The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - “17% of the time, it works every time.”

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome once again to the blueprints this is canada's conservative podcast i'm your

00:00:14.480 host jamie schmell member of parliament for haliburton kawortha lakes with new content for

00:00:18.420 you every single tuesday 1 30 p.m eastern time don't forget to like comment subscribe

00:00:22.640 and share this program don't forget to tell your friends too they can download it on platforms like

00:00:27.500 cast box itunes google play and spotify you name it it is out there on today's show mark carney the

00:00:33.000 prime minister makes a national address and of course 17 of the time the canada revenue agency

00:00:39.080 is right every time to talk about this and so much more we bring on sandra kobena member of 1.00

00:00:45.100 parliament for newmark and aurora hopefully you got your name right i've messed it up a million times

00:00:50.140 i'm so sorry that's perfect all right we appreciate you coming on the show congratulations on your

00:00:55.380 election i know it was a few months ago but first chance you've had to come on the show

00:00:59.420 yes thank you for that but you've been very active you're a member of the finance committee you've

00:01:03.780 been up in question period pretty much weekly uh doing a fantastic job keep up the great work

00:01:09.000 thank you i appreciate it mark carney the prime minister makes a address last week to

00:01:14.160 to canadians i'm not even actually sure what it was about it just seemed to be a bunch of

00:01:19.340 you know word salads whatever but the big takeaway is again you know linking into our first topic

00:01:27.600 it will take some sacrifices and it will take time this seems to be the the leftist way about doing

00:01:34.100 something right we'll try a new government program and if we fail well we just need more time

00:01:40.200 resources and of course your patient taxpayer by the way give us some more money that's right

00:01:45.720 well and the the irony of the the speech is that it was delivered to a room full of students

00:01:52.400 and him calling on uh the younger generations to make even more sacrifices but we know

00:01:59.300 that there is nothing to sacrifice anymore right they have been sacrificing for failed liberal policies

00:02:08.140 for the last 10 years and so now the legacy continues and uh he stood up and said

00:02:15.200 no actually you need to sacrifice even more because we're going to dabble down on those policies

00:02:19.800 yeah well you can't afford a house you probably care having a tough time doing groceries like going

00:02:25.480 grocery shopping uh the job market's a little shaky right now but yeah you're right make a few

00:02:31.000 more sacrifices you're right what else to what else is there left to sacrifice well that's that's the

00:02:35.220 main feedback that i received and there was there's a couple in aurora that uh you know recently

00:02:40.660 married they have five jobs between the two of them and they cannot afford a home and they are

00:02:47.480 delaying starting a family because they cannot afford it so imagine that couple listening to the

00:02:53.040 prime minister say well you're going to have to sacrifice even more what is there to sacrifice there

00:02:58.000 is nothing to sacrifice and then there's another gentleman uh a welder in new market at my writing

00:03:03.220 that i was speaking to and he said all i'm asking is to be able to afford a house

00:03:08.340 close to my parents because i don't want to go far away that they are all i have he's a welder he's

00:03:15.840 working long hours what is there to sacrifice and so i think that's what the frustration is uh from the

00:03:24.300 next generation not only because there's nothing to sacrifice today but they are taking on so much

00:03:30.760 debt that they are leaving us my generation my children's generation with generational debt 0.70

00:03:38.900 yeah and so nobody seems to care about the numbers on the liberal side uh but it is a lot of debt that

00:03:45.940 they're taking on and when he's asking for sacrifices i i don't think that sits well with the people that are

00:03:51.680 truly struggling well especially when the sacrifices will not affect mark carney and the champagne

00:03:58.340 socialists that's right they won't be affected yeah they'll still be the wining dining large

00:04:03.840 while the the the you know the working class get hammered again until they figure it out yep yep so 0.95

00:04:10.720 we have the parliamentary budget officer a bit of an earlier uh an older clip but still rings true to

00:04:15.940 what we're talking about now play cup one i think everybody should be concerned it's a really serious

00:04:22.720 day right this is the first time in 30 years that we've tabled uh an economic and fiscal outlook

00:04:28.660 where the fiscal anchor of the general and probably most important fiscal anchor for any government

00:04:34.680 is a declining or at least stable debt to gdp ratio uh and this is the first time in 30 years that

00:04:40.580 i've seen one in which that ratio is going up over time so that's definitely a that's definitely a

00:04:47.660 cause for concern so first time in 30 years we've seen debt continuing to go up and the fact that the

00:04:54.000 gdp so in essence our ability to make stuff is going down well like explain as a member of the finance

00:05:03.540 committee this must shock you right like well you know um what took me aback was actually the the

00:05:12.060 description of the parliamentary budget officer uh when he talked about our economic state so he he uses

00:05:18.800 the words uh shocking unsustainable uh stupefying and so as somebody who who comes here to hear this

