The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Canadian families are in for sky-high costs approaching the Summer break

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

00:00:06.940 host, Jamie Schmell, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, co-author-like Sprock with new

00:00:10.400 content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like, comment,

00:00:14.800 subscribe, and share this program. Of course, you can download it if you're missing it right

00:00:19.640 now. Tell your friends, too, on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.

00:00:24.060 On today's show, we are having a little fun with May the 4th. I know it was a few weeks ago

00:00:28.240 and much, much more. To talk about that, we have Brandon Leslie, Member of Parliament for

00:00:31.960 Portage-Lisker, elected in a by-election almost a year ago, very shortly, and also a riding that

00:00:37.740 was formally represented by our former leader, Candice Bergen. Absolutely. Well, it's a pleasure

00:00:41.840 to be here, Jamie. Yes, very physically small but figuratively big shoes to fill in succeeding

00:00:46.840 Candice Bergen, but she's been a tremendous friend and a mentor of mine. So, it's been a heck of a

00:00:52.080 year, put it that way. I can imagine. It flies by, doesn't it? It absolutely does. Well, you're doing

00:00:55.920 a heck of a job. I appreciate that, Jamie. And I appreciate you coming on the show. I apologize

00:00:59.140 for not having you on sooner. At the same time, I want to start off with something that has been

00:01:04.140 just on the top of my mind for a few weeks. And of course, May the 4th, and everyone puts out their

00:01:08.560 videos. Some are cringe, some are not bad. But one that's kind of stuck with me, and I haven't

00:01:13.320 actually played this because it took a special topic to bring it up. And I think today, you're the

00:01:19.480 perfect person to talk with. Absolutely. Okay, this is May the 4th. I recognize this is many weeks ago,

00:01:25.060 but it was so mind-boggling to me. I just couldn't let it go any longer. So, let's cue up Cut One

00:01:31.600 and play Cut One.

00:01:53.920 Okay, so let's take a pause on the fact that he's walking with a Canadian veteran. Okay,

00:02:00.420 let's, and was walking across Canada to protest the ongoing mandates and the freedoms being taken

00:02:08.360 away from individuals after the pandemic was winding down. Okay, forget that part. What kind

00:02:15.280 of bizarro world are we living in when the authoritarian side, the one censoring your internet,

00:02:25.640 crippling you with taxing, taking away your freedoms is seen as the good side, right? If you think that's 1.00

00:02:37.080 the good side, you're rebelling wrong. It's a bizarro world. It's the exact opposite of, I haven't brushed

00:02:43.120 up on Star Wars recently, but this seems the exact opposite of the way that we've got that. It's totally

00:02:48.040 opposite. Right. Unbelievable. And it's a lazy attack, right? This is how Canadians are continuously 1.00

00:02:55.460 divided by this Prime Minister. It happened then during the pandemic. It happened at the time

00:02:59.060 of our leader walking with the Canadian Armed Forces member who was coming across the country.

00:03:04.900 It's a continued attempt to divide purely for electoral reasons. And it's so frustrating. So,

00:03:10.380 it's timely. We are still in May. It is still in May. We are not far beyond May the 4th, but

00:03:14.700 it's laughable. I was watching that and I just couldn't believe it. Like,

00:03:18.960 it's like this delusion that they have that we are the good people. We will solve Canada's problems

00:03:26.100 with another government program. The Minister of Truth. The Minister of Truth. We're going to need

00:03:30.620 one of those soon in this country. We will censor the internet. We will come up with more and more

00:03:33.940 pieces of legislation to restrict what you can see, what you can hear, and maybe potentially if the

00:03:40.540 next piece goes through, going back in time and, you know, punishing you for things you may have said

00:03:45.700 years ago or even be thinking about in the future. We need to reinstate, of course, these kangaroo 1.00

00:03:51.440 courts. We're going to have $75,000 fines thrown at anybody for, remember when we used to be able

00:03:56.200 to share news on Facebook? Back in the day. Back in the day. Or get local news on Facebook. That was

00:04:00.600 remarkable. Wasn't that nice when you could get local pieces of information? What changed? I can't

00:04:04.660 remember. Yeah, something changed. Maybe Justin Trudeau can look into that and give that guy heck when

00:04:09.360 he figures it out. Yeah, once he figures out who caused all these challenges. Yeah, that would be

00:04:13.000 unbelievable. So, it's a, the constituency week just wrapped up. We're back in Ottawa. Thank you

00:04:19.160 for humoring me with that. It was just really bothering me. Cost of living, still comments

00:04:25.720 everywhere I go. Things are getting just out of hand. Are you hearing the same thing? Oh, absolutely.

