Tarriff This!!

Tariff This: Elbows Up, Egos Down

“Elbows up” has become Canada’s rallying cry—but is retaliation actually a strategy?

In this solo episode of The Okotoks Podcast, Carlin Lutzer draws on 15 years in real estate to examine how arrogance, pride and personality can prevent two sides from reaching a deal—even when the people they represent desperately need one.

Carlin explores Canada’s dependence on the American market, our failure to diversify trade and the barriers that still make it difficult to trade within our own country. He also questions whether tariffs meant to punish the United States ultimately place Canadian families, workers and businesses in the penalty box instead.

This isn’t about cheering for Donald Trump or surrendering Canada’s dignity. It’s about recognizing the imbalance between the two economies, controlling our retaliation and negotiating from a position grounded in reality.

Politicians may take the penalties, but ordinary people pay the price.

Elbows up? Absolutely.
 Eyes open? Always.
 Egos down? It’s time.

What do you think? Is Canada’s “elbows up” approach protecting our interests—or hurting the very people it is supposed to defend?

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Okatokes podcast, where the stories are as solid as the big rock. Sponsored by Carlin Lutzer Real Estate.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

When I was a kid, I would start arguments with my siblings. And typically the sign that somebody had lost the argument was the name calling started. The uh hurtful comments came out, even though those hurtful comments had nothing to do with the argument. Um, it was truly a sign that that argument had been lost. Something else to think about is uh for 15 years, I've I've worked in real estate. And I often wonder how many deals in real estate are killed simply because of realtor arrogance, realtor pride. Nothing to do with the buyer or the seller's wants or needs. However, the arrogance, the pride of realtors simply get into the way. When I look at the um current trade issue between Donald Trump and Mark Kearney, I wonder how much of pride is getting in the way of this dispute. Um, arrogance is getting in the way of this dispute. Um, and when the name calling comes out, which I I do believe Mark Kearney has uh you know kept distance from that name calling, uh, but his counterpart, Doug Ford, kind of gets in in between there and starts bumping his gums way too much and saying way too much and not helping the situation at all with the name calling. And it just feels like once the name calling comes out, that the the dispute has been has been lost. The negotiations are off the table. Canada has rallied around the phrase elbows up, which is a, you know, which is a great analogy. It's a Canadian analogy. It's elbows up because we're not gonna back down. We're gonna stand up. We're gonna be showing the US just how tough we are. Now, in hockey, typically an elbow is a retaliatory penalty. You're mad at somebody, you're coming in, you want to give them a little bit of an, you know, an elbow, potentially to the head, to hurt that person, uh, to let them know that you're you're not gonna back down, that you're mad for what they had done to you. However, inside a retaliatory penalty, it's usually the retaliation that gets the penalty and then time in the box. So if you are going to take a penalty and you truly want to win the game, it has to be methodical, it has to be at the right time of the game, and you have to realize that it could, that elbow could eventually hurt you. Let's be honest. The United States has a larger, stronger economy than we do. Canada depends on access to the American market more than the United States depends on access to ours. That doesn't mean that we're powerless in this negotiation, nor do we need to surrender our dignity, but it means we need to be strategic. But I believe Canada has lost all power inside of any negotiation with the United States. I shouldn't say all power, but a lot of power due to the fact of how we have painted ourselves into a corner. Now, I certainly could use a different terminology, but uh uh for what Canada has basically done to themselves. We could say we've screwed themselves and we could even take it one step further, but we're gonna keep this podcast uh a little bit PG here. Um, but we have for far too long have failed to diversify our own trade. Um, and we have left ourselves heavily dependent on the United States. In fact, even interprovincial trading, there's still massive barriers between our own provinces. So why should we expect to have no problems trading with the United States? We can't even trade with our ourselves. Now, one of the key points inside a negotiation that is a major sticking point is supply management. And interestingly enough, both liberal and conservative parties of Canada do not want to talk about it. They do not want to side because the dairy farmers are a very powerful group of people. Um, Andrew Scheer won the conservative leadership nomination back in the day uh because Maxine Bernier was going to look into the issues of supply management. The dairy farmers all got together and they basically said Bernier is bad and Andrew Shear is good, and Andrew Schear slipped in the nomination as a result of him putting on the chopping block supply management. Canada controls the production and importation of dairy, poultry, and eggs. There is a legitimate argument for protecting our farmers and maintaining Canadian food security. But there is another side to this. Supply management has continually been the issue to complicate trade negotiations. Canada permits a certain quantity of foreign dairy products to enter at low or no tariff rates. Once the quota is exceeded, tariffs on some products can climb up above 200%. Donald Trump does love to claim that Canada simply charges and is unfair to the American dairy farmers, uh, you know, tariffing up to 250 to 300%. And that is certainly misleading. The enormous tariffs apply only after the negotiated import quotas have been filled, but the system is still highly protected. And American negotiators have been attacking it for years. Meanwhile, industries like oil and gas and the auto sector, which support hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs and contribute enormously to our economy, are also looking at Ottawa to defend their access to the American market as well. So the uncomfortable question is whether dairy farmers deserve protection. Of course they mattered. The question is whether every part of the Canadian economy is being weighed fairly. A successful negotiation requires flexibility. In real estate, if one side declares that every item is non-negotiable, there usually isn't a deal. There are only two people standing across the table defending their pride while the buyers and sellers pay the price. Elbows up sound strong, but elbows permanently locked in place make it awfully difficult to reach across the table and shake hands. Back to the question: is this just a political move? Is Carney more concerned as to where he stands in the polls? He doesn't want to tick off the power, almighty dairy farmers. So we're not even going to bring that into question. All the while, the dairy farmers, and I believe that the dairy farmers of Quebec are treated much differently than the dairy farmers across the rest of Canada. Then we look at the two people, the Prime Minister and the President of the United States, that are negotiating these deals. A major concern that I have is does Mark Kearney have the best interests of Canadians in mind? This trade negotiation has been going on for a long time and nothing has been accomplished. Mark Carney's approach has been to just pull back and wait, you know, be patient, the long game, which in the end could really play out very well for Mark Kearney if everything aligns for him. However, in the meantime, Canadians are hurting financially. Canadians are losing their jobs. And has Mark Kearney lost that vision? Is he not connected enough with the average Canadian to truly try to understand what is going on? If we simply look at Mark Carney's investments, now a podcaster who hosts the podcast called Moose on the Loose claims that 91% of Mark Kearney's investments are in the United States. And that exact percentage is not his calculation. It's not an official government finding, but a separate review of Kearney's public ethics disclosures found investments connected to 567 organizations and reported that only three of them were Canadian. Canadians, I believe, are entitled to ask whether a leader's financial interests align with the country he's negotiating for. These are not small questions. When leaders can influence markets, trade, and international relationships with a post or the stroke of a pen, we should be asking whether the first concern is the public interest or their own image, power, or their own portfolio. Coming back to the analogy of elbows up, who actually pays the penalty? Is it the politicians losing their jobs? Is it the politicians losing their benefits? Is it the politicians losing their dignity? Ordinary Canadians are the ones caught on the benches. We're sitting there watching this game that we are not in control of. The players on the ice are taking the penalties, and the officials are coming and placing the people watching the game into the penalty box to serve the penalty. The other thing is tariffs, which is uh very, very confusing to me. We're gonna send a message to the United States by punishing the people sitting on the bench. How does that make any sense? How does that make any sense? Oh, yeah, here's what we're gonna do. We are now gonna charge our people X percentage amount more for your product. We're gonna hurt our own people. Donald Trump is doing that because the states have the power to produce those items, and that is truly what he's wanting. Canada is not in a position to do that. So we are going to hurt our own people once again. At a time that we are already taxed to the brim. Easy stroke of the pen. Here we go. Another tax. All the while we get moved from the bench into the penalty box again. We are taxed way too much as Canadians. It's not sustainable. This is not cheering for Trump. This is defending Canada. Our leaders, our political leaders, maybe should have taken a course in how to deal with a narcissistic person pushing back with comments. Don't know if that was the best way to deal with Mr. Trump. I don't think we have the right people sitting at the negotiation table. Needs to be people that are in touch, in touch with the average Canadian. But we're also living in a day and age where politicians are not in touch with the people. They've been inundated by the subcultures of parliament, legislature, municipal governments, and they they have forgotten to keep their ear to the ground due to the needs and the desires and the wants of the people. In real estate, the buyer and seller sometimes have to keep living with the consequences long after the agents have moved on to another file. The same is true here. Politicians will eventually leave office, but families, businesses, and communities will live with the economic consequences. I look at Justin Trudeau now, having the time of his life, touring the world with his new girlfriend, Katy Perry, while many people are suffering due to failed policy. And it feels like this is just a continuation of those failed policies. Elbows up, elbows up against a stronger, more resilient opponent doesn't get you anywhere in the long run. Short-term, short-term satisfaction, an adrenaline rush, right on. But this adrenaline rush of elbows up, we're going to stand up to Donald Trump, United States, I believe will have consequences that we will not be able to recover from for a very, very long time. So, yes, Canada, elbows up, be alert, be confident, protect our interests, yes. But we need to keep those elbows under control. Let's stop confusing retaliation with strategy. Let's stop allowing partisan politics and personal pride to become more important than the people whose jobs and livelihoods are on the line. This is not a hockey game. The pain is real. Canadians are hurting because the politicians are taking penalties on our behalf, and they do not have to pay the price. The best deal is the one that protects the people, preserves the relationships, and lets both countries move forward.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

That's it for today's episode of the Okatokes Podcast. Big thanks to Carlin Lutzer Real Estate for making it happen, and thanks to you for listening.