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Welcome back to the loony hour episode 173. As always, join me with the three amigos. Boomer, Keith Dicker, Rich Diaz, you dressed up. Is that bad? Should I change my shirt? Fancy. What's going on? Not much, man. I'm going to stop talking about the haves and the comment section will be very happy about that because our best defense been got injured. So I think I don't want to jinx it. But otherwise it's good.
There's been so much snow in Montreal. I forgot how shit the weather is. Did you see that trade? Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, it was totally nuts. So the abs are my team. I don't know if anyone knows that. Oh, yeah. That's right. That was happy? No, I was sad. It was a tough day for me. Oh, really? But it's a good player than a nicious player, whatever his name is.
You can't trade a top five player in the game. You just can't. Those things are not traded. Well, it sounds like they did. So I think you're wrong here. Yeah, well, I wasn't happy about it. Ten years, one Stanley Cup. I think he's like top five in all time franchise points too. Wow. I don't know. Yeah, it was sad. It was sad. They traded PK. I called my sister in hysterics and she thought something horrible. It happened to me. And I was like, Sandy, they traded PK. Sue, but she got really pissed. That guy's career went like just down and all fast. Yeah. Anyways, people don't care about her hockey take anyways.
Keith, what's going on with the moose heads? We keep doing this every week. It's like groundhog. I feel like Bill Murray. How far is the arena from where you live? Just out of curiosity. Probably 10 blocks, maybe. Oh, buddy, you got no excuse. You should be there every game. Tarps off. I can hop on my bike and cycle over there in the bike lane, Rich. Yeah, the bike lane. It's glorious bike lanes. You and Gilbo are riding to the game. Yep.
What do we have today? Anything interesting going on today? The loony hour route? Yeah, we've got very special guests coming on the show this week. We've got Alberta premier Daniel Smith to come on to talk about obviously the tariffs, which is all over the news. Everyone seems like every hour you're getting a new update. Trump has proposed tariffs as of February 1st.
So important note here. We interviewed Daniel Smith on the January the 27th, Rich. Which was the Monday. So by the time this podcast. It's the 20 hour math. Today's Thursday. You're watching on Friday. So there you go. So I think it's so far it's relevant. We'll see once this thing drops tomorrow on Friday. If it's still relevant. Anyways, I think either way, it's a good lesson. Gives you guys some insights into kind of what's going on behind the curtains. I think she was very open and transparent about all the questions that we asked. We didn't send her an illicit questions ahead of time.
So if anyone thinks it's scripted or whatever, it was a very much an open book conversation. And I thought she was awesome. Rich, I don't know if you had any comments before we jump over to interview. No, it was great. We're going to talk about there's some news that came out a couple last night, which will really change the story going forward. Howard Lutnik, which is Trump's trade negotiator.
So it's a shame we didn't get her insights on that. But otherwise, I thought it was really, really interesting. Interviewer was really grateful to have her. Yeah, so we got so we'll clip over to Daniel Smith interview. We also will do a recap also, you know, some updates from the Bank of Canada, the Fed, the ECB. We got some data from the US GDP side, Germany GDP side. So there's still a lot going on, including some reactions from the federal government, all the other premiers that have been coming out over the last several days about their plans for tariffs.
So we'll kind of get into all that. But I think without further ado, to provide some context, it'll be good to get some commentary here from Danielle Smith. Can we do like the back in time thing? Yeah, this is kind of a first to Luneon. Normally we try to get our guests on the same day and time that we record the rest of the pod. But obviously given Danielle's popularity these days and the enormous amount of requests, I will say this, that she made a special exemption for the Lune hour to carve out some time. So we're very grateful for that. And I think it's a testament to the podcast and to the listener base. Again, without the listener base, you don't get guests like Danielle. So appreciate all your support. And without further ado, let's clip over to Daniel Smith right now.
Daniel Smith, welcome to the Lune hour. I'm glad to be here. First, first appearance. But I know that you're hard to pin down these days. You're all over the news. And so we appreciate you taking the time to come on to the Luneon. I'm sure our loyal listeners are delighted to have you on the show as well. Well, I'm looking forward to talking to you through. I feel like I'm going to learn as much from you as you learn from me. So let's go.
So my first question, keep it light here. You've been frequenting Marilago, President Trump. Is he serious about Canada becoming the 51st state? I think he's he's he never says anything just as a joke. I think I think I initially thought he was joking, but it kept on being persistent.
So you have to ask, what is it that he wants us to do? And there's a couple of things that I would say I'm interpreting from what he's saying. What he's saying is he's going to put tariffs on the world. He believes in tariffs as a policy, as a tool to raise money. And the Americans are in real trouble. They're spending a trillion dollars a year on interest payments alone on their debt. And he wants to be able to maintain his corporate income tax cuts, which I are said to expire, I believe, in 2026. So I think he's looking at tariffs as a tool of government revenue. And his attitude is, well, the only way to avoid tariffs is to be part of America. So do you want to be the 51st state? That's one way of interpreting what he's saying.
The other thing is, I think he is when you look at his aspirations around Greenland and Panama, I think he is looking at a fortress North America. And we have to demonstrate that we're taking the border security issues and Arctic security issues seriously and our NATO commitments seriously. And if we don't do that, then I think the Americans are telling us, I guess you want us to do it for you. And I don't think that's a position Canada should be in. And I think Canada needs to meet a NATO target. We need to be serious about border security. We need to be a strong and dependent country and be confident that we're a great trading partner. And so I've taken a little bit of a different approach from my colleagues. I think that we have to address the president's concerns in a meaningful way. And I hope we can get a carboat for Canada. I hope we can do that. But I think he's very serious about imposing tariffs.
That's interesting because there's always challenges and problems in the world. But there's always a solution to it. And so first of all, I think you realize you're getting a lot of attention from a lot of the mainstream media sites. Sometimes they're not that flattering, Daniel. They're not being positive about you. Imagine that. I'm not used to that at all. I think they would like a strong woman's voice.
I think that anyway, interesting. But what you just opened with, we look at everything. What is the challenge here? And the question is, what is the president asking for? And he wants a stronger border, stronger security up north as well and things like immigration in that line. Is that being recognized in Ottawa? Because what all I see now in different media platforms is not, hey, let's sit down at the table, let's have a conversation, see what the solution is. Because the world has shifted. As long as we recognize it has shifted. And we're not the big guys in the room here. Instead, all I'm seeing and hearing is we're going to fight back. We're going to show Canada that we're there for them. And I think I saw Friedland said, come up with a bi-Canada policy. Mark Kearney has even indicated we should cut off Quebec Hydro to New York. And again, everything I'm hearing is not trying to fund a solution. It's being more of a defensive dig your heels in. And is that the right approach? Or what do you guys see from your desk?
I'll tell you what I see is that if the tariffs come first from the American side, there's no question that there will have to be some kind of proportionate response. That's normally how these kind of trade disputes end up getting resolved. I did have a chance to read Robert Leitheiser's book, No Trade is Free. And it really gives an insight, I think, into that part of his party that is advising him. But you saw that with China that they put in tariffs and then China put in tariffs. And then they relented on some and then China relented on some. So I think you can get a little bit of an idea of how the flow of that sort of thing works if it comes to it.
My personal view is we should try to avoid tariffs. And that's why I have said, let's lead with diplomacy first. Because I think we've got a great story to tell. So I'll tell you the story that I tell. And it's this, is that we do have an integrated economy. And the Americans benefit from that. I know that we want to be known for something other than our raw materials. But those raw materials are really important, whether it's food products, whether it is critical minerals, whether it's oil and gas, even auto parts, the fact that auto parts go back and forth six or seven times before a car can be built. And that is something that is a strength for us. Because if you add a 25% tariff across the board, what it means is that all those products are going to become more expensive for Americans, which then goes against the other major platform that the president put forward, which is to have lower prices.
