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COMMENTARY DAVID FRUM ... JANUARY 16, 2025 The Hub Canada: In Conversation with David Frum: Trump's growing threats to Canada PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufcoSGCMkLA Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
In Conversation with David Frum: Trump's growing threats to Canada The Hub Canada Jan 16, 2025 48.3K subscribers ... 205,287 views ... 3.1K likes In Conversation with David Frum Leading author, journalist and thinker David Frum and The Hub's editor-at-large Sean Speer discuss President-elect Donald Trump's growing provocations about Canada becoming the 51st state and what we should make of it. They also cover Prime MInister Justin Trudeau's recently-announced resignation and its implications for his personal legacy, the future of the Liberal Party, and Canadians politics more generally. The Hub Dialogues features The Hub's editor-at-large, Sean Speer, in conversation with leading entrepreneurs, policymakers, scholars, and thinkers on the issues and challenges that will shape Canada's future at home and abroad. If you liked what you heard, please consider becoming a Hub Hero (https://thehub.ca/join/hero/). Hub Heroes also gets our premium paid newsletters featuring our best insight and analysis along with all our paid content on The Hub.ca. All these benefits are conferred for one year. Sign up now! In Conversation with David Frum The Hub Canada Transcript 0:01 Introduction [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to in conversation with David from I'm your host Sean spear editor at large at the Hub I'm honor to be back in conversation with David for another installment of our bi-weekly video podcast series on the key issues concerning Canadian policy and politics in today's conversation we'll discuss two big topics first Donald Trump's growing calls for Canada to become the 51st state and second Justin chau's resignation as prime minister and its implications for Canadian politics David we have a lot to talk about thanks for joining me hello from downtown Toronto David as you know since soon after Donald Trump's election in November Canadian politics have been SE Eed by 1:01 his threat of across theboard tariffs now he's threat threatening to use so-called economic Warfare to convince us to become absorbed in the United Trumps threats to Canada States the talk of Canada becoming the 51st state seemed like a troll trolling move at first but it's kept up and even escalated what are we supposed to make of it how should we understand these provocations targeting Canada all right well Donald Trump as the whole world has learned by now is not a settled thing but it's also true that his words don't mean nothing yes and what you're seeing here are a series of Sparks coming off a source um and while they may or may not ignite into flame um they definitely indicate a threat and and certainly reveal settled animosity um that uh Trump has made a series of um aggressive threats against other allies he's he's threatened to Annex Greenland uh which is theor which is a self-governing 2:01 autonomous unit within Denmark um he has threatened to seize the Panama Canal Zone from from Panama um he's made many dark threats against Ukraine warning of a cfff um he's also put a lot of pressure on Israel to um uh and uh uh end its operations in Gaza on terms that are short of the decisive defeat of Hamas that Israel had committed itself to um so there is there's a lot of pressure being put on a lot of allies and the the pressure on Canada is maybe the most extreme because he's talking about the outright annexation um of Canada now again I don't think he's got a plan uh I don't think he's got um an exact purpose but he does have an indication um that it's hostile it's threats there are tariffs Al verta Premier Danielle Smith recently turned from a visit to Mar Lago and said as far as she was concerned Trump did not intend to exempt Canadian energy from his threat of wide tariffs so Canada's in for um a very hostile environment uh in in the coming months and had better Canadian politicians response get ready Canadian politicians have 3:08 taken different approaches in response to uh the president elect's musing some have treated it as a joke others have been more defiant yeah what would you do if you were in their shoes um it's certainly not a joke um you know Thugs and bullies and abusers make jokes um but the jokes are not funny the joke the jokes are another form of aggression that by making um their targets or their victims laugh along with them they make their targets of their victims part of accept the aggression this is not a way that the head of any government should talk certainly not a friendly government and certainly not a friendly government that's the lynchpin of the whole system of Western Security and territorial Integrity um it's outrageous and I think Trump has taught everyone not to expect even the most minimal kinds of decencies from him but we we shouldn't accept that 4:02 teaching um these these so these words are not jokes they are threats um there're not threats join to a plan but there are still threats now uh I I as we've discussed before Canadian politicians have two have a m have a Playbook I'm with some variations the basic idea is to look for concessions to mify Trump and look for allies against him that's the classic Playbook and the Allies are especially um in the US Senate and even more in the state state government ships um I was on YouTube the other day and I saw a barrage of ads from the province of Ontario uh explaining to me how much trade Maryland and Virginia do with the province of Ontario so that was very precisely targeted to a certain demographic I was in Washington DC when I saw it um and I there must be a lot of that going on so that's plan a um it's a good plan it has usually worked in the past it basically worked more less in the first Trump term so by all means try it again as plan a but it's not going it 5:00 may not be enough it probably in my opinion will not be