The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Canada’s economic output continues to decline.

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your

00:00:09.320 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Co-Orthal Lakes Brock, with new

00:00:12.640 content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, even throughout the summer. Don't

00:00:17.600 forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program. Tell your friends they can download it

00:00:21.700 on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. On today's show, we're bringing on

00:00:26.660 Kyle Seaback, the Member of Parliament for Dufferin-Caladin, also the critic for international

00:00:30.780 trade. We're going to talk a bit about the cost of living and the crisis going on across Canada,

00:00:35.380 but also, why does Canada not have a softwood lumber agreement with the United States, and

00:00:41.340 how to grow our economy from there. Thank you very much, Kyle, for joining us on the show.

00:00:44.960 Glad to be here, Jamie. Well, we are in the summer months, and the weather is nice, and

00:00:50.580 barbecue season is upon us, but many Canadians aren't feeling so happy about that. No, look,

00:00:56.060 we've talked about this a lot. The carbon taxes really made everything so expensive. I mean,

00:01:01.600 I don't know about you, but when I go to the grocery store and I look at the prices on things,

00:01:04.740 I just, I actually can't believe it. And so many Canadians are having to make that difficult choice

00:01:10.140 of saying, you know, what's on clearance at the grocery store today, because that's what I'm going

00:01:15.580 to buy. I have a grocery list, but I'm actually not going to get what's necessarily on the grocery list

00:01:20.680 unless there's, you know, a big discount, those 30%, 50% off sales.

00:01:25.600 We've seen the videos and the kind of comedians making a joke about it, but it is serious. When

00:01:31.440 people go to the checkout line, there's a lot of anxiety watching those numbers rack up really

00:01:36.860 fast for everyday items. You might not even be getting to actually the meat stuff. It's pretty

00:01:43.080 remarkable what the government has done in such a short period of time.

00:01:46.220 And they take no responsibility for it. Of course not. It's not their fault.

00:01:48.620 And that's the, that's the most, that's the most incredible thing. You know, the carbon tax adds a

00:01:54.040 cost at every level of the food chain, right? Yep. All the way up from the farmer to produces it,

00:01:59.640 to the truck that transports it, to the processor that processes it, to the grocery store where

00:02:06.100 they're paying for heat or cooling, all those kinds of things. They're all paying a carbon tax. And at

00:02:11.320 the end of the day, food is really expensive. Everyone gets it. You talk to, you know, when I'm in the

00:02:16.080 grocery store, people come and talk to me about it. And, you know, they say, ah, that damn carbon 1.00

00:02:20.780 tax. The only people that don't get it are these liberals at NDP who somehow think it's not having 1.00

00:02:27.420 an effect, which is really incredible. Yeah. Well, we've talked many times on previous shows about

00:02:32.560 the fact that it's not really affecting like people like Justin Trudeau, right? His, his wealth is

00:02:37.560 unaffected. Correct. He doesn't think about the price of a liter of gasoline. He doesn't think about

00:02:42.140 the cost at the grocery store, right? So he's, he's able to, you know, put these rules and

00:02:48.140 regulations that punish everyday Canadians, but he actually doesn't have to live by those same rules.

00:02:53.120 100%. I, I can't imagine the last time he actually filled up his car with gas, right?

00:02:58.200 Yeah. He's only got someone to do it. That's right. And he's not paying for it either. That's right.

00:03:01.900 Because it's a government car. Same with all these liberal ministers who voted against our plan to

00:03:07.780 take all fuel taxes off for the summer, give people a break so they could actually get it on

00:03:14.080 a road trip, make everything more affordable for the summer. I don't think most of them have a concept

00:03:19.040 of what the actual cost of living is. I doubt it. But people are working twice as hard to take in

00:03:24.120 half as much. Yeah. And as you said, you know, God forbid they look forward to a vacation. That's right.

00:03:30.220 You know, many people can't leave the country. So people are doing a staycation. Yes. But even the

00:03:34.740 liberal minister, Mark Holland, basically implied if you're sticking, if you're in a car going for a

00:03:39.700 drive with your family, maybe the beach or whatever, you're, you're killing the planet. Yeah.

