The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Canadians are sending us a clear message.

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

00:00:14.500 host, Jamie Schmael, member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps with the legs frock with new

00:00:18.000 content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like, comment, share

00:00:23.080 and subscribe to this program. It's very important that this message gets out, especially if you want

00:00:28.180 Pierre Polyev to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. On today's show, we have one of the latest

00:00:33.400 by-election winners, Don Stewart, the Member of Parliament from Toronto-St. Paul, the belly of

00:00:38.560 the beast. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you very much, Jamie. Pleasure to be here. And

00:00:42.020 congratulations, by the way. Thank you. That was a heck of a by-election. It was. I've been hearing a

00:00:45.860 lot of congratulatory remarks this week. That won't get old for me, but they're starting to wear off.

00:00:52.220 You know, the election was just a fantastic thing. It proved the value of hard work and

00:00:59.180 understanding what people want when you're talking to them at their doors.

00:01:02.600 And that's right in the fortress, right? You are surrounded on the electoral map by a lot of red,

00:01:08.760 and now they have a nice blop of blue inside. But of course, Toronto, you have an area that,

00:01:15.800 in your seat in particular, hasn't been held in almost 30 years. Yeah, actually 31 years. 31 years.

00:01:21.000 That was the last time that there was a Conservative in the seat, and that was Barbara McDougall, who a lot of 0.90

00:01:26.840 people will remember and remember fondly. More and more people that I met on the campaign trail

00:01:32.680 talked about Barbara McDougall and how they helped on her campaign, and they actually came out to help

00:01:37.720 on mine as well. That is pretty cool. It was a common-sense Conservative message that just resonated.

00:01:42.840 It was, indeed. Indeed. You know, people across this nation need to understand that the message that the

00:01:49.800 Conservative Party has with the axe attacks, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime,

00:01:54.520 it resonates everywhere. There's something in that for everyone and everywhere in this country.

00:02:00.040 It may be slightly different in St. Paul's than it is in Regina or in your riding, but taxes matter,

00:02:07.880 the homes matter, the cost of living crisis, the budget deficits that we keep running. That one

00:02:13.560 really mattered for my people. And of course, stopping the crime, that's a big, big, big thing in my riding.

00:02:19.000 Yeah, you're right. In the city of Toronto, like most communities around this country,

00:02:23.400 you're hit with all of that. You're dealing with all of you, one of the most expensive real estate

00:02:28.040 markets in the country. Yeah, indeed. We have, you know, armed robberies are higher,

00:02:33.800 auto thefts are up. A lot of people at their doorsteps wanted to talk to me about auto theft,

00:02:40.600 but it's not just auto theft. It's petty crime, and it's disrespect in a neighbourhood, people littering,

00:02:48.120 and small things like that, that create, you know, an environment in the streets that just

00:02:54.440 isn't what it was nine years ago. Yeah, you're right. It's a lot. The big things do matter,

00:02:58.200 of course, the large crimes, that type of thing. But it's also the small stuff where everyday people,

00:03:04.280 they go to work, they pay their taxes, they just want the government to do their job and provide

00:03:08.600 the safety for them to go amongst their lives. It's that small stuff that kind of nips away at people

00:03:13.960 that they get annoyed with, and rightfully so. It disrupts your life when you're doing everything

00:03:21.720 you're told. I'm going to pay my taxes and do my part. The government needs to do theirs,

00:03:25.560 and this Liberal government is far off base from that. And I think that's why it was so important

00:03:29.640 during the election. You know, personally, I knocked on 13,000 doors myself, and I heard from people in

00:03:35.320 every corner of my riding, and the issues were the same. And principally, crime was up, and people

00:03:44.120 notice it. And they're afraid to take their kids out in the street past dark. They, you know, they

00:03:48.440 used to maybe take a walk with their child in the stroller past dark. In the wintertime, it gets dark

00:03:53.320 at four o'clock. There's not a lot of time to get out there during daylight hours. But those are things

00:03:57.800 that are impacting people's lives. And we should also remind people, it's not the police service

00:04:01.960 themselves in large part. It's the justice system. It's the revolving door justice system where violent

00:04:08.520 repeat offenders are getting out time and time again, and they just keep re-offending. They're

00:04:14.200 not the ones looking for help. They're not the ones that made a mistake and want to rehabilitate

00:04:18.680 themselves. This is an ongoing pattern that is disrupting communities. I'm glad you brought that up.

