Could Canada Have A Brexit Moment?

0:00David McWilliams: This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Count of its Gerald Ireland, proud sponsors of my own festival, the Dawki Book Festival, which is on the 18th and 21st of June. Now, in Dawki, you're going to expect four days of ideas, of literature, of politics, of economics, comedy and culture, with over 100 writers, including Salman Rushdie, Tim Berners-Lee, the man who founded the internet, and of course, Booker Prize winner Anne Enright. Join us this summer in Dalky. Thanks again to Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland, helping people plan with clarity, invest with confidence and build lasting wealth.

0:36David McWilliams: Find out more at cantor Fitzgerald.ie. Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Coming up today, it's all about maple leaf. It's about maple syrup. It's about Canada. It's about Toronto, but it's also about Canadian Brexit, which is earmarked for the end of October, Mark Carney may well be facing his serious, serious political challenge, not from Donald Trump, but from Canada's own MAGA movement in Alberta. And of course, why we're doing it is Canada is hosting the World Cup. And that's all coming up in a couple of minutes. This is Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad.

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3:10David McWilliams: just before we start a massive massive week for the podcast and the mcwilliams family in general because this is the doki book festival weekend if you are coming to doki we will see you there john and i are doing a live podcast on thursday and if there's something that tickles your fancy have a look at doki book festival.org we have something for everyone i think it's probably our best lineup yet, including Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web, Jimmy Wales, the man who brought you Wikipedia, Salman Rushdie, who needs no introduction, and then we have a whole host of events on America 250.

3:52David McWilliams: As the Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of their republic, what state is the place in socially, culturally, and economically? That's all at doggybookfestival.org. To understand the economy, you have to understand human nature. This podcast is powered by Acast. How are you doing there? It is time for the podcast. And today the podcast comes to you from Canada, from Toronto. I am sitting in a hotel room in the finance district looking at the CN Tower. John, you will remember the CN Tower is the place where I, on my 18th birthday, understood after a very large spliff that I have vertigo.

4:41David McWilliams: In the lift. Oh, is that the place? That's that famous story of, Mark, your prostate on the floor. Couldn't get up. I couldn't get up. First of all, I'd never really smoked this really heavy sort of, it was kind of Canadian weed, right? Yeah. Number one, right? And number two, I'd never been up, because I was from bloody Ireland, I'd never been up a tall building. Yeah, never over three floors. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Number three, I didn't realize that the lift was outside the building, not inside the building. Okay, yeah. And number four, as the thing started to go up, the normal paranoia kicked in, okay?

5:23David McWilliams: Just your average spliff, stone paranoia, compounded by vertigo. The thing is off. It was the worst thing. So every time I come to Toronto, I usually, because I'm doing a speech, I'm staying in this kind of finance district, right? And I just look up at the CN Tower and I break out in a rash.

5:45I haven't touched a spliff since.

5:48David McWilliams: Not that far off the point, John. Not that far off the point. Anyway, it is wonderful to have you here. I, of course, have a very soft spot for Canada. The reason we are doing this piece on Canada is that this is part of our World Cup series. What we're doing, as we told you the other day, what we're doing is we are doing a series on the economies, the culture and the politics of countries that are significant in this World Cup, either countries whose football teams may well be favourites in their group or countries like Canada that are hosting the World Cup. Because we forget that. They're certainly not favourites.

6:27David McWilliams: They're certainly not favourites, but they're hosting the thing. They're hosting the thing, right? And of course, John, Mark Carney is in Ireland this week. So it all ties in together. So that's what we're doing. We're going to talk about Canada. We're going to talk about Mark Carney. We're going to talk about the fact that Canada has, under Carney, become the beacon of stability, rationality, and common sense in a world of Trump. The fact that there is a rupture between not just Canada and America, but between America and the world, and the Canadians have obviously taken the side, and the side they've taken is the side of Europe.

