The News Rundown
- Carney’s Cabinet Controversies
- 28 cabinet ministers and 10 secretaries of state
- Trudeau’s former cabinet was 37
- 13 are former Trudeau picks, most of the big ones
- Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice
- Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Transport
- Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy (from Ontario)
- Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry
- Dominic LeBlanc, Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade
- David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence
- Cabinet representation: Brampton has more representation than Alberta
- 3 from Brampton, only 4/28 full cabinet ministers west of Ontario (2 in BC)
- Budget will balance itself -> No budget (Champagne)
- Guilbeault as minister of Canadian identity keeps talking about pipelines errantly
- Home prices should not go down (Gregor Robertson)
- Anita Anand as foreign affairs lashes out at Israel
- It's always good to have money saved up for a rainy day. That way, when you really need it, it's there for you. On the other hand, being in debt is hard, it's stressful, and everything you do revolves around whether you can afford it or not.
- That's the unfortunate position BC finds itself in after the horrible financial mismanagement of the David Eby BC NDP has led to the province being over $100 billion in debt, just a few years removed from balanced budgets under the BC Liberals and the Horgan-led NDP.
- It's what's caused the NDP to butt heads with what should be one of their biggest supporters, the BC General Employees' Union, or BCGEU. It's the government’s main union, and one of the biggest in BC, and it's looking for a new contract for the more than 30,000 unionized workers in government and its ministries.
- The BCGEU has lamented the disappointing lack of progress at the bargaining table on a replacement for the contract that expired March 31. It also accused the New Democrats of engaging in “delaying and intimidation tactics” surrounding the negotiations, and of stalling because there's no money left in the budget for union members.
- A membership bulletin released by BCGEU leadership last week cited an April 16 virtual meeting for union members presided over by Shannon Salter, deputy minister to the premier and head of the public service.
- The union says that the town hall should have been a 'conversation about our work and how we’re coming together to build a stronger public service in the face of uncertainty' but instead the government's representatives used the meeting to display intimidation "as an intentional scare tactic to persuade BCGEU members into thinking that there was no money available in our upcoming collective agreement".
- Scare tactics. A bad-faith accusation levelled at the head of the public service herself. Not what you'd expect from early negotiations between the NDP and a major union, and certainly not during an early bargaining round that has been slow and uneventful.
- Apparently, somebody at BCGEU headquarters reached the same conclusion. Particularly as that first bulletin, sent out at 9 a.m. Thursday, got Salter’s first name wrong, calling her Sharron, not Shannon. Three hours later the union issued a correction to members, removing any mention of Salter — with or without the proper first name, and toning down the provocative language.
- Still, the union is unhappy with what it regards as a status quo stance on the part of the New Democrats: “We know that there is money to invest in our public service. Every day, we see the money that they spend on consultants and inappropriately procured infrastructure projects.”
- Union President Paul Finch has pointed out how in government, the ranks of non-union staffers and managers have increased by almost twice as much (52 per cent) as the numbers (28 per cent) of unionized public servants. Despite the BC NDP and the federal Liberals largely expanding the public service to never before seen numbers, the public service does rely on government spending and finances to be able to grow wages and keep their staff increasing.
- The BCGEU is not exaggerating about the government’s tough bargaining stance. The NDP’s current messaging contrasts sharply with the 14 per cent over three years it paid out in the 2022 round. During the April town hall, Salter spoke at length about the government’s “duty to taxpayers” and the need to “do everything we can to rein in spending.”
- Deputy Finance Minister Douglas Scott followed up with a sobering overview of B.C.’s fiscal predicament. Debt is approaching $100 billion and on track to hit $160 billion within the next three years. Interest payments will soon be eating up $6 billion a year, making debt servicing the third largest ministry, after only health and education. Though spending growth has been reduced to 3.3 per cent from 8.7 per cent in election year, B.C. is headed for another $10 billion operating deficit.
- Scott told the thousands of public servants who logged on to the town hall that: “These numbers are real. This is not a short-term financial crisis. We have a systemic deficit that we have to adjust. If we don’t adjust, it will go on in perpetuity.”
