Canada’s Role in a Shifting Global Order — with Mark Carney

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway – "Canada’s Role in a Shifting Global Order" featuring Mark Carney

Introduction In the 344th episode of The Prof G Pod, hosted by Scott Galloway, the discussion centers on Canada's evolving role within the global economic landscape. The guest for this episode is Mark Carney, Canada’s 24th Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party. Carney brings a wealth of experience from his previous roles, including Governor of the Bank of England and UN Special Envoy to Climate Action Finance. The conversation delves into the strained US-Canada trade relationship, the impact of tariffs, Canada's strategic economic initiatives, and broader implications for the global order.

1. Background and Current State of US-Canada Relations

• Mark Carney’s Journey: Carney provides an overview of his career, highlighting his tenure as the Governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and his subsequent role as the first non-British Governor of the Bank of England. He emphasizes his recent election as Prime Minister of Canada and his focus on navigating the country through complex economic challenges ([17:15]–[19:28]).

• Trade Relations Overview: Carney outlines the critical nature of the US-Canada trading partnership. He notes that Canada is the United States' largest trading partner, with significant implications for both economies. The imposition of tariffs by the US has introduced substantial strain into this relationship ([23:54]–[26:58]).

Notable Quote:

"We have basically 13 economies here, 10 different provinces and territories, all with their own rules. It's hard to move credentials and sometimes goods and services across the country, far harder than it should be."
— Mark Carney, [21:39]

2. Impact of US Tariffs on Canadian Economy

• Types of Tariffs Imposed: Carney details the various tariffs imposed by the US, including:

  • Fentanyl-Related Tariffs: Initially justified by concerns over fentanyl imports, these tariffs have broader economic repercussions despite fentanyl accounting for less than 1% of imports ([26:58]–[29:20]).
  • Steel and Aluminum Tariffs: Labelled as "national security tariffs," these affect industries where Canada is a major supplier to the US.
  • Auto Tariffs: The integrated North American automotive supply chain faces a 25% tariff, severely impacting margins in an already tight industry ([26:58]–[29:20]).

• Economic Consequences: The tariffs impose hefty costs on Canadian exporters, forcing businesses to absorb increased expenses or pass them onto consumers. Carney warns of significant declines in room rates in the luxury hospitality sector as an analogy for broader economic impacts ([29:20]).

Notable Quote:

"These tariffs hit a wide range of goods and there's a few carve outs for that. But you know, it's hitting hundreds of billions of goods."
— Mark Carney, [26:58]

3. Strategic Responses and Future Trade Relationships

• Negotiation Efforts: Carney mentions recent discussions with former President Trump, indicating the possibility of renegotiating the US-Canada trade relationship post-election. These negotiations aim to address the imbalances and restore mutual trade benefits ([26:58]–[29:20]).

• Diversifying Trade Partners: In response to strained US relations, Canada is exploring deeper trade ties with other G7 and G20 nations. Emphasizing a positive-sum approach, Canada seeks to reinforce existing trade agreements and establish new ones with like-minded countries ([27:41]–[29:20]).

Notable Quote:

"We can play a role as a country that believes in open markets, open systems, believes in trade, open ideas, diversity."
— Mark Carney, [19:47]

4. Global Order and Economic Competitiveness

• Shift in Global Trade Dynamics: Carney discusses the broader implications of US tariffs, likening them to Brexit's economic impact on the UK. He anticipates that the US actions are reshaping the global trading system, leading to increased costs and reduced cooperation among nations ([36:59]–[41:51]).

• Risk Premiums and Investment: The imposition of tariffs introduces a risk premium on US assets, which affects global investment patterns. Carney highlights the potential for higher costs of capital worldwide and the implications for international trade relations ([45:12]–[48:14]).

Notable Quote:

"This is going to be a world that's more expensive and it's more... You're putting much greater emphasis on taking care of yourself."
— Mark Carney, [45:12]

5. Domestic Economic Initiatives

• Housing Crisis Solutions: Addressing Canada’s severe housing affordability issues, Carney outlines a comprehensive plan involving:

  • Cutting Development Charges: Reducing fees to incentivize construction.
  • Promoting Modular and Prefab Housing: Encouraging innovative building techniques to increase efficiency and affordability.
  • First-Time Homebuyer Tax Breaks: Providing financial incentives to make homeownership more accessible ([57:16]–[58:01]).

• Climate and Energy Policies: Transitioning from the consumer carbon tax, Carney emphasizes strengthening the carbon market for large emitters and investing in green technologies. Canada aims to position itself as an energy superpower by leveraging its strengths in critical minerals, small modular reactors, and carbon capture technologies ([60:59]–[63:44]).

Notable Quote:

"We're going to build huge amounts at that level and set the specs, if you will, for that."
— Mark Carney, [57:16]

6. Societal and Cultural Considerations

• Diversity and Talent Attraction: Carney highlights Canada's commitment to diversity as a strategic advantage. By fostering an inclusive environment, Canada aims to attract global talent, which is essential for thriving in sectors like AI and life sciences ([60:59]–[63:44]).

• Skilled Trades and Workforce Development: Emphasizing the importance of skilled trades, Carney outlines initiatives to support apprenticeships and vocational training, ensuring a robust workforce to support the country’s ambitious infrastructure and housing projects ([57:16]–[58:01]).

Notable Quote:

"This is going to be a great time for a career in the skilled trades in Canada. Because we're going to build for the next 25, 30 years."
— Mark Carney, [58:01]

7. Personal Insights and Vision for the Future

• Legacy and Values: When discussing personal aspirations, Carney emphasizes the importance of values and the impact one leaves on others. He envisions a legacy built on influencing positive change and fostering ethical treatment among those he works with ([64:13]–[64:29]).

• Advice to Younger Self: Carney advises his younger self to "relax and stay focused on what you like," reflecting on the importance of pursuing passions over societal expectations ([63:55]).

Notable Quote:

"You're proud of the values of your children and people who worked with you."
— Mark Carney, [64:29]

Conclusion The episode provides a comprehensive exploration of Canada’s strategic responses to the shifting global economic landscape, particularly in light of strained US-Canada trade relations. Mark Carney articulates a vision focused on diversifying trade partnerships, addressing domestic economic challenges such as the housing crisis, and leveraging Canada’s strengths in critical minerals and green technologies. The conversation underscores the necessity for Canada to adapt proactively, ensuring economic resilience and maintaining its competitive edge on the global stage.

Final Notable Quote:

"This is going to push up prices on the margin. And so slower economy, higher inflation, higher interest rates, all things being equal."
— Mark Carney, [29:20]

Episode Highlights:

• Understanding the depth and impact of US-imposed tariffs on Canadian industries.
• Strategic initiatives to strengthen domestic economic foundations and diversify global trade.
• The importance of diversity and skilled trades in fostering long-term economic growth.
• Insights into building a resilient and competitive economy amidst global uncertainties.

This episode serves as a critical examination of the intricate balance between maintaining a strong trade relationship with the US and pursuing independent economic strategies to navigate a rapidly changing global order.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

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[Mark Carney]

Go.