6:59David McWilliams: We're also going to talk about, John, Canadian Brexit, which is a bizarre thing. Alberta, a big, big state over in the Midwest where Western Canada wants to secede, or a certain number of Albertans want to secede. This is a wild card in the Canadian firmament, which really may change the whole thing. And we're going to talk about the links between Ireland, Canada, not just the emirant links, but also economic links. I found out the other day that Ireland is the 10th largest investor in Canada. Investor? Wow. Investor into Canada. But we have a lot to talk about. Canada, fascinating country, huge country, very close relations with Ireland, and is more or less now regarded as, when it's been run by Mark Carney, who is in effect the leader of the free world.

7:50Yeah, yeah. Okay, Mark, before we get into all that, I think we should start off talking football, since it is about the World Cup, but Canadian football. Now, you know an awful lot more about football than I do, but I still can't actually name a single Canadian player, apart from a man who's been injured for ages. Alistair Johnston who plays for Celtic are there any other footballers to speak of?

8:17David McWilliams: Well given that your surname is Davis I will give you a little bit of tidbit there the captain of the Canadian football team is Alphonso Davis who plays for Bayern Munich and is an amazing winger and he's my cousin he's got to be my cousin he's your cousin he's your black cousin from Liberia from Longford to Liberia the Davis plan extended themselves all around the world So he was born in Liberia, brought up in a refugee camp, became a Canadian citizen. Oh, right. His family emigrated here. And he is a proper footballer. He's somebody who I suspect will light up a certain game or two in the World Cup.

8:56David McWilliams: But you're right. I mean, basically, Canada is known for two sports, but particularly one sport, which is ice hockey. Yeah. That is the sport that they are absolutely wedded to. and in fact it is the sport they consistently referred back to when the United States decided to call, or not the United States, Donald Trump decided to call for the assimilation of Canada into the United States when he started referring to Justin Trudeau as Governor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was ice hockey and in fact Mark Carney is an ice hockey player, was quite a good ice hockey player when he was a young fella. We'll talk about that in a second.

9:35David McWilliams: The other game, of course, here is baseball. And the ice hockey team that I would love to go to see would be the Montreal Canadiens, the Québécois ice hockey team, because that's where they take it so seriously. There used to be a brilliant team here in Toronto called the Maple Leafs, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the derby between Montreal and Toronto used to be the thing. But since then, Montreal have surged away, and Toronto, in both baseball and in hockey, are actually languishing. The Blue Jays, which is a huge baseball team here, have done nothing for a long, long time. So in general, the two big sports that they're good at, the main one is ice hockey.

10:15David McWilliams: And it's the one I think most people would associate with Canada. Yeah, yeah. But they are the hosts of the World Cup, John. Yeah. This is the fascinating thing. And one of the weird things about them being the hosts of the World Cup, you know, so you've got like, it's almost that you have three World Cups going on at the same time. You have the Mexican one, you have the American one, and you have the Canadian one. Even though they're all supposed to be, it was all conceived before Donald Trump decided to have a go at everybody. But they have three different immigration regimes. You know, think about fans coming and going, etc.

10:49It wasn't exactly planned for the fan, was it? No. This is purely about money, this particular World Cup.

10:56David McWilliams: Most evidenced by the fact that your friend, Donald Trump, won the FIFA prize for World Peace. Well, he deserved it. Come on. Given to him by Gianni Infantino, who is the chief bottle washer of the FIFA... Following the steps of the other great, great... Of Seth Blatter. Seth Blatter and such other uncorruptible and fearless gentlemen. Exactly. And Mark Carney has only met him once, whereas Donny Jay has met him eight times. Because every time he meets Donny Jay, they obviously hatch up some other plan for some sort of financial kickback. Anyway, so Canada in the World Cup, all the gigs have been sold out.

11:35David McWilliams: So the Canadians are big soccer supporters, are football supporters. But as you said, it comes down a week third, fourth or maybe fifth on the pecking order of who plays what sport. What you do see in Canada, as you see in the United States, is schoolboy and schoolgirl football is incredibly, incredibly strong. And women's football is incredibly strong in the United States. after all they've won the world cup and the women's team were very much lionized and fated so women's football is very strong here schoolboy football is very strong here but when it comes to the world cup and professional male football it's just breaking yeah yeah it's a bit like rugby as well yeah but they'll put on a good show the canadians will put on a good show because again you know what has happened since donald trump has arrived is he has managed to stir something that nobody ever thought they'd ever see, which is called Canadian nationalism.

