The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Canada has become significantly less affordable

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

00:00:13.800 jamie schmale member of parliament for halliburton court the legs brock with another great episode

00:00:18.380 lined up for you and because it is new content which we have for you every single tuesday 1 30

00:00:22.980 p.m eastern time we ask that you like subscribe share this program together we can push back

00:00:27.660 against the ever-moving liberal agenda and of course if you can't listen or watch the entire

00:00:31.720 program right this second download it listen to it later on tell your friends about it on platforms

00:00:36.440 like castbox itunes google play spotify you name it it is out there so our conversation today wraps

00:00:42.940 around a conversation i think everyone is having no matter what part of the country you live in it is

00:00:48.460 the rising cost of living to talk about that we have two amazing critics we have dan albus the

00:00:54.620 member of parliament for central okanagan samilkami nikola is also the shadow minister for finance

00:00:59.660 and beside him we have philip lawrence the member of parliament for north humberland peterborough south

00:01:03.800 also the shadow minister for fed dev the federal economic development agency for ontario so welcome

00:01:10.540 gentlemen thanks for having us so earlier this week we had a motion between before the house of

00:01:15.860 commons and every opposition party gets a certain number of opposition motion days we can talk about

00:01:20.540 whatever we want and it has to be voted on by the house we had a pretty important one to help

00:01:24.880 lower the cost of living for canadians because it's just out of control dan why don't you start

00:01:29.740 with us tell us a bit about that motion we had last week and uh what we tried to accomplish well

00:01:34.640 thanks jamie i really appreciate the opportunity to talk to this because my constituents they're

00:01:39.060 talking about gas prices i'm not sure about the two of you absolutely but this is the issue

00:01:43.720 because people are seeing uh groceries have gone up 10 percent the last time we saw groceries go up

00:01:49.460 this this quickly uh was in 1981 when uh ronald reagan was in power but also when we had another

00:01:56.020 uh big spending uh tax and spend uh divisive liberal prime minister named trudeau so the the policies of

00:02:04.700 this government are just making it life unaffordable so our uh leader candace bergen put forward a motion

00:02:11.060 uh that would focus specifically on those issues so we wanted to take the gst for example off of uh

00:02:17.800 gas at the pumps so whether it be uh gasoline or diesel uh and we also wanted to remove it on

00:02:24.080 household electricity and heating bills these are important uh it's incredibly important for us right

00:02:30.900 now to try to do everything we can to to help people now what the liberals are talking about they're

00:02:37.140 saying well we'll get you a daycare program in my province was the first province to sign on to a daycare program

00:02:43.760 they've i've heard from mlas that it's going to take years before they even get to that so this government is

00:02:49.680 you know always great at pulling out a rabbit out of the hat so to speak or a shiny new bauble to distract people

00:02:55.280 but conservatives are actually focused on where people are at and what i'm hearing is people want us to tackle gas prices

00:03:01.920 and they want to keep life affordable uh there's also a real push on uh fertilizer tariffs as well as

00:03:08.740 other products um you know specifically for farmers right now with the uh russian invasion of ukraine

00:03:15.620 russia has strategically cut off food supplies so wheat uh that should be going to feed the world

00:03:23.040 is not and so this government unlike any g7 country has actually put a tariff on uh farmers so that when

00:03:32.060 they bring in fertilizer that's already been ordered already been paid for usually you put a tariff on

00:03:36.640 something to stop the consumption of something so this this is just a new price and it doesn't even

00:03:41.340 target the russians jamie because tariff obviously that gets put on by the minister of finance and so

00:03:47.360 farmers are actually going to be writing a big check to the federal government and so between that and some

00:03:52.140 of their other regulations on the environment for fertilizer um they're actually making it harder

00:03:57.120 for farmers to plan they're making it harder for for farmers to plant and will make it harder for them

00:04:03.120 uh to be able to compete on the international stage at a critical time where we need to be not just uh

00:04:08.880 we not just feeding canadians but feeding the world so you know jamie this particular motion was so

00:04:14.680 important for all those reasons and more but uh i'm shamefully the spend ep liberal uh coalition

00:04:21.900 decided to vote it down and uh that's a real shame because rather than look at pragmatic solutions

00:04:28.560 today of ways we can help canadians today they just say oh it's a conservative motion and dismiss it

00:04:33.200 out of hand and uh you can hear by the the quality of the debate in the house they're not interested

00:04:38.160 in looking after people's uh their own their own uh canadians interests they're literally saying you