00:05:28.160 for the first time for instance i thought to myself well this is really serious right and when he talks

00:05:34.240 about the debt to gdp ratio going up so things getting worse it's also quite alarming but it seems

00:05:41.000 like it's only alarming to our side not not to the liberal side and so um i i am still shocked at how

00:05:52.160 um easily they are giving up this debt to gdp ratio that is supposed to be the fiscal anchor for canada

00:05:59.620 and if you look at all the serious countries g7 countries that is their fiscal anchor but it is

00:06:07.580 getting so bad that this government is choosing to also give it up um and so now there's great concern

00:06:15.180 because there is no accountability um and we know that the budget is coming but it's going to be

00:06:19.640 totally different so for the first time in our nation's history the budget will be split into

00:06:24.160 two but not only that they are changing the definition of some of those expenses that would

00:06:30.240 typically be operational and they're calling it capital to make this side look better uh but that's

00:06:36.100 only obviously a communication strategy to confuse canadians and absolutely uh again uh calls into

00:06:41.800 question well where is the accountability for this government absolutely we know the government

00:06:47.060 has a great track record of picking winners and losers in the marketplace the battery plants billions

00:06:53.060 of dollars talantis is on the way out you know we don't know where most of this money has gone if

00:06:58.280 it's being returned uh they you should be letting the market decide but at the same time these these

00:07:04.980 nation building projects that were announced most of them were already in the process some including

00:07:10.260 darlington had shovels in the ground already but without addressing the ability to get our energy

00:07:16.920 to market to tidewater building pipelines getting rid of the emissions cap getting rid of the tanker

00:07:22.640 ban we'll never be building anything there's no proponent that is going to line up even though

00:07:27.580 pieces of legislation the liberals have passed allow them to circumvent the existing piece of

00:07:32.080 legislation already in place why you don't address that is beyond me but at the same time

00:07:36.280 there's easy fixes to this absolutely and if you take a step back on the major projects for instance

00:07:42.540 i was talking to a gentleman in my riding in aurora and i said now imagine uh just a simple park

00:07:48.620 a community park and you know the the slide only works for some children and the the swings work for

00:07:57.060 other children and you go back to the manufacturer and say can you just fix the park so that it works

00:08:00.460 for all the children and they will say no no no just pick one or two and we'll make sure that the

00:08:04.540 park only works for two well that's what they're doing at a national level where they are saying

00:08:08.420 we pick who are the winners and losers we pick who's going to make money and who's not the rules

00:08:15.100 clearly don't work but we're going to make an exemption just for a select few and guess what

00:08:20.720 we pick them absolutely that's why government loves big business right you can surround yourself

00:08:26.680 with lawyers and lobbyists and they can do what they do to the politicians and the money just keeps

00:08:31.360 on flowing that's right the small businesses that small businesses will suffer because they cannot

00:08:35.880 afford the expensive lawyers expensive uh accountants expensive lobbyists to be able to

00:08:42.640 get these major projects yeah and it's always a small business that takes the brunt unfortunately

00:08:46.780 canada revenue agency my goodness another gem and uh we got a right we got a laundry list here

00:08:55.440 um my goodness the auditor general did a report on canada revenue agency it it doesn't look too great

00:09:02.220 for them uh the biggest stat i think to come out of this and we'll let the other generals maybe queue

00:09:07.440 up cut too um is that 17 of the time the canada revenue agency was actually correcting giving out

00:09:14.720 information that's shocking uh i'll get your comments let's play cut to it i'll get your comments

00:09:19.920 auditors from my office placed calls to contact centers and asked general or non-account specific

00:09:26.880 questions we found that agents responses to individual tax questions were accurate only 17 percent of the

00:09:35.520 time and business or tax business tax or benefit questions were accurate just only half of the time

00:09:43.600 to test the accuracy of agents responses to account specific questions we reviewed a sample of recorded

00:09:52.000 conversations we found that the accuracy was much higher when questions pertain to specific accounts

00:10:01.360 what are your take when you listen to that what's your take well for for the cra to be uh

00:10:07.920 uh to be wrong 83 percent of the time that is if you actually get through that's oh that is a good

00:10:14.880 point uh that is because obviously you you cannot get through and so if you get through you get the wrong

00:10:20.240 information 83 percent of the time on individual tax questions i don't think that gives people a lot of

00:10:25.040 confidence here um we know that the the minister of finance knew that this report was coming and that

00:10:31.280 he knew how scathing was going to it was going to be so they of course tried to plan around to plan to plan

00:10:36.880 um and so but what that tells me is that this is obviously an ongoing issue that has been getting

00:10:44.240 progressively worse um in there they have not offered any fixes and the liberal tendency the

00:10:51.200 approach has typically been we'll throw more money at the problem yes uh but we see that the the uh

