massive country
where this little strip across the top of the US border.
(31:15):
But then about other people that have talked about how
so often in Canada's past we have fought that geography gravity,
whether it be Johnny McDonald in the creation of federation,
whether it was the efforts during the eighteen nineties where
you know, there was huge amount of force for Canadian takeover,
(31:38):
Canadian American integration, and McKinley, the president who Donald Trump
looks forward to, was actually trying to at the time
economically takeover Canada during the Laurier years where you know,
reciprocity was voted down, you know, when Trudeau, a senior,
got elected and there was this desire for economic diversification
(32:01):
across the globe, and I think his famous quote was
when you're sleeping next to an elephant, it's hard not
to get crushed, or something like that. But you're saying
that we can do it, and we can do it
to our economic benefit and without losing a lot of
our sovereignty. My read of what happened in the UK,
and I've interviewed some people on this as well, you're
(32:23):
probably more knowledgeable about it, is that if it was
just an economic integration, Brexit wouldn't have happened. It was
the political integration into the European Parliament and the giving
up of a lot of the sovereignty to Brussels. That
were the issues that the right wing in the United
Kingdom hated, and that's why Brexit was supported. And I
(32:48):
wonder whether people could support some of the things that
you're talking about if we go beyond economics and into
some of the other areas that you've mentioned, and it's
going to be on the table on Tuesday, whether it's
going to be you know, we've talked about border security,
national defense, Golden Dome, nor ed buying of jets, et cetera.
(33:10):
If we get more integrated with the United States, Is
that the right thing and will people support it? What
do you think?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
I guess it would be a heck. I would take
a heck of a sales job on behalf of the
government of Canada to sell the concept of such a
broader arrangement. But you know what, what are the objections
to free trade or several dejectives to free trade. Back
in the nineteen eighties, we were going to lose supply
manager where we're going to lose the CBC, we were
(33:39):
going to have to water down and environmental regulations, we
were going to have to give up a number of
other cultural supports in the country. And that didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
But supply management is on the table right now. And
the Consertis want to defund CBC.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Well, yes, but the Conservatis aren't in power, so I
think the CBC safe for now, you know what. And frankly,
on supply management, I think that we should really take
a serious look at supply management. The cost of the
average Canadian consumer to protect five thousand dairy farmers across
the country. I don't know that it's defensible anymore, and
(34:18):
it holds up so many other so much other progress
on the trade front. But anyway, because you could do
it as an entirely different show on supply.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Management way back in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, I think that. I think that what the Government
of Canada should focus on right now is sort of
three key areas, and one of them a sort of
a security perimeter around North America. That concept goes back
to the nineteen nineties. John Manley, when he was Foreign
(34:52):
Affairs Minister, was talking with the Americans about just such
a perimeter. Discussions were underway, and you may we called
the Millennium bomber, and Algeria and al Qaeda member who
had been living in Montreal was arrested crossing the US
border from Vancouver or south of Vancouver en route to
La Airport with a car trunk full of explosives. And
(35:17):
the Americans put the talks on hold after that arrest
because they frankly were concerned about Canada being infiltrated by terrorists.
And then a couple of years later, Nine to eleven happened.
And you'll recall the initial speculation that the nine to
eleven hijackers had entered the US via Canada wasn't true,
but that rumor became a virtual truth in some circles
(35:42):
in Washington, so those talks went away. But I think
that we should look seriously at a defense and security
perimeter from North America. Golden Dome would be one piece
of it. But there's a huge win for Canada here
in that we can secure our sovereignty in the Arctic
via a treaty with the United States. Currently, the Americans
don't recognize our sovereignty north of literally the coastline off
(36:06):
Noon Avid and the Northwest Territories. They don't recognize our
sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. They don't recognize our sovereignty
over the Arctic ar Plago, all those islands up there
in the North. And if we look at a North
American perimeter that included explicit recognition of Canadian sovereignty up there,
that would be a win. We should be doing more
(36:28):
to pull our weight and Mark Karney will do that.
If we get the five percent of GDP and defense spending,
pull more of our weight in the Arctic in terms
of security. So that's one piece Arctic defense and security
arrangement that would be part of a North American perimeter.
The second is, and this may require some seating of sovereignty,
(36:51):
but a move to greater coordination of immigration and migration
control both our countries. Right now, I want I'm not
going to use Trump's term, We're being invaded, but Canada
has literally half a million refugees in the queue waiting
for their legal status in Canada to be determined. I
(37:15):
don't know what that backlog is. Five years, eight years,
ten years, and laneloads continue to land every day at Pearson.
We simply lost control of the refugee determination system in
this country. And I'm not suggesting that we mimic the
Americans on ice and their raids and cities and so on,
(37:38):
but we have a very nervous country to the south
of US, and part of their nervousness is that Canada
simply has not until recently, taken seriously our border, taken seriously,
who's coming into the country, properly vetting people. We don't
do it with temporary foreign workers, we don't do it
with foreign students. Then I think that it would go
(38:02):
a great ways. We would really make progress progress with
the Americans on other fronts by reassuring them that Canada
is taking its own security and border seriously. And then thirdly,
I think that that we need to look at in
(38:24):
terms of the border, uh, perhaps some sort of reciprocity
across the border movement of workers, labor mobility. If you
look at that stretch of the border literally from Sherbrooke
right through to Siue Saint Marie Michigan, Sue Saint Marie, Ontario,
you look at the Canadian side of the border, relatively
(38:45):
prosperous town Sherbrooke, Cornwall. Cornwall has its issues, but you
compare Cornwall to Messina, New York. You compare other towns
along the border along the Saint Lawrence, Kingston, Brockville, Belleville,
and so on, uh, and their counterparts in the US Rochester, Cleveland, Buffalo.
You've got Toronto, one of the globes great metropolis is
(39:08):
ninety minutes away. You've got Buffalo. You have Sussaint Marie, Ontario.
The thriving community of forty thousand people across the across
the river is Sue Saint Marie, Michigan, and it's a
collection of cannabis, vape stores and pizza partners. The Americans
(39:30):
look at that, and they don't see us as frere
fair traders. They don't see us as free traders. Trump
looks at upstate New York and then southern Ontario and thinks,
why isn't that Upstate New York? And so I didn't
really think that we need to look at at the
border and those issues of almost a prosperity reciprocity across
(39:51):
the border, and I think we need to if we
moved on those three key areas fascinating.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with them in pluting comments in just two minutes
on what Mark Kearney, what the liberal government of what
Canada needs to do in regards to dealing with Donald Trump,
and should we have elbows up or should we shake hands?