12:32David McWilliams: This was not a thing before Trump. But it has become a thing. And the reason it's become a thing is because Trump has inflamed, in effect, a very quiet, reasonable bunch of people who live to the north of the United States who actually wanted to de-escalate all the time. But once Trump decided that he wanted to take Venezuela, Canada, and Greenland And as part of his Monroe Doctrine, of course, the Canadians have become very, very patriotic. And the man who's most benefited from this is Mark Carney. And I'm going to tell you a little story about Mark Carney, because although we are in Toronto, John, I want to start our podcast today in a small village on the base of Crowpatrick called Ahagower.

13:21David McWilliams: Have you ever heard of Ahagower, John? I don't think so. Where are we? So we are in South Mayo. Right. We are at the base around Westport. Ah, okay. Yes, I do. We're at the base of Cro-Patrick, a little small, almost a townland called Ahagower. Now, Ahagower is very, very famous for one reason, John. It is believed that there in the 5th century was the place that St. Patrick put his first church, thus Cro-Patrick. So this was an extremely important religious site in Connemara. in the fifth century. And it is believed that that is where Patrick actually hung out, created his first church, and it's been a place of pilgrimage for many, many centuries since then.

14:08David McWilliams: And, of course, those pilgrimages tend to peak at the top, the summit of Crow Patrick every year. Yeah, in your bare feet. Now, in your bare feet, exactly, with a big shtick. Now, the point is, Ahagauer is also the place in 1925 that three of Mark Carney's grandparents were born in and emigrated from there, this tiny village to Canada. And his grandfather arrived in Canada and I have seen the evidence that he arrived and he had five pounds to his name. Right, okay. That's all he had. Isn't that an amazing immigrant story? From Ahagauer, they came to Canada with five pounds in their back pocket.

14:56David McWilliams: That's all the money they had. Five pounds, though, in today's money would be a few hundred. It would be a few hundred, but you're talking about people who really didn't have anything. So they come here. Three of Carney's four grandparents are from Ahagawa. His other grandparent is from Cavan. Right. Which is maybe where he gets his financial sophistication from, right? But I'll tell you another interesting story about Mark Carney. Mark Carney, when he was the governor of the Bank of England, So we'll give his very, very, very star-studded CV in a second. Mark Carney was the governor of the Bank of Canada.

15:29David McWilliams: He was very, very high up in Goldman Sachs first, then the governor of the Bank of Canada, then the governor of the Bank of England, and he is now Prime Minister of Canada. So that's a pretty storied CV. Yeah, that's the Canadian dream. That's the Canadian dream. And they came from South Mayo two generations ago. So that is an amazing story. That is, as you say, that's the story that everyone wants to hear about when they come to this place. What made him special, though? Fascinatingly, when he was governor of the Bank of England, in his own office, he had a print of Ahaguar in Mayo behind him.

16:06Right.

16:06David McWilliams: And he just said that that was to reiterate to everybody that this is where I'm from. Yeah. These are my people. And, of course, Carney has an Irish passport. He has renounced his Irish passport because he's the Canadian Prime Minister, but he held an Irish passport for most of his life. And again, that shows he's very, very embedded in Ireland. Right. Now, the story of him becoming prime minister is fascinating, but I'll come back to the other story. He was educated by the Jesuits in Alberta, so his family went out to Western Canada, which is, in effect, you know, the frontier land of Western Canada in the 1930s and 1940s.

16:40David McWilliams: As farmers. As farmers, and then his parents were schoolteachers. Right, okay. But both his parents became schoolteachers, and he was educated by Jesuits out there and obviously incredibly bright fella, very, very bright fella and has ascended to the position of Prime Minister of Canada in the most unusual circumstances, right? But just to give you another thing about the links between Canada and Ireland, so 12 % of all Canadians say that they've Irish heritage and that of course is much higher here in Ontario and in Montreal, in Quebec And the reason it's much higher in Quebec is because Quebec is the place where the people came from after the famine.