enough there will be a need for a plan B which is um some Sterner measures uh that are designed with pain to Canada uh to uh induce changes of Mind in the United States um if I can put on a table my biggest fear which you might characterize as a plan C and that is that is David the growing salience of economic nationalism in Canada uh just this morning Wednesday January 15th well-known business leader Jim B Sil has an oped in the National Post in which he describes this as quote all economic nationalists now you know I would put to you the proposition that a lot of Canadian uh success over the past 40 years or so in a way has been about shedding an instinct towards economic nationalism in light of these provocations from the Trump Administration how do Canadian politicians resist the urge to in effect renal Iz parts of our economy and start 6:01 to paint uh larger borders around our our domestic industry well this is um the terrible history of tariffs in the past is uh tariffs are always connected to and what is what does economic nationalism mean let's be more explicit it means State direction of investment yes which is always political it goes to favored clients it doesn't go to the U the the best claims because how can the state possibly know what is the best claim it goes to favored CL so State direction of investment It Go State control of finances um State control of lending sooner or later you're going to need some kind of exchange control to keep the money in the country and prevent it from from leading leaving when Canada went down this road most seriously in the middle 1970s um it stopped short there were no exchange controls but um uh but in Middle 70s and again with the national energy policy of the early 1980s there was State direction of capital investment it was a spectacular catastrophe there were 7:00 limits on inflows of investment in the 1970s uh control of foreign investment in Canada and again the system was gained and favored clients got favored treatment and my generation of Canadians and those above us I was obviously young in those days um learned the lot don't do this this is this is not just a mistake it's a mistake that keeps ramifying because you can't just take one hit off this drug um the drug you require ever greater hits to get the same effect um and each hit becomes more expensive than the last until pretty pretty soon you're Argentina in the um in the 1970s and 80s where you trying to run this aaric economy with inflation with controls um and worse things even than that now most democracies have stopped short from the point where these kinds of economic controls require controls of communication and information um and political controls but this is the path um and don't walk it don't walk it the United States is big enough and Rich enough and sloppy 8:02 enough that it can make a lot of mistakes uh before there's a really painful price uh but Canada's already under all kinds of economic duress and the idea of saying start from where Canada is today and add more bad policy more status policy um that's really dangerous we'll transition to Canadian Trump and Israel political leadership in a moment and its capacity to distinguish between Plan B uh which as you say might might be needed and plan C which would be uh distortionary and destructive in a moment but before we get there I mentioned that we're speaking on Wednesday January 15th of course Monday will be president- elect Trump's inauguration what should we expect in the immediacy of the inauguration in the next couple of days as it relates to Canada and more broadly uh in terms of some of the policy actions we'll see from the administration well an example of the kind this is not a Canadian specific example but an example of the extreme shortsightedness uh you should expect act and of of the no one should feel 9:02 safe um is Donald Trump campaigned is a huge supporter of the state of Israel and many in the pro-israel community believed him and thought he would be better than than Joe Biden Joe Biden both aided Israel but put limits on Israel's operations um and had a very confused policy where he would scold Israel sometimes and send Aid into Gaza in ways that were at predictably intercepted by Hamas so it was kind of a messy and Confused policy and many in the pro-israel world wanted to believe that Trump was better what Trump has pushed Trump wants resolutions he wants wins for Trump yes and he's now pushed Israel to a hostage deal and clearly the number one priority of this hostage deal is to get the hostages released on either the day before or on Trump's inauguration day so Trump can get the credit and deny it to anybody else that's his goal hostage release for me like the hostage release for Ronald Reagan uh during the Iran hostage crisis of 1981 make me that makes me Reagan and Reagan only got 52 hostages I'm going to 10:01 get maybe 98 so I'm bigger than Reagan and whatever uh long-term risks Israel must take for my Festival it's worth it because one is a benefit that accs to me and that counts and one is a penalty that acres to somebody else and that's worth nothing now Israel is the one foreign country for which Trump professes some affection um some care and look what he's doing to them uh now what is he going to do for the for every for Ukraine what is he going to do for Mexico what is he going to do for Canada it's going to be a very bumpy environment and uh it's I will agree with the Danielle Smiths and even the Kevin o that it is possible to manipulate this guy to get better terms from him that's true but you have to know that that's what you're doing you have to understand he's basically malign um he is no friend of yours um uh he has strong willpower he's a very ruthless op he's manipulating you at the 11:00 same time yes uh and you have to have a very clear ey understanding of what you're trying to achieve In fairness Justin Trudeau in the first couple of years of the Trump Administration I think the Trudeau people did do this they did manip they flattered him they cooled him they humbled