SOG48： ＂Trudeau's a Joke on the Global Stage＂. Former Ag Minister Demolishes #Trudeau ｜Stand on Guard Ep 48
Summary
Former Agriculture Minister Jerry Ritz joins me today to talk about the government's new plan to reduce the amount of fertilizer farmers use by 30% by 2030, and why this is bad news for farmers. He also talks about the carbon tax and why he thinks it's a bad idea.
Transcript
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Welcome back to another Stand on Guard episode. I'm your host, David Creighton.
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Nice to see you all back again today. It's been a busy week already with votes on the carbon tax,
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and we might have another one today that's affecting farmers. And that's part of the reason
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I have my guest today is former Agriculture Minister and Saskatchewan MP, Jerry Ritz,
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who was a good friend during the Harper years and a damn good Ag Minister. Unfortunately,
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I don't think we can say that about many of his successors. But Jerry, thank you for joining me
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today. Well, my pleasure, David, and thank you for that kind introduction. Well, it's very true. You
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were an Ag Minister who actually understood agriculture, and we've had a series of Ag
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ministers who really didn't have a clue. Even though the current Ag Minister does have a clue,
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he doesn't seem to be functioning as he used to. But we'll get into that in a bit. I just wanted to
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touch on an article that I did last week for the Post Millennial, where I'm doing most of my writing
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these days. And it's really a great publication because it's cross-border. So you can talk about
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American or Canadian issues. And Americans are reading about Canadian news. Canadians are reading
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on American news. And I think that's good because we're certainly in the same news cycle. And we
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cannot isolate in terms. But I wrote an article last week about Trudeau's war on farmers. And
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when I wrote that headline, I thought about you. Because the last time we spoke, when I was doing
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an interview for the Western Standard, you called what Trudeau was doing to farmers, a war on farmers.
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And specifically, there's been an announcement recently about this 30% reduction in fertilizer. I just
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want to look at this slide here. Because it talks about reduction of fertilizer use by 2030 to 2020
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levels. Now previously, I'll get that in a minute. But previously, the Ag Department has talked about
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fertilizer emissions, not use. And this doesn't appear to be a typo or an error, because people have
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been asking the minister about this. And this does seem to be an accurate depiction of what the
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government wants. Do you think the government's actually expecting farmers to reduce fertilizer use
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by 30% by 2030? Well, yes, I do. Because the first way they were measuring it didn't give them
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anything they could cheer about. Farmers are already stewards of the environment and their land.
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Of course, the four R's come into play the right type, the right place, the right time and the right
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amount. And that gives farmers the best results. Fertilizer is an expensive commodity, you just don't go out
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there and spread on hundreds of pounds that you don't need. A lot of times you'll wait till the crop
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up is up. And then you'll top dress at certain areas to give that little zing to it. But it's now
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about micronutrients to the copper and manganese and sulfurs and so on that drive the protein level
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up the sulfur. And that's what farmers are gravitating towards. So for some reason, this government has got
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agriculture under its lens, not unlike what they've done to other resource sectors. And if they would
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stop and realize that this is all part of a supply chain, that when they make these types of changes
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to the base, the agricultural growers themselves, it affects the full supply chain, which ends up on
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the grocery store shelves. And that's where our high prices are coming from in these arcane regulations
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that they plan on bringing in to hit a target that doesn't matter. You know, they've got a solution
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looking for a problem. Well, it concerns me when they went from emissions to use. But what really
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concerns me is the idea that they keep saying this is going to be voluntary participation by farmers.
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I find that difficult to believe because nothing during our COVID experience, during that whole
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pandemic, nothing was voluntary. It was mandated. They forced us to wear masks. They forced us to
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take the vaccine if we wanted to work or travel or to live like ordinary human beings. And in the
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environment, excuse me, the environment and climate change minister, Stephen Gilbeau, who seems to be
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really in control of the Ag Department these days, he has gone around saying, if we want to divorce
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ourselves from fossil fuels, I'm just going to turn off the pumps, I'm going to shut off the natural gas,
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I'm going to turn off the electricity. And I don't care if people are freezing or can't read or can't do
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anything normal, because it's all about fulfilling the agenda of climate change. And do you really
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believe for a minute that farmers are going to be this is this is going to be a voluntary program for
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farmers? No, not at all. I think the same as we had a voluntary gun registry, you know, after a while,
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it became mandatory under these liberals. And that's what they do best. I mean, Trudeau with his
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little buddy Jagmeet Singh, who's also a closet anti agricultural, you know, from downtown Toronto,
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he doesn't understand where the bread on his table comes from, and how it gets there and why it costs what
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it costs. And that's the problem with these guys. They're disconnected from any type of rural
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roots. They've had a couple of ag ministers. I mean, Lawrence McCauley actually did run a dairy at
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one point. Not not a large one by any stretch, but but he actually was hands on. But that's some 40
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years ago already. And Bebo, who came in, sat on the board of something that might have been or could
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have been ag related. And we all saw what a disaster she was. Now Lawrence is getting a do over coming back
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in for his second stint at this. And he's the one whose loose lips started talking about a mandatory
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30% reduction in fertilizer use. I think he got out ahead of the comms team led by Katie Telford,
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of course. And he's actually spilled the beans, quite literally. And farmers are starting to be
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concerned. And what that does as a trading nation, it sends those ripples out across the world that
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Canadian agriculture is going to shrink, not grow to feed that hungry world.
