Canada is No Longer Competitive
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Summary
On today's show, we are bringing back Ryan Williams, a Member of Parliament for the Bay of Quinte, also the Shadow Minister for Competition, to continue Part 2 of our series on the decline in Canada's overall competitiveness. We talk about the airline industry, the telecommunications industry, and how we are one of the worst countries in the world for cell phone rates and internet rates.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
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your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps with the likes of Brock
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with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time, even content throughout
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the summer. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and share this program. Tell your
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friends to download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. On today's
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show, we are bringing back Ryan Williams, a Member of Parliament for the Bay of Quinty,
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also the Shadow Minister for Competition, Mr. Competition himself, to continue part two
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of our series. We had part one last week where we talked about overall competitiveness in
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Canada and how it's on the decline and has been for quite some time but accelerated under
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this government. We talked about the telecommunications industry and how we are one of the worst countries
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for cell phone rates and internet rates. We've still got the airlines. We've still got banking.
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We've still got the grocery sector. It never ends. It never ends. It never ends. But we've
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done this to ourselves. That's right. That's right. Well, this, like I said last podcast,
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you know, this is a problem that's been built up over the last hundred years and we've really
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created it to ourselves. We've regulated these industries. We've ensured that they're protected.
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You know, we talk about banks. They are really just branches of the government. They are fully
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regulated. They are backed up by the banks or by the governments. And at the end of the day,
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Canadians are really paying the highest rates in the world for what we think is the only system
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that's there. But when we look at what's available when competition comes in, all these other countries
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in the world have figured out how to create competition, which brings prices lower and gives
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better service, something that is surely lacking in almost every industry in Canada.
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Even when these big corporations are challenged, you can, you, you see their strategy, right? It's
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to put fear into other people like, oh my goodness, this, this is going to be awful if we open this
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up to competition. Like, well, how will you ever figure it out? Right? You people out there.
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But we talked about before with more competition comes better price, better service,
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and the list goes on. Everything gets better. That's right. And I think I talked about last
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time too. It's, it's some of our deepest core trouble. There are issues in Canada as well.
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Productivity is down because of lack of labor. Some of that is also because we, we are not pushing
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these other, these other industries and ensuring that we have more skilled labor and positions that
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innovation brings. Some of it is going to be our, our, our wealth inequality problem. That way,
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the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. You know, when we have big
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conglomerative companies or big, big monopolies in Canada, that, that stops that innovation,
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the small SMEs, the small competitors from developing, scaling and growing, which provides
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good paychecks and good jobs. The last thing is innovation in R&D itself. It's been proven
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time and again, that if companies are too big, that they're not innovating, they don't have
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to compete. So if they're not spending the money in R&D and part of that productivity problem
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is companies investing in themselves and capital, and they're not going to do that as far as,
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as long as they don't have the competition that makes them have to innovate and drive capital
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in their own businesses. Absolutely. The, that, that, that continuous growth and, and using what,
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how we got here in the first place, right? Through competition. Everything happened to what we have
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now because companies were pushing each other. Innovators were pushing each other. It's new
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businesses. We're pushing the big ones, right? It was a, it was a, a system that seemed to work
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and got us to where we are. And now it seems that, uh, the government has got its tentacles
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into a lot of things. That's right. So let's, uh, cut one. We're going to go on to, uh, the airline
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industry. Let's talk about the airline industry, everyone's favorite, uh, industry to, uh, to talk about.
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That's one of the worst ones for competition. All right, let's get the cue and let's get the clip
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and then we'll talk about it. Play cut one. Two airlines in Canada control over 80% of all the
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business. The largest Air Canada just got ranked dead last in on-time flights and ranking of North
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America airlines. Six Canadian banks own 87% of all the Canadian mortgages, but with the government
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approving the merger of the number one bank, RBC, buying the number seven bank, HSBC,
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it is now six banks controlling 90% of all the mortgages. And that's not a good thing.
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No, neither are. No. So start with airlines. Yes. Two. And you'll see those watching at home.
