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Front Burner Transcript for March 31, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: Cordial, constructive, focused on action. Exactly what we want.

[Music: Theme]

JAYME POISSON: Hey everybody, it's Jayme. We are just over a week into this election campaign, and honestly, I had been anticipating a pretty interesting race, given the context. But the amount of surprising stuff that has happened here, particularly in the last few days... We have seen a Trump 180, if only in name and tone, and heard about a, quote-unquote, "civil war" within the Conservative Party. My colleague Rosemary Barton is here, the CBC's chief political correspondent. Rosie, maybe you have a different sense of this, but am I right to say what I just said there? Compare this to other elections that you've covered.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, I just think a lot has happened in a short period of time. Like, I would normally expect all those things to happen over the course of a 36-day campaign. I wouldn't expect them to happen within the first week. And so, yeah, no, I think you're, you're bang on.

JP: Well, let's talk about it then. Can we start with this call between Trump and Carney that took place on Friday? First off, any sense of how the call actually came about?

ROSEMARY BARTON: So what we were led to believe, or what we understand, is that once that threat of the auto tariffs, the 25% auto tariffs came about...

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: And what we're going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they're made in the United States, there's absolutely no tariff.

ROSEMARY BARTON: ...there was actually a reach out by the president. The president reached out to the Prime Minister's Office to try and set up a call. I should say that a week before, when I had been over in Europe with the prime minister, we were told that there was some communication between the offices to try and get to a call. Um, but in this case, it was the president who initiated it.

JP: And Trump came off that call, and he sent out this post that... I don't know, I was not expecting. I'm not totally sure what I was expecting, but I do not think that it was this. And he sends out this post and it called the call extremely productive, and quote, "we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada's upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors, that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada. Thank you for your attention to this matter," exclamation point. Rosie, what do you know, if anything, about what actually went down on that call?

ROSEMARY BARTON: I, I'm not going to pretend that I know a whole lot [laughs] more than what was out there, but I'll say this. That by the accounts from the Prime Minister's Office--and I'm calling him the prime minister in this instance 'cause that's the hat he was wearing at the time--that it was productive, that the tone was different, and that the prime minister's tone was also different. It was decisive, is what, is what I'm told, in terms of what he wanted to tell the president, in terms of the markers he wanted to lay down, and in terms of what he wanted to get out of it. So, a couple of things. He made it very clear to the president that there would be counter-tariffs that would go into effect on April 2nd, um, if the president goes ahead with this. And we believe that he will. He also seemed to get an indication from the president--and a number of people have now said this publicly, including the prime minister--that there may be tariffs, but there might be sort of degrees of amounts of tariffs, and that he walked away from that phone call believing that Canada would be on the low end of those tariffs, [JP: Huh.] whatever that means. And I would also say that he also came out of the call with a clear understanding of what he wants to get to--the prime minister, I mean--and that is a broad negotiation about our economic and security relationship going forward. So that will have to wait, obviously, until after the election. If it's a different prime minister, it'll be a different set of terms, but this prime minister, at least, walked away with a sense of where things would go if he manages to win. And listen, you know, in the newsroom when that happened on Friday, and we saw the social media post, and when-- then we heard from Donald Trump, the first thing that I said was, Oh my God, he's not calling him governor anymore. He's calling him by his first name. He's talking about how it's going to work out for Canada and the U.S.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: Mark called me today at 10 o'clock. We put out a statement. We had a very, very good talk. He's going through an election now, and uh, we'll see what happens. But we have Liberation Day, as you know, on April 2nd, because — and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us, the likes of which...

ROSEMARY BARTON: I mean, maybe the bar for success is too low right now because of all the things that Trump has said. But that was, that was pretty remarkable. We'll see whether it holds. You and I both know that he might change his mind 300 times before next-- before Wednesday. But it was definitely different.

JP: I mean, he even did acknowledge us as a country. Very low bar.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] We'll take it.

JP: I'm curious to hear, the people that you're talking to, what did they make of that 180 in tone?

