Video Transcript:

(00:03) well we’re halfway through the very short election season a massive rally was held in Edmonton where Steven Harper introduced Pierre Polyv more information has emerged about foreign interference and the polls showing surprising results here to chat about it all is federal political commentator Brian Lily of the Toronto Sun brian hello welcome back thanks for having me as always it’s a pleasure okay so Ryan another massive rally for conservative leader Pierre Polyv this time in Edmonton uh that was Monday evening so more than 10,000
(00:38) people showed up to this thing and some estimates even say as many as 15,000 attended so former Prime Minister Steven Harper introduced Polyv and said that he’s the only person to have hired both main party leaders and his choice is Polyv so does Steven Harper’s endorsement actually matter in this well I think it still does there’s a lot of voters who have fond memories of Steven Harper’s time in office that he was able to uh as he said he was the actual guy that shephered Canada through the 2008 2009 financial crisis he kind
(01:13) of smirked when he said that line and said “I hear there’s another guy claiming to have done this,” meaning Mark Carney and then said “Look I I’m the only person to have had both of them work for me and I fully endorse Pier Polyv.” Uh he he went over why he thinks Polyv is the the best man for the job that he’s got the better policies you know uh as I’ve been pointing out Janette um you know I hear some folks say well Mark Carney’s an economist so he must know what he’s talking about well Steven Harper’s an economist as
(01:43) well and you know who else is an economist peter Navaro now maybe you don’t know the name Peter Navaro but he’s got a an economics degree a PhD from Harvard University i’d say that’s equivalent to having a PhD in economics from Oxford harvard and Oxford two of the most esteemed academic establishments around the world well Navaro is one of Donald Trump’s top economic adviserss and he is talking about tariffs non-stop and backs tariffs so does Kevin Hasset who is also in the White House has a PhD in economics from
(02:18) the University of Pennsylvania you can go down the list of Trump’s economic adviserss with PhDs who still back tariffs or people like uh Howard Lutnik who’s multi-billionaire who backs tariffs we generally think of these tariffs as a bad idea in Canada but the fact that you have a PhD in economics doesn’t mean that you’re immune to bad ideas mark Carney has a lot of bad ideas in terms of leaving natural resources in the ground not building pipelines keeping emission caps in place etc so Steven Harper’s uh endorsement I think really
(02:54) matters and look whether it’s 10,000 or 15,000 in my time covering politics which stretches 25 years at this point I’ve never seen a rally of that size that that that is absolutely massive in Canada in the United States we’d say “Oh that’s nothing.” But that’s massive and you can say “Well it’s in Alberta so it doesn’t matter.
(03:18) ” It’s in Edmonton Redminton where the the Liberals have a seat dominates the NDP have two seats where they’re expected to potentially pick up more because Alberta’s gone from 34 to 37 seats so the fact that he’s drawing crowds of that size doesn’t matter where it is it’s incredibly impressive and Stephen Harper’s full endorsement i’ I’ve shared it the full video on all my socials if you haven’t watched it yet you know make sure you do the 10-minute speech introducing Polyv very well worth the watch that is so interesting okay so one of the key
(03:52) points that Harper made was that most of the economic problems that Canada faces predate Donald Trump and have nothing to do with the American president and this is something that you’ve talked about Brian so is is this something you think most voters understand well I I think it depends on on who’s voting is we look at the polling we’ll talk about the generational gap in a little bit but you know you’ve got one group of voters that is just obsessed with Donald Trump and the tariffs and then you’ve got another group of voters
(04:22) who are saying “No look my big issue is affordability the cost of living housing uh economic issues.” You know so as Harper pointed out the the rising crime that we’re experiencing is not a result of Donald Trump and the tariffs the broken immigration system that we have you know we used to have the most you know widely thought of immigr immigration system in the world it was like Canada works we should all go study Canada and now it’s broken it’s a mess that was the liberals um you look at the rising unemployment that is not Donald
(04:59) Trump you know this the numbers that we just got that predates tariffs coming in uh you look at the fact that our uh you know what what we earn uh our standard of living compared to the Americans has dropped while theirs has increased that’s not due to Donald Trump and the sheriffs that’s the last decade so all of these things really matter now as I said you’ve got two sets of voters one that is just focused on Trump and the tariffs and one that is saying look the c the country isn’t working the way it should and and we need to fix that so if