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Well, they've already placed a 30% tariff on fertilizer from Russia, which is a large part
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of what farmers were getting their fertilizer from. So a 30% reduction. This, to me, smells of
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something that is just disastrous, catastrophic for farmers. Could this not only lead to Canada not
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being an exporter nation of foodstuffs, but in fact, could it lead to some degree of famine in
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this country? Well, certainly. I mean, we eat on average about 50% of what we produce, some
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commodities higher than others, but then we export the balance. And if there isn't that amount to
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export, of course, we'll look after our own first. They'll come in with programs that say you have to
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sell cheap to the domestic supply, you know, the two price system we used to have under the wheat board.
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But at the end of the day, I mean, it still comes down to our credibility and our capacity
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to be a global player. And we're losing that face out there on the world stage. Every time I see
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Trudeau or Jolie or Freeland or anybody go outside of Canada, I just shake in my boots because
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every time they do, there's a major faux pas created.
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And we mentioned Lawrence McCauley. He does seem to have some roots in agriculture. As you say, 40,
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I didn't realize it was 40 years ago, though. He ran a small dairy farm. He does seem to have a
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better cognizance of agriculture than, say, a Bebo, who had absolutely no clue what she was doing or what
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agriculture was all about when she was there. But McCauley worries me because I remember McCauley
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when you were in the House and he had fairly substantial
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ministerial responsibilities. And he was pretty good in question period. He handled himself
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Well, he had one issue that he brought up every spring, and that was ferry service to some
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island off of PEI. Other than that, Lawrence was quiet.
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Yeah. But I've watched him lately in question period, which I try to do live just about every
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day if I'm not doing something else. And it's worrisome because he reminds me of Joe Biden
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because he doesn't seem to have a sense of what he's even talking. It's like he's being given a
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script every day because every time there's an ag question, he seems to reach for a piece of paper
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and start talking about forest fires. And I wish I had a clip of this, but he's done this repeatedly.
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And he's reading from a prepared script about how climate change is responsible for all the forest
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fires we had last summer, which, of course, I believe is absolute nonsense. There's no correlation
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there. There's no correlation has been proven, certainly by the liberals. They just put that out
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there as a given. And it certainly is not a given. It's not a fact. But McCauley just seems to want
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to talk about forest fires. Do you think the environment minister has just taken on the
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ag department as an appendage now? Because he seems to be a spokesman for Gilbo.
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Well, I think there's only two or three major players sitting around the cabinet table. And
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certainly the ag minister of the day under the liberals is not one. We were very much
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noticed by Prime Minister Harper the amount that agriculture drove the Canadian economy,
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the third largest contributor to our GDP, the largest manufacturing sector. Now, I guess it's
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going to be EV batteries that nobody's going to buy. But at the end of the day, these guys sitting
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around that cabinet table in Ottawa, including the handpicked people they put into the ministries and
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so on, do not have a clue about what's happening out here on the actual ground.
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So it does concern you that ag issues are not going to be seriously considered then?
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Well, absolutely. I mean, you look at our trade corridors, we've got free trade agreements and
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they keep talking about adding to and changing the title to be progressive as opposed to just
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free trade agreements. I mean, that's what they're all about is virtue and there's no value in what
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they're talking about. Yeah. I'm also concerned about, you know, Trudeau's crackpot scheme to somehow
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magically lower grocery prices. And all he has said is just do it, make it happen. And when he first
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said that, my mind went back to his father's wage and price controls of 1974, an issue he actually
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flip-flopped on. He ran in the 74 election against Bob Stanfield, the progressive conservative leader at
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the time saying he would never institute wage and price controls and famously or infamously upon
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winning reelection, he went from, he was in a minority position. He went to a huge majority.
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He immediately instituted wage and price controls and they were catastrophic as they were everywhere.