ROSEMARY BARTON: They do think it was a change in tone. They do think it has something to do, obviously, with the fact that this is a different person, this is a different prime minister. And like it or not, it is very possible that the relationship that Trump had with Justin Trudeau was hampering Canada's ability to get to, um, a better place, a better negotiating position. There's also a sense inside the Prime Minister's Office that Carney does know how to negotiate. That that is what he is telling Canadians, um, and that that was the beginning of something different for Donald Trump. Again, these are very early days. This was a first conversation. [JP: Mm-hmm.] But in terms of whether Mark Carney walked away with something better, or whether he was damaged by the call, the answer is no. Right? He came off that call looking pretty good, and hearing the right kinds of things from a very unpredictable presence.

[music]

JP: I just want to clarify one thing you mentioned -- this impression that Carney was given that we are going to be on like the low end of tariffs. Are we talking about the auto tariffs, which may or may not ramp up to 25%? Are we also talking about all these other tariffs that are apparently coming midweek on the day that Trump has christened Liberation Day?

ROSEMARY BARTON: I think, from what I understand--and I should say, I also spoke to the premier of New Brunswick on my show on Sunday, and she sort of reiterated this, as did the prime minister on Friday--that in terms of the broad, universal, reciprocal tariffs that Trump has talked about, where he's talked about 25% on everything, that the impression that they were left with was that it would not be 25%, and that it would not be everything.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: The president did not indicate a pulling back on the uh, on the tariffs on autos or steel or aluminum during the call. My response included that uh, look, this is the start of a process. Part of what's important, it underscores the importance of uh, more intensive discussions between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of...

ROSEMARY BARTON: Now, if you still have 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, as we do now, and there's an additional 10% on those tariffs, that is still devastating, right? That is still a huge problem for Canada. If the auto sector tariffs are still 25% on parts, [JP: Mm-hmm.] that is still potentially devastating for the auto sector. So, you know, I think we are dealing with, like, the best in the worst-case scenario. And that is why it was made very clear to the president that Canada will have to retaliate. Because a tariff is a tariff, and what Canada's goal here is to get rid of them entirely.

JP: And just on this point that this conversation between the two men was like a, the first touch point in what Carney sees as a comprehensive discussion to come. I know in Quebec, Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet was concerned that this could mean that supply management was on the table, which restricts dairy, eggs, and keeps prices at a certain level.

SOUNDCLIP

YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET: But he just said to Mr. Trump, in order not to have a bad message afterwards, that everything was on the table. Including lumber wood, supply management, culture.

JP: He also said that Carney has no mandate to announce comprehensive negotiations will take place after the election.

SOUNDCLIP

YVES- FRANÇOIS BLANCHET: Where did he take the mandate to say such a thing, which might prove very dangerous?

JP: And I just wonder, first, you know, what you make of that criticism coming from Blanchet, but also, like, has Carney given any indication of what that comprehensive discussion actually looks like to him? What does that even mean?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah. Well, first I'll talk about the supply management -- the dairy, eggs and poultry. That is not on the table according to Mark Carney.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK CARNEY: We will never have discussions with respect to supply management. It's off the table. And uh, what one needs to ensure that is to have a, a government and a prime minister with that commitment, with a strong mandate. Thank you.

ROSEMARY BARTON: He would be a fool to put it on the table during an election campaign where the Liberals are set to do very well in Quebec. So, for now, that is not a thing. But but it is a thing for President Trump. It has been from the very beginning of his first term, where, as they were wrapping up the first renegotiation, that was still an issue. So we know that this is a problem for the Americans. Mark Carney says: Not happening. In terms of the comprehensive discussion, I mean, beyond saying he's looking for renegotiation economically and security-based, I am not sure, frankly, what he's talking about there. Beyond also to say he has also hinted publicly at the idea of a sector-by-sector trade deals or deals. Um, so maybe it's not as comprehensive as CUSMA. Maybe it's something else. Maybe we try to protect, you know, certain industries and not all because we're not going to get the president there. One of the things that Carney has said time and again is that he's not negotiating in public, that he is not showing Donald Trump all his cards. And so that means that Canadians, frankly, are a little bit in the dark when it comes to what he's talking about here. [JP: Mm-hmm.] But I would say in terms of the Bloc leader's criticism of whether he has a mandate: of course he doesn't have a mandate. That's why he's had an election. That is why he is now calling--really publicly, Jayme--for a majority mandate in order to be able to push forward on all these things. So that's what this election is about -- trying to get him the mandate that he wants in order to continue with these talks.