And in particular, lower energy prices. So that's one of the points that I make is that the Canada is kind of an integral part of the US supply chain. And if we take out things like energy, we actually buy more goods and services from the US than they buy from us. And so if this trade deficit is the hang up, then let's figure out how to deal with that. Let's maybe cut a different deal for energy and critical minerals, because they need those as raw materials to value add and to also achieve their other objectives. But then let's have a discussion about how we can sell more to the Americans and also buy more from the Americans. That's the approach that I've taken. Again, I don't know if it's going to be successful. It depends. I mean, if the real issue is NATO spending, then we've got to meet our 2% NATO target.
If the real issue is Arctic security, then we've got to deal with Arctic security. The real issue is that they don't want a flood of people coming across the border as they're trying to deport them, only to buy their time to then go back across from Canada into the US, then we better deal with that issue. So that's the difficulty that we have. I mean, when you look at what just happened with Colombia, it was pretty clear. You're going to get 25% tariffs unless you accept these deported citizens. Colombia did some labor waggling for a bit, and then they said, OK, we'll do it. And then the tariffs are off. We just don't know what the solution is yet with the United States. I think they lasted five hours. I think that's what that's what it was.
So it's a keep. Go ahead. People like their coffee. I think Colombia and coffee. Can you imagine how cranky the Americans would be if they didn't have coffee? Yeah, they can be cranky for other reasons, too. But the so why to share with us? I mean, we know this and you know, I mean, you're sharing with us. Is this Ottawa know this? Because again, I'm hearing a different perspective. And I know there are some comments out recently. And I know Rich has a great work done on Canadian exports and, you know, an energy specifically that he wants to ask some questions about.
But we don't even know who the decision makers are in Ottawa. Who's having this conversation. And do they understand how if you exclude oil and energy that, you know, Canada is actually, you know, we were not net net exporting to the Americans. I've made that available to many people as I can. The National Bank did a study on that. And they actually quantified it. They said, taking oil and gas out of the picture, we buy $58 billion more in goods and services from the Americans. And it really is commodity prices that have have widened this gap. If you go back 10 years ago, we actually were the ones, even when you included energy, we were the ones who had the deficit with the United States. So that's what balance trade looks like. Sometimes one's up, sometimes the other is up.
But certainly when you take commodities out of the picture, we are a very good customer of the United States. They actually, when you think about the fact that we are only 10% of the size of their economy, and that we are their number one customer in the world, that we buy more from the American than any other country in the world, that we buy more than the Germany, the UK, Italy and Japan combined, that why is it, why aren't they the target? Why aren't they saying, hey, maybe you should buy as much stuff from us as Canada does. So that's one of the points that I'm making, because I really do believe that we are a responsible friend and trading partner, that we really are aiming to give the Americans what they need and buy from them what we need. And it is the kind of relationship that they want to have with the rest of the world, whether that's getting through to Washington, I'm not quite sure.
I'm surprised it's not getting through in Canada. I'm kind of interested as I make that argument, you say that you've heard something else. What arguments are you hearing? Keith, go ahead. I mean, I think the main challenge that Canadians are facing is that, for example, who's meeting with Letnik? Is it Howard Letnik? But that's the same thing. It is. Well, let me tell you a little bit about what I can see. The Prime Minister is very much like the American system, that if we had tried to start lobbying the American administration on January 19th, we would have been lobbying Biden administration people. They have a law called the Logan Act where they're not allowed to talk to elected officials until they are formally confirmed. And so, January 20th, I mean, this is a president who's obviously in a big hurry, because look at what he's been able to do in just a week.
So, most of the secretaries are not even confirmed yet. So, that's one of the challenges that we face is that who do we interact with on the American side? It will become a little bit more clear as those secretaries are put into place, but that's been one of the problems that we've had. On our side, the Prime Minister is up the view that even though he's gone in, I think, it's now 41 days, that he's the Prime Minister until he's no longer the Prime Minister. That being said, Dominic LeBlanc is clearly one of the consistent voices that have been at the table. He was in the last rounds of discussion. He went down with him tomorrow, Lago. He's gone down again with Melanie Jolene. He is as a regular regular relationship. He's building with Howard Lucknowc.
So, Dominic LeBlanc is very key. I think Jonathan Wilkinson was just in Washington as well. And so, he's talking with some of the administration officials that are in his file on energy also. So, I think, if I'm reading between the lines, it does seem to me that Dominic is the key person. And that could give some stability as we go through and see the Liberals end their leadership contest. But then we're, once again, into a general election very likely soon. And we could have a yet another face at the table in May or June or later. So, I think this is why this negotiation is a little bit different and why you've seen the Council of the Federation of the Premiers take on more of a vocal role.
所以,Dominic LeBlanc 是非常关键的。我认为 Jonathan Wilkinson 也刚刚在华盛顿进行了访问,他和负责能源事务的政府官员进行沟通。因此,如果我的猜测没错,Dominic 确实是关键人物。这可能会在自由党结束领导人竞选时提供一些稳定。不过,很可能我们很快又会面临一次大选,到了五月或六月或更晚的时候,谈判桌上可能会出现一个新的面孔。这也是为什么这次谈判有点不同,以及为什么各省长议会在这个过程中扮演了更加积极的角色。
That, again, is also in a little bit of turmoil because Doug Ford is now also holding an election so that he can get a new mandate so that he can face this tariff challenge. And he's the head of cough at the moment. So, I think what you will see is each of the Premiers have committed that we're going to work our networks and our contacts and try to make the Canadian case to as many lawmakers and decision makers as possible in the US. So, I don't know that that answers your question. Maybe it validates your concern that there isn't really a single voice at the moment. But I think. I know Rich has a question. It just validates my concern, actually. Why do you have the question? There's two. One question. Is this the Wilkinson who said that that crude oil demand is going to peak in 2024? Because I just want to be very crystal clear about that. He's wrong. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. So, just so you under note, just to lay the land for, lay the give you the lay of the land for many of our looney our listeners, I've been going on and on and on about oil. It's important to our basically our standard of living, our import to our trade balance, specifically the current account balance, the fact that we basically sell oil and gas and to pay for imported goods. This hasn't always been true. This is true now. It's what keeps our current account balance stable. And is why our currency, the looney, is not in the toilet given how much debt we have and the fact that we are in a BOCs words, a productivity emergency.
In a similar vein to Keith, I mean, number one, my first question is, do people understand what a current account balance is in Ottawa? And can you tell them? And then my second question is, how frustrating is it for you to sort of hear the words like Canada's energy after years and years of people saying Alberta dirty oil? And then saying they want to use it as a weapon while constraining the investments from east to west, north south, whatever. And the last piece, I know this is a lot, but how does it relate to other natural resources, just parking oil for a second there?
Well, thanks for giving me a bit of that history because I've been wondering why it is we used to have a petrudol or in Canada, didn't we? We still do, excuse me. We absolutely still do. If you excluded outside of the US dollar, but if you related to the Japanese yen, the pound or the euro, it moves lockstep with the WCI. What I've been surprised by is that we used to have a stronger connection with the sale of our oil and gas with the dollar because there was always that tension between, do you have to trade off Alberta doing well on its energy exports with the increase in the dollar to a point where it harms Ontario? And I've wondered why it is. We have this weird scenario where we're doing well because we're selling in our oil and gas, but it doesn't seem to be impacting the dollar to a point where it's harming Ontario. But what you've just told me is that the dollar would be a heck of a lot lower if not for that's alarming.