Stay with us, everyone back in.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Two stream US live at SAGA nine six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Cromie Radio. Right
here's that we've lost Marie Simpster, but Dan McCarthy it's
still with us today and we're chatting about free trade,
about John Turner. With John Turner right when he said
(40:45):
if you give up your economic sovereign sovereignty, eventually you
give up your political sovereignty. And it sounds like Dan
is willing to give up a little bit more negotiate it. Dan,
I want to talk first of all about more integration
and then talk about what Mark Carney has as as
his alternative. Dian Francis, Kevin O'Leary, some people have been
(41:08):
talking about going much farther and talking about a customs
union and integrating with the United States to a far
greater degree. Is that what you're suggesting?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
No, not really, And you know what, I haven't looked
at at what Kevin O'Leary said, But if you're looking
at a customs union, and presumably you're looking at a
common currency as well, and uh, that's probably a bridge
too far at this point. I don't think the Canadians
are ready to give up the Canadian dollar.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
But free flow of people labor across you know, that's
one of the key points of the customs union is
is you can go get a job wherever you want.
So I could go to New York tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Yeah, well, you know what, I think that that might't
be on a track of buio a tract of alternative
for a lot of young Canadians would be the opportunity
to do that. You currently see thousands of healthcare workers
in southwestern Ontario that across the border a daily bases
to work in Detroit and other cities in Michigan. So
(42:05):
and in some in some respects, we already have that
that that uh, that cross border mobility of labor in
certain professions. You can also enter the United States and
vice versa for Americans coming to Canada on various uh
(42:25):
highly qualified persons types of visas, although the Americans took
some steps in the last week or so to ike
the the cost of companies doing that to protect to
protect American jobs. So I think this is already you know,
a few avenues open for that. I'm not sure what
(42:46):
else the gentleman might have suggested in terms of a
customs union, but I guess what I'm looking at is
more of a more of an arrangement that's focuses on
that on strengths to Canada could bring to the table
over the next several years. Well, we're in a position
to do so five years ago. Frankly, nothing to offer
in terms of defense. But if Mark Karney's putting billions
(43:07):
of dollars on the table to upgrade no or ad
to participate with the Americans on Arctic security and so on.
Then I think that that allows us to almost deal
from a position at elbows up, from a position of
greater strength, and that we're not going in there as
the far a weaker cousin into such negotiations.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
So Mark Kearney has been talking about an alternative to
you know, and talked about the changed geopolitical reality and
the changed reality of our integration with the United States,
and he's talked about this major project's office pipelines, looquified
natural gas, maybe something to Churchill, a poor harbor that
(43:50):
will ship to Europe, broadening our trade relationships with Europe,
with Asia, et cetera. Is that a reasonable alternative?
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Well, yeah, I think in some respects yes, But I
think that if you look at his foreign policy in
a broader sense, it's awfully complicated. When Mark Karney was
down at the United Nations last week in New York City,
he gave a lengthy presentation to the Council on Foreign
Relations and he talked about a three prong strategy for Canada.
(44:22):
Number one is Canada being an energy superpower and FOLLO
agreement with that, and I think that we need to
further develop all our energy resources, traditional in the petroleum
sector on the renewable side, and also far deeper technology
and innovation in all respects, so energy superpower. The second
(44:44):
piece is what he calls Canadian value, sort of that
softer power that Canada seeks to project across the globe.
I'm not sure soft power works these days, certainly doesn't
work down in Washington. But the third piece is what
he called and it's I think it's still under development,
but it's an interesting concept. He calls it variable geography.
(45:06):
And if you position Canada as the on a compass
to the north, you have the Arctic and you have Norad,
and that Canada would focus in those areas. To the east,
we have our relationship with NATO, trying to increase trade
ties with the European Union, and overall just strengthening that
(45:26):
whole transatlantic relationship. If you look to the west, you've
got Canada's Indo Pacific strategy, which has been enunciated. But
I'm not sure that if you ask one hundred Canadians
that more than one or two of them could tell
you in any detail what our objectives are in the
(45:47):
Indo Pacific region, and there we have India and China,
both of both countries of which we currently have issues with.
And then to the south we have the United States.
And I guess we're from is that I don't know
how we pursue four points of the compass at once
when we're having difficulty dealing with the southern point of
(46:11):
the compass on and sector specific tariffs, dealing with steel, aluminum,
soft with lumber and autos. And I just wondered, does
the Foreign Affairs Department, does the Canadian government as a whole,
have the bandwidth and the intellectual capacity and the people
(46:32):
power to deal with all four points of the compass
at once, or should we focus on that southern point
of the compass deal with the United States first come
to a broader arrangement with them in a number of
different areas. I think that Trunk is going to string
us along on those tariffs till the cows come home.
I think he takes some delicious enjoyment and having Domino
(46:58):
the Blog down in Washington for weeks on end, Mark
Carney is going down as you mentioned, for his second
visit going tomorrow, and I just wonder if we should
be putting our energy into a broader piece with the
United States. We can still pursue those other points of
the compass. The northern part will be taken care of
(47:19):
in discussions with the United States, and that northern part
being now 're at an Arctic security and I just
think that we're as I mentioned, we can do a
lot of trade deals with Indonesia and Iceland and other
countries like that, and in twenty years we likely will
not have moved the needle a bit in terms of
(47:40):
our are the proportion of our trade that we currently
devote to with the Americans.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
So you know, I think the world is a complicated place,
is no question. And I've got to add two more
points to your compass because I think the South they
also includes Mexico, Latin America, and South America. And you've
got Canadian owned railways that have got railways that go
right through the United States straight to Mexico. So we
could actually ship which we don't do often enough, goods
(48:08):
right to Mexico fairly cost effectively on Canadian owned railways
all the way through the United States. And clearly the
balance of the southern hemisphere of Latin America and South
America is there, and I think Africa is Lots of
people have talked about it being the continent of the
twenty first century, and I think broth economically and frankly
(48:34):
even in population is going to be far greater in
Africa than it's going to be in Asia. It was
as if you know, China, Asia, et cetera. Those countries
that you just mentioned have had their incredible spurt over
the course of the last thirty to fifty years. And
I think Africa is the future. That said, I think
that you've got to do both. You've got to think
about the United States at the same time as you
(48:56):
have as Mark Karney has talked about variable geography. And
I think the mistake that we've made in the past
is when we've been either focused only on the British
Commonwealth and opportunities to trade outside of the United States
or just the United States. And I come back to
you know, I'm a business guy. If you ever had
eighty ninety percent of your business with one supplier or
(49:18):
one customer or one investor, you'd be really worried. And
you change things fairly, dramatically, fairly quickly. And I think
that that's a mistake, and that's the situation we've been
in with the United States. And so if it makes
logical sense that you never do it in business, I
think it's kind of makes logical sense that it's a
risky strategy for Canada to be overly exposed to the
United States. And the proof is in, you know, your
(49:41):
argument that it's one person, Donald Trump, that's the biggest problem.