00:04:31.840 It was great to be back for the constituency week. We had great weather. We get a lot of rain. So,

00:04:37.300 there's a level of optimism being such an agricultural area. Getting some rain really,

00:04:42.860 excited people. However, actually, my office grand opening was Friday. We just moved to a new office.

00:04:48.700 And so, I had a lot of people come to the office and share their thoughts on what's going on.

00:04:52.940 And absolutely, the cost of living, the cost of groceries, the cost of gas, the cost of home

00:04:56.940 heating, the cost of housing, the cost of just living day to day, unfortunately, supersedes the

00:05:03.260 optimism that so many people are trying to have. As we enter spring going into summer, you know,

00:05:07.500 people want to be excited, but they realize, well, they can't really get away this summer. They can't

00:05:12.140 even go on a road trip. They can't afford the gas to take their family camping for a weekend. And

00:05:16.780 they're frustrated. And they're rightfully frustrated. Well, our leader now is asking or

00:05:21.260 actually demanding that the government give Canadians a carbon tax holiday during the summer so people

00:05:27.340 can actually do the things you're talking about. Yeah. Wouldn't it be a nice break? You know,

00:05:30.780 I think people, people deserve it. And it's been interesting to see the NDP kind of flip-flop on

00:05:35.020 this too. A little bit. Yeah. You know, I think they see the writing on the wall. You know,

00:05:38.860 I think writings like yours and mine have been, we'll call it mad or hate the carbon tax for quite

00:05:43.580 a while now. But obviously, that percentage is up to over 70% of Canadians despise the carbon tax. And

00:05:49.100 the NDP seeing the Titanic sinking recognize maybe they need to start swimming away from before they get

00:05:54.060 caught up in the undertow. Which boggles my mind because that's exactly what they believe. They

00:05:57.900 want higher prices on things like gasoline, right? But they, like most socialists, right? They don't

00:06:04.540 think about the next step. No. Well, you know, watch any country, Venezuela, whatever, it collapses,

00:06:10.940 right? Because of the weight of their horrible policies. And that's what's happening here. We're

00:06:14.940 seeing the cost of food go up. We're seeing the price of gasoline go up. Everything associated with it

00:06:20.460 is going up in price. The Bank of Canada can't get control of it because government keeps spending.

00:06:26.540 Having said all of that, if the NDP were actually honest and stuck by their guns and had a spine,

00:06:34.940 they would say, yeah, that's what we want. We want these high prices. This is what they've been

00:06:39.900 advocating for. But so for them to come back now and say, well, maybe, you know, stand by it then.

00:06:47.900 We've got, it used to be, I would say, that the NDP were a party with a spine. They had their

00:06:52.860 principles. I would disagree with them wholeheartedly. The liberals were the ones that

00:06:55.900 were always wishy-washy. They'll go wherever the wind's going. But now we seem to have two spineless

00:06:59.660 parties that are willing to say and do anything to try to advance their own political interests.

00:07:04.380 And I guess that makes me a little more proud to be a conservative because we're consistent

00:07:08.540 in what we believe and stand up for it. As I always said, it's not being done for you,

00:07:12.300 it's being done to you. These high prices, these high taxes are being done to you on purpose.

00:07:17.660 Yep. Of course, the government keeps spending, so they need to find new revenue, right? They can

00:07:21.820 only print so much. They can only borrow so much. So taxing is what's left. And now

00:07:27.340 the government is looking at a whole new array of programs. And we got a cut coming up here,

00:07:32.140 a clip that I want to just talk about. This is more about the mindset of Justin Trudeau,

00:07:38.060 right? Let's queue up cut two. This is how he thinks, him and his caucus on a problem that they

00:07:44.860 created. And of course, the only thing that solves a failed government program

00:07:49.820 is another government program. Absolutely. Another program. Another care. Another care.

00:07:53.180 Play cut two. We made the decision to ask the wealthiest, often of older generations, 0.55

00:08:00.460 whose money works for them instead of necessarily them working as hard as these young people are for

00:08:07.340 their money for their salaries. We've raised the capital gain inclusion rate to make sure that the

00:08:14.380 people who've done the best over the past years in a society and an economy that is tilted slightly

00:08:20.860 towards them actually gets retilted a bit more towards the young people we need to continue to grow

00:08:26.620 our economy long into the future. I wonder what demographic his numbers are slipping in. The younger 1.00

00:08:32.700 group, but this will, whatever he's talking about, it will not have any impact because he's still

00:08:38.140 not getting the whole point of all of this. He needs to rein in spending,

00:08:45.340 allow the market to take effect, but the policies he's putting in place is stopping all of that.

