The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Canadians are living in fear for their safety.

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

00:00:08.400 host, Jamie Schmell, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Gore at the Lakes Brock,

00:00:11.700 with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. We ask that you like,

00:00:17.040 comment, subscribe and share this program. There are ears that need to hear this message,

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00:00:25.660 platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify at your convenience. You name it,

00:00:30.480 it is out there. On today's show, we are talking about, once again, rising crime right across

00:00:35.320 Canada. Chaos is ensuing in our major streets and cities. We're going to bring in Tim Upple,

00:00:40.000 the Member of Parliament for Edmonton, Mill Woods, also the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party,

00:00:44.220 to talk about this, his private members bill, C381 and much, much more. Thanks for coming on.

00:00:49.500 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. All right. So crime, as I think we've talked about many times on the

00:00:54.300 show, is rising across Canada. I don't think it matters if you're in a big city or a small town.

00:01:00.940 The level of people feeling unsafe is growing and rightfully so. The Justin Trudeau liberals have

00:01:07.160 destroyed our criminal justice system. Absolutely. I mean, even if you just look at the numbers,

00:01:11.580 that after eight years of Justin Trudeau, crime has skyrocketed across the country. In every form

00:01:16.440 of crime, whether that's violent crime with guns, you know, and auto theft, what we're talking about

00:01:22.820 today with extortion, and that's what my private member's bill is on, is extortion, where extortion

00:01:27.520 has gone up over 230% across the country. Yeah. And, you know, these are gangs, individuals that are

00:01:33.880 terrorizing our business community. And it's all because, when you look at it, when you go back, it's

00:01:39.440 because Justin Trudeau and the liberals made it easier to get bailed. They made it easier for these,

00:01:45.380 you know, repeat violent offenders, gangsters, and others to get back out onto the streets.

00:01:49.900 I don't want this to show my age, but when I was growing up, you know, in a small town,

00:01:55.360 we rarely, if ever, locked the doors to our house. Sometimes we'd leave the keys in the

00:02:00.960 ignition of the car. You know, the old joke was, if someone wants to borrow it, at least we'll get

00:02:04.540 it back. Nowadays, it'll end up in a container ship to who knows where. Within minutes.

00:02:08.760 Within minutes, right? Like, life has changed so much in just eight years.

00:02:13.160 It's unbelievable. I mean, on the auto theft thing, I think the stats are like something like 40 or 50

00:02:17.260 cars per day in Ontario. So, and that's, it's not only hurting, you know, those that lose their

00:02:22.200 cars. It's costing the auto insurance industry a billion dollars a year. And that's, all Canadians 1.00

00:02:28.740 are paying for that. Everyone's insurance premiums are going up. And this is at a time when people are

00:02:33.560 paying more for carbon tax, more for their groceries, more for everything. And so it's already hard

00:02:39.160 enough to afford everything. And now they're paying more for insurance.

00:02:41.980 If they can get insurance. If they can get insurance, right? Yeah, exactly.

00:02:45.620 Like around, I think, Brampton and Mississauga area, people are having a tough time. You might

00:02:49.320 get cut off after a couple of cars. You might get cut off or it's so expensive.

00:02:53.020 And it's no fault of their own. No, it's not their fault. No.

00:02:55.880 It's actually Justin Trudeau's fault. Exactly. That all of this is happening. So there's a number

00:02:59.600 of things that are happening here, but a lot of it is because of their ideological, you know,

00:03:04.220 laws that they brought in that were just soft on crime, that allowing these people to come back 0.92

00:03:09.300 out onto the streets. And it's not working. No, it isn't. Well, let's talk about your bill,

00:03:13.880 C381. We haven't really took a big dive into this on this program, but we'll cue up cut one

00:03:19.780 because our leader, Pierre Polyev, is going to describe it in the clip. And then we'll talk a

00:03:25.340 bit more about it. Of course, in this clip, you'll be the good looking guy on our screen. It's to the

00:03:29.280 right. So we'll cut one. There you go.