[Scott Galloway]

Welcome to the 344th episode of the Prof. GPOD. What's happening? The dog is booked in. The dog is a Palm beach dog. I'm staying at a place called the Colony, which is sort of if the Beverly Hills Hotel had a adjacent property in Florida. That was not as nice, but you know, sort of like Gleneagles has something called Gleneagles townhouse in Edinburgh. If this sounds like a total conversation of privilege, I. E. Douchebag, trust your instincts. But they have a. A property in Edinburgh that's not nearly as nice. This would be the less nice version of the Bear Lewis Hotel. I think it's a fantastic. No, no, fantastic. I think it's an hotel's my hobby. What's your hobby? Well, I read a lot of nonfiction or I do a lot of yoga. No, not me. I go to nice hotels. It's my hobby. I won't travel to cities. I'll travel to nice hotels. By the way, if you're looking for a wreck on any hotel in almost any city, daddy is where you come. Anyways, this is a small data point and a larger theme, and that is there is an emerging cohort of services companies and hotels and hospitality and restaurants that I refer to as 64. And that is six star prices with four star service. And what's happened is the following. The cohort that's grown the fastest in the United States is not Latinos, it's not seniors, it's the super wealthy or even just the wealthy. They have absolutely crushed it. And these folks like to spend money and not only has their income gone up or the wealth has gone up, but their mentality has changed since COVID It's sort of you only live once months. Yolo, let's get out there, let's travel. A lot of them had pent up demand to travel from COVID and they realized that we all meet the same end. We all come into this world in diapers, we all leave in diapers. But the reality is we all leave. And so luxury travel has just boom. And there's a natural gating supply constraint. And that's the following. To build a luxury hotel probably takes the better part of a decade. By the time you find the financing, find a location, get the zoning, the permitting, construct the thing, train, get everyone, it takes 10 years. So there is a absolute supply demand imbalance. Right now the Bear leaves hotel where I stay when I go to la, which is wonderful. Which is wonderful. It's like the Disney of hotels. You have the Pirates of the Caribbean and then Space Mountain. You have the counter, you have the great restaurant next to the pool, then you have the polo lounge. It's Disneyland. You never need to go anywhere else. And I love it because everyone will come see me there. Pre Covid, it was about 7, 800 bucks. Covid had dropped to 400 bucks. I was one of those guys traveling during COVID and then now it's $1,800 for a room, six star travel and no one feels sorry for anyone here has seen inflation I that's probably greater than any category because massive increase in demand with choke supply. The outcropping from that or one of the manifestations of that is that you can now stay at a hotel like this one where they have six star prices. I won't tell you what I'm spending on my room for four star service. And what they do is a cultural phenomena and that is they try and throw people at the problem and that is they hire a lot of people who are these nice young people that my guess is they underpay that are not interested in being in the services industry for very long. This is a transition job and that's fine. I parked cars in college and I was a pool boy at the Monan hotel. Anyways. The 64 Hotel. Six star prices, four star service. The problem is when we hit any sort of speed bump this shit's going to get wrecked. I mean this you're going to see declines in room rates of 70% and that is companies have to figure out how much they price. I think pricing is already saying do they price perfectly to demand and raise prices when they have power or do they decide like the four Seasons in some other places even when they could raise their prices. They don't. Because it pisses people off and creates ill will. And that's what they're doing here. They're monetizing the shit out of this place and throwing weddings and bat mitzvahs and they are instead of catering to their current consumers they're renting out the pool. If they see an opportunity to make another 10 or 20,000 bucks. And I get it, they probably spent a lot of money to buy this place and fix it up. And they're very ROI focused but they're trading off goodwill and a reputation the Beverly Hills hot or the Hotel Du Cap would never ever do anything that gets in the way of the guest experience if you will. God, I just hearing this I sound obnoxious. Anyways, this is you're gonna see in the travel industry and the hospitality industry a massive decline. I believe in pricing. Why is that? The number of people traveling right now into the US is crashing. Is crashing. Why? Yeah, I used to go watch football games at Uncle Sam's every weekend. But guess is a total asshole and he's gone fucking crazy. So let's just hold off and let's stick at home. Have you seen those pictures of Toronto International Airport? I think it's called Pearson during Christmas break from last year to this year. Last year, packed ton of Canadians trying to get down to Palm beach or to LA or to Naples or wherever or Miami to get some of that thing called sunshine. This year, lines are empty. No one's coming to the US Literally. Tourism is crashing, and guess what? All this bullshit all around trying to bring back our great manufacturing sector. There are 12 million people who work in manufacturing. Do you know how many work in tourism in the US? 13 million. So we have this consensual hallucination that somehow we're going to restore manufacturing by raising prices on everybody. Yeah, that doesn't work, folks. But what is working is you're seeing an immediate destruction, an immediate change in the tourism industry that affects and employs 13 million Americans. You are going to see not a collapse, but you are going to see real pressure in organizations ranging from Disney to some of the bigger hotel companies to Marriott, when all of a sudden the rates have to drop because we are going to lose at the margins a ton of Canadians, a ton of Mexicans, a ton of Europeans who think, you know what? There are a lot of nice places to travel. There are a lot of nice. I know, let's go to Disneyland. But let's go to Disneyland in Paris, not the one in Orlando. Right? I know, let's. We want to gamble. Let's go to Macau or Monaco instead of going to Vegas. I know, I know. Great city. Let's go to London. Let's not go to New York. They have great. They have great theater in London, not in New York. We could not be more stupid right now. And you're about to see the helm of the bobsled. That's going to get hurt, I think, first. Well, I don't know. Who's going to get hurt first. Who's going to get hurt first? I don't know. I think travel. I think the travel industry is about to start beginning a series of earnings calls that are just gonna get uglier and uglier. Let's talk about a few people I talked to this weekend. Let's go back to the tariffs, the big T. That's right. Talk to the CEO of a catalog company that does a lot of housewares and homewares, and get this right, $10 million worth of merchandise on a boat coming in from China. This person has to show up with a check for $14.5 million. The 145% tariff that was on as of 10 minutes ago. I don't know if it's off, but should it stay when the boat actually docks or. The boat, the ship, the tanker, you know, one of those big fucking things. When it docks at the port of Long beach, this person has to show up or their company has to show up with a 14 and a half million dollar check. Otherwise they can't offload the stuff. By the way, most people don't really understand what a tariff is. The stuff comes in and then the person bringing it in has to pay a tariff to the US government. So this person unexpectedly has to find $14.5 million. That is not easy. That is not easy. And just to add insult to injury, this person has to go find people to go down to the dock and then hire them to relabel and reprice every single item. Why? Because now the supply chain is so sophisticated in China that they have the factory sew in the labeling and the pricing and the tagging to save time and money. So this person has to figure out a way to get down there and undo everything on the products. What does that mean? This person has stopped all shipments from China. By the way, unlike many people in the Republicans or people in the Trump administration, my anecdotes are actually true. I'm not lying. Second person I talked to. Oh, and what is this person doing? It stopped all shipments from China, too expensive, and is going to have to reduce their inventory. Their inventory is going to go down. Which means not only are the products with this huge tariff going to be marked up, but this person is also going to have to increase their prices to try and get some of that money back with lower supply. Maybe she can. Maybe she can have a, you know, more elastic pricing, increased prices. So prices are going up, see, above inflation. But then this person's going to run out of product. Then this person also, in their next quarterly earnings call, is going to have to puke all over the earnings call because this person, all of a sudden I say, well, there was this $14.5 million expense we weren't even planning on. That comes right off the bottom line, folks. So what do you have? Oh, also some other conversations I had this weekend. A German automobile manufacturer called what would you'd do? I'm like, I have no fucking idea. I can't predict what this guy is gonna do. A friend of mine from the fraternity at UCLA has built this really lovely little specialty retail or specialty products company. You know, when you go to. When you go to a conference and there's branded shit everywhere. And you get those. I got like 45 fucking water bottles that say Oracle or Netsuite or ZipRecruiter. And then all the banners and all the logos and the cups and everything that's branded. That's especially products company. He's built a really nice business, but three kids through school employed, I think about 120 people. I bet it's a 10 or $20 million business. I don't know. And over the last 30 years, slowly but surely, he's told me everything has moved to China. They just have a better supply chain and they can do shit at a lower cost, right? He stopped. He stopped all shipments. There's no way he can turn to his customers and say, oh, all this logo wear and these logoed fleeces and these banners and this signage for the stage, it was Gonna cost you $8,000. Now it's gonna cost you 21. He just can't do that. So he's gonna have to eat all the contracts he's always committed to, right? While paying these tariffs, he has to come up with additional cash flow. He said, scott, this is reminiscent, but worse. Worse than Covid. It's like my business has come to an end. Literally, my business is coming down. My guess is he retires. I don't think he's got it in him to try and figure out all the new supply chain relationships and come up with the additional capital that's going to be required to support this business moving forward. At universities. What's going on? Corporations have paused hiring. What's a pause? It's called non hiring because if they pause for three or six months, it's not as if when they fire up again, they double their pace of hiring. If you pause your hiring for six months, you've basically reduced hiring and employment or new employment at that company by 50% that year. Because they don't catch up, they just start again. And what would you do? If you're a large corporation trying to figure out if and what the tariffs will be and how to plan your business, do you hire new people? No. You think we're just going to press a pause? The worst thing about this, that's not true. There's a lot of things that are shitty about this, but we've decided to declare war on everyone all at once. The piece of the calculus that is missing here is the following. You need to assess when you go to war or you have a negotiation with someone, you need to assess your strengths, right? Your own weaknesses and then their strengths and their weaknesses. And where they have miscalculated is the following. They think their weakness is their dependence upon us. What they miss is the following. They are not self aware and that is Americans tolerance for pain is incredibly low. Women are born with a greater tolerance for pain because they have to endure childbirth. Which word has it, and I have personal experience, observational experience here, not actual experience, that in fact it is the real deal. Especially there's a hormone that releases right after childbirth that gives women amnesia. Otherwise they'd never fucking do it again. We are the man in this relationship. Meaning the US has a much lower tolerance for pain than China. China starves or has starved tens of millions of people when they felt it was in the best interest of the political party or the nation as a whole. We fucking freak when we think that the final episode of the Sopranos was a mistake and start calling our cable company. This is how stupid these people are. What do we have? Let's review. Less hiring, more expenses. The economy is slowing, which I'm sure the president got all sorts of data points on last week. But meanwhile, interest rates are going up. If interest rates and those costs keep going up, it can chase down that consumer sentiment and that certainty. And what do we have? The uncertainty index is at a 40 year high. Consumers in America feel more uncertain right now than they did when there was a virus that killed a million people. Think about that. Think about that. Consumer confidence is crashing. So what do we have? What do we have? Less hiring stagflation or threats of stagflation, which is Latin for we're headed towards a depression if we're not careful. We have retailers who don't know how to plan their business. And we have an administration that has no ability to actually assess the current situation and what our strengths are and our weaknesses are. There is no better opponent than someone who overestimates their strengths and is aggressive and gets into the ring with you and quite frankly just isn't as strong or as quick as they think they are. But they have the hubris to believe that they're awesome. So they don't train that hard. They don't think that hard. They just get in the ring and start flailing wildly. Guess what? In about three months, if not sooner, we're going to wake up and all we're gonna see are bright lights. We're gonna be flat on our ass staring up and all we would have heard is the ding. And what was that ding? Stupid tariffs. This is the definition of stupid. Okay. With respect to tariffs, in today's episode, arguably one of our most important interviews or I don't know. I think this means we're big time. We're big time. We speak with Mark Carney, Canada's 24th prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, sworn in this March. We discussed with the Prime Minister of the country's economic outlook, how Canada fits into a shift order, and whether the U.S. canada relationship can be repaired amid rising trade tensions. I really enjoyed this conversation with the Prime Minister. He's clearly a very intelligent guy, thoughtful, especially enjoying the end. I asked him some questions more personal in nature. We'll ask Prime Minister Carney his thoughts on our relationship and where we go from here. Prime Minister, where does this podcast find you?