And that said, I worry that the Republican Party is
no longer the Republican Party. It's the Mega Party. And
some people have been on my show and have said JD.
Evance and some of the others that could take over
the Republican Party or the Mega Party in three and
a half years might be just as bad, if not, frankly,
even potentially worse. This nationalistic, this xenophobic, this protectionist attitude,
(50:07):
this America first attitude. To put a positive spin on it,
is there for good anyway, Dan, great show, Really appreciate
chatting with you, and tomorrow Simpster wherever he's gone in
the Internet. Thank him as well. I really appreciate you
joining us. That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you
for joining. Good luck to Mark Carney tomorrow. I hope
(50:27):
he doesn't have a Zelinsky in the Oval office. That's
our show for tonight, everybody. I'm Brian Crombie for the
Brian Crombie Radio Hour. I remind you I'm on every
Monday through Friday at six o'clock on nine to sixty am.
You can stream me online even from Ottawa Triple W
SAGA nine sixty am dot CA, on my podcast and
videos go up on my website Briancromby dot com, on
social media, on podcast servers as soon as the radio
(50:49):
show goes to air. You can check me out of
my YouTube channel YouTube Brian Crombie, Thanks, good night.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Streams at SAGA nine sixty am dot Ca.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
So tomorrow our Prime Minister is going down to meet
Donald Trump for the second time in the White House,
and you know, lots of issues about what he's going
to talk about, and trade has been probably trade tariff's
have been probably one of the top issues over the
course of the last year since Donald Trump was re
(00:39):
elected to the office President of the United States. Dan McCarthy,
who has got a long history in civil service in Ottawa,
is now a traveler and a writer and has written
a really interesting article along with Murray Simpser in the
paper about youth unemployment. And Murray Simpser, who is an
entrepreneur and a technological expert, entrepreneur with a lot of
(01:02):
different companies. We're on about two three weeks ago talking
about youth unemployment and that was the subject of their article.
And at the end of the discussion we started talking
about the economy in Canada and was John Turner right
when in a debate, I don't know nineteen eighty eight.
I think it was he said that once you give
(01:24):
up your economic sovereignty, eventually you'll end up giving up
your political sovereignty. Or I can't remember the exact quote.
It may have been, your political sovereignty will be at risk.
And today it looks like our political sovereignty is being challenged.
And so I posed the question to Dan and to Murray,
was John Turner right? And they weren't ready to talk
(01:44):
about it. Then they wanted to give it some thought,
and they're back today. So, Dan, you were telling me
a little bit of the history of the McDonald Royal
Commission and the free Trade Agreement. Why don't you kick
it off? Sir?
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Sure? So the free trade debate of the ninety eighties
really started in the latter part of the seventies, and
Canada had gone through a couple of crushing recessions in
the nineteen seventies, and we also saw stay inflation, rising inflation,
rising unemployment, and rising interest rates, and the Canadian economy
(02:21):
was really flat on its back and the Liberal government
at the time, led by Pierre Trudeau, was searching for
ideas about how to get out of this economic malaise
that it was in and so in nineteen eighty two
the Trudeau government struck the McDonald Royal Commission on a
Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects and Economic Development, and
(02:45):
it was headed up by Donald McDonald, who was previously
a finance minister in the Trudeau government. He followed John
Turner as Finance Minister, and the Royal Commission worked for
three years, produced a three volume report, about ninety six
volumes of submissions, seventy volumes of research studies, and it
(03:10):
was probably the most extensive piece of economic analysis ever
undertaken about the country. They reported in nineteen eighty five,
and by that time the Liberals were at of power.
Brian mulroney was about a year into office, and the
centerpiece of the Royal Commission report was a recommendation that
(03:31):
the government pursue a free trade arrangent with the United States,
and it was really to address all the little irritants
that we had in trade with the United States. For
our entire history, we've been dependent on the United States
for the bulk of our economic activity, our trade and
(03:54):
so on, and the Commission really recommended deepening that relationship
with the United States much of people surprised. Brian Maroney
picked up that idea and ran with it, and by
nineteen eighty eight we had a draft free trade agreement
with the United States, and Brian mulroney took that into
(04:15):
the nineteen eighty eight election and John Turner, as you mentioned,
was opposed to free trade. During the nineteen eighty eight election,
that question became the centerpiece piece of that election campaign, and.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I think this debate that I remember was really quite
a famous debate, almost as famous as the you could
have shown leadership pointed a finger from the nineteen what
was at eighty four election where Brian mulroney, yes, one
that debate. A lot of people think because of his
charge to John Turner that he could have shown leadership
(04:51):
in the appointment of a bunch of different patronage posts.
But in this debate, the Liberals were on the ascendancy
in polls, and after that debate a lot of the
polls suggested that that Turner had turned the tables and
might win. So it was a very good debate and
it was therefore an election that was really, I think
(05:14):
almost a ballot box question on whether we should have
free trade, and in the end Bramo running run So Murray,
what do you think given where we are today, where
our political sovereignty is being challenged. Donald Trump is talking
about the fifty first state. Donald Trump is talking about
economic version. Donald Trump is has been clearly making use
(05:35):
of threats to what is now called the what the
Kuzma I guess the Canada US Mexico Agreement no longer NAFTA,
the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
Was John Turner right, well right. As a point of view,
as we all know, it's that the whole purpose of
economic integration and global is a is the specialization across
the world of people to drive down costs and drive
up innovation. That's always been the thesis behind periods of
(06:10):
great economic trade. Think of the Silk Road that was
essentially free trade if you think about it in the
old sense, and Asia and Europe coming together was a flourishing.
Not long after this you had an explosion of what
we call the sort of Renaissance and Enlightenment periods in Europe.
(06:31):
So anytime you have great trade, there's great wealth that
comes along with you. You think of the Venetian Florentinian
states that you know, the trade is always a good thing.
But trade in all of those stories that I just
told you also comes with problems, and those problems are
the more you trade with somebody, the more influence they
(06:52):
have over you. So my sort of short answer is
John Turner was entirely correct to point out that you
are giving up a measure of sovereignty when you are
going to enter into a trading relationship, particularly of the
scale of the FTA. Okay, which is what we're talking about.