00:03:31.740 My common sense plan drafted by Tim Uppel is the following. We will establish mandatory prison

00:03:38.480 sentences of three years for any criminal convicted of extortion. We will bring mandatory five-year

00:03:44.520 prison sentences for any criminal convicted of extortion who is acting on behalf of gangs

00:03:49.740 or organized crime. Not only does this mean that criminals who carry out these crimes will go to

00:03:55.080 prison, but it also means that prosecutors and cops will have another tool to go after the ringleaders

00:04:00.560 of these organized criminals. Three, we will restore mandatory four-year prison sentences for

00:04:07.320 extortion with a firearm. This is the penalty that Trudeau and the NDP took away. We will make

00:04:12.300 arson an aggravating factor in the commission of extortion. And we will reverse catch and release.

00:04:22.680 We will bring in jail, not bail. Jail, not bail. Jail, not bail for repeat violent extortionists.

00:04:32.540 Sounds like common sense to me. It is. Absolutely. Let's keep them off the streets. 0.99

00:04:36.480 And a lot of this came about because over the last number of months, essentially international

00:04:41.880 gangsters were sending businesses right across the country, these letters or through WhatsApp messages

00:04:49.880 and saying, pay us a million dollars or we're going to, whatever, threaten your family. We'll do

00:04:55.980 something. And it started happening. Businesses were being shot at. In Edmonton, we've had over 17 houses

00:05:02.380 that were burnt down. These were new construction houses, builders. So the builders received these

00:05:09.840 letters or WhatsApp messages and, you know, they didn't pay up. And all of a sudden their houses

00:05:15.300 started burning down. That's incredible. Something we never really talked about much.

00:05:19.820 No. Right. And then, so it was happening in, yeah, exactly. Right. Like you can never imagine

00:05:25.200 that this is happening in Canada. Right. Right. We don't, we don't think that these kinds of

00:05:28.320 things happen here. But what, what, what's happening is these, these criminal organizations

00:05:32.900 are hiring, seems like these young people, because some of the people who were arrested are young,

00:05:37.060 um, to either, you know, uh, set fire to houses or shoot at houses, um, and, you know, houses with

00:05:44.320 families in them. Yeah. Right. Like businesses with their families are there. And, and these business

00:05:48.600 owners are, are neighbors are, you know, the members of the community. And now they're dealing

00:05:52.480 with this. And, and, um, what, what's happening is some, a few people are being arrested and they're

00:05:58.060 out later that day. Yeah. That's the problem. Right. They're out. Yeah. And so it seems like

00:06:01.660 there's no consequences. So why wouldn't you do it more? And it's, it's, uh, it's making

00:06:06.580 money for them. Yeah. There's no consequences. There's no consequences. So we have to bring

00:06:11.280 in serious penalties. And it's like Pierre was saying that we would bring in mandatory

00:06:15.460 minimum sentences that if you're involved in extortion, you're, you're convicted for

00:06:19.500 three years. If you're doing this on behalf of some kind of a criminal organization, whether

00:06:24.180 that's local or international, that's five years. And something that the liberals did 0.74

00:06:28.980 with, you know, some of their soft on crime legislation, they took away the penalties that

00:06:33.120 if you, um, uh, if you're extortion with a gun, um, and, and so that we're bringing in

00:06:40.400 four year minimum penalty on that. And, uh, we would make arson an aggravating factor. So

00:06:47.100 we, you know, this is what's actually happening in Canada. We have a solution for it. And, you

00:06:54.100 know, we need to be able to, uh, implement these measures to help these businesses out.

00:06:58.980 To me, when I look at extortion in general, um, it, it mostly in, in kind of, it impacts

00:07:06.900 small business owners more than anything, right? The big corporations, well, the manager,

00:07:11.020 I don't know, you don't know who they are, right?