[Mark Carney]

I'm in Montreal right now, Professor.

[Scott Galloway]

The majority of the world spends their news is 10 minutes domestic and 20 minutes international. In the US we're kind of self absorbed, narcissistic. We don't talk a lot about other countries. I think most people have have heard of you, have seen you on tv, but don't know much about you. Can you give us sort of your backstory, your origin story?

[Mark Carney]

Sure. So I was born in the Arctic, the north of Canada, a place called Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. I grew up in Edmonton and those who might follow hockey. It was the days of Wayne Gretzky when he was playing for the Oilers. That was when I was a kid. I went away to university in the US and then I worked on Wall street or versions of Wall Street. I worked for Goldman Sachs in London and Tokyo and New York and ultimately Canada. And then I went in about 20 ago to become the deputy governor of the bank of Canada, which is the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in the US and ended up being the governor during the financial crisis of 2008. So worked with, you know, through that process of the financial crisis. We had a quote, good financial crisis, if you can have a good financial crisis in Canada. We got through it better than anyone else, emerged stronger, our banks stayed together. And then ultimately, kind of slightly bizarrely, I was asked to become governor of the bank of England. So I became the first foreigners bank of England. And I did that through the period of the Brexit referendum, as it turned out, and the aftermath of that, and then came back, Canada 2020, right in the middle of COVID I think you probably had a better experience during COVID If I listening to your podcasts, if I read it correctly, that I did and then did a lot of work on climate change for the United nations sort of pro bono and organizing the financial sector to help address climate change. But also at the same time I worked for Brookfield, which is a big asset manager and I was chair of Bloomberg. And then as of the start of January I first ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party, which is one of the main parties here and winning that became Prime Minister about a month ago and now I'm running for election. We have much last point, much shorter elections than the United States. Our campaign is 37 days and we've got two weeks roughly left to go.

