The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - March 02, 2018


Justin Trudeau fails in India

Topics
Jasper Atwal security breach
Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Justin Trudeau Tony Clement Modi Erin O'Toole Surrey Center Bob Soroya Andrew Scheer Harper Jasper Atwell Markham Unionville Atwal Paul Candace Malcolm King Abdullah Omar Abdulaziz Jim Glinski Jama Masjid Hartford Speaker Hummer and 4 more
Trudeau must show leadership Aecon sale should require national security review

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

154.22

Word count

3,457

Sentence count

274

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.180 Up next on The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast, I'll have two very special guests,
00:00:04.960 the Member of Parliament for Durham, the Honourable Erin O'Toole, and Markham Unionville's MP, Bob Soroya.
00:00:11.320 We're going to talk about how Justin Trudeau is failing Canadians on the international stage.
00:00:19.520 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?
00:00:36.300 What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country
00:00:42.520 that may curve his out-of-control behaviour?
00:00:46.480 All these deficits leading to nothing but burying Canadians in taxes.
00:00:52.740 And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.
00:01:01.400 Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:01:04.740 I'm your host, Tony Clement, Member of Parliament,
00:01:07.160 and we've got a show of international proportions today
00:01:10.660 as we discuss Justin Trudeau's failure for Canadians,
00:01:16.280 on behalf of Canadians, protecting Canadians on the international stage,
00:01:21.000 and with me to discuss the India debacle.
00:01:25.000 We've got two Members of Parliament, the Honourable Erin O'Toole,
00:01:28.420 the Member of Parliament for Durham,
00:01:30.080 and Bob Soroya, the Member of Parliament for Markham Unionville.
00:01:34.100 Welcome, gentlemen, to the show.
00:01:35.480 Great to be here.
00:01:36.640 Well, let's get to...
00:01:37.680 I know there's been a lot of funny memes and lots of shared social media
00:01:42.460 on some of the costume changes or the clothing changes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
00:01:48.200 but there actually are some serious issues here
00:01:50.720 that have affected Canada's standing bilaterally with Canada-India
00:01:56.420 and also multilaterally, I would suggest to you,
00:02:00.060 in terms of our standing on the international stage.
00:02:02.200 So why don't you...
00:02:03.320 I'm going to go to Erin O'Toole first,
00:02:04.760 just to lay the picture of what exactly happened on this trip
00:02:08.640 with respect to Jasper Atwal
00:02:10.460 and the impact of this on the relations between Canada and India.
00:02:14.940 You said it, Tony.
00:02:15.860 This was really an unparalleled state visit by Justin Trudeau,
00:02:20.200 but unparalleled in a bad way.
00:02:22.460 Beyond the dancing on stage
00:02:25.300 and the photo ops in a variety of designer garbs and poses,
00:02:32.100 flying in a celebrity chef from Canada to cook for your delegation,
00:02:36.260 Beyond all that, there was probably the most significant security breach
00:02:40.800 in Canadian diplomatic history
00:02:43.020 when the Liberal government of Canada
00:02:45.280 and Justin Trudeau leading the delegation takes responsibility,
00:02:49.120 invited a formerly convicted attempted murderer,
00:02:53.760 a former assassin, a Canadian, Jasper Atwal,
00:02:56.220 who was convicted for attempting to murder
00:02:58.600 an Indian politician on Canadian soil.
00:03:01.800 It's unbelievable, really,
00:03:03.360 but he was invited to attend some of the prime minister's events.
00:03:07.400 The story was broken by Candace Malcolm
00:03:09.820 and then a number of great journalists.
00:03:11.880 And then the prime minister just went into blame mode.
00:03:14.980 He blamed the MP from Surrey Centre.
00:03:17.860 He blamed the high commissioner in India.
00:03:21.000 He blamed India itself now.
00:03:24.440 They trotted...
00:03:24.980 That was the host country.
00:03:26.580 That's right.