Canada is one of the most indebted countries in the world and we have a zero productivity growth, we're mired in sort of the sort of real estate bust, sorry Steve. And right now, if you look at our current account balance, if it wasn't for oil, you know, we pay effectively, we just trade oil for important goods. But my question really is, how do people understand this and what do we have to do as citizens to make it clear that that's really important for us right now?
Well, I thought that formula had been broken. So I, if I didn't understand that our dollar would be, I don't know what, 50 cents if we didn't have a willing gas export? That's a bit too high. That's a bit too high actually. Yeah. But it is alarming. No, I think it's probably up to me to make that point. One of the things that I think is as the auto sector, I think has conveyed to the country that they are the driver, that they are the largest export and they're not. I mean, it's oil and gas. It's about $150 billion that alone, that Alberta exports and then you also have other exports in the other part of the country. And you also have a lot of imports that are coming in into especially eastern Canada. So there's no question that oil and gas are the lubricant between our two economies. But I think what has happened in the last 10 years is that there's been a fiction that has been proposed, this fiction that somehow we can operate our industrialized economy on wind and solar and batteries and nothing else.
And we've had to confront that since I got elected two years ago, because we have a power grid that has failed nearly 18 times because of the uncertainty that happens when wind and solar come off in a rush. And we've had to start actively going out and soliciting bids for base load power for natural gas. So there is a bit of a reckoning coming that I think we've been living in an alternate reality for the last 10 years. And this is part of the problem that we're facing. That has recalibrated in the United States overnight. There's been a 180 degree turn. And we're still left with the legacy decision makers who I think are stuck in an older paradigm that is not in sync with the Americans right now.
One of the things that I think is important to understand is, yes, it's frustrating that my neighbors, after having done nothing to stop the attacks of the current federal government on our industry, which is, I think there was a recent text that Pierre Paulio sent out $175 billion worth of projects that were canceled. Imagine where we'd be. Everyone talks about the Trans Mountain pipeline. We're grateful. The coastal gasoline, we're grateful. Imagine if we'd had 175 billion additional projects that had gone ahead. What where would Canada be now? So that to me, the Trans Mountain and coastal gasoline shows how vitally important it is for us to have more than one customer and be able to sell and diversify our markets.
It's equally true on the East Coast. We when you look at where the American where Canada on the East Coast is right now, they're almost they're 100% dependent on oil and gas that come from another jurisdiction, whether it's it's shipped in or whether it comes by way of pipeline. And that's why I sort of shook my head when Melanie Jolie was saying, well, just cut off the energy. Okay. Well, if you cut off line five, it cuts it off to Sarnia, which means you're cutting up Ontario and you're cutting off Quebec. So there's no understanding of how integrated our markets are and how reliant the Americans are. But I'll just say one more thing. I think I got all three. The last one you talked about is the the other options that we have to to sell products to the United States. One of the I watched the Doug Bergum confirmation hearing of the bulk of it anyway. And I think it's important for everyone to watch that to understand the paradigm that the Americans are in.
They do not want to lose energy dominance. That's one part. And they do not want to lose AI dominance to the Chinese in particular. Imagine what the world would look like if the AI race is won by a totalitarian communist regime instead of a liberty and democracy loving regime. That's what's at stake. The Chinese are building coal plants on spec. They're building coal plants and not turning them on in anticipation of the power they're going to need to AI to have AI. And look at where we are. We've got a four year delay in being able to get gas turbines because nobody's making them anymore because we all thought we were going to need wind turbines and solar panels.
So you can see there's a sense of urgency in the United States of having energy dominance, which they cannot have without Canada, quite frankly, because if they want to export their WTI oil, they have to import our. We've made that very clear. We've made very very percent. And then of course, we're kind of the loony hour if you're not already. Oh, truly. The numbers are very clear. The Americans, they consume 21 million barrels a day. They produce 13 million barrels a day. They're exporting and part of the reason they're exporting is because of because of us. So that's that's one part. But you can make that same argument on uranium. Saskatchewan provides 20% of the world supply of uranium. The Americans are still getting a lot of the uranium from Kazakhstan and Russia. If you look at what the what China, China just did, they identified three critical minerals, essential for the defense supply chain. So we're not going to export them to the United States anymore. Genanium and Timonium and gallium, we have the ability to develop those two. We have the ability to develop lithium. So every single province has a value proposition to provide the critical minerals to support the US national defense, energy security, AI dominance. And that's what I'm leading with. And I think it's a great story to tell. Is there just go ahead and do sorry. Is there any conversations like I'm sure you chat with, you know, all these, you know, executives and CEOs at these major, you know, oil firms in in Alberta there? What's the what do they tell you over the last, you know, eight to 10 years of just overall sentiment investment about the current government, obviously, the federal level? I have to say, what I find so interesting is, is even with this anti energy, keep it in the ground, government that we've had at the federal level, we still managed to overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest exporter to the United States in 2014, and it's continued to grow. Even though we had big projects that got canceled, Keystone, Northern Gateway energy, we did still manage to get some that were built in that has allowed us to increase our production. So our energy sector is, they are so innovative when when they see a problem, they find a solution. Oh, you won't let me build another pipeline. That's okay. I'll do a loop or I'll do compression or I'll find some way to widen what I've got so that I don't have to do a new project. It's still not enough capacity. That's okay. I'll put it on a train and we'll transport it that way. So our energy industry has found multiple different ways to continue to increase their export. But my goodness, I mean, when I got elected, I said, why don't we be truly aspirational? Why don't we talk about doubling our oil and gas production? We should be able to do that. But it does require us working with our partners in Canada to recalibrate and realize that the East is better off if they can get a secure supply from a friend in Alberta, and the West is better off as well if they can if we can supply that way and help to support our friends in in Asia. So those are the arguments that I make. And I think that what I have seen is everybody is dusting off old plans. I think there were three oil sands companies announcing that they wanted to expand production. You've got I did a press conference with Enbridge. They've got a pretty significant multi-part proposal that would increase egress to the United States if they're interested. I know that TC is looking at plans. I know that Pembona is looking at plans. So I would say that there's a a real appetite to to dig into this problem if we can get the political factors right to make it work.
No, just just adding on. Yeah, sorry, just adding on to I mean, we're all sort of saying the same perspective here on energy, but another way to look at it Danielle from our side. The more energy that we're exporting, the more foreign currency is coming in, which is US dollars, the world operates in US dollars the way it is. The more US dollar currency is coming in, it makes our currency, Canadian dollar stronger. If we're able to shift our view and outlook and production and already in yours in the energy space, the opportunity for Canada to simply blast off. We can have this economic catapult coming up here. And the other thing to think about because you mentioned earlier in the conversation, you know, the American things have changed and they're not going to change back for a while. But if you look at, you know, what's happened with government spending in the US, it's going to get better.
Canada is getting worse. You'll get red tape in the US. It's going to get better in Canada. It's getting worse taxes in the US. It's going down. Canada going up. If we have this slight change in Canada with overall policy and towards natural resources, the amount of foreign investment that's just going to gush into Canada is going to go through the roof. And then, you know, obviously, Alberta would benefit from that directly. But the rest of Canada would benefit from it as well in terms of a strengthening dollar, more jobs, increased productivity, which everyone should understand in high school. It should be tough. I don't think it is. But again, like, you know, we have a lot of challenges coming up as a country.
But the fruit, it's very low hanging. This is incredibly easy to fix. If the decision makers here or people are going to the table, they're able to understand, you know, what the other side is asking for. I think Rich has something to show you on his shirt as well. But some of that.
To mind if I get rich to educate me a bit, because I understood that our balance of payments, if you look at the whole picture, including investment outflows, that we're actually in the deficit, that we have $400 billion in investment flowing out to America. Is that the kind of thing that you're, I mean, so when you're talking about reversing that flow, yes, I agree, that's going to be very important. But maybe you can just that those are the numbers I've been told. Is that accurate?
