A victory for freedom of choice!
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Summary
On today's show, the Liberals are once again going after your natural health products, your vitamins and supplements. But there's one person standing in the way, and the team of Conservatives behind him: Blaine Calkins, MP for Red Deer-Lacombe.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Kawartha-Lex Brock, with new content
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for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like, subscribe, share this
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program, because there are ears that need to hear this message. Probably something you're not getting
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in the mainstream media. Don't forget, your friends can download it on platforms like CastBox,
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iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out there. On today's show, the Liberals,
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once again, going after your natural health products, your vitamins and supplements,
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there's one person who's standing in the way and the team of Conservatives behind him. It's
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Blaine Calkins, the Member of Parliament for Red Deer Lacombe. Thanks for joining us.
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Pleasure to be here, Jamie. It's great that you are leading that charge, your private member's
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bill, C-368. Why don't you tell us a bit about this, how you came about, and where we are now.
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Well, I was here, I've been here for 18 years, so I've been through this debate once before.
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You look like you've only been here a couple. You're aging backwards.
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Yeah, I don't have the Benjamin Button effect yet, but natural health products might help
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with that, at least maybe slowing it down. But all kidding aside, so I've been here for
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a while, and I've seen the debates on this issue come and go, previous government. And
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you know, when the government, the Trudeau government here has decided that they were going
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to make broad sweeping changes to the Food and Drugs Act through a Budget Implementation
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Act, it raised some alarm bells. The industry was completely blindsided, weren't consulted,
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were part of the discussion at all. They've testified as much at the Finance Committee.
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And it's just very, very strange that we would have changes to the Food and Drugs Act through
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a Budget Implementation Act, when there's no budgetary rationale for it in the budget,
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there's no new funds, there's nothing like that. So, what this does is it changes the
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definition of a therapeutic product to include natural health products, which is contrary to
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all of the previous studies that the House of Commons and others have done, saying that natural
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health products are more closely aligned or can be considered food than a therapeutic
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product or a synthetic drug, for example. So, this is your traditional Chinese medicines,
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it's herbs, it's those kinds of remedies, right? It's vitamin C, it's your protein powders.
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Yeah. So, there's about $5 billion worth of economic activity every year. Of course,
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$3 billion of that is directly GST producing sales and creates thousands of jobs in quite
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a bit of the industry. It's actually women that work in this industry and, you know, they
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didn't do a gender-based analysis either. So, it's going to have a significant impact depending
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on who you talk to. Over 80% of Canadians use natural health products and they say that one
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in five producers is going to leave the Canadian marketplace. There are states in the USA that
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are already actively headhunting Canadian companies based on the proposal coming forward
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from the current government. And, yeah, so we just, I looked at the opportunity. Look,
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we all had those cards coming in. You're a member of Parliament as am I. We all had those
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cards coming in. And I looked at the card and I said, well, you know what, we can just take
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this back to the status quo by reversing the changes that were made in Bill C-47. So, I happened
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to have my, you know, my number coming up fairly quickly. So, I tabled a bill back in
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December of last year and we're past second reading now.
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Yeah, you're doing a great job, Glenn, I've got to tell you. But, I'm old enough to remember
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this coming to the forefront not too long ago. I believe around 2004, 2005 again under
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Paul Martin, another Liberal Prime Minister. But, every time the Liberals are in power this
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Well, it seems to be the case. If you go back to the 1998, the Health Committee actually
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did a study, and that would have been a majority of Liberal MPs at the time who suggested the
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complete opposite of what their leadership always seems to tell them. So, Health Canada
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obviously is able to convince Liberal Ministers and Prime Ministers that this is the way to
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go, which is why we found it in a finance bill. Instead of going through the appropriate
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channel through a Health Minister tabling a health bill in front of Parliament and having,
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through a debate and discussion about it, at Health Committee where we would actually have
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time for those conversations. So, now we just have fly-by-night conversations, quick little
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interludes at Finance Committee talking about all manners of the Budget Implementation Act
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instead of just specifically these sections dealing with the Food and Drugs Act. So, it's
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very, very frustrating. Yes, they started in 2004, but I mean every, like I said, every study,
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every consensus that's been reached in the conversations in this country realize that natural health products
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shouldn't be treated the same way as, you know, you treat like Pfizer or some of these other large,
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you know, multi-billion dollar, multinational, you know, pharmaceutical companies. So, these are your,
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some of them are mum and pop shops. It's, we've got great innovation here. We actually have the
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largest budget for natural health products of any government, in the modern world at least, and we are
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pretty much internationally recognized as a safe place. So, companies that currently set up shop,
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they have a new product, they go through the research and development, they get a natural product
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number. So, there's only two ways you can get a natural product number. You either have to have
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ample amounts of what we consider traditional knowledge, for example, you know that ginger makes your,
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you know, can make your stomach feel better, for example, these kinds of traditional knowledge
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from various practices, or you actually have, you actually have to have some scientific studies that indicate
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that the product might be helpful for the ailments that it's claiming to be helpful with.
