Donald Trump signals a U.S.-Mexico-only NAFTA, calling Canada’s demands—gender clauses, climate measures, and Indigenous rights—"irrelevant," while citing Trudeau’s broken promises on First Nations water access and rising CO2 emissions. After Trudeau’s June 9 G7 snub, Trump labeled him "dishonest and weak," risking 25% U.S. tariffs on Canadian vehicles and a recession per Scotiabank. Critics like Sheila Gunn Reed urge Trudeau to replace his team with veterans like Mulroney or Martin, but his July 2018 cabinet shuffle dropped gender equity as a priority while appointing Bill Blair to crack down on legal marijuana, sparking fears of a "marijuana war." Transgender media debates and PC controversies—like Dave Wheeler’s firing—highlight broader tensions, warning that Trudeau’s policies could backfire economically and socially. [Automatically generated summary]
While Trudeau remains optimistic, America is getting close to a trade deal with Mexico.
It's July 19th.
I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levin Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
The only thing I have to say to the government for why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Is it game over for the North American Free Trade Agreement?
At least when it comes to NAFTA Classic?
Well, it kind of looks that way.
After all, just check out what President Donald Trump said yesterday, namely that the U.S. might just hammer out a separate trade deal with Mexico and that discussions with his Mexican counterpart are going quite well.
With the new president of Mexico, who won overwhelmingly, and we're doing very well on our trade agreement.
So we'll see what happens.
We may do separately with Mexico, and we'll negotiate with Canada at a later time.
But we're having very good discussions with Mexico.
Yeah, so just call this impending new deal NAFTA Light, you know, a brand new whiz-bang North American free trade agreement minus that part of North America known as Canada.
Now, in fairness, Trump said a separate trade deal might be reached with our great dominion at a later date.
Perhaps, maybe.
Hey, don't call us, we'll call you.
But certainly there doesn't seem to be any urgency for Trump to get a deal done with Ottawa.
And for some reason, I don't think Justin Trudeau is on the president's speed dial list at the moment, especially considering the most important part of a trade negotiation for Trudeau is trying to include a gender clause in the deal.
Now, on the flip side, check out Trump's recent comments regarding a proposed new deal between the U.S. and Mexico.
A Financial Post story notes that the two nations are indeed getting closer to reaching a trade deal.
Just listen to President Trump.
We have had very good sessions with Mexico and with the new president of Mexico who won overwhelmingly and we're doing very well on our trade agreement.
As for Canada, well, it would appear that the great blight North barely registers as a footnote of a footnote for the time being, even though Trudeau says he's still optimistic about a new NAFTA deal being reached.
What does Justin base such optimism on?
Wishful thinking?
Perhaps a recent visit to an Ottawa storefront psychic?
Or maybe Christia Freeland has instilled confidence in our prime minister.
Remember when she started crying when trade negotiations with Europe weren't going well?
International, even with a country that has such European values, such as Canada, and even with a so gentle country, and with a lot of patience, such as Canada.
Yikes!
then again, maybe she can win over the president with emojis.
The European Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, and I call each other sisters in trade.
We sign our emails, hugs.
Do you actually do that?
Yes, we do.
We sometimes send each other smiley faces in particularly difficult moments.
If that doesn't give you the same confidence the Prime Minister Trudeau has, then maybe Freeland's team of millennials will assure you that Canada can outsmart the master negotiator, Donald J. Trump.
Or maybe Justin has discovered a way to alter the time-space continuum so that it can whisk back into the not-so-distant past, specifically June 9th.
That's when Justin, in a strikingly dumb post-G7 news conference, said the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum on national security grounds was insulting.
I highlighted directly to the President that Canadians did not take it lightly.
That the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs on our steel and aluminum industry.
Particularly, did not take lightly the fact that it's based on a national security reason that for Canadians who, either themselves or whose parents or community members have stood shoulder to shoulder with American soldiers in far-off lands and conflicts from the First World War onwards, that it's kind of insulting.