Well, those are two, there's two things going on. There's that's the financial, that's just financial or capital account. So when you think about investment flow, that's the capital account. That's how you fund a specific purchase of anything. That concludes sort of your investment position. And that's sort of that's like on one side of the ledger. The side of the ledger that I spend a lot of time on and focus on is the current account balance with the trade balance. And that includes a trade in services.
And then something called primary and secondary income, which is just nerdy stuff for like dividend payments or like, let's say IMF and stuff, repatriations, things like that. But both of the matter, does it not does not not for a rich country, primary and secondary incomes don't really matter for services, Canada, it's basically we're slightly positive. The financial capital account, the real issue for Canada is not so much that we don't have inflows. So you'll hear the liberal party talk about financial direct investment is at a record level coming into Canada. The problem is Canadians are investing more and more money outside of Canada. So that deficit is growing and it's not growing. It's growing because Canadians are seeking greener pastures for their money, which is eminently sensible.
And so what we what I've argued over and over and over again, is we need to make Canada a more appealing place to invest for Canadians, which is why when I hear them wanting to mess around with the pension funds and make it to basically force their hand to own Canadian companies, I'm just like, they all they do is treat the symptom and not the cause. And for someone like me who is just, you know, nerd, you know, knee deep in the numbers, it just drives me absolutely nuts. And so that that's really where I come from. But you're right, they are absolutely connected.
But in this case, it's, is that is that a point of argument I can make with the Americans? Oh, look how much Canadian Canadians are asking to charge? I can send you the charge. I can send you the chart right now on WhatsApp. I'll take it. I mean, I'll send you my chart deck, I'm sure. Keep on mind. We'll get you a ticket to Mar-a-Lago. I'd love to. I'd love to. But yeah, I think the thing that like just so you understand, I've made this case over and over again, and we've gotten some pushback.
And I think the other thing that I was just wondering your view, it's like Canada has really expensive energy. And I think that that's the other mistake people often make. It's like, it's not just about exporting energy. It's about exploiting the energy we have to make things cheaper here. Right? So there's every, every country is in a state of competition. And I get, I just wondering like how you feel about the, like, there's a lot of hope and Keith lays out an opportunity. But the reality is, is our capital, gross fixed capital formation in terms of mining aspirations at a 30 year low. And so what would you need from the next sort of administration of this country to see, for to unlock that investment? Like, what do we need to, like, let's forget about this lame duck administration that we have now. It's going forward over the next two, three years. What do you need as, and what does Quebec need? What does Ontario need to sort of unlock this potential?
Well, I think what we need is an end to the carbon tax. I mean, I don't, what you think that that is just a soundbite. It matters a lot in our economy. Because if you buy a, a leader of gasoline in Alberta, 35 cents of it is one federal tax or another, whether it's their fuel tax, their carbon tax or the GST on tax. That's significant on the cost of everything that we transport. It's even worse when you get to looking at our energy sector, our electricity is typically 85 to 90% fuel by natural gas. And our home heating is almost 100% natural gas. And they've set the rates so high that with such a low price of gas, the carbon tax is actually four times the cost of the base fuel. So you're home heating, your home electricity, and your transportation fuel. If those keep on adding on to the cost of everything, it's no, it's no wonder we have an inflation crisis.
The other part is the, the permitting delay. When you look at the permitting delay, they're having permitting reform, bipartisan permitting reform conversation in the United States. And that's why the interior minister is also sort of the head of this energy council. He's going to be coordinating between the seven or eight different ministries and agencies that touch a project to be able to fast track the approvals on it. How wants to take to get something built in this country? When you're looking at energy east, they pulled the plug after a billion dollars of some cost on the regulatory side, because they saw no avenue to be able to get it approved.
So that's one of the things we're going to have to perhaps learn from the Americans on is how do they address the indigenous issues, the difference in the jurisdictions for different levels of government, as well as all the environmental concerns. And these are some things that we can borrow. When I was, I went up and visited my friend, Range Pillay up in Nadi, Yukon. He hosted the premiers up there. That gold rush was in 1898, 1899. They managed in that day to build an entire train in the course of about 18 months to be able to support the gold rush. How could they do that when things were being moved around by barge for heaven's sakes? Why could they do that in the late 1800s? And we can't do that today. That's the question that is on my mind. And that's the question we've got to solve.
Danielle, we know you got a hard stop here. We want to thank you so much for taking your time to come on the loony hour. We appreciate all the hard work effort that you're you know, doing not only for Alberta, but for all of Canada. And yeah, we again, thank you so much for coming on the loony hour.
Well, thank you. If you're making all of these arguments, the more voices added to this, the better. I hope we can avoid terrorists and get back to talking about what a great partnership we have with the Americans and try to solve some of our own problems here. So we can get some of those investment dollars back. Thanks for the work you do. Absolutely. Thank you. It was a yeah, Keith.
Now we're back in current time. Back in current time. Great interview with Danielle Smith. Hopefully everyone, you know, found some insights out of that. You know, she's been working hard. She's taking a lot of heat from all sorts of Canadians and different policy makers, etc. But I think she's done a great job. And you know, it's interesting, right? We had a lot of net coming out this just what yesterday, Rich, saying that you know, there might not be any tariffs so long as the Canadians can secure their border and you know, commit to cracking down on the drugs.
And so I think that's a reasonable request. Now there, you know, I heard some commentary as well, Rich, that the tariffs might be sort of phased in two stages. Yeah. So basically, there might not be any tariffs for now and they're going to review it again in April and kind of see where things are at and figure out how they want to implement them. But I think we could potentially avoid the first round of tariffs so long as we actually commit to securing the border and clamping down on, you know, the fentanyl that is coming into the United States. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
I mean, I certainly do. There's a lot going around on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just do I think it's you know, it's funny because as you know, we've had the interview, we've the interview has been able to sort of marinate on our hard drives and in our hearts and minds. But also just, you know, it really reiterates, I think Danielle Smith's original take on this from a couple weeks ago, which is, you know, there's a lot of room to work together with the United States.
And the view that I think a lot of the media and much of the Canadian political class have taken is sort of an antagonist view sort of confrontational view. You know, the Trump is the enemy and we're on the right side of history, etc, etc. And instead of what I think what she laid out for us in our interview and in many others, that there's actually scope for work. There's loads of sort of common ground. And I think that I think that that's we're seeing that with Howard Lutt next comments.
I think people don't like it. I know one of my best friends and I had a huge sort of dust up over it. But this is the real the only economic stick that they have to get policy goals that they've laid out and frankly that they have the mandate for. And you know, some people might not like it. I know my best friend hates it. But so I think it's a question with a question. What is your friend's name? What is he there? Ball him out. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, serious.
What was the view of of your friends? I hear a lot of conversations as well. And I'm sure it might represent up, you know, yeah, I think he makes a very valid argument that he thinks it's outrageous that our biggest ally and trading partners should be so antagonistic towards us and that you basically try to affect our sovereignty. And that Canadians should absolutely be defending our sovereignty and put our own interests first. And that we shouldn't take any shit from this guy.
And regardless of whether he's right or wrong, ultimately on that policy decision that Canada should be united and confront this sort of this policy tone that is sort of against, you know, a more cordial collective action. And other side of that, his view, isn't that what the Americans are doing? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, we had a death of it. I mean, objective about it. I mean, Americans are saying, hey, we're looking at ourselves. We don't like this arrangement and the result from it.
And we need to have it fixed. Yeah. And the Canadian saying, we don't like what you guys want to do. So we're going to fight you guys. And it's this is where the difficulty is. Well, Keith, I agree with you. And that's what I think a lot of the comments Daniel Smith exposes, which is I think that there's some people in this country who are you you're finding political use out of this. It's useful for them to have an enemy.
