AMERICAN BOOZE ON CANADIAN SHELVES ?! HELL NO !!

it's the power cast and we are coming live to beamsville this thursday august 13th don't miss charlie angus and yours truly talking about all the things we need to do to stand up for canada protect our democracy our sovereignty and fight the fascists globally we'll see you on thursday get your ticket If they sent you down to save you, gave you tools instead of papers, there was a revolution.Welcome to the O Show, Canada's pro -democracy podcast.I'm your host, Laura Babcock.And as you can see, it's another power cast with the one and only Charlie Angus of Midas Canada.And Charlie, there's nowhere that I go where I don't hear people bring you up and bring up our conversations because the country is riveted by the boycott.

All the doomsayers from the get go, and we are always talking about the failure of our national media.at key moments where, you know, the boycott was going to pass.I'm hearing from people who are saying grocery giants are telling them, well, we're going to wait this out.Like, dudes, you're going to have to wait a long freaking time to wait out the Canadian spirit right now, because The polls are showing how strong people are, how people are really determined, how people are just tired of the, oh, Canada's nasty.It's going to be a key moment for, this is like the next few weeks for the prime minister is going to be make or break.On the global front, we cannot be losing sight of the threats in Ukraine, the threats in Greenland that are continuing because they all play out in how Trump is treating us and anyone who thinks that these guys are going to give us a fair trade deal or

treat us with any respect is, of course, someone who probably writes for the Sun Media or any of the other US -owned media in Canada.Everybody else knows that these guys see us as a real threat.They see us as a threat because the economy is strengthening, that we're building alliances.They hate us.So these next months are going to be really, really crucial, but Canadians aren't bending.

Not only did we bring in more jobs than expected in the country, and of course, if you put that juxtaposed to the US, they lost jobs.An emeritus from Bloomberg, a gentleman saying that Mark Carney is outperforming the rest of the world right now, and the Canadian stock market's doing extremely well.We're bringing in tons of foreign investment and interest.More than we've seen in a century was his language.And also notably that Canada, Charlie, is one of the two most loved countries in the world.There are intangibles to brand equity, and now Canada has it.

And will that mean that people will run over and save us?Maybe not, but it means we'll have a whole lot of It's not just moral high ground, but a lot of soft power right now as a country.It is us showing the whole world that we're courageous and we'll stand up to this bully.And I think we're in boycott 2 .0 now, Charlie.I think Canadians are saying, after the nasty comments and the JD events, shit about our country being terrible, we are going, or doing terribly, we are going to double down now.We are serious now.

We are looking at things beyond just travel and alcohol.Yet we have our Prime Minister floating out the possibility of booze back on the shelves.It's like cognitive dissonance.

Well, I agree.I think just to break it down a little bit, I think the Bloomberg interview was fascinating.I mean, you know, guys, really smart guys who were bow ties when they do interviews,always defer to other great men.I think Prime Minister Carney's done extraordinary, but I don't think the rest of the world is following because of Prime Minister Carney.I think it's they're seeing Canada step up.

So this is the power of the boycott.The rest of the world was as confused and panicked and freaked out, and they saw Canadians say, nope, The Juno, they saw the Juno beach gene.And so one of the reasons I believe that so much investment is coming into Canada is people like the fact that we are this democratic resistor that we're standing up.So this is kudos to everyone in Canada right now.Is this enough to get us through?Not yet.

But as you say, soft power matters.This is something that Hegseth and Trump and Howard and Lutnick don't understand.They are always undermining allies.Their word means nothing.They think that gangster politics works.So where do we go with the boycott?

Well, the latest numbers on the boycott are stronger than ever.So when I'm seeing headlines about the Prime Minister offering to put booze back on the shelf, I'm trying to parse what this means because, number one, he can't put booze back on the shelf, it's provincial, but I don't think the Prime Minister would make a commitment unless he could follow through because then that would really enrage the Americans.But I feel frustrated because You were a journalist.I was a journalist.If I was in the scrum, I would say, you're going to put the booze back on for what?The headlines are saying tariff relief.