Well, the president didn't like that very much, and he quickly tweeted his response right from Air Force One, stating that Trudeau was both dishonest and weak.
Ouch.
And White House trade advisor Peter Navarro, well, he went even further.
Have a listen to what he had to say.
Chris, there's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door.
And that's what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.
That's what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did.
How dare you, Mr. Navarro?
You see, that special place in hell is already reserved for Trudeau based on a multitude of other reasons, like fast-tracking that multi-million dollar taxpayer payout plus public apology to a convicted terrorist.
But I digress.
Even so, is it any wonder that consumer confidence in Canada continues to plunge?
After all, a debilitating trade war with our biggest trading partner would prove devastating.
For example, Trump has already floated the idea of imposing a 25% tariff on all new vehicles going into Canada from the U.S.
That would add thousands of dollars to the price of an average new car.
Translation: If you're thinking about snagging a new set of wheels, folks, I really think you should visit your friendly neighborhood auto mall ASAP.
But the fallout from an impending trade war between Canada and the U.S. won't just mean higher consumer prices.
It might just grease the wheels for an all-out recession, at least according to a report by Scotiabank.
And the real tragedy is it didn't really have to be this way if only our virtue signaling prime minister could have kept his big mouth shut or if he had negotiated in good faith.
President Trump said that Trudeau made a big mistake and it's going to cost us a lot of money.
I actually like Justin.
You know, I think he's good.
I like him.
But he shouldn't have done that.
That was a mistake.
That's going to cost him a lot of money.
In the meantime, as Mexico and the U.S. remain engaged in cordial talks en route to a free trade deal, it would appear Canada is on the outside looking in as we lurch down the road of engaging the U.S. in a trade war that nobody wants.
Oh, sunny ways, sunny ways indeed.
Stay with us for more, folks.
Well, this just in, President Trump and his Mexican counterpart Enrique Peña Nieto are apparently getting along very well indeed.
So well, in fact, that the U.S. and Mexico might just hammer out a new bilateral trade deal between the new nations.
The thing is, Canada had a chance to also negotiate bilaterally with the U.S., but chose not to pursue this route mainly due to, well, du regur virtue signaling so beloved by the Trudeau liberals, which is to say that even a trade agreement can't simply be about trade.
No, it must include provisions about gender and climate change and indigenous rights.
So no deal for us.
With more on the latest follies on the trade deal front is Sheila Gunread, host of the gun show.
Welcome to the Ezra Levin Show, Sheila.
Hey, David, thanks for having me.
Always a pleasure, my friend.
So Sheila, far from securing a trade deal with the U.S., we might just be headed for a trade war.
How in the world did we get into this predicament in the first place?
Well, as the kids say, this could be us, but we were playing.
You know, and my kids are cringing to hear me talk like that.
But, you know, like all we had to do was shut our mouths.
We literally could have been the people renegotiating a bilateral trade deal with the states.
I mean, Manny had such a great point when he said that we were not on Donald Trump's radar going into NAFTA renegotiations.
We put ourselves on the radar because Justin Trudeau couldn't shut his big fat mouth.
And then we had, you know, our diplomats and our trade minister adding all sorts of ridiculous stuff like you raised the indigenous issues into NAFTA, gender issues into NAFTA, and environmental issues into NAFTA.
And quite frankly, these are issues that Canada really doesn't have the ability to argue from a position of power on or any credibility at all.
You know, there's a certain amount of chutzpah, especially about the climate change provisions there, Sheila, because, you know, I think this came to the front this week about it was a climate change report card that came out showing the top 10 nations in terms of experiencing decreases in CO2 emissions and the top 10 nations in terms of increases.
Lo and behold, number one in terms of decreases is the U.S.
And one of the nations on the bottom 10 list in terms of most increase is Canada.
So it's a little presumptuous for us to be lecturing the U.S. on climate change, wouldn't you think?
Well, yeah, especially since the last three years in that report show that Canada has increased every single year.
So that would be the last three years that the Liberals have been in power.