00:04:24.840 I've got a great relationship with the police service in Toronto in 13th and 53 Division,

00:04:29.720 major crimes and carjacking unit. I've had them all out to talk to our community. And, you know,

00:04:35.800 they're doing everything that they can. But just to your point, there are things that

00:04:42.680 I'll say don't get the scrutiny on them at the street level as they may have used to, because

00:04:49.080 the justice system is full. And we need to find a way to unclog that system, the justice system,

00:04:57.160 and get people through so we can start to prosecute these crimes that are affecting people's lives.

00:05:01.960 Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's amazing that you were able to pull that off. And I can imagine it's

00:05:06.520 still an ongoing high, but you're doing a lot of great work because the door knocking hasn't stopped

00:05:10.440 for you. You're still out every weekend meeting the people. True, true. And, you know, there's some

00:05:15.240 boundary redistributions that are happening across the country. People in the new St. Pauls were not aware.

00:05:22.680 So every 10 years, we get a boundary redistribution. And I've been focusing on those new areas to let

00:05:29.160 people know that I'm there for them and that I don't want to be a new face for them when this next

00:05:34.600 election does happen. So if anybody's asking, who is Don Stewart? Can you give an elevator pitch

00:05:41.000 about who is Don Stewart? Sure I can. I got to tell you, I've lived in this riding since 2016. I've seen a

00:05:46.200 lot of changes. But the main reason I got involved in politics is because I've got two daughters who are

00:05:51.400 in their 20s. They do not have the same opportunities that I had when I was their age. And I think the

00:05:58.040 only way we can really affect change is to get involved and have our voices heard. I spent almost

00:06:03.720 25 years in the finance industry and I learned what it means to be a fiscal, have some fiscal

00:06:09.480 responsibility. I've seen what happens when you lose that true north where you need to understand

00:06:18.040 we've got a certain amount of resources we can allocate, but we can't go over. You know, we can

00:06:23.320 borrow a certain amount of money, but we can't continuously do that. What I saw, Jamie, was that

00:06:28.600 we had a trajectory in this country where we're going back in time to the 90s, where we had decisions

00:06:37.080 forced on us from outside entities. We don't need to wait for that crisis to happen again. We can make

00:06:42.680 the decisions for ourselves now and decide how we want to run our country, how we want to allocate

00:06:47.320 our scarce resources to the benefit of Canadians from coast to coast. It's interesting you mention

00:06:52.200 that. So we're doing this show a day after National Truth and Reconciliation Day, but this afternoon

00:06:57.720 we have some pretty important confidence votes coming up. We'll see if the NDP and the Bloc get their

00:07:01.960 spine again and potentially match their actions with their words, but we could potentially have an

00:07:08.200 election called later today. I don't think it'll happen, but to your point that you just mentioned,

00:07:13.480 you're fighting for all these things because it matters to, based on the phone calls we're seeing,

00:07:19.400 the polling numbers, like there's a lot of people hurting out there. Food bank uses out of control.

00:07:24.120 And you know, I'm glad you mentioned the Truth and Reconciliation Day. I spent last Sunday at an

00:07:30.760 Equinox event with our Indigenous community in Toronto St. Paul's, and it's the first time I've

00:07:35.560 done that. It was just an amazing experience. And you mentioned food banks, and I volunteered at the

00:07:41.480 food banks in our riding, and I've seen firsthand the pain that's out there. And you mentioned knocking

00:07:47.800 on doors. So I'm knocking on doors, and I hear from people how they're understanding now that how this

00:07:54.440 government keeps printing money to fund the different things that they're implementing. But that puts our core

00:07:59.560 programs at risk. And people ask me about that. And the fact is that we need to be able to allocate

00:08:06.040 our resources, as I said earlier, to the most important things to Canadians, not pick winners

00:08:11.720 in different parts of society. Exactly. And that's all this government has really been doing.

00:08:17.160 And as we potentially move closer to an election, the landscape of how many people get their information,

00:08:24.280 it was a little sketchy actually last week. CTV put out a story, which they had chopped different

00:08:31.240 pieces of Pierre Polyev's statement together to fit a narrative that they are promoting. And so this is

00:08:39.240 something I really want to dive into as a former journalist, but how the news media is more narrative

00:08:45.720 based than they used to be. You know, the who, the what, the where, the when, the why, the how, right?

00:08:49.880 The media used to always put in both sides, and then people were able to make their decision. Now

00:08:56.200 it's more like promoting a narrative. So if you haven't seen it already, I urge you to check it out.