[Scott Galloway]

So a big friend of the POD is Ian Brenner, the geopolitical strategist and he was on the POD last week and he described you as a open quote, generational mind for Canada on the global stage. In your view, what role does Canada play on the global stage?

[Mark Carney]

So we play, I mean we play several roles. We're a member of the G7. In fact, we are chair of the G7 this year. So I'm chair of the G7. We're a member of the Commonwealth, which is the old UK grouping. We're member of the Francophone, which is the, obviously the francophone grouping of about 60 countries. So we have our role in several different, let's call it organizations, self appointed organizations or groupings. I think one of the roles we play potentially in the new or the emerging global order is partly based on our assets. We are an emerging energy superpower in all forms of energy. We're one of the largest critical mineral suppliers in the world. We're pretty good in AI. A lot of people claim that we're. But we're I think legitimately claiming that. And so we can play a role as a country that believes in open markets, open systems, believes in trade, open ideas, diversity. We can play a role with like minded countries to kind of reconstruct that bit of the international order which has been, I mean Montreal, they would say Boulevard. It's been upended in the course of more intensively in the last few months, but a process that really began with the financial crisis 15 years ago.

[Scott Galloway]

And just for our listeners, the elephant in the room is terrible. So I'm going to get to that. But I want to start with if you were to so typically in the US and I imagine the same way in Canada, when a new leader is elected, assuming you get elected, they have sort of a honeymoon period and an opportunity to get more done in their first year, more grace, more if you will, than in the next two or three years. What would you identify as the Two or three biggest issues facing Canada. And what's your agenda? If you could pick two or three things you're really going to go hard at your first year as Prime Minister. What are those things?

[Mark Carney]

As you just suggested, I'll set tariffs aside and focus in on three things. First is having free trade, actually, within Canada. We have basically 13 economies here, 10 different provinces and territories, all with their own rules. It's hard to move credentials and sometimes goods and services across the country, far harder than it should be. So a process, a very quick process of free trade. And by the way, just to put orders of magnitude on this, you know, a reasonable estimate of the economic benefit of that is bigger than the economic hit from the worst version of the Trump tariff. So we can kind of give ourselves more than others can. Second thing is we have a huge housing problem here, and particularly, obviously, for your younger Canadians. First and foremost, we need to double the rate of housing, and we need to. I won't go into all the details. I'm happy to, but we need some major reforms in order to do that. We can do it in a way that actually leverages, you know, the Canadian supply chain technology and all the lumber we potentially won't be able to send south southbound to the US and then the third thing, look, the world's fluid. I'm afraid this kind of comes towards tariffs, but I think the trading system is going to get reordered fairly quickly. And so in the course of the first year, the question is, well, who are we going to deepen our relationships with other than United States? And those relationships, last point, are both economic and security. The world's a much more dangerous and divided place. Security concerns are top of the list. So who in Europe or European Union as a whole, uk who in Asia? Where are we going to partnership? If I can say one last thing, Scott, is, you know, just being shaken so hard by what's happening in the United States. Canadians are very open to all of those priorities. People are up for big things. They're coming together and they're willing to do big things because they know they have to do big things because the world's changed so much.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, let's use that as a segue into tariffs. So I haven't checked my Apple watch in the last two minutes, so I don't know the state of things right now. My understanding, Canada's our largest trading partner. No, we tend to be obsessed with China. But you're our largest trading partner now.

[Mark Carney]

We're your most important.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, yeah. So give us the State of play. You're the man representing our largest trading partner economically as to the best of your knowledge, describe the state of play between what is happening between the US and Canada. Where does it sit at this moment?

[Mark Carney]

So I'll start with the bad news or the, as we would call the unjustified news, which is what? Tariffs are in place. Place. We have still in place today tariffs that were originally justified because of fentanyl. Fentanyl coming across the border from Canada. Just for the listeners who haven't tracked this, less than 1% of the fentanyl imported into the United States comes from Canada. In fact, you've got a sophisticated audience. So I can say things like 19 basis points of the fentanyl comes across the border from Canada. We've taken major steps to reinforce the border. Drones, helicopters, other things. And it's fallen by a further 90% over the course of the last three months. But those tariffs hit a wide range of goods in Canada. Hit a wide range of goods and there's a few carve outs for that. But you know, it's hitting hundreds of billions of good. And those are 25% tariffs from the United States. Then we are also caught, secondly, we're also caught in the steel and aluminum tariffs which are this quote, national security tariffs, so called 232 tariffs. We are the largest supplier of aluminum in the United States. States. We're one of the most important suppliers of steel to the United States. And you can roll those up into hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US depending on Canadian steel and aluminum. And then the third thing is we are caught in the auto tariffs as people probably know, but I'll just personalize it. Well, they wouldn't know this fact. There was something called the auto pack which was signed the year I was born, 60 years ago. And we have had an increasingly integrated auto system with the United States for 60 years. It got tighter with the Canada U.S. free Trade Agreement 40 years ago and then with NAFTA and the successor. So literally these companies and the supply chains, the main parts suppliers, they're virtually fully integrated. And now into the middle of this is coming 25% US tariffs which are in an industry, as you know, that has 5, 7% margins. I mean this is absolutely damaging. So we have three sets of of tariffs. We are not subject yet to the so called reciprocal tariffs in the US So the state of the relationship is strained to say the least because all of these tariffs are in violation of what you call usmca. We call Kuzma the same Trade agreement. The good news or the better news is that three weeks ago or so President Trump and I spoke and we agreed that following the Canadian election there would be the beginning of a negotiation of a new comprehensive relationship economic security. So we are in the queue, so to speak, for those discussions.

[Scott Galloway]

It strikes me that these actions are about to inspire what they envision. That is a tremendous amount of deal making. But deal making around us that it just seems logical. And this is a thesis and I want you to, to validate or nullify it. But If I'm a G7 nation and I have a trading partner that I used to be able to count on that was mutually very prosperous and now I just not only can't count on them, but have no idea who I'm waking up next to that it's incredible motivation to start establishing dialogue with other nations is respond to that thesis. Is Canada aggressively and actively trying to reroute around America right now?

[Mark Carney]

Well, I would say, you know, trade is a world of. And so you know, it's a, it's a positive sum game as you know, both side, you do it right, both sides win. It's not a zero sum game. So I might not choose the phrase around America but obviously, you know, look, if we're, if we've got excess capacity or we have things we're going to develop for. I'll use the example of critical minerals where we're a big player. Who are, with whom are we going to, to trade? Who can we rely on? You know, we're sitting here, we supply 70% of the potash to the United States. You know, one of the most important components of fertilizer, 70%. And there is a 25% tariff being put on potash. So when you think about it, well, geez, maybe I might want to take another, I'll call it a commodity. Even though critical metals and minerals are more than that. If we're going to develop those, maybe we want to, to develop them with a supply chain to someone who's not going to slap a tariff like that on. So that invalidating your thesis, we have begun to intensify discussions with other countries, other trading blocs. We have a pretty good set of trade deals in place. We have a free trade deal with Europe, we have free trade. We're part of what was called the Trans Pacific Partnership in Asia. So we have a number of those. But we're looking to reinforce them. And look, look, we are hopeful. Maybe hopeful isn't the right word, but we're open to open is A better way to put it to a restart of the US Trading relationship, provided there's willingness on the other side and we can come to one of those positive sum deals.