(05:33) if you’re looking to fix what’s broken with the country I don’t know how you go with Carney and the Liberals because he is still advocating a lot of the same policies m and then while he was still in Edmonton Pale have announced that he would close loopholes for tax avoidance and he specifically said Mark Carney’s tax loopholes meaning that he would target the liberal leaders record on using tax haven so what thanks you Brian is this fair or not fair for a line of attack oh it’s it’s absolutely fair um Mark Carney’s time at Brookfield uh he had he
(06:09) had a lot of things that he was responsible for but the two big ones were two funds one was worth $10 billion the other worth $15 billion this is US dollars by the way so$2 billion US total these were the green transition funds and Carney set them up he’s one of the founders so even if he has sold off his own uh stock portfolio he’s being paid by these funds until they um are are no longer active which is going to be many years into the future and these are green energy transition funds meaning basically against everything that
(06:42) Alberta is relying on for your tax base uh he set these funds up in Bermuda why because the tax rates are so low there’s no uh capital gains tax there’s no corporate tax there’s no dividend tax you know these were run out of Toronto offices at the time now it would be New York but they’re run out of Toronto offices but he registers them in Bermuda to avoid the taxes the NDP has done an analysis that says during Carney’s time at Brookfield he helped them avoid paying $5.
(07:19) 3 billion in taxes now look we can all do our best to avoid paying taxes we all want to uh pay the least amount of tax possible but when you’re talking about 5.3 billion look I don’t know about you but I’m doing my taxes at the moment so I’ve got a regular income from the sun i’ve got freelance income that I’ve got to account for and I’ve got to make sure that every single deduction that I’m making is you know by the book that I I am not doing anything that’s going to get me audited and I have been audited by CRA and I have been told “No you’re
(07:52) paying back thousands of dollars that my accountant had said I you know didn’t have to pay.” These are the things that small business owners that everyday Canadians worry about and meanwhile Carney is registering in offshore tax havens and avoiding billions in taxes while running a very successful company that he recently moved the headquarters of from Toronto to New York so you know don’t tell me you’re captain Canada when you’re avoiding taxes and you’re moving your headquarters from Canada to the United States and then on uh Monday
(08:25) federal government officials gave another update on foreign interference and they revealed that the Chinese government has been working to make Mark Carney look good so Brian what can you tell us about this so there’s a social media platform that is popular in China and amongst the Chinese diaspora including here in Canada it’s called WeChat you know think of X and Facebook put together it is everything and people share stories on this all the time the Canadian federal government I need to you know just stress this because I’ve had some people
(08:59) saying “Why is Brian Lily making up things why is he saying that you know this happened when it didn’t?” No federal government bureaucrats these are not political staffers bureaucrats said that there were coordinated campaigns now the term they used was targeting Janette now in intelligence circles that means that it’s some kind of negative attack on you right and so it may sound like well they’re they’re out to get Mark Carney the only examples that the federal uh officials provided were positive stories on Carney and when
(09:35) reporters I was not there but reporters from National Post Globe and Mail and elsewhere said “I don’t know this looks like they’re supporting them look at all these positive stories where are the negative ones that you’re saying are there?” Oh we don’t want to share those we don’t want to spread that misinformation but they were willing to share the positive ones about Mark Carney uh going back to the Liberal leadership race there were attempts by the Chinese government and these were cited by federal officials at the time
(10:01) to target Christopher Freeland to say don’t vote for her and when you look at some of the writings with the highest concentration of Chinese Canadians those are the writings where Mark Carney won with the highest percentage of the vote and Christian Furland was down at like four 5% of the vote um he won in a landslide i’m not saying that you know China you know orchestrated this but they clearly are favoring him and in the general election they’re putting out stories about how he’s the strong man he’s the tough guy against Donald Trump
