Canada’s Economy Is Weakening Fastl

[00:00:00]The weakest part of the economy in Canada is what used to be the strongest part, which is Ontario. You know, Ontario bears the brunt of all of the US trade. I'm not suggesting that there isn't a problem with aluminum in Quebec because there is.

[00:00:13]>> Yep.

[00:00:14]>> Although I'm suspicious the aluminum problem will get resolved before a bunch of the other >> I think aluminum will get the resolved before steel.

[00:00:20]>> Yeah. Or or cars.

[00:00:22]>> Yeah.

[00:00:22]>> Um and lumber's just been beat the [ __ ] out of. I mean, like, I actually felt bad the other day. I I was I read a note about a family-owned Quebec wood furniture company closing after 75 years. Like, the factory closed. It'll never come back.

[00:00:39]>> Um, direct result of the tariff situation.

[00:00:43]>> And we see it, we talk to people every day in our in our business, and it ain't good.

[00:00:49]>> Like in Ontario particularly, it ain't good because even though house prices have come down, they're still way too high. They're still like ridiculously high. Anybody even today who looks at real estate in Ontario would say, "So, are you telling me it was like 27% higher before?" Like, this is still crazy now. So, >> if you buy a house and you've got a big mortgage and you're a young person, >> it's very hard. I mean, we just hear it constantly. It's hard.

[00:01:13]>> Yeah. And and and a lot of these a lot of these issues regarding steel and auto are really out of Doug's control. it with what what is happening uh in terms of both those sectors really has nothing to do with who is in who is in in government how how how it's handled you you can agree whether the electric vehicle subsidies um were good or bad I believe Ontario was was loan not subsidies like the federal government uh like the federal government had but I think that if I were the Ford government my focus a lot of my focus right now would be on the ring of fire and the extraction of minerals um in the north I think that that is a that that is something that I would put enormous pressure on the federal government on.

[00:01:53]Doug has built a lot of goodwill with with the federal the previous Trudeau administration as well as well as the Carney administration. Frankly, he much more goodwill like he's he's much better to them than I would be considering uh the considering uh even as of this week the comments that that Carney has uh Carney has made and you know you can talk about the booze ban and uh I we did do polling on on the booze ban uh in uh early February and Ontarians support Doug's position on on on this and so I think that if if I am Doug I am now taking the goodwill that I've built and saying Okay. Um I, you know, I've been good to you guys. Um I have >> with the feds >> with the feds. I have defended you guys.

[00:02:37]Uh and uh what I need now is all the environmental assessments that you guys have been [ __ ] around with in terms of the ring of fire. Those need to to be passed yesterday.

[00:02:48]>> Yesterday. Yesterday. There's nothing.

[00:02:52]Look, I think it's fair to say that when economies are running hot and particularly when we had a real estate sector that was on fire for nearly a decade, um, and people felt good about their house price, their house values increasing and economy was pretty was pretty okay. It was okay. Okay, it wasn't great. It was okay. And then when it turns, when everything turns, nobody has time for the green [ __ ] anymore. I mean, we we we've watched that subject just erode to nothing in po in polling, right? I mean, >> it's it's the environment is nowhere.

[00:03:29]Like 10 years ago, the environment was one of the top three issues. It's it's nowhere now. It's it's at the bottom like a minuscule little bar of like, you know, maybe 5% of the people say that it's um uh it's the case. If you remember back in five, six years ago on the curse of politics, Scott and David and I debated on the electric vehicle subsidies as they were coming out. I think electric vehicle, electric vehicle subsidies or electric vehicles was was the new shiny bobble in the uh shiny bobble in the window because it just isn't [ __ ] practical to live in a country that we live in unless you you live in Toronto or Montreal or you know Calgary and you never leave the city limits. That's the only way that it's practical. But it's not practical in terms of the electrical the electric capability that the country would need is for everyone plugging in at the um at the same time. I mean, it's not practical if you're driving in sub zero temperature for 6 months of the of the year. You just can't you can't do it.

[00:04:25]It's not sustainable.

[00:04:26]>> And and add to that, they're way too [ __ ] expensive without subsidies.

[00:04:32]Like they're just like, >> you know, like people with middle to lower incomes buy used cars because they're not going to they're not going to buy a Tesla. I mean that is not even in in the that's not even in possible to do. And then if we really had an explosion of electric vehicles, our grid would collapse >> 100%. And the cars are heavy. So it's a bigger toll on the roads. Like it's there's a whole host of things. But I think it was at the time a shiny bobble that um that that the environmentalists kind of put in the window because they saw the economy starting to co was really the start of the anyone that that and I'm sure you probably thought it as people were taking out you know multi-million dollar mortgages for homes that they couldn't uh they couldn't they couldn't afford because you you know um you can go into banks and banks are going to say they're base what your your your ability to buy on gross income as opposed to net and you know all of a sudden where you know you're you're house poor and so you would know I I'm I'm I'm now talking out my ass and you can like correct me but my guess is there's a lot of irresponsible decisions that were made during co and anyone saw it coming that the chickens were coming to hatch or roost or whatever it is uh the saying and I think that that's where we are that's where we are we are now there were a lot of decisions that were made um short term and now they're coming to roost and and one of the things that Pierre harnessed so well during that period period was he called the fact that inflation this was going to cause uh there was going to be an inflation crisis in this country back in the summer of 2021 um when he when he was questioning virtually um uh the prime minister and during the ke the Wii charities and what have you Pierre was ringing the bell in terms of where inflation was going to be and everyone was saying at the time it was going to be stagflation