00:04:43.840 know if it's a conservative proposition just throw it out so they're being punitive and uh cannes

00:04:49.120 bergen was right up front at the beginning of the debate look don't vote for us but vote for your

00:04:54.480 constituents because this will help them to deal with the biggest cost of living uh crisis we've seen

00:04:59.940 in this country in 30 plus years yeah it really is out of control and philip in the last parliament you

00:05:04.520 had a piece of legislation a private member's bill to help give some relief to some farmers so

00:05:08.860 so we've been talking about this for quite some time because it has been building yeah so i'll talk

00:05:14.140 about farmers obviously that's uh the number one driver and in my constituency economically is our

00:05:19.280 farmers they're out there working every day they work so hard during covet 19 even with all the

00:05:24.140 struggles we had they kept producing the food and kept us fed the and they'll be increasingly

00:05:29.000 important with the geopolitical issues in russia and elsewhere that are preventing food from getting

00:05:33.580 the market it is absolutely critical that our farmers produce more food than they ever had not

00:05:38.440 just to feed canada but to feed the world and what does this government do it continues to put in

00:05:43.000 punitive sanctions so the tariffs on fertilizers as dan so apt talked about carbon tax our farmers are

00:05:49.040 paying tens of thousands of dollars the government tried to put in a stopgap measure but their solution

00:05:54.240 to the inequitable amount of the carbon tax that farmers have paid is to send that money back all the

00:06:01.080 way to ottawa and then they'll send some of it back based on what they think should go back to them

00:06:05.580 ben lob has a fantastic private member's bill that uh it carries forward hopefully goes the last

00:06:11.800 stretch uh that my private member's bill starts it actually gives farmers an exemption of natural gas

00:06:16.800 and propane off the carbon tax right um it is it's really costing some of the farmers jamie and my

00:06:22.720 writing tens of thousands of dollars and this is when we need our farmers the most and instead of

00:06:27.120 empowering them we're penalizing them well it says here the canadian press uh june 6th one in five

00:06:33.160 canadians reported going hungry at least once between march of when the pandemic started in 2020

00:06:37.860 and now that is absolutely incredible in a country like ours well one in five canadians are struggling

00:06:43.980 and let's put into context food banks are at the brink there is just too much demand and what does

00:06:52.040 this government do rather than you know get their uh you know roll up their sleeves and get to work

00:06:57.500 instead we have a finance minister that's too busy as deputy prime minister and we have a prime minister

00:07:02.880 that likes to act like a prime minister on tv only he's not actually getting in in briefed on the issues

00:07:09.020 and he's not presenting ideas that will work for canadians today so uh you know everyone who's watching

00:07:14.840 the podcast jamie can know that the conservative caucus here in ottawa are doing everything we can

00:07:19.560 to put those ideas in front of government fortunately uh those spend ep liberals you know

00:07:25.460 unless unless it is drawing money from people that they get to spend on their own uh priorities jamie

00:07:32.000 they're they're instead uh focusing on that we're focused on as phil said letting people keep their

00:07:37.860 money letting them jump on the opportunities let them feed their families in the best way that they know

00:07:43.320 how people aren't asking for a lot they're just asking for a government that cares about them today

00:07:48.400 that's not what they're getting and that's how you spur the economy more money and circular more money

00:07:52.420 being spent on priorities of the individual is how you keep the economy from slowing down uh right now

00:07:57.480 we're just seeing less and less people with money it was interesting the the former finance minister

00:08:01.720 bill morneau which ran huge deficits before the pandemic even when the economy was doing well he

00:08:07.080 came out and said the liberals were focusing more on wealth redistribution than actually creating

00:08:13.300 economic opportunities for canadians yeah uh we have long-term issues as well as our sort of

00:08:19.100 circular um short-term issues as well canada is is struggling productivity wise and over the last

00:08:26.220 seven years that's gotten way worse currently out of 36 oecd nations we are 25th um of course we need

00:08:33.580 to be concerned about how wealth is distributed across our country and making sure the most vulnerable

00:08:38.180 are taken care of but we also have to look at the economic drivers economic growth uh when we grow

00:08:43.980 the pie larger that means there's more for everyone when that pie shrinks not only does it mean there's

00:08:49.140 less for everyone it's often the most vulnerable who are hurt this recent budget had very little if

00:08:54.940 anything that will encourage economic growth economic growth is the driver of our economy it's what