17:23David McWilliams: So in 1847, 100 ,000 Irish refugees arrived in Montreal. And Montreal at the time had a population of 60 ,000. Jeez, okay. So think about that, fear Ireland is full, right? And those people spread out all over Canada. And the reason they came to Montreal, of course, was Montreal was French and was Catholic, whereas Toronto was British and Protestant. And did they have the same experience as the Irish arriving in New York, for instance, or Boston? They were very diseased. So they arrived on Grosse-Ele, the big island, in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. If you ever get a chance to see the St.

18:00David McWilliams: Lawrence River, you begin to appreciate what I think a lot of people in North America really feel is the enormity of the nature here. The immense size of the rivers, you know, that you don't really get in Europe. Even if you see the Danube or the Rhine, these huge European rivers, they're small in comparison, right? You come here to North America and the skies are huge and the mountains are huge and the nature is just endless. And if you go to Montreal or Quebec City, even more interestingly, and you look down at the river, what you just see is it's like an ocean. It's enormous. And of course, in the middle of this was Grosse Eel, the big island, and that was used to quarantine the Irish.

18:42So a bit like the Ellis Island of Canada.

18:44David McWilliams: Exactly, it's Grosjeel. And that's where the Irish people arrived after the famine, 1847 in particular. They arrived in their tens of thousands and they were full, God love them, they were full of cholera and typhus. Yeah. So they had to be quarantined on those. And thousands of them died. Thousands of them died. So the Irish-Canadian experience is very, very deep here and it felt very, very strongly. And interestingly, here in Ontario, up until recently, it was a Northern Irish and Ulster experience that Ulster people came in their tens of thousands to Ontario. And people from the south of Ireland, from Connacht, Munster and Leicester, came their tens of thousands to Quebec.

19:27David McWilliams: And there has been quite a tension between these two. So I've got to tell you, that summer I was here, John, right? That summer I was here in Canada. It was the first and the last time I ever saw an orange parade on the 12th of July. Oh, really? Okay, that's strong. It was, even in the late 80s, there was still a big orange Ontario connection. I'm not sure if it's still here now. Maybe some listeners will put us straight in this, but it was a big deal. It was a big, big deal. So there's always been this slight antipathy between the two sides. Of course, it's been bred out over the years because everybody's just become Canadian.

20:05David McWilliams: but the Carney story is a fascinating story because that as you said is the story of the successful migrant and immigrant and how he came to power John in the last 24 months is extraordinary as well. The reason being, so the Liberal Party which was the party of Justin Trudeau who is now going out with No? Katy Perry. No way, really? I didn't know that. Justin. God, you're so open to all the gossip. Oh, John, get down with the kids, will you? Get down with the kids. Anyway, so Justin has done what... It's in the DNA of the Trudeaus. You know, Justin's ma had an affair with Mick Jagger. Oh, right.

20:48David McWilliams: Wow. This is the shit I know. This is the economist brain that I have spends all its time on gossip magazines and hello. And the red tops. Yeah, come on. So Justin's ma had an affair with Mick Jagger. Right. Justin's da, Pierre Trudeau, was playing away all the time. Justin is now going out with Katy Perry. Right. That is where he is. Because he's divorced now. He's divorced, and they were seen at Coachella. They're seen all over the place. Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. With the beautiful people. Yeah. We would never be letting the door. Anyway, anyway, my point is, for three years, the Conservative Party, under a guy called Paul Vieira, had a 25 % lead over the Liberals.

21:33David McWilliams: Right. 25%. So Trudeau's final, final government was in complete disarray. Trudeau had lost the dressing room, so to speak. He himself, he'd lost the gig. You know, he was actually a four-time Prime Minister, which is a huge amount. And he was very, very unpopular. He was a bit of an eejit, wasn't he? He was a bit indiscreet and all that kind of stuff. Well, he was very much a woke Prime Minister. You're very much into open immigration, very much into LGBT, very much into native First Nations rights, very, very much into Canada is going to be a beacon of liberalism. Carney is not like that. Carney is quite, quite different.