themselves um they played mind games with him and it worked because they did have a an end state which is to prevent him from breaking um busting up NAFTA and they were not looking for any other rewards they were not looking to uh for a job as Trump's best friend in the world but I fear that some of these other manipulators or would be manipulators today don't have as clear a strategic aim and and do think um I'll be Trump's friend I will get something out of this rather than simply prevent him from doing bad things yes yeah the the record Justin Trudeaus legacy of those who thought they could manipulate him is and turned out looking poor is is is pretty long um David you talked about the the bumpy environment uh that we are bound to experience over the coming weeks and months that's a 12:00 good segue to Canada's own bumpy political context uh our audience will know of course that uh in in recent days prime minister TR has announced that he intends to step down as Liberal Party leader and in turn prime minister once his party has selected his successor I'll ask in a moment about the the political consequences of this major development but before we do I have to ask how you think we ought to understand prime minister Justin Shau as office how would you go about defining his legacy well um just a few minutes before you and I spoke I released an article in the Atlantic that I've been working on for a while that tried to do I can't do full Justice to 10 years in 2500 words but uh to try to sort of give an assessment um and I mean I think the big success of his government was its management of the Trump challenge between 2017 18 17 and 18 um I give them some credit for their successes during covid Canada had a higher vaccination rate in the United States and and a great 13:01 deal more social cooperation so that that some of that is the Canadian character um but some of that must reflect leadership it could have been the other way around um and I think some of his experiments with refining the child tax credit that was a creation of the Steven Harper years um maybe they were too expensive but uh you know child poverty is bad less of it is good it's worth paying and you don't and if your solutions to it are not the most efficient still okay that that's an important goal sure um but the fiscal management was Reckless before the pandemic and has been worse since the pandemic um and I think that the thing I blame him most for is his lack of commitment to the idea of Canada as something affirmative and not just a negative space that isn't America but an AFF affirmative and you see this not just in that famous quote of his that you could not Define there's no mainstream in Canada um but but uh his unwillingness 14:01 to stand up for Canadian history against the slurs of genocide and he was very hfis sometimes he would toggle back and forth well it's cultural genocide but not real genocide maybe it was real he should have just re rebuked all of that U that's his job to defend his country um and you see that that it had very real world Here and Now consequences for National Security in his inability to articulate a clear line against foreign interference you know when it was right-wing American money paying for the bus uh the truck lock down in Ottawa he acted decisively and by the way I applaud him for that um that uh that was not a peaceful protest that was an attack on government that was a blockade of the streets funded by foreigners crack down by all means and stop the flow of foreign money to an attack on the operations of your Capital yes but what China did was even more serious with its manipulation of of Elections and what India did with its campaign of assassination and terrorism on Canadian 15:01 soil more serious still and because those threats affected people who were his clients and constituents um he was much more nambi pambi and um and all along he was never able to say this is what it means to be Canadian this is why we're proud and you don't have to have like a super precise or exclusive definition but um some sense of nationhood it's always a problem in Canada and the job of political leadership is to articulate that and and keep it meaningful to people given that it's a problem it's not an easy thing to do the society may not do it so spontaneously on its own if Lack of leadership I can just stay on this point because for those who've been with us uh for past episodes we know uh it's a line of analysis and argument on which you've been uh wholly consistent um that to understand prime minister Joe's Legacy is to understand um in your mind the kind of weakness of the his conception of the country and its history self that's obviously a bit conceptual a 16:02 bit distant from pocketbook issues why don't you talk David about how in your mind um that lack of leadership has contributed to the malays that we're seeing uh among ordinary Canadians across the country in other words H how do you connect the dots between his lack of leadership his lack of affirmative vision for Canada as you put it and how Canadians from TW Rivier to thunderbay to uh to Prince George are feeling about themselves and the country well um what because he didn't have a strong conception of the country the way he always did politics was by giving people stuff and when times are good as they were in 2017 2018 2019 it's that's more or less easy to do and you can even in Good Times you can overdo it and get yourself into fiscal trouble but times have been not so good since 2019 for Canada um and you need to sometimes be able to Rally people to say um is going 17:00 to be a little painful today here are some hard things we have to do to um get our national productivity Rising again to make our national Market more successful and if we don't do them not only do we get poor but when Canada gets poor Canada is in danger of falling into the American orbit that one of the reasons that Trump's appeal to um 51st state resonates with some Canadians and I'm afraid that it does is because Canada right now doesn't look very