The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Delays, conflict of interest concerns and a massive boondoggle…

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

00:00:07.220 your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton. Core with the likes with

00:00:10.360 new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Don't forget to like,

00:00:14.520 comment, subscribe, and share this program. Tell your friends too. They can download it

00:00:18.020 on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out

00:00:21.980 there. What a wild week. What an even crazier weekend. The Liberals unfortunately now have

00:00:28.360 a majority in Parliament spots. The Liberal Convention was over the weekend, and that had

00:00:33.160 some strange sights indeed. And of course, the Alto Rail Project. We'll be talking about all of

00:00:39.200 that and so much more, of course, as usual. But this time, we have a newcomer to the show. We have

00:00:44.560 Shelby Cramp-Nyman, the Member of Parliament for Hastings, Lennitz, Addington, and Tyenne DeNega.

00:00:50.980 Oh, that's a mouthful. Thanks for coming. It is. Thank you for having me, Jamie. This is great. I

00:00:54.760 know a lot of my colleagues have been here in the past, so it's nice to finally be here.

00:00:58.060 I know. And shame on me for not inviting you sooner.

00:01:01.360 Shame on you.

00:01:01.820 Yeah, shame on me indeed. Shame on me indeed.

00:01:04.180 All right. The Liberals have a majority in Parliament.

00:01:06.460 Of course, the by-elections wrapped up last night.

00:01:08.660 Unfortunately, this is the direction that we'll be going for the next little while.

00:01:13.740 Who knows how long this will last?

00:01:15.280 But this does give the Liberals control of Parliament and soon to be the committee structure as well.

00:01:23.300 And so the agenda will be shifting a bit and the opposition will have a little less tools to use at its disposal.

00:01:30.660 But we will still be doing our best to oppose this government.

00:01:33.820 Yeah, there's no question.

00:01:35.100 There's 10 different ways to try and square the circle as to how they landed this majority.

00:01:39.420 At this stage of the game, we have to focus on what we can control.

00:01:43.220 And right now, in the last election, Canadians elected a minority government.

00:01:47.820 That being said, we need to move forward.

00:01:50.100 There's a lot at stake.

00:01:52.280 Canadians are concerned.

00:01:54.160 So as official opposition, it's our responsibility and our duty to continue to step up and oppose and propose ideas for Canadians.

00:02:03.000 Exactly. We'll be laying out our agenda of not only why we think the government is wrong, but what else they should be doing in the meantime.

00:02:10.240 And you'll be seeing that until whenever the next election happens.

00:02:13.700 And that's the million-dollar question.

00:02:15.500 But again, we'll just, one day at a time, I think it's really important that we just kind of take a step back

00:02:20.080 and remember why we're here and do the job that's in front of us.

00:02:24.460 And, of course, we don't know what the future brings

00:02:26.080 because there could be future by-elections

00:02:27.720 with potential Liberal members of Parliament running provincially

00:02:31.340 or NDPers running provincially.

00:02:33.920 It's all up in the air right now.

00:02:35.640 I think we're learning that a day is a lifetime in politics.

00:02:38.680 So it's not just week by week anymore.

00:02:41.360 It's day by day. It's hour by hour.

00:02:43.120 In fact, with Trump, it's tweet by tweet.

00:02:45.340 So we'll see how the day goes.

00:02:47.240 And I should have mentioned you're the critic for Canada-U.S. relations.

00:02:49.560 very important file right now. Indeed, it's been spicy. Yeah, a little spicy. We'll have to have

00:02:54.420 you back and talk about that. Maybe we'll have time on the end of the show. We all know that

00:02:58.500 food bank usage is at record levels. We know that people are hurting. There's a housing crisis. The

00:03:03.900 economy is shaking. The list goes on. We're drowning in debt. You know, healthcare's at a

00:03:09.960 crisis here. The list goes on. So the Liberals throw out this guy, the senior vice president of

00:03:16.680 Google, Patrick Pichette, he's at the Liberal Convention doing a hot, you know, kind of a

00:03:23.020 roundtable discussion, a fireside chat, so to speak. And his solution is because students are

00:03:29.600 educated here in Canada, and if they choose to leave to the United States for better opportunities,

00:03:34.680 well, let's not fix the problem. Let's punish them with taxes and fines. Play cut two.