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But Trudeau doesn't even seem to have that much of a plan. He just, he's telling grocery stores,
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okay, go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan for me that is going to lower
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grocery store prices. Now, my concern, first of all, is that when you artificially lower prices like
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that, you end up with scarcity in the grocery stores. We already saw that during COVID. I don't
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know how many times I walked into a local grocery store or Walmart and the shelves were empty. I think
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we could see that times a hundred. If we start artificially lowering the grocery store prices, we could have
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another Venezuela here. But what concerns me even more than that is the grocery stores, if they're forced
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to reduce their profit levels, they'll pass that on to the farmers and they'll say, okay, can't afford to
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pay you that anymore. We're going to cut the price in half. Do you think that could happen?
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Oh, absolutely. And as I said earlier on, we import 50% of what we consume. And do you think he's going
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to put price controls in on all the countries we import from? He can't. It's not unlike his single
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use plastics orders. As soon as that actually comes into play, then, you know, everything that comes
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in from California and Florida and so on that comes in a plastic bag can't come in anymore. So all of a
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sudden, we're going to have less product on the shelves because the Americans are not going to change
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their way of doing things for one little country that's a minor part of their market share. So it's going to
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shrink. There's no doubt about it. Our shelves are going to be empty and the prices have to go up
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because the overhead costs of those stores, all that handling, all that transportation is still
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there. In fact, it's gone up because there's carbon tax and regulations at every level that add to that
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final price. So this is really a vicious cycle for farmers. They're going to be producing less with
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less fertilizer and getting less money for the crop they produce. With higher inputs.
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With higher inputs. Exactly. I just want to refer to a slide here from the Canadian Federation of
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Agriculture, where it actually says that farmers, that the price of doing business, put it in those
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terms, for farmers has increased by 21% in 2022. And that's the largest increase since 1974.
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I mean, how is that possible sustained? Well, it's not. And then you add on top of that,
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all of the equipment and repairs and a lot of the inputs come from offshore. And with a 72 cent Canadian
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dollar, farmers are paying that dollar value and eating the difference. It's astronomical,
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the extra that's being applied. Then you start looking at the downloading that's going on from the feds to the
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provinces, the provinces to the municipalities or counties. And you start to realize farmers are
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captive on their ground. And I know that the feds are eyeballing the asset value out there in land. It's gone up
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exponentially over the last 10 or 15 years, especially in Western Canada, when you've had the right to market
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our own products. And, you know, they're looking at that and saying, hey, how do we scoop that?
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Yeah. Well, and of course, the carbon tax is a huge factor in the cost of living for farmers. And
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as much as the Trudeau government likes to pretend it's not a factor, anybody with a little common
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sense, I think, can fathom that, yeah, it's a huge factor. Now, there's Bill C-234 in front of the
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Senate. I think today, at least this week, it's been in the news, not as much as it should be,
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because originally this bill was supposed to exempt farmers, all farmers, from the carbon tax.
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It's gone through committee. It's been gagged and distorted, strangled, and completely remade.
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So now, basically, it's not all farmers. It's pot growers. Pot growers get the exemption and virtually
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nobody else. Now, what is going on with this? Why is the Trudeau government insisting? And
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apparently, do you think he's working with the Senate? Is the Trudeau government working with
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the Senate to try to get this bill passed as the committee refocused it? Well, how can that be?
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All those senators are independent. I'm sure they think for themselves until they get that envelope
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in the morning to do this. You know, what I can understand is agriculture in Canada is literally
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the goose that lays the golden egg. As I said, the third largest contributor to our GDP. A lot of the
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stability that we've seen through these tough economic times, and we haven't hit bottom yet.
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That's coming in 2024. Even TIF is starting to realize that at the Bank of Canada. So it's
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agriculture that is going to be the stable force that's going to hold us and bring us through this.
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But we're seeing them being eroded and chipped away at by an unknowing, uncaring federal government
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in Ottawa with the help of Jaggi and his little band of Mary NDP. At the end of the day, no farmer can
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continue to take this type of onslaught and survive. And that's all going to affect everybody. I mean,
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we all like to eat several times a day. Well, mentioning Jagmut and his Mary band of socialists,
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surprising to some degree that the NDP supported the conservative motion yesterday to exempt all home
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heating fuel, including propane and natural gas from the carbon tax for this three-year pause,
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you know, which is, of course, not a solution, but it might be a temporary band-aid for a lot of
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people. Does it worry you, though, that Trudeau has apparently concocted a deal with the separatist
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block to make this? I mean, it didn't have any meaning if it had a past, but it was certainly
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symbolic. Does that worry you? He's aligned himself with separatists?