00:08:50.460 Yeah, it's already said the budget will balance itself. Yeah. Well, it needs growth to do that. And

00:08:56.940 his plan for essentially planned economy, why is the prime minister, why is the government

00:09:02.220 tipping the scales in favor of one generation to the next? Right. And it's funny you mentioned

00:09:05.900 this clip. I had a, he'd be in his 60s, came up to me in the riding this past week and mentioned

00:09:10.780 this clip. And he said, remember a time, I remember a time that, you know, I looked up to my seniors and

00:09:15.820 we talked about how they built this great country out. But now I have a prime minister coming and

00:09:19.580 saying, I'm going to take your money. You're my, you're now my bank because I think you've done too well

00:09:23.660 and I'm losing political points with younger people. So I need to step in as the government. And 0.99

00:09:28.780 we'll put it this way. It wasn't playing well in his mind. Well, I, you know, it's, it's just

00:09:34.380 one thing after another down the same path, right? We'll print a whole bunch of cash. We'll

00:09:39.660 debauch the currency. We'll reduce spending power, the buying power of the individual and their dollar.

00:09:44.860 Uh, you know, we will cause the Bank of Canada to try to get a handle on inflation because all this

00:09:49.900 extra cash, uh, was flooded in the market. It was going out faster than the economy was growing.

00:09:55.900 More dollars chasing fewer goods. You know the story. And, and we're into the point where

00:10:00.300 we are now in Canada where this government knows nothing more. But, you know, I do give them

00:10:06.220 credit in terms of trying to find a win in a loss, right? They've had some major losses lately,

00:10:11.260 but their, their win to, to those who are just hanging on by the thread, but even the younger

00:10:16.300 generations who are wondering if they'll ever be able to get a home or, or start a family, uh, you know,

00:10:22.300 to, to, to, he's trying to reach their, their emotional side where, where maybe there is hope,

00:10:30.460 but it will never be hope in a liberal plan. Well, and obviously I'm a, I'm a younger MP and

00:10:36.860 classify myself as understanding of those concerns. Yeah. I have a lot of friends that they know they're

00:10:41.900 never going to buy a home. We're from a rural area. And so our home prices are obviously lower than

00:10:45.820 Toronto, thankfully, but it has still become so unaffordable. But the other thing, you know, I get a

00:10:50.700 lot, obviously it's not a federal issue, but it is concerns around healthcare. I get that all the

00:10:54.540 time. And I will flip the script and inform people that, you know, now that we're spending 54 billion

00:11:00.940 dollars this year, just to service the interest costs on our national debt that's been doubled

00:11:05.420 under this prime minister, that's more than the totality of what we send in transfers to all the

00:11:10.060 provinces for healthcare. And then secondarily to that, you know, the, the shift from the government

00:11:15.100 sales tax, the 5% that we pay on every good that we buy in this country, that's now become the debt

00:11:19.820 servicing tax, because that's about the equivalent is about 50 ish billion dollars is what we collect

00:11:25.420 in GST. And so when you put that back to people, it helps them, I think, understand why, what those

00:11:31.740 nebulous things, you know, the Bank of Canada borrowing and lending at the national level, it's

00:11:36.220 really hard for people to understand that. But what they can, can understand is money that is being

00:11:40.540 spent to bankers and bondholders, instead of on the healthcare that they are at times rightfully

00:11:46.620 saying, you know, is enough to snuff right now. You just think of the value that we could be

00:11:52.140 getting for that money. Yeah. Right? Like the things we could be doing, but instead we're just,

00:11:57.740 anyone who's paid interest, mortgage, credit card, doesn't matter. It's just wasted money.

00:12:01.500 It's frustrating. It's wasted money. And this is what the government's doing

00:12:04.620 with that amount of revenue. Well, and that's the thing, it's, we are at the highest revenues ever,

00:12:09.580 not just because we have more people, not just because our economy is larger. When you take into account

00:12:14.780 inflation and our dollar values, we are still collecting more than ever before. But there

00:12:19.820 seems to be this need, as you say, it's the revenue equation. And it, it's really frustrating,

00:12:23.980 I think, to the folks I represent, and right across this country, is to see the bounty of natural

00:12:28.060 resources that we are intentionally leaving in the ground. We don't want our agricultural sector to

00:12:32.940 grow. We don't want our mining sector to grow. Even when we want to be building lithium-based electric

00:12:38.620 vehicle batteries, we want to leave the lithium in the ground by making the process so hard. We

00:12:44.060 don't want our forestry industry to thrive. We don't want our oil and gas industry to thrive.

