The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Insiders continue to get rich off of your tax dollars.

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome once again to the blueprints this is canada's conservative podcast i'm your

00:00:14.400 host jamie schmiel member of parliament for halliburton core at the lakes with new content

00:00:17.980 for you every single tuesday 1 30 p.m eastern time don't forget to like comment subscribe and

00:00:22.760 share this program download it too on platforms like castbox itunes google play and spotify you

00:00:27.900 name it, it is out there. On today's show, we are talking about yet another multi-million dollar

00:00:34.500 liberal boondoggle, upwards of 300 million of your money wasted. To tell us more about this and

00:00:42.240 so much more, we have Dan Major, the health critic, also the Member of Parliament for

00:00:47.200 Riding Mountain in the beautiful province of Manitoba, and of course, a first-timer on the

00:00:52.180 show, Burton Bailey, the Member of Parliament for Red Deer in Alberta. Thanks very much,

00:00:56.840 gentlemen for coming on. Thanks for having us. All right. $300 million. Poof. Gone. Up in the air.

00:01:02.720 Gone. No one knows where it is. Who got paid? Where is it? We have a Rive scam. We have, you know,

00:01:08.340 almost the We Charity not too long ago. Holy smokes. Round and round we go. Now it's Prescribe

00:01:14.440 IT. What is it this time? Well, it's another $300 million liberal boondoggle, right? So it was

00:01:21.740 originally, Prescribe IT was an original program to help out the healthcare system. It was

00:01:27.220 originally, the original title of it was Axe the Fax. So doctors were faxing over prescriptions

00:01:33.420 over to pharmacies. That back in 2017, Prescribe IT. Still using faxes in 2017. Well, they were,

00:01:40.220 and ironically, they probably still are. But anyways, that's a different subject altogether.

00:01:44.560 nothing really changed nine years went by 300 million dollars was spent and as a result only

00:01:52.920 five percent of prescriptions ended up going through that program so the story goes the

00:01:59.320 program was canceled it came out in the news and that's when all of a sudden our office got wind

00:02:03.680 of that and was going what the heck where did 300 million dollars go and why only five percent uptake

00:02:09.080 and we'll tell the rest of the story on onwards but basically nothing happened and and taxpayers

00:02:15.400 got left holding the bank just seems this goes over and over again don't forget liberal MPs

00:02:19.720 former liberal MPs getting money for equipment during COVID that never actually happened it's

00:02:25.240 it's good to be a liberal I guess if you want to raid the taxpayer uh trough here unbelievable

00:02:30.760 you had a quick question and we'll cut one here and then uh we'll get into uh your reaction on

00:02:35.880 on this this is your question in the house of commons trying to suss out a few more details

00:02:39.660 cue up cut one and play cut one all week at the health committee liberals tried to block and

00:02:44.300 silence conservatives from getting answers on the 300 million dollar prescribe it it scandal

00:02:50.080 they have no problem shutting down debate covering up and protecting liberal insiders who got rich

00:02:55.720 off the backs of canadians canadians deserve to know where did the 300 million go and who got rich

00:03:02.960 prescribing was launched by the previous government in 29 2017 following consultations

00:03:08.480 with provinces and territories the program was always intended to be self-funded over time when

00:03:14.480 it became clear that they didn't have the expected uptake and there was no path towards financial

00:03:19.140 sustainability canada's new government made the responsible decision to end federal funding for

00:03:24.480 the program and refocus resources where they will deliver the greatest benefits to patients and our

00:03:29.580 health system. So hundreds of million dollars spent, the parliamentary secretary said there

00:03:35.840 was little uptake. So what are we talking about? For $300 million, how much uptake did we actually

00:03:41.860 get? Well, they claim 5%, but I think the one thing is that they knew this program was failing

00:03:47.220 years ago, and they continued to funnel money into it. So what Maggie Chee said there, it was not

00:03:53.480 really truthful because she claims that the old liberal government stopped this program.

00:04:00.520 No, they knew years ago they continued on with it and let it continue to fail.

00:04:05.360 That seems to be a nice cycle the liberals do all the time. They continue to dump money into

00:04:10.760 things. Phoenix pay system, for example, amongst others, that they just keep feeding, hoping that

00:04:16.320 one day some miracle will happen and the program will start to function as it should. But given

00:04:22.280 the fact that it just seems to be taxpayer money, the government just doesn't seem to

00:04:26.420 care. Just keep feeding it. Keep going.

00:04:29.760 I'd like to know one IT program that the government has designed that actually works.

00:04:34.440 That's a good question.

