Canada is in Housing Hell.
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Summary
On today's show, we are joined by Brad Viss, the Member of Parliament for Mission Matsui in the beautiful province of British Columbia, to talk about the viral video that has gone viral on social media, and the Stellantis deal.
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 Court with Alex Brock with new content
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for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. On today's show, we are talking about
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Pierre Polyev's housing video. It's gone viral. Perhaps you've seen it. If not, we're going to
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talk about it. Plus, the Stellantis deal. We have questions and concerns being raised in committee.
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And of course, we ask that you like, comment, subscribe, and share this program because I
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guarantee you are not hearing it in the mainstream media. Of course, you can download it and listen
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to it at your convenience on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify to talk about this
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and much, much more. We have Brad Viss, the Member of Parliament for Mission Matsui, Fraser Canyon,
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in the beautiful province of British Columbia. Thanks for coming on. So happy to be here, my
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friend. All right. Used to be the housing critic. So I know this is a file you are very passionate
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about, especially coming from British Columbia, where this is a hot button issue everywhere you
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go. It's housing. And of course, the leader issued a new video on the weekend, put it out over social
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media for lots to talk about. Last I saw, it was well over 2 million views. It's probably higher than
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that now. It's everywhere. It is indeed absolutely everywhere because it's addressing the number one
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fear that every Canadian who owns a home and has a mortgage and every aspiring Canadian who wants to
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have a mortgage and create their own little piece of heaven in the community they live in. And
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unfortunately, right now, getting a home has become extremely difficult since Justin Trudeau came into
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office. And in the last year, especially with the rapid increase in interest rates that people have
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to pay on their mortgage, a lot of families have suffered immensely, especially if you're on a variable
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rate mortgage. I don't know about you, but in my community, I heard from a single mother, but a well-off
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single mother, she makes well into the six figures. But you know, she bought a townhouse a few years ago
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for 750 grand. And she heard Justin Trudeau say, well, you know, these interest rates are going to
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be very, very low for a very long time. He didn't, well, we've heard it all before. He doesn't think
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about monetary policy. Or he took on debt so Canadians wouldn't have to. Exactly. So she did. She took on the
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debt. And now she's wondering whether she can keep the family home that her and her daughter live in.
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And we're not talking about someone below the average income. We're talking about someone way
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above the average family income. She makes well over six figures. But if you're a single parent,
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and you've got, you know, your mortgage goes from $3,000 to $6,000, and your take-home pays maybe
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$7,000 a month, it's hard to get by when your monthly expenses go up that much. And there's
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similar stories like that no matter what community you go to in Canada right now.
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We try to point this out on the show quite often, cause and effect, because it's important to remember
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how we got here. If you forget how we got here, you're doomed to make the same mistakes going
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forward. So as the video that Pierre Polyev released points out, he puts it out in a number
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of categories. But most importantly, is the part where Justin Trudeau ramped up spending,
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and he also printed a bunch of cash. So we're going to get super producer Dan to queue up,
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cut one, we're going to show a bit of the video. It's about a minute and a half. So please stick
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with us. Before we get into that, do you want to say anything? Well, no, no, I think I want to run
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into it. Well, I think that the key point is that this liberal government didn't believe that there
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was any relationship between the decisions they were making as a government, and what the interest
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rates would be. That's actually a very good point. And that is the key point we need to take away
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from this. And this is what Pierre has been stating even before he was the leader of our party,
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that there is a relationship between government spending and your mortgage payment every single
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month. The liberals were disassociated from that reality, and the consequences couldn't be more
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grave. Cause and effect, here we go. Play cut one, super producer Dan.
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A mortgage payment has two parts, interest and principal. Interest rates are set by the Bank of
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Canada, but heavily influenced by the federal government. You'll forgive me if I don't think
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about monetary policy. When the government borrows and spends, it bids up the goods we buy and the
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interest we pay. The Trudeau government has doubled Canada's debt, adding more debt than all prime
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ministers combined. Our finance minister has conceded that this deficit spending pours fuel on the
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inflationary fire. And I'm going to start with what we shouldn't do. I think it is very important
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not to make the problem worse. I am very mindful of the importance of not pouring fiscal fuel on the
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planes of inflation. And then a few weeks later, she poured 69 billion dollars of new fuel on that
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fire. For governments to run huge deficits or borrow money, they sell bonds to investors. In recent
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years, the Trudeau government's spending has exploded, and they've been borrowing more than
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lenders will lend. So the Bank of Canada has started creating the cash. The money supply has therefore
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grown eight times faster than the economy over the last three years. More money bidding on fewer
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goods, including fewer houses, equals higher prices. But the central bank doesn't just send a Brinks
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truck to the prime minister's office. Rather, they use a complicated set of transactions that they call
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quantitative easing. Now, I encourage anybody who hasn't seen the video to continue to watch that
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video because it really spells out how we got here. And to the leader's point, a bunch of new money was
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flooded into the marketplace. The banks started giving it out at low interest rates. And all of a sudden,
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you had all these people buying up a limited supply of housing.