Well, what?We're begging for relief?It's talking about putting the booze back on as a concession.Well, is that the case?Or is it a comprehensive deal?I mean, as Premier Wab Kanu, Captain Canada said, no Kuzma, no Buzma, right?

That was the bottom line.The bottom line was aluminum, it was steel, it was taking off the arbitrary tariffs.Do we think Donald Trumpwill do that?Never.He's never going to do that.

When J .D.Vance is ranting about Canada doing terrible when the Americans are losing jobs and we're gaining jobs, they hate our guts.So I'm wondering what the Prime Minister, I guess at this point, We're going to see, but I'm feeling it's really important for the Midas mighty and and the old show viewers and Canadians to be reminding our MPs.Wait a minute.We run the boycott.

We stood up.You don't negotiate that away unless you come back with a comprehensive trade deal.Anything less and the boycott will turn on the government very quickly.So I think the prime minister needs to factor that in and the idea that we're going to get a trade agreement with these guys in two weeks.I'd be shocked.

I'll eat my hat and I've got a really nice one I just bought.the booze boycott, but the reality is that it wouldn't ultimately matter.The idea of a comprehensive deal I've never thought was possible, it wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on.There is no trusting this regime in any capacity.I'm calling on this Prime Minister, tell us what to do, don't just float out what you might do in negotiations with the Trump regime, but what do you want Canadians to do with this kind of thing?

Well, yeah, and I think that I think what the thing about the booze boycott, which is so symbolic is we're not talking about aluminum.We're not talking about the price of soybeans.We're talking about something that ordinary Canadians took on.Something that has resonated around the world and something that's had way more effect than any economic policy the government has come up with.I mean, this has been devastating to California.Sorry to California, but hey, that's the way it goes.

We've wiped out the bourbon market in Kentucky.Who would have thought of that?So this is something Canadians did.So to put that on the table without the consent of Canadians would be a very, very dangerous move of the Prime Minister.Now, maybe he's not talking about relief or concessions.Maybe that is how our national media, and I'm not trying to blame them, but I haven't seen any of them.

I remember when Prime Ministers used to get hard, hard questions when they'd say, what do you mean by that?What do you mean?What are the terms?All's I can go is a headline that says, Canada willing to give up booze for concessions.Well, we don't want concessions.We want either a full trade agreement or a concession.

or to hell with you.Canadians, as they said, Canadians like being called nasty now.We've embodied that.So this is going to be key to the Prime Minister because he's putting on the table something that belongs to us.Every single person is dealing with this.And I've had a few, you know, the Mark Carney's diehard people say to me, well, people still wouldn't drink it.

So don't worry.The Prime Minister's thought of that.Well, if you make a concession, as we've seen, you open the door to further attacks.And this is what has happened every single time.The Prime Minister has made multiple concessions and they've come at us.And I will just say, look at what's happening in Greenland right now.

They are moving oil rigs into the Greenland domestic, into the Greenland waters without permission is an open provocation.This is how, this is the next step.If we concede here, are we going to see them starting to put oil drilling rigs in Canadian waters just to say screw you?So you don't give up concessions when you're dealing with gangsters.So this is going to be very, very key.I'm hoping, I'm hoping against hope that the Prime Minister understands that, but I think it's important to rally people, to call your MP and say do not give up.

something that is so symbolic to Canadians and is seen as symbolic around the world.

Because if you make us feel like the booze boycott was a waste of our time because you're just going to give it back to the likes of Hoekstra, then what's to make us keep our travel boycott?What's to make us feel like any of it is worth building and pursuing?As I said off the top, we're in boycott 2 .0 now.We're looking for better ways to send even stronger signals to this bully.We're sick of their shit.And I know the Prime Minister must be too.

He talks tough, but mess with our boycott, and then you start to mess with people's ability to feel united and feel empowered.And that's very dangerous for people's psychology, especially after the year of hell that we've had.

Well, I agree.And the fact that you and I are having this conversation, we're reflecting conversations that are happening in people's thoughts, in people's dinner conversations.We elected a wartime prime minister.And in war, you are all in the same trench.You are all focused.You are all going ahead.