You know, it's useful to have somebody to blame to then do whatever you want on the fiscal side, which we'll talk about in a second. So I comment, yeah, but a world like as long as you know, the world has existed, when you have a domestic or internal challenge with anything, you know, what you immediately have to do is to find an outside influence to, you know, to redirect, you know, the unhappiness or anger or unpleasant media about anything. And that's, you know, that's what's happening here. Because I've been reading the media is all week. And it's just, again, it's not right or wrong. It's just what it is. But it seems like what I'm reading mostly, I don't mean 51%, it's like 99%.
You know, you're getting the movements together, you know, do not travel to the USA when you're buying anything to see where it's made. And if it's made in the USA, you know, don't buy or catch up. Do you hear about that? But suing him, apparently, anyway, sorry. I actually, yeah. I don't know that one. What's happening with the Heinz? You said you should use true. You came out. Yeah. You like you should buy, I don't know, was it French's or how do you even know what it is with any one of the two catch ups? He was like, don't buy Heinz catch up. It's American by French's. And then Heinz was like, what the hell? These are, we manufacture the catch up in Canada with Canadian tomatoes. And it's like 10 minutes away from his constituency. So it's, it's complicated. Let's just say that.
But back to the, yeah, the whole thing here, you know, I think we, you know, we go back in time a few days ago, I, I believe, you know, we try to go down the road, the conversation is, you know, sit at the table and say, okay, what is it you guys, I'm referring to America, what do you America, what do you want? Right. You don't want to put on terrorists. I mean, that's a response to something else. And as Steve, you brought up, you know, it's a curiosity at the border and drugs and rich, you talked about the Arctic and everything. And then all our response up here has to be is simply, okay, well, how do we make this better? And then, you know, you throw it back at them. And that's how you have a negotiation.
And I think what everyone needs to understand, they appreciate this world that we've all lived in over the last 30, 40 years, where we've been, that's gone. Like that doesn't exist anymore. And it's going to be a little bit different going forward. And as soon as we accept that, then we can all move on. You'll have a better path here. But we have another response that could potentially come from this for political reasons. This seems to be an awful lot of people out of Ottawa, the feds in Ontario now as well. They're itching for a fight with us. They want to fight back. They want to tax more and everything.
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Can I just jump in there for a sec? Because I think what's interesting, this is between rich and low-tech stuff. A lot of niggas saying, again, secure the borders, clamp down on the drugs, whatever. There's a whole bunch of Canadians that are like angry about that. Even if that wasn't part of the tariff thing, is that a bad thing if we tighten up our borders and clamp down on all the fentanyl? I think we can all agree, Canada's got a good fentanyl problem. If you look on to end. Drug problem and border problem and a money-wandering problem and a China problem and a rare earth problem, keep going, sorry.
Yeah, if you go into any major city in Canada today in a downtown core, the drugs and homelessness and obviously the rampant fentanyl problem, it's been well documented. So, Steve, why are they saying it's not a problem? You said that Twitter, other people are defending it saying, hey, everything is fine. I think the problem is, there's some misleading charts out there, which is if you look, it was in the globe of mail, says drug seized by US authorities at land borders in kilograms by fiscal year. So, the Southwest border is obviously seizing a lot more drugs than the Northern border. There's been hardly any drug seized. So, people are saying, well, because of this chart, I mean, we don't have a drug problem in Canada. But I think that's completely misleading. I think that if you look at what's happening- Like the goalie is not stopping anything? Totally.
So, go to Canada. So, Canada and Q4, just recently, right? We just, this is all over the news. There was a lab bust in BC here, which was producing about 4% of the volume that was seized at the US borders. There's a massive bust. You just had another huge bust in Alberta, which was producing about 1% of the volume that was seized at the US border. So, like, there's these massive, like, we're seeing some of the largest lab busts in history right now, in some of these Canadian provinces. So, like it's clearly out there. Like I said, we've had Sam Cooper on the show. I think we'll either get him back on or we'll get another guest that has an expertise or a specialty in sort of security and borders and things of that nature.
But I think it's well known. I mean, the joke is, you know, Canada's Arctic Mexico. I mean, like, it's well documented the money laundering that's been going on here. You know, again, I think Sam Cooper wrote a brilliant book. I mean, we had people were walking into casinos in Richmond, BC with hockey bags of cash. It's so well documented. And people wondered like, what happened at the real estate boom in 2015, 2016, all the illicit funny money coming in. I mean, and then to say, to say, well, we don't like Trump, we don't like this lotnik guy. It's not a probably who cares. Even if he's not saying it, I think we can all agree that, hey, maybe it's a good idea to clamp down on fentanyl. Maybe it's a good idea to sort of get this under control. So forget Trump and forget all this other stuff. Like, just you should be doing it anyways. They're just providing you a carrot to say, hey, if you do it, you know, we'll let you off the hook. So I don't know.
但是,我认为这是众所周知的。我是说,大家常说的玩笑是,加拿大是北极的墨西哥。我是说,这里的洗钱活动早就有记录,比如,Sam Cooper 写了一本很棒的书。比如,过去人们带着装满现金的冰球包走进位于BC省列治文市的赌场,这些事情都有详细记录。人们曾经很好奇为什么2015年和2016年的房地产市场突然繁荣,背后有多少不义之财流入。这说明,即使我们不同意特朗普或其他人员的意见,至少我们都能认同,解决芬太尼问题可能是个好主意,控制这种情况也是必要的。因此,无论如何都应该采取行动,他们只是提供了一个诱因,说如果你这么做了,他们就不会追责。所以,我不太清楚。
I mean, that's just kind of like, wouldn't that destroy jobs in the drug industry? I mean, the economy, that's a right. I heard Vancouver real estate prices. So maybe we should just let it keep going. Actually, I wouldn't be shocked if somebody in Ottawa, when the provinces actually use that as an angle. But just one throwing in there, one little tiny little tidbit was remember the TV just a couple of months ago, TD Bank. I'm hopefully don't know the name. They got the biggest fine, TD is the 10th largest bank in America. So the TD subsidiary of TD Canada is this 10th largest bank in America and was given the largest fine ever for a bank for money laundering, all to do with drugs, basically. Yeah, to say the word, allegedly, sorry, allegedly. And not TD Bank was yes, TD Bank was fine. Three billion US after pleading guilty in a historic US money laundering case.
It's funny because I think like the fine in Canada was like, it's like tiny. Well, HSBC, I think they were fined four or five billion. Yeah, maybe five or six years ago. One of the reasons why they shut up shut up shop. But anyway, I think the TDC. Anyways, so clearly, I think, you know, we might not like what the US is doing to us, but I think they might have a point that maybe we should. There's, I don't know, I don't see any bad reason to clamp down on that, but we shall see. So February 1st is the looming deadline. You know, you're probably listening to this on the 31st. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens. But what's interesting out of all this, right, is you've got the US saying, okay, you know, clamp down on that and we'll kind of let you off the hook. And then we've got the government. So we've got the federal government. We have most of the premiers coming out. We had BC's David Eby. We had Doug Ford. I think there was maybe another guy in there too, but all coming out and saying they're all preparing behind the scenes or preparing a pandemic style stimulus. Pandemic style stimulus is being drafted up right now for if we get hit with these tariffs stuff, the helicopter money is coming.