00:04:35.260 Because anything that they've touched has always been a boondoggle and they should not

00:04:40.420 be involving our taxpayer money with IT. We should be sourcing it out and we should have

00:04:46.660 individuals that are responsible, that have metrics that we can actually follow. Because

00:04:51.060 any business would have shut this program down in the second year.

00:04:54.180 Well someone got exceptionally well paid and that's the CEO. Let's give up cut to

00:04:59.940 our friend and colleague Helena Cosnes who was questioning the CEO of this farmed out company 1.00

00:05:08.580 somewhere down the way. So just Canada Health Infoway is a non-profit organization that is

00:05:15.940 It's made up of all the provinces and the assistant deputy ministers.

00:05:19.660 And they administer, like they're supposed to look at IT programs.

00:05:23.740 But Canada, through that board, then sits in behind that board as CEO is Michael Green,

00:05:31.820 who is about to be interviewed here.

00:05:33.520 So he's the CEO of Canada Health InfoWay, but then that was responsible for running prescribed IT.

00:05:40.800 Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Play cut two.

00:05:43.180 Can I ask what your salary is?

00:05:46.780 My compensation is decided by the Board of Directors.

00:05:50.180 What was your salary in 2025?

00:05:53.360 As I mentioned, the Board of Directors decides what my compensation is.

00:05:58.740 In 2025?

00:06:00.380 It is publicly disclosed.

00:06:02.440 Thank you.

00:06:03.460 What is it in 2025?

00:06:07.040 I would just say that the Board of Directors...

00:06:08.780 You need to answer my questions, Mr. Green.

00:06:11.520 Mr. Green, I would ask that you give, if it's in the public domain, you should just give your salary, please.

00:06:18.940 It's being asked of you. Thank you.

00:06:22.320 Including bonuses.

00:06:24.720 I'm afraid I don't have that.

00:06:28.040 Mr. Green, you know how much you make. You need to tell this committee how much you make.

00:06:34.800 Did you ever find out how much money Mr. Green makes?

00:06:37.740 So at that time, we said it's on the website.

00:06:41.620 So we went and looked on the website.

00:06:43.480 Sure enough, it was not.

00:06:44.660 But two days later, it all of a sudden showed up.

00:06:47.640 And I don't know.

00:06:48.940 Obviously, you don't know.

00:06:50.360 It was his salary is $900,000, just shy of $900,000,

00:06:55.340 with a maximum performance bonus of $215,000.

00:06:59.700 Oh, my.

00:07:00.120 So he got paid the maximum performance bonus last year for Prescribe IT, a failed $300 million program.

00:07:10.780 That was his responsibility.

00:07:13.480 That's pretty good work if you can get it.

00:07:14.520 You have a 95% failure rate here.

00:07:16.780 So that's why he was so evasive of answering what his salary was.

00:07:20.780 And from our conversation just before we started here on the show, that gentleman is no longer in this position.

00:07:27.380 He got let go.

00:07:28.140 He got let go.

00:07:28.960 About a week after he appeared at committee.

00:07:33.020 Of course, he didn't answer the questions.

00:07:34.540 That was, you know, one of many that he didn't answer questions, right?

00:07:38.380 So we actually were getting ready to summons him to get him back to committee.

00:07:42.580 And, of course, well, they fired him.

00:07:44.240 So he said, no, we don't.

00:07:46.540 We're not going to do that.

00:07:47.360 We're going to bring in the board chair instead because Mr. Green does no longer work for

00:07:52.600 Canada Health Employees.

00:07:53.580 So they brought in the board chair of and I don't know if you have actually

00:07:57.640 commentary on that.

00:08:01.500 I think our next cut is going to do that.

00:08:03.280 But obviously, we smelt a rat.

00:08:07.540 There's some waste of money going on.

00:08:09.400 So then we asked for the Auditor General

00:08:11.100 to do a full investigation on prescribed IT

00:08:15.020 and then, of course,

00:08:16.020 which would lead into Canada Health InfoWay as well.

00:08:18.980 My goodness.

00:08:19.500 Okay, cue up cut three.

00:08:20.560 This is the board chair.

00:08:21.800 So we're seeing the series of events here, right?

00:08:24.300 We've got...

00:08:26.060 Oh, this is...

00:08:26.820 Oh, this is okay. I apologize. Cut three is the Liberals in committee. Do you want to cue this up for us?

00:08:32.680 Yeah, so this is an emergency. This is on an emergency meeting that we want to bring in the Minister of Health

00:08:37.780 and Michael Green to come into committee to explain what was going on, where the money went, right? Who got rich?

00:08:45.080 Okay, and this is just after the majority Liberal change in the committee.

