The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 19, 2019


Defending Canada at home and abroad


Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

154.42459

Word count

2,923

Sentence count

195

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Afghanistan War Memorial was unveiled in secrecy, deep inside National Defence. Why did the government keep it a secret from the public? And why did it hurt the families of our fallen soldiers who were supposed to be there to honour them?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.240 Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:03.280 I'm your host, Jamie Schmail, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, the likes Brock in Ontario.
00:00:07.820 And your topic today is national defence.
00:00:12.260 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:17.900 The cost of living keeps going up, deficits keep going up, and he has to raise taxes to pay for his out-of-control spending.
00:00:24.340 The talk is cheap, except when this finance minister does it. It's very expensive.
00:00:32.420 It's the fact that he punished two strong women for doing the right thing while he moved hell and high water
00:00:39.280 to protect his buddies at SNC-Lavalin from facing a day in court.
00:00:47.120 Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:49.740 I'm your host, Jamie Schmail, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, the likes Brock in Ontario.
00:00:54.280 With me this week is James Bazan. He's the Member of Parliament for Selkirk, Interlake, Eastman.
00:00:59.620 He's also the Shadow Minister for National Defence.
00:01:04.480 Thank you for joining us today.
00:01:06.280 Glad to be on here with you, Jamie.
00:01:07.980 You know what? I don't even know where to start, believe it or not.
00:01:10.400 The defence file has just been mismanaged from the beginning by the Liberals.
00:01:14.720 So let's see if we can get through as much as possible.
00:01:18.220 We'll start with the Afghanistan War Memorial, how that was laid out,
00:01:23.340 basically a memorial that was unveiled almost in secrecy, deep inside national defence.
00:01:31.360 The ministers seem to be very rattled by this and not realising the impact of actually keeping it a secret
00:01:39.680 and why would that offend so many people, and rightfully so in my opinion.
00:01:43.440 It's amazing that our Minister of National Defence, Arjus Sajjan, who served in Afghanistan,
00:01:52.140 was so thoughtless in actually attending and approving the secret ceremony.
00:01:59.260 That's the thing. He approved it and then attended that.
00:02:01.500 He was there. This was not a surprise.
00:02:04.040 This was in the works for weeks, and I can't believe that no bells were going off.
00:02:09.320 Nobody saw any red flags and said, let's stop.
00:02:12.260 But what they did instead was insult our veterans.
00:02:17.720 They disrespected the families of the fallen,
00:02:20.740 and they put it in a location that Canadians can't go and visit unless they're now saying that you can go escort it.
00:02:29.920 That's right.
00:02:30.440 That isn't public access.
00:02:31.680 At first it was an appointment, wasn't it?
00:02:32.940 Well, it's still only certain times, and you're going to be escorted.
00:02:37.820 You know, to put this in the Medal of National Defence Headquarters may be a good reminder for those that get to work in the facility,
00:02:47.600 but it's about paying tribute and honouring those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war in Afghanistan.
00:02:54.960 And I think, you know, it comes down to it, the Liberals are embarrassed by our proud military history,
00:03:03.280 and they have to make this right.
00:03:05.900 And if they won't, we will when we form government in October.
00:03:09.320 Absolutely.
00:03:10.040 And I just can't imagine, like you said,
00:03:13.100 how did not one red flag go off in the minds of people when they read the rollout plan?
00:03:19.560 That said, maybe families might want to be there, maybe the general public wants to see it at some point, without an appointment.
00:03:26.620 Like, I just can't believe nobody said something.
00:03:30.620 And, you know, again, we have General Vance, Chief of Defence Staff, that's taking the hit for this for Minister Sajin.
00:03:39.020 And really, what we have is a Minister of Defence right now that is being more of a spectator than actually taking, you know, authority over his portfolio.
00:03:50.680 He hasn't exercised any responsibility here.
00:03:54.520 He did apologise, but too little, too late.
00:03:56.900 You had a chance to make this right from the get-go.
00:03:59.420 And, you know, I'm not surprised.
00:04:00.780 This is the Minister that said that he was the architect of Operation Meduza.
00:04:05.580 And so for him to actually forget about the families of the fallen doesn't surprise me,
00:04:12.700 since he has kind of a revisionist idea of his own personal history.
00:04:17.060 Well, let's move on quickly to Mark Norman.
00:04:19.460 I know that is very topical, but also very complicated.
