The unlikely Conservative ‘pit bull’ of Parliament
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
178.47882
Summary
Melissa Lansman joins me from her office in Ottawa to talk about what it's like to be a Conservative MP, how she got her start in politics, and how she became one of the go-to people for the Conservative Party of Canada in Question Period.
Transcript
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$1.83. Canadian households now owe $1.83 for every dollar of disposable income they have.
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That's what Stats Canada says. The amount that Canadians owe got higher while the value of their
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assets declined. And with the bank's seventh consecutive rate hike this year, even the bank
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governor said the deficits are increasing inflation. That in turn leads to those higher
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interest rates. So now Canadians are stuck with the biggest bills they've ever seen. The more this
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government spends, the more things cost. So when will the Liberals stop making Canadians pay for
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their wasteful spending? If you follow federal politics in any way, shape or form, if you're
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one of those hardcore people that watches Question Period every day, even if you only follow it on
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social media, that voice you just heard will be a familiar one. Melissa Lansman was first elected
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in the 2021 federal election. It might seem like a meteoric rise for her to be one of the go-to
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people for the Conservative Party to turn to in Question Period. But if you've been following her
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career for a while, if you've known her, then it's been a slow, progressive move up the chain.
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Hi, my name is Brian Lilly. I'm the guest host for Full Comment this week. And we're joined by
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Melissa Lansman, who went from political staffer to private sector guru of sorts to now MP. She joins
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me from her office in Ottawa. Melissa, thank you for the time. It's good to be here. So let's talk
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about this. You have become kind of the pit bull, for lack of a better term. It's a role that many have
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held, including your current leader in the past. You seem to be the person that the party turns to.
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Tell us about your official role, and then what you're doing and asking. You know, what is your
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official critic's role? But what are you spending your time on when holding the Trudeau government's
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feet to the fire? Well, I think I'll take that as a compliment. If pit bull goes, if I understand
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pit bull in the same way that you do. Look, I was honored to be chosen in this, since the election
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of the new leader, as the deputy leader, as one of two deputy leaders. And you're right, I play a role
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in the House. I play a role in different committees. And I play a role in holding the government to
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account and being the voice of, frankly, I think a lot of Canadians who feel like their voice isn't
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being heard with this government. So I get to be the understudy with my friend, Tim Uppel, who's
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an experienced parliamentarian, who's been a minister, who takes on some of the outreach role.
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And I get to do what I think I do pretty well in the House of Commons and beyond.
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How did you get here? You know, for people in the Toronto area, they may know you from media appearances,
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from your time hosting a talk show on US Talk 1010, where, hey, roles are reversed. I was a guest
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on your show. Now I get to be the host. But how did you get here? I first met you more years than
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either one of us would like to admit, when you were a younger political staffer. But how did you get
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into politics to where you are now? Take us through a bit of your backstory, in terms of why politics?
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Why the conservatives? For sure. Look, I play the millennial on TV, so we won't talk about how long
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we've known each other. But in politics, I'd always had one foot in the door of politics. And I was
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interested in it as a young person, even dating back to high school, where I walked into a campaign
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office, met some of my best friends until today, some of the, you know, our mutual friends on that
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first campaign. I think I was 14 or 15 years old. And I kind of never left. I did other things. I
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worked in the private sector. I, you know, I was planning on going through school and going through
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law school and pursuing an academic career. And I just couldn't stay away. So part of it was
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volunteering, part of it was being a being a staffer. Then I got into the the commentary part
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of it. Somebody was crazy enough to give me a radio show where you and I can banter for an hour on on
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Sunday nights. And I'd always, I'd always had a foot in politics, no matter what I did. And I knew that
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when the opportunity came around, that I couldn't pass it up to try and serve the community that I came
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from. You sound a bit like Pacino in Godfather three, just when I thought I was out, they pull
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me back in, like it's got you. And you can't let it go. That that's a pretty common thing for a lot
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of politicos, isn't it? It's a pretty common thing for I think anybody that, you know, that thinks they
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might have some of the answers, they might have some of the solutions, and is willing to, to work hard
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for, I think, in my case, a constituency that I feel is ignored, a constituency that I feel frankly
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is, is, is outright diminished in terms of importance by the government of, of the day.