[music]

JP: So we've talked about how this call objectively did go pretty well for Carney. I think it's safe to say that he's in a unique position. He has this advantage at this moment because he is the prime minister. And [ROSEMARY: Yeah.] when it comes to dealing with Trump, it's not theoretical, right? Voters can see him do it in real time. I also think that this has given him the opportunity to position himself as the change candidate, even though he's heading up this party that's been in government for a decade. Because, as we've talked about, he can show that the president, for example, is no longer calling our prime minister governor, which is, which is a change. [ROSEMARY: Yeah.] But this is not the position that Pierre Poilievre finds himself in. And so, what unique and challenging position do you think this puts him in?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah. I mean, the incumbent, uh, who is Mark Carney, however brief it was--nine days, right, before he called the election--is still the incumbent. And the advantage in instances like this is that you are prime minister, that you have a responsibility to act on behalf of the country even when the government is in a caretaker mode. So you're limited in terms of what your response can be, but you have to respond when there are urgent things in front of you like, like these tariff threats. It allows you to do the things that prime ministers also do during this moment: not just call the president, get the premiers on the phone. Call Doug Ford and talk that through. And to be doing, taking the actions that yes, you have to take even though there's an election, but that make you look like you do know how to do the job and you will continue to know how do the job if you get elected as another mandate. And that is hugely complicating factor for Pierre Poilievre. Who has never been prime minister, who wants that job, but who is forced in this space where it's really hard to define him, right? Like, he's being forced to act like the opposition leader in some circumstances during this campaign. There have been some little shifts. I noticed on Friday that he said:

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: I was glad to learn that the president and prime minister spoke today, and like all Canadians, I hope they had a successful talk. And I look forward to hearing about the results that they achieved in that conversation.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Which to me was interesting, because he does know that the best outcome here for Canada is that it did go well. And so he can't be seen to be overly criticizing Mark Carney in those key moments. But sheesh, it is a real awkward spot for him as this campaign unfolds.

JP: Tell me more about how you see the Conservative campaign responding to this particular issue, to this moment that they're in.

ROSEMARY BARTON: It feels, it has felt in this first week to me, like this is a campaign that was designed and planned by Pierre Poilievre and his campaign six months ago, 12 months ago. That they wanted to come up with ideas to deal with what was the number one concern for Canadians, and that is cost of living. And they are now taking the same campaign planks, whether it be expanding the limit on your tax-free savings account.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Under my government, you will be allowed to contribute another $5,000 every single year, as long as that money is invested in Canadian companies.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Whether it be cracking down on crime.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: And we will ensure the monsters who kill our people and endanger our communities go to jail for life. A new Conservative government will impose life sentences for the most serious cases of fentanyl distribution, gun smuggling, and human trafficking.

ROSEMARY BARTON: And they're now trying to fit them into a different picture frame. And the picture frame is Donald Trump. And the picture doesn't quite fit, right? And so every time they talk about their, their policy planks, which are important and substantive, they have to kind of mention Donald Trump as the reason to why they're doing it. But yet they don't quite make sense. And I think that that is a real struggle that we're seeing in real time. The other part of that, of course, Jayme, is they don't want to talk about Donald Trump too much, because, you know, public opinion polling suggests that if the ballot question is only Donald Trump, that is not to their advantage. So it is a very difficult corner that they find themselves in.

[music]

JP: There has been much reporting this week about how the Conservative campaign is currently in a state of disarray and dysfunction. The term 'civil war' was used by one anonymous Conservative source quoted in a piece written by some of our colleagues, Catherine Cullen and J.P. Tasker. Would you like to take a stab at summing up what has been going on here in, inside the party?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, that quote actually [laughs] came from someone I talked to, so. A couple things. First of all, Conservatives don't generally talk like this. They are very disciplined, particularly during campaigns, and they keep their dirty laundry in the house. That is not what's happening now. Um. There are a couple things going on. Kory Teneycke, the campaign manager for Doug Ford, the former director of communications for Stephen Harper, gave a speech at the Empire Club where he talked about what was happening with the Conservative campaign, and how it really needed to refocus solely on Donald Trump.