successful and you can see this through Canadian history in moments when the the Canadian economy is doing very strongly like the Wilfred Lauer years there's a strong sense of Canadian identity uh in moments when the Canadian economy is doing badly as it did during the Great Depression there's a weak sense and Canadians migrate to the United States Canadian governments lose their control over the provinces Canadian national governments um so the performance of the Canadian economy and the performance of the Canadian and the the strength of the idea of the Canadian Nation are always interrelated right um a last thing that needs to be to be said on on this particular score is 18:02 um during the Gaza War um this was maybe not the not as serious as some of the things I've talked about before but the inability of the government to ever adhere to a settled line on what it thought to be pushed and pulled according to who did we upset today are you know our friends of Israel mad at us our friends of the Palestinians mad at us and I I've described it as a kind of a lawn sprinkler approach where his head is constantly moving from one side of the lawn and then bumping into something and then heading back to the other side of the lawn and bumping some into something there and I think the last there two small moments that I think are sort of characteristic of him one is a joke that President Obama told about him in at the last White House Obama's last White House correspondence dinner in 2016 and Obama was making a joke about how Obama had aged in office and he said just and he one of his jokes in the series was just yesterday somebody was saying to me Obama look how old and grizzled and gray you are you're the 19:00 past uh that look at the future is Justin trau he's so handsome he's so brilliant he's so new he's so fresh and I said back off Justin and Obama whose sense of humor could be quite cutting saw right away that behind all the you know sexy enthusiasm there was around Justin trau at at the core was tremendous self-regard yes um now all politicians have ego but they don't all have V uh and that's that's a different thing and where that backs into and this is how his term ends I think and this is a view that is not widely shared among politicians but I I really wish it would be more in a parliamentary system when your party is in trouble and that often happens I think the incumbent prime minister should go down with the ship I think Justin Trudeau should not have resigned as I think by the way that Brian morone should not have resigned um you you fight that last election knowing you will lose as your last service to your 20:02 party you take all the odium on yourself and let the party start with a new leader who's got a fresh opportunity and count on History to do you justice I mean in uh Brian M had lost personally the election of 1993 today who would remember we remember free trade we remember GST we'd remember the Clean Air and clean water things he did we would remember him as one of the most effective Canadian Prime Ministers of them all uh and his record would be solid and that the last defeat well McDonald lost elections to um but he would he would have given whoever succeeded him maybe Kim Campbell the opportunity to fight an election on much more favorable terms and Justin trau is doing the same thing I I don't have an opinion about what kind of prime minister Mark Mark Carney will be except that he will never we'll never find out because what they're going to do is hand off the Prime ministership from TR the leadership from Trudeau to Carney just in time for Carney to suffer an historic wipe out for which Carney will be blamed 21:01 and then I don't know that either the party or Carney will have the patience to stick around to do it again one or two more times that it will take to revive a parliamentary party um so go down with the ship and and it is an active ego not to go down with the ship maron's record was so impressive in so many other ways and his his standing was so bad in 1993 that maybe it maybe there was no choice uh but Justin Trudeau could could have stuck around for three more Bond or called the election right away called could have called the election now lost it and turned over a party to a new leader yeah man what a ton of insight in that answer um I could respond to your comments about the relationship between Canadian Canada's economic standing and the people's sense of of self assuredness and confidence not just about themselves um but the country and the need for policy makers to keep that in mind which is to say the response them lay as we find ourselves is not just more Ser John McDonald's statues as as important and as nice as 22:00 they may be but it's actually about getting the economy going uh as not just an economic measure but a one about our our our Civic life as well and then your point about Trudeau's ego I think you're precisely right David um you know I might feel differently if he made this decision 18 months ago or 24 months ago and given his successor a reasonable shot at defining him herself and and carrying out the government but it that he waited until the last possible moment when there was essentially no good option for for him the party his successor or frankly the country I I think risks doing real harm to his legacy including the part Legacy that people um might feel good about uh you've been so generous with your time I just have a a couple of questions left and in a way you're you're you wrapped up your final answer anticipating my next one which is to say that the race to succeed him is shaping up to be between Christia Freeland the former Finance Minister and Mark Carney candidate a former Central Bank governor who happens to also be the the The Godfather to Freeland son yeah uh so 23:02 it's a small world David uh how do you score the the leadership racein and what what might it tell us about the state of Liberal Party politics in Canada uh and political Trends more broadly across the advanced world I think for parties of the center left