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And I thought that, hey, rather than slinging mud and, and, and complaining, I was going to roll my
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sleeves up and, and get dirty and, and try to speak up again, for those who I don't think are being
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heard. Are you talking about the Jewish community of Thornhill? Because Thornhill is one of the
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largest Jewish communities. It's not the only group within there. But look, it's, I think it's a, it's a,
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it's a big part of, of who I am in the community that I come from. But it's any religious community
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anywhere in, in this country, it's any middle class Canadian, anywhere in this country, it's anyone
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who has got a mortgage who is worried about paying grocery bills and, and home heating and, and gas.
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It is, it is frankly, the story of those in the 905 that have a similar story of the one that I grew
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up with, who want a better life. And I think that I'll add to the conversation there. And I think I have
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been adding to the conversation there. Why the conservatives, though? A lot of people would say,
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okay, younger woman plays the millennial on TV comes from an urban riding lesbian, like why the
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conservatives, you don't take any of the boxes for those big, bad, mean Tories who hate everyone.
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Well, I'm, I'm, this isn't a box ticking activity. This is an activity of, you know, what you believe
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and why you believe it. And first of all, I've always been a, a conservative, I believe in
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smaller government, less government, less intrusion, more responsibility. And those are the values of
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the, the conservative party. And I think more and more, we're seeing the values of a traditional
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liberal party just throw itself away to, to the left. And I don't even recognize this, this iteration
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of, of the liberal party. So not a lot of options in Canadian politics, but this one has always been
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the one that, that I've been on, that I've been inside that I've felt welcome in, and that I've
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made a home in. Let's talk about your riding though. Your family, your parents came from Russia,
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you were born here, correct? I was born here. Yeah. You were born here, Russian immigrant or Ukrainian
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immigrant parents who, you know, when left, when Russia still controlled Odessa, I believe.
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There's a large Russian population there. In addition to a large Jewish population in Thornhill,
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there's a large Chinese population in Thornhill. I believe there, you know, you border on ridings
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And in, and I'm assuming there's some of that within your area. So, I mean, there's a lot of
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ethnic, cultural, religious diversity, but also a lot of groups that are involved in the big news
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stories of the day. How does that play out within your riding right now? You know, the, the protests in
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China, the protests in Iran, the Russian and Ukrainian populations, the Jewish population with the,
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the rise in antisemitism. It, that's got to be quite the melting pot in your area.
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It is. It's actually, when you think about it, it's, it's touched by every single issue. And,
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and, and we have a large Filipino population. You know, we have a, we have a large South Asian
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community. Frankly, we, we've got a community of people that are a lot like my parents who came here
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sometimes in the seventies or in the eighties. They worked hard to get ahead. They bought their first
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home at, you know, a fraction of the price of a, of, of a home today. In my case, my dad came here
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as an uncredentialed engineer who drove a taxi to put my mom through school. The problem is, is that
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45 years later in their case, the story is not much different. The story is uncredentialed engineer
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drives Uber to maybe put wife through school. Um, we haven't, we haven't, we haven't, we haven't gone,
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um, we haven't done very much to make life easier for that immigrant story. And I always ask my dad,
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if he would do it again. Uh, he says, yes, of course, a million times over, but it's going to be
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a heck of a lot harder. So on the, you know, on the other issue that you bring up, we, we are,
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we are like sort of the center of the universe of when all of these issues, uh, come, come to pass.