[Scott Galloway]

So I would imagine you speak to a lot of other G7 leaders or G20 leaders. What's the general consensus around American leadership right now? And I realize that you have more restraint and are a bit more or tangibly nor diplomatic, but what is the thesis among this group of world leaders around what is going on here? How do they explain it? How do you explain it to each other? Or can you explain it to each other? Because quite frankly, here in the US a lot of this doesn't even make sense to us and this is our leadership.

[Mark Carney]

Well, I think the first thing is to recognize, as I have said and a number of those other leaders have said, including G7 leaders, is that the system as we knew it is over when the anchor of the system has done a series of measures that the US has done, but also set out a series of objectives. And I'll come back to that. But set out a series of objectives that are just inconsistent with the way the system has been operating for, for decades. Right. Basically since the fall of the Berlin Wall, intensified since then. So you recognize that that system anchored on the US Is over. That then leads to how do you react to it? There's partly the negotiation with the US in which you've been focused on, but then it's also how do we deal with each other, which we've also touched on in terms of what the US Is trying to accomplish. I think it's, you know, I take, go back to Peter Thiel of 10 years ago saying take Donald Trump literally and seriously, but take him literally and seriously. And you know, they're looking to, to balance where to the extent possible, to balance trade, which is not the way we think about things, but is the way the US Thinks about things. And you know, you do get into odd situations like Canada, where we actually run a. America has a trade surplus with Canada in goods. The only reason there's an overall deficit with Canada is because of basically oil imports. Well, if you don't want our oil imports, that will be a bit of a problem for a period of time because, you know, the only other option for the refineries that take Canadian oil is Venezuela. And that's, you know, they've just banned those, those imports as well. So there, it's not, the logic isn't entirely consistent, let's put it that way. But I think at the core, recognizing this Desire for more balanced trade. And so from the US Administration question I think in our mind is there are some industries, autos, particularly aerospace would have another element of this and then a number of commodity. There are a couple industries that are so integrated that it's hard to see why for US competitiveness, let alone North American competitiveness, it makes sense to pull them apart. That would be our argument. And then there's other industries, forest products, steel, aluminum as three big examples where we're agriculture. Potash. I gave that example. Nicol, I could go on. Where we're such huge suppliers and such a safe, secure supplier. Again, it doesn't really to us make sense that that would be displaced or tariffed. So you know, we've seen that the trade policy is evolving as some of these choke points become more evident and I suspect we will see more. Maybe I'll say one other thing if I could, which is it strikes me a bit in the consistencies of U.S. policy is a desire to have some minimum tariff if possible, which has a revenue raising element to it. And I think tied into U.S. tax policy that is also a possibility here.

[Scott Galloway]

My understanding is about 99% of our trade is tariff free and that 1% is around things like dairy. Haven't we largely been kind of a trade free zone between Canada and the US today?

[Mark Carney]

Yeah, yeah, we have. And then we have, you know, like any trading partners, you get the odd trade irritant and you know, trade dispute, but we have processes to deal with those. And so we had a, you know, we have ongoing things around forest products, sometimes steel and aluminum and, and that's handled. But yeah, trade is basically tariff free. And when it's your biggest trading partner, pulling that apart is quite costly. It's costly for both from a Canadian perspective. And I'm out on the road, I'm running for office, I'm talking to lots of Canadians up and down. There is a very strong sense of yeah, this is going to cost us, but we are willing to take the price to restructure our economy in a different direction. Like it's been such a sense of, I mean the word that's used is betrayal. So you know, we signed a deal, we've had this partnership, we observe it in good faith, we set up businesses, we, you know, we know lots of American, we like Americans, we listen to American podcasts. You know, there's such a thing. And all of a sudden, you know, we get these, you know, these attacks is, which is the way this is viewed is okay, so it's going to cost us for a period of time and we'll build out and build with others.

[Scott Galloway]

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[Mark Carney]

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[Mark Carney]

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[Scott Galloway]

You were the first non Brit to serve to run the bank of England. You're sort of the Bo Jackson of like global economic leadership. I've compared this and it might be a crude analogy but I want you to add some color or fill in the blanks here. I've described these tariffs as the biggest own goal since Brexit. What similarities do you see and how does that inform a how you respond to this and b what you think ultimately the outcome is?

[Mark Carney]

Well, I think there are a lot of similarities and it starts with the economics of what's happening.

[Scott Galloway]

Actually briefly describe Brexit because just give us the headline news on Brexit.

[Mark Carney]

So the headline on Brexit is for a variety of reasons and many of them not to do with economics, although it was sold as an economic win. But a lot of People because of reasons of identity and others voted in 2018, if I'll get my dates right. 2016, I guess no for the UK to leave the European Union. And the UK was even more tightly bound in trade and economic relationships with the European Union than Canada is with the United States, including free movement of labor, easy movement of capital, huge trade going both ways. And you never had to get your product, if your product met the product standard in the uk, didn't have to worry about it, you could sell to any country in Europe. And so the decision taken, as I say, for a variety of reasons, narrowly, but taken to leave the European Union. And I remember when it happened in our view at the time, and remember this was during a period where, where interest rates were at rock bottom, inflation was too low, people were worried about deflation, blah, blah. Our view was, okay, what's going to happen is the economy's going to slow, unemployment's going to go up, inflation's going to go up, and we at the bank of England are going to have to raise interest rates when this happens. And by the way, the currency will also go down. The currency went down by 20, 25%. It's still on the floor relative to where it was still on the floor because you had a big negative trade shock, a big loss of wealth, wealth, basically future wealth. And the currency market priced it first. And exactly what we expected to happen happened. I mean, it happened to happen roughly at the same time as Covid was finishing. But you had a big, again, I'm relying on your audience, a big negative supply shock to the economy because you ripped up trading relationships and the productive capacity went down relative to where demand was. So that was inflationary and combination of that meant UK rates are higher and it's got a bigger inflation problem. It has. And other economies, when you look at what's happening in the US the friction put into its trading relationships is going to cause the same thing. It is going to slow the rate of growth of that economy. It is going to affect the dollar. It has affected the dollar negatively, as we've seen. It's going to push up prices on the margin. And so slower economy, higher inflation, higher interest rates, all things being equal now, now there's a big caveat with what I did, or there's a qualifier is a better way to put it. The UK was a much more open economy, much more dependent on Europe. The US is more of a closed economy. It depends on the world, but it's different orders of magnitude. So it's same direction, different Orders of magnitude. So I think there are a lot of parallels here and I guess maybe the other parallel, if I can add one more, which remains to be seen, but the UK I would say, and I'll get hate mail from uk, some UK listeners, but I would say based on the polling, it's pretty well understood that the economic impact of Brexit has been negative in the uk. Let's say two thirds of the people now understand that. But the path back to being closer to Europe is very difficult politically. It's hard to rebuild that consensus. They move very slowly. And you think about, about the situation in the world right now for the uk, boy, there's a lot of logic being closer to Europe from trade perspective and even from a security perspective, they built this sort of what's called a coalition of the willing with respect to Ukraine because the US is pulling back from support for Ukraine, by the way, Canada has stepped up and is part of that largely European coalition of the willing alongside Australia. So there's a logic to going back to that, but it's hard to go back once you've broken up these relationships. So the next 612 months, in my judgment, are going to be quite important for the United States and for the global trading system. Because the question is, okay, we understand that there is a big change, a big break with the old system, but how much of a break is it going to be? And is there going to be a relatively open trading system for, or I'm using quotations here for those listening, like minded countries, broadly like minded countries. You know, I think of the G7 as being pretty like minded countries, not surprisingly. You know, we value liberty, free speech, open markets in general. So are we going to have a relatively open system amongst ourselves or is it only going to be with a few countries or is it going to be with no countries? I mean, that's kind of what to play for here and, but the system won't revert to what it was previously.