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Yeah, not only a limited supply of housing, and we've all seen a doubling in the average family home
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in the last number of years. And it's directly related to government spending.
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I don't think there's much more to say on this other than that we can't continue with Justin Trudeau.
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We can't continue with this reckless approach to fiscal policy, which is impacting millions of
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Canadian families across this country. All Canadians want is a safe and secure place to live. And they
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expect the government of Canada to enact policies that are not going to compromise that key and
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foundational part of every single life. But that's what Justin Trudeau has done. And that's why so many
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people are hurting so much right now, especially at Christmas season. So we've got a big job to do,
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Jamie. Yeah. Well, it also goes to, I think, really push back on this narrative that the Liberals are the
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left, the NDP as well, that care about the working class. Because all these policies, they've been
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hurting the working class. That is the most affected group right now, is those who, as you pointed out
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earlier, have decent jobs, but are wondering if they'll be able to keep their house.
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Well, yeah. And then it goes to all the other program spending we've seen from this government
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as well. No matter how many times this government chooses to pick winners and losers, when they get
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the core fiscal issues wrong, no social program, no announcement, no flashy speech by the Prime Minister
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can overcome the fiscal hardship they have caused for families across this country.
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And if you want to take it another step further, if you're thinking about how kind of the NDP and
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Liberals, a lot of the Liberals now are thinking, it's almost as if we can't make everyone equal by
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making them rich, but we can by making them poor. And that, in my opinion, seems to be everything
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they're doing is hurting the group of people, the largest group, the so-called middle class,
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that are not having their wages keep up with the cost of living.
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No. And I would say, despite all of this spending, prices are out of control in every aspect of our
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life. But, you know, Statistics Canada recently came out, and they said that the number of entrepreneurs
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in our country is dropping off a cliff. Young people don't believe that Canada is a safe place
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to take a risk anymore. So not only is it hurting the pocketbooks of everyone across this country,
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the government's sending a message that, hey, we don't want you to take a risk. We want you to be
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more dependent on government. And that's why we've seen the only job, like real big job growth we're
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seeing, is in public administration, in government jobs. Whereas the number of small businesses
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opening, the number of small businesses closing is greater than the number of small businesses
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opening. And young people don't see an entrepreneurial future or starting a small business as a viable
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option to the same degree that they did even a decade ago. And you can't run an economy on tax
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dollars alone. But as you pointed out, investment is a bit sketchy here in Canada,
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because of the rules, regulations from red tape, you talk about the energy industry, forestry,
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whatever this government has done, cause and effect. But at the same time, now they've,
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the government has decided, well, we need to kickstart our economy, our fingers are quick
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start. So they've decided to invest billions of dollars into a couple of new plants in southwestern
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Ontario that they have decided the new technology will be electric vehicles, not the market so much.
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When you have other companies looking at solid state or hydrogen, you have the government
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saying, we're putting our eggs in the electric vehicle battery plant. So in order to do that,
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we need to give tax dollars to create this plant or these plants, because private dollars are not
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doing that. Yeah. You know what? I couldn't have said it better. There's about close to $50 billion
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in the last year. Like we're talking a huge chunk of change here has been dedicated to the, to new
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battery, battery factories in this country. The first one was Volkswagen. Now, for anyone that isn't
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aware, Volkswagen is the only car company in the history of Canada to have been convicted under our
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Environmental Protection Act for making dirty cars and for lying about it. And it was this company that
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the government of Canada decided to give $15 billion to create a battery plant. Now, I've had a chance to look at
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this project in detail. And it's pretty crazy. So what we're going to do is we're going to give a
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production subsidy. We're going to pay Volkswagen, a massive multinational corporation, to produce a
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battery in Canada. And then they're going to be able to sell the battery that we paid them to make for a profit.
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But what's really challenging is that most of the batteries they produce aren't for Canadian consumers. They're for American and
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Mexican consumers in the, in the broader North American market, and maybe even beyond. Now, the government's been
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trying to sell battery plants on the fact that we're going to create a circular economy, and it's all going to be
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sustainable, because we're going to mine those critical minerals in Canada. And if we just put this one big
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investment forward, you know what, we're going to create all of these magical new jobs. It sort of sounds like that
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super cluster idea they talked about a long time before. So, backtrack a little bit this year. Um, earlier this year,
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so they had the Volkswagen announcement in the spring, and don't quote me on that date, but Stellantis
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had already received a joint $1 billion subsidy from the federal and provincial government.