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We have a large Iranian community sort of on the east side of, uh, of my, uh, of my riding. And I've
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always, I've, I've, I've always been interested, frankly, in this issue. Went to high school with,
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uh, uh, you know, with, uh, you know, as a half Jewish, half Persian kid, uh, high school. And we
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sort of understood why our parents respectively left the countries that they left. And so I was in tune
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with, with frankly, they have a very similar story of, of, of, of running from a regime that is now 43 years,
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uh, in, uh, in power that kills its own people, that kills Canadians, that intimidates our, our,
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our community. These are, these are issues, you know, the, the protests in China, the aggression in,
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uh, in, in Ukraine by Putin. These are issues that come to pass at home. Uh, and they're really,
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really connected to, to the community and they're felt by families and friends, uh, and those that
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our community absorbs of, of people wanting to come to Canada, uh, for a better life. And what
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we've got to do is we've got to make sure that we create the conditions here that each and every
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one of them, uh, can succeed rather than having frankly, that, uh, that diaspora fight, if you
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will, on the ground. Pierre Polyev, your, your leader won with a campaign that talked a lot about
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getting rid of the gatekeepers. And he talked about getting rid of the gatekeepers who stop people like
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your dad from being able to be an engineer or from being able to buy their house. Now, my parents
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came a few years earlier than yours to this country. They came in, in 68. I was born a while
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later, but they were able to buy their first house when I was about two, they, about five years into
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being here, they were able to buy their first house. That's unless you come with a lot of money,
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that doesn't happen the same way that it used to. How do we fix that? What, what, what are the
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proposals the conservatives are putting forward for not just newcomers, but everyone? I mean, how
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many of your friends do you know who have been priced out of the market? Um, or, you know, how many
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stories do you know of people who decided to sell and now they can't get back in because of the way
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things went. It is an insane situation where the cost of living doesn't keep up with what we have
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and whether it is food or even worse housing. Yeah, look, I come from, uh, from a community, a typical
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905 community, actually a little bit closer to Toronto. So the price is out of control, but there is
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nobody I know, uh, or the few exceptions, very few people I know can afford to live in the place where we
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grew up. Uh, same story, Brian, my, you know, my parents bought their home, uh, a rather large
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family, family home north of Toronto. It was about 180 grand, uh, back in the day. Uh, good, the good
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thing for them is they didn't have all of the fancy financial advisors and the, you know, the, the,
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the generous pension plans from, uh, uh, from a guy who drove a cab to went to owning small businesses.
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The equity that they have in the, you know, in the, in their home is what helped their retirement.
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But there is, frankly, there's a billboard. Um, and I, I've made a comment about this. There's a
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billboard in Toronto that I saw last year and it's trying to, you know, can't afford a home, get richer
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parents. The truth is, is that that first generation like, uh, like me, well, I don't have rich parents.
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I've got, you know, parents that worked really hard that got ahead, you know, tried to give us the
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best that they, that they could. Um, but they ain't buying me a house. Yeah. And if that's like
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me, very middle-class parents, very normal way of living. And if that's the, like, if that's the
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solution, something's got to change in, uh, in this country and it can't be, uh, an over correction
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of, of higher interest rates because of overspending that we're seeing from, from this government. It has
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to be a build, a supply side solution of, we got to get more shovels in the ground. We've got to make
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it, uh, affordable for builders to build. We've got to find them the spots to build and we've got to let
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them do it, uh, because we know that the demand is there. We just have an issue with supply and that's
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where, you know, that's where the leader talks about. That's where Pierre talks about the, the gatekeepers.
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It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in permitting and taxes for a home before you even
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spend a dollar on the building materials. That's a problem in a country with a massive landmass,
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uh, and, uh, and all of the building materials that we need in our backyard and a bunch of labor to do it.
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On the gatekeeper side of getting people into the jobs they need, um, you know, we've got a health
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crisis going on right now and you and I are in Ontario, but across the, the country, um, premieres
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trying to scramble to get people approved and not just people who were trained elsewhere, but get
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people in. We do have a guild system for a lot of professions still. It's, um, not actually about
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making sure that we've got enough people for the job. It's about keeping people out so that you keep
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control of who's in and look to a degree, you know, you, you want standards for doctors, you want
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standards for nurses. Um, but this becomes part of the ongoing issue of not enough people filling
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the jobs that, that we need. How are you guys proposing to tackle that compared to what the, the
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liberals are talking about, which doesn't seem to, they just say, let's bring in more people. Okay.
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Well, it's great if you bring in more people, but if you don't have houses for them, you don't have
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jobs. And when they get here, the jobs they were trained for before they can't do that's, that's
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no solution at all. For sure. And we're, we're lucky where we are in one of the Western countries
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that's still, uh, you know, that still puts a high importance, uh, and is really accepting of,
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of more immigration, larger numbers. Uh, but at the same time, we've got to make sure that we have
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a place to house those people, uh, that, that, uh, that come in new Canadians need a, need a place to
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go to school and use a hospital and, uh, uh, and, and raise their families. And at the same time,
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we've got to put people to work within their professions, within a scope of practice that makes
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sense. And there's lots of different pieces to that. You talked about, you know, one of the
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gatekeepers, I'll just, I'll say it out loud. What, what I think you meant is some of the unions are
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keeping out, uh, medical professionals from the profession. And you're right. We do need standards,
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but at the same time, we, we also, there's nothing that should stop a doctor who's trained
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in a place like Germany from, uh, from practicing here. Not more, you know, not more med schools.