00:03:27.320 Blame for the invitation by the PMO to a high commission dinner.
00:03:31.380 In the last few days in the House, we've heard the prime minister say
00:03:34.340 the MP from Surrey Centre has apologized
00:03:36.840 and takes full responsibility for inviting Mr. Atwal.
00:03:40.120 We also heard the prime minister said
00:03:41.660 he believes the national security advisor
00:03:43.820 who suggested India was behind the Atwal affair.
00:03:47.400 So which is it, prime minister?
00:03:49.060 It can't be both, right?
00:03:50.220 So it's been terrible because Canada isn't always followed on the world stage.
00:03:55.320 We've seen that.
00:03:55.920 But when we're ridiculed around the developed world in Southeast Asia,
00:04:00.660 our allies, our friends laughing at Canada,
00:04:03.380 that's not good for country.
00:04:05.220 And that's when the prime minister has embarrassed all Canadians.
00:04:08.560 And basically, the bilateral relationship
00:04:10.740 between the world's largest democracy, India and Canada,
00:04:14.380 has got to be at one of the lowest ebbs ever.
00:04:16.340 Absolutely.
00:04:16.940 Well, Tony, you know you were in the Harper cabinet much longer than I was.
00:04:20.460 We had a real success with India.
00:04:22.280 We doubled bilateral trade under the Harper government.
00:04:25.040 We signed great cooperative and collaborative agreements
00:04:28.340 on everything from education to nuclear technology
00:04:31.320 and employment from that.
00:04:32.900 We had great partnerships.
00:04:35.340 There was a great personal rapport
00:04:37.160 between the former Prime Minister Harper and Prime Minister Modi.
00:04:42.020 There's no question about that.
00:04:43.060 Absolutely.
00:04:43.800 And, you know, business increase, trade, diplomatic ties,
00:04:47.500 military to military, it was great.
00:04:49.460 All that's been squandered with one trip
00:04:51.320 that clearly Justin Trudeau premised upon domestic politics.
00:04:54.880 He let his caucus and his cabinet direct this trip,
00:04:58.420 invite people, including a former convicted assassin.
00:05:02.600 And now Canada is, we should be worried about that $8 billion worth
00:05:07.220 of two-way trade that the Conservatives helped establish.
00:05:09.500 I think it's all at risk now.
00:05:10.500 I'm going to jump to MP Bob Sorai.
00:05:13.420 He's been chomping at the bit to be part of this conversation.
00:05:16.700 And, Bob, you know, you have a great deal of insight
00:05:20.620 on Canada-India relations and the internal politics
00:05:25.040 and some of the impacts of this.
00:05:26.960 I want you to tell the story and tell us about what the media impact
00:05:30.780 has been in India and in Canada on this kind of story.
00:05:34.320 Absolutely.
00:05:35.140 I need it all night long, but let's start maybe with his trip to India.
00:05:40.780 Indian media, which I watch all night long, all evening long,
00:05:45.960 what they're saying, the headlines out there,
00:05:48.540 the first of all they're saying it was a state visit,
00:05:51.740 but it was not a state visit.
00:05:53.060 It was his vacation, a lavish vacation.
00:05:56.720 Flying chef from Vancouver to New Delhi and Mumbai probably cost $20,000 for us to do it.
00:06:05.120 But meantime, we have 100,000 more chefs, probably better than this chef.
00:06:12.940 So it was a lavish vacation.
00:06:15.620 Let's talk about just Paul, at Paul.
00:06:18.900 Paul, this is his real name.
00:06:21.980 Prime Minister Trudeau called him Jazz.
00:06:24.760 Prime Minister Trudeau has met many, many, many times.
00:06:28.940 Prime Minister Trudeau sat, I understand, rode in his Hummer in B.C.
00:06:36.040 So the Jazz or Jazz Pal, whatever we want to call him,
00:06:41.060 so he raised a ton of money for the Prime Minister Hartford.