22:18So basically what happens is the guy, Paul Vieira, who was the conservative leader, who was basically the prince-in-waiting,

22:25David McWilliams: he was simply waiting for the election when the liberals, imagine this, the liberals were on 18 % popularity when Justin Trudeau left. But, but it coincided with the inauguration of your mate, Donny Jay, okay, in November of 2024. And Donny Jay comes in and what the first thing he says is, Governor Trudeau of the great state of Canada. The Canadians go bonkers. And Trudeau steps down, but he didn't step down. There was a little behind the scenes sort of coup d 'etat in the Liberals with a woman called Krista Friedland, who was their finance minister, the foreign minister. And she thought she was going to be the leader of the Liberals.

23:18David McWilliams: But what actually happened is Carney threw his hat in the ring, number one, and number two, Carney took on Donald Trump. Yes, he did. And made opposition to Donald Trump his campaign issue. So do you know what Donald Trump has proved? He can win elections in two countries. Yeah. Well, he's planning to go for president in Israel now, apparently. That's his latest. Nobody's more Jewish than me. Anyway, right? So the Carney story is the great turnaround story of elections. So most liberals thought that the party would be eliminated. And had it not been for Trump, they would have been eliminated. The thing is that the conservatives didn't know how to react to MAGA because they were always slightly in the MAGA camp, the Canadian conservatives.

24:09David McWilliams: So they got outplayed, outfoxed, outmaneuvered by Carney. and Carney has surged into this extraordinarily efficient, now liberal government. And his basic campaign was, the Conservatives said, Canada's broken and we're going to fix it. And Carney said, Canada's not broken, we're just badly managed. That was his pitch, right? Against the background of patriotism against the United States. But his basic idea was, we're not broken. In fact, as a balance sheet, we are amongst the richest countries in the world. They've got all the oil, they've got all the gas, they've got all the rare earths, they've got all the commodities.

24:48David McWilliams: He just said, look, we're badly managed. So if we can fix the management issue, we can fix Canada. So he was more of a man of vision and less of a kind of a banker, technocrat kind of guy. Well, you would have thought that he was going to be a banker, technocrat. But when he came in, he did a touch of the Obamas. He did a touch of the, it's about hope. It's about turnaround. We have the ability. Yes, we can. We can do this. But what obviously the injection fuel that propelled him forward was the fact that he put on the maple leaf and he said to the Americans, screw you. And said it very aggressively and incredibly bluntly.

25:27David McWilliams: And now, as you know, John, he's gone on to make these amazing speeches. Yes, he made that amazing speech in Davos last year, which kind of, he set out his stall, as it were. And have a listen to this, because it's brilliant. What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth? First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is. A system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion. It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals.

26:13It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the old order to be restored, it means creating institutions and agreements that function as described. And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion. That's building a strong domestic economy. It should be every government's immediate priority. And diversification internationally is not just economic prudence, it's a material foundation for honest foreign policy. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window.

26:52We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But we believe that from the fracture, we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers. So, Mike, what's his popularity like now? Has it maintained its status?

27:16David McWilliams: Well, again, it's kind of off the scale because of Trump. So as long as Trump continues to make aggressive noise towards Canada. So Trump basically said, he said, what I'd like to see, this is a quote, is Canada become our cherished 51st station. That pissed the Canadians off completely. Also, the fact that Trump has introduced 25 % tariffs on all auto imports, right? And the Canadians then retaliated. The Canadians took all American booze off the shelf. It was gone completely. They retaliated in a really aggressive way that nobody thought possible. Why? Why? Because 87 % of Canadian exports in 2000 went to the United States.

27:59David McWilliams: So both economies are enmeshed together in a way that no other economies are hyper-dependent. And yet the Canadians have decided that it is much more important for them to be sovereign than for them to be dependent and being driven by economic relationships. They've said, you know what, that relationship, as you just heard Carney in Davos saying, that relationship is over. He said the old relationship we have with the United States based on the deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over. He said, Carney said of Trump, he is trying to break us so that he can own us.