00:09:00.900 allows uh it's what allows promotions it's what allows business creators we need a culture of winning in

00:09:06.800 canada we need to drive that economic growth and this budget had nothing uh to offer canadians for

00:09:11.940 economic growth so yep and just and just that point um i i think it's important to note uh when in the

00:09:17.660 previous harper government when mr harper and minister flaherty cut the gst offering real tax relief

00:09:24.740 every day in front of canadians every time they go to a store they would get that gst or they would

00:09:28.760 see that reduction from seven percent to five percent we actually kept the rebate checks for low income

00:09:34.980 persons especially seniors on fixed income so when you have you're exactly right when you have a strong

00:09:41.440 economy when you have where the the the uh free enterprise system where you have those entrepreneurs

00:09:48.140 that can jump at those opportunities and create wealth that ends up working for everyone's best

00:09:53.200 interest because then government has a social safety net that we can rely on and uh you know the only

00:09:58.940 thing i would agree with uh the former minister bill mordeaux in his comments is he's absolutely right

00:10:03.320 this government is always focused on cutting up the pie they have no idea how to grow it and you know

00:10:09.820 when he was finance minister he put money into super clusters that weren't so super it's been an

00:10:15.380 invisible failure that was a uh you know he has a canadian infrastructure bank that canadians can't bank

00:10:20.480 on the only people that can bank on the canadian infrastructure bank at this point are his

00:10:24.660 executives and their bonuses so while while you know i'll agree with the former minister about that

00:10:31.020 uh that this government has no idea how to grow that pie uh he's a big part uh he's the one that

00:10:36.160 set the sale with justin trudeau at the very beginning of their mandate and uh so it's a bit

00:10:41.260 rich coming from someone like bill morneau you wonder why dan why he might be trying to distance himself

00:10:45.300 from this government yeah well if i can if i had a barge pole and i was bill morneau i'd be barge

00:10:52.100 pulling away from from that government well we don't want to be all doom and gloom but it you know high

00:10:56.400 energy prices we've got high food prices interest rates are on the rise that is showing a number of

00:11:01.760 if you look back through history there are some pretty big warning signs that we're we're running

00:11:05.680 into but this is also a government where nothing is really going right we have lineups outside service

00:11:10.880 canada for for passports we have immigration system that's backlogged up to two million files that they

00:11:16.480 just can't process we have veterans still waiting in line to get their benefits and yet there as dan you

00:11:22.160 pointed out and as mentioned this is a government that says yeah we can take more on our plate in

00:11:27.360 the form of daycare or other priorities that they're mixing with the ndp i don't trust them to do anything

00:11:34.960 right at this point how their solution is let's just keep piling more onto this this system we have

00:11:40.480 this federal system yeah i mean i think you make an excellent point jamie if you're not doing the

00:11:45.360 essential services well why are you expanding beyond that right and this this government is incompetent

00:11:52.080 it's corrupt and increasingly getting tired meaning it's exhausting any of the new ideas that it did

00:11:56.800 bring to the table we see that whatever capacity we want to look at whether it be delivering passports

00:12:04.000 whether it be accommodating allowing newcomers to come to our country they are failing at every turn 1.00

00:12:10.880 while we just saw at pearson airport what a disaster that is for the punitive mandates that we yet to see

00:12:17.040 any science to support we continue to see this this tired corrupt incompetent liberal government fail

00:12:24.240 well on the west coast you saw the port of vancouver was cited in an international survey as being one

00:12:30.160 of the worst in the developed world so there's a reason why we have some of these supply chain issues

00:12:35.440 it's because the government is not managing its business and like phil said if you can't even get

00:12:40.000 someone a passport uh you know you can ask well why would they want more from a government that can't

00:12:47.200 even uh do a payroll system for its own employees properly now they're saying that they can expand

00:12:52.960 the state uh to do everything look this is why we need a conservative government there's uh you know

00:12:58.560 a leadership race going on i'm not going to get into it other than to say there's a real appetite

00:13:03.360 from canadians right now for to change the channel yep on the failures of justin trudeau well you

00:13:09.040 have a province that is run by an ndp government uh like like even their federal cousins are talking

00:13:16.560 about taking excess profits first of all what is excess profits but from certain companies and

00:13:22.880 redistributing again but this is specifically in the oil and gas industry but this is an industry

00:13:28.720 that has been trying to expand as long as i can remember and offset russian gas which is causing a lot

00:13:34.560 of the problems and the disruptions but it's been bad government policy that's been stopping this