00:07:12.820 Yeah. And they have security they can hire. They can do whatever.

00:07:15.460 But small business, this is another shot at small business owners.

00:07:19.680 That's right.

00:07:19.940 The small entrepreneur trying to, to make a better living for themselves.

00:07:24.140 Yeah. They've done well, you know, and then all of a sudden someone finds out that

00:07:27.360 they, that they have done well, that they've done well, right? And it's not like these businesses

00:07:31.300 have all this cash lying around, right? It's usually invested. It's, it's part of their

00:07:34.720 business. And they have to compete with the big chains. That's right.

00:07:36.880 Who have massive buying power. And so they can't just give it away. And, and, and they

00:07:39.820 shouldn't. Exactly. They shouldn't. They shouldn't. They shouldn't. They should be

00:07:42.640 helping to grow their business, right? This is supposed to be that safe place from

00:07:46.020 around the world. Yes. And also this bill will also target those that are involved in

00:07:50.600 extortion as well. And we've heard some horrible stories of young people online who get, you

00:07:55.980 know, somehow end up giving some kind of picture or something to someone on the other side who

00:08:00.880 then uses that same picture and says, you get me some money. Or otherwise we're going to

00:08:04.800 expose you. We're going to send this picture to all of your, you know, social media contacts.

00:08:09.600 And unfortunately in a couple of cases that's ended up led to suicide. And so this bill would

00:08:15.580 bring in mandatory minimum sentences for that as well.

00:08:17.960 And just to be clear, the leader said it, you said it a few times, but I just want to

00:08:21.660 be clear, even though those are listening and, you know, wanted a better explanation,

00:08:27.360 like these aren't like one-time offenders, like some 18 year old makes a mistake. You

00:08:31.880 know what I mean? Like this is violent or repeat offenders. Those that don't want the

00:08:36.460 help of the services offered for rehabilitation. Exactly. And this is from, and usually people

00:08:40.340 who are working on behalf of some type of criminal organization, right? And this will

00:08:43.740 actually allow the police to catch somebody. Maybe it's a young person. Maybe it's somebody

00:08:48.560 that got caught up in this and say, okay, fine, we got you. Who are you working for?

00:08:52.460 Because that's who then can get the mandatory minimum penalties, right? Because that's, so

00:08:57.320 this is another tool for the police to actually be able to follow up because right now that,

00:09:01.440 you know, that doesn't exist. And so this is, this gives the police another tool.

00:09:08.020 Do you see any appetite on the liberal side to take this bill on to, I don't, I don't personally,

00:09:13.340 just based on their history, but they must be getting the same emails and calls my office. I'm

00:09:18.760 sure your office is getting the same, especially if you have contractors that are facing these kinds

00:09:22.780 of threats. I'm getting them. You're getting them. I would be shocked if they weren't either.

00:09:26.920 They're absolutely, you know, been hearing about it. But well, I've asked questions in the House

00:09:32.400 of Commons on it. And the response is those laws already exist. And they don't. They used to.

00:09:39.080 Yeah, they used to. Under the Harper government, there used to be these strong mandatory minimum

00:09:42.080 penalties. Now they've been diluted under the liberals. And so they are not taking action to

00:09:47.940 address this. You know, very much frustrating the business community where some people are saying,

00:09:52.620 well, you know, either we shut down our businesses because it's a threat to my family or we move,

00:09:58.180 right? Go down south, go somewhere else. Yeah. Start a business. They're going to have that kind

00:10:02.100 of protection. We have the protection. What's the point of being a successful business person?

00:10:06.120 Right. If it's actually putting your family in danger. Exactly. Where some low life gets a few

00:10:11.400 people together and decides that they're just going to threaten someone and make money off of it.

00:10:15.240 Yeah. And cut into your profit margin, which hampers your ability to do business, whatever it is.