across the advanced World there really one question um and and uh liberals I think will debate this question too and but I unclear who'll be on which side of him the question was was Tony Blair were was Bill Clinton right um that is is the job of the center left to run a dynamic strong free enterprise economy tax it and then use the taxation to pay for social insurance or like Joe Biden um and like Justin Trudeau in his last months it were are Clinton uh uh were Clinton and Blair wrong and the right approach is the Biden approach where the government interferes directly in the making of uh wealth um Advocates 24:01 of this view call it pre-distribution predistribution instead of redistribution and they talk about overthrowing the neoliberal Paradigm yes and the government will direct funds and and uh Jake Sullivan the National Security advisor Biden gave a full throated defense of this in a speech in the Biden Administration called a foreign policy for the middle class and liberal Central left people get very excited about it the only thing wrong is its record of proven failure and not just in one country but in every place where it's tried and not just in one historical period but in every period where it's Tri tried uh meanwhile the Blair Clinton record I mean it's like uh it's like did you ever see that old show the monsters where the pretty girl is is the one who's thought it was homely and all the monsters think they're beautiful like there's the Clinton and Blair record of success waiting to be scooped up like a pretty Monster um and then and then there's this record of of everybody else like saying what if we direct um $50 billion 25:01 toward building a battery industry in Canada how will that work out badly oh okay how did it work out the last time badly how did it work out when the Portuguese tried it badly it always works out badly the Clinton and Blair record worked out well um and so the question for the Liberals the question for the Democrats is who will be there to speak for what worked and against What fail yeah and just as I pivot to my last question may I say the same question will ultimately need to be addressed by Republican and conservatives it's not lost on me that as we're speaking Marco Rubio is set to appear in a senate confirmation hearing and by according by all accounts will essentially make the case against many of the the strengths of of so-called neoliberalism that you're that you're talking about there's really one question for him which is you put in front of a plate with a toad on it say Senator Rubio secretary designate how badly do you want this job let's see eat that 26:00 Final question toad uh fin final question as I promised as as you outlined earlier the Conservative Party of Canada remains strong in the polls there's even evidence that they've experienced a bit of a bump in the immediate aftermath of of President uh pardon me of prime minister Trudeau's resignation how do the two developments that we've been talking about today Trump's provocations on one hand and a new political opponent on the other hand change things for the conservatives what's your advice for them on both these fronts well the Trump problem is very acute because there is a substantial minority within the conservative party world uh and maybe even within the caucus that has a hankering admiration and affection for Trump and wants the con Conservative Party of Canada to be more like it I let I think on the merits you know My Views it doesn't matter the thing they need to keep in mind the voters they need yes don't agree and and if you are tempted in Canada to do a 27:00 base first strategy um think again um that uh it's not a two-party system uh it is not a system with deep uh deep cultural and ideological loyalties uh uh that most voters have a at least a couple of parties that they would consider um there I think there's a lot of social a lot of the kind of people who have who vote green have backgrounds similar to the people who voted conservative or used to vote conservative um and uh certainly in Europe we've seen a migration from traditional parties of the right to greens because the greens are always a very very middle class party and more often more than middle class party so uh don't do Bas first don't indulge the trumpy factions within your party and keep speaking clearly about Trump as a threat for Canada not an opportunity um and uh and make and make the case for a conservative the conservative because the conservative the conservative is so um patriotic in the defense of Canadian 28:00 tradition way and will stand up for Johnny McDonald they will stand up for Canadian independence are not the local branch plant of trumpism that's really important um uh I don't like I don't think there's much liberals can do I mean uh you know it's like saying there's there's an avalanche coming and you can you can do a good job putting up the little wooden barriers or you can do a bad job putting up the little wooden barriers the little wooden barriers aren't going to do you a lot of good um and especially because the late deciders are the least informed voters and the least informed voters are those who are don't know about all these sort of subtle reinventions um the minute distinctions that are that will exist between whoever is the next leader of the liberal party and whoever is the last um the liberal party is a brand it stands for a a lot of propositions in Canadian voters Minds it it was responsible for 10 years of 29:00 first um of okay economic performance but that got weak even before the pandemic overspending during the pandemic and then much disappointment after so again Justin Trudeau should have gone down with the ship that that should have been his final service of the party and then take the defeat clean break um rebuild and have a plan to win the election after next David what a jam-packed episode for our first of 2025 I I I I'm glad to be back with you and I look forward to catching up in a couple of weeks byebye

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