00:13:39.840 industry from from providing that that responsible energy and and so the ndp said well because we've got

00:13:46.960 a supply and demand issue let's just take whatever we feel is excess that i to me that is very scary

00:13:52.880 to start talking about that in a country that has already been hurt with investment fleeing elsewhere

00:13:59.280 well look the uh canadian energy sector has been hit so hard ever since justin trudeau came to office c

00:14:06.080 48 c69 all of these bills just have been constantly pouring cold water over an industry we should be

00:14:12.960 very proud of uh as environmental leaders as producers of clean tech uh as producers of wealth both uh you

00:14:20.240 know for employees as well as uh for uh investors uh that's the kind of thing that attracts like you said

00:14:26.480 uh investment here but let's put it into context they have become profitable because of uh but they

00:14:33.040 did so um by by being profitable at low forty dollar a barrel uh for oil and they had to let go hundreds

00:14:41.520 of thousands of individuals uh in alberta in saskatchewan some parts of manitoba and because people were

00:14:48.240 coming in from all over there they let all those newfoundland and labrador everywhere exactly and so they

00:14:53.200 learned to become profitable there but they haven't been able to hire all the engineers and designers

00:14:58.880 to expand and grow so for so given that we actually have it where world prices right now are are

00:15:04.880 skyrocketing uh what's what's ended up have are they reinvesting those profits that they have right

00:15:10.240 now in canada they're not and uh they're just sending them to dividends so that's something we should

00:15:14.720 be keeping an eye on it's the culture it's the environment that justin trudeau and his ndp

00:15:21.680 extreme left allies have created an anti-investment uh zone around canada and so uh look you know it

00:15:29.280 used to be in the old days where you would have it where okay we're doing well as a business let's

00:15:34.320 grow let's expand let's hire that's not happening right now and that's squarely on justin trudeau

00:15:40.080 world prices you know that's something maybe we can have a good debate about but the investment

00:15:44.960 culture we have it's like and you mentioned british columbia john horgan and his ndp government

00:15:50.960 have made it so that forestry one of our our our steadfast for generations it's it's an economic

00:15:57.280 driver for many rural communities so many uh forestry companies in bc they aren't leaving forestry jamie

00:16:04.480 they're leaving bc and where are they going they're going to jurisdictions like louisiana in the united

00:16:09.280 states why they don't have a carbon tax they don't have a lot of red tape and they don't have

00:16:14.400 uncertainty like we have here in canada so that falls 100 at the feet of justin trudeau and john

00:16:21.920 horgan they're the first ministers for their respective government and i will tell you when

00:16:26.240 people are seeing these gas prices at the pumps to hear john horgan say think before you drive yeah

00:16:31.840 take public transit or to even hear justin trudeau say just buy an electric car

00:16:36.080 yeah that's not that's these these are not solutions people need to be able to get to

00:16:40.560 their job they need to be able to get their medical appointments especially in rural areas

00:16:44.080 and you know what they don't have publicly funded uh public transit to take well yeah especially when

00:16:51.760 you know it's pretty arrogant to say oh just go buy this just just go do this right like there's there

00:16:57.920 are so many issues but in our energy portfolio our conversation is about a plus b right the left just

00:17:03.040 wants to minus a and have b which is not in abundance is not rapidly affordable is not

00:17:09.360 easily deployable so i think that's a different conversation but we talked about the anchors of

00:17:13.440 the economy we've talked forestry uh oil and natural gas mining those are all industries that

00:17:18.400 are hurting right now and they're not seeing those investment dollars come into this country it's really

00:17:23.040 shameful absolutely and uh they said they the final you see a dissonance actually and uh in their

00:17:29.040 argument right they will talk about the importance the finance minister will the and others in the

00:17:34.160 liberal government about the importance of economic growth and they'll also say that productivity is

00:17:39.040 important its productivity is a key driver to our shared prosperity but one of the way that one of the

00:17:45.040 ways that we measure productivity is the amount contributed uh to the gdp per hour per worker

00:17:51.200 in canada the average is fifty dollars that's one of the lowest in the oecd of the developed nations

00:17:56.800 uh however our our standout our standout industry is is the oil and gas industry where it's five

00:18:03.680 hundred dollars that's ten times our average in productivity and so if we do want to share if we

00:18:09.520 do want to grow that prosperity we want to grow that pie it goes through our oil and gas industry uh

00:18:15.920 and to say anything other than that is is not true of course we want to grow our renewables of course we