00:10:20.140 To expand, to hire, to innovate. And it hasn't happened yet. But if you're just going to start

00:10:25.820 shooting at houses and, you know, setting houses on fire, people are going to get seriously hurt in

00:10:32.460 this, right? Yeah, absolutely. People are going to die. And the business will close. Opportunity will

00:10:35.320 be lost. That's right. And economic activity in our towns and cities is going to be just swept to the

00:10:41.200 side. And it's going to be a bunch of big corporations that are going to be left, unfortunately.

00:10:45.040 And so the businesses are saying, why don't you do anything about this? Well, why isn't the government

00:10:48.540 doing anything about it? And we don't have an answer for them. They're the ones that caused this,

00:10:52.580 in the sense that they made the laws this way. They softened the laws so much that crime right

00:10:57.200 across the country has been going up. And so we have to, well, we have to take over government

00:11:02.400 and change those laws. That's the only way we're going to be able to do it.

00:11:05.580 And what was that stat in Vancouver? I don't have it in front of me. I probably should have it.

00:11:08.640 It was like the same 40 people was responsible for like 80% of the crime.

00:11:12.420 Yeah, it was like 40 people arrested over and over again thousands of times.

00:11:15.580 Yes.

00:11:15.740 And so a lot of people say, well, hey, what about police resources? True.

00:11:20.320 Right? We have to look at police resources. But if the same, if the police wasn't arresting

00:11:23.740 the same people over and over again, using their time for the paperwork and the time arresting

00:11:28.820 them and putting themselves at risk every time they go arrest the same person, they could be

00:11:34.220 arresting someone else.

00:11:35.040 Yes.

00:11:35.660 Right? They could be spending that time investigating other crimes. So let's put these repeat offenders

00:11:40.800 behind bars and keep them behind bars. And like the leader says, jail, not bail for them.

00:11:45.880 It's just common sense.

00:11:46.920 It is.

00:11:47.260 I'm actually surprised the liberals didn't move on this a little faster when the justice

00:11:50.560 minister had his car stolen a couple of times.

00:11:52.660 Like three times.

00:11:53.720 Yeah, three times. Usually like when it doesn't impact me, oh well, it's just happening to

00:11:57.960 the little people, right?

00:11:58.940 They held a summit.

00:12:00.000 Yeah.

00:12:00.180 They held a meeting, right?

00:12:01.120 They invited all these mayors. They invited all these people who came here.

00:12:04.380 They stole a picture.

00:12:04.940 Yeah, exactly. These politicians came together and they took pictures.

00:12:08.060 Yes.

00:12:08.460 And we haven't heard anything since.

00:12:09.680 No.

00:12:09.940 Right?

00:12:10.080 We need real action. Real action and auto theft, which we have an actual plan for that,

00:12:15.900 right? Like minimum sentences for repeat offenders, not somebody who did it once. That's different,

00:12:21.600 right?

00:12:21.700 Yes.

00:12:21.820 But someone who's involved in organized crime, who does this in order, you know, repeatedly

00:12:26.900 doing this. And also then we also have to invest in our borders as well.

00:12:30.820 We've talked about that for years.

00:12:31.960 Yeah.

00:12:32.380 Decades.

00:12:32.920 Like there's containers that leave this country that aren't even being scanned.

00:12:36.120 That's right.

00:12:36.460 We have no idea what's in them, right? And so we don't know what's going out.

00:12:39.720 We also don't know what's coming in.

00:12:40.980 Yeah, the drugs, firearms.

00:12:41.980 The drugs, the guns, right? I don't know if you saw this video. Actually, Pierre posted

00:12:47.460 it as well. It was in BC where somebody was shooting at another vehicle with a machine

00:12:53.060 gun.

00:12:53.460 No, I didn't say that.

00:12:54.620 An actual automatic machine gun, right? And so that's what's on our streets now. After

00:12:59.980 eight years of Justin Trudeau, we have machine guns on the streets. And yet Justin is spending

00:13:04.840 his time going after law-abiding gun owners.

