Canadians are living in fear for their safety.
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Summary
On today's show, we are talking about rising crime right across Canada. We have brought in Tim Upple, the Member of Parliament for Edmonton-Mill Woods, also the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, to talk about this, his private members bill, C-381, and much, much more.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmell, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Gore at the Lakes Brock,
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with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. We ask that you like,
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comment, subscribe and share this program. There are ears that need to hear this message,
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eyes that need to see it as well. Of course, you can download the content, listen to it on
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platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify at your convenience. You name it,
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it is out there. On today's show, we are talking about, once again, rising crime right across
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Canada. Chaos is ensuing in our major streets and cities. We're going to bring in Tim Upple,
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the Member of Parliament for Edmonton, Mill Woods, also the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party,
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to talk about this, his private members bill, C381 and much, much more. Thanks for coming on.
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Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. All right. So crime, as I think we've talked about many times on the
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show, is rising across Canada. I don't think it matters if you're in a big city or a small town.
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The level of people feeling unsafe is growing and rightfully so. The Justin Trudeau liberals have
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destroyed our criminal justice system. Absolutely. I mean, even if you just look at the numbers,
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that after eight years of Justin Trudeau, crime has skyrocketed across the country. In every form
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of crime, whether that's violent crime with guns, you know, and auto theft, what we're talking about
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today with extortion, and that's what my private member's bill is on, is extortion, where extortion
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has gone up over 230% across the country. Yeah. And, you know, these are gangs, individuals that are
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terrorizing our business community. And it's all because, when you look at it, when you go back, it's
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because Justin Trudeau and the liberals made it easier to get bailed. They made it easier for these,
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you know, repeat violent offenders, gangsters, and others to get back out onto the streets.
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I don't want this to show my age, but when I was growing up, you know, in a small town,
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we rarely, if ever, locked the doors to our house. Sometimes we'd leave the keys in the
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ignition of the car. You know, the old joke was, if someone wants to borrow it, at least we'll get
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it back. Nowadays, it'll end up in a container ship to who knows where. Within minutes.
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Within minutes, right? Like, life has changed so much in just eight years.
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It's unbelievable. I mean, on the auto theft thing, I think the stats are like something like 40 or 50
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cars per day in Ontario. So, and that's, it's not only hurting, you know, those that lose their
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cars. It's costing the auto insurance industry a billion dollars a year. And that's, all Canadians
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are paying for that. Everyone's insurance premiums are going up. And this is at a time when people are
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paying more for carbon tax, more for their groceries, more for everything. And so it's already hard
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enough to afford everything. And now they're paying more for insurance.
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If they can get insurance. If they can get insurance, right? Yeah, exactly.
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Like around, I think, Brampton and Mississauga area, people are having a tough time. You might
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get cut off after a couple of cars. You might get cut off or it's so expensive.
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And it's no fault of their own. No, it's not their fault. No.
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It's actually Justin Trudeau's fault. Exactly. That all of this is happening. So there's a number
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of things that are happening here, but a lot of it is because of their ideological, you know,
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laws that they brought in that were just soft on crime, that allowing these people to come back
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out onto the streets. And it's not working. No, it isn't. Well, let's talk about your bill,
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C381. We haven't really took a big dive into this on this program, but we'll cue up cut one
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because our leader, Pierre Polyev, is going to describe it in the clip. And then we'll talk a
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bit more about it. Of course, in this clip, you'll be the good looking guy on our screen. It's to the
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My common sense plan drafted by Tim Uppel is the following. We will establish mandatory prison
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sentences of three years for any criminal convicted of extortion. We will bring mandatory five-year
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prison sentences for any criminal convicted of extortion who is acting on behalf of gangs
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or organized crime. Not only does this mean that criminals who carry out these crimes will go to
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prison, but it also means that prosecutors and cops will have another tool to go after the ringleaders
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of these organized criminals. Three, we will restore mandatory four-year prison sentences for
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extortion with a firearm. This is the penalty that Trudeau and the NDP took away. We will make
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arson an aggravating factor in the commission of extortion. And we will reverse catch and release.
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We will bring in jail, not bail. Jail, not bail. Jail, not bail for repeat violent extortionists.
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Sounds like common sense to me. It is. Absolutely. Let's keep them off the streets.