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But when they heard what Volkswagen was getting, they said, oh, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on a minute.
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We're not going to build this plant anymore until we get the exact same deal as Volkswagen.
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So, in the government's effort to pick winners and losers, um, they've really effectively created a situation
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where companies are going to be, are going to hold the government, uh, are, are, are, what's the, what's the
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right way to put it? They're almost, they're putting, they're almost trying to blackmail the government to say,
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if you don't give us billions of dollars, we're not going to create those jobs that you promised before.
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So, Stellantis had a billion dollars. It wasn't good enough. They, they halted construction completely.
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Then the government came forward and they said, well, we're going to give you $15 billion,
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just like we gave Volkswagen. Now, I'm on the industry committee and, uh, the, the, we are really trying to get
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to the bottom of what the government has done. But unfortunately, I don't even think the minister has read the contract
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that he signed, that he signed with Stellantis. We don't know what the terms and conditions are.
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So we're fighting to find out what the actual cost to Canadians is, is going to be. And what are the long-term impacts?
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What's the cause and effect of this plant going forward? And in just in these two factories alone,
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$30 billion at stake. Imagine what we could do with $30 billion in other aspects of our country and civic, civil society right now.
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Uh, so we're trying to ask the tough questions, but we're not getting answers.
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And so, um, just a few weeks ago, it even gets worse. Um, we, the minister is trying to sell this, this contract
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on, on creation of Canadian jobs. The Korean ambassador goes down to Windsor and meets with the local police force
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and says, I've got 1,600 workers here to come to work at the plant, subsidized by Canadian taxpayers
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to the tune of $15 billion. Where am I going to host my 1,600 foreign workers?
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Well, uh, first of all, Volkswagen, to my knowledge, has scaled back their, their EV, uh, involvement in, in Germany
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and in parts of Europe. So they're scaling back, but the government, because it is picking winners and losers
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and subsidizing, which as we all know, endless subsidies only, you know, only delays the inevitable,
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which is usually the, the, the shutdown because they're, they're not profitable in the long-term
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because you're not creating a market solution. It's not what the market wants. It is a government-forced marketplace.
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Yeah. So let's, let's, uh, before we get the, the foreign workers, I want to queue up cut two.
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This is you and committee, nice tie, by the way, uh, talking to the parliamentary budget officer here.
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Now you're, you're, you're investigating on how much does a battery cost in the production, the total production.
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Don't forget, as you mentioned, mining research and investment in new mines is not happening as fast as it should
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in order to be the provider of some of these minerals. So, and it, which is mineral heavy.
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There's lots of video of child labor being used in, in the Congo and elsewhere for some of these materials,
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but let's play cut two, let's, let's get to that and we'll come back and, and look into it.
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In your analysis, did you consider the overall cost of an automobile
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and what proportion of the cost of an automobile is directly, uh, related to the battery?
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Or, or maybe I'll rephrase that. What proportion of an electric car,
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what proportion of the cost of an electric car is solely attributed to the battery?
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The estimates vary depending on the, exactly the type of car, high-end cars or, or middle, mid-range,
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but it's between 25 and 40% of the cost of the car that's related to, to the batteries.
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So I can, is it wrong for me to assume that the government of Canada,
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Canada for whatever reasons has made an investment or a given Volkswagen,
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And as part of that agreement, we will be subsidizing the sale of Volkswagen cars to American or Mexican citizens,
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Uh, I wouldn't say that the subsidies itself would represent up to 40% of the car.
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So, to have a sense of proportion, we'd need to know what would be the cost, the production cost of Volkswagen,
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So, what proportion of the subsidies will be covering, or, or what will the subsidies cover in terms of percentage of the cost of the batteries?
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But we do know that the full cost of production is being subsidized by the government of Canada
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as a part of the contract signed between Volkswagen and the government of Canada.
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So, for up to 40% of the cost of an electric vehicle is the battery.
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And I'm sure we've seen all online people showing invoices, you know, pictures of their invoice when their battery goes and has to replace it.
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So, that's what I was trying to get at there in that, in that clip with the parliamentary budget officer.
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He doesn't want to speculate on the actual cost of an automobile.
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But it's my job to kind of dig a little bit more.
