Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign hi, everyone, it's Richard Rupp. And welcome back to the Rupp Report. So glad and pleased to have you here. Our first few episodes have been a huge success and I really want to thank all the listeners and all those who've subscribed for joining in on the podcast and, and listening in. And the comments that I've received have been very, very positive. So we're going to continue now in 2025 and talk about all the upcoming things that are going to be happening in Canada and affecting Canada politically and federally in the year ahead. I have with me my producer, Mike. Welcome back, Mike.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Hey, what's wrap, Richard? You see what I did there?
Nice to be back. Thank you.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: It's always a pleasure to be back in studio with you. So there's a lot to talk about.
You can lead the way as you usually do. What are the questions on your mind?
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, I like to think of myself as the quintessential, you know, middle of the road Canadian. So let's see if maybe some of my questions can be you can demystify the workings of our higher echelon government. Maybe. But the one thing that I really found really wild over the last couple of weeks was the announcements that the Liberal Party has had from two potential candidates and the way those announcements came about and I'm curious to see what you think, first of all, of Mark Carney doing that on American television. Right. And secondly, so let's start with that. And then also I thought it was a really I thought he did amazing, frankly, compared to what anybody estimated. And then he kind of blew it at his official announcement.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Is blaming it on the teleprompter. Let's start with Mark Carney. What do you think of that announcement so far?
[00:02:00] Speaker A: So, you know, I've always warned people that Mark Carney is the, the chosen one. So if you follow what the, the Liberals, the wef, whatever, whatever you want to look at. I've always said for the last four years, Mark Carney is the chosen successor to Justin Trudeau. And he's the most dangerous person. I mean, if you're not a liberal, he's the most dangerous person out there. And so his announcement is interesting. It's not surprising people thought that he wasn't going to run. He's not going to jump on a sinking ship. But he really does want to become the leader. And I think the people that are behind him put pushing him on, are pushing him to be the, the next leader of the Liberal Party. And you have to understand that with the request of $350,000 that they need to spend to just to enter into the race. This really is a coronation for only two people who could afford that kind of money, which is Christian Freeland and Mark Carney, that can be raised raising that kind of funds in a very short period of time.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: And it's okay. So that leads us to the next question. He did this on American tv. How do you think Canadians felt about that? And, and, you know, sort of in light of Trump saying that we're the. The next state to be added to the collection, how do you think that fared for him?
[00:03:24] Speaker A: So, look, he. He did it because already the media here in Canada are going to give him an easy time. But imagine he has softball questions from a. An American outlet. I don't know why he went to an American outlet. It doesn't look good for him. I don't think it does. But he's getting softball questions that are lobbed him very easy. All this fawning over him, and he thinks he can address a bigger audience by going south of the border. But the reality is there were no challenging hardball questions he had to answer.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: I thought it was genius. Nobody watches Canadian television. Everybody watches American television. It's going to be the best interview he's going to get. I don't know who. Who he has working for us for him on the communication side.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: What's all the Trudeau people? It's all the same people that are behind Trudeau. The Jerry Butts, the Katie Telford. All the same people are behind Mark Carney's leadership campaign.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: I kind of wish they didn't. I kind of wish they had gotten Chris J. Friedland instead. Because, look, I'm. I. I need to be transparent with you, if I may.
I just find her freaky.
Is that okay to say? I just find her to be one of the oddest characters I've ever seen in politics.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: I think that Krisha Freelet is very interesting because of these nervous switches that she has all the time. It's just an interesting thing to see her on television. And I'll tell you honestly, I hope she becomes the next leader of the Liberal Party because she really bothered both of them. Carney and her carry the torch for Trudeau and his policies. But no one is more closely aligned with Trudeau's past mistakes, as Christia Freeland is.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Yet nobody has run further away from the prime minister faster than Chris Jeff Friedland.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Well, you can't blame her, because here's Chris Friedland, who was literally asked to give the fall economic statement and told at the same time. And then I'm going to demote you to a non ministry position and I'm going to give up your role of finance minister over to Mark Carney. So she kind of outsmarted Trudeau and said, I'm not going to play in your sandbox. I don't blame her.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: So by the way, her, her twitches, I do believe that she has something neurological going on.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: It's possible.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: I don't know. I think people beat up on her, but I just find her approach to discussion weird. Like the topics, the way that she approaches topics. She dances around, dances around big time. It's very odd. Mark Carney, on the other hand, seems a little bit like a fence post when it comes to personality.