00:10:57.760 the costs for the cra continue to go up uh but the issues also continue to go up so it's very inefficient

00:11:04.240 what would it you know i may be wishful thinking wouldn't it be a good idea to maybe simplify the

00:11:10.480 tax code yes definitely wishful thinking like to make it so complicated that regular people

00:11:18.240 can't figure it out where they have to call the canada revenue agency the administrator um and

00:11:24.160 they're having trouble figuring it out at that point it should be like maybe we should address this it's

00:11:31.760 true because i mean they they try to uh rely on ai as well as you know there's a chatbot called charlie

00:11:41.360 but even charlie got the answers wrong two-thirds of the time so there is no hope uh it's uh it's a

00:11:48.560 serious issue and i think i think what needs to happen here is they need to look at the fundamental

00:11:55.120 issues of the cra yeah right and uh and stop simplifying uh you know the the the solutions

00:12:03.440 and just throwing more money because clearly it's not working no it isn't working i think there needs

00:12:08.240 to be a simplification of the tax code to the point where regular canadians don't have to you know wait

00:12:15.200 online to get an operator they don't have to go out and spend money on on accountants no offense to

00:12:21.120 accountants they're lovely people but it's just gotten overly complicated where people just throw

00:12:25.760 up their hands and have to turn to other methods in order to file their taxes to do the right thing

00:12:31.040 absolutely yeah i mean uh i don't know if uh people have seen but they're the one of the latest news

00:12:37.200 also has been uh with regards to the automatic tax filing but there was a fraud uh that caused the cra to

00:12:44.080 pay out close to five million dollars out to a company that only uh generates 250 000 and it wasn't

00:12:53.280 even the cra who caught it it was actually the financial institution who caught it and had to call

00:12:58.560 the cra and say um i don't think this looks right so there there's there's a lot of money at stake and

00:13:04.800 it's taxpayer dollars right that uh that are being wasted are being mismanaged uh because at the end of

00:13:11.920 the day when we talk about costs and spending it is canadians heart earned uh income and the taxes

00:13:20.640 that that are paid from that that are being wasted here and even during the pandemic there were warning

00:13:26.560 signs that money was leaving the you know the government's hands and going to people not even

00:13:32.240 living in canada or multiple accounts or a wide range of fraudulent activities and yes their money did

00:13:38.480 go to people who needed it absolutely and conservative support of that but we did raise

00:13:43.040 many red flags about the fact that there was the possibility and the reality of it actually happening

00:13:50.160 of fraudulent accounts and people getting money they weren't entitled to at all yes and there was there

00:13:56.880 was no way to actually recover that to those funds right so that's why these um policies that are that uh

00:14:06.880 give away money so quickly are like you have to think through uh what you're doing because chances

00:14:13.280 are you're not going to get that those funds back they go into debt or they're printing money

00:14:18.640 but then it's the next generations yeah that are going to have to pay for it right that's right

00:14:23.280 so it's it's uh there are real consequences to overspending yeah absolutely i think even some

00:14:28.480 CRA employees managed to help themselves to some COVID relief funds too so uh unbelievable anyway

00:14:34.720 we're pretty much out of time thank you for coming on show um the guests always get the last word so

00:14:39.840 we allow the floor to go over to you and you can sum up any way you'd like well uh yeah i mean uh

00:14:47.760 there are some serious uh concerns and of course we have the budget coming up on november the 4th i am

00:14:55.120 as a member of the finance committee and as a finance professional particularly concerned about the budget

00:15:00.720 uh and the approach that they're taking to it specifically um with the redefinition

00:15:07.840 of some of the expenses the parliamentary budget officer as you know is a budget watchdog uh nonpartisan

00:15:14.880 and he has voiced um his concerns uh it blurs accountability it goes outside of international

00:15:21.600 standards uh and this is the approach that there are that they they want to take to manipulate the

00:15:28.800 budget so that the numbers look better uh that is very wrong and i'm particularly concerned about

00:15:34.880 that in the future of um the next generations with the amount of debt that uh that are that are going

00:15:40.800 to be left on the backs of uh the next generations yeah the next generation won't be better off and

00:15:46.320 that's a weird trend that we are now seeing yeah so many years so many decades the next generation has

00:15:52.880 always been better off and now that's changed that's right very unfortunate sandra thank you very much

00:15:57.920 for coming on no problem got it there we go after a parliament from new market aurora thank you for

00:16:04.800 your time thank you for yours as well don't forget to like comment subscribe and share this program

00:16:09.360 tell your friends to download it on platforms like cast box itunes google play and spotify new content

00:16:14.880 for you every single tuesday 1 30 pm eastern time until next week remember low taxes less government

00:16:20.720 more freedom more freedom that's the blueprint

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - October 28, 2025

“17% of the time, it works every time.”

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