28:38David McWilliams: And that is seriously upping the ante. They have a buy Canada policy. They have an extraordinary reaction, a visceral reaction from the average Canadian against what they see as bullying from the United States. Now, 80 % of Canadians now believe the US is on the wrong track. Basically means they can't stand Trump. Yeah, this is pretty much in line with the rest of the world, I'd say. Exactly. And then at Davos, Carney upped the ante again, as you just heard, because he basically said that middle-ranking powers need to come together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. And so what he's doing is he's changing Canada.

29:21David McWilliams: Now, in terms of, that's all good rhetoric, John, but there's actually quite a lot of interesting things he's done here. He basically said, look, Canada isn't broken. It just needs better management. And he's introduced this thing called Bill C-5, right? And this is a bit of technocratic stuff, right? Basically, it's the key to the Carney agenda. He's fast-tracking loads of nationally strategic projects. So if you think about Canada, it has got loads of provinces. It's a federation. It has First Nations Indian rights. It has provincial rights. It has federal rights. And loads and loads of Canadian infrastructure has been bogged down for years and years in all sorts of...

30:01David McWilliams: It's a bit like Ireland. in all sorts of regulation and all sorts of... Now, Carney's come in and said, hold on a second, this is all nonsense. He said, every single piece of major infrastructure has to be green-lighted in two years. That's it. They've committed 116 billion Canadian dollars to infrastructure projects, ports, energy, all that sort of stuff. So it's a major shift away from what was really slow, fragmented regulation. Now it's this kind of what they would call mission-driven sort of idea. And this is what Carney is doing. He's basically saying, look, if we can get our act together, if Canada can get out of its own way, and if we can make things simple, and if we can streamline regulation, the country can achieve enormous potential.

30:52David McWilliams: Why? Because the country is full of commodities. And of course, Carney has, his credibility has been proved as the governor of the Bank of England and the governor of the Canadian Central Bank. But his credibility on the world stage has been bolstered by all the trade deals he's doing. And he's creating a new kind of network based around Canada. How's that going? Well, I mean, what they're trying to do here is, and this is where we'll focus on next, what they're trying to do is they are trying to one, reorientate themselves away from the United States as a long term strategic play. This is a complete reversal of 200 years of integration with the Americans.

31:42David McWilliams: So it's going to be very difficult for them, right? Because trade is a matter of geography, right? Geography matters. You trade with the people you're beside. So the Canadians are very exposed to the Americans. But what Carney has said is that we cannot depend on an American administration that is slapping tariffs on us for no other reason than it feels it was to bully us into submission. We can't depend on the American administration that every now and then says, you know what, I wouldn't mind Canada being part of the United States. Or you know what, you see that little bit of Greenland, we want that.

32:19David McWilliams: and then the Canadians feel sandwiched between an American Greenland and the United States. Yeah, and Alaska, of course. What they're saying is like, yeah, and Alaska. So what they're basically saying is like, we cannot depend anymore on the United States. Now this is really weird because the Canadians and the Americans have been greatest allies. Defense allies, military allies, diplomatic allies. The idea of a rupture between Canada and America seems so off the scale. and yet now it is, and Canadians will say they're getting a pain in the ass driving across the border as Niagara Falls down to Buffalo.

32:55David McWilliams: All these things are just saying like it has become a massive issue. But what it's done, John, it's created a culture war within Canada too. And this is where I'd like to go because there is a Canadian Brexit moment potentially coming up with the state of Alberta, which we'll talk about in a second, wanting to secede from Canada. So... And this might actually be the thing that upsets Carney most of all. So this is going to be Carney's big challenge in the coming year. Let's talk about that after a bit of this.

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36:12So Carney is now the big man on the block and has kind of taken the reins of Canada and kind of whipping it into shape. But his big challenge, as you mentioned there, is this idea of Brexit with regards to Alberta. and Alberta being the big kind of oil state of Canada and being the kind of the big earner in Canada, this is going to be a massive challenge for Carney because there isn't a talk of a referendum coming up in October of this year. Yeah.