00:18:21.120 want to grow our green industry but those aren't things we can flip the switch and turn on if we allow as you

00:18:26.480 said the the the energy companies to reinvest those proceeds into greater technology not only will

00:18:32.560 we grow that natural resource industry but we'll grow the spin-off industries from that we'll grow

00:18:37.040 our economy we'll start to bridge that innovation gap that canada is currently facing a dollar in the hand

00:18:42.880 of the individual creates businesses creates jobs opportunity wealth well just to his point in 2014

00:18:49.280 canada hit the high watermark for investment in clean technology it was over a hundred billion dollars of new

00:18:55.280 announceable projects in 2020 where is it at half of that why because justin trudeau has created an

00:19:02.560 anti-investment uh climate here in canada and uh you know that's that's where phil is 100 right if we

00:19:09.840 want to do this right we need to involve industry we need to make sure we're drawing on that innovation

00:19:15.040 and you know what when the ndp and uh or as i call them the spend dp liberals propose things like

00:19:20.720 excessive profits your point who gets to decide what's excessive uh they've done this to the banks

00:19:26.960 look i'm no fan of the banks but this is what the banks will do in response they'll say okay you're

00:19:31.200 going to tax us more we'll raise user fees we'll close offices in uh or you know banks in rural canada

00:19:39.200 uh we'll let people go uh because they they're going to be looking for their shareholders and like i

00:19:44.640 said if they don't feel they can grow in a country if the ndp liberals started doing that to the to our

00:19:50.080 oil and gas uh they would kill the industry you know what there's so much we can do in this country

00:19:55.280 jamie all entrepreneurs want is the chance that's right and government needs to get out of the way

00:20:00.400 on these things get right out of the way well we've run way over time i think so uh we'll as you

00:20:06.080 both know we always give the guests the the last word to say whatever they want maybe we can use this

00:20:10.400 time to talk about what we're doing what we plan on doing as a conservative government in waiting

00:20:15.840 and what we're planning to do for the next little bit as parliament kind of wraps up in the next week

00:20:20.160 or so and how we are continuing to fight for those struggling with this cost of living crisis maybe we'll

00:20:25.360 start with philip thanks yeah so as we talked about today i plan to and uh in my role to continue to

00:20:31.920 fight for canadians i want our country that is not uh canada doesn't exist for the government exists

00:20:37.840 for canadians we want to give them control of their lives back we want to give them the freedom

00:20:42.640 they deserve and we want to grow that pie and we know that ultimately the success of canada will

00:20:48.240 come from the great people from coast to coast to coast not from some government program in ottawa

00:20:53.920 yeah well we've seen that uh when liberals feel challenged and right now the uh the economic

00:20:59.520 situation of canadians and canadians are phoning their members of parliament because i know liberal and

00:21:03.920 ndp members who've said their their constituents are mad as can be about things like inflation

00:21:09.600 uh so expect everyone so get your seat belts on they're going to start pulling out divisive issues

00:21:14.720 from south of the border i called the prime minister in the house of commons our largest importer

00:21:19.600 of american political political uh issues uh because that's what they want they want canadians to

00:21:26.400 divide i call them our divider in chief and you know what um you know we have to keep on them we

00:21:32.880 have to keep pushing them to do better every g7 country is doing things to protect their citizens

00:21:39.360 from high gas prices and runaway inflation the british are cutting fuel taxes and looking at more

00:21:44.400 the americans are started using their strategic reserve germany germany is adding 16 billion dollar

00:21:50.400 tax plan to deal with fuel high fuel costs what has this government done zero nada nothing and so we

00:21:58.240 need to be calling on them to do better uh we're g7 country he needs to start acting like a leader of

00:22:03.440 one it's almost as if the liberals aren't happy unless they're making people's lives miserable but

00:22:08.400 that's just my observation thank you very much dan elvis member of parliament for central okanagan

00:22:13.200 samilkamy nickley also the finance finance soon to be finance minister maybe the shadow finance minister

00:22:18.880 for uh finance and we also have philip lawrence a member of parliament for north humberland peterborough south

00:22:24.080 also the shadow minister for the federal economic development agency of eastern central and southern

00:22:29.200 ontario a bit of geography forum thank you very much for joining us today remember new content every

00:22:34.000 single tuesday 1 30 p.m eastern time we appreciate you joining us and we appreciate if you like the

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The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 15, 2022

Canada has become significantly less affordable

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