And then, you know, when they try to inject Indigenous issues into NAFTA, I mean, let's be real.
Justin Trudeau campaigned on getting clean drinking water to our First Nations reserves, and he hasn't moved the needle on that issue at all.
And yet he has the audacity to issue the Americans on that.
And gender, like, come on.
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Happy Hands and his harem of female enablers are going to lecture the Americans about what's best for ladies.
No.
No, it's not happening.
And Sheila, on that point, I'm sorry to be so Neanderthal here, but what in the world does gender have to do with a free trade deal?
Well, it shouldn't.
I mean, you would think that jobs and lower taxes and free trade, well, those are women's issues for me.
Like unemployment rates, those are women's issues for me.
And I mean, if there are more jobs circling around the economy, then naturally there's more female workplace participation rates.
But they want this gender-based analysis thing-a-ma-jigger overlaid on every single trade deal and every single project.
And I don't even understand what that thing is.
You know, and here's the dire part of this.
I think, Sheila, far from a trade agreement, we might be headed towards a trade war.
And we're talking, I mean, President Trump at one point said that a 25% tariff on vehicles coming from the U.S. into Canada adds thousands and thousands of dollars to the price of an average new car in Canada.
I would say, if anyone's in the market to buy a new car, get to the dealership this weekend and start negotiating because you might be ahead of the game the way things are panning out right now.
Well, and if you work in the auto industry, maybe now's the time to start shopping around for a new job because those trade tariffs are going to devastate the Ontario economy just as it's poised to recover from a decade or so of liberal mismanagement.
And out here in Alberta, I mean, we're never going to see a pipeline built under either Notley or Justin Trudeau.
The only pipeline that I see in the predictable future being built is Keystone XL.
And the only way that's ever going to be built is if President Trump looks favorably upon Canada, and Justin Trudeau seems to be doing everything he can to annoy the Americans right now.
And speaking of which, Sheila, if you were an advisor to Justin Trudeau, let's pretend you're the female equivalent of Gerald Butts.
What would you be telling the prime minister to do right now to right this ship and to bury the hatchet and get a deal done, much like it seems that is going to be the case with the U.S. and Mexico?
What Sheila Would Tell Trudeau00:03:11
Well, if I were the female equivalent of Gerald Butts, I'd be telling Justin Trudeau to fire myself.
But I thought you were going to say I'd be telling Justin Trudeau to stop groping me, but no.
Anyways, go ahead.
You know, it's time for Justin Trudeau to swallow his pride and call in the big guns.
Enough with Krista Freeland and her crying at the trade deals.
It's time to call in the likes of Brian Mulroney or Paul Martin, people from both sides of the political spectrum, although pretty close to each other on the political spectrum, and people who are friendly with Donald Trump, who understand business, who understand trade deals.
It's time to set aside ego and save some jobs and save the Canadian economy.
Yeah, indeed, because this all stems back, doesn't it, Sheila, to it was that disastrous press conference after the G7th back on June 9th, I believe it was.
And Justin was talking about tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum on national security grounds as being insulting.
And the president immediately tweeted from Air Force One that he wasn't happy with that.
It seems that, you know, maybe what Trudeau has to do is read that book by that very same president, The Art of the Deal, because he doesn't seem to understand the nuances and the strategies involved in negotiating a deal to begin with.
Do you think Justin Trudeau has negotiated anything in his entire life?
Like, really?
I mean, the guy was born wealthy, silver spoon in his mouth.
I don't begrudge him his wealth, but I bet you he's not as penny-pinching and frugal as I am, if you know what I mean.
I drive a hard bargain at a garage sale.
I think that Justin Trudeau has no clue what it's like to deal with the movers and shakers of the business world, and it's really showing right now.
You know, I think you've touched upon something very profound here, Sheila, and you're right.
I mean, Donald Trump made a success of himself in one of the most rough and tumble real estate markets in the world in New York City.
Justin Trudeau, a trust fund baby, has had everything given to him on the proverbial silver platter.