[Scott Galloway]

When we're talking about these tariffs, there's a general sense that, or Alyssa, a talk track from the Trump administration that the US has been taken advantage of by its trading partners, including Canada, that they've just got the better end of the deal and that tariffs will help restore some sort of parity or equity in the relationship. Respond to that.

[Mark Carney]

Well, I, I mean, we don't, obviously we don't see it, we don't see it in the following respects because really, again, the way the Trump administration is defined being, quote, taken advantage of is do you run a Trade deficit. And we can argue about that definition. I wouldn't. If I lead on my economic training and my experience, I would say, well, that isn't being taken advantage of is it's mutual exchange. But the US Runs the surplus with us, the US sells more. If anyone's being taken advantage of, we're being taken advantage of. Right. Because I mean by that definition, and the only place where they run a deficit is yes, we do ship oil to the United States. Now we happen to ship oil to the United States at a big discount to global prices. So we're being taken advantage of again on that definition on the, on the goods trade side. And we're getting taken advantage because we're selling oil at below good prices. So we, you know, we, we want our money back. No, we don't. Where we still see the broader benefits of the relationship. And you know, I don't think that I'll go back to the auto sector. It's not going to feel taken advantage of as if, if these tariffs stay in place and you know, as you say, you got to check your, your, your phone every once in a while just to see where things stand. There's a possible exemption on the auto parts side that's coming in in the United States, which we would have said. Right. Well, we did say right from the start would have to happen because the whole system will grind to a halt without it. So some of the mutual advantages will become more, are becoming more apparent and hopefully the US Administration can continue to be nimble.

[Scott Galloway]

My understanding is that you ship us cheap energy or cheap oil, you're obviously a very resource abundant nation. We apply our IP and refining capability and then we sell it at three times the cost. It sounds like it's been pretty mutually beneficial.

[Mark Carney]

Yep. No, that's absolutely right.

[Scott Galloway]

How do you see this playing out? If you were tempted to speculate what the relationship is around global trade and tariffs on a macro level, and then specifically with Canada and the U.S. when you try to plan an economy similar to where the CEO tries to plan a business, what are you expecting? You have to do scenario planning. Nobody knows. But what do you think are the most likely scenarios for how this plays out? Because I mean this sincerely, Prime Minister, we're all befuddled by this. The majority of people who understand economics are having a difficult time seeing how this is a big win for the US we're having a difficult time understanding how we win here. Maybe more people come to the table. They claim there's 75 nations lining up to cut deals with them. Is that the sense you get that nations are lining up to cut a deal with us right now?

[Mark Carney]

Well, short answer, I don't know on that second question, there's a few things that happen here. One is that there's a risk premium in US assets that wasn't there before. And the question is how big is that risk premium going to sell and where is it going to settle? And that in part is going to depend on how coherent the new system is. And does the US credibly commit to a new system or a series of deals? Remember we have a trading deal with the US that was signed by the current president which isn't being observed. So I think that's one thing is there's a risk premium on US assets and if there's a risk premium on US assets, then the cost of all other assets around the world is greater since we're still priced off of US Treasuries, for example. So that's one thing I think. Second is I do believe that there are a series of, of like minded countries. We very much like the US to be part of that group, but like minded countries who will develop deeper trading and security relationships as a consequence of this. It's the world of second best. It's not what we would all want, but it's the logical thing to do. Third thing that's going to happen is that there is going to be much greater focus, and I know this for a fact. Well, this will be a fact if my party is successful in the elections. A much greater focus on domestic drivers of domestic demand. So building at home, building big infrastructure, building millions of houses, building out our own economies, more domestic procurement. Right. In a world where we've got excess steel and aluminum capacity, which we will if the US doesn't change on trade, well, guess who steel and aluminum we're going to buy for a variety of things. Guess what? Defense procurement we're going to do. Right now we spend about 75% of our defense dollars go to the United States. That, you know, doesn't make a lot of sense if we settle out in a, in a more arm's length relationship with the US and that's true if it's true for us, it's true for Europe, it's true for the UK and so we'll all move more domestic and more with each other and the degree to which that happens. So this is a world just to be clear and you, I think you intuitively understand what you get this from the start. We got a world where we have higher risk premia. Right. Cost of capital is more expensive. And we've got a world where people are doing second best things, countries are doing second best things. So it's a world that's more expensive and it's more. It's not autarchic, to use a fancy word like it's not totally in and of yourself, but it's. You're putting much greater emphasis on taking care of yourself. We'll do that and we'll do it with like minded countries and move forward.

[Scott Galloway]

The surveys I've Read said that 2/3 of Americans still think of Canada as an ally. We're sort of like, oh, you know, Trump let boys will be boys. We still love Canadians. But 2/3 plus of Canadians no longer see the US as an ally. I mean, quite frankly, it feels like Canadians are just pissed off that they feel the term used was betrayed and that even if we're able to establish, go back to normal, hasn't the knife, you know, isn't it. The knife gets pulled halfway out of the back. But this injury takes years or decades to fail. I mean, what is the vibe, if you will, around how Canadians feel about Americans and how long do you think it takes us to repair this relationship?

[Mark Carney]

I certainly recognize those figures. There is a feeling here that it's the actions of the US there's several things. One is the trade actions. Secondly was this long period, and I'm not going to repeat the phrases that were used, but these threats to our sovereignty, our very sovereignty, which kind of unique. There's us in Denmark who've suffered actual threats to sovereignty. I guess Panama, we roll ourselves in with that. And that's, you know, on your hierarchy of betrayals, threatening somebody else's sovereignty is pretty much the top. I guess the top is acting on that threat. So that's all mixed in, I think. Secondly, what has been striking has been the relatively muted response in the broader U.S. to these steps.

[Scott Galloway]

Right.

