Poilievre responds to Carney

"We should continue to work with allies within the U.S... until the larger relationship can one day be repaired."

I don’t plan on making this newsletter into a transcription service on a permanent basis. But since I brought you all of Mark Carney’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, I thought I’d bring you all of this rebuttal from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, which was sent to reporters this afternoon. The CBC’s Kate McKenna reports on the Poilievre text here, noting a “shift in tone” and “rare praise” from the Conservative leader for his adversary. There is also, as she writes, plenty of criticism.

I think it’s good sometimes to let you see, hear and read leaders at length with no filter. As I say, from now on when you hear from me, it’ll once again usually be my writing.

I’ll offer my own thoughts on this long Poilievre release later, probably in the context of a post on Poilievre’s fast-approaching Calgary convention leadership-review test. In the meantime, comments are open to paying subscribers.

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Prime Minister Carney’s well-crafted and eloquently delivered speech at Davos has been widely noted, and I want to start by offering some praise of my own. The Prime Minister is right to restate what many have said for years: Canada must become more self-reliant, less dependent and work with like-minded countries to advance our interests. Conservatives are, as always, willing to work with him to turn these words into results.

What stood out was when he pointed out ‘the gaps between rhetoric and reality.’ That is especially true here at home. If Liberal words and good intentions were tradeable commodities, Canada would already be the richest nation on earth. Unfortunately, after a decade of promises and grand speeches, Liberals have made our economy more costly and dependent than ever before.

After nearly a year of Prime Minister Carney, things have only gotten worse: the deficit has doubled, food inflation is double that in the U.S., housing costs are the worst in the G7, and no pipelines are approved or anti-development laws removed. The military has massive recruiting and equipment shortfalls. There is still no free trade between provinces, no crime laws passed and the Prime Minister’s signature promise of negotiating a win with the U.S. is unfulfilled. Indeed, U.S. tariffs have more than doubled on Canada, while Mr. Carney’s promised counter-tariffs have vanished with his elbows.

These unkept promises – which all followed grand speeches and announcements – make us especially vulnerable to the world’s dangers. We have had enough words. Now, we need results. Now, we must unblock our resources. Now, we must approve pipelines. Now, we must bolster our military to protect our soil, sea and sky. Now, we need to crack down on foreign interference, threats and intimidation of our people from hostile powers like China, Russia and Iran.

The last five years have shown we can’t count on others. Our closest neighbour and largest trading partner, the United States, struck us with tariffs and questioned our sovereignty. That is shortsighted and will hurt them too. But we can’t control what they do, and no one can control what President Trump does or says.

I know it’s tempting to say our relationship with America is over forever. But here is the reality: We still live next door to the biggest economy and military the world has ever seen. We sell 20 times more to the U.S. than to China. 1 in 10 Canadian jobs rely directly and indirectly on trade with America.

We owe it to those workers, our family, friends and fellow Canadians, to ensure those jobs don’t go away. Growing and diversifying our trade is essential, as all political parties have been saying for decades. But we must also remember that our trade and security partnership with the U.S. is centuries-old and will outlast one President.

To quote the British Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.’

We should continue to work with allies within the U.S. that are outside of the administration to minimize the damage until the larger relationship can one day be repaired. I restate again my offer to the Prime Minister that Conservatives stand ready to help his government fight U.S. tariffs.

But while we hope for the best, it would be naive to assume that things will go back to exactly the way they were. Whether the next administration is Republican or Democrat, tariffs may be here to stay for the foreseeable future.

None of that is an excuse for letting our guard down and repeating past mistakes by leaving Canada vulnerable to aggressive powers like Beijing, which the Prime Minister himself called our greatest threat only months ago.

It was with irony that the Prime Minister quoted Vaclav Havel, one of the great heroes of the 20th century fight against totalitarian communism, less than a week after launching a ‘strategic partnership for a new world order’ with the Chinese communist regime – a partnership that includes ‘plans to deepen engagement on national security issues at senior levels.’

We cannot throw caution to the wind with a regime that kidnaps our citizens, steals our technology, interferes with our elections, sets up illegal police stations on Canadian soil and has a history of using trade as a tool of diplomatic warfare against us. If this is what Mr. Carney meant when he told the Davos crowd that he ‘is calibrating our relationships so their depth reflects our values,’ then I seriously question his values and, frankly, his judgment.

Of course, we have to trade with China, as we always have, but without losing our compass or national security.

At the same time, we must continue the work that Stephen Harper started, expanding our network of trade deals with more like-minded middle-power countries. In fact, we already have free trade deals with most middle powers, after the previous Conservative government negotiated agreements with a record 46 countries.

Given that we have these agreements already in place, what stops us from growing our trade with them now is not the trade barriers they impose on us, but the trade barriers we impose on ourselves. Liberal laws like C-69 and C-48 make it impossible to approve projects or ship energy off our coasts. It takes 19 years to approve a mine.