The choppers are circling. One word. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. So what do you thoughts on that? Like, why don't you run through I mean, what potential impact it could have on the Canadian economy from an aggregate perspective and also from an international global. Hey, Red, start go about there buying your pre sales now, buddy. I think it's a tough one though, right? Because I don't policy first. Yeah. I don't the fiscal policy. I mean, it would just be, I guess they I don't know how they do. They provide loads of loan guarantees. There would be some make work projects I imagine. I've seen and I've seen articles where they would literally just be sending checks to people. Where would they get the money? Where would they get the money for this? Oh, where would they get the money? They'd get the money. They would issue debt and that debt was almost would almost certainly be purchased by the Bank of Canada. And of course, we've seen this story before in 2020. This happened.
They would do that because if they issued debt in this size, into this circumstance without having this gentle bank print money, yes, they're printing money, not literally with a frickin, you know, paper parchment and ink, but like, boop, boop, boop on a computer, they're printing the money. If they didn't do that, it would send yield soaring, which they're already pretty high, by the way, but it would send yields absolutely soaring. And so in order to prevent to control the yield curve when they issue boat loads and boat loads and boatloads of debt, the central bank would come in and effectively sterilize or purchase that debt, which would keep the yield curve down. So that's kind of interesting because yesterday, what are the Bank of Canada now? Yeah, they stopped. What would they stop? They stop quantitative tightening, which is the opposite of quantitative easing, right, easing, not easing, easing to some reasoning.
Yeah. But the main gist here, what we're getting, if we get all this stimulus coming through from the provincial level, to say it's Ontario, for example, Ontario province has to issue a boatload of debt. Yeah, they all did all the profits. Yeah, and then the feds will do the exact same thing. And that means the deficit, you know, the whisper number was 70 something billion. I think that's going to be for the year, right, when it was when we finish here. I mean, so you know, COVID style, I think was a 490 billion. Yeah, I mean, that was the first chunk. I mean, it was more than 10% of that. So say an extra 40 or 50 billion. That could be reasonable. And that will never be repaid. Well, I mean, well, it won't. Yeah, it's never been paid.
So it's going to be one of these, you know, let's hand out, you know, so-called free money, you know, it's one of the political leaders said once we've taken on the debt. So you wouldn't have to. So nuts. The same God, they said the budget will balance itself and really, you know, monetary policy to the bankers and everything. But we're, we are caught up in this political game. Right. And we have to absolutely acknowledge this. And we are now potentially set up, you know, the liberal leadership race that I assume would be in theory over pretty soon. It looks like it's going to be Mark Hearney. And he's already demonstrated before and what kind of policies he would support. And I think, Steve, your friend, Jack Meade, he's going to support it as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's actually big news. I didn't really think about that. But yeah.
So Jack Meade was out, I was all over the news headlines saying that he would, you know, strongly consider supporting basically the helicopter money, right? If tariffs come in and the economy gets hit hard and people start losing jobs. When Parliament resumes, he would, he indicated that he would consider supporting a stimulus package, basically, which, which means you can't vote no confidence, right? You can't, you can't vote against that budget and force the election. So essentially, by Jack Meade supporting, let's say, a liberal cash infusion, it would delay the fall of Parliament or the fall of government and push an election further out. So he's kind of going back to October basis. I mean, yeah, nine more lines, potentially.
But boy, it's just to like take the, take the other side of this to be the devil's advocate here. I mean, like, what there wouldn't have to be some, let's say, like, let's just play this out. Like Liberal Party is obstinate. They said, we love fentanyl. We love our sovereignty. You shouldn't tell us what to do. The US says, okay, screw you, we're going to put a tariff. We know most of the inflows to America are oil. We know that they have a trade surplus with goods and services. And it would be extremely disrupted. Twenty five percent is an enormous amount. It would, it would be extremely disruptive. There's lots of uncertainty. Should the government not then react? And wouldn't it be responsible to react? And I would submit, yeah, it would be, they would, it would be actually a sensible idea to at least to create, try to sort of cushion some of that uncertainty to do absolutely nothing, I think would be wrong also. Yeah, I mean, I disagree. Share with you an idea here first.
So the reason I disagree is that why would both sides willing to accept and endure financial, social, political pain for a couple of weeks or a month or three months when it's inevitable, a solution has to be found? Because it cannot continue indefinitely. Right. So therefore, why even go through that period with pain and suffering? And my view is there are some groups that want to do that. Well, I agree with you on that. They have just trying to see it from the other side. I'm just trying to see it from the other side because I think sometimes we get in down a rabbit hole. But like, but just to just to play sort of neutral basis here, Pierre Pauli.
The neutral advocate, Rich is the devil's advocate. I'm the good guy advocate. Steve is neutral. So we, you know, we've so peer, Pauli have just on that side as well. He's come out and in some media interviews and says, you know, he would, his plan would be to hit back as well, assuming that the tariffs were lobbied on the US. So like, doesn't really matter what political party is running this country. They're all saying, hey, if the US hits us, we have to hit back. Of course, you know, our hope here at the loony hour is that we just actually agree to fix the border and clamp down the drugs. And you can avoid, hopefully, most of those most, if not all those tariffs. Again, we'll see how that plays out.
But and so yeah, I know, I just hope that we don't go down the path of, you know, one for one and people start losing jobs and the helicopter, you know, the government reverts to helicopter money. I think we've been through that experiment recently. So let's hope we don't go down that path. So again, go back. Let's just say the helicopter money and other stimulus is going to be, say 50 billion. Okay, five oh, half a hundred. Okay, we have that number. Sure. And say the cost of providing a better solution to what the Americans are asking for is 10 billion, 20.
But how about enforcing the laws that are really in the past? A billion a year. Do you see what I mean? It just from a mathematical perspective, it just doesn't make sense to do this fight. Could you do the 50 million into money, you know, in helicopter money and all that and money goes out? And then it's a month later, six weeks later, whatever the time is, and then you're still going to have to spend money on the border and security and the drug problem anyway. So why would you want to keep you away? 50 billion. So once again, just referencing my friend, and maybe we can run after this or not, I don't know, but just the point the point my friend made, and I think he has a fair one, which is sort of once you acquiesce to this kind of demand structure, then isn't it sort of a slippery slope, which is anytime the US wants anything from us, they just say, we're going to slap a terror. Well, do this. We're going to slap a terror. Do that. We're good or bad. Like this time, we might agree that the fentanyl is an issue and the borders an issue and maybe China's an issue, but maybe the next time the US threatens with a tariff, we disagree. And how do we respond in that scenario? And so I don't think it's just cut, it's not cut and dry. I think there is some nuance to this argument. Exactly. But you disagree on a good this time, this this time, okay, I see what you're sorry, I see what you're saying. Hold up like the stand up, but you know, is it is this the one?
Yeah, I can. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know. But I think you're right. I think is this the hill you want to die on yesterday? No, and I think this is a double the dial. I agree with you. I'm just, I agree with you, but I think it's important that we sort of play with this idea just for a few minutes. And then Rich, you know, if only we didn't, it comes so reliant on one customer, for our largest export. Yeah, no shit. Did you see that interview with liberal minister, Champagne on Vassie's show? Vassie, by the way, I mean, we make fun of the mainstream media a lot on this show, but she's like, she's awesome. She is like, very completely. She puts everyone of any political stripe under the gun, asked the hard question. So she was on there. And he, you know, again, he keep in mind, he's been basically one of the main head ministers there for the last nine years. And we basically came out and was like, oh, yeah, we need to build more infrastructure projects. So we're less dependent on the US. And she's like, well, what do you mean? Where have you been for the last nine years? You go, well, the world has changed. You know, we're in the new world order. It's like, you didn't see this coming. What a scumbag. I was infuriated by that comment. It was like, yeah, that was infuriating. Like, I mean, these guys demonize the oil and gas sector for the last decade. And then he's coming out and saying, Oh, well, you know, now that it's a new world order, like we have to change our way of thinking. And he literally said, he's like, don't worry about the past. We need to think about the future. He literally said that. And it was like, I mean, good for her because she kind of roasted him on on the show. But I was like, man, this is like everything we've talked about on the lunar hour. It was like, it's just insane that like nobody, I don't know. Just like, you know, when you take your finger, and you're like, Oh, the wind is blowing this way. Pipelines bad. Oh, the wind is going the other way. Pipelines good. It's just, it's. Sorry, it is what it is.