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Perhaps they have kids in hand. Perhaps they've got, uh, you know, they've got other responsibilities.
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Med school isn't an option anymore and it shouldn't be. The same thing on nurses. We've got nurses
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that aren't practicing to, uh, to their full scope. And that's a fight between a couple of different
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unions. We've got pharmacists that can't give you something for diaper rash. We actually need every
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level of government, uh, you know, thinking about what they can do to make the system make sense for
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those who are using it. Uh, and I don't think that this is throwing standards out, uh, out of the window.
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I think it's just getting some of the, uh, the typical red tape, if you will, uh, or, or the,
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the things that we're used to doing when our population was much, uh, which much smaller out
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of the way, we've got to get those people out of the way so we can serve the population here.
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We've got a crisis and it's not just more money. That's going to fix it.
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We've heard a little bit about, or we've spoken a little bit about immigration here. And of course,
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the Trudeau government says they want to be bringing in half a million people a year.
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I am not actually sure that we have the infrastructure in place to do that. And that's
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my big concern about it, which is not an anti-immigrant stance. It's, uh, where are we
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going to house them? We've already got a housing crisis. Um, we're, you know, we, we spent years
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not building infrastructure that we need for the existing population, but do you get actual
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anti-immigrant pushback? I get some in my email. Do you get some as a, as, as an
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MPD hear from people who say, well, you know, we wouldn't have a housing crisis if we didn't
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Yeah, look, of course we, we, we hear that and I'll dismiss it as quickly as I'll dismiss
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it here. Um, I think that's, you know, I think that's Looney Tunes, uh, I, as a child
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of immigrants, as a, as a, somebody from a community of immigrants that makes our community
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go round and round, I have absolutely zero time for, for, for that sentiment, but I do get
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your concern. Uh, the good news for you, Brian, is that this government couldn't bring
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an immigrant in if they tried. If you stood in our office, if you were, if you spent a
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day in our office, the amount of people with claims that are, you know, a year long, two
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years long, three years long of trying to get families in, of trying to get sponsorship
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in, uh, it is absurd. We've got a backlog in this country of 2.8 million immigrants, uh,
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and about an hour or two of an appointment a week, trying to clear the cases that come
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into our office. So the 500, you know, the 500,000 a year, while it's a lofty goal and
00:19:02.020
one that is important to fill our workforce with what we need, uh, it is not a goal that
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this government who has lost the plot can ever achieve.
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So the, the, the one that I keep pointing to, because it, it relates to my personal story.
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My dad was a skilled tradesman when he came to this country to get a skilled trades approval
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is currently, it bounces between 47 and 48 months, four years. Who's going to wait for
00:19:29.240
Yeah. I went to my mother and I said, when you applied to come to Canada, how long did
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it take? She said, ah, it was a few months, but that was mostly because we wanted to get
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our stuff in order. They were actually approved within weeks back then. And we were taking large
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numbers in the late sixties, but perhaps not as large now, but we were still taking large
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numbers. It was weeks. And then they took a couple of months to get their affairs in order
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to move and come to the country. We, we've got an express program for investors. That's
00:20:00.540
almost two years. And I just think, why wouldn't they go somewhere else coming in? Uh, and that's
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exactly the point. I think we're going to lose some of these skilled trades. I think we're
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going to lose some of these students that, uh, that come in, uh, and study in our universities
00:20:14.840
and, uh, you know, and, and eventually hopefully become Canadians. We're going to lose those
00:20:19.820
people. In the meantime, if it does take long, there needs to be programs in place where we're
00:20:25.320
going to fund some of that education, when we're going to give, uh, you know, new Canadians and
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immigrants, uh, a little bit of a hand up. Well, uh, well, maybe they, uh, they get their
00:20:35.840
credentials in order. Maybe they upskill. Uh, we want to create bigger paychecks for people.
00:20:41.800
Uh, and doing that is, uh, you know, the job of the government is making sure that if they're in
00:20:47.100
a lower skill job, that we can put them in a medium skill job, give them the training, give them a
00:20:51.540
couple bucks in their pocket while they're doing it, uh, and then have everybody move up that ladder
00:20:56.060
so their life is more fulfilling, uh, and their paychecks are bigger. I, I'm a big fan of bigger
00:21:02.240
paychecks. I'm going to send you my boss's, uh, contact info. I'll see if you can talk to her.