So maybe he's not in tune with the reality of what's required to have a negotiation for a trade deal.
And that's why he brings in all this baggage about gender and indigenous rights and climate change, which should have nothing to do with a trade deal.
Well, no, and he thinks real people actually care about that.
Real people don't care about those sorts of issues being injected into business deals.
We want to get the deal done.
I mean, look at how poorly the Liberals negotiated the purchase of the Kindermorgan Trans Mountain Pipeline.
They overpaid for it.
And I was reading the news today.
In two months, no construction's even started on that.
And yet they told us if they bought this pipeline, construction would start and all the opposition would magically disappear.
They just don't understand what it's like in the real world.
Marijuana War Brewing00:10:24
Well, Sheila, time will tell how this plays out.
We'll have to end it here, but I'm telling you, it is really tragic that we could have had a bilateral trade deal and instead we might get into a trade war.
And this trade war, I think, might grease the wheels for a recession for this country if things really get heated up.
So hopefully somebody in the Trudeau cabinet will come to their senses and try to make amends and get a deal done.
You know, I hope you're wrong, but I think you're right.
Okay.
There you go.
Sheila, thank you so much for joining us.
And that was Sheila Gunn Reed, folks.
And keep it here.
More of the Ezra Levin show to come right after this.
Well, as we head into next year's federal election, yesterday, Justin Trudeau shuffled his cabinet.
Now, most of the senior cabinet ministers, they're still there.
But there were a couple of notable things about this cabinet shuffle.
First of all, guess what, folks?
It's not a gender equity cabinet anymore.
It's 18 males and 17 females.
And also, Bill Blair has been appointed to the newly created role of Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction.
Whatever does that all mean?
Well, someone who definitely has some thoughts on this matter is Toronto Sun Calmness Extraordinaire, Joe Warmington.
Thanks for joining me here, Joe.
It's good to be back.
Two days in a row.
Well, it was so nice.
We did it twice, right?
Now, Joe, first of all, Bill Blair, I'll play my cards here.
I wasn't a fan of Bill Blair when he was the chief of police going back several years ago.
What sort of cemented my opinion about Chief Blair was it was a press conference and I believe it was in regard to an officer that had been killed on duty.
And Bill Blair, and I'm paraphrasing here, these aren't direct quotes, but he was saying something along the lines of, you know, we, the police, we can't just be concerned with justice.
We also have to take social justice into consideration.
And Joe, I'm thinking social justice, this is the kind of claptrap we hear on the campus of Ryerson and U of T.
It's ironic that in 2010 during G20, he was obviously not doing much social justice that day.
Good point.
You covered that.
And so it is an interesting thing.
He's a politician, and he's got what he should have had all along, which is a cabinet position.
And because it's 2018, the balance isn't there.
But I think this is actually an interesting decision by the Prime Minister because it shows you on one front how, even though they kind of gloss it over and call everybody un-Canadian, that they are responding to the concerns at the border.
But that's really not what the kind of fine print, which we'll talk about now.
Oh, and Joe, before we get into that fine print, you raise a good point, though.
Just days, hours before this announcement, you had Prime Minister Trudeau and Gerald Butts and Minister Hussein saying there is no border crisis, there is no migrant crisis.
And then suddenly, hours later, we have a minister of border security.
So kind of a mixed message, wouldn't you say?
It is a mixed message, but this is all about the upcoming war with organized crime for the marijuana market in Ontario and in Canada.
And that's what this is about.
So the government is now beefed up, and they have a former cop and a 10-year chief of police and Bill Blair that's going to oversee this.
And it'll be interesting to see how he marshals his, can he marshal the RCMP or the OPP?
Does he work with the provinces?
Because make no mistake, there is going to be a marijuana war over who controls the market.
Is it going to be the Canadian people and the private industry that's run a lot by chiefs of police?
Or is it going to be organized crime that don't follow the environmental rules or any of the rules that they can undercut the price?
And we've seen already what has happened right here with the Amores and all these different stores.