00:03:41.160 I finished from University of Waterloo with my computer degree, Microsoft phones me, offers

00:03:47.460 me a job, 300 grand a year, right, all I have to do is show up at the border, apply for

00:03:53.320 a TN visa, right, and I get this three year, like no questions out, it costs 30 bucks.

00:04:00.040 And now I move to Microsoft.

00:04:02.780 We as Canadians have subsidized my education to the tune of, you picked the number, half

00:04:09.260 a million, right? 500,000. And if it's a graduate student, go up, right? 30,000 TN go to the

00:04:17.780 US every year. You want to save yourself five to $10 billion? Shut the TN program and then

00:04:26.440 keep them in or make them pay their half a million so that if they leave, I'm okay with 0.99

00:04:30.900 that. You want to go to the US? Give me back my money. So we have some of the biggest brains

00:04:35.680 in Canada, leaving for greener pastures in many jurisdictions, and in this case, the United States,

00:04:42.660 and the solution that the Liberals are talking about, well, we will punish you. A good idea is

00:04:48.280 to punish you if you try to leave. Don't worry about fixing the problem as to why they are leaving.

00:04:53.280 No, this is outlandish. And I'm sure you can agree with me, Jamie, that this is not the Canada

00:04:58.320 that I grew up in, and recognizing, like, look, we have half of Canadians that are living paycheck to paycheck.

00:05:07.000 This is not sustainable, and as parliamentarians, it's our responsibility.

00:05:14.140 It's so easy to get caught up in the negative rhetoric and the noise and the distraction,

00:05:19.520 but nothing in politics happens by accident.

00:05:22.020 This speaker wasn't there by accident.

00:05:24.280 There's a movement here that as Conservatives,

00:05:29.280 as the official opposition, again,

00:05:31.280 we need to continue to highlight.

00:05:33.280 And we live in an amazing country.

00:05:36.280 Canada has so much to offer, but this is not the Canada

00:05:39.280 that I grew up in, like I noted.

00:05:43.280 But moving forward, we need to fix it.

00:05:45.280 And it's not just for our children,

00:05:47.280 but it's for future generations.

00:05:50.280 There's a lot of work to be done,

00:05:52.280 done. And I'll be quite candid. If I didn't have the faith and the optimism that it was going to

00:05:58.520 get better, then it would be a real struggle to remain here. But there is so much good that we

00:06:02.520 can do. And as legislators, we're the conduit between the people that are having all of these

00:06:06.700 issues and concerns and how we can make it better. So it's never been more imperative than it is

00:06:11.640 right now to keep at the game and to keep focused on what we can control. You made a good point,

00:06:16.740 though. This did not happen by action. It's been 10 years of bad liberal policy. But with the

00:06:21.540 liberals usually do with this kind of thing, right? They usually table for discussion purposes

00:06:27.800 only some outlandish piece of policy. A few years ago, it was taxing your primary home at your sale.

00:06:35.360 Remember that? And they're like, whoa, whoa. So it reacted badly. So they put it out. It turned out

00:06:40.860 that the public didn't like that. And they retracted that. Sort of kind of like what they're

00:06:44.520 talking about here, right? Like they throw it out for discussion, see what the reaction is.

00:06:48.920 And if it's bad, they'll kind of say, whoa, it was just a conversation.

00:06:52.900 Don't worry about it.

00:06:53.660 Yeah, but I think we need to give Canadians more credit than what the government is currently giving them.

00:06:58.200 Canadians are no fools.

00:06:59.360 Canadians are catching on.

00:07:01.620 Sure, they can be swayed, and their political memory is often shorter than what I would like.

00:07:06.960 But realistically, Canadians are astute, and Canadians will catch on to what's happening here.

00:07:12.620 It's maybe, I don't know what the runway is, but the time is coming up.

00:07:16.220 Because right now, all these robust ideas and platitudes are being spewed from the government.

00:07:23.000 But let's put it on the line.

00:07:25.220 Let's fast forward three months, six months, a year from now.