The in mulroney terms, the free trade agreement that predated
(07:14):
NAFTA required the Canada give up a lot of its
industrial policy, required that Canada give up it's sort of
internal controls and cultural controls. I don't think people remember
what it was like before that. It was almost like
the nonsense we have between the provinces in Canada today,
and we're saying, hey, get rid of these barriers. That's
(07:36):
what we did between Canada and the United States with FTA.
I think the benefits far outway the price we paid.
Were still an independent nation. We can tell people that
we are an independently powerful country despite the fact that
we have a larger neighbor. We have an independent foreign
polsing and do what we like, and we have Iraq
is a good example of that. Great chance stood up.
I said, no, Now the question isn't where I don't
(07:59):
think should be easy, right. I think the question should
be to what degree do we want to give up
more sovereignty? And so let's talk specifically about Trump and
his behavior? You got it.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Before we go to that, because I think it's an
excellent question. Let's go back to Dan, Dan, what do
you think is uh?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Is?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Was John Turner right? What do you think of Murray's response? Uh?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Generally yes, in the broad sense, yes, and Murray's correct.
You know it was John Turner correct about free trade.
He was right in the respect in the sense that
we didn't see productivity gains across the board in the
Canadian economy. We didn't see a massive inflow of business
investment into Canada. We didn't see Canadian businesses invest massively
(08:50):
over the decades in the in their own businesses.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
UH.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Canadian R and D is anemic, yes, compared to the
United States. And just for example, in the second quarter
of this year, industrial investment in machinery and procedures in
Canada reached the lowest level ever and recorded data. Now
they've only been recording this data since nineteen eighty one.
(09:15):
But it's a situation that the National Bank called appalling,
and so in some respects we didn't get the games
from free trade that we wanted. On the other hand,
the nineteen nineties was really a golden economic decade. Massive
job growth, interest rates fell, the economy boomed. If you
(09:35):
were aged thirty in nineteen ninety, you're probably doing very
well today because there was there were lots of jobs,
wages were rising, interest rates were low, housing prices were manageable,
and so on. So it's really a mixed bag. But
I think that at the end of the day, every
Canadian politician today is John Turner. So in that respect,
(09:59):
John Turners our honor concerns about the deal were correct,
but on the smaller pieces some things he was right on,
perhaps not so much on others.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
On every politician today is John Turner. That's an interesting comment.
I really appreciate that, Dan. I think that we've got
some pretty important decisions that people have to make. So
I want to get involved in this conversation a little
bit more if I could, and that is to let
you know that I was at Harvard Business school in
nineteen eighty eight, and I did a thesis, a mini
thesis on Canada US free Trade Agreement, and I read
(10:34):
not all, but a lot of those twenty six or
thirty volumes of the McDonald Royal Commission, and I put
it into a paper in an argument. And you may
remember that the McDonald Royal Commission recommendation and what Ronald
Donald McDonald thought was really important was not only free trade,
but generous transitional adjustment assistants. And he had two main
(10:57):
parts of his adjustment assistant because he thought it would
be economically challenging. Is we went through this adjustment. One
was a lot of transitional assistance for people that were
going to lose their jobs, unemployment of turns, et cetera.
But it was also a guaranteed annual income. Brian Maroney
took the free trade portion but did not take the
adjustment assessment adjustment assessment assistance recommendation or obviously the guaranteed
(11:21):
annual income. What happened in the nineteen nineties, and you're
quite correct, and that economically candidate, right, is our currency
went from above par in the late nineteen eighties to
around sixty seven cents in the nineties. So some people
think that what actually spurred a lot of the economic
(11:42):
development that took place in the nineteen nineties in Canada
wasn't necessarily free trade or just free trade. It was
that we took a low wage strategy. We reduced our
pricing of labor and all of our goods by about
thirty percent and one of the more dramatic changes in
our currency value over time, and we did not put
in place any of that adjustment assistance, you know, in
(12:03):
the in the two thousands, during the Harper time period,
our currency went back up to above part and at
that point in time we started to hurt because we
didn't have a lot of that adjustment assistance. So I
think it's kind of interesting. Was free trade the solution
that led to that economic incredibly good decade, or was it, frankly,
(12:25):
the fact that we had the Canadian peso crisis that
we we had, you know, Paul Martin and Jean Careccia
completely restructured our government and a lot of the transfers
to provinces and other things, and the Canadian dollar because
of both of those things, went from above par down
to sixty seven cents, and we had this low dollar strategy.
(12:47):
What did the two of you guys think about that?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, well, no, I think you're right. I think I
think that there are there are so many other factors
at play here. The currency devaluation is one of them.
The other is, frankly, that in two thousand and one
the whole world change when China joined the World Trade
Organization and in effect joined the Global Trading Block, and
(13:13):
Canada and other Western nations were opened up to Chinese
imports and to a somewhat lesser extent, their market came
open to our exports. And at the same time, in
the early two thousands, oil prices boomed, and so the
you know, Western Canada was on a roll with the
(13:33):
expansion of the petroleum sector. The oil sands had come
on stream in the mid nineteen nineties to a much
larger extent, so that by two thousand, Canadian oil protection
was far higher than it was currently. The auto exports
boom to the US. Now I wonder, now, given what
(13:55):
you've just said, I wonder if that was as much
to do with the with the state of the Canadian dollars,
what with Canadian autoworkers productivity. But it's a very interesting question.
But I just think, I just think there's so many
other factors that need to be brought into this new
raised one which is the level of the currency.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Murray, you were on Parliment Hill at the time, and
I want to come back after the messages to the
question that you asked, because that is the most important question.
But what do we do next? But but let's come
back if we could, uh to the politics of the situation.
