Justin Trudeau fails in India
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Summary
In this episode of The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast, I'm joined by the Honourable Erin O'Toole, MP for Durham and Markham Unionville's MP Bob Soroya to discuss Justin Trudeau's trip to India.
Transcript
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Up next on The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast, I'll have two very special guests,
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the Member of Parliament for Durham, the Honourable Erin O'Toole, and Markham Unionville's MP, Bob Soroya.
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We're going to talk about how Justin Trudeau is failing Canadians on the international stage.
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You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:22.740
Is the Prime Minister actually saying that taxpayers should be on the hook when he breaks the law?
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What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country
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All these deficits leading to nothing but burying Canadians in taxes.
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Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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I'm your host, Tony Clement, Member of Parliament,
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and we've got a show of international proportions today
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as we discuss Justin Trudeau's failure for Canadians,
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on behalf of Canadians, protecting Canadians on the international stage,
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We've got two Members of Parliament, the Honourable Erin O'Toole,
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and Bob Soroya, the Member of Parliament for Markham Unionville.
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I know there's been a lot of funny memes and lots of shared social media
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on some of the costume changes or the clothing changes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
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but there actually are some serious issues here
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that have affected Canada's standing bilaterally with Canada-India
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and also multilaterally, I would suggest to you,
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in terms of our standing on the international stage.
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just to lay the picture of what exactly happened on this trip
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and the impact of this on the relations between Canada and India.
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This was really an unparalleled state visit by Justin Trudeau,
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and the photo ops in a variety of designer garbs and poses,
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flying in a celebrity chef from Canada to cook for your delegation,
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Beyond all that, there was probably the most significant security breach
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and Justin Trudeau leading the delegation takes responsibility,
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invited a formerly convicted attempted murderer,
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but he was invited to attend some of the prime minister's events.
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And then the prime minister just went into blame mode.
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Blame for the invitation by the PMO to a high commission dinner.
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In the last few days in the House, we've heard the prime minister say
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and takes full responsibility for inviting Mr. Atwal.
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who suggested India was behind the Atwal affair.
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So it's been terrible because Canada isn't always followed on the world stage.
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But when we're ridiculed around the developed world in Southeast Asia,
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And that's when the prime minister has embarrassed all Canadians.
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between the world's largest democracy, India and Canada,
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Well, Tony, you know you were in the Harper cabinet much longer than I was.
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We doubled bilateral trade under the Harper government.
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We signed great cooperative and collaborative agreements
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on everything from education to nuclear technology
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between the former Prime Minister Harper and Prime Minister Modi.
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And, you know, business increase, trade, diplomatic ties,
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that clearly Justin Trudeau premised upon domestic politics.
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He let his caucus and his cabinet direct this trip,
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invite people, including a former convicted assassin.
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And now Canada is, we should be worried about that $8 billion worth
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of two-way trade that the Conservatives helped establish.
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He's been chomping at the bit to be part of this conversation.
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And, Bob, you know, you have a great deal of insight
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on Canada-India relations and the internal politics
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I want you to tell the story and tell us about what the media impact
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has been in India and in Canada on this kind of story.
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I need it all night long, but let's start maybe with his trip to India.
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Indian media, which I watch all night long, all evening long,
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the first of all they're saying it was a state visit,
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Flying chef from Vancouver to New Delhi and Mumbai probably cost $20,000 for us to do it.
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But meantime, we have 100,000 more chefs, probably better than this chef.
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Prime Minister Trudeau has met many, many, many times.
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Prime Minister Trudeau sat, I understand, rode in his Hummer in B.C.
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So the Jazz or Jazz Pal, whatever we want to call him,
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so he raised a ton of money for the Prime Minister Hartford.
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Raising money, it doesn't care if it's a murderer or a session or whatever.
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It's money count and the vote count at the end of the day.
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So what you're hearing is this was not a mistake invitation to Atwell?
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Originally, the Surrey Centre, Mr. Sarai, took the responsibility.
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Indian Punjabi community think he took the blame only to save Prime Minister's face.
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So what I heard over and over on the Punjabi radio program that he took, what do you call it, fall, I guess?
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And look, you know, building on what Bob said, Tony, the Indian government, it was reported by CTV,
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the Indian government asked to have the guest list because in particular the hotel,
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one of the events for the Prime Minister was being held at,
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had been the location for a terrible terror attack a number of years ago where a Canadian was killed.