00:04:23.780 So, you know, Mark Norman has been asking for his job back.
00:04:27.840 It's still, to my knowledge, still a no at this point?
00:04:31.780 There's discussions ongoing.
00:04:33.040 Definitely, Vice Admiral Mark Norman is asking to be Vice Chief of Defence Staff.
00:04:39.660 The rules and regulations that govern the Canadian Armed Forces members and the ethos that they practice
00:04:45.900 says that if you've been suspended and you get reinstated, you're allowed to go back to your old job.
00:04:51.560 So he's in the right to ask to be the Vice Chief of Defence Staff.
00:04:55.480 And he's had conversations with General Vance about his reinstatement.
00:05:00.400 So, you know, we'll have to let this pan out on its own.
00:05:04.760 But the reality is that we still don't have any answers about the political interference
00:05:11.880 and the obstruction of evidence that wasn't provided to the defence team,
00:05:17.660 to the RCMP who bungled this investigation from the start.
00:05:21.720 And it all goes right to the top.
00:05:23.740 It goes right to Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister,
00:05:27.080 who threw a hissy fit when somebody leaked some cabinet documents.
00:05:32.200 It proves that it wasn't Mark Norman.
00:05:35.180 That's right.
00:05:35.840 It was one of 72 people that had access.
00:05:38.020 Yeah, actually it was 73.
00:05:39.480 73.
00:05:40.020 Yeah.
00:05:40.240 And so we had all these people that had access.
00:05:43.680 And, you know, ultimately it comes to light that Vice Admiral Norman was just doing his job.
00:05:50.180 Exactly.
00:05:50.620 And, you know, we actually have a ship now, a supply ship for our Royal Canadian Navy
00:05:55.020 that was delivered on time and on budget.
00:05:56.720 I think people don't realise that.
00:05:57.980 It was on time and on budget because of what Mark Norman did.
00:06:00.680 Because of what Mark Norman did.
00:06:01.440 Under direction by the cabinet, the previous cabinet.
00:06:04.060 Yeah.
00:06:04.360 And so definitely it was the Harper government that ordered the ship.
00:06:09.360 That at the time, Jason Kenney was Minister of National Defence.
00:06:13.980 I was his parliamentary secretary.
00:06:15.820 So we were all very proud of what happened.
00:06:18.200 And then at the very first cabinet meeting that Justin Trudeau had after the 2015 election,
00:06:24.860 that's when he tried to kill the contract at Davies Shipyards in Quebec City
00:06:30.300 to build this brand new supply ship for our Canadian Armed Forces.
00:06:35.760 And, you know, Mark Norman just did his job to make sure the ship got built.
00:06:41.300 There's all sorts of other people out there, including one individual now that has been charged
00:06:48.120 and is going to court as well, who also had the cabinet documents and turned them over to Davies.
00:06:55.460 And so that court process will go forward.
00:06:58.820 But it just proves the point that those papers, those cabinet confidences were in the hands of many people.
00:07:06.800 And the RCMP went after Vice Admiral Mark Norman because Justin Trudeau told him to.
00:07:12.760 And Justin Trudeau on two occasions, a year before and three months before the charges.
00:07:17.080 He said very publicly.
00:07:17.240 Very publicly that Mark Norman was going to be charged.
00:07:20.700 He also was interfering in the direction that was given to the RCMP on this
00:07:29.900 and then withholding the evidence that they needed to properly conduct their investigation.
00:07:35.680 And so that's why it is so important that we have a public inquiry.
00:07:39.100 And I'm glad to see that our colleagues in the Senate are actually going to hold hearings on this
00:07:43.320 during the month of June and try to get down to the bottom of how this miscarriage of justice occurred
00:07:48.380 and how we go about making sure that Vice Admiral Mark Norman is reinstated and properly compensated.
00:07:54.520 Maybe we can quickly touch on that, the Senate investigation that's going to happen.
00:07:58.360 That was a very close vote, I believe 7 to 5?
00:08:01.040 7 to 5, and it was good news because we tried to do it here in the House of Commons.
00:08:05.960 Of course, Liberals have the majority, and they voted it down.
00:08:08.320 So they want to continue on with the cover-up.
00:08:10.000 And, of course, we just had a vote in the House of Commons for the production of documents.
00:08:14.440 In particular, Michael Warnick, the former Clerk of the Privy Council,
00:08:20.780 had written a 60-page memo about Vice Admiral Mark Norman
00:08:25.800 and the asterisk replenishment ship for the Royal Canadian Navy
00:08:31.280 and then gave that to the Prime Minister.
00:08:34.480 60 pages.
00:08:35.200 And when it was handed over to the defense team, it was all blacked out, completely redacted.
00:08:42.180 Interesting.
00:08:43.360 We'd love to know what's in that memo.
00:08:45.760 60 pages sounds like a book.
00:08:47.840 Yep.
00:08:48.300 And if every line in that implicates the Prime Minister, the Clerk of the Privy Council,