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Well, I think there's two things there. Of course, it worries me that the, you know,
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the Quebec tail can wag the rest of Canada's dog. You know, I mean, we've always faced that. At the end
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of the day, they're the wild card, and Trudeau will play that every chance he gets. But I really think
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Jag was driven by the provincial arms of his party. He's the leader of everything, provincially as
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well. And there were a lot of provincial NDP governments and provincial NDP oppositions that
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were speaking out in support of the conservative motion. So he was trapped between a rock and a hard
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place, and he decided to go with the hard place. But he'll be there right away back in Trudeau's
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corner, whatever happens today. So it was a temporary lull. I think the premiers, you know, they stood
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together in Halifax the same day the vote came down and said, we all agree this carbon tax is
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killing our economies. And, you know, I didn't see that covered in a big way in any media operation.
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So it's been a while since the premiers have stood up to a federal leader. I think the last one was
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also named Trudeau. I was just about to say that because you let us right into the next slide,
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which, of course, yeah, the premiers are united on this issue. And it, as you said, the last
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prime minister to get the premiers this angry and this focus and this united was Pierre Trudeau.
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And it really amazes me how much of Trudeau, of the elder Trudeau's experience, the younger Trudeau
00:19:00.080
is going through, from this sort of experience with uniting premiers to inflationary times, to high
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interest rates, to invoking the emergencies. It's scary at times how much his time as prime minister
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has mirrored the worst moments of his father. But this certainly is significant. The premiers are
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united on this issue. And I think this could well be a real crisis for Trudeau because the dominoes are
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falling. Once he admitted that you can take the carbon tax off for three years, apparently, and there
00:19:40.200
won't be a catastrophe, I think he admitted it's a farce. Can you imagine the forest fires in
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Canada next year now? Unbelievable. Yeah. Well, you know, in truth, David, the old adage, the apple
00:19:54.400
doesn't fall far from the tree applies here. We just have a carbon tax in that apple. Now, other than that,
00:19:59.800
Mini-Me Trudeau is doing exactly what his father did. He's leading this country into a socialist,
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almost fascist state, if I dare go that far. I mean, he's become a tyrant. He's answerable to no one.
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He knows it. He's getting a free ride by his paid-for media, and that's what's kept him alive. He's
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actually got absolutely zero status on the world stage unless he's handing out checks anymore.
00:20:24.600
Yeah, man. God forbid he should go on the world stage because we know what happens. He goes to
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India, makes an absolute ass of himself, makes ridiculous accusations, or he goes to the WEF and
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makes promises and says, God help us if he does fail. But it's interesting to me that Canada produces
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1.4% to 1.8% of global gas emissions. That's around there.
00:20:53.480
And, you know, and that's virtually nothing in terms of our global carbon footprint. But this
00:21:00.820
government continues to pretend that even if Canadians freeze, don't have any fuel, can't drive,
00:21:09.300
can't fly, it's somehow going to fight climate change. And of course, even if our global gas
00:21:15.560
emissions were reduced to 0%, it would have no impact on the world stage.
00:21:20.540
Well, it would actually have a negative impact because we would no longer be the carbon sequestration
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capital of the world. The way we grow our crops, the amount of forestry, forested land that we have,
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we are sequestering carbon, unbelievable amounts of carbon every day, and we get no credit for that.
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So that's what a government that's thinking without their head up their ass would come to realize and
00:21:46.380
Yeah. I just want to play a brief clip here from your premier in Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, who I have a
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lot of time for. I think he's doing an excellent job. I just want your comment on this.
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You said that if the federal government doesn't bend on carve-outs for natural gas or other heating
00:22:05.120
sources, basically beyond heating oil, that you and your government as of January will stop
00:22:10.000
collecting it. I just want to play for you the federal finance minister's response late last
00:22:15.140
week to that threat, and then I'll get your reaction to it. Let's have a listen to Minister Freeland.
00:22:21.160
It is entirely appropriate, and I think an expectation shared by all Canadians, that everyone
00:22:27.980
in the country should follow the law. That's our expectation, and it's our job to ensure that the
00:22:36.900
Premier, does the minister have a point? Does doing something illegal here really solve anything?
00:22:42.160
I would say that we're going to follow the law. Very shortly, there's going to be a law in
00:22:46.780
Saskatchewan that will state that we won't be submitting the carbon tax on how we heat our
00:22:52.020
homes with natural gas to the federal government. And I would say we're also following the law of
00:22:57.540
thermodynamics, as heat pumps simply don't work in the climate across the prairie provinces. And so
00:23:02.820
there are multiple laws in this space. Very shortly, there will be another law in place in
00:23:07.980
Saskatchewan, and that's the law that we are going to follow.