00:21:07.060
Um, we'll be back in a couple of minutes, uh, with Melissa Lansman. We're going to take a break.
00:21:11.760
I do want to talk about the, the rough couple of weeks that the Trudeau government's had some
00:21:15.840
own goals. And I want to delve more into the issue of antisemitism that has broken out,
00:21:24.000
not just in this country, but elsewhere as well with Melissa Lansman. When we return.
00:21:28.020
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richer than you think. Melissa Lansman, one of the most recognizable voices and figures for the
00:22:47.560
Conservative Party in their new iteration under leader Pierre Polyev. She's deputy leader for the
00:22:53.200
party, one of his go-to's in question period. And Melissa, you've quizzed the government on a lot of
00:22:59.960
different topics. I want to ask you about them being rattled over the last week or so, last couple
00:23:06.020
of weeks, a couple of own goals. One, their gun legislation, which I don't think they realized the
00:23:12.080
anger they were going to generate by doing a massive overreach and getting hunters and New Democrats and
00:23:19.900
Bloc Québécois MPs and rural liberal MPs upset. And the whole issue of China and interference and
00:23:28.800
a contract with the RCMP with a country that is ultimately controlled by the Chinese government.
00:23:36.600
So let's start with the gun thing. They were moving along with Bill C-21 pretty handily. They seem to
00:23:43.500
have a lot of public support. And then they bring in a last-minute amendment. Were you shocked at,
00:23:53.160
one, that they did that? Two, that they seem so caught off guard? Because they've gone from saying,
00:23:59.400
you're lying, you're spreading disinformation, to we're listening, we're going to talk about things.
00:24:04.800
It was a pretty quick, you're lying to we're listening. And like you said, this was a huge
00:24:11.660
miscalculation. And you're seeing it from any rural MP, any MP that has an indigenous population.
00:24:19.500
You know, they've done something where, you know, ostensibly they could have got this through.
00:24:25.620
I don't think it does anything to actually prevent crime and shootings in a neighborhood like mine or
00:24:32.260
just south of me, but that's besides the point. And then they put this amendment in sort of a sneaky
00:24:37.840
way where I actually, you know, it boils down to, they don't talk to anyone. They don't talk to
00:24:44.340
anyone but each other. They're, you know, the cabinet that probably put this through is a bunch
00:24:49.500
of urban MPs who don't know the importance of this, who don't understand that this is, you know,
00:24:56.180
a way of life for so many Canadians that don't live in an urban center. I think they just stopped
00:25:01.900
talking to people. They were talking to activists that were, you know, anti-gun and anti-all gun.
00:25:08.820
And they stopped talking to regular people. And that's what happens. And then they got caught.
00:25:13.880
And then they lied about it. And now we're seeing a bit of a backtrack, which is, you know,
00:25:19.540
hopefully results in, in them scratching them, scratching this and starting over.
00:25:24.840
I, my guess is they're going to try and do the bare minimum in backtracking to get this through.
00:25:33.760
I, it kind of, when it was mainly just conservatives going after them on this,
00:25:40.080
though, they didn't seem to care. It was conservatives. It was columnists like myself
00:25:43.860
and others in the media. I'll grant my media colleagues fair credit on this. A lot of them,
00:25:49.920
I mean, even over at CPC, were looking and saying, this is, this is problematic. This goes after
00:25:54.740
hunting guns. And then Carey Price came out and it became a big issue in Quebec. And then they were
00:26:00.020
like, oh no, we angered Quebec. That's bad. But the, the AFN and every indigenous group coming after
00:26:06.420
them, I think was really shocking to them. Were you surprised or you heard by the time it became
00:26:13.000
public that they were moving in that direction? Well, we heard that they were moving in, certainly in
00:26:18.540
that direction. And, and it's just, you know, goes to show you that the, the, the government, this is a,
00:26:23.620
this is an announcement government. This is an Instagram government. This is a TikTok government.