[Mark Carney]

You know, the CEO class, if I can put it that way, the other major influencers, stakeholders and the, that's changing a bit. But it was pretty quiet for a long period of time. So, you know, and when you look at that from this side of the border, you think, oh, okay, well this is more deeply held or the friendship is less firmly rooted. It's like any relationship, I think if it's when you have a loss of trust, it, you know, it can be repaired to a degree. It takes a period of time and it takes action to repair. Right. But you know, it's more than more than fine words. I, I think that that action can start with in May. The prime minister of Canada at that point will meet with with President Trump. I want to be the prime minister of Canada at that point. I'm working hard to get there. But. And they'll sit down and start a process of redefining that relationship and building trust out from that.

[Scott Galloway]

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[Mark Carney]

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[Scott Galloway]

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[Scott Galloway]

You we're back with more from Prime Minister Carney. So just as a means of not or taking advantage of the fact that we have you on this podcast, we have real problems in the US around income inequality. For the first time in our nation's history, a 30 year old isn't doing as well as his or her parents was at 30. Tremendous polarization. Politically, people just don't like each other. I mean, I would argue that comparatively the nation's actually done quite well. But what ails us, the call is coming from inside of the house. We don't like each other. Within America, you're asked to be a journeyman and come be Treasury Secretary or head of the Fed. What policy plans do you think the US should adopt? And then I want to use that as a jumping off point to what are the biggest economic challenges that Canada faces and how you plan to address them?

[Mark Carney]

Well, I think the. Okay, you go to the heart of. I mean, that's a big, big question. I guess the way I look at it as follows. I'm going to come at this from an odd angle maybe, but when I look at what's going to drive economic prosperity, productivity growth for the next 25 years, what are the big drivers of that? I put down three big drivers. AI, no insight. I put at the top of the list probably the life sciences revolution where I'm less expert. And I would put carbon. I would put drive towards lower carbon. The US has taken a step back from that for the moment, but it's going to come back because the underlying issues around are there. And so, okay, if those are some of the big things that are going to drive economies going forward and the US can have mastery in all of those. But the question is how broadly that's going to be shared within the US across various social strata and how ready people are going to be to take advantage of it. Right. So is AI going to be purely an elite or largely an elite operation? Or is AI going to be used to train a lot of people to do a number of things? I mean, I know that sounds very Panglossian or techno optimistic, but the question is whether it's a deliberate policy that's steered by the federal and local governments in a way that are going to ensure that in Appalachia you're learning skills that are consistent with that and, or the energy transition over time. It's not a term that's used anymore in the US as far as I can tell. But it will come back if I can flip it back. Scott, to us, we have the same set of issues or set of drivers. Those are global drivers. On top of that, we have a series of things, such as I mentioned, critical minerals. We have large conventional energy. So how are we balancing all that in a way that builds the jobs as we move out? One of the things, I'll say two other things which are related but distinct. We gotta sort out our housing issues in this country. We have a massive economic, we have an absolute social need, but we have a massive economic opportunity to create a new industry, new way of building houses at scale and driving that, and we're going to shoot on that. And I guess the last thing I'D say which, which candidly worries me a bit about the United States and gives me greater comfort or strength in Canada is a word I'm not sure you like to use anymore, which is around diversity. We have a huge, huge opportunity here because we're one of the most diverse countries in the world. We value diversity. You have a very strong sense of equal rights. In a broad sense, we can be a magnet for talent. And as the US Is pushing out brains, if you will, and you know, it's quite a hostile environment in the academic world in the United States now, we can take advantage of that and then that cascades down through, you know, the AI revolution, life sciences, other, other elements, podcasters, creative class. Scott, come up here. Whether it's now, it's now above zero.

[Scott Galloway]

Creative is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Prime Minister so the look, you have a housing crisis. We have a housing crisis. And it seems like leaders have agreed that it's a crisis. For the last 10 years, I read that housing in Vancouver as a percentage of the average salary is the third most expensive city in the world and that so much of it is in zoning and NIMBYism and the previous prime minister, they wanted to address the housing crisis. What's the friction point? Point? Is it capital? Is it labor? Is it zoning? What is different about what you're proposing that is going to register any more progress than previous administrations?

[Mark Carney]

So it's all of the above. And so you attack it in a comprehensive way. I'm going to simplify in terms of restriction, zoning, development charges. And we work at multiple levels of government. It's part of the reason why those costs are there. They come from the municipal side. And so in effect, we put up a bunch of money, just put up a bunch of money to commit to cut the development charges in half. Okay? So that, and that's subject to a series of other restrictions being removed. But we will, we at the federal level will, will pay for that to, to be cut in half. The second thing, I mean, we believe very strongly that productivity for in the Canadian housing sector, construction sector basically is flatlined for the last 20 years.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay?

[Mark Carney]

We're still building houses like we did before. And given the scale of what we need to do, you know, we got to move much more rapidly, particularly in urban density and other things. So, you know, modular prefab housing, mass timber, other innovations that are there, they exist. And so one of the things we're going to do to kickstart that industry, and this is Canada's not the United States, we have a different attitude toward these things. We have a problem with deeply affordable housing. Right. Social, certain countries, you might call them social housing. We just have not built that for decades basically, in effect. And so we need to catch up. And so what we're doing, part of what we're doing is we're going to build huge amount at that level and set the specs, if you will, for that. We're going to build and we're going to build on our balance sheet as a developer and we'll set the specs for that, which drive the industry upstream in prefab mass timber, et cetera, which gets the economies to scale there. But by and large we will rely on private sector build. We'll make a bunch of land available, we'll make cheap capital. 25 billion for developers in this case, which is bigger money up here, cut those development charges in half, drive that and then we will give tax breaks to people buying their first time home. So basically they're getting 5% off their first, first, first time home. Which, you know, from a down payment perspective starts, starts to add up. So attacking it both on the supply demand side, the way we look at it is this is generational, like the scale of the problem is generational such that we are building out a huge pipeline of apprentices in the skilled trades. And one of the core messages I give virtually every time I speak, so I'm going to do it now is this is going to be a great time time for a career in the skilled trades in Canada. Because we're going to build for the next 25, 30 years. We are going to add, if we get this right and we intend to three to four points of GDP of investment. That's a huge number, right? It's possible. We used to invest at that scale relative to GDP in the early 70s. We can do it again, we can finance it. We got all the pension funds, we've got lots of money to finance it, but we need to kickstart it. And of course it's housing. We start with housing. It's not just housing, it's energy, it's other elements, but that's what we're going to do. So we want to get young people into the skilled trades at scale. We're going to pay for all their apprenticeships, we're going to work with the unions to pull them through. We're adding a bunch of capacity at post secondary education so they can get these trades at a scale. So we're getting the hundreds of thousands which again in The US doesn't seem like a lot, but in Canada these are big numbers.

[Scott Galloway]

Let's talk a little bit about climate and energy. You've evolved from being a climate finance advocate to scrapping the consumer carbon tax and calling for Canada to be an energy superpower. How have your views changed on this?