00:08:54.480 and their direction on the investigation and charges and the prosecution of Vice Admiral Mark Norman,
00:09:01.500 no wonder they want to hide it.
00:09:02.840 But I think it's time that the truth comes out,
00:09:05.440 and hopefully through the Senate process or through a public inquiry down the road,
00:09:09.100 we'll get to the bottom of this.
00:09:10.820 Now, has the witness list gone out for the committee yet?
00:09:13.980 So they are meeting on that.
00:09:15.900 Definitely the motion calls for Vice Admiral Mark Norman
00:09:20.820 and Chief of Defense Staff, Jonathan Vance, to appear, and Minister Sajin.
00:09:27.240 And the minister has said that he will appear.
00:09:30.260 And he has to appear.
00:09:31.360 He has to be held accountable for this.
00:09:33.980 He can't duck his responsibilities and duties to stand and be critiqued and questioned by parliamentarians,
00:09:41.120 whether it's in the House or over in the Senate.
00:09:43.740 So they are going to meet and discuss it.
00:09:46.220 So they need to know who can they talk to.
00:09:48.480 They can expand their list of witnesses as they move forward.
00:09:52.760 And they will be talking to Norman's defense team as well.
00:09:56.260 What can they ask?
00:09:57.480 What can't they ask?
00:09:58.360 You know, where is the safe zones to go that doesn't compromise Admiral Norman's ability to get his old job back
00:10:05.120 and doesn't compromise his future legal recourse that he has with the government of Canada?
00:10:13.860 Let's talk about fighter jet replacement now.
00:10:16.980 Another complicated issue.
00:10:18.660 Another long issue.
00:10:19.840 But if we can kind of narrow down where we're at right now.
00:10:24.000 Basically, we have our CF-18s that were aging and in desperate need of replacement.
00:10:29.980 A line from the government that there's a capability gap.
00:10:35.860 And then use that we buy Australia's CF-18s that are just as old as our current CF-18s.
00:10:43.860 Like, how did that happen?
00:10:45.860 So as you recall, Justin Trudeau in the last election made a very ill-informed campaign promise that he would not buy the F-35.
00:10:59.340 And so they had to figure out how they wouldn't buy a particular aircraft.
00:11:06.520 One that's already being built partially here in Canada.
00:11:09.940 They spent a bunch of time looking at what type of political narrative they got.
00:11:17.100 And so all of a sudden, Minister Sajan came up with this idea of a capability gap.
00:11:23.180 Completely fabricated, but one that they're hoping to get some traction.
00:11:28.820 And if you remember, they said that we needed another 18 jets.
00:11:33.720 And so to do that, they were going to buy Boeing's F-18s, the Super Hornet.
00:11:41.120 It's a bigger aircraft than our CF-18 Hornets.
00:11:44.260 Very modern and a pretty decent aircraft, if you look at it across the board.
00:11:51.680 And they wanted to sole source it.
00:11:54.340 So they were going to buy that jet.
00:11:56.940 But then Boeing filed trade action against Bombardier for illegally dumping commercial aircraft into the United States, their C-Series.
00:12:07.520 And because that blew up into a big trade fight, of course, Justin Trudeau, being the member from Papineau,
00:12:13.860 decided to go and intervene and said,
00:12:17.180 we're not buying the Super Hornets because we've got to stand with Bombardier.
00:12:21.480 And, you know, this corporate cronyism is something that percolates through every liberal government.
00:12:28.280 And we saw it with S&C-Lavalin, that whole scandal.
00:12:33.120 Bombardier, again and again, that corporate cronyism is impacting defense procurement.
00:12:39.060 Completely politicized the replacement of our CF-18s.
00:12:42.580 So the only option left now, if they're going to follow through on their, you know, fake capability gap,
00:12:49.420 is to actually go out there and buy a similar kit.
00:12:53.320 And so they went to Australia, who were going to scrap these planes.
00:12:57.680 They're F-18s.
00:12:58.620 They're F-18s.
00:12:59.560 And they are legacy Hornets, just like ours.
00:13:01.700 They are coming up on 40 years old.
00:13:03.920 And essentially, the Australian Air Force is just laughing their heads off
00:13:13.080 that they're replacing their Hornets with F-35s.
00:13:18.200 And we're replacing our CF-18s with CF-18s.
00:13:22.940 Like, it's just ridiculous that we're buying old planes.
00:13:26.040 Now, we've had a couple of reports come out that were very damaging to the Liberals.
00:13:32.180 One is that the Auditor General in a draft report on the interim fighter jet purchase
00:13:39.400 criticized the government for even thinking about doing this
00:13:42.500 because under the Liberals and so much people are so unsure what's happening,
00:13:49.800 pilots and aircraft technicians have been leaving in droves.
00:13:55.720 And so we have a critical shortage of pilots and aircraft crew to keep our current fleet
00:14:03.180 flying, never mind adding another 18.