You know, historically in Canada it was the Liberal Party
that was always for free trade and famously Laurier was
for reciprocity back you know, after World War One or
(14:34):
World War two, but even you know, before that, there
were attempts at to free trade and and Canada was
created primarily by John Johnny McDonald as a opposition to
more integration with the United States and free trades. It
was always the Conservatives historically that were you know, for
Canada and more more interaction with and and economic integration
(14:57):
with Britain, the Kingdom in the Commonwealth. And it was
the Liberal Party that had been more interested in free
trade historically with the United States. And Donald McDonald, as
Dan was talking about, was very famously one of the
best and most well thought of finance ministers in a
liberal government. What happened with the politics during the nineteen eighties,
(15:22):
eighty eight election and on into the nineties that you
think led to this conservative switch to support for free trade.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
So I take a look at it from the macro perspective,
less from the micro perspective that is the politics. I
actually think that the politics are what they are. I
don't think politicians are innovative in any way. As we
discussed that free trade came out of a commission, not
out of politician's mouth. They adopted it because it sold
(15:51):
well on the day. Now let's go out from politics
to the world. There's a couple of macro massive changes
that took place. I think we did take a in
the post Bretton Woods world where you know, the gold
standard for the US dollars was taken off and we
allowed currencies to float in a serpentine relationship. There was
(16:11):
a massive adjustment period that had to take place, and
this is where simultaneously we started to do a lot
of trade with Asian So what you had was compression
on prices, all of the emptying of all the manufacturing
that existed here. And then finally the death blow in
the nineties, the Internet comes on stream and an entirely
new world of services open up. And it was my
(16:34):
generation that you know, graduated at that very moment. So
when I look at this, I see a past where
free trade wasn't optional. It was a necessary thing for
us to be able to adapt to the moving to
the East, as it were, of all the manufacturing. Okay,
that was the first thing. The second thing was the
(16:55):
innovation economy that began to grow as the Internet came
on stream in Canada, as you guys pointed out, did
really well. And then third you have September eleventh that
takes place and you destabilize the entire world tectonically, and
we're now just seeing the final breakup of geopolitics and planet.
(17:17):
Those three major events had more effect on the choices
you made. Free trade was great solution, The NAFTA was
great solution to expand it during the nineties, during the peace,
the post Cold War piece. And now here we are
with Kuzma renegotiating. I don't think it matters one lick
what's going on in Canada. I think it really has
(17:40):
more to do with what's going on in the globe
and how our politicians respond.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, it's interesting because I completely disagree with you, and
that's what makes for a great conversations. Absolutely, I think
that the concerns were historically against free trade. I think
that you've got, you know, a right wing in the
UK that is against free trade, against Brexit. You've got
a right wing in the United States that is very
nationalistic and very protectionist and is against free trade. And
(18:05):
I think that if it was Trudeau or Cretcha the
Liberal Party that had recommended free trade coming out of
the McDonald orough Commission, it never would have happened because
the country would have been completely split. And because it
was Brian mulroney and the Conservative Party that adopted free trade,
and the Liberal Party, even though John Turner put forward
(18:26):
a very strong fight, there were a lot of Liberals
that supported it because economically they were and historically they
were in support of growth of business and of more
globalization and of more economic integration, et cetera. And so
that's why I think Brian mulroney won that election. I
think that's why he won the Free Trade Agreement, the
free trade debate, and so I really think it's interesting
(18:47):
when you've got a conservative, a person on the right
that is supportive of globalization, of opening up, of economic integration.
It's like Nixon going to China. Then you've got the
opportunity to have that free trade agreements put in place
when the Conservative is more protectionist, as in what's happening
(19:08):
in the UK since, you know, since the whole Brexit fight,
and even today with Nigel uh whatever, what's Nigel's last name? Right, No,
the with the Reform Party in the U Nigel Farrage,
who looks like you could become government again and uh.
And you know, even though most economists think that the
(19:28):
Brexit was a complete mistake, there's still huge support in
the UK for it. So I think that's kind of
interesting that it was the Conservative Party that was able
to move it. And I worry that that right now,
the fact that Donald Trump and the Republicans are in
power in the United States, not Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton,
(19:50):
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, whoever it might have been on
the Democratic side, it's going to be really tough for
us to negotiate a good continuation of fusela Amy. I
think that Murray asked the most important question, which is,
so what do we do now? So let's take a
make a break for some messages. Come back in two
minutes and discuss that. What there is our Prime Minister
(20:11):
Mark Carney do when he sits down with Donald Trump
tomorrow in the Oval Office. Stay with Z Everyone back
in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on Sagay ninety
six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
We'll come back everyone to the brand Crimey Radio. I've
got Murray Simpser who runs a really interesting company that
is trying to develop this I don't know what it is.
It's an app or it's a change of society. I'm
not sure exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
What bietal network? What a societal network?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Oh so maybe I was Wait, it's a societal network.
That is, he's trying to get us all to participate
in democracy through his app, and it's called Citizen, and
I think it's really quite exciting. And Dan McCarthy, who
is his co author in a really interesting article about
youth unemployment and the challenge that we've got there and
(21:18):
some of the solutions, who's got decades of incredibly senior
experience in the Ottawa Civil Service, and he's therefore a
very deep thinker about what's going on politically and from
policy wise standpoint in Canada. So we do have this
question about was John Turner right or wrong? And I
think he was right, and our economic sovereignty was given up,
(21:42):
and our political sovereignty has been challenged. Whether that was
in the end the right thing to do or not.
I think we'll be judged by by history, and so
far it's been judged by history that it was the
right thing because of the economic growth in Canada, but
the political sovereignty, because of Donald Trump, has for the
first time really been challenged, and I think that Murray
(22:02):
was right. Probably the time that it was challenged the
most in the past was during the Iraq War, and
there was a lot of pressure and that may have
been a free trade that may have been just because
of Western alliances, and the fact that Jean Crecia was
able to take at that time an independent action and
(22:23):
not support the United States in Iraq I think was great.
I wonder, frankly, if Donald Trump was president at the
time whether it would have been as easy for Canada
to have taken an independent point of view on the
invasion of Iraq. But that's probably for another discussion. So
today we've got a situation where the political sovereignty of
(22:44):
Canada is being challenged, whether it be the extreme of
becoming the fifty first state or just someone that's trying
to tell us, you know what we can do in
regards to recognizing Palestine, where we were told by Don
Trump we were wrong by being told that we need
to play a role in Haiti, which we so far
(23:04):
have not done and have told many people who don't
have the resources to do. By being told that we
need to increase our spending to signally above the two
percent of GDP, et cetera. So, Mrie, what do you think?
What does Mark Carney need to do to stand up
to Donald Trump?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Are you back?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yep? Murray under you What do you think we got
to do?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
I think that I think I still think that we
give too much over to the individual players in both economies.
Trump and say Carney in this case, they're going to meet,
They're going to talk. I think you need to understand
your opponent. Trump is a guy who is not threatening
Canada's sovereignty in the sense that he's interested in threatening
(23:56):
the sovereignty of this country. Trump is a guy who
if you read his book, you.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Know Murray let me interrupt you. You know, there was
a big article in the Globen Maal this past weekend.