00:09:02.520 Andrew Scheer put out a fantastic video that shows the exact statement that Pierre made, and then the

00:09:10.440 edited version to create that narrative that we want an election based on one certain thing,

00:09:16.120 which was not true. We want the carbon tax election. So let's, let's queue up cut one. This is the CBC

00:09:23.320 now. So they're still defending what they had done. They're, they're, they're, they're trying to back

00:09:29.160 up their buddies at CTV. And this question is just absolutely incredible and shows what the media will

00:09:36.280 do to create their narrative and keep it going across multiple platforms. Play cut one.

00:09:40.840 When you make allegations like this about a publicly traded company on the floor of the House of

00:09:44.280 Commons, like, should you be doing that? Like, this is what I wonder about. There are people

00:09:49.160 with their pensions, mutual funds, their livelihood invested in Bell. I know it's gone through some

00:09:55.240 struggles and laid people off, but is that what we're going to do to corporate Canada?

00:09:58.760 I'd point out that a lot of that disdain is directed very much at the CEO and the executive team and not

00:10:05.560 at the, you know, the boots on the ground that are laying cable. I think there is an important

00:10:10.280 distinction there. This would be a lot less complicated. Um, if, you know, telecommunications

00:10:15.560 companies were kind of out of the journalism business, it would be a lot less complicated

00:10:19.560 if these companies weren't receiving either preferential regulatory treatment, uh, or in

00:10:24.200 some cases, direct subsidies.

00:10:26.360 So to me, Kate is right there pointing out that, yeah, there, there's some issues there. And it was

00:10:31.720 Pierre's comments were directed at the, the leadership, not the people on the ground,

00:10:36.520 but you just see there that the, the, the media will do everything they can to defend themselves,

00:10:41.160 even though they were completely in the wrong. And this is the CBC, CTV was the one who, who did,

00:10:47.160 made the error in the statement. And yet the blame still has to be on Pierre, right? Like,

00:10:53.080 how dare you talk about the mistake in the media because there are people whose paychecks depend on

00:10:59.720 that? Well, why is, isn't this applied to Jagmeet Singh when he calls out Loblaws or anybody,

00:11:04.600 or Justin Trudeau when he does the same thing? It's a completely unlevel playing field.

00:11:08.920 And, and I love how you, this is the great thing I think about our party is that you've got

00:11:12.920 experience as a journalist, I've got experience in finance, because what I see from that is the,

00:11:19.720 the CBC host tries to lay this, oh, Mr. Polyev is destroying people's pensions and mutual funds.

00:11:26.760 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:27.320 Well, it's not that he's calling out for the truth.

00:11:29.560 Right. And that's all we're doing. We just want the truth.

00:11:32.200 The blame lays at the CTV news people that allowed this clip

00:11:37.000 to be edited, to portray that narrative, uh, that that's untrue.

00:11:41.720 Yeah. And re basically repeating liberal talking points.

00:11:45.960 Mm-hmm.

00:11:46.840 Like the media is supposed to be the unbiased, the, the, the neutral observers, as I call them,

00:11:52.200 right? Calling balls and strikes. But instead they're repeating liberal talking points,

00:11:57.160 editing clips, like different sentences, putting words together to, to create a narrative that they

00:12:03.720 want to portray as to why Pierre and the conservatives, us as an opposition, me included,

00:12:09.480 won an election.

00:12:10.280 And I hear, I hear it again, I hear it all the time during the campaign.

00:12:13.480 People would tell me that the conservative party was this, the conservative party was that,

00:12:16.920 Pierre Polyev was this or that.

00:12:19.320 But people hadn't done their primary research to decide if it was true or not,

00:12:22.840 because so many things were, were, were so untrue. I got to have some very valuable

00:12:28.040 discussions at people's doorsteps where they wanted to chat.

00:12:31.720 And, and Pierre, uh, did manage to get an apology out of CTV, which was great.

00:12:36.760 It's on most social media. And I believe they did have it in their broadcast.

00:12:40.120 Uh, but at the same time, we just want fair and balanced news, just provide equal coverage.

00:12:46.200 And I think that kind of ticks off the media in a way because now with social media and the,

00:12:51.720 you know, the invention of camera phones, and now everything's on the internet,

00:12:55.640 you can actually see in real time where the news is being torqued. And I think that's why there is

00:13:01.400 this general frustration and growing frustration amongst the public that they, they can see when

00:13:07.080 the media is torquing a story. It's very clear to see and, and, and just, just make things balanced.