And it's happened in every city, but I work in Toronto, so I notice that where they shut down all the mom-pop dispensaries.
And that was using the police as the muscle to go against these companies that are on the public markets trying to raise millions and billions of dollars on marijuana sales.
So I find what you're saying absolutely fascinating, Joe, because I never thought of it until just now with your response.
So what you're saying is that Bill Blair's role is going to be less about border security.
It's going to be more about part two, organized crime reduction, meaning preventing illegal marijuana from getting into the country because it's all really about money.
The government wants its piece of the action through the legalized channels when we finally get this system going.
Because for the last, you know, I don't know whatever the years are, but the last 50 years, the marijuana sales have not been through the government or through legalized private sector.
So that's changing.
So now there's a new player in the town and saying, move over everybody else.
We're it.
We're illegal.
Well, you're going to have to police the other guys because they're not going away.
And so that's what this move is about.
And also the guns that come across the board to help enforce the war, which is coming.
This is not a time to be cutting back on police.
This is a time to be getting ready for the war that's going to happen.
You thought the war on drugs was a problem before, but now that you are the biggest drug dealer in terms of the government, you're going to have to fight the people that want to sustain their own market.
Well, you know, Joe, I'm not an expert on marijuana, to say the least, but the more I read about this particular file, the more I think this is going to be an absolute epic disaster in the way it's being rolled out, just from the negligible effect it's going to have on the gray and black market.
And also what I'm really concerned about is the kind of potential carnage we're going to see on the road with people that are driving high.
It's all based on a lie.
And the lie is that marijuana is okay.
It's just okay.
And so we're going to find out what it does.
Now, it's not something that you or I would partake in or haven't.
But you know, come October when they make it legal and you've got a sore knee and you think, I don't want to go to the doctor.
I can go down and buy it at a government store.
It's perfectly legal.
Well, maybe some, you know, some 50-something people are going to go down and do that for the very first time.
And we don't know what that means.
Like you just said, you get in the car and you go pick up your kids or you go for dinner and you're suddenly high.
You've never experienced it before.
Well, we will find out and we'll be covering those stories because there'll be people dropping all over the place on, you know, their bodies aren't used to it.
So they're rolling it out too quickly.
They've made a mistake.
They should have made a partner of the Emory style, let the kind of cannabis culture kind of start the first year to decriminalize it for low amounts and then work their way into being a player in it in terms of the government.
Instead, they've said everyone out, we're in.
And by the way, Bill Blair is going to be the minister.
We're going to secure the borders.
But Joe, isn't that par for the course?
I mean, in most provinces, we have government liquor monopolies.
We have government casino monopolies.
We have government lottery ticket monopolies.
Listen, when it comes to all those facets, I'm all about having the government taxing it and regulating it.
I don't want them in the business of that.
And I agree with you 100% that this is a disaster waiting to happen.
In Ontario, I believe they're talking about 38 government stores for the entire province.
Yeah, it's not enough.
The supply and demand issue is going to be huge.
And that's what the organized crime and the gangs and all that are waiting for.
And don't forget that marijuana is traded in other jurisdictions for heroin and all these kinds of things.
And the reason the city is so dangerous right now is because of the opioid issue and all these, you know, we see all the different things, the safe, or I call them dangerous injection sites and all that stuff.
So marijuana is a big player in all of this.
It's not just sort of on the side, it's a benign thing.
It is the kind of the heartbeat of all of it.
And so, you know, you don't have marijuana, you don't need guns.
And you don't have the heroin and the opioid kind of issue without marijuana.
So let's not kid ourselves.
Now, I want to just say that I think that Bill Blair is actually not a bad choice for this.
I'm prepared to give him a chance.
He is all of the above.
I mean, there's a good side to that guy.
He's a good cop.
And there's that political side.
You know, I could make the argument that because he had his eye on being a liberal cabinet minister, that that's how we ended up with no carding because he didn't back up and tell Trudeau and these guys and Kathleen win when she was premier.
No, no, no.
We've got to be tough.
