00:02:09.300But he has to find something that squares his previous slapdown with whatever he's going to do.
00:02:16.620Because right now the problem is not going away.
00:02:19.540And this is not just one of these things where the Conservatives, as His Majesty's loyal opposition,
00:02:25.020keep opposing and they keep trying to raise a stink about it and no one really cares.
00:02:28.980This is something that has legs, that is galvanizing people across the political spectrum.
00:02:34.840There are well-meaning liberals in parts of the country all over the place
00:02:39.340that are not happy with how the government is handling the China file.
00:02:43.200The NDP, as Anthony Fury and I were talking about on the Daily Brief this morning,
00:02:48.040Even the NDP is for the first time ever starting to talk about maybe wavering, maybe just a little bit, just entertaining the idea of wavering on that deal to keep the Liberals in power if they do not call a public inquiry.
00:03:04.300So I think Justin Trudeau has to be feeling a bit of a pinch on this.
00:03:07.960And I think that there is, as a result, the possibility for movement.
00:03:12.700We don't often see self-awareness from this government.
00:03:15.080we don't often see capitulations or appeasement from this government but this is just not going
00:03:20.840away and if you look at the the liberal commentariat people like gerald butch liberal
00:03:25.340columnists liberal commentators liberal members of parliament what's astonishing although maybe
00:03:31.700not all that surprising not astonishing i'll say annoying and infuriating is how hell-bent they are
00:03:37.880on this idea that there is nothing to see here that we are not supposed to be looking at this
00:03:42.300don't pay any attention pay no attention to the man behind the curtain uh even if it is
00:03:46.860xi jinping and even if he is uh pulling the strings on what's happening in some aspects
00:03:51.660of canadian politics so uh we'll talk about this in a bit more detail but i just wanted to set the
00:03:56.680stage for you that this was the backdrop against which pierre polyev and i sat down on friday for
00:04:03.560our interview and today monday parliament gets back in session the house of commons is there
00:05:32.260The question is, why isn't the NDP actually doing its job?
00:05:36.080oh yes the liberals take it oh so seriously so seriously in fact that uh justin trudeau was uh
00:05:44.720not particularly interested in showing up and answering to that now we'll see what the
00:05:49.040announcement is that comes down the pipeline at 5 15. but without further ado let me share
00:05:54.640with you my sit-down with Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev from Friday.
00:06:06.060You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:06:11.960Good to see you in London this time. Great to be here. Your campaign has often talked about
00:06:18.300the idea of everything being broken and I know this has become a point of contention with the
00:06:22.700liberals who are in denial about this point, but fundamentally, we're seeing a breakdown of
00:06:27.880many sectors, many institutions, of trust in institutions. How much can government,
00:06:34.080a Pierre Polyev government, fix that? Well, government is the thing that's breaking it
00:06:38.980in the first place. It's the old saying, government is not the solution, government
00:06:42.900is the problem. It is eight years of Trudeau that has given us 40-year highs in inflation.
00:06:47.820Why do we have that? Well, because they printed a half trillion dollars, more money chasing fewer
00:06:52.440goods always equals higher prices. This is a mathematical relationship that goes back
00:06:56.560thousands of years. It was utterly predictable. I predicted it because it was obvious. And that's
00:07:02.640why seniors can't afford food, moms can't feed their kids, and nine out of ten young people who
00:07:09.100don't own a home believe they never will. All that easy cash bid up the cost of housing and
00:07:13.940everything else. So we need to reverse those inflationary policies, cap spending, fire the
00:07:19.400high-priced consultants, defund the CBC, cut the waste so that we can get rid of the inflationary
00:07:24.560deficits that are driving up inflation in the first place. We should also get rid of the carbon
00:07:28.980tax to bring down fuel, heat, and grocery prices. And then instead of creating all this cash, we've
00:07:36.400got to start creating more what cash buys. We need to build more homes, get the government gatekeepers
00:07:41.240out of the way. I'm going to get a lot tougher, frankly, with incompetent left-wing big city
00:07:46.640mayors who block housing construction and therefore shut working-class immigrants and
00:07:51.480youth out of housing. Very good for the privileged elites living in leafy neighborhoods, the
00:07:56.700woke wonderland where they sit around reading the New Yorker magazine in their overpriced house,
00:08:02.480but not great for the working-class kid who can't afford a home. So I'm going to tie federal
00:08:06.820infrastructure money to the number of houses that big cities allow to be completed, and I'm going
00:08:11.060to require that there be high-density housing around every federally funded transit station.
00:08:14.960I'm going to sell up 15% of federal buildings, turn that into housing so that people can actually get into a house.
00:08:20.600I actually believe the single biggest cause of social breakdown right now is the fact that young people can't afford homes because it totally screws up their entire psychology.
00:08:30.800They lose a sense of self-agency if they can't own a place of their own.
00:08:38.400They can't build up credit history, collateral, or savings for the future.
00:08:43.080So we need to knock down the barriers to housing construction, build millions of new homes,
00:08:47.460and then cut income taxes so people's paychecks can afford more mortgage payment and more house.