00:08:48.760 So Monday night, we had to vote on the motion to have extra representation on Monday night.

00:08:55.280 And then Tuesday afternoon, this is the first opportunity that the Liberals had seven in front of us.

00:09:00.680 And they had the majority of power in committee.

00:09:03.760 And this is on an emergency meeting to figure out where $300 million went.

00:09:08.440 And prior to this, Jamie, the Liberals, the bloc, everybody wanted to know.

00:09:13.600 Everybody was upset at the way our questions were being answered in committee.

00:09:17.160 It wasn't just the CEO, not just Michael Green, even the TELUS representative that I was questioning.

00:09:24.240 Nobody would answer questions.

00:09:26.220 So all of us as parliamentarians wanted these individuals brought back.

00:09:30.720 We had an agreement at our committee that we were going to summons people.

00:09:35.320 But this is how our committee ran after the majority.

00:09:39.300 All right, plate cut three.

00:09:40.640 With that, I move to have the meeting in camera.

00:09:45.620 Appreciate it.

00:09:46.400 So I will ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

00:09:48.900 Ms. Chi.

00:09:51.020 Yes.

00:09:53.720 Mr. Edson.

00:09:55.420 Yes.

00:09:58.820 Ms. Sidhu.

00:10:00.400 Yes.

00:10:04.000 Mr. Sawatsky.

00:10:05.800 Yes.

00:10:08.000 Mr. Beiro.

00:10:09.000 Yes.

00:10:11.060 Ms. Jackson.

00:10:13.480 Yes.

00:10:13.960 Mr. Bailey

00:10:16.360 No

00:10:18.400 Ms. Conant 0.87

00:10:21.640 No

00:10:23.480 Mr. Major

00:10:25.800 I vote no to

00:10:28.060 Mr. Strauss

00:10:29.820 No

00:10:30.480 Mr. Blanchard-Joncat

00:10:32.480 No

00:10:32.980 And that was the vote that shut down the committee

00:10:38.880 of course in camera

00:10:40.220 Shut off the cameras

00:10:41.140 So nobody knows what happens after the fact.

00:10:44.180 30 years is locked away.

00:10:45.380 Didn't some Liberal Prime Minister say at some point that sunshine is the best

00:10:50.180 disinfectant at some point? I remember that in the last few years. So much for that.

00:10:56.500 So that means nobody can really talk about what happened inside because it was closed.

00:11:02.260 So where are you going next? You tried the board chair. Maybe do you want to queue up cut

00:11:06.340 four then? Talk about the board chair? Anything else you want to?

00:11:09.060 We did introduce a motion before, we actually posted our motion that we had before,

00:11:17.940 before we went in to talk about this before we shut the cameras off, right? And then there was

00:11:22.820 a different motion that came out of that camera. So if you could get the two and see what was

00:11:27.780 missing between the two, you can kind of summarize what they wanted to hide. And basically it came

00:11:33.860 down to the minister. They wanted to protect the minister.

00:11:35.860 Bergen, as someone who was elected just over a year ago, is this normal to you?

00:11:40.200 Is this something you've seen before?

00:11:42.300 Well, no, Jamie.

00:11:43.720 You know, when the Parliamentary Secretary, when the cameras were taken off committee,

00:11:50.000 I was dumbfounded.

00:11:51.040 We were just in the middle of asking very important questions.

00:11:54.600 And even my colleague from the block tried to ask her, why are we going off camera?

00:12:00.720 And she refused to answer.

00:12:02.900 and they kept on, as a majority, ramming this through,

00:12:08.600 that we were going off camera.

00:12:10.160 Even the chair, if you look at the whole clips that Dan and I have posted,

00:12:14.320 you'll see even the chair doesn't know what's going on.

00:12:17.060 So to me, it was blatantly a cover-up,

00:12:20.620 just hiding the fact that this is a liberal mistake

00:12:24.800 and we're going to protect the health minister,

00:12:28.540 we're going to protect Michael Green,

00:12:29.720 we're going to protect Infoway, and we're going to protect TELUS.

00:12:32.500 it was blatant and all the clips were playing happened over a two-week period so there's a

00:12:37.260 series of events right from the discovery to the study to the questions to the shutdown

00:12:42.460 to to what we're dealing with now okay play cut four has the current federal minister health

00:12:50.360 minister ever personally raised concerns with you or the board about the 300 million dollars spent

00:12:55.840 Don't prescribe IT.

00:12:57.080 Dr. Wong.

00:12:57.700 Yes or no?

00:12:58.640 Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:12:59.620 The answer is no.