00:03:43.100 It's unbelievable. But Justin Trudeau still gets to board his, board his plane. Well, and he boards

00:03:47.380 them a lot. Yes, he does. Right. And again, he doesn't have to worry about it because he stayed at

00:03:51.360 that $9,000 a night resort with some of his rich friends. You know, like we all do. Like I think

00:03:58.080 every Canadian says, I would love to do it, but they just can't. No, they can't. Because the rules,

00:04:02.420 the regulations, the red tape, the government edicts from on high are punishing people to the

00:04:08.260 point where food bank usage is at the highest it's ever been. It's, it's absolutely incredible

00:04:12.700 what the country has turned into. It's a, it's unbelievable. My local food bank talks about

00:04:16.900 just about seniors poverty at the food bank. I know everyone's struggling, but seniors are struggling

00:04:21.480 the most and they've never seen so many seniors at a food bank in the entire existence of the food bank.

00:04:27.920 And there's really like, like who's been running the place for the last nine years? That's the

00:04:32.560 funny thing, right? It's almost like they campaigned against themselves. Yes. You know, these liberals

00:04:37.160 say, man, when we find out who's responsible for this, boy, will they be in trouble. It's, it's

00:04:43.200 remarkable. I can't understand it. Well, let's cue up cut one. This is you in question period. As our

00:04:48.300 friend and colleague Shannon Stubbs said, when she viewed this, you hit pretty much everything. You

00:04:52.600 basically gave the finance minister a lesson on how the economy worked. And of course she is 0.73

00:04:57.440 just amazed how that actually happened. So let's play cut one. It's incredible. He actually doesn't

00:05:02.620 know how food ends up on his plate. The farmer pays a carbon tax. The truck that picks up the

00:05:07.960 farmer's food pays a carbon tax to take to the processor. The processor pays a carbon tax. The

00:05:13.220 truck that picks it up from the processor to take to the grocery store pays a carbon tax. The grocery

00:05:18.480 store pays a carbon tax. And then Canadians can't pay for food. When will this partisan

00:05:24.880 hack finance minister finally understand the carbon tax causes inflation?

00:05:32.660 You know, you saw the, the environment minister just before that clip started, right? He is one

00:05:37.480 of the ones, the activists that stand, shake their fist at these companies for doing what

00:05:41.900 they do best, creating jobs, opportunities, service, and products that we all need. And then

00:05:46.380 he's absolutely shocked when some of these companies get tired of being poked and they

00:05:50.380 leave or they shut down or they change their operation. Yeah. And then we need a government

00:05:54.220 program, right? Like this is the cycle we're on. Yeah. So their answer to driving Canadians 0.98

00:06:00.320 into poverty with all their programs and spending and taxes is we need another program. And therefore

00:06:06.660 we have to raise taxes to pay for the program. That's right. Actually, if you just like got out of

00:06:11.780 the way and made life more affordable by lowering taxes, scrapping the carbon tax, we wouldn't need

00:06:19.020 all these expensive government programs. That's right. So if, when we talk about expanding the economy,

00:06:25.040 right? We have the, the resource industry, we have mining, we have lumber, we still don't have a

00:06:30.260 softwood lumber. It's unbelievable. There are, there are thousands of people still without a job. Yes.

00:06:34.580 Because this government refuses to take action. Yeah. Maybe you can give us a quick update as,

00:06:39.960 as the trade critic, where we are on that file so we can get people back to work.

00:06:44.000 Well, there's just been absolutely no activity. Well, that's not true. There's been activity. The,

00:06:48.460 the, um, international trade minister has recycled her same press release for eight years

00:06:53.340 saying, we are disappointed that the United States has once again put on a countervailing and

00:06:59.080 anti-dumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber. Like that's it. That's the action.

00:07:03.620 They're just shocked. It's, yeah, it's, it's, it's unbelievable. Yeah. When the conservatives

00:07:08.760 were first elected, um, Stephen Harper solved the softwood lumber dispute with United States in six

00:07:13.860 months. It expired in 2015. It's now 2024 and they've done nothing. And it has cost thousands

00:07:21.920 of jobs. Mills are closing. And often these mills are in small towns where it's the economic lifeblood,

00:07:27.700 right? So all the spinoff that happens from it and they don't do anything. One of the requests

00:07:33.300 was that from the softwood lumber industry was to appoint a special envoy or lead negotiator

00:07:37.860 to actually engage the United States and get it done. The industry's begged for it and the minister

00:07:43.060 won't do it. And she won't even say why. Yeah. It's really, I, I, I don't know what they're doing.