You're not saying, well, geez, maybe we shouldn't fire back.Maybe they'll stop attacking us.Everybody's in the trench.Everybody does the job.You know, you never saw Winston Churchill ever, ever, ever talk about making concessions or relief.It was all or nothing.

The prime minister may come back with a deal and say, listen, this is what we've done to get this deal.And we're asking Canadians to do their part.Canadians would say yeah, but you don't get to unilaterallyfloat concessions because we are all in the trenches right now.And I am feeling that Canadians are staying in the trenches.The latest polling shows that Canadians are stronger than ever.

The prime minister would make a serious mistake if he thought, Oh, well, you know, numbers are important, but you know, the bottom line is we're going to trade this for that.You don't trade, you don't trade spirit and you don't trade determination and grit and patriotism for three points off on steel.Like if you think that that's the case, then Prime Minister, you need to go back to school and, and study humanities rather than economics.So I am, I'm hoping.The Prime Minister is not going to make that mistake, but we've seen these talk about concessions before, and they actually happened, and then they came at us harder.So the lesson we know, and Canadians get this, we offer up anything, they come back harder.

So you'd have to have one hell of a deal to make us.put down our shields right now.Other than that, tell us, do shields stay up until we get a deal?

I think what it comes down to, Charlie, is how Carney sees the situation.If he's seeing it as some sort of a game, you know, up until the midterms and he's just trying to stall out, that's different than the many, many, many, many Canadians I talk to who feel like we are in a war.It just isn't.thankfully hasn't gotten military yet.

I think this is war.I think we're seeing again, like what, look what's happening with Greenland.Greenland in Canada, Trump keeps coming back again and again.Trump's latest meme, which is really grotesque, it really looks like the creepy predator neighbor who's going to climb through the window at night and take you.Now open provocation against Greenland to benefit an oligarch oil company.Well, this is the kind of thing that's going to happen.

So we are in war.The world is in war right now.We see that we were going to get a deal on the Strait of Hormuz and it's not happening.We're seeing this destabilized situation, and it always comes back to our allies are being undermined and threatened by Trump.He's not interested in working with the allies.He's not interested in working with Ukraine in any real capacity, even though I think he's being blown back now by so much views in the United States that enough's enough, Donald, but that he's untrustworthy.

So the prime minister seems to understand on the global stage that we're at war.He's trying to make these deals with, you know, Norway and Finland and Sweden, our Nordic brothers and sisters.But so what's happening on domestic front is part of that larger war.It's asymmetrical warfare and war by other means, but it is war.

Our asymmetrical war tactic of this boycott is maybe the most successful boycott in world history.I mean we have made absolute massive sacrifices and impacts and we're only getting started.Like, why isn't there an app out for all Canadian goods?Maybe there is.Why isn't the government pushing that we can, you know, access this, we can check labels, that there's some kind of, we have the technology.That's the kind of thing that we should be talking about, is how to make the boycott even more effective.

Again, like with vehicles, the fact that we've had a couple of vehicle companies say they're going to move to the states.Great, move to the states.We need to be talking about what those makes are and you don't buy those cars.That's right.You want to move to the States, Stellantis and Jeep with your production, go.I was looking to get a car and I was thinking Toyota, hmm what should I get and they told me well you know the RAV4 is a great car, it's the best on the market but a slightly cheaper version is the Toyota Hatchback.

Oh where's the Toyota Hatchback Corolla made?Oh in the States and where's the RAV4 made?Right here in Canada?Well, Buy the RAV4, end of story.Like if it's made in the U .S.

or if they're shipping to the U .S., if they're leaving Canada, then you don't buy that.So this is what we do, this is how we ramp it up.So again, Canadians, this is a fascinating moment.And who would have thought we'd be here?

It's ordinary Canadians.And Laura, you meet them on the streets.I meet them on the streets.I meet them in the Tim Hortons.These are ordinary folk.They aren't the ones who get interviewed on CTV.