00:23:10.480
But with all due respect, I take your point on the piece of legislation that you're going to pass,
00:23:15.800
but there is a way in which this country works, right? That you collect a tax on behalf of the
00:23:21.060
federal government, or vice versa, that the federal government collects some of their taxes on behalf
00:23:24.900
of the provincial government. I mean, is this the most responsible thing to do to start off? And I
00:23:29.920
get your concerns. I certainly just put them to the federal minister. But to start off on this foot
00:23:33.700
where, you know, what kind of slippery slope are we starting here?
00:23:37.340
Well, I would say we're making exactly the same decision as the federal government did. The federal
00:23:41.620
government did it, made the decision to hold the carbon tax payments for heating fuel, which impacts
00:23:48.380
largely Atlantic Canada. What we're saying is we're going to have, make a similar decision that is
00:23:53.040
going to have an impact on Saskatchewan residents. I don't think anybody can agree with the most
00:23:57.500
recent carve-out that the federal government is applying their carbon taxation policy fairer.
00:24:03.020
Most certainly, it's not fair to all Canadian families.
00:24:12.300
Well, he's being pushed into that corner. There's a new movement, Saskatchewan, that's bringing him back
00:24:16.460
on track, and he's starting to find his conservative roots. That's a good thing. But at the end of the
00:24:20.720
day, the federal government can and will pass any legislation that creates a law, and they have the
00:24:25.480
right to do that. Supreme Court rulings have set that precedent. But at the end of the day,
00:24:32.520
it's agreements between a federal government and a provincial government as to what will be collected.
00:24:37.780
And you do not have to honor up. There's no law that says you are forced to collect their tax.
00:24:43.680
It's an agreement where you get a certain amount to do that handling. And what Mr. Moe is saying is
00:24:50.700
he's just not going to collect it. You can apply that tax, but you've got to come and collect it
00:24:55.420
yourself. So he's not saying the tax can't be applied in Saskatchewan. He's just saying he won't
00:25:00.340
do it. Which I think is certainly a great beginning because he might be starting something here that is
00:25:08.320
going to be very significant. But he mentions heat pumps as well in this. I find this fascinating
00:25:14.720
because when I first saw Trudeau talk about free heat pumps, I said, uh-huh, uh-huh. Free for whom?
00:25:22.140
Nothing, of course, is free, and especially our health care is not free either. But the fact that
00:25:28.700
he's talking about free heat pumps for people below the poverty line. So if you're below the
00:25:34.460
poverty line, I don't think you're probably going to be wanting a heat pump because you don't own a
00:25:38.700
home. Well, yeah. Well, the point is there are some details that have been glossed over. It's a
00:25:45.080
$600 assessment you have to have done to see that you even apply or could apply for one. It only
00:25:51.860
applies to family incomes of less than $75,000. That's above the poverty line. And you have to have
00:25:58.700
a home that's assessed at less than $300,000. So, you know, it's a pretty fine point on actually
00:26:04.680
who's going to qualify for this at the end of the day to begin with. But then to say that these heat
00:26:10.200
pumps are efficient is ridiculous. Anything below, you know, they're saying 20 degrees and so on.
00:26:16.560
You know, I've been in places where they've had them and it's 10 degrees and they can't keep up.
00:26:20.340
But at the end of the day, they're just not that effective. You still need a backup heat source.
00:26:25.440
And what will that be? You know, you got to have a wood fireplace or, you know, a stove or something
00:26:31.220
like that, or keep your old oil furnace and run the heat pump as well. The problem that they have
00:26:37.260
is the same thing as trying to charge all these EVs is they do not have the electrical grid or the
00:26:43.640
capacity, especially in Atlantic Canada, to do this. They're power poor. So where is that energy going
00:26:50.400
to come from to run all of these? Well, that's, that's an excellent point. And in addition,
00:26:56.240
of course, the Trudeau government's not even admitting these are not carbon neutral. They're
00:27:01.000
not talking about the fact they have to plug them in. And this is just the usual, you know,
00:27:08.120
and yes, you have to make them and you, but you have to have a power source. And that's nothing
00:27:13.860
is being discussed from the liberal government from that standpoint. It's just like there's a magic
00:27:19.440
power source for these things. You just, they're going to make magic heat for you. And they run on
00:27:25.080
uniform parts. And it's the same thing when I hear people talk about electric cars being this panacea.