00:12:47.980 And so to me, it's so frustrating that rather than focus on just taking more money out of the dwindling

00:12:54.140 dollars in everyone's pockets, let's focus on making us richer. That is the way that we will balance

00:12:59.820 the budget ourselves, is by focusing on growth. And this Prime Minister has taken just the exact

00:13:04.540 opposite approach, seems to revel in actually shrinking the quality or reducing the quality

00:13:09.260 of life for Canadians. And we've seen that now. We're, we're on par with the Americans' poorest

00:13:12.700 states in per capita GDP. We are getting poorer each and every year out of this Prime Minister.

00:13:18.140 And the last time that happened, it was a different fella. His last name, I think, was Trudeau.

00:13:21.980 Yes. And things boomed after that. So, you know, it's unfortunate that it's going to take

00:13:27.980 a poly of government to come in and clean up this mess to, to try to get these things back on track.

00:13:32.380 Yeah. It's interesting because you mentioned the mining sector and the resources we need to,

00:13:37.980 to get our economy going. They're true, the anchors of our economy, right? So you see the,

00:13:43.260 the liberals investing in these EV plants. And I have nothing against EV vehicles. I want a free

00:13:48.460 market. You can make the free choice based on your individual situation, right? I could care less

00:13:52.380 what you drive, right? You don't need my permission, right? So they're, they're, they're building these

00:13:57.740 plants. I think it's $30 billion or so. It's not all being made in Canada. So we're being told we

00:14:03.100 have to drive EVs by this liberal government, but yet the stuff we need to build the batteries

00:14:08.060 are being left in the ground because the, the government who's saying we need to build these

00:14:12.780 EVs, we need to use these batteries has, we'll get it from somewhere else, right? We can't create

00:14:18.220 that wealth here. It's beyond frustrating. I'm in the same boat. If, if you live in a city and you have a

00:14:24.220 next to no commute and you want an electric vehicle, rock on, go crazy. That's not my riding.

00:14:29.820 I wouldn't be able to make it driving around one day of all the events I try to do in my riding

00:14:33.740 on one charge and make it home. And nevermind the fact that if you're in the middle of a snowstorm

00:14:38.140 and seeing that little battery charge go down as you lose heat in your vehicle when you're in the

00:14:41.500 ditch, which happens in a very flat, windy, snowy Manitoba in, in the dead of winter. And then to see,

00:14:48.140 you know, in Manitoba's context, we have lithium in the north. There, there are deposits of

00:14:52.140 lithium and instead we're going to rely on the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is not

00:14:57.580 exactly all that democratic, to, to have open pit mines with far worse environmental standards,

00:15:03.020 Absolutely. Far worse human conditions. You've seen pictures with the children covered in that.

00:15:06.700 Oh, it's, it's, it's awful. And instead we are going to take, you know, core minerals from there and

00:15:12.620 components and parts from China. Like these plants that are being set up here are going to be assembling

00:15:16.620 Chinese parts in Canada. Why, why are we letting our supply chain be dictated and relied upon 0.96

00:15:23.660 for this new and emerging industry that we want to be the government funded leader in the world?

00:15:29.660 Why would we allow all these foreign companies to use foreign employees to put together foreign

00:15:34.140 parts just to call it assembled in Canada? It's, it's all about making ourselves feel better than it is

00:15:38.860 about actually growing our own economy. That's right. And if we had a free market choice,

00:15:42.460 people could make those determinations using the resources here in Canada. And how many

00:15:48.060 world leaders have come by now? I lost track. I think it's five or six.

00:15:52.140 We've got to be on two hands by now, for sure. I just lost track. The, the people that are saying,

00:15:56.780 we want your energy, your liquefied natural gas and others.

00:16:01.580 Uh, when we say no, where do they go? They go to Qatar or these bad, sometimes bad actors, 0.86

00:16:07.900 depending on where they go. Somebody else will sell this product.

00:16:10.540 Yeah. And we're just, again, we're literally choosing to, to not do that.