SOUNDCLIP

KORY TENEYCKE: Look, I think for the Conservatives, you know, in the campaign cockpit, every buzzer and alarm is going off, and the plane is like going zzz. And it's like, pull up, pull up, pull up.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Like, almost forget about the Liberals and just talk about the president and the threat that Canadians are feeling.

SOUNDCLIP

KORY TENEYCKE: You've got to get on the [beep] ballot question [audience laughs] that...

[some applause]

KORY TENEYCKE: That is driving votes. Like -- Or you are going to lose.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Kory Teneycke and Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives, I would say, have a very complicated and perhaps not warm relationship. So there's some sort of, you know, internal sort of drama going on inside the Conservative circles, right? There's that piece. Um. And then there's, and there's just the reality that a lot of people in the war room and elsewhere are very concerned about the polls. You know, they went -- you know, two months ago, three months ago, they had a 25-point lead, and now, they are not leading. Um, and so people were trying to question, I think, whether the strategy that I just talked about still makes sense, or whether they need to be doing something differently. On top of that, there's all this information coming out from various sources to all of, you know, all the different colleagues that helped out on that story, about the toxicity of the workplace--the campaign war room itself--and the way people are being treated. These are all-- these all sound like sort of inside baseball politics stories, but I think they tell you two things. One, that, that people are very worried, right? They are very worried and they are not sure how to turn the tide. And two, the fact that this is happening just a week into the campaign, tells you just how worried they are, and and that they feel like something might be slipping away. It's only a week in, you know? Things can change pretty rapidly. But that is, I think, what Conservatives are trying to communicate to the media and to other Conservatives.

JP: This argument that the Conservatives need to pivot immediately to Trump and how to fight Trump, it's not clear to me that if they did that, that could work either. There are problems, it seems, with that too. [ROSEMARY: Yeah.] You know, as we talked about before, Carney has that advantage of being the incumbent. They have been dominating the Trump stuff. Um. The other move here would be to try to convince Canadians there are other issues [ROSEMARY: Mm-hmm.] that they should care about, [ROSEMARY: For sure.] right? Like what do you make of that argument?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, I mean, I think-- and I think that's where they're staying. You know, the top two issues for Canadians -- and [laughs] people listening can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what we see in public opinion polling: Donald Trump and cost of living. Those two things are deeply connected, but the Conservatives are making a bet that talking more about cost of living is the, is the safer bet for them. Because they've spent so much time talking about it for the past two years, and again, because they are not sure that if you stack up the Liberal leader and the Conservative leader next to each other, that Canadians will choose the Conservative leader to take on Donald Trump. [JP: Mm-hmm.] I also think that Pierre Poilievre is, um, he's deeply invested in the campaign as it is now. A lot of these are his ideas, things that he's worked on very hard. And so he's committed to them. And that is also a problem in terms of how flexible you need to be in this moment. And maybe he's right. You know, maybe that is what Canadians are concerned with. But in a week where we're now heading into another week dominated by the trade war and tariffs, it is hard to imagine a leader going out and talking about, you know, a capital gains tax.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: I am announcing today the Canada First Reinvestment Tax Cut. No capital gains when you reinvest the money here in Canada. What do you think?

[applause]

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Do you agree with that?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Or again, the tax-free savings account. It comes across as, I think, a little bit out of step for where Canadians' heads are at.

JP: I also, you know, I was listening to Kory Teneycke, um, talk on the Curse of Politics podcast as well, and, you know, one thing he said, which I found interesting, was that:

SOUNDCLIP

KORY TENEYCKE: Even having him continuing to be the attack dog for the campaign is a strategic error.

HOST: Yes.

KORY TENEYCKE: Like at the core [HOST: Yes. Yes.] of what's, at the core of what's going on here, is they have a candidate with an unlikability problem.