00:27:32.700
Well, you have to plug those in too. They have to come from a power source. And of course, the batteries,
00:27:37.520
we're never going to have enough of them and we won't be able to replace them. And that is another
00:27:42.120
catastrophic end for this, you know, and it, and it, it strikes me as a cruel joke though, that you
00:27:51.380
would tell people in Edmonton or Saskatoon or places where it goes to minus 30 and some minus 40 at
00:28:01.900
times that a heat pump is going to help you in the winter. Well, I think you're going to be very cold
00:28:05.980
because the research I've done indicates they really don't work under minus 15, minus 16 degrees
00:28:12.100
Celsius. And the cost of these things is, is absolutely enormous. But we saw that clip of,
00:28:20.360
of Freeland, of course, saying that we expect Saskatchewan to abide by the law. Thank you very
00:28:25.280
much. It, uh, I've noticed in the, in the question period lately, uh, Jonathan Wilkinson, who was an
00:28:32.260
minister of natural resources, could have been Chrystia Freeland's half brother. They both have the same
00:28:38.140
condescending attitude towards everybody in the house and they both tend to shake their hand.
00:28:44.400
And it, it amazes me how they continue to read from a script that is so divorced from reality,
00:28:53.040
that is so far from everybody else's real truth. And they just are oblivious to it. And
00:29:02.320
do you see any hope of ending this regime in the next two years with a parliamentary vote of any
00:29:11.080
kind? Well, not with Jagmeet, uh, bought and paid for and the bloc standing by as a default mechanism.
00:29:17.120
I don't, uh, I think there's going to be a lot more pressure on Trudeau to remove himself. He's not
00:29:23.080
going to do that. Uh, he hasn't even got to fly in his new airplanes that he's ordered. So he's going
00:29:27.540
to hang around for a while. I mean, there's talk of him taking another big fancy Christmas vacation
00:29:32.480
and making his decision at that time. I just don't see it unless he's offered a big spot at the UN or
00:29:38.280
something that he can go in and continue to spend money that isn't his. So I think we're stuck with
00:29:43.160
this clown and the clown car full of the other clowns, uh, for as long as they decide they want
00:29:47.920
to run. I would, I would concur because I see people every week saying it's over, it's over for
00:29:55.320
Justin Trudeau because some Senator or one of his caucus members decides to criticize him.
00:30:01.640
But we all saw Glenn or Ken McDonald from Newfoundland who stood up, spoke out against
00:30:07.360
the carbon tax. And when he's up voting in favor of the, the, uh, fiasco that they just put on
00:30:13.140
Atlantic Canada, he gives a finger to the opposition. I mean, uh, there you go. He's just a liberal.
00:30:19.880
Well, you know, I thought the same thing because yes, he voted twice in favor of conservative
00:30:26.000
motions to axe the carbon tax yesterday. He rejected that proposal, but of course he's taken
00:30:33.160
care of, you know, and when he first came forth and started doing interviews about why he supported
00:30:39.160
the last carbon tax motion by the conservatives, I said at the time, this is everything to do
00:30:46.560
with Kent getting reelected and getting Atlantic MPs reelected because he didn't say we have to get
00:30:54.680
rid of this tax in the longterm because it doesn't make any sense. It is a punitive tax. It punishes
00:31:01.800
people for doing things they have to do. He just said, let's put a pause on it for a couple of years,
00:31:08.940
meaning until the next election and I can get reelected and we can just do as we please again.
00:31:14.400
So this is all cynical. It's going to be interesting to see whether the carbon tax rebates continue to
00:31:20.920
flow to Atlantic Canada, because there's a lot of issues. They're still paying carbon tax on
00:31:24.720
barring their, the heat for their homes. So, you know, any businesses, any fuel you buy,
00:31:29.980
any groceries you buy, everything you touch has got a carbon tax on many, many levels in it.
00:31:35.460
So will they continue to get the carbon tax rebate while they've got that carbon tax carve out on their
00:31:41.340
home heating? Yes. And a lot of folks are suggesting today that Quebec is backing Trudeau's carbon tax
00:31:50.640
and conceivably the government for the next two years, because Quebec, of course, has a cap and
00:31:56.260
trade program in place and they really don't need their exemption. Well, that's smoke and mirrors.
00:32:01.260
That's like using monopoly money to, to change up into Canadian dollars. They're worth about the same
00:32:06.280
right now. But at the end of the day, their cap and trade system, no one's continuing on with that.