00:07:28.320 And how much further ahead are we?

00:07:30.420 It's been a year since Carney has been in office.

00:07:33.820 And yes, his candor, his calmness, it may be appealing to some.

00:07:38.780 But realistically, how much further ahead are you now than you were a year ago?

00:07:43.680 And how much better off are you now than the economy was in 2015?

00:07:48.240 These aren't good numbers.

00:07:49.320 The numbers are stark.

00:07:50.260 Given you are the critic for Canada-U.S. relations, which actually segues into my next thing I wanted to mention,

00:07:56.820 was the Liberals seem to be using this relationship with the United States as bad as it is

00:08:02.480 and how unpredictable the administration is down south to their advantage, right?

00:08:08.560 We have a number of countries already have trade deals.

00:08:10.800 Canada is still working on theirs, if at all, what's happening there. Mexico seems further ahead.

00:08:15.820 But now it seems like everything is opposite in liberal land.

00:08:21.500 Like Justin Trudeau is down in California at a music festival over the weekend, living his best life.

00:08:26.980 We have Mark Carney moving Brookfield down to the United States.

00:08:30.200 I believe Mark Carney's children, I believe, all study the United States.

00:08:34.920 There is a bit of a disconnect to what Mark Carney and the Liberal parties are portraying to Canadians

00:08:42.100 and actually the reality of what they are doing with their own lives and business decisions.

00:08:49.540 Well, again, we could talk about Canada-U.S. relations for a full hour.

00:08:54.600 But needless to say, President Trump is nor a Republican nor a Democrat.

00:08:58.640 And right now, the longer that our government has him as the president of the United States, the further ahead.

00:09:08.780 They're utilizing it.

00:09:11.440 It's like political gamesmanship.

00:09:13.020 My concern is that too many decisions right now in Canada are being based on political gamesmanship.

00:09:19.140 What's going to appeal to the voter to get them reelected?

00:09:23.360 Let's look at the long game.

00:09:25.420 We're not looking three months, six months, one year from now.

00:09:28.240 Let's look 10 years from now, and this whole relationship between Canada and U.S., we are so closely integrated, we will always be a close trader with the United States.

00:09:38.980 Every sector is being affected, and the number of communications and dialogue that I've had with every potential sector, it's real.

00:09:46.040 But the relationship that we have established, the longest border in the world, there's a lot of good.

00:09:51.620 So, again, it's a cluster, but it's politically useful for Prime Minister Carney to not have established that deal as of yet.

00:10:06.800 We don't know.

00:10:07.600 Like, a year back, Carney ran on an election saying he was going to be able to secure a deal.

00:10:13.220 It was 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.

00:10:16.200 The goalpost kept moving forward.

00:10:18.120 No deal.

00:10:18.780 No deal.

00:10:19.480 No deal.

00:10:19.880 Well, at the same time, it doesn't seem like their actions are matching what they're doing in real life with their decision making and their personal lives.

00:10:29.620 And you know what? Good on Trudeau. He's living his best life. Good on him.

00:10:33.240 But, you know, what he did to Canada over those 10 years is absolutely unbelievable.

00:10:38.380 The first thing he does, he leaves.

00:10:39.980 Exactly, exactly.

00:10:40.780 What we also want to talk about is a potential $90 billion or more snafu that we might be walking ourselves into, not us, but the Liberal government itself.

00:10:53.400 And that is the Alto Rail Project, which would bring high speed or hopes to bring high speed rail to Quebec City all the way down to Toronto.

00:11:03.320 And $90 billion is in today's dollars.

00:11:06.820 Who knows what that's going to be?

00:11:08.200 uh the damage it's going to do with lands along the way and it should be pointed out that this

00:11:14.340 alto rail project is not the shining waters railway project which use uses existing lines

00:11:22.280 because there's already a via rail train that runs there but the freight and passengers share

00:11:26.680 the same track which is causing a lot of the problems and and delays that happen primarily

00:11:33.160 on passenger rail.

00:11:34.380 So the Shining Waters Railway

00:11:36.240 look to fix that, twin it, upgrade where possible.