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And so, if we're covering the 100%, the full cost to produce a battery for a certain number of years,
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it's taxpayers paying, Canadian taxpayers, paying for Volkswagen to have that product so they can sell it for a profit to an American or a Mexican consumer.
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And this is all premised by the government and their sales pitch is that, hey, if we invest now, this factory is going to be here for the long term.
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But to my knowledge, there's nothing in those contracts that stipulate those factories have to stay in Canada after the production subsidy has ceased.
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So, we have no guarantees for the long term viability of these projects and these jobs that go along with them.
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So, to your point, the government's taking a really big risk here without any assurances for Canadian taxpayers that these factories are in fact going to pan out and we have the contractual agreements to prove it.
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They promised lots of Canadian jobs and long term stable jobs.
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And that's what I'm worried about right now is that all these great auto workers in Windsor could think they have a long term job and maybe they will for 10 years.
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But after that, Stellantis might just go look for another country willing to put $15 billion forward and they're going to close up shop and leave.
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Well, it didn't work out too well when Kathleen Wynne started to subsidize the construction of wind turbines.
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As soon as the funding ran out, unfortunately, and very sadly, a lot of people lost their jobs because of it.
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We need to ensure the market is there to sustain the profitability and the demand for these kinds of, in this case, vehicles or turbines or whatever it may be.
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And when you fail as a company, you have a risk of going under.
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The government, when it fails, it just asks for more time, more patience, and of course, more money.
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Now, there's so many aspects of these deals that we need to cover.
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But, you know, one of the things the government has been saying as well is that we're going to use Canadian lithium.
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There's only two active lithium plants in Canada and red tape is preventing more lithium plants from being in the phase of production.
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So when these plants are built in the next two or three years, we're likely going to be taking lithium from China.
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And we all know the challenges that China has with or the Beijing regime in China has with human rights abuses.
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So we're going to be taking lithium from China into these Canadian batteries.
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And that's not the way the government has said they're going to do it, but we don't have the facilities.
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And then the most egregious fact of all is that the government can't even tell us how many foreign workers they're going to be subsidizing in the production of these batteries.
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I think right now we've heard that there was going to be one, maybe a few, maybe a few more.
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And then we've got to close it out so the guests always get the final word.
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So we'll close out that because we have gone a bit long.
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So we'll do the video and then we'll get your comments on that.
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Hi, Rick Perkins here with my colleagues on the industry committee.
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We just came out of a meeting where we're dealing with this Stellantis foreign worker issue problem.
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And the Liberals can't seem to get their story straight.
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The South Korean ambassador said that they were bringing in 1,600 workers from South Korea to work at this plant.
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When the minister made the announcement, he said it would be 2,500 jobs today in question period.
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They said there would only be one foreign worker.
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The company has now put out a statement saying they're going to bring in 1,600 foreign workers, 900 around construction.
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Then, but only two days ago, the same company said they were going to have 2,300 Canadian jobs.
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It seems the company and the government can't get their story straight.
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So we're going to keep driving into this issue.
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We're going to demand the release of the contracts publicly because that's the only way to get at the truth, which this government doesn't seem to be able to say.
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One minister thinks one thing and the other minister says the other.
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Let's give them a chance to read the contract they signed because apparently they haven't read it and release it to the public.
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We demand that they release it to the public to full transparency when they're spending $15 billion of your tax dollars on this foreign auto giant's jobs in Windsor.
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Let's cut that there. Make us to the point. We'll do your final thoughts and we'll close out.
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Jamie, this is serious stuff. We're talking about for one factory in one community, $15 billion taxpayer dollars.
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That's adding $1,000 to the debt of every Canadian family in this country.
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It is my job, it's the job of my colleagues on industry committee to get to the bottom of this and know what type of deal the government has signed on behalf of Canada
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and to make sure that any money being spent by the government of Canada is being spent wisely.
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And I don't know if this approach is one that's actually going to create long term sustainable jobs in Canada.
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But until the government, until the government stops hiding the contract they signed, we're not going to know.
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So we're going to continue fighting to get the contract, to see what's at stake, so we can make informed decisions to protect workers.
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And the final point is that this Liberal government has put forward a bill on replacement workers.
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The same week, they allow foreign workers to come build a battery plant in Canada when they promise those jobs to Canadians.
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That's a $300 million loss to the local Windsor economy.
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That's not fair to people in Windsor and all of the skilled tradespeople and auto workers they have there.
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Doesn't seem like common sense, so let's bring some common sense back to this government.
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We can only do that with a change of government. Brad, thank you very much for your time.
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Brad Viss, Member of Parliament for Mission Massway, Fraser Canyon in British Columbia.
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We thank him for his time. We thank you for your time.
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