00:13:14.360 That's it. That's all you have to do. Just do your job, make it balanced.

00:13:17.800 It's very, it's a very hard thing right now. It seems, uh, for the media to do that.

00:13:22.040 Yeah. It seems that it's more activist than journalist, which is a shame

00:13:25.880 because it was a very noble profession and you were able to tell both stories,

00:13:30.600 at least once upon a time you were, and people had that information. But now you don't because it,

00:13:35.720 you, you just get what they want you to, to come as an outcome, which is to go against the Conservatives.

00:13:41.800 I agree with you on that, Jamie. Yeah. All right. So, um, let's put up the Justin Trudeau's, uh,

00:13:48.520 thing before we get to the end of it. I know we're running out of time here, so

00:13:51.880 we'll do it real quick. Um, this is, uh, Trudeau last week on the Stephen Colbert show. Of course,

00:13:58.280 he was in New York City, uh, talking at the UN and, and hanging out with all the cool rich people here.

00:14:03.880 So, uh, during the show, uh, he was asked, you know, what, what is it we fight of? And

00:14:10.200 it's off with lumber, lumber tariffs. Fishing is a massive problem out, out east. Um, he says

00:14:16.040 there are small issues. And I know, yes, it's comedy, right? Okay. Conservatives, where is your

00:14:20.600 funny bone? Right? I get it. It's comedies there to make people laugh, make light of it. But at the

00:14:25.000 same time, back home domestically, those are some pretty major issues that are caused by Justin

00:14:33.160 Trudeau and his government. Oh, I absolutely agree with you. I mean, I don't stay up late enough

00:14:38.600 to watch the Colbert show because, you know, we're working so hard during the day and up so early in

00:14:42.280 the morning to do that. But I did see, uh, this clip and it was very disconcerting for me to see

00:14:49.080 the problems in Canada belittled on a comedy show. Yeah, because people are losing their lives.

00:14:54.680 There are lumber mills that have shut, leaving small towns in dire straits. Hundreds, if not

00:14:59.960 thousands of jobs. Fishing communities out east being decimated because this government will,

00:15:05.800 will not do its job. And, and I think this is something we're seeing over and over again.

00:15:10.280 The crime issues we talked about, housing, the budgets out of control, these are not small issues.

00:15:15.480 And yes, you're there to make a joke, you're there to make a laugh, but at the end of the day,

00:15:19.720 these are problems Justin Trudeau continues to deny responsibility for and not even pivot on some of

00:15:26.200 them. I'm a little, I'm a little concerned that we have our prime minister going on late night,

00:15:32.440 uh, talk shows in the United States, rather than being here to deal with the issues. And this is

00:15:38.040 kind of endemic, I think of the liberal party is that they're, they're, they're not listening to

00:15:41.880 Canadians, not listening to Canadians where they are and where they want to be heard, which is right here at home.

00:15:47.560 All right. I, I did go over, I should have ended the show earlier, but, uh, I, I love talking to

00:15:53.640 you by the way. Um, the guests get the last word. This is your first appearance on the show because

00:15:58.200 you just elected. Um, T, the floor is yours. Take it from there.

00:16:02.280 Well, that's great. This is a bit of a surprise. I wasn't sure that I was going to get the, going to

00:16:06.680 get the last word. Um, but you know, being in Ottawa now that I've been here for, for two weeks,

00:16:12.520 it's been a real eye opener. There's a lot more getting done here, um, particularly by our party

00:16:18.680 than people at home, uh, realize, you know, question period absolutely is one of the most

00:16:24.440 entertaining things on TV, but those are real questions that, that we need answers to. And

00:16:29.800 that's why I'm here. That's why I wanted to get elected is to help, help this party, help this country

00:16:35.960 solve the issues that are so important to us now and create a new vision for Canada. A new vision

00:16:41.400 for Canada that's going to, uh, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Absolutely.

00:16:47.480 Thank you so much. I loved that conversation. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Don Stewart,

00:16:51.880 the Member of Parliament for Toronto St. Paul's. Feels so good to say. Appreciate your time, Don. Uh,

00:16:57.720 thank you for yours as well. Don't forget, we have new content for you every single Tuesday,

00:17:01.480 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. Don't forget to like, comment, share, subscribe to this program,

00:17:06.040 and tell your friends they can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play,

00:17:09.960 Spotify, you name it, it is out there. Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government,

00:17:15.400 more freedom. That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - October 02, 2024

Canadians are sending us a clear message.

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