00:26:27.680
They do the fancy, they do the fancy announcements. And then when it comes to, you know, actually
00:26:33.380
carrying out policy or actually getting something done, uh, that's where it's all screwed up. And we
00:26:39.440
see it on legislation like this, sort of the sneaky underhand. We don't know what we're doing. Um, we,
00:26:44.920
we've, we've overreached too. You can't get a passport. You can't immigrate here. Uh, you can't
00:26:49.940
use basic government, uh, uh, services. This is a government that loves announcements, that loves
00:26:56.080
more responsibility, that loves to take on more and actually is incapable of doing the very basics.
00:27:04.120
And I think this legislation is frankly, the biggest assault we've seen on, uh, on hunting, uh,
00:27:10.920
on hunters, on farmers, on, uh, uh, on, on indigenous trappers. Uh, and it's not about,
00:27:17.180
you know, in a community like mine, it's not about necessarily the crux of the issue, which
00:27:22.000
guns are there and which guns are not. Uh, um, although I do view this as an assault, it's
00:27:27.520
about how blatantly you lie to the public on an amendment that could just, that is open,
00:27:33.340
uh, and you can read that is on the table. We're not doing this versus, well, yes, you are.
00:27:39.380
Well, there's an old saying. I think we can say it on a podcast. Don't piss on my leg and
00:27:44.520
tell me it's raining. And that's what they were doing. You, you called them an Instagram
00:27:49.440
government and a TikTok government that they love announcements. I remember when the, uh,
00:27:57.080
the liberals were in power under Paul Martin. Um, and I was there for the environment commissioner
00:28:02.880
releasing a report. And she said that they love announcements, but they have forgotten by the
00:28:09.040
time the confetti hits the floor. And your description there reminded me of, of that you're
00:28:16.180
someone who's been in government, not as an elected official, but as a staffer and staffers
00:28:22.500
have, uh, you know, depending on the minister, depending on the government, they either have
00:28:28.580
influence, they have say, but we're, they just see how things work. You were in the Harper
00:28:35.920
government at a time when passports, I, you know, now it's forever to get a passport. Passport
00:28:40.500
Canada used to be considered one of the gold standards of the government. You got a passport
00:28:45.260
in days. They would tell you up to 10 business days. It'd show up five days later. Um, how did,
00:28:52.140
how did we get there? I mean, I don't think it's just the pandemic. Are these guys just not
00:28:57.640
interested in the day-to-day mechanics of, of how government works?
00:29:01.780
That's, that's exactly it. They're not interested in the, in the hard works. Look
00:29:05.860
on the hard work, passports aren't, uh, you know, passports aren't sexy. There's no, there's no
00:29:11.620
Instagram, uh, announcement about like, Hey, look at this shiny new passport office. Like, great.
00:29:17.080
Awesome. Uh, this is a government, you know, this is a service that I expect from my government. I pay a
00:29:21.460
lot of taxes, uh, and it is only in the news when it is a really big problem, but it's the, you know,
00:29:27.300
it's, it's the doing the hard work of, uh, uh, of government, the, the mechanics of government and
00:29:32.580
a big part of that, Brian. And I don't know when last time you were in Ottawa, but Ottawa and
00:29:38.340
downtown Ottawa is still empty. Uh, and all you've got to do is talk to any one of the MPs in this
00:29:44.360
house. It doesn't matter what party you're from, that we have trouble reaching somebody, uh, you
00:29:48.860
know, from immigration. We have trouble reaching somebody from Passport Canada. We have trouble
00:29:52.760
reaching somebody from CRA, uh, and, and kids in the background, dogs barking. Uh, those are less
00:30:00.480
productive hours. There's no question about it. And if it wasn't the case, then we wouldn't have
00:30:05.220
news story after news story about the failure to deliver the very basics for taxpayers. I was
00:30:10.880
speaking with one MP when passports were in the news much more often and, uh, people may not know,
00:30:17.900
but there is a special line for offices of MPs to be able to call to deal with passport issues. Um,
00:30:26.000
it's kind of a backdoor for you guys, right? And if you've got a hard case, you call up the
00:30:31.740
passport office. You're from one MP who said their, uh, assistant spent four and a half hours on hold
00:30:38.540
to get through on a line that used to be 10 to 15 minutes. Yeah, it's a, it's a regular occurrence.