00:32:11.260
Ontario had one for a little while. California was the one that started it. And even they're
00:32:15.460
realizing now that there's nothing left to trade. They capped everything and they're in trouble. I
00:32:20.940
mean, industry is moving out of California as fast as they can get a U-Haul. So, you know, it's going to
00:32:26.060
backfire at some point on Quebec. The biggest thing that Quebec's got going for them is they don't
00:32:31.480
include their electricity product production in the equalization formula. So that means they continue
00:32:38.080
to get the lion's share of the money, most of it coming from Western Canada, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
00:32:43.340
Ontario's on a, on a pause economically as they try to struggle back from whatever fiscal policies
00:32:49.180
they're working with at the time. And, you know, it's, it's just unconscionable to people in Western
00:32:55.460
Canada, the amount of money that goes into Quebec to create the utopia that they can't afford without our
00:33:00.940
dollars. Yes. They, and yet they continue to talk about an independent Quebec, which would,
00:33:07.400
which would not be getting those dollars. And it's broken three years. Yeah. It, it, it is an
00:33:13.400
illusion. And it's unfortunately part of the daily narrative that comes out of Ottawa. This
00:33:19.520
somehow this can continue without any, any repercussions. Do you think though, is the carbon
00:33:26.760
tax destined to fail before the, before the liberals are out in two years? I'd like to say
00:33:32.920
it would. I'm, I'm anxious to see how stalwart Premier Moe is and how, whoever else he can get
00:33:40.140
to stand with him to push back on the feds at all levels. I mean, if you're going to rip that bandaid
00:33:46.180
off, you might as well take all the carbon tax. You're not going to collect any of it in the province
00:33:50.420
of record, whatever that province would be. I think that's the route that needs to be done. I mean,
00:33:55.120
if you're going to drop the gauntlet, make sure it hits the ground hard. Well, and, and that's it.
00:34:01.120
I guess we can only hope the, what drives me craziest with the Conservative Party right now is
00:34:07.260
to continue to say he's not worth the cost talking about Justin Trudeau. And that, that, that to me
00:34:12.540
is a completely ineffective electioneer, election slogan or anything else, because it's not just that
00:34:19.440
Justin Trudeau is not worth the cost. Sometimes I wonder if a lot of them are. It's a cut. Well,
00:34:23.920
the fact is he's, he's catastrophic for this country, but you've got to expand that to Trudeau
00:34:29.380
and crew, the whole clown car, not just the driver. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's, that's, that's true.
00:34:37.920
But if it was just a matter of, of him not being worth the cost, I don't think we would be in the,
00:34:43.720
in the condition we are. I, I can, I'm concerned not only about where we're going economically,
00:34:49.520
but Trudeau continues to bring censorship down upon Canadians. He brings the latest bill that's
00:34:57.640
coming in the fall or early winter is going to be the Online Safety Act, which is going to make
00:35:03.740
disinformation, misinformation, and something called malinformation illegal. Now, whether or not
00:35:10.200
that's going to be criminal or civil or whatever they decide, the point of this bill, because I've read
00:35:16.980
what the study groups have told the liberals to do with this, disinformation and the, and the like
00:35:22.560
will not be defined in this bill because it will be that much harder to enforce if they define it.
00:35:28.980
So it will be up to this liberal government to decide what disinformation is. This broadcast could
00:35:34.220
be disinformation. The post-millennial rebel news, the daily caller, anything that it's new media or
00:35:42.140
is not mainstream media could be disinformation. And I think what the legacy media is not getting
00:35:46.500
because they're not covering this story at all is that they could be deemed disinformation because
00:35:51.960
they'll come for you eventually. And this Trudeau government is catastrophic for Canada. And I,
00:35:57.640
and I hope we can find a means, a democratic parliamentary means to end this parliamentary session sooner
00:36:04.260
rather than later, because I think the sake, for the sake of this country and for the soul of this
00:36:09.400
country, I think something, a change is needed. Well, the world is watching. I mean, he's a joke
00:36:15.960
on the, on the global stage. They're all starting to point fingers as well as to what's happening in
00:36:19.920
Canada. Case in point, the Israel-Palestine conflict going on and how we're handling that
00:36:25.460
as compared to other countries around the world, we're having the same results in our streets and so
00:36:30.940
on. And, uh, our, our cops are standing by waiting to see what they should do. Now you compare that to
00:36:36.240
what happened with the convoy in Ottawa and you start to realize we've got a, a, a, a two-tier
00:36:41.500
justice system at best. Um, both tiers are politically driven and everybody's just wringing
00:36:47.500
their hands and saying, what can we do? What can we do? We've got four gentlemen in Alberta,
00:36:52.120
the Coutts Four, they call them, that were part of that blockade at the Coutts border. Now there
00:36:56.500