Goldie Hyder of the Business Council said, with Trump, it's
relationships that are the key. You've got to be in
the oval office. And it's better to be in the
oval office talking than out and being threatened.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Murray, it is and and and if you're if you're
not at the table, you're you're on the menu.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Dan, what do you think about you know Murray's argument
that that he was thinking that relationships didn't matter, it
wasn't important what was going on between the people. But
at the same time he was saying, you've got to
be at the table or on your on the menu.
So what what's your advice to Mark Kearney with all
these risks.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Well, I think that I think that Murray's correct and
that you you're either at the table earlier on the menu.
But I also think that the relationship are extremely important.
And just to go back to Brian mulroney for a moment,
I think that a great deal of his comfort level,
of comfort level and willingness to take on pre trade
as a signature initiative of his government goes back to
(25:17):
his decades of working with American corporations and his comfort
with the American business elite that at the end of
the day, he wasn't frightened by the prospects of having
to go head to head with the Americans in any
business venture. And I'm not saying that John Turner was,
but I think that Brian mulroney, through his business career,
(25:38):
had always been very comfortable dealing with Americans. And I
think that those relationships were developed throughout his life and
culminated in a very close working relationship with Ronald Reagan,
with George Bush and the entire Republican elite in Washington.
But as to what Mark Karney should do, I think
(26:01):
I'm going to differ with you, Brian, and and also
to where I think that Murray may end up on
this on this topic, and that's that I really think
that Mark Karney should move beyond KUSMA and what I
see is rather limited objectives of negotiating away the terroffs
on steel and aluminum and software, lumber and those that
(26:26):
are currently put on the auto sector. And that leading
aside the fact that Trump is, to put it mildly
mercurial and unpredictable, and you could use far worse adjectives.
I really think that given the geopolitical situation in the
world today, that Canada should really examine closely the prospect
(26:52):
for a grand er bargain with the Americans that encompasses
more than simply those three or four tariff irritant areas
the recurrent experiencing what Trump.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, that's really interesting. The US Ambassador to Canada has
effectively been arguing for that of late and has been
suggesting that what we need to what what what Canada
should be doing is is negotiating a far wider ranging
agreement with the United States to include the Golden Dome
and UH and nora AD reconfiguration and national security issues.
(27:24):
How how far, how far ranging do you think this
would go? Dan? And isn't that economic integration molding into
political integration?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Well, I think that part of the part of the
concern over the past several decades about economic integration with
the United States was the fact that Canada was dealing
with a very weak hand, or dealing from a weak position.
And I think that if if the last six months
have shown us anything, that there's a that there is
a strong economic and other nationalism forcing through Canadians vanine
(27:59):
right now, and with the Carney government willing to step
up on defense spending and security arrangements globally, I think
we have a stronger hand right now with the Americans
and that we should look at a at a broader
arrangement similar to what Mark Carney himself talked about back
(28:20):
in March when he had a phone call with Trump
and the two agreed to look at a comprehensive defense
and security arrangement. And by July though that had gone
away and it was never quite clear of what had happened.
And you're right, Pete Hoakstra, the American ambassador, was talking
about that as recently as a couple of weeks ago,
(28:41):
although he himself has now said it's unlikely to happen again.
Not sure whether Canadians pulled that off the table or
Donald Trump himself pulled it off the table. But if
you look around the world where we're searching right now
for friends and economic partnerships, leaving aside the United States
(29:03):
for a second, we look to China, but there's issues
with that relationship. Where we can look to India, obvious
problems with that relationship. Mark Karney has been to Europe
now four times since being elected Prime Minister, and you know,
the EU has its own internal difficulties and instabilities. And
(29:27):
then there's the United States. And I think that on
examination that the issue with the United States on the
negative side, is one person, Donald Trump. All the other
factors line up, I think in Canada's favor. And you know,
Mark Karney can sign a free trade agreement with countries
(29:48):
like Indonesia till the cows come home. Those will never
replace the impact of our trade currently with the Americans.
Canada exports nearly six hundred billion dollars in goods a year,
two hundred billion dollars in services. Our trade last year
with Indonesia was two point nine billion in total. It'll
take an awful lot of Indonesia's and icelands and countries
(30:11):
like that to even put a dent in the trade
that we do with the Americans. So I think that
the Cousma tax and particularly those focused on steel, aluminum cars,
soft with lumber, very important to those specific sectors. We
have a far bigger relationship with the Americans in trade,
(30:32):
in security and defense, even on matters such as immigration
and international migration, and I really think we should be
talking to the Americans about those Trump will be gone
in three years hopefully, but we're going to be tethered
to the Americans for time infinitum.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
So you know, I've had people on my show that
have said that geography is gravity and that there is
no way that we can fight the fact that we
are spread out. I think something that statistic is that
ninety or ninety five percent of US live within one
hundred miles of the US border across Canada. So Canada
is not necessarily from a population standpoint, this massive country
where this little strip across the top of the US border.
(31:15):
But then about other people that have talked about how
so often in Canada's past we have fought that geography gravity,
whether it be Johnny McDonald in the creation of federation,
whether it was the efforts during the eighteen nineties where
you know, there was huge amount of force for Canadian takeover,
(31:38):
Canadian American integration, and McKinley, the president who Donald Trump
looks forward to, was actually trying to at the time
economically takeover Canada during the Laurier years where you know,
reciprocity was voted down, you know, when Trudeau, a senior,
got elected and there was this desire for economic diversification
(32:01):
across the globe, and I think his famous quote was
when you're sleeping next to an elephant, it's hard not
to get crushed, or something like that. But you're saying
that we can do it, and we can do it
to our economic benefit and without losing a lot of
our sovereignty. My read of what happened in the UK,
and I've interviewed some people on this as well, you're
(32:23):
probably more knowledgeable about it, is that if it was
just an economic integration, Brexit wouldn't have happened. It was
the political integration into the European Parliament and the giving
up of a lot of the sovereignty to Brussels. That
were the issues that the right wing in the United
Kingdom hated, and that's why Brexit was supported. And I
(32:48):
wonder whether people could support some of the things that
you're talking about if we go beyond economics and into
some of the other areas that you've mentioned, and it's
going to be on the table on Tuesday, whether it's
going to be you know, we've talked about border security,
national defense, Golden Dome, nor ed buying of jets, et cetera.