00:30:44.500
Uh, what happens in my office and shout out to Miriam, who is a godsend when it comes to that
00:30:49.220
stuff. But, uh, it is, you know, you come in in the morning, you dial it and you just wait to sit
00:30:54.300
on hold and hopefully somebody answers, uh, that day, pile up all your cases, uh, and you try to get
00:31:00.020
as much, you know, as much out of any human that will answer the phone. And this is getting worse.
00:31:04.760
It's getting worse with, uh, with grant applications. A lot of this stuff is questionnaires. It's done
00:31:09.940
online. Uh, it's hard to explain to a robot on the other side, uh, that this case is unique,
00:31:17.580
that this case is important, that they do good work. Uh, and it's hard, it's, it becomes harder
00:31:22.120
to advocate for, uh, for your own community when they standardize this into the lowest common
00:31:27.560
denominator and the lowest level of service we've seen in a long time. I want to double back to
00:31:32.540
something I said I'd ask you about, and then we got sidetracked on, um, uh, on, on how wonderful
00:31:37.000
government services are in Ottawa. Uh, the other own goal that they had, um, look, this whole issue
00:31:45.420
of the Trudeau government in China is bizarre to me. He was asked multiple times before his big
00:31:52.200
foreign tour, um, in early November, he and Melanie Jolie asked multiple times about foreign
00:32:00.560
election interference, never denies it once, never says he wasn't briefed on it, lets us think
00:32:06.980
he caused an international incident with Chinese president, uh, Xi Jinping and, and then later
00:32:13.360
says, but nobody told me about money. So you got that. Then you've got the RCMP contract. You've got
00:32:21.000
the police stations, which really I've gone to visit them. They're, they're more intimidation stations,
00:32:26.460
um, people going out and trying to coerce, uh, the Chinese diaspora inside Canada, all of these
00:32:33.600
things going on. And then last week when it seemed like a crescendo with the RCMP contract and this
00:32:40.780
firm that's controlled by China, getting a secure communications contract with them, he turned around
00:32:47.520
and he blamed the civil servants. I mean, he sets the policy, right? Tell, tell me this is a, both an
00:32:55.100
elected official and a former political staffer. The government of the day sets the policy, the
00:33:01.040
bureaucrats follow it, don't they? For sure. I mean, the call is literally coming from inside of the
00:33:06.040
house, uh, on, uh, on this one. Uh, look, we know, um, we know that all of these issues combined was a
00:33:14.480
big reason that they put out a, uh, their Indo-Pacific strategy and it was in a total 100% about face
00:33:21.800
on China. This is a government that for the last seven years moved our countries closer together.
00:33:27.820
And then in one foul swoop in one weekend on one Sunday, by the way, during a world cup game,
00:33:33.500
when Canada was playing, they decided that they were going to get tough on China. It's complete
00:33:38.220
nonsense. There is a lot of questions and they're not questions about, you know, what the prime
00:33:43.240
minister knew and when he knew it. It's about real, uh, real questions about who in the house of
00:33:49.240
commons, uh, you know, either received money, received help, or is being infiltrated by a foreign
00:33:54.840
government. It is an incursion into our sovereignty, uh, because of those police stations. It is a
00:33:59.960
question about why have we not seen a single Chinese diplomat, uh, from Beijing, uh, either a consulate
00:34:08.400
or, or from the embassy be expelled in this country for doing what is clearly obvious. And then of
00:34:14.140
course, I don't even think they've called them in for, have they? The, the cherry, I, well, look,
00:34:18.840
we don't, we don't know that it's, uh, it's hard to get an answer out of this government. It's not
00:34:22.040
called answer period, although I'll, I'll continue to ask questions, but then, you know, cherry on top
00:34:26.820
with an RCMP, uh, getting surveillance technology from a company that literally has 23 espionage
00:34:35.980
charges in the U S against their parent company. Like if that is, you know, you can't even make this
00:34:42.620
stuff up. Uh, and, uh, again, no, no answers. And I, and I hope that Canadians are, uh, are, are becoming
00:34:49.920
attuned to this because the only way to fight this kind of intrusion, this, uh, you know, frankly,
00:34:56.780
anything from, uh, from Beijing is to shine a light on it, to make it transparent, to make sure
00:35:02.680
that they know that we know, so they can't do it again.