This is why Doug Ford's an important player in this.
That's interesting too.
I just thought of it now.
You got Bill Blair and Doug Ford going at it again as well.
Remember last time when Rob Ford was mayor, they did not get along.
No.
And so that's going to be very interesting, and that may be why Trudeau has elevated Bill Blair up into the cabinet.
Well, Joe, when it comes to public safety, I would be most happy to be proven wrong about Bill Blair because, you know, public safety is preeminent.
But I tend to believe what you've just intimated that this is really about the federal government ensuring they get their piece of the action in terms of tax revenue from the marijuana coming in through legal channels.
It's going to be a wild fight.
And you want to believe it.
You know, nobody's saying it, but this is going to change the whole country.
And quick thoughts on this little bugaboo of this cabinet reshuffling.
Hmm, 18 males, 17 females.
I thought we had to have that 50-50 gender equity.
And I know 35 is an odd number, but still, you know.
Mentally Challenged Roles00:04:24
Well, I just want to say this about that.
Your perception of it, David, may be different than my perception of it.
How you're reading that could be different than the way I'm reading it.
And by the way, I am a national reporter.
So what you're saying is that maybe some of these male cabinet ministers are currently identifying as female cabinet ministers.
Well, however they feel about it, and this is important because we've had an awakening, and we as a society have to address this, and somehow it's all your fault.
How's that?
Well, I got to watch what I say.
We have to wrap it here, folks, because, you know, there's a morning man in Winnipeg that just lost his job just making a joke about trans issues.
I don't want to be next in line.
So listen, Joe, thank you so much for dropping by.
And folks, keep it here.
More of the Ezra Levin Show to come right after this.
Welcome back to the Ezra Levin Show.
Thanks for staying with us.
Now, on my monologue yesterday about Winnipeg radio host Dave Wheeler losing his job for offending the trans community, Space Moose writes, I think this is the first time the Ezra Levant Show led with a Winnipeg story.
It has been a long time since I tuned into 92 CITI FM.
I have no plans on tuning in anytime soon.
Well, Space Moose, this is the sad reality of terrestrial radio in Canada today.
It has turned into an echo chamber in which the same boring, politically correct talking points are repeated, ad nausea.
And if you say something even remotely offensive, then the social media malcontents demand that the offender must walk the plank and forever be shunned.
My advice for you, subscribe to satellite radio.
Hosts there can still speak their minds.
John writes, I remember there was a time when any actor who played a mentally challenged person got the Oscar that year.
I guess now only mentally challenged people can play those roles.
Well, you know, great point, John.
Is this where we are in terms of identity politics?
That I don't know if they were to make a remake of Rainman, there's no way Dustin Hoffman gets his old role because he's not mentally challenged.
Likewise, only a disabled actor can now play the role of a handicapped person.
And if this brave new rule means that only trans actors play trans characters, does this mean that only 100% real women get to play real female characters and that only 100% real men get to play real male characters?
Well, too bad for the trans actor community because I don't think there are a whole lot of big budget movies in the works featuring trans characters.
Indeed, I think the trans community may have outsmarted itself because since Scarlett Johansson stepped down from her role in rub and tug, now the entire project might be in jeopardy.
So how is this a win for the transgender community or anyone else for that matter?
And Bruce writes, What was once understood as an obvious delusion is now being forced on us as something to be cheered and championed.
In fact, a time will come when trans deniers will be put in asylums and considered insane.
It happened in the Soviet Union, and I'm sure it will happen here if we don't stand against such absolute nonsense.
Well, Bruce, I tend to agree there are some profound mental illness issues in the so-called trans community.
We used to offer mentally ill people help.
Now we pretend there's nothing wrong with a man pretending to be a woman and a woman pretending to be a man.
And we are now at a stage in which there are, what, 16, 31, 84 genders and counting.
This is utter madness.
But as Dave Wheeler found out the other day, if you have the utter temerity to insult the trans community while you can just kiss your career goodbye, makes you wonder if the inmates are indeed running the asylum these days.