Carney DOUBLES Trudeau’s projected budget deficit

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:04]Canada's ballooning debt will hit $1.4 trillion dollar as the Carne government tables a fiscal update, bleeding billions of dollars more in red ink. The latest budget deficit is set for $65 billion.

[00:00:21]Conservative leader Pierre Palv notes the Liberals under Mark Carney have doubled the deficit forecast by Justin Trudeau. Friends, I ask you this question. What's changed after a year of the Carney Liberals? Other than the illusions? Well, other than the fact that Carney's doubled Trudeau's deficit from 31 billion to $65 billion, what's changed? More cost, more debt, more taxes, more on the national credit card. Mark Harney is just another Liberal and Canadians will be paying the price through higher inflation at the grocery store, at the pump, and when they go to buy a home. This is the most costly government in Canadian history. The highest spending as a share of GDP since 1996 outside of CO, the biggest deficit in Canadian history ever outside of CO. The update also included a proposal that may compromise the privacy rights of Canadians. The Carne government wants to empower police with the right to search and seize your mail. According to the public safety minister, the change will make it possible for police to get warrants for all kinds of mail, not just packages.

[00:01:37]A technical glitch ahead of last night's NHL playoff game in Buffalo led to a rather touching display of crossber friendship. When the singer's rendition of O Canada was interrupted by a microphone malfunction, hockey fans in Buffalo chimed in to save the day.

[00:02:02]Oh, we stand on the glory.

[00:02:39]This post by former defense minister Peter McCay. An outburst of O Canada sung with enthusiastic warmth and affection from Americans. But relations between the two countries are not going nearly as well on the trade front.

[00:02:53]However, on the thorny issue of US access to Canada's dairy markets, the Americans say they've reached the point of no return. Here is New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenn asking the US trade rep about trade talks on the issue. Let's listen.

[00:03:10]>> Canada has long discriminated against certain industries in my district, and that is what I want to focus on today. I got a couple quick things, but u let's start with dairy. And we've talked about this before. As you recall, probably my district is the fifth largest dairy producing district in the entire United States. Uh for years, Canada has rigged their system to prevent US dairy producers from fair access to Canada's markets. This year's national trade estimate report, as as every year's report uh details, Canada's market manipulation and unfair treatment of US producers is still evident. Uh the US has fought for years to gain access to the Canadian dairy market and yet Canada continues to violate USMCA and the spirit of its dairy commitments. Uh have you and your team raised these issues with our Canadian counterparts thus far and have they been constructive in helping all of us resolve this issue with our our friend to the north? Uh we have raised it repeatedly and frequently uh over the past year. Um, our Canadian counterparts have indicated as a general matter, they're happy to talk to us about adjustments to USMCA and different things like that, but they have made no commitments on this front at this time.

[00:04:20]>> Jameson and Greer, whom you just heard there, says that enforcement is the next step quite possibly as a result of Canada's refusal to ban on the issue of dairy restrictions. Our guest today is former agriculture minister Jerry Ritz who joins us from the heartland of his former federal writing near Battleford, Saskatchewan. Welcome, sir.

[00:04:41]>> Always a pleasure, Mark. Good to be here.

[00:04:44]>> Okay, so you are agriculture minister at a time when as we have now supply management is just the lay of the land and the way things work. Now, we've heard and you've heard uh about the frustrations if you happen to be on the other side of the border and looking to access dairy markets in Canada and feeling that you've been unfairly restricted. At least the farmers, dairy producers in places like upstate New York and Michigan and Wisconsin have been shut out of our market. And that is one of the festering problems as far as our ability to get a trade deal with the Americans goes. Um, what do you think that conservatives should be advocating at this point? I mean, is it still a position that you hold that, you know, this is the right thing to do in terms of protecting our dairy farmers or should there be a change?

[00:05:39]>> Well, everything evolves, Mark. I find it very hypocritical from both sides saying what the other guy is not doing or is doing. Um I mean the Americans turtle up and protect sugar and cotton to the same extent that we protect our supply manage system. However, saying that anytime we took on a free trade arrangement with whether it was trans-pacific partnership with New Zealand and Australia, both big dairy producers, or the European Union, where you know there's there's major dairy producers as well as the non-EU states like Switzerland, which is a large dairy producer, SM was on the table and we negotiated back and forth and around and so on and was able to hold some of the standards that we did. Uh does it need to change? Absolutely. As I said, things evolve. there are farmers within the supply management system that want to be able to trade that want to get past that. So, you know, there there's room for for both here.

[00:06:33]>> I mean, I don't know if there's if this is a deal breaker on the part of the Americans. I know, as you've heard uh from the congresswoman in New York, this is very frustrating on behalf of those in her electoral district. and they want changes and they're pressing Jameson Greer to force those types of changes.

[00:06:54]Um, I don't know if that is, as I said, a deal breaker for them, but do you think that Canada should at this point scrap it all together? Just get rid of it and move on?