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You see, we created our own monopoly board, Canadians, Canada's monopoly board. And it has,
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uh, that's right on the money. That's right. Uh, so, you know, you can see that it's boardwalk and
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park place, just two airlines, 80% of all the airline traffic in Canada. Uh, you know, we have some
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upstarts up and coming like Porter, Flair, Lynx just went under. Uh, so we look at the airlines
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themselves and we know this, we, we know either that, uh, the stat that we talked about was Air
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Canada being the last in on-time performance in all airlines in North America. Uh, you know,
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WestJet, uh, they, they pride themselves. It was a company owned airline. It was, it was a great
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airline, but became into this big position. And, and because of that, we're not against these
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companies or Canadian companies, but when they get to a dominant position, then they display
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sometimes anti-competitive dominance, uh, behavior. They protect their own. Yes. They protect their
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share. And we've seen that from Flair, CEO came into committee and talked about how they tried to
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open a new route and then Swoop, which was part of WestJet came in and undercut them and knocked them
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out of this route. Very difficult for new entrants into these markets when you have these dominant
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players. At the same time, prices are up, uh, when we have competition and we saw that between Toronto
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and Vancouver with Flair and Flair lines, what they call a low discount carrier, ultra low discount
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carrier. What they did is the, they dropped the rates because of competition so low that you could
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get a round trip flight with Air Canada from Toronto to Vancouver round trip for 381. Whereas the trip,
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the round trip from Toronto to Ottawa, which is about 13 times less the distance was about almost twice
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that price. And that's because Flair is not flying that route. Right. It's only WestJet and Air Canada
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and Porter's flying some of that as well from Billy Bishop. So, you know, we look at dominance and this
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is all, all industries, but when it comes to the airlines, it does come down to the dominance at the
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gates, at the airports. And certainly what we need to see is emergence of some of these smaller carriers
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like Porter and Flair who can offer more rates. So the job of the government is to ensure that they
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can do their job in those airports. The competition bureau is doing an airline study right now. So
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this is something we endorse to have a look at the whole industry. I can get into a side note that
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the industry minister has decided with new powers under C-56 to start telling the competition bureau,
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we, you know, we gave them the power to direct the study, say, we need to study this, this industry.
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But now he's saying, don't look at the domestic, look at the domestic flights. Don't look at the
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airports. The airports are part of aerospace. And we're saying, no, minister, airports need to be
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looked at. They're probably one of our, the biggest issues we have with competition. It's not just the
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airlines themselves, it's the airports. It's something we'll be looking at and studying further as we go
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along. But to create competition, we need to ensure we have more entrants. We have fair, fair
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anti-competitive behavior or non-anti-competitive behavior. We have competitive, we promote
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competition. And then we ensure we give more options to Canadians so they can get good, cheap
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flights around Canada. Absolutely. Because it doesn't make any sense paying a higher rate to go
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to, from Toronto to Europe than Toronto to Vancouver. That makes no sense whatsoever.
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No. And then if you compare it to the U.S., the flights from New York to Seattle are way cheaper
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than Toronto to Vancouver. So, you know, that, that, there's a combination of things, airport fees,
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the airports themselves, lack of competition, lack of entrance. In the U.S., they have, you know,
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several more airlines and they have more people, but we have more people too. Population just hit
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41 million yesterday. So I think we're, we're doing quite well on the people front. We just need
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the, the entrants to compete. I agree. All right. Let's cue up cut two. We were talking about a bit
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about the internet. We're talking about, uh, we have banks too. Yeah. And banks. And you want to talk
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about banks first? Because we were sure that. Yep. Let's, uh, did you touch on banks? All right. So the big
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thing with banks is we have, uh, and I mentioned the, the biggest problem is, is this government,
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the finance minister, Christian Ferrellian approved the number one bank, RBC, buying the number seven
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bank, HSBC. And what happened with that was that, uh, HSBC wanted to sell. They said we want out of
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Canada, which is fine. That's legitimate for a company to say that. Well, the problem we had was,
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was allowing the number one bank, RBC, with the most amount of assets to get bigger by buying the
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whole book, 800,000 mortgage company customers from HSBC. And the results for that were pretty clear
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just about a month after the purchase. So the purchase was finalized and approved by the
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finance minister in December, 2023. The quarter, the first quarter ending March 31st, 2024, just
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ended about a month or so ago. The, RBC made a billion dollars more in one quarter than did
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the month before. HSBC only made 300 million on the last quarter of December. The mortgage rates,
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the five-year variable mortgage rate that was offered from HSBC was almost 1% lower than what
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is offered now by RBC. And that's even what the quarter point cut. What happens when you
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eliminate competition, you eliminate choice and it costs Canadians. And this was the real
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impact that we fought. And Pierre went out against this, uh, and spoke in the media and went out this
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publicly that we opposed the merger from our HSBC and RBC. The 10% of the mortgage customers in
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Vancouver were HSBC. 10% of all those customers, 5% in Toronto. So you think about our two hottest
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mortgage markets where housing, where we have a housing crisis unparalleled, the biggest in this,
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in the whole history of this country, where you don't, young people can't afford a home.