(33:10):
If we get more integrated with the United States, Is
that the right thing and will people support it? What
do you think?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
I guess it would be a heck. I would take
a heck of a sales job on behalf of the
government of Canada to sell the concept of such a
broader arrangement. But you know what, what are the objections
to free trade or several dejectives to free trade. Back
in the nineteen eighties, we were going to lose supply
manager where we're going to lose the CBC, we were
(33:39):
going to have to water down and environmental regulations, we
were going to have to give up a number of
other cultural supports in the country. And that didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
But supply management is on the table right now. And
the Consertis want to defund CBC.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Well, yes, but the Conservatis aren't in power, so I
think the CBC safe for now, you know what. And frankly,
on supply management, I think that we should really take
a serious look at supply management. The cost of the
average Canadian consumer to protect five thousand dairy farmers across
the country. I don't know that it's defensible anymore, and
(34:18):
it holds up so many other so much other progress
on the trade front. But anyway, because you could do
it as an entirely different show on supply.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Management way back in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, I think that. I think that what the Government
of Canada should focus on right now is sort of
three key areas, and one of them a sort of
a security perimeter around North America. That concept goes back
to the nineteen nineties. John Manley, when he was Foreign
(34:52):
Affairs Minister, was talking with the Americans about just such
a perimeter. Discussions were underway, and you may we called
the Millennium bomber, and Algeria and al Qaeda member who
had been living in Montreal was arrested crossing the US
border from Vancouver or south of Vancouver en route to
La Airport with a car trunk full of explosives. And
(35:17):
the Americans put the talks on hold after that arrest
because they frankly were concerned about Canada being infiltrated by terrorists.
And then a couple of years later, Nine to eleven happened.
And you'll recall the initial speculation that the nine to
eleven hijackers had entered the US via Canada wasn't true,
but that rumor became a virtual truth in some circles
(35:42):
in Washington, so those talks went away. But I think
that we should look seriously at a defense and security
perimeter from North America. Golden Dome would be one piece
of it. But there's a huge win for Canada here
in that we can secure our sovereignty in the Arctic
via a treaty with the United States. Currently, the Americans
don't recognize our sovereignty north of literally the coastline off
(36:06):
Noon Avid and the Northwest Territories. They don't recognize our
sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. They don't recognize our sovereignty
over the Arctic ar Plago, all those islands up there
in the North. And if we look at a North
American perimeter that included explicit recognition of Canadian sovereignty up there,
that would be a win. We should be doing more
(36:28):
to pull our weight and Mark Karney will do that.
If we get the five percent of GDP and defense spending,
pull more of our weight in the Arctic in terms
of security. So that's one piece Arctic defense and security
arrangement that would be part of a North American perimeter.
The second is, and this may require some seating of sovereignty,
(36:51):
but a move to greater coordination of immigration and migration
control both our countries. Right now, I want I'm not
going to use Trump's term, We're being invaded, but Canada
has literally half a million refugees in the queue waiting
for their legal status in Canada to be determined. I
(37:15):
don't know what that backlog is. Five years, eight years,
ten years, and laneloads continue to land every day at Pearson.
We simply lost control of the refugee determination system in
this country. And I'm not suggesting that we mimic the
Americans on ice and their raids and cities and so on,
(37:38):
but we have a very nervous country to the south
of US, and part of their nervousness is that Canada
simply has not until recently, taken seriously our border, taken seriously,
who's coming into the country, properly vetting people. We don't
do it with temporary foreign workers, we don't do it
with foreign students. Then I think that it would go
(38:02):
a great ways. We would really make progress progress with
the Americans on other fronts by reassuring them that Canada
is taking its own security and border seriously. And then thirdly,
I think that that we need to look at in
(38:24):
terms of the border, uh, perhaps some sort of reciprocity
across the border movement of workers, labor mobility. If you
look at that stretch of the border literally from Sherbrooke
right through to Siue Saint Marie Michigan, Sue Saint Marie, Ontario,
you look at the Canadian side of the border, relatively
(38:45):
prosperous town Sherbrooke, Cornwall. Cornwall has its issues, but you
compare Cornwall to Messina, New York. You compare other towns
along the border along the Saint Lawrence, Kingston, Brockville, Belleville,
and so on, uh, and their counterparts in the US Rochester, Cleveland, Buffalo.
You've got Toronto, one of the globes great metropolis is
(39:08):
ninety minutes away. You've got Buffalo. You have Sussaint Marie, Ontario.
The thriving community of forty thousand people across the across
the river is Sue Saint Marie, Michigan, and it's a
collection of cannabis, vape stores and pizza partners. The Americans
(39:30):
look at that, and they don't see us as frere
fair traders. They don't see us as free traders. Trump
looks at upstate New York and then southern Ontario and thinks,
why isn't that Upstate New York? And so I didn't
really think that we need to look at at the
border and those issues of almost a prosperity reciprocity across
(39:51):
the border, and I think we need to if we
moved on those three key areas fascinating.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with them in pluting comments in just two minutes
on what Mark Kearney, what the liberal government of what
Canada needs to do in regards to dealing with Donald Trump,
and should we have elbows up or should we shake hands?
Stay with us, everyone back in.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Two stream US live at SAGA nine six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Cromie Radio. Right
here's that we've lost Marie Simpster, but Dan McCarthy it's
still with us today and we're chatting about free trade,
about John Turner. With John Turner right when he said
(40:45):
if you give up your economic sovereign sovereignty, eventually you
give up your political sovereignty. And it sounds like Dan
is willing to give up a little bit more negotiate it. Dan,
I want to talk first of all about more integration
and then talk about what Mark Carney has as as
his alternative. Dian Francis, Kevin O'Leary, some people have been
(41:08):
talking about going much farther and talking about a customs
union and integrating with the United States to a far
greater degree. Is that what you're suggesting?
Speaker 3 (41:18):
No, not really, And you know what, I haven't looked
at at what Kevin O'Leary said, But if you're looking
at a customs union, and presumably you're looking at a
common currency as well, and uh, that's probably a bridge
too far at this point. I don't think the Canadians
are ready to give up the Canadian dollar.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
But free flow of people labor across you know, that's
one of the key points of the customs union is
is you can go get a job wherever you want.
So I could go to New York tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Yeah, well, you know what, I think that that might't
be on a track of buio a tract of alternative
for a lot of young Canadians would be the opportunity
to do that. You currently see thousands of healthcare workers
in southwestern Ontario that across the border a daily bases
to work in Detroit and other cities in Michigan. So
(42:05):
and in some in some respects, we already have that
that that uh, that cross border mobility of labor in
certain professions. You can also enter the United States and
vice versa for Americans coming to Canada on various uh
(42:25):
highly qualified persons types of visas, although the Americans took
some steps in the last week or so to ike
the the cost of companies doing that to protect to
protect American jobs. So I think this is already you know,
a few avenues open for that. I'm not sure what
(42:46):
else the gentleman might have suggested in terms of a
customs union, but I guess what I'm looking at is
more of a more of an arrangement that's focuses on
that on strengths to Canada could bring to the table
over the next several years. Well, we're in a position
to do so five years ago. Frankly, nothing to offer
in terms of defense. But if Mark Karney's putting billions
(43:07):
of dollars on the table to upgrade no or ad
to participate with the Americans on Arctic security and so on.