36:48David McWilliams: So basically Canada is a very difficult country to run because it is a federal country. so every state or province has got its own legislator has a set of laws it's got its own regulations etc and that is a function of canadian history so one of the big issues and i think a way to look at the canadian economy in the canadian economy is essentially two economies right there is an economy that looks and feels and smells like texas and that's alberta and sesquatchian but particularly Alberta. That's the one with the oil. That's the one with MAGA. That's the one with fellas. They have rodeos and stampedes down there.

37:30David McWilliams: I've been down there. They have fellas walking around in Stetsons. It's like America. It's a cowboy country. It's flat, flat, flat as well, isn't it? Completely flat, right? They are low tax. They are anti-environmentalist. They are full-on, unreconstructed Canadian patriots who don't like this part of Canada, Toronto and Montreal, which they see as fancy-down, liberal, over-educated, up-its-own-bum part, right? So basically what you have is you've got the American culture war is very much playing out here. For listeners in Australia, I know we have a lot of listeners down there, Canada's very like Australia.

38:12David McWilliams: So Australia's got the same idea. So basically you've got Western Australia, which is the Pilbara and the oil, and the rare arts and the commodities, and it's mining countries, and it's tough, and it's right-wing, and it's got that slightly fuck you attitude, right? And then, of course, you have the Melbournes that you've just been in, which is liberal and tolerant in Sydney, and it's gay and LGBT and all that good stuff, right? So basically, you have at the heart of Canada, you have the same sort of confrontation that you have at the heart of Australia. And because both of these are federations as well, they're tricky to run.

38:43David McWilliams: It's not plain sailing. Now, in the past, the culture war in Canada was a linguistic culture war. It was between the Québécois and the French speakers and the English speakers. And that's a function of Canadian history. Because Canada, of course, was part of New France. It was part of French overseas territories for so long. And the British-French divide, animosity, ideological, and cultural war has defined Canada. That is now largely put to bed. This is the interesting thing. And the new culture war, John, is between MAGA and the liberals, right? So it's basically, and MAGA is Alberta, and what the Albertans have decided now, again, in poll after poll, it shows about 25 % of Albertans want to secede.

39:29David McWilliams: So that means 75 % don't want to secede. But the way Canada works, part of the Canadian constitution is if you can raise 150 ,000 signatories, you can then force a referendum on the state. A bit like the Swiss have the same sort of policy, okay? The secessionist forces in Alberta, the MAGA forces in effect, have raised 300 ,000. Right, okay. So they're basically saying, look, we want to secede from Canada. We want our own independent state. And Alberta has a population of about 5 million, I think? Yeah, about 5 million. So let me ask you this. So the referendum is about Alberta becoming independent from Canada.

40:13but is it also about joining the United States or will that come at a later date? God forbid.

40:21David McWilliams: So at the moment, it's about becoming an independent country. Now there is, of course, in living memory, examples of this. The Québécois in Quebec had two referenda on independence in the 80s and the 90s. And one of the 90s was only defeated by less than 1 % of the population. It was right down the line. And the Québécois would have ceded from Canada and created their own independent country based on the French language and French culture, etc. Now, what happened all the way through Canadian or Québécois secessionist history, so starting in the 1960s all the way through to the 1990s, a series of French linguistic moves forced English speakers out of Quebec and English speakers and English-speaking companies left Quebec.

41:10David McWilliams: So basically Montreal used to be the capital, the financial capital of Canada. It is now no longer the financial capital because capital left and went to Toronto because capital was afraid of the French speakers who were more left-wing, more European, all that sort of stuff. So the horses got frightened, as it were, by the... The horses got very frightened by the nationalism, right? Right, okay. And in a way, in a way though, Quebec nationalism has, it's always there. the Parti Québécois is a big part, but it's less of an issue. Right. Because they have become linguistically and culturally much more independent.

41:48David McWilliams: Alberta, on the other hand, basically says, we give you all the oil, you give us nothing. Or not only that, we give you all the oil, you give us lectures on how to live. We like our rodeos, we like our country and Western music, we like our MAGA hats, we like our truckers, and you tell us that we're just some sort of atavistic, backward-looking, anti-environmentalists. But now that Trudeau is gone, though, surely that view might ease, will it? It will ease. Because Kearney himself is from Alberta. Yes. So he has purchased there, if you know what I mean. And he's not seen as the classic liberal in the Justin Trudeau mode.

42:28David McWilliams: He's seen, as you say, in a competent, technocratic worldview that this man's a proper statesman. But still, John, the Brexit warning is that these things can tighten very quickly. What's interesting, though, as well, is that Carney was the governor of the Bank of England during Brexit. Yes, and was very at odds with the Brexiteers. He has formed that. Yeah, and he knows the dangers of Brexit and these kind of referenda. Well, just think, right? Alberta will be seen as a test case for the American MAGA movement. They will be all over this like a rash. From the talk show hosts, the online campaigns, the MAGA bots, all this will be trying to influence Canadian public opinion.

43:15David McWilliams: And they will flood the zone with shit. As our friend Steve Bannon says, Joe. In contrast, the Carney side will try and play the straight bat, giving facts and figures. But you know what happens. You know, not that long before Brexit, the notion that Brits would leave the EU, poll after poll after poll put the no vote in the UK at around 30%. Now, the secessionist vote in Alberta is like 20, 25%. You don't have to be a genius to see how those polls could tighten. Yeah. Well, especially with interference from the US and Russia. Oh, definitely. Because it would be in both their favour. Yeah, because Carney and Canada pose a threat to the strongmen, the Trumps and the Putins of this world.

44:05David McWilliams: So for many, many years, I'll give you just to leave you one story. Years ago, I remember I was down in Serbia working years ago, right? And I met a Serbian maid of mine. She said something to me. I was saying, what's it like in Serbia? She goes, David, she says, I just want to wake up one day and be a Canadian. Right. And I said, what do you mean? She said, I want to be a Canadian. I want to be... Slow, charming, no hassle, no drama, decent, never really in the news, always a nice neighbour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And essentially a decent global citizen. Just getting on with it. He said, being a Serb, being a Serb is a pain in the hole, right?

44:44David McWilliams: Too much fucking drama and fighting our neighbours and ethnic cleansing and killing people and all this nationalist. He says, I just want to be Canadian, right? That was about 20 years ago. What we are going to go into now is a possibility that Canada becomes a lightning rod for nationalism, for patriotism, for MAGA, for secessionist policies, for anti-woke, anti-environmental, anti -First Nations, anti-LGBT, all that stuff. And it's quite ironic that while Carney is seen as the white knight of what I would describe as rational liberalism, he may well be the prime minister that has to deal with forces unleashed from all over the world.

45:33David McWilliams: focused on this late October secessionist vote in Alberta, which would be a first for Canada. Canada being in the world news for all the wrong reasons. Because normally Canada's in the world news for all the right reasons. So is Canada hosting the World Cup an opportunity for Canada and Kearney to kind of fly the flag of Canada and to shore up even more networks and trade deals. You're absolutely right. The World Cup is sports washing, John. Yeah. This is sports washing for liberals, right? You can bet your bottom Canadian dollar there'll be nobody in Alberta watching soccer. That's for immigrants, right?

46:17David McWilliams: Proper men play hockey or American football, right? And we're Stetson. There'll be all these immigrants here in Ontario and Montreal, all these kind of slightly fae, slightly affected European types, you know? They're the ones who'll be watching soccer, not the real raw meat-eating truckers down in the Texas of Canada, which is Alberta. But you're absolutely right. This will give Canada the opportunity to, again, reveal itself on the world stage so you can bet your bottom dollar that the Canadians will want their transport system to work better than the Americans. They will want their hot dogs to be cheaper.

46:52David McWilliams: They will want their bus system to work. They will want all the restaurants to be less involved in gouging the local punters. They will want immigrants to be able to come in, go to the games, no violence, nobody lifted off the terraces by ice, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Because that's what they'll want to play. It's, you know, we are in a global propaganda war between different cultures. And we see that playing out in Ireland or Britain and America and Canada and Australia, all over the place, let alone the European Union. And ironically, the World Cup is another chapter in that particular culture war book.

47:30David McWilliams: And that's, I think, where we should end it.

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