00:06:44.840 It's all about raising...
00:06:46.100 For Trudeau, yes.
00:06:46.860 I'm sorry, for Trudeau, absolutely.
00:06:51.100 This is what it is.
00:06:52.640 Raising money, it doesn't care if it's a murderer or a session or whatever.
00:06:58.280 It's money count and the vote count at the end of the day.
00:07:01.720 So what you're hearing is this was not a mistake invitation to Atwell?
00:07:05.640 Absolutely not.
00:07:06.840 Absolutely not.
00:07:08.040 Originally, the Surrey Centre, Mr. Sarai, took the responsibility.
00:07:16.860 Indian Punjabi community think he took the blame only to save Prime Minister's face.
00:07:22.240 So what I heard over and over on the Punjabi radio program that he took, what do you call it, fall, I guess?
00:07:29.520 And look, you know, building on what Bob said, Tony, the Indian government, it was reported by CTV,
00:07:35.620 the Indian government asked to have the guest list because in particular the hotel,
00:07:41.580 one of the events for the Prime Minister was being held at,
00:07:44.360 had been the location for a terrible terror attack a number of years ago where a Canadian was killed.
00:07:48.960 So the Indian government wanted to collaborate on security with the Canadians.
00:07:52.600 The Prime Minister's office wouldn't share the list.
00:07:55.200 So to me, that suggests they didn't want India to see who they were inviting.
00:08:00.900 The irony now that Prime Minister Trudeau is blaming India when they wouldn't even work with India on security is atrocious.
00:08:08.180 Let me, Bob, you carry on and then I'm going to ask Aaron a question, a wider question on international relations.
00:08:14.140 I was speaking to a Consul General of India in Toronto.
00:08:19.460 He said, Bob, we have better things to do.
00:08:22.080 We are busy.
00:08:23.360 We have the largest democracy in the world.
00:08:27.180 So they're not busy creating a conspiracy with a Canadian assassin.
00:08:31.960 Absolutely not.
00:08:33.280 It is their own fault they took Jazz or Jazz Paul at Wall to India.
00:08:40.540 Now they're looking for a way out.
00:08:42.040 Now they're trying to say, first, the Surrey Centre, Surrey, took the fall.
00:08:48.140 Now they're trying to save him.
00:08:50.560 As far as I was saying earlier today, the Punjabi media is saying it's simply Surrey, MP, from Surrey Centre.
00:09:01.800 He took responsibility to save Prime Minister's face.
00:09:04.320 Let me add one more thing, Tony.
00:09:05.880 I think we were all amazed in the House today when our colleague Jim Glinski from Alberta stood.
00:09:10.480 That was a very dramatic moment.
00:09:12.000 I don't want to cut you off, but it was very dramatic.
00:09:14.500 Thirty years ago, he was one of the first RCMP officers on scene after this attempted assassination.
00:09:21.780 Mr. Atwell was convicted of it, so I can say he was one of the assassins.
00:09:25.640 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.
00:09:41.380 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.
00:09:47.460 Mr. Speaker, in 1986, I was one of the first officers on the scene of the shooting on Indian Minister Sidhu.
00:10:03.140 I helped him and his wife into the ambulance.
00:10:08.240 It's a day I will never forget.
00:10:10.140 Jasper Atwell was convicted of attempted murder in that shooting.
00:10:19.260 The victims of terrorism, they have names, they have faces, and they have families.
00:10:26.200 To the Prime Minister, why would he ever meet with Jasper Atwell?
00:10:32.320 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.
00:10:40.820 Is it the fellow Liberal MP's fault?
00:10:43.640 Is it the fault of the Indian government?
00:10:46.200 And we really didn't get an answer, did we?
00:10:47.800 No.
00:10:48.080 How can it be solely the responsibility for the MP from Surrey Centre, who he said in the House apologised and takes full responsibility,
00:10:55.520 and then at the same time, how can the Prime Minister support this wild conspiracy theory by his own national security adviser,
00:11:02.720 which many people feel the Prime Minister's office is forced to put out to do damage control on their visit?
