WARMINGTON: With 'elbows up' era over, it's wonderful time for another election

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We’re just four months removed from a federal election and Kevin O’Leary thinks it’s a wonderful time to call another one.

“Now everybody realizes that ‘elbows up’ is stupid,” said the Shark Tank star in an interview. “It’s stupid. We want trade, not ‘elbows up’ with Americans. Americans don’t hate Canadians and Canadians don’t hate Americans. That’s all BS.”

But another election? Didn’t Canada just have an election on April 28?

Yes, but that was the “elbows up” election. What is needed now, said O’Leary, is a nose-to-the-grindstone election.

Things have changed since April, when the Liberals won a minority government on a mandate of playing tough against America’s newly elected president. However, now that Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked Canada to drop their elbows in the tariff fight against President Donald Trump, one of this era’s biggest investment gurus said Carney needs a new mandate.

“Call an election to give somebody a majority mandate,” said Mr. Wonderful. “You can’t get the stuff done that has to get done. You have to be a leader with power to execute so you can go tell sovereign wealth funds we’re open for business.”

And do it now.

“One of these guys needs a majority mandate,” said O’Leary.

My first question to him was, “Call an election so soon after having close to a majority? Why would Carney and the Liberals give up power when they just got it?”

“They don’t have power,” said O’Leary adamantly. “That’s my whole point. You don’t have power as a Canadian prime minister unless you have a majority.”

He said whether Carney or Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre wins, Canada must get “one of these guys a majority.”

It’s a bold statement, but a timely one since Carney changed the tune after teaming up with comedian Mike Myers for the “elbows up” campaign. While cute, O’Leary said it was never realistic.

“The problem with all this at the end of the day is the U.S. is 71% the customer of Canadian output,” said O’Leary. “At 71%, there’s no ‘elbows up’ unless you want to plunge Canada into a massive recession.”

O’Leary said the “pragmatic” Carney is in a tough spot and had no choice but to back down on countering Trump’s tariffs, saying he is “doing the right thing” by caving.

“The things that he has to do in the next 18 months are hard to do. You need total control,” said O’Leary, adding that whoever the prime minister is they must “break down all barriers between the provinces so these pipelines can be built and the access to resources can be sold to other countries.”

He reminds us that Canada’s strength is its natural resources.

“We are the wealthiest people on Earth and so far we’ve been run by morons,” he said, adding he’s “hopeful having the idiot king (former prime minister Justin Trudeau) gone” that the new leadership will be smarter.

So what should the new approach be? As he said at Mar-a-Lago before Trump’s inauguration, making Canada and the United States a giant, unstoppable free-trade region is the move.

“Let’s just find a way to realize that we’re fighting China and Russia,” he said, adding to do that “we need data, we need power, we need water and we need soft lumber.”

What Canada and the U.S. don’t need is a trade war with each other.

“Why aren’t we just joining the economies?” he asked. “The Indigenous people of both countries have passports that let them go in and out of Canada and the United States. Why can’t other Canadians who are approved get the same thing?

“It’s a mixing of economies, not selling sovereignty.”

It has to happen fast.

“Why?” said O’Leary. “It’s because you have to win the AI (artificial intelligence) race and the only way you win the AI race is to build data centres.”

He added China is “doing this and they are using coal,” adding “they can issue a permit in 15 minutes to build something because there’s only one guy running it.”

Canada and the U.S. together, however, can beat them.

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“Canada should be No. 1 on Earth on data centres,” O’Leary said, and wealth funds will invest because the country has the “lowest-cost power on Earth in a safe democratic country.” There are 18 major tech companies who need data centres, he said, which will provide tens of thousands of engineering jobs.

That is what an election should be fought over.

“Now it’s time to go figure it out and execute on it,” said O’Leary, adding Canada should “just do it (have an election) again, take six weeks and get it over with.”

Then start counting the money.