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And a lot of this came about because over the last number of months, essentially international
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gangsters were sending businesses right across the country, these letters or through WhatsApp messages
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and saying, pay us a million dollars or we're going to, whatever, threaten your family. We'll do
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something. And it started happening. Businesses were being shot at. In Edmonton, we've had over 17 houses
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that were burnt down. These were new construction houses, builders. So the builders received these
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letters or WhatsApp messages and, you know, they didn't pay up. And all of a sudden their houses
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started burning down. That's incredible. Something we never really talked about much.
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No. Right. And then, so it was happening in, yeah, exactly. Right. Like you can never imagine
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that this is happening in Canada. Right. Right. We don't, we don't think that these kinds of
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things happen here. But what, what, what's happening is these, these criminal organizations
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are hiring, seems like these young people, because some of the people who were arrested are young,
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um, to either, you know, uh, set fire to houses or shoot at houses, um, and, you know, houses with
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families in them. Yeah. Right. Like businesses with their families are there. And, and these business
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owners are, are neighbors are, you know, the members of the community. And now they're dealing
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with this. And, and, um, what, what's happening is some, a few people are being arrested and they're
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out later that day. Yeah. That's the problem. Right. They're out. Yeah. And so it seems like
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there's no consequences. So why wouldn't you do it more? And it's, it's, uh, it's making
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money for them. Yeah. There's no consequences. There's no consequences. So we have to bring
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in serious penalties. And it's like Pierre was saying that we would bring in mandatory
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minimum sentences that if you're involved in extortion, you're, you're convicted for
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three years. If you're doing this on behalf of some kind of a criminal organization, whether
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that's local or international, that's five years. And something that the liberals did
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with, you know, some of their soft on crime legislation, they took away the penalties that
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if you, um, uh, if you're extortion with a gun, um, and, and so that we're bringing in
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four year minimum penalty on that. And, uh, we would make arson an aggravating factor. So
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we, you know, this is what's actually happening in Canada. We have a solution for it. And, you
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know, we need to be able to, uh, implement these measures to help these businesses out.
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To me, when I look at extortion in general, um, it, it mostly in, in kind of, it impacts
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small business owners more than anything, right? The big corporations, well, the manager,
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I don't know, you don't know who they are, right?
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Yeah. And they have security they can hire. They can do whatever.
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But small business, this is another shot at small business owners.
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The small entrepreneur trying to, to make a better living for themselves.
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Yeah. They've done well, you know, and then all of a sudden someone finds out that
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they, that they have done well, that they've done well, right? And it's not like these businesses
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have all this cash lying around, right? It's usually invested. It's, it's part of their
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business. And they have to compete with the big chains. That's right.
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Who have massive buying power. And so they can't just give it away. And, and, and they
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shouldn't. Exactly. They shouldn't. They shouldn't. They shouldn't. They should be
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helping to grow their business, right? This is supposed to be that safe place from
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around the world. Yes. And also this bill will also target those that are involved in
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extortion as well. And we've heard some horrible stories of young people online who get, you
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know, somehow end up giving some kind of picture or something to someone on the other side who
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then uses that same picture and says, you get me some money. Or otherwise we're going to
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expose you. We're going to send this picture to all of your, you know, social media contacts.
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And unfortunately in a couple of cases that's ended up led to suicide. And so this bill would
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bring in mandatory minimum sentences for that as well.
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And just to be clear, the leader said it, you said it a few times, but I just want to
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be clear, even though those are listening and, you know, wanted a better explanation,
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like these aren't like one-time offenders, like some 18 year old makes a mistake. You
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know what I mean? Like this is violent or repeat offenders. Those that don't want the
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help of the services offered for rehabilitation. Exactly. And this is from, and usually people
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who are working on behalf of some type of criminal organization, right? And this will
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actually allow the police to catch somebody. Maybe it's a young person. Maybe it's somebody
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that got caught up in this and say, okay, fine, we got you. Who are you working for?
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Because that's who then can get the mandatory minimum penalties, right? Because that's, so
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this is another tool for the police to actually be able to follow up because right now that,
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you know, that doesn't exist. And so this is, this gives the police another tool.