- Moreover, he said, there can be no more delays in tackling debt and deficits. “Speed is our friend,” said Scott. If current trends continue, it will only get worse owing to the toll of compound interest.
- The urgent tone of Scott’s briefing was a departure from the “this is not the time to cut services” mantra of the premier and other NDP ministers before the 2024 election. Already the NDP are switching course after an election that almost saw them lose. Maybe that woke them up.
- Salter, in her capacity as head of the public service, also hinted at something else in that call. She said “There have been no discussions on layoffs,” then added “I cannot offer guarantees” that there won’t be such discussions going forward. Whether realism, or intimidation depends on your view of the public service, unions, and government spending. Either way, the NDP government message to the BCGEU and other public sector unions is to rein in expectations on future negotiations, and that the province is broke.
- The real question is where was the media on the provinces' finances last year when we were in an election period?
- The question of counter tariffs against the United States has been one that spurred question. After all counter tariffs only hurt Canadians and with the American economy being roughly 10x the size of our own the value is questionable.
- Throughout the course of the election campaign the question was who would best stand up to Trump and whether dollar for dollar tariffs would be part of the plan.
- As it turns out, those dollar for dollar tariffs never happened.
- In a new report from Oxford Economics they found that Canada has effectively suspended almost all of its retaliatory tariffs on US products.
- Initially there was 25% on about $60b worth of US goods plus the retaliation on cars and steel.
- During the campaign though, the government silently announced a 6 month exemptions for products used in Canadian manufacturing, processing and food and beverage packing, and for items related to health care, public safety and national security.
- Automakers also received a reprieve where companies that manufacture in Canada like GM are allowed to import some cars into Canada tariff free.
- The calculations done by Oxford set our tariff rate to “nearly zero.”
- Tony Stillo, Oxford’s director of Canada Economics said, ““It’s a very strategic approach from a new prime minister to really say, ‘We’re not going to have a retaliation.’ It’s a strategic play on the government’s part to not damage the Canadian economy.”
- The dollar for dollar crowd were adamant this was the way to go in February and March and in large part this mantra combined with elbows up drove the Liberal’s election campaign.
- Where do tariffs on US goods remain though? If you are looking to buy items such as orange juice, coffee, or alcohol you’ll pay. As well as on clothing and cosmetics.
- A spokesperson for Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne did not reply to a request for comment on the Oxford report.
- Oxford still sees the Canadian economy slipping into recession this year, but it upgraded its growth forecast to 0.9% for this year and 0.3% next year.
- The reality is that many Canadians still believe we are pushing back against the Americans with tariffs on everything but that’s not true. Our tariff response is low, focused on vanity objects that Canadians will feel when they buy, and aimed to not harm the economy.
- This story got almost zero coverage in the media this week outside of Bloomberg and the National Post.
- When the exemptions were made they were swept away in the noise of the election campaign because announcing such a fallback on policy would be bad optics.
- The chart forward for Canada looks similar to that of the UK where we negotiate a new trade deal or aspects of CUSMA with the US.
- Then from there hopefully key Canadian industries can be exempted from US tariffs.
- But unless you plan on buying orange juice, coffee, alcohol, clothing, or cosmetics from the US, you probably don’t have to worry that much.
Firing Line
- This week, democracy in Canada has been in question, if only by the margin of one vote in one riding, which truly does show that every vote does matter.
- Elections Canada says it is investigating after a voter in a Quebec riding came forward with an envelope that had been returned to sender. Inside was a vote for the Bloc Québécois in the Terrebonne riding northwest of Montreal, where, as it stands, incoming Liberal MP Tatiana Auguste was declared the winner over Bloc incumbent Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné by one vote after several recounts.
- Auguste's one-vote victory was highly unusual, making international headlines and attracting significant attention on social media, as she appeared to flip a riding long held by the Bloc.
- After Elections Canada stated that it did not have legal standing to overturn the judicial recount, the Bloc Québécois announced that it would be asking the Superior Court of Quebec for a new by-election to be held.