wasn't a blockade. I mean, there was traffic still moving through, but at the end of the day,
00:36:59.980
they've now spent more time in incarceration without bail than our two Michaels did in
00:37:05.040
China. And we're a democracy, uh, where that's so true, Jerry. And I, I've been covering the
00:37:13.040
freedom trial convoy here in Ottawa on a daily basis. It's been recessed for three years with
00:37:18.440
Tamara Leach and Chris Barber. And of course you've watched, you watch and you say, what is the defense
00:37:24.080
up to? Because they, they provide no evidence at all for the allegations, for the charges and
00:37:30.160
everything they provide reinforces what Tamara Leach and Chris Barber have been saying all along
00:37:35.160
is that we told people to protest peacefully. We told them to cooperate with the police to disturb
00:37:41.560
residents. Yeah. Well, you look at the graffiti that went onto a CBC studio in Montreal. None of that
00:37:47.300
happened in downtown Ottawa. In fact, there's more businesses speaking up and saying it was great to
00:37:52.240
have the crowd there. Uh, I know the, the Tim Hortons owner on bank said they'd come in and mopped
00:37:57.620
the floors because they knew they were the ones that tracked in the dirt. So, I mean, these guys
00:38:01.360
left a tremendous impression for the vast majority of people. Now, Paul Champ, the lawyer that's trying
00:38:06.760
to put together this huge lawsuit, 300 and some million dollars, his main witness, that government
00:38:13.160
employee that was complaining about the noise and so on, she lives blocks away and probably couldn't
00:38:19.320
even hear it. But that doesn't enter into any of the things on the stand at this point. But at the
00:38:25.060
end of the day, I mean, we all see this for what it is. Trudeau was scared spitless of all the Canadians
00:38:31.440
that lined up as that convoy went through, all the Canadians that came to visit in Ottawa to be a part
00:38:36.840
of that. That's what scares him. Yes, I think so. And I wrote the other day in the Epoch Times that
00:38:44.980
the Tamara Leach, Chris Barber trial might not be technically a show trial in the Soviet Union sense,
00:38:52.960
in the Stalinist sense. But it certainly is a show trial because they're trying to bankrupt these
00:38:58.840
people. And they're trying to make anybody who wants to protest think twice about protesting.
00:39:06.720
And I think that is why this is a show trial. It's to put a chill into protests in this country. So
00:39:12.520
if you want to oppose the Trudeau government, you want to oppose liberal policies, watch out,
00:39:17.580
you're going to have your life unended, upended, and you're going to have to go through a lot of
00:39:22.500
legal and judicial problems. Yeah. Well, he stacked the courts. You know, we saw, what was it,
00:39:28.420
five relatives of Dominic LeBlanc that have been named as judges. You know, I mean, these guys are just
00:39:33.600
so overt in the way they're putting together their own show. It's going to take a long time to wind it
00:39:39.960
down. You know, I feel for Pierre Poliver when he finally gets into power, and he will, you know,
00:39:45.780
at some point it's going to happen. But trying to rebuild a federal civil service, and so on, right
00:39:51.920
through to the grassroots that have been so politicized, and to think for themselves, you know,
00:39:58.180
they spent $700,000 hiring consultants to tell them how to get away from hiring consultants. I mean,
00:40:05.120
it's just insult to injury day after day with these clowns. They're using your dollars to reinforce
00:40:11.020
their own ideology, and that is no longer a democracy, folks. Well, it might not be a technically
00:40:19.480
Soviet-style show trial, but I hope we don't have a Soviet-style famine in this country as a result of
00:40:26.380
these catastrophic agriculture policies. And Jerry, I want to thank you for joining me today. We miss you
00:40:34.280
in Ottawa, believe me. And we miss the Harper government, because there was a sense of somebody
00:40:41.380
being in control, leading the way with a hand on the ship. Right now, there's a sense that nobody
00:40:48.440
is in control, that there's a group of insiders telling Justin Trudeau what to do, because he doesn't
00:40:55.160
seem to have a grip on himself, on his caucus, on his cabinet, and certainly not on the government.
00:41:01.620
So we miss you, Jerry. Well, thank you so much for that. You know, my days in Ottawa were
00:41:07.560
packed-filled. You know, third-party people coming in to see, we had roundtables that gave me advice on
00:41:14.280
every industry group that moved in the country. All of that's been lost. That's unfortunate,
00:41:18.940
because that's where your strength is, is at the grassroots.
00:41:21.720
That's very, very true. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Jerry. This has been a pleasure
00:41:29.020
talking to you. And like I say, thank you for your years of service as a member of parliament and as
00:41:35.060
the Minister of Agriculture. You have been sorely missed. I think farmers would say the same thing.
00:41:40.900
So let's do it again at your convenience, and let's hope and pray for this country, because Justin Trudeau
00:41:50.340
has never been good news. Well said, David. Thank you for your time today. I look forward to the next
00:41:57.140
steps. Okay, bye for now. Thank you for watching another episode of Stand on Guard.
00:42:02.180
I'm your host, David Creighton, and we'll be back.