00:14:05.620 It's actually going to impact upon our operability, and thus, we're going to be less capable.
00:14:11.560 What they suggested, as the Auditor General, was that we needed to move ahead with the permanent
00:14:17.020 replacement.
00:14:18.140 And I know that our pilots, if they knew they were getting new kit,
00:14:20.720 they would stick around, and we'd also attract more people that would want to come fly new planes.
00:14:27.940 Then we had McDonnell-Laurie Institute that wrote a scathing report.
00:14:33.020 It was really damning upon the government because they, again, are using our armed forces
00:14:38.380 for their political interests. 1.00
00:14:40.700 That they have put their partisan ambitions and Justin Trudeau's stupid campaign promise 0.99
00:14:49.080 ahead of the needs of the men and women who serve us in the Canadian Armed Forces, 0.99
00:14:54.720 and in particular, those in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
00:14:58.200 That type of political interference has to stop.
00:15:00.900 That's why Andrew Shearer said that we're going to take politics out of procurement
00:15:05.100 when it comes to our Canadian Armed Forces, and get the right kit so that our troops can do the job
00:15:11.500 that we call upon them to do from time to time.
00:15:13.560 Absolutely, because these men and women in uniform, they get put into harm's way
00:15:18.880 at the request of politicians, and yet they don't seem to be getting the equipment they need,
00:15:26.480 especially under this Liberal government.
00:15:28.100 Like, it was under Kreishan we bought the old diesel subs from Britain,
00:15:32.960 and we know there were some incidents with them.
00:15:34.600 They were dry docked for a number of reasons, and now we have issues with planes, helicopters, ships.
00:15:41.760 It just goes on and on.
00:15:43.940 So it's no surprise that the Liberals always buy used.
00:15:49.140 Liberals always put our troops to the back of the bus,
00:15:56.160 and Canadians lose confidence in the government, the Liberals in particular, of getting the job done.
00:16:03.200 We have to fix this, and that's why I'm proud that Andrew Shearer made a really strong defense
00:16:10.040 defense and foreign affairs policy speech in Montreal earlier this spring.
00:16:16.880 And that really set the standard of how our national defense is paramount to any government
00:16:24.300 in protecting our citizens and working with our allies to make the world a safer place,
00:16:32.160 that we have to make those proper investments.
00:16:34.220 But those investments have to take into reality the threat environment that we have today.
00:16:39.220 We're not just fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda anymore.
00:16:41.820 We have a very imperialistic and ambitious Russia.
00:16:46.180 We have an emboldened China, and look at what they're doing to us on trade right now, 0.54
00:16:51.560 just over Huawei and one individual who is on house arrest in Vancouver that is the CFO for Huawei.
00:17:00.500 And they are prepared to use their economic muscle as well as their military muscle
00:17:07.180 to exercise their dominance in the marketplace.
00:17:12.660 And we're seeing them taking a more aggressive stance with their neighbors in the South China Sea,
00:17:19.140 with Taiwan, with some Japanese islands.
00:17:22.460 And then on top of that, you still have the craziness coming out of Iran and North Korea. 0.99
00:17:30.560 And it's important that us as a middle power that's part of one of the main alliances in the world
00:17:38.340 through NORAD, through NATO, through our 5I and 2I relationships,
00:17:43.900 that we need to make sure that we're pulling our share of the load
00:17:47.960 and having the right military equipment and the right trained Canadian Armed Forces.
00:17:53.320 Because we have the best men and women in the military in the world right here in Canada.
00:17:58.860 Let's make sure we're giving them the right equipment to do the job. 0.56
00:18:03.040 That's so dangerous right now, and we need to be prepared to do that.
00:18:07.400 Andrew Scheer has recognized that, and the Conservative government will get the job done.
00:18:11.040 James Bazan, Member of Parliament for Selkirk Interlake Eastman.
00:18:14.020 And thank you so much for joining us here today, and also, Shadow Minister for National Defence.
00:18:19.380 It was great having you. It's a long topic.
00:18:21.260 Thank you very much for breaking it down for us.
00:18:23.340 We hope to have you back again.
00:18:25.020 Yeah, you bet. Anytime, Jamie.
00:18:26.360 So I'm Jamie Schmiel, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Korthalikes Brock. 1.00
00:18:29.280 This is The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:18:31.600 And remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:18:34.780 That's The Blueprint.
00:18:35.520 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:18:46.880 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:18:51.300 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.
00:18:55.540 Thank you.