00:13:06.780 Yes.

00:13:07.300 Right?

00:13:07.500 It's easier that way, right?

00:13:08.560 Right? It's easier that way because it sounds good. Oh, we're taking these guns off the street.

00:13:11.800 No, you're not. There's more of them now. Right? It's getting worse. And those guns are

00:13:16.360 going away. And obviously, they're being brought in by organized crime. Organized crime is using

00:13:20.800 them.

00:13:21.060 That's right.

00:13:21.360 And so it's becoming very dangerous.

00:13:25.560 This is going to sound awful, but why wouldn't they if there's no consequences?

00:13:28.700 That's right. That's just it.

00:13:29.900 I mean, like, what is the... What is going to stop them?

00:13:32.800 Somebody gets arrested in the morning.

00:13:34.200 Yeah, they're out.

00:13:34.640 At night, and they're out the same day.

00:13:36.060 Yeah.

00:13:36.680 Right? There was an incident here in Ontario. So somebody that was arrested for extortion,

00:13:43.000 out later that day, and was making a TikTok-type video coming out of the police car.

00:13:48.880 Yeah. Like, how infuriating for somebody who, you know, was extorted by them, who was terrorized

00:13:55.160 by them, threatened their family, and he's out later that day.

00:13:57.840 And at that point, you just call the police. You don't call them because they know the

00:14:00.340 retaliation is coming back.

00:14:01.580 That's right.

00:14:01.920 If they're out by supper time...

00:14:03.020 Yeah. They know who...

00:14:04.200 You better bunker down, right?

00:14:05.260 Yeah.

00:14:05.440 It's not going to be pretty.

00:14:06.440 No, it's a circle. They're making things much worse, and it's just not safe for Canadians.

00:14:10.940 Yeah, that's... It's just unreal how fast we've slipped in eight years.

00:14:15.500 It's unbelievable.

00:14:16.000 And how many people are saying they don't feel safe anymore.

00:14:18.300 Yeah. You continue to hear it over and over again. It's the safety combined with, you

00:14:22.920 know, everything being unaffordable, and it really is affecting Canadians' mental health.

00:14:29.180 This is... It all ties together.

00:14:31.980 And when crime goes up, you have that many more victims.

00:14:34.620 I think that... You mentioned it off the top. I should have dug into it more, but the victims

00:14:39.460 are really the part that always gets forgotten, right?

00:14:42.220 Yeah.

00:14:42.340 When their crime happens, you have someone who, you know, even if it's auto theft, right?

00:14:45.960 The people are asleep, the car's gone, but they can't get to work.

00:14:48.920 That's right.

00:14:49.420 Or they can't get their kids to school.

00:14:50.580 Or their insurance goes up, or they can't make payments, right?

00:14:53.200 It's just a cascading effect, and their lives are impacted.

00:14:56.480 Absolutely. They're impacted. Everyone else has to pay. Insurance payments are impacted.

00:15:00.260 I was even thinking about the houses that were burnt down.

00:15:02.000 Like, fine, maybe the builders are big builders in Edmonton.

00:15:05.240 You know, their house is burnt down, but what about the tradespeople that worked on those

00:15:07.900 houses?

00:15:08.700 That's true.

00:15:09.040 They're not going to get paid until the insurance company finishes their investigation, and at

00:15:14.900 some point decides to pay the builders. The builder can pay, you know, these trades guys,

00:15:19.740 right? And the trades guys aren't the rich guys.

00:15:21.320 That's right. They're just working people, right?

00:15:23.820 They're just working people, right? And they brought in, they probably paid for the materials

00:15:26.160 that went into the house, and now they're not going to get paid for it.

00:15:29.140 Yeah, we all know sometimes insurance companies aren't exactly the quickest to do with us.