00:13:01.740 CEO's behavior, the CEO of Infoway, was totally unacceptable.

00:13:05.420 I talked to the board of directors, and they took the necessary measures.

00:13:14.560 It's a cover-up.

00:13:15.780 One says, like, we had concerns, like, you know, we talked to the minister,

00:13:20.240 and the other one says no.

00:13:21.560 I did not talk to the minister.

00:13:23.140 Of course, that's the CEO, the person that was responsible for prescribed IT, the board and now the board chair saying, no, we didn't talk to the minister and then now or didn't have any concerns.

00:13:36.040 And now the minister saying, well, in the house, sure, I talked, but we had concerns.

00:13:40.560 So we got rid of them.

00:13:42.140 So who's lying?

00:13:44.320 Like that says, and we'll get to the bottom of it.

00:13:48.240 We still don't know.

00:13:49.640 That's why we're asking for the minister to get back to committee.

00:13:52.300 and tell us what is actually going on with it.

00:13:55.740 Yeah, let's figure, I'm not sure they even know,

00:13:57.240 based on some of the answers we're getting

00:13:58.740 and the responses shutting things down.

00:14:00.520 Okay, so nobody seems to be able to tell the truth here.

00:14:04.120 We can't seem to get any further.

00:14:05.640 We're being blocked because the liberal majority.

00:14:08.880 There is hundreds of millions of dollars up in the air here.

00:14:12.320 Nobody knows what's going on.

00:14:15.000 What's the plan going forward?

00:14:16.360 How do we start to unravel this?

00:14:18.660 I know it's difficult because we're being shot down by the majority here.

00:14:23.860 What do you have planned here?

00:14:24.720 Well, we're calling for the minister to come to committee and actually explain herself.

00:14:31.880 If there's nothing to hide, okay, what is going on?

00:14:34.480 Where are the chances of the minister going, though?

00:14:35.900 Well, we had Doug Iselson.

00:14:38.260 He shut down a committee meeting.

00:14:39.900 We were introducing a motion to bring the minister to committee,

00:14:42.860 and he moved to adjourn the meeting.

00:14:44.480 So again, they moved their power to protect the minister.

00:14:50.380 The other thing we are asking for is the Auditor General to review it.

00:14:53.640 And so we have submitted the papers.

00:14:55.600 We've got to her, and that is a motion sitting there.

00:14:59.380 We're still waiting for her response.

00:15:01.020 And we've also submitted more information besides what's happened on committee here,

00:15:06.240 but just more factual information for her to make a decision.

00:15:08.960 So hopefully, she'll decide to take it on and get to the bottom of what happened with prescribed IT, but also who got rich.

00:15:16.600 Where did the money actually go?

00:15:18.240 Nobody likes to see taxpayer dollars wasted.

00:15:20.440 It's just extremely sad because people work so hard to earn the money on their paycheck.

00:15:26.200 And then to have it sent to Ottawa and get wasted, stuff like this and so many others.

00:15:33.320 We're running the country on the credit card here.

00:15:35.520 Like, this is money that we have to pay back or pay interest on the debt to service it.

00:15:41.680 Like, no wonder Canadians are frustrated.

00:15:44.560 Well, and Jamie, like, Meg Chi, I guess she did mention a little bit to get Canadians better services.

00:15:49.760 This is like $300 million.

00:15:51.920 Can you imagine how many residency spots that we get?

00:15:54.320 Like, we have students right now can't get into Canadian schools, medical schools,

00:15:57.840 so they got to go abroad.

00:15:59.200 And then we set up a bunch of barriers so they can't get licenses.

00:16:02.160 Six million Canadians don't have a family doctor.

00:16:04.480 That would be 3,000 specialists at the way that we are training Saudis in our universities.

00:16:10.760 That much we know.

00:16:11.780 That was another committee that we figured out that it cost basically $100,000 to train a Saudi doctor that returns to Saudi Arabia.

00:16:18.760 So that $300 million could have gotten 3,000 spaces for medical graduates.

00:16:24.160 That would have been kind of nice to have here.

00:16:25.720 Yeah.

00:16:26.440 While we're dealing with massive wait times and hospital closing in British Columbia and elsewhere.

00:16:31.260 All these guys are worried about it covering up.

00:16:33.440 and if I got paid or not, right?

00:16:35.480 Like, this is all it's about.

00:16:36.620 It's not about trying to serve and do it to the Canadian public

00:16:40.100 and making sure that, you know, someone can get in for their hip surgery

00:16:43.640 or someone can get to see a doctor, right?

00:16:45.540 You know, to help their child out.

00:16:47.120 Like, it's not, it's so, they're so lost in this whole file. 0.81

00:16:51.180 Like, it's just, it's ridiculous.

00:16:53.740 I can't forget the media itself, right? 0.92

00:16:55.620 They just seem to yawn about stuff like this.

00:16:57.440 I don't know if they're like, ah, liberals are going to liberal.

00:16:59.780 they're always going to dip their, you know, their toes into the trough here. But it just,

00:17:06.180 you know, Bev Oda lost her job over a $16 glass of orange juice, for crying out loud. This is

00:17:11.620 $300 million on top of everything out, a Rive scam, weed charity, et cetera, et cetera. Like,

00:17:17.460 it's unbelievable the lack of respect this government has for the dollars that people

00:17:23.700 work so hard for. And the culture of secrecy. Yeah, and the culture of secrecy.

00:17:28.020 Now, it did make the front page of the Golden Mail, so it does tell you it has to be pretty serious that one of these media outlets would pick up on it, Jamie.

00:17:36.020 Hopefully, they keep following up, too.

00:17:37.460 Yeah.

00:17:37.880 Because as you are being kind of sidelined in committee, I know you're doing everything you can and asking questions in the House, but at the same time, we need to get to the bottom of this.

00:17:46.100 This is incredible stuff.

00:17:48.600 We're pretty much out of time, but the guests always get the last word.

00:17:51.820 Do we want to start with the newbie or the veteran here on the show?

00:17:54.800 All right.

00:17:55.120 Do you want to go to the…

00:17:57.120 I think the one thing that I just want to stress to your viewers is that, you know, we've got this Bill C5 coming from the Senate that is going to be connecting all the provinces.

00:18:07.240 And the two main players in Prescribe IT, TELUS Health and the Prescribe IT people, and I'm sorry, I should say Canada Health Infoway, are going to be spearheading this project connecting all the provinces.

00:18:20.300 Now, if we can't even get faxes prescribed and get it right, how in the world are we going to connect each province with all the medical records so that we can talk to different provinces, share medical information without anything else?

00:18:37.280 It'll be another boondoggle.

00:18:38.680 So we are going to stick on this prescribed IT to disclose it to the public so that this doesn't happen again.

00:18:46.460 And one thing I didn't get the chance to show you, so we have got some minutes back

00:18:52.280 from the board.

00:18:53.280 Okay.

00:18:54.280 So this is the kind of stuff you get back, right?

00:18:56.280 Oh wow, it looks pretty thorough.

00:18:58.280 Yeah.

00:18:59.280 So they've done a very good job and ironically, it's probably about prescribed IT.

00:19:02.740 We don't know what it was, but this is around the end of last year when they were talking

00:19:07.200 about removing Mr. Green and like all this stuff.

00:19:10.300 And so these are the kind of things we're coming across that we're not going to stop digging until we find out who got rich.

00:19:19.380 And we need to get the Health Minister to committee and we need to get the Auditor General to do a full study

00:19:25.820 and uncover who got rich and who got paid.

00:19:30.160 This is absolutely incredible.

00:19:31.980 Hold that sheet up again.

00:19:33.020 We need to see this again.

00:19:35.820 Unbelievable.

00:19:36.620 Unbelievable.

00:19:37.240 Looking for information.

00:19:38.740 All right.

00:19:39.120 Isn't that incredible?

00:19:41.120 Actually, it's interesting. Of the paragraph they got here, this is the last sentence.

00:19:46.120 It was noted how successful the program had been.

00:19:49.120 With 5% take-up.

00:19:51.120 All right. We call 5% success here in Ottawa.

00:19:54.120 No wonder, no wonder things cost so much and we need to run the country on the credit card.

00:19:59.120 You want to say one more thing? It looks like you were going to say something.

00:20:01.120 No, thank you very much.

00:20:03.120 All right. Well, thank you for your time, gentlemen.

00:20:05.120 We have Burton Bailey, the Member of Parliament for Red Deer, and Dan Major, the Member of Parliament for Riding Mountain in Manitoba.

00:20:12.440 Thank them both for their time. Thank you for yours.

00:20:15.120 Don't forget, this is a developing story, so please, if you don't already, follow these two gentlemen on their social media.

00:20:21.260 They will keep you updated as this progresses.

00:20:24.640 But also, as we mentioned, the mainstream media does touch on this a little, but we need more ears to hear this story, eyes to see it.

00:20:32.220 So please like, comment, subscribe, and share this program.

00:20:35.240 We have new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.

00:20:39.260 Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.

00:20:42.460 That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - May 26, 2026

Insiders continue to get rich off of your tax dollars.

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