00:35:07.040
We'll wrap up, uh, talking about the rise of antisemitism because there's a lot of disturbing
00:35:12.900
things over the past while. And it's difficult. I, like you, you, you know, people on all sides
00:35:23.460
of the house and I don't think that they're actually anti-Semites over there on the liberal
00:35:28.820
side, but they seem not to have their antenna up when they're giving contracts to people like
00:35:35.720
Leith Maroof. Um, when MPs from all parties end up at an event, I don't know who organized
00:35:43.740
it with Holocaust deniers showing up as guests. As a Jewish woman who represents an area with
00:35:54.140
a large Jewish population, this has to hit you hard, but as an MP, as a Canadian, how disturbing
00:36:00.240
is it that this is going on? It's disturbing, frankly, that nobody cares, uh, that I sometimes
00:36:08.820
am the lone voice that raises these issues. And I shouldn't say nobody cares. It's that,
00:36:15.320
you know, nobody is bringing it to the forefront. There are, there are members of the government
00:36:21.260
who sit there, uh, in the caucus watching hundreds of thousands of dollars flow to anti-Semites.
00:36:29.560
You know, this is, it's not a mistake when it happens over and over again. It's not an
00:36:34.720
accident. It's a purposeful, uh, it's a purposeful act by some within the government that have an
00:36:41.960
outsized role and an outsized, frankly, contribution to the way in which our, uh, our, our government
00:36:49.360
is, is headed. I can't explain it any other way because there are voices against anti-Semitism
00:36:54.660
in every party, but I don't know. They've been silenced because I'm not hearing them.
00:36:58.900
Anthony Housefather, man I've known a long time, um, met him when I was working in Montreal many,
00:37:06.120
many years ago. He raised the issue of Latham-Aroof with the government months before they did
00:37:12.480
anything. There is a, a blind eye, a, a, a willingness to just look the other way, if not
00:37:21.120
outright accept this. And I was talking with Erwin Kotler recently. I interviewed him as he was
00:37:26.860
getting, uh, the Churchill award here in Toronto. Great man, great outspoken opponent of anti-Semitism.
00:37:34.460
He's beside himself over this. I was, you know, I would say the same thing. I saw him,
00:37:39.120
uh, I saw him just a week ago and he was, he, he, he just questions like, how did this all happen? And
00:37:44.700
I, you know, I jokingly like tapped him on the shoulder and, uh, I don't know what we're allowed
00:37:48.460
to say on this podcast, but Erwin, since you left, this place went to shit. Uh, and, and the truth is,
00:37:55.080
is there is people like Anthony who, who have brought this up, but it happens. It happens
00:37:59.260
consistently over and over again. And if it's not, you know, if it's not the cover-up of Latham-Aroof,
00:38:04.940
it's funding to a publication that's calling for Holocaust, that's calls the, the Holocaust a
00:38:10.200
holla hoax. Uh, and if it's not that, then it's inviting these people to rub shoulders at a reception
00:38:16.320
on Parliament Hill. And if it's not that, it's hosting a conference on International, uh, uh,
00:38:22.160
Human Rights Day, uh, with somebody who has said just the most vile things about the Jewish people.
00:38:28.760
And it just continues to happen. And we continue to bring it up and it just happens again and again.
00:38:34.160
It's not a mistake. It's a purposeful act. Michael Levitt, who was a liberal MP for a
00:38:40.600
neighboring riding of yours, um, in North of Toronto, is now CEO of the Friends of Simon
00:38:46.200
Wiesenthal Center said, it would warm the cockles of my heart if rather than having to apologize for
00:38:52.720
swanning around with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers on Parliament Hill, MPs didn't invite them
00:38:59.040
in the first place. Too much to ask? I don't think it is too much to ask.
00:39:04.160
No, and I think there is a, uh, is an unsaid reason, uh, why a principled man like Michael
00:39:10.020
Levitt doesn't sit within the liberal caucus anymore. All right. Melissa Lantzman, uh, want
00:39:15.780
to thank you for your time and we will see you in a, um, a very quiet spot in Ottawa sometime in the,
00:39:22.400
in the future, I'm sure. Uh, if not back here in Toronto, all the best. Sounds good. Take care.
00:39:28.020
Full Comment is a post-media podcast production. My name's Brian Lilly, guest host for this week.
00:39:33.560
This episode was produced by Andre Pru. The theme music is by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the
00:39:38.660
executive producer. Remember, you can subscribe to Full Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify,
00:39:43.940
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