00:11:40.920 This is something, the Alto is totally different

00:11:43.760 and is at a substantial cost

00:11:46.600 and at a time when even ridership

00:11:49.460 in the current line cannot sustain financially

00:11:52.420 the service that's being offered.

00:11:55.460 Well, look, you've touched on a ton of points.

00:11:58.040 This is definitely a very hot button item

00:12:01.240 in the riding.

00:12:03.160 I've been to many different public sessions, talked to thousands of constituents that are

00:12:08.040 concerned about this, and bottom line, it's too expensive, it's too disruptive, and it's

00:12:14.480 not justified.

00:12:15.780 They have acknowledged in the neighborhood of $90 billion.

00:12:19.080 I think that's a fraction of the cost.

00:12:21.340 Like I'm looking, even with the cold weather climate, you can add an easy 25% with that

00:12:27.520 just because that hasn't been taken into consideration.

00:12:29.740 uh there's there's been several reports just as of late but alto is being described as just

00:12:35.620 not doable so there's serious concerns and and what we know at this point is that the the routes

00:12:43.080 have not been finalized and we do know that the public consultations have been extended

00:12:48.340 but even the the public consultations that i've been to jamie uh they're you know no disrespect

00:12:53.840 to the individuals that were there,

00:12:56.260 but it's more like a science fair or a timeshare sale.

00:13:03.100 It's ridiculous.

00:13:05.260 And yeah, I think at this point,

00:13:08.040 we need to stop it in its tracks.

00:13:10.820 Sorry for the pun.

00:13:12.180 But we need to play interference.

00:13:15.200 And we need to stop this at every possible angle. 0.99

00:13:18.020 And Aalto is not inspiring any confidence in anyone. 0.94

00:13:20.800 There's a lot of mixed information.

00:13:23.100 There's misinformation entirely, and it's being framed,

00:13:27.720 I don't know if you heard the Prime Minister just a couple days ago,

00:13:29.860 he's framing it as a long-term infrastructure project to remain competitive

00:13:36.360 and to be more sustainable.

00:13:39.040 And he says that there's going to be 50,000 jobs adding $35 billion to the economy.

00:13:44.000 I'm sorry, but it just does not add up.

00:13:46.840 And he's suggesting that it's 10 meters wide?

00:13:49.480 There's no way.

00:13:50.640 There's no physical way.

00:13:51.940 if you've actually looked at the mapping of it.

00:13:54.320 But the biggest concern that I'm hearing

00:13:55.720 from so many constituents they're livid about

00:13:59.520 is the expropriation.

00:14:01.260 Yeah, 100%.

00:14:02.680 And, okay, will this happen in our lifetime?

00:14:05.040 I've heard otherwise, but it's not just our lifetime,

00:14:07.500 it's future generations.

00:14:09.500 There's just, there's so much frustration about this

00:14:12.060 and we need to stop it at all costs.

00:14:14.480 Yeah, you mentioned the cold weather.

00:14:16.100 Ottawa Transit, one of the coldest capitals in the world,

00:14:19.640 can't run or has trouble running.

00:14:21.680 when it's cold. So if you're talking about a municipal transit system with underground

00:14:27.280 capacity, subways, and it's still having trouble, you can imagine what this is going to be like.

00:14:31.360 And they're talking about de-icing, the de-icing, just like they would have at an airport,

00:14:35.660 but de-icing for a thousand kilometers of a rail line. Yeah. It's outlandish.

00:14:40.960 It's, my goodness. And all the jobs that they talked about, the 50,000 jobs,

00:14:45.360 will be paid for through taxes.

00:14:47.360 So it's not as if, you know,

00:14:49.300 it's private sector companies obtaining capital

00:14:53.040 to build a project.

00:14:54.340 These are tax dollars being put in.

00:14:56.100 So really Canadians, all of them will be paying for this.

00:14:59.280 Yeah, and the ridership,

00:15:00.660 they're suggesting in the neighborhood of like 24 million,

00:15:03.660 like the ridership,

00:15:04.620 you mentioned earlier ridership on Via Rail,

00:15:07.060 but this ridership is like a fantasy ridership.