That whole leadership race, I think is going to be the development of two personalities in front of the public.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Right. And sadly, what really upsets me about the whole thing is it's giving a lot of oxygen and a lot of free advert to the Liberal Party, to the discussions of their leadership. It's taking away from the real issues that Canadians are facing because they're not really discussing the real issues. They're talking about, oh, they'll backtrack on the carbon tax or they're going to replace it or, or whatever. But they're not talking about the real issues that Canadians face. So they're trying to change the channel.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: In front of our eyes. They are trying to, you know, reconfigure the whole thing. Canadians just wanted an election and I think they're done with the Liberals. But this is just giving free advertising for the Liberals that is completely unnecessary between now and March 9th and then they're going to reopen Parliament on March 24th.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Can you just tell me what the heck would be going on in Ottawa right now? Is anybody in attendance there? What are the mps doing? What are, is anything ha. Happening at all? I think that that's a major question that people have.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: So that's a great question. Most people are back home in their writing, doing work in their writings. Many of them are exposing the duplicity of the leadership candidates. You know, saying one thing and doing another. They're saying that they want to get rid of the carbon tax, but, but their history has all been about increasing the carbon tax and making life more unaffordable for Canadians. So it's, it's a hard sale as a hard sell.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: If, if, if anything, it's so interesting. Before the holidays, I had an opportunity to be in the midst of some Liberal, Liberal Party.
I mean, zealots, if, if you will. Okay. And the carbon tax in their mind is still very, very well justified.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's the most important thing for them because they, they believe in, in all that kind of stuff. I don't know where the money is going to. I. Are they writing a check to Mother Nature?
[00:08:08] Speaker B: And now south of the border, we're hearing drill, baby, drill.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. And you're going to see the American economy really taking off and Canada's economy continue to plummet because of the poor mismanagement of the last 10 years of the Liberal Party.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Kind of leads us into another major Canadian concern. The tariffs being threatened all over the place and probably being enacted as we are recording this, south of the border. What are your thoughts?
[00:08:32] Speaker A: So the first thing is, anyone who knew me knew that I had said very clearly Trump is doing this as a negotiation tactic and he's not going to enforce the tariffs on day one, as he threatened to do. You just got to know how Trump's negotiation style is, and you'll realize he is not going to do it. Now, he did say he's going to enact it on February 1st. And whenever you, the audience, are listening to this, maybe it's post that date, we will see what happens. It's very possible that he does, but I think we need to take a step back. People are all freaking out about these tariffs. And yes, it will harm our economy, but what are the reasons of the tariffs? He's saying he wants Canada to do two things. Secure the border. Both Canada and Mexico secure our borders to protect illegal migrants from entering the United States. And we know that in the last few years, our population jumped from like 36 million people to now well over 40 million, 42 million people. We don't know where a lot of these people are coming from. We don't know how these changes to the immigration policy. We used to have a really great immigration policy under Stephen Harper, the best in the world. We have changed that completely. And we're letting in 900,000 visa students the previous year, 600,000 the year before. We're letting in like 2 million people a year. And you can't tell me that these are all just good and, and just people. There's got to be some people that are sneaking in through the system that shouldn't necessarily be here and could potentially want to do harm to the United States. So I don't blame Trump for what he's saying. The second thing is fentanyl. He's concerned about all the fentanyl that's coming from China through Canada to the United States. So if Canadians, the Canadian government, the Trudeau government, would just tamp down on the border, protect the illegal people crossing from Canada down, and the fentanyl that's killing Canadians and Americans at record numbers, tamp that down. Trump wouldn't have any reason to have the tariffs.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: I think that it is a negotiation tactic as well, for sure. The problem is every time Trump opens his mouth and says something untoward about Canada, the Canadian economy immediately reacts like.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: And so do the Canadian people.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think that that needs to be put into check by our own government pushing back in some way.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Fine.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: This was the biggest problem with Trudeau just stepping down and proroguing our government.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: We've given Trump an open stage to say anything to the Canadian people he wants without retort from anybody except, oh, my God, the premiers of our provinces, which, please, we should not be letting them speak on behalf of the nation.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: So I agree with you. What we, What Trudeau has done, he's given basically an open net. Okay. To the Americans. He's just given an open net. And they can now shoot on us. I mean, that's, that's the case.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: The premieres, look, and there's Premier Smith shooting hoops, basically, with Trump every time he says something. So it's being echoed in this chamber up here.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Of nothingness by premieres. And then on in Ontario, we've got, of course, Ford.
I wish he was not the guy reacting to any of this.