(10:32) uh he is the stable one in terms of relations with China they are clearly trying to uh sway the votes of Chinese Canadians and that has to be concerning unfortunately the federal officials tried to downplay this and say this is only on one social media platform yes the most popular one again amongst Chinese Canadians which in several writings across the country there are some writings where that’s 55 56 60% of the vote and th these are the messages being put forward vote for Mark Carney he is our guy that has to be concerning
(11:07) for every Canadian especially after 2019 2020 uh1 in 2021 or after that election Chinese officials here in Toronto were bragging about their ability to get some people elected and some people defeated china is just once again interfering in our elections in a way that India doesn’t have the ability to that uh Russia or Iran don’t have the ability to china is much more complex much more sophisticated in how they do this yeah and Brian I’m glad that you brought that up the the headline about targeting because we saw that as well and we had
(11:42) that in our headlines as well in our Monday newscast and it was very confusing how they kind of framed that so I don’t know if it was something that was lost in translation or if it was purpose purposefully look I the the bureaucrats don’t want to say that they’re favoring one candidate or another they just want to say there’s a a campaign on this person well there are negative campaigns and there are positive campaigns and if you can only show me the positive ones then I’m sorry the Chinese government is now supporting
(12:15) Mark Carney and and so at the Toronto Sun we just decided we’re not using the term targeting we will explain it within our coverage okay but they are clearly supporting him and to say that they’re targeting him and not explaining it makes it sound like it’s a negative thing that they’re going against him that’s not the case they’re backing him all right well thank you for clearing that up there so we’ve got Carney now who’s uh you know got the Chinese backing him he’s portraying portraying himself as Captain Canada as you said
(12:46) there and uh he’s lived a good chunk of his adult life outside of Canada and as you said uh he’s got his funds set up in Bermuda now he’s being endorsed by Donald Trump uh so do you think that he’s really in this for Canada then look I I I think the guy loves Canada but I think he’s got a different view than a lot of Canadians who have lived here their whole lives he’s very much um in sync with China why Donald Trump is endorsing him I I don’t quite know but trying to figure out Donald Trump is difficult on the best of days but he is
(13:23) definitely in sync with the Chinese government he’s met with President Xi many times he was just recently there a few months ago securing a $276 million loan for his former company Brookfield from a Chinese state controlled bank that wouldn’t happen without the approval of the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party um he I don’t know how you can claim you’re captain Canada when you are setting up your company in Bermuda and moving the headquarters to the USA and you know expanding business in China but not in
(13:58) Canada because while Carney was the chair of Brookfield and head of transition investing so that was what he was originally hired for and then he became chair of the board but he still maintained you know head of transition investing so he’s directing where the investments are going in the future he was not investing in Canada he was investing in China he was investing in Brazil he was investing in the United States in the Middle East not in this country investments in Canada did not grow under his watch do we really think
(14:31) that that’s going to change that he’s going to suddenly come up with new policies that will you know help the country grow in the way that it should interesting to watch and all of your viewers should keep an eye on this does Mark Carney ever utter the words oil gas or pipelines he talks about conventional energy and I listened to him in a news conference recently he just kept talking about conventional energy he this is the phrase he uses he does not want to use the word oil and so he wants to make us a conventional and clean energy
(15:06) superpower as I’ve said before we already are a conventional energy superpower in terms of oil and gas he wants to make us a green energy superpower he wants us to invest like he did with Brookfield in all of these green technologies that will not see an extra barrel of oil a day come out of the ground will not see liqufied natural gas exportation in this country this is his plan wow brian once again we are out of time unfortunately I didn’t even get to ask you about the polls and how it’s looking like like the younger voters are
(15:40) going more for Polyv the older voters are going more for Liberals i mean we’ve never seen that before it’s almost opposite right but we’ll talk about it soon I’m sure let’s do it next week for sure brian Lily of the Toronto Sun thank you so much for joining us once again today thank you