But so this now, rich Keith, this puts the BOC, the Bank of Canada in a very uncomfortable position. Obviously, you know, the squirmer there. TIFF, TIFF, Mackleham, is he cut cut 25 basis points this this week, as expected. So there's no Twinkies this week. But you're Keith, did you have any commentary of watching the presser and the monetary policy report there? Oh, me, first of all, they took another victory lap on inflation. I mean, they say, Hey, inflation is now completely under control. So if you take them for the word on that, it implies that, Hey, maybe they won't have to cut anymore. They think maybe they're at that neutral level, which they can't be good. What are they now, Rich? What is their rate? 3% 3. And what inflation number are they using? 2 and a half to 1.3. Yeah. So in theory, they could still do another one. Well, no, because the range is the range is technically between one and three, right? The target is two and the range between one and three. So that's a big hockey net now.
So Steve, you know, they, I mean, you know, and then they talked a lot, of course, about tariffs. And they're absolutely right that it can create a whole lot of uncertainty for our economy. The Europeans said the exact same thing this morning as well with the ECB. We'll get to the Europeans. Yeah. And the Americans, the Fed said the same thing yesterday as well. And he's a and so back to the Canadians. You know, they're absolutely right saying, you know, we're not quite sure monetary policy can help fix any of the negative effects from a tariff war. So which he's then implying to Ottawa, you know, spend baby spend, you know, borrow and, you know, we will help you out. But that was it. There was a couple of other things that Rich, I remember which you pointed at you saw. There was a very funny exchange. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that. I just want to try them in there.
So there was, you mentioned uncertainty. So in the Bank of Canada's monetary policy report, which they just updated, it mentions uncertainty 42 times in the report. So basically, he's like, I don't know what the hell is going to happen here. And we don't know what we're doing. So which is fair, which is fair, by the way. Yeah, it's fair. I mean, so yeah, I mean, everyone is obviously asking like, hey, tariffs coming like how much you cutting. I should ask. Well, it will happen, Steve. So if the tariff war goes like a lot of people want it, that they want to have people, I don't know why, but they want this fight. I'm the only one that doesn't want it, it seems like the BOC will have to cut rates to try to stimulate the economy. I'm curious. And then Rich, maybe you've got an opinion on this, but like,
I mean, what are those, what are those cuts potentially look like? Is that like, hey, we're doing like emergency, 50 basis points at a time, and we're cutting from 3% today to one. I mean, yeah, I guess so. I mean, who knows? I mean, I've no idea. No, but I mean, zero. Well, I mean, it, I mean, it depends. Again, all sorry to say this like this, but it depends. And I think it's also path dependent, which is like, you know, what if they cut 25, what if they cut 50 basis points, and then a week later, the liberals limped back to Washington and say, ha, ha, just kidding, we'll fix the fence and all shit, then they won't cut all the way to zero. Do you know what I mean? Like,
Yeah, I know that's sort of a boring answer, but I think it's path dependent. And if they're obstinate and say, screw you, we want to spend $300, $300 billion in stimulus, maybe they'll have to go to zero in order to sort of protect the yield curve, you know what I mean? And so I think the best. When is the next BOC meeting? Well, you got me. I don't know. Drop them. March. I think it's a March magic. Oh, really? Well, by the magic of the internet. I don't know the next. It's in March, but there's an emergency cut in February. It could do. February 2nd. I'm sorry. Second. Yeah. But you know, again, you don't know what they will do. I imagine they're going to be reactive to it because you have to be because again, like this, I mean, I get tired of talking about it now, really, if you think about it, but the terror of war, it could be a matter of hours or weeks. And if the BOC, all of a sudden say on Wednesday, they do, they cut by, you know, five to zero. And then everything's resolved on Friday. Do they reverse it again? You know, it's, I don't know.
I think it will be the initial reaction we slow because maybe the net effect of all the, you know, the terror of everyone taxing each other and stuff, you know, maybe it's not a big deal. Yeah. And everyone's going to add, you know, of course, oh, of course, it's going to be a big deal, you know, the CBC did a report. So the Globe Mail report and said it's even better, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. And just to be clear, sorry, one more thing, just to be clear on the monetary policy report, they did models and the modeling that they did, if I remember correctly, which is like a 25% across the board for everybody and they don't take it off. So it's really difficult to model these things where you just like, it's a negotiation where and things change and it's not just all it's not just one country, it's some countries and some, you know what I mean? This is comp.
The thing was like, no one freaking knows, man. I believe with no tariffs, even they were still, they still had a downward revision to their growth forecast for 2025, 2026 to 1.8%. Yeah. Yeah. Just they said even just the uncertainty around the tariffs is creating obviously like a lack of investment, right? Like, how do you make investment decisions as a company or as a business today? And you're like, I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen in, you know, a week from now, a month from now. So I think just all the uncertainty, I mean, we just did a full hour long podcast talking about a whole bunch of what ifs. So again, imagine as a business trying to deploy tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars and you don't know. I tell you one thing that will happen. I hope it doesn't. So, you know, 25% tariffs come on Monday morning, whatever it is. Canadians respond with 25.
President Trump's going to go, what? The Canadians matched it. You go make it 50. You need to be prepared for that kind of reaction. And then all of a sudden Canadians were saying, well, we were already in it now. We're already all in. Now there's another 50. So it's actually not bad. Because I think then the whole thing could be resolved within a few days. If the Canadians are going to fight back aggressively, they better be prepared, not just a little, you know, push them, push the bully when he can't see you and stuff. They're going to have to go aggressively. And are they prepared to do it? The politicians, they are prepared. Do you know why? They don't get hurt. Yeah. Rich, you're going to get hurt. Steve, you're going to get hurt. They have no skin in the game. Absolutely. This is where this is. In fact, I would argue, you could argue, you can make the case that actually they come off better. Because they're seen as fighting for Canada, patriotism, Trump is bad, Canada good. So it's a dangerous game, actually. They're incentivized to sort of take this to the end in a weird scooter. So what's the other sense of things? What's the other sense of things to in Keith? We got the Fed. Right? You had the Fed that came out the same day as the BOC. They did not cut rates. So the BOC is still going in one direction and the Fed is going in another. And he take away there from Jay Powell, the Fed. Yeah. They try to remember a few episodes back. Steve, you were talking about the hawkish pause or the dovish pause. Which one was it that you came up with? I don't remember. Hawkish pause. I don't remember. It was cool. It was a cool expression. I think yesterday, the Fed tried to do a dovish pause. So obviously they paused. And then in the presser, you know, they're again, he always does it. He tries to walk the fine line to appease everyone because there's lots of moving parts in the US financial system, which just doesn't exist here in Canada. But you know, for everything that's taking place, it looks like the Fed has probably ended. The rate cutting cycle for now, or they paused it, I should say. And don't forget, there's politics in everything. So, you know, the Fed and, you know, it's not fair to say it. You know, there's supposed to be objective, but they are clearly going to try to go against the policy that have come out of Washington now. And which direction does the Washington want the rates to go? I don't know. Very much down. Trump is a real right, man. So you want the lower rates? Absolutely. He's been very vocal about that about. But inflation's high. Yeah. So what's the Fed going to try to do? Go higher. You really think so? You really think it's that obvious? It's right in front of you. Open your eyes. It's there. That's not too naive. It's Powell, Democrat. No, he's not actually. But anyway.