[00:11:51] Speaker A: So the thing with Ford, look, and when you guys hear this, whenever the. You hear this recording, Ford may already have announced his potential election, you know, his election campaign in Ontario, calling an early election, requesting a mandate so that he can negotiate with Trump. The thing with, the thing is.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is like the other day my wife went to click on a link that came through an email, and I was like. I ran across the room going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't. That's exactly. I completely virus full. Anyway, having said that. No, it's fine. But that's how I feel about this. Don't, don't let him go. Don't let him go. Wait. We need a real responsible adult and I'm sorry.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: And there's no need for an early election in Ontario. He already has a majority mandate.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: I. So why would he do this again?
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Look, it's It's a lot of different things. He thinks that he will have a better chance going up against the Liberals, Trudeau in power or the Liberals in power than to have Pier Poiev as the next Prime Minister of Canada.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: You know, POV is going to find out quickly how much hate vote there is.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. And that's, and that's, that's going to be the problem federally if Ford calls an early election. The other thing is that he's going to siphon off a lot of the donations that would normally have gone to federal candidates. Now all of a sudden, people are going to donate money, maybe knowingly or unload unknowingly to the provincial party. So he's trying to outsmart everybody. He's trying to, you know, he's trying to take over.
But it, I think it's going to be harmful to Canada in the long run. As far as Daniel Smith, you know, I really don't criticize her that much. She should play more of Team Canada. But let's face it, Alberta's main industry is oil and natural gas. And she wants to make sure that oil and natural gas from Alberta flow into the United States and that Trump can put some pressure on the federal government, whoever it may be, to reopen the pipelines.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: He's definitely got an ally there.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, well, she's an ally. And, and you. Can you blame her?
[00:14:01] Speaker B: That's her government shut down her province.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Her province, totally. Yeah. On environmental reasons and things like that. So I don't blame her because her economy is based on that, just like Ontario's economy is based, for example, on real estate and finance.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Right, right. And you know, the one thing I do think that. And please guide me on this. It seems to me that if Ford calls it election, it's too much all at one time.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: It is.
[00:14:27] Speaker B: Which is you, you look at him and you can see this guy does too much of anything all at one time. He doesn't know restraint at all. So maybe I'm wrong about that. Please, if you have a different opinion, write to Richard, not to me, but on, on that. Because I know, I know where the leanings of this show are. But this guy, to me, I said it to you before the show, he feels like a Sudbury hockey coach, not the premier of the largest province in the country.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Hey, folks.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Oh, please don't. And then other provinces are going to have problems, too. Oh, yeah. I'm going to go talking to Trump. You're going to what? I'm going to have my talkings to Trump. Okay. He just comes off a little bit unrefined in that way. And I think he just bends to business so much. He actually believes that he's a corporate giant, but he's not, he's just a giant.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Well, look, Ontario is the largest out of all the provinces, largest trading partner with the United States. And so he has to protect Ontario's best interests. And, and I understand where he's, he's coming from, but calling an early election, knowing that we potentially, we're going to have a federal election sometime this year, whether it's April, May, you know, after they come back after Parliament resumes, or is it going to be in October, we're going to have a federal election and Canadians are ready for a Conservative government. So hopscotching above right and having your own provincial election when you don't need to have one until next year, June kind of steals all the oxygen out of the room. And then if people get upset with Ford in March, for example, and then in May, there is a federal election, it's going to have repercussions on, on Pierre Polieva in the Federal Party.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: The nation that didn't want Trudeau got what they wanted.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Okay, well now we might even have, we might even have a continuation because if Ford screws the Federal party and they bring in Mark Carney, who's, you know, Trudeau number two, 2.0, then you know, you never know, there could be a minority Liberal government, there could be a minority Conservative government and then were stuck for a number of years, at least for a couple of years, until, until, you know, people, the smoke clears the room basically. Here's the other problem.
When Parliament comes back on March 24, they're going to have their new Liberal leader on March 9, whether that person has a seat or not.