Then I think that that allows us to almost deal
from a position at elbows up, from a position of
greater strength, and that we're not going in there as
the far a weaker cousin into such negotiations.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
So Mark Kearney has been talking about an alternative to
you know, and talked about the changed geopolitical reality and
the changed reality of our integration with the United States,
and he's talked about this major project's office pipelines, looquified
natural gas, maybe something to Churchill, a poor harbor that
(43:50):
will ship to Europe, broadening our trade relationships with Europe,
with Asia, et cetera. Is that a reasonable alternative?
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Well, yeah, I think in some respects yes, But I
think that if you look at his foreign policy in
a broader sense, it's awfully complicated. When Mark Karney was
down at the United Nations last week in New York City,
he gave a lengthy presentation to the Council on Foreign
Relations and he talked about a three prong strategy for Canada.
(44:22):
Number one is Canada being an energy superpower and FOLLO
agreement with that, and I think that we need to
further develop all our energy resources, traditional in the petroleum
sector on the renewable side, and also far deeper technology
and innovation in all respects, so energy superpower. The second
(44:44):
piece is what he calls Canadian value, sort of that
softer power that Canada seeks to project across the globe.
I'm not sure soft power works these days, certainly doesn't
work down in Washington. But the third piece is what
he called and it's I think it's still under development,
but it's an interesting concept. He calls it variable geography.
(45:06):
And if you position Canada as the on a compass
to the north, you have the Arctic and you have Norad,
and that Canada would focus in those areas. To the east,
we have our relationship with NATO, trying to increase trade
ties with the European Union, and overall just strengthening that
(45:26):
whole transatlantic relationship. If you look to the west, you've
got Canada's Indo Pacific strategy, which has been enunciated. But
I'm not sure that if you ask one hundred Canadians
that more than one or two of them could tell
you in any detail what our objectives are in the
(45:47):
Indo Pacific region, and there we have India and China,
both of both countries of which we currently have issues with.
And then to the south we have the United States.
And I guess we're from is that I don't know
how we pursue four points of the compass at once
when we're having difficulty dealing with the southern point of
(46:11):
the compass on and sector specific tariffs, dealing with steel, aluminum,
soft with lumber and autos. And I just wondered, does
the Foreign Affairs Department, does the Canadian government as a whole,
have the bandwidth and the intellectual capacity and the people
(46:32):
power to deal with all four points of the compass
at once, or should we focus on that southern point
of the compass deal with the United States first come
to a broader arrangement with them in a number of
different areas. I think that Trunk is going to string
us along on those tariffs till the cows come home.
I think he takes some delicious enjoyment and having Domino
(46:58):
the Blog down in Washington for weeks on end, Mark
Carney is going down as you mentioned, for his second
visit going tomorrow, and I just wonder if we should
be putting our energy into a broader piece with the
United States. We can still pursue those other points of
the compass. The northern part will be taken care of
(47:19):
in discussions with the United States, and that northern part
being now 're at an Arctic security and I just
think that we're as I mentioned, we can do a
lot of trade deals with Indonesia and Iceland and other
countries like that, and in twenty years we likely will
not have moved the needle a bit in terms of
(47:40):
our are the proportion of our trade that we currently
devote to with the Americans.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
So you know, I think the world is a complicated place,
is no question. And I've got to add two more
points to your compass because I think the South they
also includes Mexico, Latin America, and South America. And you've
got Canadian owned railways that have got railways that go
right through the United States straight to Mexico. So we
could actually ship which we don't do often enough, goods
(48:08):
right to Mexico fairly cost effectively on Canadian owned railways
all the way through the United States. And clearly the
balance of the southern hemisphere of Latin America and South
America is there, and I think Africa is Lots of
people have talked about it being the continent of the
twenty first century, and I think broth economically and frankly
(48:34):
even in population is going to be far greater in
Africa than it's going to be in Asia. It was
as if you know, China, Asia, et cetera. Those countries
that you just mentioned have had their incredible spurt over
the course of the last thirty to fifty years. And
I think Africa is the future. That said, I think
that you've got to do both. You've got to think
about the United States at the same time as you
(48:56):
have as Mark Karney has talked about variable geography. And
I think the mistake that we've made in the past
is when we've been either focused only on the British
Commonwealth and opportunities to trade outside of the United States
or just the United States. And I come back to
you know, I'm a business guy. If you ever had
eighty ninety percent of your business with one supplier or
(49:18):
one customer or one investor, you'd be really worried. And
you change things fairly, dramatically, fairly quickly. And I think
that that's a mistake, and that's the situation we've been
in with the United States. And so if it makes
logical sense that you never do it in business, I
think it's kind of makes logical sense that it's a
risky strategy for Canada to be overly exposed to the
United States. And the proof is in, you know, your
(49:41):
argument that it's one person, Donald Trump, that's the biggest problem.
And that said, I worry that the Republican Party is
no longer the Republican Party. It's the Mega Party. And
some people have been on my show and have said JD.
Evance and some of the others that could take over
the Republican Party or the Mega Party in three and
a half years might be just as bad, if not, frankly,
even potentially worse. This nationalistic, this xenophobic, this protectionist attitude,
(50:07):
this America first attitude. To put a positive spin on it,
is there for good anyway, Dan, great show, Really appreciate
chatting with you, and tomorrow Simpster wherever he's gone in
the Internet. Thank him as well. I really appreciate you
joining us. That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you
for joining. Good luck to Mark Carney tomorrow. I hope
(50:27):
he doesn't have a Zelinsky in the Oval office. That's
our show for tonight, everybody. I'm Brian Crombie for the
Brian Crombie Radio Hour. I remind you I'm on every
Monday through Friday at six o'clock on nine to sixty am.
You can stream me online even from Ottawa Triple W
SAGA nine sixty am dot CA, on my podcast and
videos go up on my website Briancromby dot com, on
social media, on podcast servers as soon as the radio
(50:49):
show goes to air. You can check me out of
my YouTube channel YouTube Brian Crombie, Thanks, good night.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Streams at SAGA nine sixty am dot Ca.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!