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Do you see any appetite on the liberal side to take this bill on to, I don't, I don't personally,
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just based on their history, but they must be getting the same emails and calls my office. I'm
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sure your office is getting the same, especially if you have contractors that are facing these kinds
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of threats. I'm getting them. You're getting them. I would be shocked if they weren't either.
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They're absolutely, you know, been hearing about it. But well, I've asked questions in the House
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of Commons on it. And the response is those laws already exist. And they don't. They used to.
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Yeah, they used to. Under the Harper government, there used to be these strong mandatory minimum
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penalties. Now they've been diluted under the liberals. And so they are not taking action to
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address this. You know, very much frustrating the business community where some people are saying,
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well, you know, either we shut down our businesses because it's a threat to my family or we move,
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right? Go down south, go somewhere else. Yeah. Start a business. They're going to have that kind
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of protection. We have the protection. What's the point of being a successful business person?
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Right. If it's actually putting your family in danger. Exactly. Where some low life gets a few
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people together and decides that they're just going to threaten someone and make money off of it.
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Yeah. And cut into your profit margin, which hampers your ability to do business, whatever it is.
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To expand, to hire, to innovate. And it hasn't happened yet. But if you're just going to start
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shooting at houses and, you know, setting houses on fire, people are going to get seriously hurt in
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this, right? Yeah, absolutely. People are going to die. And the business will close. Opportunity will
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be lost. That's right. And economic activity in our towns and cities is going to be just swept to the
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side. And it's going to be a bunch of big corporations that are going to be left, unfortunately.
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And so the businesses are saying, why don't you do anything about this? Well, why isn't the government
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doing anything about it? And we don't have an answer for them. They're the ones that caused this,
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in the sense that they made the laws this way. They softened the laws so much that crime right
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across the country has been going up. And so we have to, well, we have to take over government
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and change those laws. That's the only way we're going to be able to do it.
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And what was that stat in Vancouver? I don't have it in front of me. I probably should have it.
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It was like the same 40 people was responsible for like 80% of the crime.
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Yeah, it was like 40 people arrested over and over again thousands of times.
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And so a lot of people say, well, hey, what about police resources? True.
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Right? We have to look at police resources. But if the same, if the police wasn't arresting
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the same people over and over again, using their time for the paperwork and the time arresting
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them and putting themselves at risk every time they go arrest the same person, they could be
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Right? They could be spending that time investigating other crimes. So let's put these repeat offenders
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behind bars and keep them behind bars. And like the leader says, jail, not bail for them.
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I'm actually surprised the liberals didn't move on this a little faster when the justice
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Yeah, three times. Usually like when it doesn't impact me, oh well, it's just happening to
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They invited all these mayors. They invited all these people who came here.
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Yeah, exactly. These politicians came together and they took pictures.
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We need real action. Real action and auto theft, which we have an actual plan for that,
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right? Like minimum sentences for repeat offenders, not somebody who did it once. That's different,
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But someone who's involved in organized crime, who does this in order, you know, repeatedly
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doing this. And also then we also have to invest in our borders as well.
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Like there's containers that leave this country that aren't even being scanned.
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We have no idea what's in them, right? And so we don't know what's going out.
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The drugs, the guns, right? I don't know if you saw this video. Actually, Pierre posted
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it as well. It was in BC where somebody was shooting at another vehicle with a machine
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An actual automatic machine gun, right? And so that's what's on our streets now. After
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eight years of Justin Trudeau, we have machine guns on the streets. And yet Justin is spending
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Right? It's easier that way because it sounds good. Oh, we're taking these guns off the street.
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No, you're not. There's more of them now. Right? It's getting worse. And those guns are
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going away. And obviously, they're being brought in by organized crime. Organized crime is using
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This is going to sound awful, but why wouldn't they if there's no consequences?
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I mean, like, what is the... What is going to stop them?
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Right? There was an incident here in Ontario. So somebody that was arrested for extortion,
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out later that day, and was making a TikTok-type video coming out of the police car.
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Yeah. Like, how infuriating for somebody who, you know, was extorted by them, who was terrorized
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by them, threatened their family, and he's out later that day.
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And at that point, you just call the police. You don't call them because they know the
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No, it's a circle. They're making things much worse, and it's just not safe for Canadians.