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74% of Canadians will never be able to afford a home and they don't feel that they will ever get
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a house. And yet we took a competitor, at least drove variable mortgage rates down even to,
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for a point. And you have to think of the millions of Canadians who struggle when they come up to
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renewal to find a competitive mortgage rate. And 60% of, of fixed mortgage holders are coming up in the
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next two years to renew their mortgage. The average renewal, the cost per family on those
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renewals will be $1,600 added month per month. So we think of what that means for competition.
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And the thing I do talk about as well is the party that probably also, I mean, we were opposition.
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So we said, we didn't want this. Pierre Poliev said, no, we're against this. The party that should
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have stopped it was the NDP who talk about every day about greedflation and greedy corporations.
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And this was a big corporation buying a small corporation. And, you know, when I had Jagmeet
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Singh in front of committee and I said, you know, not just this merger, Roger Shaw and also with
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WestJet Sunwing. And he said, and I said, where's your red line? Why couldn't you have dropped the
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government? You had the power to call an election over this, do whatever you could. He says, well,
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I ask questions at question period. So, you know, we found out where Jagmeet Singh lies with this.
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So, you know, we, we say he did, he's sell out, he sold out Canadians, but we also see this
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government and how these mergers have hurt people. Uh, you know, with banks, it's a big issue.
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Uh, my solution, it's a pretty simple one, open banking, my private members bill C365 was to ensure
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the government produced legislation for open banking within six months. They promised in 2018,
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they bring legislation. It's been six years and with open banking, that's right.
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Studying it. So they're still studying it. They've only given a pittance to a regulator,
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FCAC, uh, who last year was supposed to answer 75,000 customer complaints and didn't answer one.
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So it gives us real, real, real good trust. They're going to be able to do that when they get in,
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but, but we're going to push for open banking, which allows all these fintechs, there's about a
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hundred plus of them to offer alternatives to Canadians. They're offering, they're only operating
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because of provincial legislation right now, which allows a lot of them like Wealthsimple and Coho,
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and Borowell to offer their business to Canadians. And what open banking does is very simple.
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It makes the banks have to give your financial data to a competitor on your consent. So Jamie
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Smale says, I want to do business with this other bank. I'm done with you, RBC or Scotiabank or CIBC.
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I want this. The bank will then have to give your banking history to a competitor and they need
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their banking history to bank you. And then they're going to say, look, this is what I'm going to give
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you. This is the business. And you know, what's going to happen after that? Innovation, rates will
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be lowered, transaction fees will be lowered. It's pure competition. It's great jobs in fintech.
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Banking is one of the easiest solves. We just have to get there, but we know that a conservative
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government will get it done as soon as we're in. I definitely look forward to that. I'm sure.
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Well, I know I've heard many stories about people fed up with these, the rates that they're paying or
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lack of service or not even at their local branch getting the service they once did. So I think
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anything we can do to kind of push. Well, I'll give you the stat. One third of Canadians are upset
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with their financial institution. I have hotels. If one third of my customers are upset on my business,
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I would be out of business. Right. I would not, I would cease to exist. And this is where we allow
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these major oligopolies to dominate. And they are branches of their, their bureaucracies of the
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government. They know where you're going to go. That's right. Where are you going to go? Exactly.