March 24, they come back, they do the, the throne speech. Who's to say that Jagmeet Singh doesn't go back on his word and say, well, I said I was going to vote non confidence to get rid of Trudeau, but now that there's no more Trudeau and that there's X, whether it's Freeland or Carney, I'm willing to work with them because they've shown me goodwill and he could run the clock out straight to October, they have no voters.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Jagmeet Singh has single handedly destroyed that.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Party, completely destroyed the ndp.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: So I don't think that there's even any sway in that in that regard. Tell me if I'm wrong. About this. You don't think that Doug Ford was sitting there one day and went, hey, you know what? Everybody's hating on Trudeau. I think that I can get on this. I can get on this and make it work for me too.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Sure he does.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Sure. Well, that's the kind of thinking we don't need at, at the head of the Ontario Conservative Party. I'm sorry.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: And at this critical moment, right, we have a new President of the United States who's threatening tariffs and, and threatening issues threatening Canada's economy.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: I tell you what, everybody throw their sticks on the ice and we're going to get a game going, eh? Okay. Anyway, but I do hope that there is better representation headed Trump's way in these negotiations because I don't feel comfortable right now.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Well, I, I think if we do finally have a federal election and Pierre Poliev is the Prime Minister of Canada, that, that Canada will have a strong negotiator. Because if you look at the bench, if you look at the potential mps that the Conservatives will have, these are strong business people. These, you know, these aren't the kind of people that Trudeau brought in in the last 10 years that really didn't have much to, you know, you got Yara Sachs, who was the yoga instructor for Sophie Trudeau. I mean, these are not some strong people that are at the top.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Even you kind of represent the reflection of Trump's party. Well, I mean, Trump's appointments are hilarious. It's, it's reality TV and he's an expert at it. Yeah, right. He knows what he's doing. Right. Nothing is real except with the, what is on camera.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: The thing with, the thing with Trump, if people, I've studied him since 1987. The thing with Trump, he always said he wanted to be like an old time Hollywood producer. He wanted to, you know, be one of those, like not a cat, not just a casting agent. But he believed in that old time Hollywood central casting kind of thing. And he talks about it a lot. He says, you know, this person looks like the him from central casting. And so that's, I think, a lot of where he comes from. But look, he, he's bringing in some good people. If he can bring in Cash Patel, if he can bring in, he's bringing in Bondi, he's bringing in Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio just got confirmed.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: He's Secretary of State.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Secretary of State.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: That was shocking to me. I'm not going to lie to you. I. Interesting, interesting, interesting position. Yeah. But if his last stint has anything to do. By the way, I'm glad to see Biden go, but Trump is to be watched, I think.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Look, any president that goes in on day one, the sweeping reforms that occurred.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: On day one, which the voters wanted.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: He signed into action right away. What people don't realize is that that now has to go for judicial review. I mean, executive orders don't just execute, they have to be reviewed and they have to be voted upon as well. I mean, it's just, they don't have.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: To be voted on.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: The House by, by the Judiciary Committee has to look at.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Fine.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: By the committee and lawyers are going to look at, I think at some of the things that he's done and say, look, you just blew up eight other laws that revolve around unions and the environment. Can we talk? So I don't know that the repercussions of sweeping one line executive orders does more than just fulfill that television producer.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: And that may be the case. Maybe, maybe that, that's the case where he's speaking to his voter. The American, the average American person who's been frustrated the last four years of Biden or even the eight years of Obama, I mean, that might be the.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Case, but signed the most executive orders anybody ever signed. Some say that I signed them quicker than anybody's ever signed an order as well. Like he's, he's very proud.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: And with the biggest sharpie pens you've ever seen in your life.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, well, I think that covers some of my questions. Is there anything that I missed that I should be keeping an eye on out there?
[00:21:21] Speaker A: You know, I think that Canadians have to really keep a close eye on this liberal leadership campaign because the media is going to milk it for free advertising as much as they possibly can.
I'm really concerned when I see three hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the entry fee. So it really is made as a coronation for one of two people, Christian Freeland or Mark Carney. Because who else can do it? I mean, you got Bayless in it, you got Gould in it, you got Chandra Arya in it, you got a number of different people. I don't know if they're going to be able to raise the funds. And it's in a very short period of time because between now end of January to March 9, when they have the final decision, that's, that's, you know, a very short period of time for everyone to put out their policy platforms and to go around the country to vote.
I think people have to really look at what they're saying and more importantly, what they're saying now in their policies. I ask the audience to please look back at what these people have said before, especially Carney and Freeland, when it comes to things like the carbon tax, when it comes, the basic economical things, basic kitchen table issues. You have to look at what they've said before, what they've done before, and what they're saying now. And why would they change their tone? I mean, it's just like the United States. We see Kamala talking all of a sudden going 180 on all of her policy positions and the American public just didn't believe it because she was very left, left, left, left. And now she's trying to steer back to the center and people said, no, like you're lying to us. And I think the exact same thing is happening in Canada with the liberal leadership.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Thank you, buddy.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: My pleasure. Thank you again to everyone who's listening to the podcast again, I please ask you to subscribe so that you're well informed as soon as new episodes come out. We've been having a really good outflow of support and a number of people, thousands of people now that have been listening to this podcast getting really good feedback. If there is any ideas you would like us to discuss or any questions, please reach out to my website, richrup CA and send me an email. I'll be glad to answer those questions at the next episode for you. So please continue to listen, subscribe, share the link with your friends. Anybody you know who's interested in the future of Canadian politics, which, let me tell you, affects all of us, please listen to the podcast and and continue to share it.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Please visit my only fans. See you, Richard. Bye.