00:08:53.160And that's what a poly of government's going to do.
00:08:55.260Do you think there's a cultural problem of people wanting to live in the very cities that they can't afford to live in?
00:09:01.260Do you think something is perhaps missing where people should be going to different parts of the country?
00:09:05.900We should be putting government offices in more remote parts of the country, places where it is more affordable to live?
00:09:11.200Well, look, I'm not against any of that. I think rural living is great. It's fantastic. And I think people who want it should have that chance. But ironically, the federal government is attacking rural living as well. Their carbon tax is particularly hard on rural folks because they have to heat more space and travel longer distances. And electric cars and bicycles are not an option if you're living in Labrador or, you know, in around peace country Alberta, for example.
00:09:37.840so they're attacking the cost of living of the rural person and now they're making cities
00:09:42.640unaffordable so i don't know where people are supposed to be expected to live the bottom line
00:09:47.440is we need to get rid of all these taxes and all the red tape that's driving up the cost of living
00:09:52.280because it should be easy and cheap to live in housing in canada you know eight years ago the
00:09:56.960average house price was 450 000 now it's almost double that the average mortgage payment was 1400
00:10:02.060bucks. Now it's 3,200. The average rent was 950 bucks. Now it's over 2,000. They've doubled the
00:10:08.580cost of housing by printing cash and blocking construction, knock down the gatekeepers,
00:10:12.940build more houses, print less money. You have existing homeowners that are being
00:10:17.560completely squeezed out of being able to afford their own mortgage payments. People that
00:10:21.820will have to renew their mortgages in the next couple of years that have no idea what that
00:10:25.400interest rate is going to look like. And obviously getting into the housing market is the greatest
00:10:30.080challenge, but there are a lot of existing homeowners right now that in three, four years
00:10:33.920could be an incredibly precarious situation. What's your prediction and what's your way out
00:10:39.020of that? Well, you're absolutely right. And we're already seeing it. Just yesterday, CIBC said one
00:10:44.400in five of its mortgage holders are actually seeing their mortgage grow. So normally you say
00:10:51.520I'm paying down my mortgage. Yeah, you get that statement and it shows you a little bit more
00:10:55.740every year well but now people are paying their mortgages but the overall principle is rising
00:11:02.540because interest rates on their variable rate mortgage uh have gone up and therefore their
00:11:07.180mortgage has been so when they go to renew their payments are going to explode i think the
00:11:11.180danger the real cliff is coming in 2025 2026 why because it was in 2020 and 2021 that people bought
00:11:20.220the massively overpriced houses with the huge mortgages and if they locked in for five years
00:11:24.460will, they'll be up for renewal in 2025, 2026. So I'm very, I mean, I will be prime minister at
00:11:29.800the time. I'm going to have to deal with this major cliff that Trudeau and the Bank of Canada
00:11:36.120have sent our homeowners towards. And I think the only way to deal with it is to try and get
00:11:42.500spending under control now so that we bring down inflation and interest rates before those people
00:11:46.960have to renew. Despite the vote across party lines largely in favor of an inquiry into China's
00:11:53.120interference in Canada's elections. Justin Trudeau has come out and basically written off the idea
00:11:58.780of having an inquiry. Now, I don't want to put too much stock in an inquiry as being the best venue
00:12:03.660for accountability, but simply put, what do you think is the best way to get to the bottom of
00:12:09.420this? Well, multiple ways. We do need a public inquiry that can requisition documents, forced
00:12:15.520testimony under oath, but we also need Parliament to continue its examination because what I don't
00:12:22.540want to see is for the Liberals to create an inquiry that shuts down the debate, doesn't start
00:12:29.300for four months, is largely done in secret, and doesn't report until after the next federal election,
00:12:34.220which could face interference again. So we need simultaneously to do our investigation in the
00:12:40.440Parliamentary Committee. We need to know what Justin Trudeau and his top staff knew. There's
00:12:45.680reports that CSIS was briefing them about the way in which Beijing was supporting Justin Trudeau
00:12:51.940and giving money to his foundation over the course of a decade.
00:12:55.800We need confirmation that he knew that,
00:12:58.360and we also need to know what he was aware of
00:13:00.020and what the Liberal Party was aware of in the two elections where Beijing interfered.
00:13:03.900The media reports we've seen about CSIS's findings
00:13:06.740show that in the 2019 election there were 11 candidates
00:13:09.540that were the beneficiaries of Beijing's attempts at influence,
00:13:13.500and two of those were Conservatives, nine of them were Liberal.
00:13:16.460Do you think those candidates should be publicly named?
00:16:48.280And I would denounce him for making those comments as well.
00:16:50.760And just lastly, since we're in London,
00:16:52.160anything you're looking forward to seeing here?
00:16:53.640The people, the hardworking people here in London, the folks who do the work, who build this country, you know, I want to I want them to bring home more of what they earn, more of each dollar they earn.
00:17:04.380And I want this to be a country that works for the people who work.
00:17:07.800And that's what we're going to bring home when I'm prime minister.