This Liberal government created these laws and obstacles, and almost a year after taking office, Mr. Carney has not removed a single law or bureaucracy. Or approved a single pipeline. Or removed the industrial carbon tax, which drives food and housing costs up and industry out.

There are hundreds of billions of private dollars looking to invest in wildly profitable projects like a pipeline to the Pacific. Money to get Canada’s energy flowing and our workers working. We have the resources under our feet; the only thing missing is permits, federal permits from Carney’s government, which are still among the slowest in the world.

Grand announcements, new government agencies, signing ceremonies, red carpets and stacking new laws on top of old ones will do nothing. There is no magic involved in this. What we need is for the Carney government to get out of the way and approve these privately-funded projects.

Carney told the crowd in Davos that ‘a country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options.’ So, why can’t we? Just this week, Canada was declared the food inflation capital of the G7. Last year, Canadians who can’t feed themselves made a record 2 million visits to food banks every month – more than double the number from just 7 years ago – in a country with almost endless farming potential.

Potential. We have the potential to be the most affordable and richest country in the world, because we have the most land, resources and coastline.

We need to unblock our potential.

To stop stopping and start starting.

That is why Conservatives proposed the Canadian Sovereignty Act. It is a detailed plan to unlock Canada’s potential and make our country more affordable, self-reliant, and sovereign. It aims to bring home the half-trillion dollars of investment that has left for the U.S. over the past decade.

With practical steps, like:

• Ending capital gains tax on any reinvestment in Canada – economic rocket fuel for new business start-ups, high-tech inventions, and massive money-making, job-creating projects;

• Repealing anti-pipeline and anti-development laws to legalize fast and safe approval of pipelines and shipping energy off our west coast towards Asia;

• Going from the second slowest permits in the developed world today to the fastest;

• Rapidly greenlighting a new pipeline to the Pacific to send a million barrels a day – or $30 billion of oil a year – to Asia, the biggest boost to overseas exports in Canadian history;

• Ending the industrial carbon tax so industry and farmers can more affordably produce what we need;

• Creating Free Trade Bonuses for provinces and territories that open their markets to fellow Canadians, tear down internal barriers and strengthen national economic unity;

• New rules and tax incentives preventing Canada’s inventions, technologies, intellectual property and strategic assets from being sold to foreign state-owned or state-influenced interests; and

• Cutting taxes on work, investment, homebuilding and energy that will allow us to make more for less and with greater independence.

Producing more for less will not only make Canada autonomous but affordable. The more food we grow and energy we supply ourselves, and the more we boost our dollar by selling them to the world, the more affordable life will become.

That’s why I am announcing today that next week we will introduce a motion to pass the Canadian Sovereignty Act next week in the House of Commons.

Speaking about sovereignty: we need a strong and sovereign national defence. What we do on defence is something over which we have total control. We don’t need anyone’s permission to have a strong, state-of-the-art military and defend ourselves. But can we even defend ourselves right now?

Once again, Carney has talked a big game about building up our armed forces, but after nearly a year as Prime Minister, he hasn’t even begun to deliver. It’s just more promises pushed down the road, and smoke and mirror budgets pushed out into the future. Trust us, he says, we really want to do it—just not quite yet.

We support the sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark. But we must also be able to support our own sovereignty. We currently have 300 full-time members of the military stationed in the Arctic, in a territory that is larger than most countries. We have the largest coastline in the world, and yet we have a regular naval force of just 8,400 personnel.

A sovereign country must be able to defend its people and its territory. Conservatives have a detailed plan of clear, concrete commitments to rebuild our armed forces and restore our great martial tradition:

• To fix the recruiting crisis and expand the Regular Force and reserve forces dramatically and quickly;

• Recruitment and promotions must be driven by merit and not political correctness;

• To re-establish a permanent Canadian military presence in the Arctic with CFB Iqaluit, a new Arctic naval base, and upgrade Inuvik to full base status for fighters and tankers;

• To back our sovereignty with real hardware by acquiring four new heavy icebreakers, building AWACS aircraft to detect threats in our Arctic skies;

• To fast-track upgrades to submarines, helicopters and northern support hubs; and

• To strengthen boots-on-the-ground presence by doubling the Canadian Rangers and creating a new Army Reserve unit in Whitehorse.

So far, Mr. Carney has been lucky that he’s been judged by his rhetoric and his stated intentions, by the number of his trips and meetings overseas. Because nearly a year into his term, the rhetoric has changed, but reality has not. There is an illusion of purpose, but no results to back it up.

We need to do things, not just say them. ‘Canada Strong’ can no longer be a slogan, nor ‘True North Strong and Free’ just a motto. We must put our people and country first in all that we do. Then, and only then, we will be autonomous and affordable, secure and self-reliant.

To paraphrase Henley, we are the masters of our fate. We are the captains of our souls. It’s time we finally take the wheel – and steer Canada forward with purpose and resolve.