00:11:09.100 At the same time, India's comment has been these claims are baseless and irresponsible.
00:11:14.600 The Prime Minister is trying to have it both ways, and he needs to be straight with Canadians.
00:11:20.400 Let's widen this just for a second, because you're our Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister.
00:11:26.120 Aaron O'Toole, MP from Durham.
00:11:28.620 And you've seen this kind of movie a couple of times now.
00:11:32.760 Prime Minister goes to China.
00:11:34.860 It's a debacle.
00:11:35.660 Prime Minister goes to Vietnam, is there to negotiate and sign on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement,
00:11:41.760 doesn't sign on and alienates...
00:11:43.840 Doesn't show up.
00:11:44.600 Doesn't show up and alienates Japan, one of our great allies, and Australia, one of our great allies.
00:11:51.620 It's hard to think of another situation where a Canadian Prime Minister has angered two allies like Japan and Australia,
00:11:58.760 but the Prime Minister did it just by not showing up somewhere where he promised to show up.
00:12:03.380 So tell us about the wider implications of some of this.
00:12:06.180 Well, look, our allies are scratching their head with the Trudeau government.
00:12:09.980 Not only do they not understand, you know, their so-called progressive trade agenda
00:12:15.100 and their grandstanding on the world stage, they actually feel disrespected.
00:12:19.740 You nailed it, Tony.
00:12:20.840 In the last five months alone, the Prime Minister stood up ten world leaders in Vietnam
00:12:26.500 at the Leaders' Round meetings when he didn't even show up.
00:12:30.000 I've never seen countries like, as you said, Japan, Australia, New Zealand,
00:12:33.700 and some of our close, close allies, I've never seen them so upset with Canada.
00:12:38.620 A month or so later, he goes to China.
00:12:40.780 The Liberals' pre-positioned that he's going to come back with a big free trade announcement of some sort.
00:12:46.080 We all know how he admires the basic dictatorship in China
00:12:49.680 and has green-lighted a number of sales of Canadian companies to China.
00:12:54.120 So there was a sense he was trying to rush towards a big announceable,
00:12:57.860 and the Chinese wouldn't even let his photographer take photos.
00:13:00.840 He was basically smacked down on that trip, and now India.
00:13:06.780 In amidst all of this, Tony, was his ethics violation.
00:13:10.300 So we have a Prime Minister who, within two years,
00:13:12.940 was under investigation by two officers of Parliament at home,
00:13:15.900 and virtually every trip abroad has been a disaster.
00:13:18.680 I say if we want to improve relations with the country, don't send the Prime Minister.
00:13:22.740 It sounds like it.
00:13:24.060 Bob, a comment on Canada-India relations.
00:13:28.100 Where are they now, and where do you see them going?
00:13:30.840 Absolutely.
00:13:31.480 Let's talk about the story about Jasper et al.
00:13:34.560 It was 1986 when the provincial minister was visiting in B.C.
00:13:41.280 He came for his nephew's wedding.
00:13:43.380 This is where he was shot by three people.
00:13:47.280 In 1988, Jasper was convicted and was sentenced for 20 years.
00:13:53.120 Five years later, Jasper asked for parole.
00:13:56.540 So when he went to the parole board, parole board said,
00:14:00.580 give us the straight goods because we don't believe you.
00:14:04.900 Finally, he told the parole board it was him shot twice to the Indian minister.
00:14:13.000 But he took the responsibility, shooting himself.
00:14:16.720 Wow.
00:14:17.040 So this is the person in question here, right?
00:14:21.600 How could this Prime Minister take him with Jasper to India when their own provincial minister was shot?
00:14:34.060 Let's talk about the relations.
00:14:37.380 You are accusing a host nation something they didn't do.
00:14:43.540 You are accusing something just to save your own skin.