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And they know that. Yeah, they know that. All right, let's queue up cut two. We're going to
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move into the grocery market here. And of course, with the price of food, ever more topical. So let's
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play cut two. Five grocery stores, three Canadian, two American, control over 87% of grocery stores
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in Canada. And it's not just the grocery stores. Those same companies control the food wholesale market,
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dictating what products go on the supermarket shelf and what prices the stores have to charge.
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Home internet isn't any better than cell phones with the only alternative, low orbit satellite,
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fully controlled by another monopoly, the American owned Starlink.
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So beer is another one. Right. We'll get to that.
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You know, we used to have a lot of Canadian owned grocery stores. So about nine or 10
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that had, they had ownership across all of Canada. And there's still some independents
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like Freesome Brothers in Alberta. There's a few small ones, but the dominance of these
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grocery stores is insane. They not only have the grocery stores, they have the sub brands.
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So you'll have Loblaws that has independent under it. It has no frills. You have the Empire
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Group that has Sobeys. And then there's a bunch that they have underneath them. You have Metro
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Group, and they own a bunch. But there's illusion of choice. So people think, oh, I'm going to this
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new grocery store. It's the same store. They get the same truck that delivers the same food to them
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from the same distribution network, from the same price controls for the manufacturers.
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Then you have the Americans that have come in. And so you have Costco and you have Walmart,
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and they have about 10% each, but it's a small amount. So there's that competition,
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but they're American competition. But it's growing and it's coming along. You know,
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the big travesty is you have a group like IGA. Yes. Which is, and this is to me.
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In every small town it used to be. That's right. And they're owned by Sobeys. Sobeys bought IGA.
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Sobeys in the last several, well, the last nine years since Trudeau's been in,
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there have been two mergers. Sobeys bought Longos. Sorry, Metro bought Longos, and Sobeys bought
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Farm Boy. So we've had more consolidation even since Trudeau's been in, which is a big problem.
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And then you look at what it takes to actually beat this. And grocery stores are the hardest.
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It's the hardest industry to beat because they own all the real estate. And grocery is all about
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real estate. Not just on the supermarket shelves, but also on the ground. They call it the right
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lane when you're returning from work or going to work. That's where the grocery store owns the
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property. So the problem with these grocery stores, it's not only the distribution networks,
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the wholesale, and then the brands. They also have the real estate, but then they have companies
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called real estate investment trusts or REITs that own the future land. So their whole job
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is they will find where a development's going to be going, a future neighborhood, and they
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will buy property around that. And it gets even worse than that. Then they have what's
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called restrictive covenants. So they will own a piece of property as a developer, put a
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grocery store, say a Loblaws as an anchor tenant, and then make a deal that says you can't have
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another florist, a butcher, a bakery, even they'll say a financial services because we're now offering
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financial service cards. I'm sure soon it'll be cell phones because now no name has Bell cell phone
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rates in that same neighborhood. And that is completely anti-competitive, but this is how
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these players have been dominant. You're not going to be able to then bring a new grocery store in who
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has to recreate the networks to distribution, the wholesale and the deals. And so this has become
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a major issue. And what we haven't focused on is one of the biggest problems is the manufacturers.
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And the manufacturers, not only are they making major, major record profits, the ire of, and I
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mentioned earlier with Jagmeet Singh, going after these big corporations, but when you look at the
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actual supermarket side of Loblaws, if Loblaws was going to be non-profit tomorrow, it would save the
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average Canadian per week $3. That's what they're making. Those margins are at a certain level,
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but the manufacturers are making a lot of money, but they do something that's even crazier,
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which is called shrinkflation. They make money and Loblaws will do a deal or other grocery stores
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and say that we need to have this product at this price. And they say, no problem. And they shrink
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the product. So you used to have granola bars, there were six bars, now they're five. You used to be able
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to buy, I think it was 24 slices of Kraft cheese singles in a package. It's 22 now. And you can
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look at this and it's everything. So that's the way that they've got around it while keeping their
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profit margins high. And at the end of the day, to beat that, it's going to be a combination of a
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bunch of things. One in Canada is growing more food. We have an incredible agricultural sector in
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Canada. And we've obviously considered we're the only ones who support that, ensuring that there is no
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carbon tax. That would be the first thing to ensure there's more food. And the carbon tax is the first
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thing that's putting pressure on these farmers and the truckers and the manufacturers to raise food
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prices. So that's number one. Two is we look and we put more emphasis in food processing, that we can
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process the food here. The example of where we're not doing it, but China is, is Royal Milk in
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Kingston. They have a lot of farmers that are, that have goat's milk and they're doing goat's milk to
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infant formula. You know, we don't produce any infant formula in Canada, except for in Bath,
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Ontario or by Kingston, where they're doing Royal Milk and they ship it to China. You know, our, our
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success in the future will be treating our farmers better, axing the carbon tax, ensuring that we are
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growing more food, we're processing more food, and then we find ways to get that distribution out to
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Canada. The, the other side is to ensure we, we stand up and find more ways to create competition.
