00:00:00.120Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, the Lakes, with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time.
00:00:11.620Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and share this program. I guarantee you it is content you are not getting in the mainstream media.
00:00:18.380So on today's show, we are talking Canada-US trade, while the Prime Minister eyeballs the European Union.
00:00:24.460to talk about this and so much more, we bring on Randy Hoback, the Member of Parliament for
00:00:29.140Prince Albert in the beautiful province of Saskatchewan. Thanks for coming on the show.
00:00:32.720Great to be here, Jamie. Thanks for having me.
00:00:34.400You have a lot of connections in the United States. You know, we joke about all the work
00:00:40.380you've done, you know, making those relationships between Canada and the United States. It's become
00:00:46.000very valuable as we in the opposition kind of navigate and adjust to what the government's
00:00:51.980doing and offer not only some opposition, but also ways the government can improve that
00:00:57.980relationship, which is, let's be honest, is strained at the moment.
00:01:17.860And that's the strength we have on the bench.
00:01:20.160And it's just great to be part of that team.
00:01:21.980Mark Carney said during the election campaign about a year ago that he was going to get a deal with the United States by July 21st, I think the date was, and we were in May, April, May-ish, give or take, when those comments.
00:01:35.520So he was seen as the person that could, in many, not all, that could facilitate a deal that quickly with an administration that was growing increasingly hostile, not just to Canada, but around the world as well.
00:01:50.200And we still have no deal, but we have lots of tariffs.
00:01:54.620Well, you know, I think that's something that I think he was very naive when he made that comment.
00:01:59.760And I think he's starting to face the reality of what he's dealing with in the U.S. and around the world.
00:02:05.580The reality is Donald Trump's going to do things on Donald Trump's time.
00:02:40.580And now we're paying the cost of having unbankability with our partners in the U.S. and not knowing exactly where that's going to be, but also the inability to pivot.
00:02:51.500We can go around the world and say all the right things, but if you can't deliver those goods to market, it doesn't really help.
00:02:56.940Well, in the past, how many world leaders came to Canada looking for the resources that we have, the oil, the natural gas, rare earth minerals?
00:03:05.720And we're told by Prime Minister Trudeau at the time, there's no business case.
00:03:10.020It turns out there's a pretty big business case.
00:03:13.220Yeah, and I think maybe that's the breath of fresh air we're seeing right now.
00:03:15.740At least the Prime Minister's acknowledging that those products should hit the world market.
00:03:20.780But his inability to deliver is really concerning because he's making and saying the right things.
00:03:26.100But if you can't deliver, it actually makes things worse because the previous Prime Minister, Prime Minister Trudeau, wouldn't even deliver.
00:03:32.600And he made Canada known as a place that you just can't invest in.
00:03:35.460Now, the new prime minister is saying you can invest in Canada, but if he can't deliver,
00:09:05.620So you'd have CAFTA meeting with, let's say, dairy guys out of Australia, and they'd say, well, the dairy guys in Australia said X, Y, Z, and then you'd have the dairy guys in Canada said, well, we met with these guys in Europe, and they said X, Y, Z.
00:09:16.780So there was an exchanging ideas and things so that the negotiator had as much current information to make the best deal possible.
00:09:24.260We don't know how the stakeholders are actually plugging into this negotiating team.
00:09:28.620Now, let's keep in mind we've got two things happening in parallel.
00:09:31.360You've got the review, which has a July 1st, and they're already saying it's not going to be hit.
00:09:35.620And then you've got the 232 tariffs, and then you've got softened lumber kind of on its own.
00:10:15.600But in order to do that, you have to give them a stable marketplace that guarantees
00:10:18.760a return on investment somewhere down the road.
00:10:21.440When you've got this always being up in the air and they're trying to guess where they
00:10:25.240should be or where they shouldn't be, well, everything just goes on hold.
00:10:28.700And that presents a problem that we're starting to see evolving in our auto sector.
00:10:33.400And unfortunately, we had some pretty devastating news dealing with Honda and others that are re-evaluating their place in the EV market in Canada, many not seeing a future.
00:10:43.820Plus, you have the cars coming in from China.
00:10:48.000And there's a graphic here that kind of points in the direction of where the government wants to do, kind of really going in hard with China.
00:10:56.740And you had an interesting comment off air about this.
00:11:00.000Well, again, if you're trying to put subsidization in place to drive a market, it's not a really good business plan.
00:11:07.760The market should be driven by actually the market.
00:11:10.820So if the market is sending signals to these manufacturers that they should be building EV vehicles, they will build EV vehicles.
00:11:17.260And I have no problems with EV vehicles.
00:13:45.880GM and its mining partner Vale paused the second phase of their cathode factory project in Quebec, ended production of Bright Drop in Ingersoll, Ford delayed plans to build electric vehicles in Oakville in favor of the F-series gas-powered pickup trucks.
00:13:59.440What more evidence do you need that deciding to center your strategy on EVs is no longer the right decision?
00:18:41.580There's a lot of red tape and rules that we may have to retool that we may not make our money back on trying to figure out how to ship our products all the way over there and deal with that.
00:18:51.440Yeah, you know, I used to work for a company called Case New Holland.
00:18:55.980I used to be the manager of flexible products going to Eastern Western Europe.
00:18:58.520And the homologation process there was just a non-trade barrier on its own.