00:07:48.180 The relationship, the trading relationship with the United States is in real trouble under this

00:07:53.700 government. What they, they talk about, Oh, you know, our trade, uh, like you've never had so much

00:07:58.660 trade. It's not true. Trade volume is actually down. It's actually down. Inflation, which they're

00:08:04.900 mostly responsible for, has inflated the cost of Canadian goods. So the dollar figure might be up,

00:08:11.780 but the trade volume is actually down. And we're not making anything here.

00:08:15.380 And we're not. We used to be the United States largest trading partner. Guess where we are now?

00:08:20.340 Number three. So Mexico's ahead of us. That's right. So we're going down all the time and 1.00

00:08:28.660 these liberals just don't do anything to fix the problem. Well, that's the, the absolutely remarkable

00:08:34.420 thing about this, right? And to, to the earlier comment, like they'll have a government program

00:08:38.820 for those that have lost their job. That's right. Before COVID, just before the world shut down,

00:08:44.500 I remember, uh, we had questions in question period, pretty much pretty consistently leading up

00:08:50.260 about these mills that were closing all across the country, right? MPs are standing up in question

00:08:55.780 period. This mill closed down this week, this mill, hundreds of people out of work. And of course,

00:09:00.100 COVID hit and here we are now, but this problem has not gotten any better. It's almost as if those

00:09:05.220 people who were left out of a job have just been forgotten. They have been 100% by this government.

00:09:11.140 And on top of it, the carbon tax makes everything more expensive. So we're already competing globally

00:09:18.900 for everything, right? Our farmers are competing globally, our forestry sector is competing globally,

00:09:23.780 anything, minerals, everything. You put a carbon tax on top of every single Canadian product that we try

00:09:29.780 to export. And what happens is you end up exporting less of them, which is exactly what's happening right

00:09:36.100 now because our products become more expensive. And the real problem is 70% of Canadian GDP comes from

00:09:45.300 trade. We're a trading nation and we're hobbling ourselves by making all of our products more

00:09:51.220 expensive. Yeah, the market's only going to pay so much for whatever you're selling. That's exactly right.

00:09:55.700 And if you're adding all these input costs, at some point the company's going to business, it's moving,

00:10:00.420 it's changing its operation. That's right. You had the minister at a committee. So let's cue up cut

00:10:05.220 two. Sure. Where you kind of put to put forward a pretty straightforward question, I thought. And

00:10:10.580 of course, what they do the best, they they dodge and deflect. So let's play cut two. Have you discussed

00:10:16.180 with your US counterparts appointing a special envoy or a lead negotiator like the softwood industry in

00:10:23.140 Canada asked you to do 15 months ago? I have talked to the United States trade representative

00:10:29.220 about softwood lumber. I've talked to the president about, you know, about softwood lumber. I've talked

00:10:33.780 to other interlocutors. I think I was speaking to a congressperson the other day about Canadian

00:10:38.180 softwood lumber and the issue with the Americans. So the answer is yes, I talked to the Americans about

00:10:44.980 softwood lumber at every opportunity I have. That actually wasn't the question. I didn't ask you if

00:10:50.020 you spoke to them. I assume you've spoken to them in eight years. Otherwise, it's a complete dereliction

00:10:54.420 of your responsibility. Seems like a straightforward question. So that's what she's done. Yeah. She's

00:11:01.220 talked to some people in eight years on a significant trade problem. All she can say is, I've had a couple

00:11:08.340 of conversations. It is absolutely pitiful performance by our international trade minister with our most

00:11:15.780 important trading partner. So our softwood lumber industry is hurting, but also another industry,

00:11:24.340 the steel industry, is going through some trouble, right? The carbon tax again affecting that. Absolutely.

00:11:29.940 We need steel to build things. If we have to import, this government has this mentality, right? If it

00:11:35.300 happens elsewhere, we don't see it. That's right. Well, we can still bring it in because we need it. Yeah.

00:11:40.740 And I think that's the frustrating part to people. They know we still need to eat,

00:11:44.180 heat our homes, build things, but we're getting the values gone. The values leaving.

00:11:50.420 Yeah. So we have great jobs in the steel industry in Canada. The carbon tax is killing them. I mean,

00:11:56.180 killing them to the point where if the carbon tax keeps going up, we won't have a steel industry.

