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Wab Kinew Thinks You Should Throw Your Phone in the Garbage
Manitoba’s premier on grocery bills, Big Tech, and when governments should step in
On November 9, I sat down with Manitoba premier Wab Kinew for a fireside chat at Democracy Live in Winnipeg. The talk ranged from the Republican midterm rout to the struggling New Democratic Party to his new homelessness initiative.
Ezra Klein recently described politics as having content and texture. As the leader of the provincial NDP and Canada’s first First Nation premier, Kinew’s content is largely what you’d expect. He wants to intervene on grocery prices. He wants to build supportive housing. He wants to curb Big Tech’s power. He wants to abolish the Indian Act (okay, so that last bit is surprising). Where Kinew really distinguishes himself is by texture. He’s funny. He likes to make an argument through a story. He relishes a fight but governs as a pragmatist. All this helps Kinew cut a distinctive figure on the Canadian stage and, to some extent, internationally. He has challenged Alberta premier Danielle Smith, weighed in on debates in other provinces, and pushed back against Trump in fairly direct ways. A lot of that texture is on display in this conversation.
This is a forum on democracy. So, in keeping with today’s theme, I want to start with one of the most dramatic verdicts voters have delivered in recent memory. This is the Republican collapse during the midterms. You called it. You predicted Donald Trump would “get slaughtered in the midterms,” and you said that the reason would be because he was completely out of touch with the cost of living. What specifically were you seeing in the run-up to the vote that led you to that conclusion?
Cost of living is the number-one political issue. It usually is, at all times, but especially now. Gas here in Winnipeg was $1.80, $1.90, and the price of groceries always seems to be going up and up and up. Then, at the same time, you had the president go out and say, “Doesn’t matter. Small price to pay for the war in Iran.” Then you had his candidates at the local level say, “One less trip to Starbucks wouldn’t hurt you.” This is let-them-eat-cake territory, right? The verdict Americans delivered was slightly less austere than the one delivered to the person who originally made the cake comment. It just seemed like it was a done deal. As a politician, you typically don’t want the election to be about you. This is a precept of political thought. And yet Trump went around saying, “Act like I’m on the ballot. This election is about me.” So it seemed like a very foreseeable outcome.
His core group, including the person who’s just been appointed White House chief of staff, overestimated what they received by way of a mandate in 2024. They ran against a Democratic Party in disarray. And as a result, they assumed: “We have a mandate for white supremacy. We have a mandate for violence in the streets. We have a mandate for doing whatever we want. We have a mandate that says Donald Trump is infallible.” No, that’s not what happened. You were just running against a weak opponent, and you won by default. So the American people—credit to them—came out and said: “No, we don’t want forever wars. We don’t want people who are lying. We don’t want people militarizing police enforcement to the extent that we’ve seen under Trump’s America.”
What you think happens next, both in the United States and here in Canada?
I hope to God the Democrats choose a good candidate in 2028. But what the media has gone with is like, “Oh, Trump is done, Trumpism is over.” I think that is too reactionary. I think it will depend on what the Democrats do with the new positions they have in Congress and the governor’s office. And for us, we’re going to be there to try and work with them. Prime Minister Mark Carney has an important job to try and get the tariffs taken off. But it’s going to require a concerted effort of good people trying to push toward the public good.
Do you think the results make it easier or harder for Canadians to get a good trade deal? Part of what I’m curious about happening next in the US is, in fact, a fairly dramatic doubling down by the Trump administration. Putting Stephen Miller in, as you mentioned, is a sign that they’re ready to fight. You said at a press conference in August that a good deal is impossible with a bad person—and that bad person is going to be there for another two years. So, do you think a trade deal is more possible now, or are the odds just as bad?
A trade deal has always been possible, but I don’t think it would be in Canada’s best interest to sign a bad deal. This is the point I’ve tried to make to the prime minister and to the federal government behind the scenes for the past couple of years. Like the press conference you just quoted from—that’s why I made those comments publicly. It’s because I wanted to exert public pressure for us not to capitulate. Since Trump came to power the second time, we’ve seen how much stronger Canada is than perhaps we thought. We’ve seen how much more resilient our Canadian economy is. Unfortunately, we’ve also seen who the collaborators are.
To keep on this theme a bit longer, you’ve distinguished between the Trump administration and the American people who you described as friends and neighbours. I’m curious about whether the disruption outlasts Trump, even under a Democratic government. You said that Carney asked premiers to build an economic bridge beyond Trump. But are we just preparing to get through a presidency, or should we be preparing to live with an America that has permanently changed?
I have cousins in northern Minnesota who wear the MAGA hat and Trump clothes. I was asking this cousin of mine, “Why do you do that?” I was curious. Half of it is because he likes Trump, and the other half is because when he puts on the hat and the shirt and goes walking around,........