[Mark Carney]

I wouldn't say my views have changed, to be honest. So I mean it's very results oriented. So the consumer carbon tax in Canada was responsible for about 6% of our emissions reductions. So 94% of the work was being done elsewhere. Now it sent a signal to households, but it, it, it just wasn't that important. But it was quite divisive because people, you know, viewed it as a tax and they, they saw the tax with the tax, they didn't all give credit to the rebates that they were getting. So it politically was unhelpful, was undercutting the overall message. So we got rid of that a few months ago was the first thing I did actually when I got into office. But what we are doing is making sure that the carbon market for large emitters works well and large emitters work well. And as a consequence of that, we're getting them in effect to pay people for this is what will happen if we're elected to pay people for driving EVs, retrofitting their homes, the other climate smart choices. And then on top of that, there is a big element, big IRA type element to our climate strategy, investment tax credits and others. So we're looking basically and having reasonable success with this where we're putting out a dollar federally and we're getting $4 to $5 of private investment on top of that. And what's really relevant to us, aside from caring about the climate and people up here do care about the climate as a whole, is that we think that this is going to be a fundamental driver of competitiveness. And if you look at who we're going to be trading with more over time, Europeans, the Brits, others, guess what, they care about this. In fact, as you know, carbon border adjustment mechanism is coming into in Europe. And so we take a view that, okay, we've got to do this medium long term for competitiveness because that's where the world's going. Secondly, the Europeans and others are going to want us to do this. Thirdly, actually, we've got a lot of the technology. So part of being an energy superpower is around small modular reactors. I mean, we're big hydropower, we're decent on hydrogen, we could get better carbon capture and Storage, all these things we can do. And I guess the last point which goes back to the US is right now, and I'm going to grossly generalize. The U.S. doesn't care about climate. Six months ago it cared about climate. Guess what? You're going to care about climate again down the road. And when you care about climate down the road again, we want to be in a position where we're much more competitive and maybe have leapfrogged a number of US companies.

[Scott Galloway]

So I just want to do a quick lightning round advice to your 25 year old self. You got 10, 15 seconds with your 25 year old self. What would you say to yourself?

[Mark Carney]

Relax and stay focused on what you like. I mean, I've probably spent more time doing things I didn't really love than I should.

[Scott Galloway]

You got a chance to go back and meet with someone who you've lost or who's no longer around. Who would that person be and what would you say to them?

[Mark Carney]

Well, I think with I, you know, be my, be my father, I'd say I love him.

[Scott Galloway]

You're at the end of your life, not going to walk on the beach again, not going to get to hang out with your wife, your kids. What does success look like for you when you, when you look back, what is the box you want to have checked?

[Mark Carney]

I think strongly the answer to that is that you're proud of the values of your children and people who worked with you. I mean, I think that is the only real legacy, the extent to which you have influenced how others treat others in the world and how they react in the world. I wrote a book and that was the conclusion of.

[Scott Galloway]

Mark Carney is Canada's 24th prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party. Sworn in this March. As an economist, Prime Minister Carney steered the bank of Canada through the financial crisis and later became the first non Brit to run the bank of England. Between those roles, he served as UN Special Envoy to Climate Action Finance and as Vice Chair of Brookfield Asset Management. I trust a lot of Canadians are listening and I feel comfortable speaking for a lot of people. And that is Americans understand the largest undefended border in the world is the U.S. canadian border. That's for a reason. I love that question that Warren Buffett's friend was a Holocaust survivor said. The way I judge my friends is I asked one question. Who would hide me? A lot of Americans remember that Canadians hit Americans in the Iran hostage crisis. And I hope that your listeners and your voters recognize there is a huge swath of Americans that think of you not as. Not even as a friend, but as siblings. And that we hope and are committed to maintaining what is arguably one of the strongest alliances in history. That I don't want to say don't take what's going on seriously. You have to. But there are a lot of Americans down here who are brothers and sisters in arms in Canada. We really do think of you as. As a sibling.

[Mark Carney]

Thank you, Scott.

[Scott Galloway]

Odds of happiness. Porn. It's something there's not a lot of research on because no one wants to be known as the porn professor. I spoke with Dr. Anna Lemke, I believe, on this podcast, and it strikes me I'm meeting more and more people who have. Are struggling with an addiction to porn. And what I would suggest is to tell people not to engage in porn is a little bit unrealistic. That's like telling someone to go stop drinking. Which my doctor told me when I had high blood pressure a few months ago. And I'm like, yeah, that's going to happen. I'll reduce my drinking. Why don't we stop there? Anyways, it's not about my high blood pressure, which by the way, is under control now. Know that's good news. Hard to imagine me with high blood pressure at the age of 40, 60. Anyways, I think sexual desire and that want and that hunger, if channeled correctly, can make you a much better man. And the last thing you want to do is reduce that fire and that hunger. And that is wanting to mate, wanting to be attractive, such that you can find a partner to have a relationship and ultimately possibly have sex with. I think if channeled correctly, and it usually, in my opinion, usually is channeled correctly, can make you want to be and become a better man. And so anything that dampens those fires, whether it's additional porn consumption or depression, that's just a bad idea. Because life is about taking risks and because women pay a much greater downside or have much greater downside risk from sex, specifically pregnancy, than men. I mean, they're in it for 25 years. If they get pregnant, we're in it for at least seven seconds, right? And I'm not suggesting anyone engage in male abandonment, but the downside risks for women are just much greater. So as a result, they have a much finer filter, meaning they are choosier than men. Okay, fine. But there's an upside to that, and that is if you want to have a relationship with somebody, it forces you or inspires you to be a better man. Maybe you work out a little bit more Maybe you have a plan. You articulate a plan around economic viability. Maybe you learn how to op. Open. You learn how to take risks. The most frightening piece of data I've seen recently is that 51% of men 18 to 24 have never asked a woman out in person. That is so upsetting for me. I think a lot of the skills you develop and the characteristics you develop around trying to find a mate make you a better man across a number of dimensions. You develop a sense of resilience. If you want to ask a lot of women out, get used to rejecting. And if you want to be successful in the world of mating, much less professionally, get used to rejection. That is a skill. Learn how to talk to strangers. Learn how to open. Learn how to smell nice. Learn how to not have bad breath. Learn how to groom yourself. Be able to articulate a plan for why you might someday be able to take care of children. Show that you're disciplined and you work out, which means you show up. These things make you a better, better man. And anything that reduces the hunger, the desire, the drive, the fire to make you a better man, you want to modulate it. In sum, I'm not going to tell you not to consume porn, but, my brothers, you want that fire to stay alive. I think a big part of the reason I graduated from college, quite frankly, is I used to go on campus every day because I wanted to see my friends at north campus, ucla. And also there was a non zero probability that I might meet someone that ultimately I might have a romantic relationship with. And that was very motivating. And had I had on demand porn on my phone and my computer, I don't know if I would have gone on campus as much. And with a 2.27 GPA, it wouldn't have taken a lot of less campus presence for me not to have graduated from college. So what's the bottom line? Porn. Okay. But modulate that fire. That desire can be channeled and should be channeled into making you a better man. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Shalon. Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prophet POD from the Vox Media podcast network. We will catch you on Saturday for no mercy, no malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prophet G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.