00:16:13.820 And Norway's getting richer because they're selling their oil and gas. And look at all these

00:16:18.700 countries that are actually doing something with the resources they have. And Justin Trudeau,

00:16:22.940 I don't know how he gets the knowledge to know the oil and gas sector. I don't think he's ever

00:16:26.700 had a job in that, in that sector. He's telling these world leaders, no, thanks. There's no business

00:16:32.220 case. Well, and I think it's par for the course in the way that Canada is now viewed on the international

00:16:37.020 stage. You know, this goes back to some earlier diplomatic debacles, uh, involving outfits and

00:16:42.860 various, uh, early travels of this prime minister, but instead of being a reliable trading partner

00:16:48.220 and ally, because we are a trading country, we're a commodity based country. We are now literally

00:16:52.460 turning our backs on our important allies in the, in the European union who want to get off Russian gas,

00:16:58.300 who want clean Canadian LNG to support, you know, our partner. We talk about French 1.00

00:17:03.900 shoring. We talk about these sorts of new ways to look at global trade. We are aiding and abetting

00:17:09.660 often, uh, countries that are adversaries or at least not really our friends. Absolutely. I think

00:17:14.620 it was the Polish prime minister who came and said, if you supply us, we can supply Ukraine. Exactly.

00:17:19.340 Like we could do a whole bunch of things here. We are doing good on the international world stage,

00:17:23.580 both in terms of our overall emissions profile being better, uh, than most other countries

00:17:28.140 producing, uh, energy around the world. And also, yeah, plugging up the flow of money to Russia

00:17:34.940 who are using it for their war machine. Again, the illegal invasion against the Ukraine.

00:17:39.500 That is a good international policy idea. It's a good domestic policy idea. It makes so much common

00:17:44.380 sense. And, and it is frustrating to no end to, to myself and just everybody, everybody,

00:17:49.020 anybody that has a lick of common sense looks at this and what are we doing? Why would we not

00:17:53.020 both take advantage of that and help our friends? Exactly. Great jobs, opportunity, and wealth here.

00:17:58.140 Help our friends on the global stage, have a safer world because what is funding it, right? What is

00:18:03.500 funding all this conflict? Absolutely. We're letting it happen. We're almost implicit by not doing our

00:18:08.540 part. When we have the opportunity, all we need is the political will to let these projects move

00:18:13.660 forward, to make ourselves richer. We can help the world and we're choosing not to intentionally. And we need to get that

00:18:18.540 investment back. Absolutely. We need to get that capital back. Absolutely. To get shovels in the

00:18:22.460 ground. It is, it is quickly flooding out of our country. And I don't blame people for not wanting

00:18:27.740 to invest here. When you want, remember the, the pipeline that was disallowed at the cabinet process,

00:18:33.180 went through all the environmental assessments, gets to cabinet and they say,

00:18:37.180 I don't like the politics of this. I'm going to, I'm going to nix your project. Yeah. What a message

00:18:41.580 we've sent investors. What certainty is that? The predictability, the certainty of the system,

00:18:45.100 it, it frankly doesn't exist anymore. No, it's tough. Well, life wasn't like this before Justin

00:18:49.420 Trudeau. It'll be a lot better when he's gone. Absolutely. I can't wait. All right. Time's

00:18:53.980 pretty much up. I appreciate it. It went by very fast here. Um, the guests always get the last word.

00:18:58.460 So the floor is yours. Oh, well, I didn't know I was going to be on the spot here, but oh,

00:19:02.140 I just appreciate having you on. You've been a good friend and a mentor of mine. We have a great team

00:19:05.740 here and it's been a wild year between, uh, uh, getting elected and having a young child. So it's been a

00:19:11.980 a lot of fun, but it's great having colleagues like you here to, uh, to see and watch and learn

00:19:16.140 from as we fight the good fight, fight back against the empire, the proper, the proper rebels fighting

00:19:22.380 the good fight. And I'm proud to be proud to be on that side of the equation. Absolutely. Never

00:19:26.140 mind that propaganda from the liberal party. My goodness. Thank you very much, Brendan Leslie,

00:19:30.540 member of parliament for Portage Liscar. Appreciate your time. Appreciate yours as well. Don't forget

00:19:34.940 there's new content for you every single Tuesday, 1 30 PM Eastern time. Don't forget to like,

00:19:39.100 comment, subscribe, and share this program. There are ears that need to hear this message.

00:19:43.100 So please tell your friends, if you want Pierre or Paul, you have to be the next prime minister.

00:19:46.380 You can also download this program on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.

00:19:51.420 Until next week, remember low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - May 21, 2024

Canadian families are in for sky-high costs approaching the Summer break

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript