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Vassy Kapelos spoke this week with Prime Minister Mark Carney about his promise to Canadians to be different than the previous prime minister and the previous government.
The Vassy Kapelos Show airs on Saturdays and replays on Sundays on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME.
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These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Vassy Kapelos: What is going to be different in Canadians’ lives when you promise to make us the most prosperous country in the G7 or transform the economy to a degree that hasn’t been seen since the end of the Second World War?
Mark Carney: I do think it’s worthwhile reminding ourselves that we are in a crisis. We are in, in my judgment, the biggest crisis that we have faced in generations because of the American tariffs, but also because the global economy, the way it’s structured, the way it’s working, is fundamentally changing, and that’s an economy that we have relied on in Canada.
We need to make big changes now. When you look at affordability, I’d like to talk about it in terms of Canadians getting ahead — do I have more money in my pocket after paying the rent, paying for groceries, paying for cell phone bills, or do I feel like I’m falling behind in periods of big inflation?
You can be falling behind, but you can also have periods of relatively low inflation. Canadians want to see GDP per capita increasing, we need to see productivity increasing. There is not a button marked productivity around that cabinet table that you push and it instantly changes, so we have to do a variety of things in order for that to happen. Some of them relate to those big projects.
A big element is going to be if we get the one Canadian economy that’s going to be incredibly important to making people more productive and therefore getting higher wages.
Kapelos: During the campaign, you said you want to make Canada an energy superpower. Do you mean you want Canada to export more oil and gas?
Carney: That is an element of it, but it’s not the element of it — there are multiple elements when you’re a superpower.
America is a superpower because it has a strong economy and because it has a strong military.
When I talk about being an energy superpower, I always say in both clean and conventional energies. Yes, it does mean oil and gas. It means using our oil and gas here in Canada to displace imports wherever possible, particularly from the United States.
It makes no sense to be sending that money south of the border or across the ocean, but it also means more exports without question. That in and of itself, doesn’t make us an energy superpower.
We can be an energy superpower, and we have all the components in nuclear, in hydro, in potentially in carbon capture and storage, which is going to be one of the determinants of competitiveness and productivity in a number of sectors. So what are we doing is to build out all those aspects in our economy.
Whether or not we approve one pipeline is not going to make us an energy superpower. It is the type of objective that you can define and point to as progress, but it doesn’t accomplish the big goals and it’s not at the level of what Canada is capable of.
We need to do multiple things at the same time in order to build this base so that we are creating wealth and competitiveness and better lives for Canadians for generations. We’re going to be very ambitious across a range. That’s why we’re asking for nation building projects and we are going to move as rapidly as possible on as many of them as possible.
Kapelos: Are you going to build that pipeline if the consensus exists?
Carney: Yes. Because I understand the need for that consensus, I’m a Prime Minister who can help create that consensus. You can’t create a consensus on your own, but you have to drive processes that bring provinces along, bring the private sector.
I’ve got extensive experience. I have been involved in major energy projects for over three decades in the private sector.
We have, billions of dollars of financing for Indigenous partners, bringing in somebody like Tim Hodgson who, when he was CEO of Hydro One, was one of the only major corporations to have a major Indigenous partnership program that actually worked.
At the core of the way I talk about the energy transition is Canada’s low risk, low cost and low carbon. All three of those come together. It takes more than just one pipeline in order to accomplish that.
If you want a simple answer on how do I make homes more affordable, I could just say we’re going to cut GST on homes, but that doesn’t solve the problem. One pipeline is not enough to make Canada an energy superpower.
Kapelos: Are you going to keep Bill C-69 and the emissions cap in place?
Carney: I’m interested in results. The point of building out carbon capture is to get the results, to get the get those barrels to the market, to get carbon down. You can do both.
Provinces, Indigenous people have to come along for almost all of these projects in order for them to actually work. Let’s focus in on specific projects and let’s work on them together. I’ve had constructive conversations with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in this in this vein so the next stage is to move forward.
We will change things at the federal level that need to be changed in order for projects to move forward. Does that include C-69 or the emissions? It could include both.
Canadians deserve results, not rhetoric and not talking past each other. You can’t get results if you just say we’re not going to have environmental assessment. The Harper government tried that approach and it doesn’t work, you get tied up in court.
What you have to do is to work together for an efficient and effective environmental assessment process. What we have clearly signalled is we will rely on provincial environmental assessments as appropriate. That is a huge shift in approach that potentially unlocks a series of projects.
Kapelos: Have you spoken to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about seeking support from his party in advancing parts of that agenda?
Carney: We spoke immediately after the election, he congratulated me and I signalled to him that if he was — as he is — seeking a by election, I would call it as soon as I’m allowed to do that. He’s not the leader of the opposition at the moment so any conversations would be with Regina-Qu’Appelle MP Andrew Scheer.
Kapelos: When you called U.S. President Donald Trump transformative, did you mean transformative in a good or bad way?
Carney: Both. What matters for Canadians is that the relationship with the U.S. has changed and it has bigger ramifications than just the U.S. The way the global economy is working is changing.
Kapelos: Do you plan to renegotiate USMCA?
Carney: The revealed preference of the U.S. is working on some of these sectoral aspects before broader deals. It is an advantage to us that USMCA exists. It is not right that it’s being violated, but it is still an advantage that it exists and we intend to make the most of our advantages in these negotiations.
It’s important to note that we are embarking on negotiations with someone who signed an agreement, a free trade agreement, with us. Trump not only negotiated it himself, but also signed it — and then has contravened it over and over again with the use of tariffs.
It does inform how we end up negotiating with the United States if, for example, we come to a new agreement on USMCA, will Trump keep on contravening it?
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