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So the Indian government wanted to collaborate on security with the Canadians.
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The Prime Minister's office wouldn't share the list.
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So to me, that suggests they didn't want India to see who they were inviting.
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The irony now that Prime Minister Trudeau is blaming India when they wouldn't even work with India on security is atrocious.
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Let me, Bob, you carry on and then I'm going to ask Aaron a question, a wider question on international relations.
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I was speaking to a Consul General of India in Toronto.
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So they're not busy creating a conspiracy with a Canadian assassin.
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It is their own fault they took Jazz or Jazz Paul at Wall to India.
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Now they're trying to say, first, the Surrey Centre, Surrey, took the fall.
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As far as I was saying earlier today, the Punjabi media is saying it's simply Surrey, MP, from Surrey Centre.
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He took responsibility to save Prime Minister's face.
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I think we were all amazed in the House today when our colleague Jim Glinski from Alberta stood.
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I don't want to cut you off, but it was very dramatic.
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Thirty years ago, he was one of the first RCMP officers on scene after this attempted assassination.
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Mr. Atwell was convicted of it, so I can say he was one of the assassins.
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Jim helped the Indian politician to the ambulance, saw the scene, will never forget it, and he put a human face on this today for the House, and yet the Prime Minister stood up and gave one of his talking point responses.
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I thought it was very disrespectful, and it showed that Conservative MPs bring real experience to the House, and today we saw that with Jim.
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Mr. Speaker, in 1986, I was one of the first officers on the scene of the shooting on Indian Minister Sidhu.
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Jasper Atwell was convicted of attempted murder in that shooting.
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The victims of terrorism, they have names, they have faces, and they have families.
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To the Prime Minister, why would he ever meet with Jasper Atwell?
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And then you asked a couple of questions of the Prime Minister to try to get an idea about what exactly was he telling Canadians.
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How can it be solely the responsibility for the MP from Surrey Centre, who he said in the House apologised and takes full responsibility,
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and then at the same time, how can the Prime Minister support this wild conspiracy theory by his own national security adviser,
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which many people feel the Prime Minister's office is forced to put out to do damage control on their visit?
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At the same time, India's comment has been these claims are baseless and irresponsible.
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The Prime Minister is trying to have it both ways, and he needs to be straight with Canadians.
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Let's widen this just for a second, because you're our Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister.
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And you've seen this kind of movie a couple of times now.
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Prime Minister goes to Vietnam, is there to negotiate and sign on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement,
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Doesn't show up and alienates Japan, one of our great allies, and Australia, one of our great allies.
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It's hard to think of another situation where a Canadian Prime Minister has angered two allies like Japan and Australia,
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but the Prime Minister did it just by not showing up somewhere where he promised to show up.
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So tell us about the wider implications of some of this.
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Well, look, our allies are scratching their head with the Trudeau government.
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Not only do they not understand, you know, their so-called progressive trade agenda
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and their grandstanding on the world stage, they actually feel disrespected.
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In the last five months alone, the Prime Minister stood up ten world leaders in Vietnam
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at the Leaders' Round meetings when he didn't even show up.
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I've never seen countries like, as you said, Japan, Australia, New Zealand,
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and some of our close, close allies, I've never seen them so upset with Canada.
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The Liberals' pre-positioned that he's going to come back with a big free trade announcement of some sort.
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We all know how he admires the basic dictatorship in China
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and has green-lighted a number of sales of Canadian companies to China.
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So there was a sense he was trying to rush towards a big announceable,
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and the Chinese wouldn't even let his photographer take photos.
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He was basically smacked down on that trip, and now India.
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In amidst all of this, Tony, was his ethics violation.
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So we have a Prime Minister who, within two years,
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was under investigation by two officers of Parliament at home,
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and virtually every trip abroad has been a disaster.
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I say if we want to improve relations with the country, don't send the Prime Minister.
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Where are they now, and where do you see them going?
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It was 1986 when the provincial minister was visiting in B.C.
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In 1988, Jasper was convicted and was sentenced for 20 years.
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So when he went to the parole board, parole board said,
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give us the straight goods because we don't believe you.
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Finally, he told the parole board it was him shot twice to the Indian minister.
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But he took the responsibility, shooting himself.
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How could this Prime Minister take him with Jasper to India when their own provincial minister was shot?
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You are accusing a host nation something they didn't do.