JP: And he thought that was a problem, too. I would be, like, curious to hear if you think that's a fair criticism that he's making.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, I mean, I think one place to watch for that is not so much in his announcements and his press conferences, where you see someone who is trying to be a little friendlier to the media and speak to workers. Where you see that is really in his rallies that often happen later in the evening. Where there are, to be clear, thousands of people showing up, really impressive turnouts. A huge ability by the Conservative Party to organize. We've seen them in Ontario and British Columbia. But in those rallies, the rhetoric from from Poilievre is more like the Poilievre that everybody kind of knows: attacking, criticizing, and even in some cases, being really harsh about the state of the country.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE POILIEVRE: My friends, our country, life has never been more expensive. Our streets have never been more dangerous, our economy has never been more vulnerable, and we have never been so much under the American thumb as we are after the lost Liberal decade. But the choice in this election is whether...

ROSEMARY BARTON: And in those instances, yeah, you see the opposition leader. Which I don't think is necessarily what he wants to project. And you also see someone who's who's willing to criticize the country at a time when the country doesn't necessarily want to hear that criticism. [JP: Mm-hmm.] Where he does, I think, have some space and where we may see him go in the next couple of weeks, is to continue to talk about change. And you see now that his slogan is:

SOUNDCLIP

[crowd cheering]

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Put Canada first for a change!

PIERRE POILIEVRE: And he keeps talking about change. And that's because that change is the biggest motivating factor in any election. It's the thing that gets people out to vote against someone as opposed to for someone. The problem, though, as you know, is that there has been some change in the Liberal Party. You know, on April 1st, the carbon tax will be gone. And people might go to the gas station and see that right away. And it'll be hard for Pierre Poilievre to talk about change when there is change; even if it's not as broad and significant as what he is offering, that things have shifted a bit. So, you know, this is obviously not the campaign he wanted. If he was running against Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump was out there, I don't think he would be having these troubles. But he's not. And I'm not sure that they have adjusted to that yet themselves.

[music]

JP: Final thought before you go, what else are you watching for this week?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously the, obviously the April 2nd, the tariffs. How big are they? [JP: Yeah.] If they are big, does Mark Carney have to wear that? How does he explain it? How does he respond? What are the counter-tariffs? That's a real test for him. But I'm going to throw one other thing out there, and it's probably not on Canadians' radar. But on Thursday, our friends at Radio-Canada will host this live leaders interviews. They interview all the leaders, in succession, live. It's not a debate; it's like a comparison analysis. And that'll be fascinating because we know that Mark Carney is not excellent in French, and he had a couple of bumps on the road when it came to Quebec stuff last week. So I will be really interested to see how he does there and whether it matters, because Quebecers have sort of said, Oh, well, that was just a mistake. Don't worry. So how he performs in that interview and how Quebecers view the leaders when they're all stacked up one against another, because of course Quebec is central to winning government for the Liberals, um, and and a battleground to watch for sure.

JP: Rosie, thank you, as always. Hopefully we could make a, another date [ROSEMARY: We can.] for next Sunday.

[laughter]

ROSEMARY BARTON: Okay. I'll, I'll count it.

[laughter]

JP: Thank you. [ROSEMARY: Thank you.] Appreciate it.

[Music: Theme]

JP: So before we sign off today, a bit of news from the campaign trail. The Conservatives are calling for Mark Carney to drop Liberal MP and candidate for Markham-Unionville, Paul Chiang. Their demands come after it was revealed that Chiang, speaking with Chinese language media, had encouraged folks to turn in Joe Tay, the Conservative candidate in Don Valley North, to Chinese authorities and collect a cash bounty on Tay's head. Tay, who was born in Hong Kong, has been targeted by the Chinese government because of his pro-democracy activism. Carney has not commented on the Conservatives' calls, but Chiang did, apologizing and saying that his comments were deplorable, going on to say as a former police officer he really should have known better and that he stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong. Also, stay tuned for our episode tomorrow as we've been talking about on the show. A big part of what has been propelling this Liberal lead is the collapse of the NDP vote. So we're going to have a discussion about the tough road ahead for the NDP and how they got here. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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Election! Trump and Carney talk, Conservative 'civil war' - Transcript

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