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So, nobody's making outlandish or outrageous claims and getting a natural product number.
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So, there's no, there's no snake oil per se. There's just, these products are out there and Canadians,
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over 80% of them use them. And we have one of the best regulated industries and we're considered
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reliable on the international marketplace. So, we've got innovation, we've got entrepreneurs,
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we've got growers who are making the products, we have manufacturers, labelers, packagers,
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everybody making these products, and some of them for the domestic marketplace here in Canada,
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some from around the world creating jobs and opportunity in, you know, like in the GTA,
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in the lower mainland in Vancouver, places where you would think that typically vote Liberal or NDP,
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yet their MPs seem to be hell-bent on chasing that business out of Canada. So…
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Well, what business aren't they intent on chasing under Canada? This is yet another one.
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This is crushing small business. As you mentioned, this is the mom-and-pop shops.
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These are the small companies and communities like mine and yours that are making these products.
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But it's the Liberals and their big government agenda, right? They have two speeds,
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Who knew that the proprietors of organic health food stores would be chased out of business by Liberals
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and NDP and Green, who all voted in favour, by the way, of Bill C-47 in the first place.
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So it's nice to see, you know, when this issue is taken out of that context,
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and we are able to have a non… a debate about this that doesn't involve confidence,
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So when Jagmeet Singh gave Justin Trudeau carte blanche in 2022 in March,
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when he signed on to that Supply and Confidence Agreement,
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he basically said, I trust Justin Trudeau to do everything right.
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And, you know, now I've given them a path to redemption,
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even though they continue to try and somehow blame Conservatives for this.
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This simply couldn't be further from the truth.
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So it's under the laws and regulations that Stephen Harper made back in 2011 to 2015, 2008.
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We had conversations with this industry. We set up a framework that works very, very well,
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and it's allowed our industry to grow and thrive and prosper and continues to keep Canadians safe.
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Ironically, Jamie, what's going to happen is if all these companies leave,
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they take their products elsewhere, then they're going to go to a jurisdiction that's less regulated,
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because that's… they're trying to escape the fees associated with the regulatory changes that are coming,
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massive fees that pharmaceutical companies pay, but not…
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But not… but not… not your mom and pop shops or your… your natural health product industry, per se.
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And massive fines, too, if… like up to $5 million a day.
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Now, that might not be a drop in the… that might be a drop in the bucket to Pfizer,
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but I can tell you to somebody who's trying to start up…
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It just… it's instant… instantly lethal to that business.
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So… so instead, though, of trying to grow the business here and work constructively with the business community
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and the business environment, these businesses are, like I said, they're being headhunted right now to move out.
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They will no longer be regulated under Canadian regulations,
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they'll be regulated under US or wherever the case might be,
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and then people will simply buy their stuff online.
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So you're going to lose the store, you're going to lose the vendor, you're going to lose all of that,
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all of that, and you're simply going to have personal use products coming in online
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with little to no regulation or oversight by Health Canada.
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So we're going to lose access, we're going to lose quality control,
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we're actually going to lose the public safety component of this,
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So everything that they claim that they're trying to do is they're actually going to get the opposite.
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But then again, we shouldn't be surprised that the Liberal government's unintended consequences
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are far worse than the intended consequences are meant to be good.
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Oh, I'm sure they'll have another government program to fix the…
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…the problem that they created, the other government program.
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But this is the, you mentioned earlier, the interesting part about the NDP.
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As a member of parliament, probably the most correspondence I received in my nine years here
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is on this natural health product issue, right?
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People are upset about their vitamins, their supplements, etc. being regulated by big pharma
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and also the job losses domestically that would be associated with it.
