Tap The Maple

Mark Carney says Canada’s consumer carbon tax is gone, but the legislation and machinery behind it were never completely dismantled. The federal fuel-charge rate was reduced to zero. Now, as Canada explores an unprecedented new relationship with the European Union, an uncomfortable question must be answered: could European carbon-pricing requirements help bring a consumer-facing carbon cost back?...

Mark Carney’s approval rating has reportedly reached approximately 70%, one of the highest levels ever recorded for a Canadian prime minister. But how much of that approval has Carney actually earned? His popularity may be borrowed from Donald Trump, Canadians’ patriotic response to the trade war, the collapse of Justin Trudeau and promises of economic results that have not yet arrived. Canada is...

Mark Carney and the Liberal government constantly compare Canada with the G7, but why? In Parliament, government announcements, economic speeches and press conferences, Canadians repeatedly hear that Canada has the fastest growth, lowest net debt or strongest performance in the G7. But “leading the G7” may not mean what Canadians think it means. In this episode of Tap the Maple, Bakes exposes how...

Canada’s proposed EU associate membership is being celebrated as a historic escape from American dependence, but the invitation is not what Canadians have been told. “Associate member” is not an existing status in the European Union. There are no published terms, no defined cost, no guaranteed single-market access and no explanation of which European regulations Canada could be required to follow....

Mark Carney has cut Canada’s marginal effective tax rate on new business investment from approximately 13% to 6.4%, at an estimated fiscal cost of $36 billion over five years. But the Liberal government was already boasting that Canada had the lowest effective tax rate on new investment in the G7. If Canada already offered the best tax treatment, why did Carney need to cut that rate almost in half...

Canada is racing to become an AI and data-centre powerhouse, but can Canada's electricity grids actually keep up? A proposed AI data centre in Sault Ste. Marie is seeking as much as 400 MW of electricity, while massive new Northern Ontario transmission projects are targeting roughly the same 2029 timeframe. Then the story got much bigger. Bell has announced plans that could expand its AI data-...

Mark Carney's Canada Investment Summit is being promoted as the beginning of a $1-trillion investment boom — but what happened behind the scenes raises some remarkable questions. Less than two weeks before the summit, Invest in Canada CEO Laurel Broten left more than a year before her term was scheduled to end. At the same time, questions were emerging about the agency's board governance a...

Mark Carney and the Liberal government are flooding Canadians with strategies, spending announcements, international partnerships and promises of economic transformation. But where are the documents Canadians need to verify any of it? Ottawa has not released the complete American trade offer it rejected before asking Canadians to prepare for sacrifice and economic pain. The RCMP has refused to rel...

Mark Carney says Canada's economic pivot will come at a cost. Canadians are being told to prepare for sacrifice, disruption and economic pain. Then an extraordinary interview with Diana Fox Carney arrives. The prime minister's wife openly acknowledges that her husband's position gives her access to people, conversations and opportunities that other Canadians simply don't have. She...

Something has changed in Canada, and I don't think it's for the better. The Canada-U.S. trade war has become about far more than tariffs and negotiations. Canadians are boycotting, booing, policing where other Canadians travel and what they buy, questioning one another's patriotism and increasingly treating disagreement as betrayal. So for this episode of Tap the Maple, I'm doing something differe...

Could Canada be sending Old Age Security payments to people who have already died? A viewer sent me an extraordinary allegation about OAS payments continuing overseas after recipients die, and I initially thought there was no way the numbers would support the concern. Then I started digging. Canada's Old Age Security program paid approximately $80.2 BILLION in benefits in 2024–25. According to fed...

A growing political narrative says Canadians who question Ottawa's response to Donald Trump, criticize counter-tariffs, or point to Canada's economic vulnerabilities are somehow “blaming Canada” — or worse, siding with America. I reject that completely. Donald Trump owns America's tariffs. He owns his rhetoric and his attacks on Canada. But Canadians are still entitled to ask a much bi...

Mark Carney says Canada's pivot away from the United States “will come at a cost.” But before Canadians are asked to pay that cost, there's a question nobody seems interested in asking: Did Canada exhaust the alternatives? Canada's retaliatory tariffs are now in effect, covering roughly $27.6 billion of American imports. Ottawa is simultaneously spending billions supporting Canadian wo...