00:12:01.220 And so what happens when we produce some of the greenest steel in the world. And first of all,

00:12:08.980 we have allowed steel to be dumped into Canada at an unprecedented rate. When I say we,

00:12:14.660 I mean the Liberal government. That's what they've done. So the market share of foreign steel in Canada

00:12:19.860 has quadrupled in the last 15 years. So this is a huge problem. And they're doing absolutely nothing

00:12:25.940 about it, nothing to stop it. And the carbon tax, the only place we export steel is to the United

00:12:31.860 States. The carbon tax makes our steel so expensive that we're having trouble now exporting steel to

00:12:40.020 the United States. At the same time, we're importing all kinds of high carbon steel from all around the

00:12:45.780 world. And the government just says, well, I don't know, I don't know how much I can do about it.

00:12:50.740 And if the world, if COVID taught us anything, it's we need to build stuff here. We need to have

00:12:55.060 the resources to build stuff here so we can be self-sufficient should a crisis hit.

00:13:00.580 So imagine, imagine with the geopolitics that's going on right now, if we were reliant upon,

00:13:07.540 for example, Chinese steel in Canada, because the steel industry is completely hollowed out.

00:13:12.020 All of a sudden, they say, well, you know, Americans send you guys any pipe for water pipes or things

00:13:17.460 like that. It'd be a big problem. And it's all self-inflicted, right? So why are we putting,

00:13:27.060 it's all stick with this government. So create the incentive so that we want our steel to be greener,

00:13:32.580 which they're doing. That's all happening. But why then punish them with a carbon tax on top of it?

00:13:37.700 There are some steel mills that are paying 300, 400 million dollars a year in carbon tax.

00:13:43.460 How are they going to compete with their counterparts in the United States that have no carbon tax?

00:13:48.660 We're just actually, the message they're sending is, we don't want a steel industry in Canada.

00:13:54.740 And at the same time, we've talked about this many times on different shows, the companies,

00:14:00.900 if their margins are so tight because they have to deal with the carbon tax, they don't have the extra money

00:14:05.940 to put into their innovation, to make it even cleaner than ever before, to start to, you know,

00:14:12.580 keep producing, expand, research and development. They don't have money for that. They don't. And then,

00:14:18.100 but then the government says, well, we'll set up a program. Well, of course, there's a program.

00:14:21.220 There's a program for that. But we'll pick the winners and losers, right? And if you comply with our

00:14:26.660 ideology, you'll get the grant. That's right. Yes. Yeah. So you guys over here, you're on the naughty list.

00:14:31.620 We don't like you. That's right. So you're not going to get any money. But we like these guys over here, 0.92

00:14:35.620 so they're going to get money. It's the worst way to run an economy. Actually, what you want to do is

00:14:41.060 create a level playing field for everyone and then let the best, most innovative businesses win.

00:14:47.620 Instead, you know, you're going to have Christian Freeland, Stephen Guibo. The unproductive people

00:14:54.660 managing the productive. Determining who should win. You can't make this stuff up. Well, with these

00:15:01.220 liberals, just one thing after another, it's unbelievable. We're pretty much out of time.

00:15:05.380 I know I did have some more things to talk about. We'll have to get you on again,

00:15:07.940 but I appreciate your time. Guests always get the last word. The floor is yours.

00:15:13.380 Look, we've got to axe the tax. It's really hurting us. It's hurting our farmers, who,

00:15:18.260 again, their primary market is the United States. But it's hurting our exports all around the world,

00:15:22.820 right? Because we compete with all kinds of countries around the world, whether it's grain, pulses,

00:15:27.620 steel, you name it. And the carbon tax is making all of our domestic industries uncompetitive.

00:15:34.260 It's actually hurting our trade, which really creates a worse economy for Canadians. It's a simple

00:15:41.220 fix, and we'll do it. Absolutely. Kyle Seabach, member of parliament for Dufferin

00:15:45.780 Caledin, also the critic for international trade. We appreciate your time. We appreciate yours, too.

00:15:50.500 Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share, because we will have new content for you

00:15:54.500 throughout the summer. We are not slowing down. Don't forget to tell your friends. They can download

00:15:58.420 it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. Until next Tuesday,

00:16:02.180 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's The Blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - July 23, 2024

Canada’s economic output continues to decline.

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