- The voter, however, remains irked by the situation. Terrebonne resident Emmanuelle Bossé said she sent in her vote on time for the April 28 federal election, mailing her vote in on April 5. It was returned to her on May 2, two days after the election was already over.She told Radio-Canada that: "I wasn't the one who got Elections Canada's address wrong on the envelope. Elections Canada glued this label on the envelope. I had nothing to fill. I just had to put my vote in there."
- On election night, Terrebonne initially went to Auguste by 35 votes. But after a standard validation process, the result flipped to the incumbent Bloc Québécois MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, by 44 votes. This triggered an automatic judicial recount. A few days later, the results of the recount showed that Auguste had won by a single vote.
- How could this have swung by such an amount over 3 separate counts? Is Elections Canada dropping the ball, and is this happening in other ridings? It's not a good look, especially when many are already questioning the integrity of our systems.
- Despite the error and questions about the possibility of another recount or a byelection, Elections Canada spokesperson Matthew McKenna said “the result of the recount is final.”
- McKenna said we are in uncharted waters now: “The Canada Elections Act does not explicitly provide for the appeal of a judicial recount and Elections Canada is unaware of any appeals brought to a court following a recount.”
- McKenna said the returned vote was never part of the recount.
- “Any vote that doesn’t get to us on time to wherever it’s meant to go, whether it’s the local office or to our accounting facility in Ottawa, the law basically dictates that it can’t be counted. So even if it’s something that happens as a result of an error on our part, there’s really no mechanism for that to be counted.”
- McKenna said the only thing that could lead to a change in the result is someone officially contesting it.
- “Anyone can make an application to a judge to say that they want the results of the election to be reviewed,” he said. “There’s a possibility that that happens ... as far as I’m aware, nobody’s put forward such an application yet.”
- Also, five ballots that were received late at the local Elections Canada office in Quebec’s Terrebonne riding were not able to be counted, the agency confirmed Thursday.
- According to Noovo Info, “five ballots were received - but late - at the local office, despite the fact that the return envelope contained an error in the postal code.”
- Elections Canada said “There is no information on whether the delay is related to the incorrect postal code. We note that the signing of the declaration by voters was done late in the election period.”
- Ara Karaboghossian, professor of political science at Vanier College, says there's a chance this saga isn't over. He said the election could be contested through Elections Canada's contested elections process. He said irregularities can be the basis for contesting a decision: "It says that if there is any type of irregularity that has an effect on the result, then the person can actually contest. The elector can contest. A candidate can contest. It's open to anybody."
- The case will hinge on what an irregularity is, but it seems to Karaboghossian that a misprint on a self-addressed, stamped envelope could fall into that category. An irregularity that doesn't affect the outcome would be discarded. However, in this case, one vote would have made a difference in Terrebonne. Bossé would still need to take Elections Canada to court, and then it will be a legal decision, which would leave us in uncharted waters.
- Elsewhere a recount confirmed a narrow Liberal victory in Milton East-Halton Hills South. where the race narrowed in the judicial recount to 21 votes from 29 over the Conservative candidate. Two more judicial recounts are ongoing in Windsor–Tecumseh–Lakeshore, and Terra Nova–The Peninsulas.
- Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said he would launch a legal challenge of how the process unfolded in Terrebonne. He said he would also demand a redo in a by-election.
- It's been a messy couple of weeks for Elections Canada since April 30th, and has definitely raised more questions than answers.
- Supplementals:
Quote of the Week
“These numbers are real. This is not a short-term financial crisis. We have a systemic deficit that we have to adjust. If we don’t adjust, it will go on in perpetuity.” - BC’s Deputy Finance Minister Douglas Scott on the province’s debt ballooning to over $100 billion.
Word of the Week
Perpetuity - forever
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Show Data
- Episode Title: Cabinet Controversies
- Teaser: We discuss Mark Carney’s cabinet picks, controversies, and regional representation. We also look at BC’s faltering union negotiations and Canada’s silent removal of US tariffs. Also, the one vote difference in Terrebonne could have lasting impacts.
- Production Code: WC-418-2025-05-17
- Recorded Date: May 17, 2025
- Release Date: May 18, 2025
- Duration: 56:46
- Edit Notes: Shane pauses
Podcast Summary Notes
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Duration: XX:XX