Pierre Poilievre had a good day in New York, appearing on CNBC and talking up Canada and the benefits of tariff free trade between our two countries. He also appeared on Fox Business with Larry Kudlow.
Neither station is widely available for most Canadians, but they do have impressive audiences stateside.
Here, courtesy of CBC Watcher on X, is Poilievre’s interview on CNBC.
Here is part of his appearance with Kudlow.
Poilievre did a good job of pushing his points on how to improve the Canadian economy, why tariff free trade is best and he did it all without attacking Mark Carney on foreign soil. That’s important, because if he had personally attacked Carney in the United States, he would have been pilloried here.
When Liberals steal your policies…
The Liberals have a habit of stealing, or half-stealing Conservative policies.
Their latest one, not quite repealing Bill C-69, the no more pipelines bill, but pulling it back enough to not be an impediment anymore. The people I am speaking with, not fans of the Carney government, are actually happy with where they are going on this.
They see it as a return to the old Harper policy of one project, one review. Harper’s policy was smart but the Liberals railed against it in opposition and then reversed it in government.
If they bring back one project, one review for environmental assessments it will be a very good thing with provinces taking the lead.
Anyway, here’s Carney’s energy minister Tim Hodgson talking about exporting Canadian oil that none of us would have expected 18 months ago.
We are fighting, but can we win…
This week on Batra’s Burning Questions we tackled the issue of the trade war. I’ve been clear, I don’t think that’s the right language or framing, but that’s what most people are calling it including our prime minister.
So…
Has Mark Carney picked a fight he can’t win. I hash that out with Toronto Sun editor-in-chief and Lorrie Goldstein, editor emeritus for the Sun and a fellow columnist.
The midterm myth…
Doug Ford shuffled his cabinet on Thursday morning. It wasn’t a major shuffle, the most important players in finance, health, transportation, etc. all stayed in place.
In his Q&A with reporters afterwards, Ford invoked the midterm myth that so many Canadians seem to believe.
“This guy’s been going after us,” Ford said. “We’re coming into the midterms. Hopefully, he’s going to lose the Senate. He’s going to lose Congress. I hope so, and hold him accountable.”
I keep saying it but most Canadians keep listening to the talking heads that say if the Democrats win the midterms, things will change for us and tariffs can be removed.
I explained why this is false in a column for the Sun.
If the Democrats take control of the House and Senate, they could try to repeal that law or pass new legislation requiring congressional approval for tariffs. Yet, even if such a bill passed both chambers, Trump would simply veto legislation that would take away authority Congress has already granted him.
To override a veto would require two-thirds of both the House and Senate to vote against the president, and there is no scenario in which Democrats pick up that many seats in the midterms.
The midterms will change nothing, which is why the Canadian strategy of trying to wait Trump out until November was always foolish.
Read the whole column at the link, because as always, I make many good points, not just one.
Can you trust a Democrat…
A theme for both columns today could be, don’t trust a Democrat. Canadians are really stupid about American politics, see above, because they constantly think Republicans are our enemies and Democrats our friends.
That’s not the case and while on trade you could argue that historically Republicans have been better, in reality, neither party is Canada’s friend. Maybe they were back in the days of Reagan, Clinton and both Bush presidents, but not lately.
Obama blocked Keystone. Trump approved it. Biden blocked it again.
In 2009, Obama tried to use the bailouts of GM and Chrysler to force all auto production stateside. In 2022, Joe Biden tried to do the same with the Inflation Reduction Act, which if passed in its original form would have killed auto production in Canada.
Trying to force auto assembly plants south of the border is not something Donald Trump just came up with, he’s just more brazen about it.
Now comes Gretchen Whitmer, the Democrat governor of Michigan. You know Michigan, the state that we are supposed to be so chummy with, all that cross border trade, all that integrated auto industry stuff.
Yeah, she wants to kill off Ontario’s main source of oil, jet fuel and more by permanently shuttering Enbridge’s Line 5.