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Groups like Frison Brothers in Alberta who are locally owned, they have their own butchers,
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Red Seal butchers in their grocery stores, unheard of, but that's, that's the model we need to see in
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the future for grocery. That's how we'll solve the grocery prices little by little. But as someone
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who's been studying this as a shadow critic, grocery is the hardest. They're all hard. The whole
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thing's hard, but this is a real tough one. But we have to, we have to do some things on that and we
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have to, we have to tackle it. And after we deal with all of that, we'll, we'll still have the
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inter-provincial trade barriers to deal with after that. That's right, which is, and the biggest one
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I'll say, because it's, you know, Pierre's been a proponent of it, but the Blue Seal program he's
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proposed is that within 60 days, no matter where you, you came from, no matter what province you came
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from, you can get a test that says within 60 days you're qualified or non-qualified for a certain
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position and get that position, not based on where you come from, but how, what credentials you have
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and how well you can do the job. Fill our labor gaps, our doctors, our nurses, our pharmacists,
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our paramedics, our teachers, you know, across the board, we need to do that. So yeah, that's,
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that's next on the docket. It's inter-provincial trade, I look forward to it.
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Well, one in 10 Canadians, I believe, do not have access to a primary physician,
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so that's concerning enough. Ryan, we've gone over time, but always love this conversation
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because under this Liberal government, competition is not getting any better and we need that to
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improve. As you know, the guests get the last word. I don't know if you want to fill in what
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we've been talking about now or even talk about your lapel pin because that's a pretty cool little
00:20:45.660
I would love to talk about that one. So this year is the 100th anniversary of the Air Force and we're
00:20:49.480
very proud of our men and women who serve in our military and the history of our, our, our Air Force
00:20:53.920
and Canada. But really important, where I come from has CFP Trenton and CFP Trenton is celebrating
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its 94th anniversary in August this year. So you think from the inception of the Air Force,
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Trenton, there's a great story of Senator Fraser who started that, found the land. You see the
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pictures back 94 years ago and it's all farmland and they created this air base. And right now it's
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Canada's largest air base. It folds, fulfills air mobility as well as Sartek, but air mobility
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across the whole world. If we're sending aid to Haiti, it's coming from Trenton. If we're going
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and giving aid to Ukraine, it's coming from Trenton. Very important. And we have an air show coming
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up June 29th and 30th in Trenton, Ontario. We haven't had one in about, it's been about 10 years,
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but I grew up on White's Road, which was at the end of the runway in CFP Trenton. So I remember as a
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kid having the air show program plastered all over my wall. My favorite jet still is a CF-18 and isn't
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that incredible 40 years later, we still have the CF-18, but hopefully soon an F-35 and a whole
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fleet of them to give the capability to our men and women in the military, but very proud of them,
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very proud of Air Force. And we have 3,500 men and women who work in our air base and it's quite a
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great piece of our history and part of our region. And pretty cool community too. Yes, it is.
00:22:11.220
All right, Ryan Williams, thanks very much for coming on to finish up that conversation about
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competition because it is a serious topic. If we want to get better products, better quality,
00:22:19.680
better service in our country. And more freedom. And more freedom. I love how you put it. Ryan
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Williams, Member of Parliament for Bay of Quinty, also our critic for competition. We thank him for
00:22:28.240
his time. You as well. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program. We'll
00:22:32.000
have new content for you throughout the summer. We do not slow down every single Tuesday, 1.30pm
00:22:37.040
Eastern Time. Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.