They aren't the ones who have bow ties that get interviewed by the talking heads on CBC.They don't get to meet Prime Minister Carney.They see that this is war.They see this is long term, they see this is about changing their life to defend their country, so that doesn't get put on the table as a negotiating tactic.These values need to be respected.These values need to be supported.

And it's up to the government and the media and all the thinking and talking heads to recognize if ordinary Canadians are up front on this, maybe it's time we got behind them instead of trying to lead them by the nose where what's been done for the last decades in the political life in Canada.Canadians are on the front lines and Canadians have no intention of going back right now.So do not put any of that on the negotiating table.

If the Prime Minister puts some kind of tariff relief on the U .S., the booze boycott or encourages us to travel.to the U .S. or anythingS.or anything like that, Canadians are going to go bananas.

Because the boycott is not just our purchasing choices and our travel choices.The boycott is our daily discussions with other Canadians and with Americans and with MAGA who are taunting us and threatening us and, you know, mocking us.People are in this right down to the ground.And we cannot have our Prime Minister play with that willpower.We cannot have our spirit broken at a time when our spirit is helping to lead the global resistance to this fascist regime.

You know, Laura, that's it.And I think that that just really sums it up so beautifully because, you know, people always want the great man thing.But, you know, Churchill, who was pretty much a disaster in everything he ever did until the war, and then got fired by the, they always said the Eighth Army came back and voted him out because they wanted a Labour government.And I'm not diminishing what Churchill did.Churchill said, but my granny, he was her MP, so my granny can list you the crimes of Winston Churchill.But when it came time to stand up, what Churchill understood, what the other political class in England didn't, was that the people were not going to tolerate concessions.

He understood that.And you had the smart guys like Lord Halifax, who were considered way more sophisticated.They would have made concessions.They would have gotten relief.Churchill's brilliance in that moment in history, and why he will always be quoted and always remembered, is that he understood that the British people would do whatever it took to resist, and he embodied that spirit.Canadians, and I'm not saying that, you know, this is Dunkirk, and this is not the Blitz yet, and it's not yet, but it could be, and we all know that, that Canadians have that

spirit and so the Prime Minister really needs to think carefully what he says, because the confusion undermines us.But the Prime Minister also needs to understand that what he says is being interpreted in Washington by a gangster regime that is looking for weakness, that's looking to drive wedges.So right now there are no wedges in our wall of shields of Canadians.Canadians are holding that, but you can't ever undermine that, because if those shields get put down or people start to argue, then they were going to come at us super hard.So the Prime Minister's got a couple of weeks on this.I don't think there's any trade deal coming.

I think these are all a whole bunch of trial balloons.I wish the Canadian media would ask the tougher questions, like, what do you exactly mean?When would the boycott come off?Would it be for a complete, total agreement, as the Prime Minister had said, no deal is better than a bad deal, or Are we looking for relief on the 50 % tariffs?Because if we're looking for relief on the 50 % tariffs, then we're giving up.So who knows?

But I think we need to remind our MPs, we're solid.We're going to fight.Do not screw with the Canadian people, where we are so certain at this time.

I love to see the jobs coming in.I love all the international praise that we're getting.It's all good.But there's also 44 million of us who are sitting here every day, fighting in the trench, as you say.We don't need any instability in our political will and in our communication to the United States.We don't need, as you say, any instability.

sunlight between those shields.So I want our media to start saying to our Prime Minister, okay, this is your positioning.This is what you've said you're planning to put on the table.This is the stance you're going to take.What does that mean for Canadian behavior?What does that mean for our boycott?

It's really unprecedented.I mean, all my years in politics, I never would have dreamed of a moment where such powerful resistance is coming without leadership.It's coming without, you know, a political leader to say, do this, this is how we rally.I get it that the Prime Minister doesn't want his cabinet to be out rallying the boycott.I mean, I don't really get it, but I could see his reasoning.This isn't how Prime Minister Carney works.

This is open season for the opposition.You know, for the NDP, for the conservatives to be like, okay, let's drive.Let's, let's jump in here, take control and or not take control.Let's take credit.Let's do this.Nada, nothing.