00:15:09.780 Like I can't even acknowledge

00:15:11.300 how they can get half of what they're projecting.

00:15:14.340 So I don't know where these numbers are coming from.

00:15:16.500 Yeah, and look at all the people that are remote work now,

00:15:19.940 less people going in the cities for work.

00:15:23.120 Habits have changed.

00:15:24.360 Patterns have changed, right?

00:15:25.520 Most people can fly, they drive.

00:15:28.020 There's so many people impacted.

00:15:29.720 There's farmers, there's schools, there's the emergency services.

00:15:34.620 There's so many different issues at hand.

00:15:36.560 There's environmental impacts, fragmentation of the environment.

00:15:40.620 There's so many different, like there's no one that benefits here.

00:15:43.900 And like I said at the onset, I've spoken to hundreds of people about this.

00:15:48.860 Thousands of people have contacted my office, and the concerns are legitimate.

00:15:53.340 And people are really worried.

00:15:55.060 Like, this is people, this is keeping people up at night.

00:15:57.240 It is.

00:15:57.780 It is.

00:15:58.200 Play, let's cut three, I believe we're at now.

00:16:01.400 This is our leader, Pierre Polyev.

00:16:02.900 He's in Peterborough announcing, as we just talked about, our plan to oppose and what we do differently.

00:16:09.540 Play, cut three.

00:16:10.420 I am announcing today that Conservatives oppose the $90 billion liberal Alto train

00:16:15.380 that we call on the Kearney Liberals to cancel it,

00:16:18.800 and I am confirming that a future Conservative government

00:16:21.820 will cancel this $90 billion boondoggle altogether.

00:16:26.140 We will save Canadians $90 billion or $8,000 per family.

00:16:30.660 We will use the savings to lower debt, taxes, and inflation.

00:16:34.280 We will lower the cost of government to lower the cost of living.

00:16:38.200 We will greenlight projects that pay for themselves, projects that make money rather than taking money.

00:16:43.500 We will unblock resources, greenlight pipelines, ports, mines, mills, and other wildly profitable private sector projects that pay taxes in to fund health care, education, and other essential services rather than taking money out.

00:16:59.380 We will make Canada affordable at home, safe at home, and strong at home.

00:17:04.600 I think that's the difference that we're talking about.

00:17:06.480 Mark Carney's plan is to use tax dollars to pick and choose what projects government wants.

00:17:12.820 Whereas we're saying, let the private sector decide what projects go ahead based on the business plan and the business case for it.

00:17:20.980 And tax dollars from where?

00:17:22.580 Exactly.

00:17:23.240 The credit card only goes so far.

00:17:25.320 Yes.

00:17:25.920 Yes.

00:17:26.340 And $90 billion, what are you spending now?

00:17:28.200 Now, depending on how you look at it, if you take the debt and all that into, you know, 430, again, if you take the debt into it, closer to 500 billion, like, I don't know where they're getting the money for this.

00:17:40.260 It doesn't add up.

00:17:40.900 It doesn't add up.

00:17:41.660 Let's go up cut two.

00:17:42.700 We have, or, jeez, I'm losing track here.

00:17:44.940 Cut four here.

00:17:45.900 We have the transportation minister thinking that shovels can get in the ground soon.

00:17:49.800 I'm with you.

00:17:50.640 I don't know.

00:17:51.260 Play cut four.

00:17:52.120 Start off on the prospect of this high-speed train going ahead.

00:17:56.520 Is there any chance, based on what happens over the next number of years in this assessment,

00:18:01.200 that your government says no to it? Or is the mandate to make it work no matter what?

00:18:04.680 The mandate is to plan and execute on building this transformational infrastructure.

00:18:10.800 We're currently in a planning period that lasts four years.

00:18:13.740 If the Conservatives had their way, that planning process would have gone a lot longer,

00:18:18.480 up to eight, ten years, or the Bloc Québécois for that matter.

00:18:22.020 We want to build more quickly. We want to plan this project more quickly.

00:18:26.460 incredibly complex project, but we think we can have shovels in the ground within four years.