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So the NDP, like you said, the Greens and the Bloc all vote in favor of the budget implementation bill
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Now they come back and say, well, you know, maybe it was a pretty bad idea
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You do a great job in the House during one of your speeches explaining how we got here.
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And it was actually conservatives, every step of the way,
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fighting for these people that want to keep their supplements.
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Well, I appreciate the NDP's revisionist history on this.
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They are the reason that this change happened in the first place.
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And I'm glad that they're supporting this bill to take the legislative framework
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back to where it was under the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper,
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where we actually have the best regulated and the best natural health product regulations
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There is no need to tamper any further with the natural health product industry.
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So again, we have this Liberal government once again proving that small business
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is just more of an annoyance to them than, you know.
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And of course, heaven forbid anybody show a little bit of profit and continue to grow
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and hire more people and develop their businesses and their product lines.
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And we haven't even touched on, Jamie, the broader issue of giving Canadians
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as much choice and access to health products as they can for their own personal health choices, right?
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So the best way to not need the health care system is to prevent going to the hospital
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and the doctor in the first place if you don't need to.
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If you're feeling good and you know these supplements work for you,
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I've used many different products in my personal life.
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Some of them I don't think had any effect at all.
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I had the option to go and try those things out.
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Canadians are more informed and have more access to information than ever before.
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And why not have a little bit of freedom to choose what's best for ourselves and our families
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and trying to keep ourselves healthy in a very evolving and changing world.
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Because Justin Trudeau didn't give you permission for that maybe.
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But yeah, it seems to be frustrating that he and his current health minister seem to think
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that they're always the smartest people in the room and my guess is they're in the wrong room.
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I might have to come back with you on this another time.
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But one quick topic I wanted to talk about was Parks Canada paying.
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Now it's escalated about $12 million to hire a bunch of foreign hunters to come into Canada.
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So they're bringing people in outside Canada to take care of a deer.
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My understanding was New Zealand, sharpshooters.
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Look, culling animals from time to time is not an uncommon wildlife management tool.
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But hunting is actually a wildlife management tool as well.
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There's lots of tools that wildlife and fisheries managers have in their toolbox to make sure
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that we keep Mother Nature in balance as best we can.
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And we have these fallow deer which are non-natives on Sydney Island and out off the coast between
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They know that by just increasing accessibility and increasing the limits for hunters,
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they were able to successfully get this population in check.
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Regrettably, Parks Canada has decided that at a time like this, of all times...
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When food's through the roof, people are starving.
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They announced a $6 million program which has now seemed to escalate to $12 million.
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The first round, they had these sharpshooters out in helicopters shooting these deer,
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not distinguishing between the native black-tailed deer and the fallow deer,
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Recovering some of the bodies where they can, I guess.
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But a lot of them left to rot or decompose or be used where they were shot.
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And, you know, it worked out to about $10,000 a deer for the first round.
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Now, a massive program of fencing and whatever else is needed to get rid of these deer.
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Look, the reality is if the government really wanted to,
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they would simply make the hunting very accessible for British Columbia
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or all Canadian residents for that matter if they chose to do so.
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There would be lots of people that would come out there looking for that opportunity,
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pay their own money and in fact even pay the government fees.
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We might create more jobs and economic activity.
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Create some licensing fees and generate some revenue and resolve the problem.
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The animals would be taken sustainably and ethically.
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The meat would, you could be rest assured that the meat would be used most hunters,
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you know, barring any unforeseen accidents or something like that.
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But, I mean, everything I've ever shot has ended up in the freezer.
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So, these are the kinds of things that just, I think, offend the sensibilities of Canadians.
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They certainly offend the sensibilities of Canada's very large and very capable hunting community.
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So, our leader, Pierre Polyev, has been right to point this out.
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And there's cheaper and better and more ethical ways to do these things.
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And for those that are listening, you know it's time that we got back to some common sense
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in this country and listening to Pierre Polyev and Common Sense Conservatives.
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We do have better solutions, more affordable solutions,
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and ideas that are going to improve the quality of lives for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
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Blaine Colgans, Member of Parliament for Red Deer Lacombe.
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This guy is the champion of saving natural health products in Canada.
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So, please like, comment, subscribe, and share this program.
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New content every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time.
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Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
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From what weighs the size of your character modeling to smart Chris every single day.
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But we can build it everything outside the city.