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You are accusing something just to save your own skin.
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You are doing something because you did not achieve anything.
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When he went to India, he came with the two things in mind, cultural exchange and business opportunities.
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It was his lavish vacation going to the Taj Mahal, go to the Golden Temple,
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go to one of the Hindu temples in Gujarat, Jama Masjid in New Delhi.
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So when I talked about the business deal, there was not a single deal was that.
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He talked about a $1 billion deal between Canada and India.
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In this, India will invest $250 million and Canada will invest $750 million.
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At one point, one of their talking points, the Liberal government, was, well, we got a billion dollars worth of trade.
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Now, first of all, India is a $2 trillion economy.
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So a billion dollars is literally a drop in the bucket.
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Secondly, most of it was Canadian investment in India.
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It will be interesting to see if anything will really get signed, if there is any jobs will be created.
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You know, Tony, my early criticism of the trip was the prime minister was going for a week.
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He was taking a large delegation from his caucus, from his cabinet.
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Some special guests, clearly like Mr. Atwal, were attending as well.
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But if you looked at it, the prime minister only had half a day of formal business with the Indian government.
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So as Bob said, it was a tourism sightseeing trip.
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And then after a week, the Indians had certainly seen enough of our prime minister.
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Well, and this is one of the things that was part of the commentary in the Indian media was what –
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and you nailed this, Bob Soraya MP – that this seemed to be more of a narcissistic vacation of the prime minister
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rather than a real serious attempt at improving Canada-India relations.
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When Prime Minister Modi visited Canada, it was – I think it was in 2015 when he visited here.
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They traveled together, Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Harper.
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When Prime Minister Trudeau goes to India, so Prime Minister Modi meet him day seven, day number seven.
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So when – the minute he steps foot on Indian soil, the King of Jordan, he's met by Prime Minister Modi.
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That was met by the junior parliamentary secretary of agriculture.
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If I can tell you how do the people receive him in India, I'm going to read you this tweet from Omar Abdullah,
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who is a previous – we call it chief minister in Canada called premier.
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He wrote, is it just me, or is this choreographed cuteness, all just a bit much now, question mark.
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Also, FYI, we Indians do not dress like this every day, sir.
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However, not even in Bollywood, then he said, watch the pictures, the pictures, you know, the Indian gestures.
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I mean, if he was trying to show cultural sensitivity, he actually showed the exact opposite of cultural sensitivity.
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So that's the smoldering ruins of Canada-India relations at this point.
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I dare say it probably hasn't been this bad since the 70s.
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And this is a major force, a regional power that is gaining respect and certainly activity in the Indian subcontinent and beyond.
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It is an important player vis-Ã -vis China, vis-Ã -vis Pakistan, some of the more dangerous areas of the world.
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Indian government and the Indian people loves Canada.
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And we want to make sure Andrew Scheer gets in in 2019 and we can have a fresh start.
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And we should make this point that Andrew Scheer in the House today and indeed yesterday was very strong in these points,
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This was no way to blame them for something that was wrong in your house and that Prime Minister Trudeau was wrong in doing that.
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And I think he was extremely forceful and rightly so because he, as the leader of Canada's Conservatives,
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understands the importance of these bilateral relationships.
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And he also understands that this is something that other countries are looking at.
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And when they see Canada messing up so poorly, it actually hurts our relationships with other countries as well.
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Aaron O'Toole, as Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister, do you see it that way too?
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You know, he's already talked about re-engagement and increasing engagement with the UK following Brexit.
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He knows that India is our Commonwealth partner, as we've said in this podcast, the world's largest democracy.
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And the diaspora communities across Canada give us natural business opportunities to increase trade.
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We double two-way trade under the Conservatives.
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And your point, Tony, to leave it this way, you know, we've been embarrassed in a way that we haven't been
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since Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre, did a pirouette behind the Queen because it's always about the Trudeaus.
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And I think Canadians are starting to see that.
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We saw that from the Ethics Commissioner investigation.
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We've seen that with the Hollywood schmoozing in Davos and elsewhere.
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Where with Andrew Scheer, it's always about Canadian families.
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I think we should definitely end with that very strong statement.
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Erin O'Toole, Member of Parliament, thank you for being on The Blueprint.
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Bob Soroya, thank you for your return to The Blueprint.
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Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
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We'll be back soon with another excellent podcast as we continue our consideration of public affairs
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