Thinking about leaving Canada? The departure tax may only be the beginning. Thousands of Canadians are considering retiring abroad, becoming non-residents, keeping a Canadian property while living elsewhere, or simply wondering what their finances would look like if they left. But becoming a non-resident can affect far more than your departure-tax bill. In this episode of Tap the Maple, we dig int...

Mark Carney’s government has announced a massive $4.7 BILLION VIA Rail deal for 313 new passenger cars, proudly promoting Canadian manufacturing, nearly 700 jobs and more than $1.6 billion in economic benefits. But then I checked what other countries are paying. And that's where this announcement gets VERY interesting. Portugal recently ordered hundreds of rail cars from the SAME manufacturer,...

Canada’s tariff war is no longer just happening at the border. Companies are shutting down production, workers are facing layoffs, businesses are being squeezed and taxpayers are being asked to finance billions in government support. But what happens if the tariffs stay exactly where they are? In this episode of Tap the Maple, Bakes follows the economic consequences all the way from the factory fl...

Andrew Lawton has just been appointed Platform Lead for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada, and his new job comes at an incredibly important moment. After three Conservative by-election losses, serious questions are being asked about what's working, what's not, and what has to change before the next federal election. So I put those questions directly to Andrew. We get in...

Mark Carney's government is extending Canada's federal fuel excise tax holiday into the new year, meaning the 10-cent-per-litre federal excise tax on gasoline won't return after Labour Day as previously planned. There's just one fascinating problem with the political victory lap: Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives have been pushing for extended and expanded fuel-tax relief for...

Mark Carney’s Liberals swept all three federal by-elections, but do these results prove Canada has permanently embraced his trade strategy, or did the Liberals benefit from a perfect psychological storm? The victories in Beaches, East York, North Vancouver–Capilano and Chicoutimi–Le Fjord arrived at the height of Canada’s latest confrontation with Donald Trump. Trade negotiations had just collapse...

Is sovereignty standing up to Donald Trump at any cost? Is it tariffs, political slogans and taxpayer-funded signs across Lake Ontario? Or is real sovereignty something much more difficult? A strong economy. Secure Canadian jobs. Responsible finances. Multiple trading partners. A productive relationship with your largest customer. Strong democratic institutions. A Prime Minister willing to stand b...

Canada’s economy reportedly grew at a 3.3% annualized rate in the second quarter of 2026 — but Canada’s actual quarter-over-quarter real GDP growth was 0.8%. So what does that 3.3% GDP number really mean, and is Canada’s economy actually recovering? In this episode of Tap the Maple, Bakes digs beneath Canada's latest GDP headlines to examine the good news, the questions, and the economic reali...

CBC has now reversed course after its controversial internal guidance on how journalists should describe the September 11 terrorist attacks became public. But the reversal doesn't erase the bigger question: How did this become CBC policy in the first place? Ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, CBC journalists were reminded of longstanding guidance telling them not to independently refer to t...

Mark Carney is preparing to address the European Parliament while facing growing calls to reconvene Canada's own Parliament following the collapse of Canada-U.S. trade negotiations. But when did Carney actually receive his European invitation, and what does the timeline tell us? The answer raises some fascinating questions. Carney's European Parliament invitation predates the latest breakd...

Part 2 on why Pierre Polievre may have been the better choice for negotiations with America. (Part One Here: https://youtu.be/WUg12iTXMvI) Mexico and Canada are negotiating with the same Donald Trump — but the approaches couldn't look more different. While Canada-U.S. trade negotiations have collapsed into tariffs, retaliation and increasingly hostile rhetoric, Mexican President Claudia Sheinb...

What if Pierre Poilievre was actually better suited to negotiate with Donald Trump than Mark Carney? After Canada's trade negotiations with the United States collapsed and massive tariffs followed, it's worth examining a question few Canadians seriously considered: did Canada have the wrong negotiating personality at the table? For years, Pierre Poilievre has been criticized for being stub...