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Yeah, that's... It's just unreal how fast we've slipped in eight years.
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And how many people are saying they don't feel safe anymore.
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Yeah. You continue to hear it over and over again. It's the safety combined with, you
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know, everything being unaffordable, and it really is affecting Canadians' mental health.
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And when crime goes up, you have that many more victims.
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I think that... You mentioned it off the top. I should have dug into it more, but the victims
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are really the part that always gets forgotten, right?
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When their crime happens, you have someone who, you know, even if it's auto theft, right?
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The people are asleep, the car's gone, but they can't get to work.
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Or their insurance goes up, or they can't make payments, right?
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It's just a cascading effect, and their lives are impacted.
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Absolutely. They're impacted. Everyone else has to pay. Insurance payments are impacted.
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I was even thinking about the houses that were burnt down.
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Like, fine, maybe the builders are big builders in Edmonton.
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You know, their house is burnt down, but what about the tradespeople that worked on those
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They're not going to get paid until the insurance company finishes their investigation, and at
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some point decides to pay the builders. The builder can pay, you know, these trades guys,
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right? And the trades guys aren't the rich guys.
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That's right. They're just working people, right?
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They're just working people, right? And they brought in, they probably paid for the materials
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that went into the house, and now they're not going to get paid for it.
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Yeah, we all know sometimes insurance companies aren't exactly the quickest to do with us.
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Yeah, absolutely. Tim, the guests always have the last word on this show. Of course,
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we do appreciate your time. The floor is yours. Anything you want to talk about?
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You know what? I mean, it's just, first of all, I appreciate the fact that you do this
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and give people an opportunity to hear about what's happening, what bills we're bringing
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forward. I think that's really important to highlight the work of our members of parliament.
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I just think that, you know, to tie it back to how quickly things have changed after eight
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years of Justin Trudeau. My dad, when he first moved to this country, you know, he'd always
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would say that Canada is that country where if you work hard, you can provide for your family.
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You can, you know, you have a roof over your head. You work really hard, you can have nice
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things, right? And, but now there's people that are working really hard, two jobs, and still
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not making ends meet. They just can't make it. I, I recently met, I had taken my son to a hockey
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game and met a mother who had said that they now have to decide which one of their kids will
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do hockey, right? Because they can't afford to put both of them in. Her and her husband are
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working as much as they can, and they can't afford both. Like, never thought that that would
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happen in Canada. Exactly. So you're working twice as hard to take in half as much.
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Yep. Yeah. And you can't even, you know, have a hard time buying Christmas gifts for
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your kids. Yeah. Well, it's not right. No, it isn't right. Right? Yeah, you're right. When
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you used to have that dream, right? You would work hard and you'd have enough to maybe put
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your kids into sports if they so wanted. Maybe even take a vacation. That's right.
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Right now it's just kind of reserved for, for those that are ultra wealthy that are...
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Justin Trudeau. He's taking vacations. What was his last vacation? $80,000 a night?
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$80,000, right? No, $10,000 a night or something. Yeah. Just out of reach for...
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It's totally out of touch. Yeah. They don't get it. Yeah. And that's the problem,
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right? If you're not impacted, if the planners aren't impacted, they're less likely to act,
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right? That's right. That's why I'm shocked they didn't move when the Justice Minister had
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his car stolen. Yeah, you'd figure by then they'd get the hint. It would, yeah. Not even once,
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I think like three times. Yeah, full on task force and they would actually address it. No,
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photo ops. It's probably because it didn't come out of their pocket, right? It wasn't the Justice Minister's
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insurance policy that was impacted. No, of course. It just went through the government.
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Another vehicle later that day and it doesn't matter. Exactly. Through the government fleet.
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Didn't really matter. No. Yeah. So that's ultra frustrating. Yeah. Tim, we appreciate your time.
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Good. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me on. Tim Uppel,
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Member of Parliament for Edmonton. Mill Woods, also the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. We
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appreciate his time. He's welcome back anytime. We appreciate yours as well. Don't forget to like,
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comment, subscribe, and share this program. We know crime is impacting people from coast to coast. They need to hear
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this message. Not always being talked about in the mainstream media. Plus, you can tell your friends
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they can download this program on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, CastBox, you name it. It is out there.
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Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the Blueprints.