00:18:31.940 So this is what we're talking about. Could be four years, could be more, expropriate the land,

00:18:38.360 cause havoc. But, and of course, what the Liberals seem to love doing, we saw during the

00:18:43.220 pandemic, former Liberal MPs getting lucrative contracts for no services or products delivered.

00:18:49.140 We saw contracts with the WE Charity, buddies getting money, and of course, put up the graphic

00:18:54.360 here, wouldn't you know it, the finance minister's wife is involved. Look at that. Look at that.

00:19:00.800 When government is picking projects, right, it's who's lawyered and lobbied, who is connected

00:19:06.380 to government, the private sector, you have to compete to attract capital and then sell that

00:19:12.380 product or service to the marketplace, the population in general, and compete for those

00:19:17.980 dollars in return. The biggest difference, this is what we're talking about, and this is only the

00:19:22.720 beginning. Yeah, this is of concern, and they're quietly trying to not talk about this, but the

00:19:29.200 debate on this is intensifying because people are catching on. But Jamie, this is one of the most

00:19:35.180 expensive projects in Canadian history. And Minister Champagne voted for Alto, a couple

00:19:42.760 points here, voted for Alto, he spoke in favour of Alto, and he has included it in the budget.

00:19:47.820 So how does this add up when all of a sudden his partner, vice president of ALTO, stands to benefit from this materially?

00:19:58.460 And realistically, Canadians deserve answers on this.

00:20:01.620 This is just trying to, you know, and yes, they're saying that he's recused himself.

00:20:05.540 I applaud.

00:20:06.640 Now?

00:20:07.160 Yes, now.

00:20:07.760 How long did it take?

00:20:08.420 You knew this was coming.

00:20:09.740 I'm sorry, but the issue hasn't gone away.

00:20:11.560 And the perception is problematic.

00:20:13.320 In a lot of cases, politics is a lot about perception, and there's a perceived conflict here, and Canadians deserve answers.

00:20:20.060 Yeah, I don't like it when you have these shady deals, people getting money that shouldn't be.

00:20:26.220 Look at the Rive scam, the We Charity, like all of this.

00:20:31.300 Like Frank Bayliss and others getting money.

00:20:34.240 Like, it's unbelievable how liberal insiders seem to cash out at this kind of thing.

00:20:39.940 Shelby, we've gone a bit over time, but as you may or may not know, the guests get the last word, so the floor is yours.

00:20:46.780 Yeah. Well, Jamie, there's a lot going on right now. I said earlier that a day is a lifetime in politics, and I think it's really important that all of us, collectively, we just need to stay measured, stay calm, and respect each other.

00:21:04.960 Not get caught up in the chaos and the noise.

00:21:08.160 Focus on what we can control and just do what we were elected to do and remember our constituents who put us here.

00:21:15.600 Tremendous responsibility.

00:21:17.460 With that, there's a lot of work to do, a big job to be done, and we can't take it lightly.

00:21:23.660 So I think that, again, I'll just underscore the importance of democracy, of rule of law, of being Canadian.

00:21:33.620 and being conservative, and I've never been more proud.

00:21:36.860 Well done.

00:21:37.660 Shelby Crabb-Nyman, thank you so much,

00:21:39.540 and I couldn't agree with you more.

00:21:40.820 Awesome.

00:21:41.400 Democracy, number one.

00:21:42.680 Thanks, Jamie.

00:21:43.220 Member of Parliament for Hastings, Lennox,

00:21:45.800 Addington, and Tyane Denega.

00:21:47.360 Thank you again, my geographical neighbor.

00:21:49.820 Shame on me for not having you sooner,

00:21:51.640 but thank you for your time.

00:21:53.180 Thank you for yours as well.

00:21:54.780 Don't forget, new content for you every single Tuesday,

00:21:57.520 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.

00:21:59.040 Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe,

00:22:00.540 and share this program, because I guarantee you

00:22:02.900 It's a message you are not hearing in the mainstream media.

00:22:05.560 And don't forget, you can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.

00:22:09.920 You name it, it is out there.

00:22:11.380 Until next week, remember, low taxes, less governments, more freedom.

00:22:15.100 That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - April 14, 2026

Delays, conflict of interest concerns and a massive boondoggle…

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