Anyway, but we have this risk that now the diversions in central bank rates between the US and everyone else, it could get bigger and bigger. So I mean, did you hear anything that stood out from the Americans yesterday, Steve, or Rich? I mean, I don't know, Rich, if you want to try, man. I mean, my only thought process here is, again, another cut from the BOC and nothing from the Fed that, you know, what's the outlook for the Canadian dollar? I mean, I'm just still struggling to see a bull case there. But that's how I feel. I think that that's, I think we're going to have a continued divergence full stop. In fact, the only country, well, the only, sorry to say, the only real country that has the interest states that are higher than the US is the UK, but they're having, they're dealing with their own thing. They need high real interest rates to absorb capital, etc, etc. So that's a different thing.
But I also thought it was interesting that the, I don't know if we're going to talk about the Japanese, the BOC raised rates again. I don't know, but no, I have nothing else on the Fed. I think I'm more naive than Keith. I think that they're still independent. And I think inflation is still really high. And I think deficit spending is high. And the economy's doing relatively okay. No, so I know it's interesting, right? Like this is play like a hypothetical scenario. Let's just say we get some version, some form of tariff probably impacts Canada more than the US. Of course it does.
So the BOC is pre-emptively forced into cutting rates to some extent. Canadian dollars currently at 69 cents. I mean, I don't know, what does that send the Canadian dollar? I think you can see South of 65. But I think the, I think Cat truthfully has upside risk from here. Because you have to, yeah, could you have to make the assumption that this tariff war is going to be a very short tariff war. And the moment it is resolved, it should be, you know, very positive for the Canadian dollar.
So where are we now 69 and a half cents, maybe something like that 69 for you. Yeah, 72 73 75. I think it could have something like that. And then, you know, you wake up and do this with your glasses. And then it should then resume it's decline. Well, like you're back to interest rate policy and the economy and everything. Question for you, which is it just doesn't trump not. I mean, he does want a weaker US dollar. Does he not? I mean, he doesn't think he's as forceful this time about that. I mean, he can't make the US the best place to invest in the world and not have some realization that everybody's going to want to plow their money into the US dollars. Right? I mean, is he?
Yeah, I mean, he's the guy has this his commerce secretary, this be Samantha guy, this be's a member is me a sense. He is a very, very switched on gentleman. He used to understand Stanley Druckenmiller. Right. That guy is a very, very smart macro thinker. And Rich is right. If you want to attract foreign investment to your country, you know, by default, your currency is going to appreciate because you have foreign money. Yeah. Well, yeah, he's kind of you're only ready to you got to buy USD to, you know, to make that investment wants his cake to eat and he wants to eat it too, obviously. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it is there.
And then we had the Europeans this morning, but it was snooze fest in Europe. What did they do? This is a funny statement. They cut to, you know, yeah, only the Europeans could make a monetary policy announcement boring. What they're all boring. That's the boomer joke for the episode. Oh boy. Yeah, I walked right into that.
Yeah, yeah, but what was very interesting though, and very loud and clear, they cut, they are still trending to cut even more. Some estimates are for a minimum of another 75 basis points to be cut. And some houses are even expecting a hundred. And the reason for that is Rich. Germany, Germany is F'd.
Yeah, we've just got another negative GDP print for Q4 or Q. That's good that up for Q. I should have had the Q4. That's right. Which was I, which was you five. Which is a linear math again. So it was a negative point to you. So that's an annualized rate of 0.8, although it's a bit unfair to do that. But anyways, it was worse than expected. And what's crazy? How sorry, how many consecutive quarters of that's the, I was looking at the chart right now, which is that's the bit of the joke. They actually have not had two consecutive negative quarters.
However, GDP peaked in Q2, Q3 of 2022 and has basically been declining. Sort of, you know, like a zigzag all the way down. Bounce in a round lower. So you've had, yeah, I mean, this is crazy. You're, you're, Germany is, it's not run properly. They've made some. They did. Yeah. I mean, they did it to themselves. They did this to themselves. And China, let's be clear. China had a helping hand. But anyways, it's just, yeah. I mean, for everyone knows, I mean, the energy costs have gone up, but yet they're, you know, they're manufacturing high industrial product export industry. I try to use fancy words, but that is being hollowed out by China, you know, increasingly more and more.
Yeah, we've talked about obviously Volkswagen being like a key indicator over there and the problems that they're having. But it's not just that's BAF, BAF, that the elevator manufacturer, that manufacturers more than just elevator crop, crop, tungsten crop. Yeah. Yeah. Camera. Crop. Anyways, it's just, sorry, Steve, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just, it's a, it's a, it's a wide ranging thing. And it's going to continue, which is key's point about the ECB. They're going to have to deal with their biggest economy continuing to go down. Incidentally, Spain is smashing it and the whole southern part of Italy, sorry, the other southern part of Europe is actually doing relatively well, which is kind of funny.
So the, the other interesting thing is that the Germans have their election coming up. Yeah. And that 23rd. Yep. Second. Something like that. Yeah. Something like that, whatever it's going to be. And that is right now, that is ground zero in this whole battle, you know, between the globalists versus the other side, wherever you want to call them. And it's going to be enormous. Like this, everyone is geared up. What did you call the globalist versus the nationalist?
I think that's a good way, Steve. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Absolutely. Which I mean, again, we've talked about the show, but I mean, it's seeming like every country is becoming more nationalistic in the views. Yeah. That's the way the pendulum has swung. And again, it's not right or wrong. It is what it is. And as that's happening, I think it just, it just creates even more visibility over the global economy is going.
And that means one of slower growth. So when countries are more focused on their own domestic activities, by default, it usually results in less trade for whatever reason it's going to happen. So you have that happening and there are going to be some pretty significant knock on effects from that. But right now, ground zero is Germany in a few weeks. And then Canada will also become the next ground zero, whether it's in May or next October, we will see. It's looking like it is going to be October right now.
That's a big that's a bold prediction. That's a bold prediction. Like this guy's the all this guy's the king of the tin foil hat. I don't think tin foil hat is funny is tin foil hat today, but then it comes true. And it's like, Oh, yeah, that was I've been all over Kearney becoming the leader now for a while. And it's increasingly looking like that is right. And I know Rich is done a lot of work now on Kearney's background that he's sharing with everyone this week is well. So we have that coming up.
You know, I didn't know this, but it has happened before, by the way. So I was like outraged that an yeah person could be before, right? Yeah. So I didn't know this and I obviously the internet exists. So I just googled it. Imagine that. And I found out there's someone named John Turner, the right honorable John Turner was the PM, a supremacist of Canada for a little while, even though he was not a MP, but then he ran in a by election one. And then, but then how many years ago is that that was 1984? I only know that because I looked it up like an hour ago.
How long is he actually in power for? Oh, very little. He was not required to call an election until 1985, but then ended up calling and it was quick. It was like, it was but it was months. It was months. Like I can't remember the exact time. So I deleted that page off my thing. But it was like, you know, like how crazy the world has become. And I got expression, the right honorable. Right now there is a petition or something floating around Ottawa that changed it to the left honorable.
Come on. That can't be as much. I can't be like, I can't be like that. Well, yeah, I'm so dumb. I think that's a good, good spot to wrap it up. I mean, yeah, I don't know if this is the episode of uncertainty, but Tara. I'm sorry. February 1st. We'll see. You know, again, we'll see when this podcast is aired out tomorrow. If this is still relevant, because we'll find out.
Can we do the time? The time change? No, I think we have to go far so good. I feel good. All right, guys. Well, as always, we appreciate the support. Again, all we ask is that to share this episode of one friend, one family member, and continue to build the Looney Hour community, Looney Hour audience. And we'll see you next week.