00:15:32.640 They're the quickest to do with us. 0.95

00:15:32.660 Exactly.

00:15:33.680 Without that kind of money.

00:15:34.600 Yeah, especially when it's an obvious crime.

00:15:36.420 Yes.

00:15:36.660 Right? That's going to take time.

00:15:38.300 Yeah, absolutely. Tim, the guests always have the last word on this show. Of course,

00:15:42.580 we do appreciate your time. The floor is yours. Anything you want to talk about?

00:15:46.780 You know what? I mean, it's just, first of all, I appreciate the fact that you do this

00:15:51.480 and give people an opportunity to hear about what's happening, what bills we're bringing

00:15:55.420 forward. I think that's really important to highlight the work of our members of parliament.

00:16:00.860 I just think that, you know, to tie it back to how quickly things have changed after eight

00:16:07.040 years of Justin Trudeau. My dad, when he first moved to this country, you know, he'd always

00:16:11.400 would say that Canada is that country where if you work hard, you can provide for your family.

00:16:16.400 You can, you know, you have a roof over your head. You work really hard, you can have nice

00:16:20.320 things, right? And, but now there's people that are working really hard, two jobs, and still

00:16:27.960 not making ends meet. They just can't make it. I, I recently met, I had taken my son to a hockey

00:16:34.420 game and met a mother who had said that they now have to decide which one of their kids will

00:16:40.220 do hockey, right? Because they can't afford to put both of them in. Her and her husband are

00:16:44.120 working as much as they can, and they can't afford both. Like, never thought that that would

00:16:49.380 happen in Canada. Exactly. So you're working twice as hard to take in half as much.

00:16:54.160 Yep. Yeah. And you can't even, you know, have a hard time buying Christmas gifts for

00:16:58.620 your kids. Yeah. Well, it's not right. No, it isn't right. Right? Yeah, you're right. When

00:17:02.220 you used to have that dream, right? You would work hard and you'd have enough to maybe put

00:17:07.660 your kids into sports if they so wanted. Maybe even take a vacation. That's right.

00:17:10.860 Right now it's just kind of reserved for, for those that are ultra wealthy that are...

00:17:14.800 Justin Trudeau. He's taking vacations. What was his last vacation? $80,000 a night?

00:17:18.160 $80,000, right? No, $10,000 a night or something. Yeah. Just out of reach for...

00:17:22.620 It's totally out of touch. Yeah. They don't get it. Yeah. And that's the problem,

00:17:26.120 right? If you're not impacted, if the planners aren't impacted, they're less likely to act,

00:17:30.960 right? That's right. That's why I'm shocked they didn't move when the Justice Minister had

00:17:34.360 his car stolen. Yeah, you'd figure by then they'd get the hint. It would, yeah. Not even once,

00:17:38.360 I think like three times. Yeah, full on task force and they would actually address it. No,

00:17:42.400 photo ops. It's probably because it didn't come out of their pocket, right? It wasn't the Justice Minister's

00:17:46.740 insurance policy that was impacted. No, of course. It just went through the government.

00:17:49.080 Another vehicle later that day and it doesn't matter. Exactly. Through the government fleet.

00:17:52.500 Didn't really matter. No. Yeah. So that's ultra frustrating. Yeah. Tim, we appreciate your time.

00:17:57.720 Good. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me on. Tim Uppel,

00:18:00.080 Member of Parliament for Edmonton. Mill Woods, also the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. We

00:18:04.140 appreciate his time. He's welcome back anytime. We appreciate yours as well. Don't forget to like,

00:18:08.500 comment, subscribe, and share this program. We know crime is impacting people from coast to coast. They need to hear

00:18:14.380 this message. Not always being talked about in the mainstream media. Plus, you can tell your friends

00:18:18.480 they can download this program on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, CastBox, you name it. It is out there.

00:18:23.180 Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the Blueprints.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - March 07, 2024

Canadians are living in fear for their safety.

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