[00:07:07]>> Well, I don't think that's possible. I mean, we're looking at an unfunded liability for quota in the dairy system alone that is sneaking up on $40 billion. That was a government program that was put in on 55 years ago uh by Eugene Whan at the time to safeguard small family farms. There are very few small family dairies anymore. Uh you know some in Quebec and and Atlantic Canada, but the vast majority are now in that 100 to 200 cow range, some as many as a thousand cows. So you know things have changed. There aren't the number of farmers that they were when the process was put in place to what there is now.

[00:07:42]It's economies of scale. But, you know, I had the great opportunity this south when I was down in Arizona to meet with a number of American farmers and the last three I talked with were dairy guys from Wisconsin. And I said, "Well, how much milk do you want to bring north?"

[00:07:56]And they said, "Well, we don't have any extra and Wisconsin is the dairy state."

[00:08:00]So, it's it's a hot button issue that Trump and his accolades have identified and, you know, they're putting pressure on that acupressure point and Canada's falling for it. you know, you you press back on issues that the Americans are turtling up on, as I said, like like sugar and and cotton. We don't grow a lot of cotton, but we certainly can produce sugar. And if you allowed, you know, right now we allowed 2%, I think it is, on dairy, where if we went to five, that's huge. And we could say, okay, then we want reciprocity on sugar.

[00:08:28]We want 5% of that. And we could rebuild our sugar beef industry in southern Manitoba and southern Alberta to do it.

[00:08:36]>> All right. But should we scrap dairy? I mean, should should we scrap supply management? Should the conservatives adopt a position that supply management is no longer sustainable and that we should move on? Uh what's your take on that? Should should Pier Polyv adopt that position?

[00:08:53]>> Well, the short answer is no. Uh there's a lot more complications to it than just saying scrap it all together. As I said, that unfunded liability of of quota, most of it held by Farm Credit Canada and the government of Quebec uh against barns, against buying more cows and so on. That quota is is worth in the neighborhood of $40 billion. Who's going to pay for that? As I said, it was the government program that put it in place.

[00:09:17]So, it's the government that has to step up and cover off that unfunded liability. And if you start doing that, that's going to collapse farm credit. is going to collapse cast popular and and other operations in Quebec as well as the farming industry itself. So, you know, the ripple effect would be astronomical ripping that out. We we've seen that kind of attitude from the Liberals on our oil and gas sector in Western Canada and we're facing the ramifications of that type of um you know, devil take the hindmost attitude that they have. So, I don't I don't agree with completely scrapping SM. I think it needs to change. I think they need to evolve. I think they need to open up somewhat, but not to the extent that the Americans say they want it collap Well, the Americans aren't even calling for it to be collapsed. They just want access.

[00:10:04]But if they get access, does that not change supply management? I mean, I I thought supply management was designed to protect the dairy industry in Canada from competition.

[00:10:17]>> Well, there there's room for competition. Absolutely. Right now, as I said, we're at two 2 and a2% of our of our intake is allowed in American products coming in. That varies a little bit more for finished goods like cheeses and so on. But at the end of the day, if you doubled that and then tripled it and then quadrupled it over a period of years, you could actually start to make a very significant difference without causing damage to the system and the family farms that that underpin it. So you're talking about a gradual uptick in Americans ability to access our dairy market.

[00:10:50]>> Well, that's the only thing to me that would make sense economically and viably without cratering our system. And Americans don't have the ability to send that that volume right away either.

[00:11:01]They've got to build up capacity to do that. So, you know, at at the end of the day, it's incremental gains that would make the difference. But, you know, as as has been well reported, we've had no substantive discussion since last October, and we're getting down to the deadline, the crunch time. And by curling up, I've heard Dominic Leblanc say, "No, it's off the table. There's nothing going to happen." That's not the right way to do this. The right way is to say, "It's on the table, but here's the best that we think we can do, and we want reciprocity for sugar." You know, put the pressure back on in the same way that they are.

[00:11:34]Do Canadian farmers have access to the US dairy market?

[00:11:39]>> No, we don't. Uh that's part of supply management is we don't trade. We do sell them genetics. We do sell them our handling expertise. That's one thing that a solid bottom line in the SM sector has done for our farmers is we've got the best genetics in the world.

[00:11:53]We've got the best feed rations. We've got the best handling systems. You know, every cow that walks in to get milk now reads out on a computer as to her gestation cycle. any uh medic med medications she's had, her milk output, it's all there and nobody else has been able to step up and put that type of product on the market like Canadian farmers have simply because they've had a solid bottom line.

[00:12:18]>> Pierre Py has spoken about eliminating tariffs, but does that apply to dairy as well?

[00:12:27]I mean, >> I can't answer that. I I'm not sure what the details are in statement like that.

[00:12:32]Um, I think he's talking about the tariffs that Trump has has raised and Carney has reciprocated with. Now, we've had to withdraw a bunch because Carney was slapping tariffs on Kosma covered articles early on and we faced some backlash from the Americans for going too far.

[00:12:47]>> And that is Jerry Ritz joining us from Battleford, Saskatchewan. If you enjoyed the show, consider supporting great independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno News. Please go to judnews.comstraightup.

[00:13:01]You can find the link below. Helps us do what we do. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.