00:14:48.860 You are doing something because you did not achieve anything.
00:14:53.360 When he went to India, he came with the two things in mind, cultural exchange and business opportunities.
00:15:00.420 Cultural exchange, nothing happened.
00:15:03.520 It was his lavish vacation going to the Taj Mahal, go to the Golden Temple,
00:15:08.620 go to one of the Hindu temples in Gujarat, Jama Masjid in New Delhi.
00:15:16.680 All he was doing this thing.
00:15:18.300 It was absolutely nothing to show.
00:15:20.420 So when I talked about the business deal, there was not a single deal was that.
00:15:24.620 He talked about a $1 billion deal between Canada and India.
00:15:30.640 In this, India will invest $250 million and Canada will invest $750 million.
00:15:37.460 This is a key point.
00:15:39.140 At one point, one of their talking points, the Liberal government, was, well, we got a billion dollars worth of trade.
00:15:45.500 Now, first of all, India is a $2 trillion economy.
00:15:47.960 So a billion dollars is literally a drop in the bucket.
00:15:51.400 Secondly, most of it was Canadian investment in India.
00:15:55.380 It wasn't Indian investment in Canada.
00:15:57.500 Well, Tony, that's not the end of it.
00:16:00.000 There is no deadline on it.
00:16:02.760 It could happen this decade.
00:16:04.240 It could happen next decade.
00:16:05.320 So it is absolutely open-ended thing here.
00:16:10.800 No business deals, I can tell you.
00:16:13.360 It will be interesting to see if anything will really get signed, if there is any jobs will be created.
00:16:20.180 Bob nails it.
00:16:21.320 You know, Tony, my early criticism of the trip was the prime minister was going for a week.
00:16:26.180 He was taking a large delegation from his caucus, from his cabinet.
00:16:30.820 Some special guests, clearly like Mr. Atwal, were attending as well.
00:16:35.460 But if you looked at it, the prime minister only had half a day of formal business with the Indian government.
00:16:41.720 Half a day.
00:16:42.240 So as Bob said, it was a tourism sightseeing trip.
00:16:45.620 It was.
00:16:46.080 He saw a lot of sights in that week.
00:16:48.900 And then after a week, the Indians had certainly seen enough of our prime minister. 1.00
00:16:52.640 Well, and this is one of the things that was part of the commentary in the Indian media was what –
00:16:57.960 and you nailed this, Bob Soraya MP – that this seemed to be more of a narcissistic vacation of the prime minister
00:17:06.260 rather than a real serious attempt at improving Canada-India relations.
00:17:12.440 Tony, we talked about respect.
00:17:14.440 When Prime Minister Modi visited Canada, it was – I think it was in 2015 when he visited here.
00:17:23.900 They traveled together, Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Harper.
00:17:28.420 They flew together in one plane.
00:17:30.880 There was the respect.
00:17:31.900 There was a bear hug.
00:17:32.720 When Prime Minister Trudeau goes to India, so Prime Minister Modi meet him day seven, day number seven.
00:17:42.100 Guess, let's compare it with something.
00:17:44.080 Yesterday, King Abdullah went to India.
00:17:47.020 Guess who was at the airport?
00:17:48.360 Prime Minister Modi.
00:17:49.560 This was the King of Jordan?
00:17:50.840 King of Jordan.
00:17:51.940 Guess what?
00:17:52.620 It's a bear hug.
00:17:53.840 So when – the minute he steps foot on Indian soil, the King of Jordan, he's met by Prime Minister Modi.
00:18:00.240 Prime Minister Modi on the red carpet.
00:18:01.620 That was met by the junior parliamentary secretary of agriculture.
00:18:05.900 Absolutely.
00:18:06.780 Absolutely.
00:18:07.680 If I can tell you how do the people receive him in India, I'm going to read you this tweet from Omar Abdullah,
00:18:15.560 who is a previous – we call it chief minister in Canada called premier.