They're not interested in it.You see people like Wab Kanu doing it.You see Doug Ford, whenever his poll numbers crash, suddenly jump back in and then he goes back to the cottage and forgets about it.You see David Eby, but he's way too quiet on this.And then you see Premier Mo and Houston and Daniel Smith, who I think would sell us out in a moment.But it always falls back to Canadians are doing it.

It's an amazing thing.So I just think it would be good for the Canadian political class to recognize how heroic people are being right now.This is why the rest of the world's watching this.This is why other people want to trade with us, because they think we've got starch and we've got fiber and we've got a moral code.We do, and it's in our gene.I say the Juneau Beach gene is there.

This is who we are.So maybe the people who have bow ties when they get interviewed on CBC are going to someday recognize it.I doubt it.They're going to say it was some smart dude who came up with this.It wasn't.It's ordinary folks.

in Lethbridge, you know, in Wolfville, in Chicoutimi, in Red Lake, who every day make the decision to defend their country.

We need to take this deadly seriously.Bullies like this don't go away.He won't go away just because of the midterms.He won't go away just because he may leave and Vance might come in or Rubio, God forbid, might come in or JFK Jr. might come in.I mean, we are stuck with crazy in the U .S.

for quite a while.And we've got to figure out as a country how to be really, really good at having people power aligned with our political power so that we are putting everything we have on the table together at all times.I mean, I think that's what is required of us in this moment.

The fact that the, you know, the Ukrainians are dealing with hypersonic missile attacks in cities, and what we're being asked to do is to not go to Disneyland and not buy American bourbon.They may seem like such different and outrageously unequal elements, but they're connected.They're connected by the fact of resistance.And if we don't resist, we are going to be dealing with the hypersonic missiles potentially.So these are the conversations we are going to have in Niagara region and Niagara region that's been hit super hard.I mean, just an environmental catastrophe.

And I think we're going to need to talk about the environmental catastrophe that's looming because we are being disorganized.We are being, we're we're being thrown off by this sort of politics of chaos and that as the climate is turning into a disaster, as Super El Nino is hitting.So next, we, August 13th at Niagara West Secondary School, and we're going to be taught raising money for Ukraine, we're raising money for Cuba, and we're going to be talking about, you know, how we're all partof this.People coming out from a horrific environmental disaster in the Niagara region are still coming out because they care about Cuba and they care about Ukraine.That's who we are as Canadians.

Yeah, we're dealing with our own problems.Major crises, but we're coming together.So we're gonna have that conversation and I love the title fascism and other f -bombs So there are still some tickets available.And so Laura and I are gonna go at it on stage We're gonna late raise all these issues.It's gonna be and you bring your questions folks It's going to be a night of democracy and resistance.

No, nothing formal We're all figuring this out as we go.But like when you hear great ideas, let's have great ideas.Someone came up Charlie with the idea.Why don't we talk to her?about a staycation tax benefit.If you decide to stay in Canada and invest back, why not some incentivization from the federal government around that?

I mean, so there's so much more that can happen in the conversation between the federal government and average Canadians like us and having the conversations together with other average Canadians.You know, average Canadian to me means you're a great person, period.Let me just stipulate.Canadians are great people, but I'm talking about the conversation conversation at the grassroots level where we can talk to each other and come up with great ideas.So we're not just going to hammer away and cry and issue identify.We're going to come up with solutions because that's what we do.

That's how we move this resistance 2 .0 or this boycott 2 .0 forward.The resistance is going to be a long term thing.And we know that.And we're in it to win it.Thank you so much, Charlie Angus.I can't wait to finally meet you.

It'll be fun.

It's crazy.We're going to finally.talked through this media but we're gonna be there live at Niagara West Secondary it's gonna be awesome so thanks so much Laura folks sign upsupport the Midas Canada Network, support the OSHA.We are the resistant democratic voice right now, and we need to be carrying these conversations forward.So you're getting the information, so you're not getting the confusion.

You're getting analysis and a plan to get through these dark times.

Take care, everybody.

Thanks so much.