00:18:20.100 He wrote, is it just me, or is this choreographed cuteness, all just a bit much now, question mark.
00:18:31.920 Also, FYI, we Indians do not dress like this every day, sir.
00:18:39.620 However, not even in Bollywood, then he said, watch the pictures, the pictures, you know, the Indian gestures.
00:18:51.320 When you overdo anything, it no longer is –
00:18:54.380 It was over the top.
00:18:55.360 Yeah.
00:18:55.540 Yeah, and in a sense, undercut.
00:18:59.500 I mean, if he was trying to show cultural sensitivity, he actually showed the exact opposite of cultural sensitivity.
00:19:04.680 Absolutely.
00:19:05.120 So that's the smoldering ruins of Canada-India relations at this point.
00:19:09.680 I dare say it probably hasn't been this bad since the 70s.
00:19:13.360 And this is a major force, a regional power that is gaining respect and certainly activity in the Indian subcontinent and beyond.
00:19:26.540 It is an important player vis-à-vis China, vis-à-vis Pakistan, some of the more dangerous areas of the world. 1.00
00:19:34.760 You need a united Indian government.
00:19:37.120 And this is the issue.
00:19:38.520 Canada is not going to be taken seriously.
00:19:40.680 Over 1 billion people, we could do business.
00:19:43.940 Indian government and the Indian people loves Canada.
00:19:48.340 They will bend back to work with us.
00:19:51.320 Not now, not today.
00:19:53.700 And we want to make sure Andrew Scheer gets in in 2019 and we can have a fresh start.
00:19:59.380 And we should make this point that Andrew Scheer in the House today and indeed yesterday was very strong in these points,
00:20:04.820 that this was no way to treat an ally.
00:20:08.400 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.
00:20:16.780 And I think he was extremely forceful and rightly so because he, as the leader of Canada's Conservatives,
00:20:24.820 understands the importance of these bilateral relationships.
00:20:26.980 And he also understands that this is something that other countries are looking at.
00:20:31.580 And when they see Canada messing up so poorly, it actually hurts our relationships with other countries as well.
00:20:38.760 Aaron O'Toole, as Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister, do you see it that way too?
00:20:42.960 Absolutely.
00:20:43.600 Andrew Scheer gets it.
00:20:44.540 You know, he's already talked about re-engagement and increasing engagement with the UK following Brexit.
00:20:51.360 He knows that India is our Commonwealth partner, as we've said in this podcast, the world's largest democracy.
00:20:57.840 Canada's future involves India. 0.99
00:21:00.100 It's a major world player today.
00:21:02.120 And the diaspora communities across Canada give us natural business opportunities to increase trade.
00:21:08.580 We double two-way trade under the Conservatives.
00:21:10.440 Now I worry about it falling apart.
00:21:12.500 And your point, Tony, to leave it this way, you know, we've been embarrassed in a way that we haven't been
00:21:17.700 since Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre, did a pirouette behind the Queen because it's always about the Trudeaus.
00:21:25.060 It's not about Canada.
00:21:26.480 And I think Canadians are starting to see that.
00:21:28.980 We saw that from the Ethics Commissioner investigation.
00:21:31.500 We've seen that on every trip abroad.
00:21:33.480 We've seen that with the Hollywood schmoozing in Davos and elsewhere.
00:21:38.780 It's always about Justin.
00:21:40.680 Where with Andrew Scheer, it's always about Canadian families.
00:21:43.720 I think we should definitely end with that very strong statement.
00:21:47.320 Erin O'Toole, Member of Parliament, thank you for being on The Blueprint.
00:21:50.960 Bob Soroya, thank you for your return to The Blueprint.
00:21:53.020 It's great to have both of you gentlemen on.
00:21:54.560 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:21:58.000 We'll be back soon with another excellent podcast as we continue our consideration of public affairs
00:22:04.380 from a Conservative point of view.
00:22:05.900 Thanks for listening.
00:22:06.460 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:22:14.080 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:22:18.880 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.