The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 02, 2026


Let’s not mince words. Canada is in a recession.


Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

188.56

Word count

3,944

Sentence count

305


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:07.980 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Cawortha Lakes, with new content for
00:00:11.880 you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and
00:00:16.540 share this program. Tell your friends too. They can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes,
00:00:21.120 Google Play, and Spotify. On today's show, the B.C. Conservative leadership race is over,
00:00:27.180 and the Canadian economy continues to sputter along.
00:00:30.980 To talk about this and so much more,
00:00:32.560 we bring on Greg McLean,
00:00:33.960 the Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre.
00:00:36.540 Thanks for coming on the show.
00:00:37.560 Well, thanks for having me, Jamie.
00:00:38.600 Well, when we're talking about finances, economics,
00:00:41.340 you're the guy I turn to,
00:00:43.220 so I do appreciate the opportunity.
00:00:44.900 Well, much appreciated.
00:00:45.940 Thank you.
00:00:46.600 One thing before we get going here,
00:00:48.620 the British Columbia Leadership Race has completed,
00:00:51.840 been completed.
00:00:52.880 Carrie Lynn Finley, our former whip,
00:00:54.280 was the winner in a very close contest.
00:00:57.300 But one thing I did want it to show
00:00:59.200 was her, I guess, her new slogan here.
00:01:04.280 More freedom, less government.
00:01:05.720 And anyone that watches and listens to the show knows
00:01:08.640 that's ours.
00:01:10.660 So we're going to take credit for it here.
00:01:13.000 Everyone here in the production crew
00:01:14.340 probably didn't come from us,
00:01:16.560 but, you know, it's still good to be recognized anyway.
00:01:19.040 It's a good line.
00:01:20.020 Less government, more freedom.
00:01:21.380 All right, Canadian economy.
00:01:23.620 Not doing so well.
00:01:24.660 Not doing so well.
00:01:26.520 Hasn't been doing well for a while.
00:01:29.120 OK, let's kill cut one.
00:01:30.460 We're going to get right into it.
00:01:31.780 CBC, play cut one.
00:01:33.280 Canada's economy has unexpectedly ground to a halt and slipped into a technical recession.
00:01:38.460 New numbers from Statistics Canada show GDP shrank in the first quarter of the year at an annualized rate of 0.1%.
00:01:45.360 That's not much, but it does mean a second straight quarterly contraction, which meets the definition of a recession.
00:01:51.940 All right. None of this is fun to report. Cue up cut to play cut to reality is that we're the only country in the G7.
00:02:00.140 All the countries in the G7 are facing tariffs right now. In many respects, some of them are facing worse tariffs than we are right now.
00:02:06.960 Worse headwinds, as the minister said. And yet we're the only one that's that's in a recession.
00:02:13.060 The numbers, though, that I think mean more to me
00:02:16.480 than whether we're in our technical recession or a recession
00:02:19.500 is that household savings fell to the lowest level
00:02:23.720 that it's been in the past two years.
00:02:26.340 And that's because the cost of everything has gone up.
00:02:28.760 The cost of gas, the cost of food, the cost of rent.
00:02:32.080 Like, people are really struggling.
00:02:34.380 Okay. Now, you said this is happening for a while.
00:02:37.320 We have a chart here that we're going to put up.
00:02:39.620 Tell us what you meant by that.
00:02:41.320 So you think about it, these last two quarters are the ones at the end here where we show two quarters of contraction.
00:02:46.420 But take a look just a couple quarters back where we had a significant contraction as well.
00:02:50.400 The reason these are white versus orange is because these are final and these are still being speculative.
00:02:54.620 But the issue we have, of course, is the reduction in the economy that's happening.
00:02:58.360 Less people working, less GDP happening, of course, across the economy.
00:03:02.200 A number of factors go into that.
00:03:03.940 But what we need to look at is where are the actual jobs and who's actually being paid for what.
00:03:08.940 In the third quarter of, in September of this past year, so after the second quarter numbers,
00:03:13.400 we looked at where the jobs were actually happening.
00:03:15.640 Private sector employment is going down in Canada.
00:03:18.660 So the government's spending more for what we call the mush sector.
00:03:21.500 Municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals.
00:03:24.520 A lot more of those jobs that get paid for with people's taxes.
00:03:27.800 And a lot fewer jobs that are actually generating the taxes to pay for those jobs.
00:03:31.980 As a result, bigger deficits, not just at the federal level, but at the provincial level as well.
00:03:36.080 Take a look across the country.
00:03:37.260 All of these governments are in massive deficits.
00:03:40.180 That's because the economy has not been doing well for quite some time.
00:03:43.920 We need to get back on track and get a taxation system and economic system that works for Canadians again.
00:03:49.400 Gets all people back to work and motivated to work.
00:03:53.220 RBC said about a trillion dollars over the last 10 years left Canada for other jurisdictions.
00:03:59.340 The brains have, the talented people have fled as well following those opportunities.
00:04:04.740 Big losses for Canada.
00:04:06.560 Now we're seeing the quarterly growth, but now we have RBC with another shocking chart here.
00:04:12.820 The mortgage delinquencies in the greater Toronto area.
00:04:16.480 Look at that line, like a rocket ship.
00:04:20.900 This is scary stuff.
00:04:22.400 This is an indicator.
00:04:23.780 Think about the last media clip we had when it actually indicated that two quarters of
00:04:30.400 economic growth or shrinking economic growth is an indicator of a recession.
00:04:34.220 Another indicator, of course, is more and more bankruptcies.
00:04:37.400 Recessions are something that are felt across the economy.
00:04:39.560 So unemployment is rising in Canada, 6.9% this quarter, up from 6.7%.
00:04:45.360 More people unemployed.
00:04:46.980 We've got a lot of indicators here that things are going bad for this economy.
00:04:51.880 But again, household savings is one that's going down, and delinquencies as far as your mortgages go.
00:04:57.700 One of the number one payments you have in society is your house.
00:05:01.860 You've got a mortgage in your house.
00:05:02.960 The number one payment you have to make is your house.
00:05:04.740 Pay for your mortgage at the end of the day.
00:05:06.720 Those rates are going up.
00:05:08.120 A lot of people that bought five years ago or four years ago or three years ago,
00:05:12.020 they've got rising mortgage rates, especially if you were on a variable rate.
00:05:15.720 When that reset needs to happen, of course, when people actually get back into,
00:05:19.820 you know, that ratio of what their property is worth versus what they're paying for that property.
00:05:26.940 The trouble is now when they're doing that reset is the cost of their,
00:05:31.440 the price of the real estate, the value of their real estate has gone down.
00:05:34.920 So therefore, their ratio of what they have to pay is sometimes not meeting what they need to.
00:05:39.460 And as a result, less money coming in the door because they haven't kept up with inflation as far as their earnings go.
00:05:45.240 And they've got a payment that is on a piece of property that is no longer worth what it was when they bought it.
00:05:51.480 So they're stuck. They're stuck in a way.
00:05:53.300 They are stuck. And one of the ways to look at it is say, okay, do I continue to make this payment?
00:05:57.580 If you make a choice between feeding your family and paying your rent, I guarantee you're going to feed your family first and foremost.
00:06:03.560 That is the most natural thing. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, feeding your kids, feeding yourself is the most important thing you do.
00:06:10.660 Yes, absolutely. So because, let's talk about the feeding part.
00:06:14.960 Food banks saying one in four Canadians are food insecure.
00:06:17.800 Food bank usage is at all-time highs.
00:06:21.180 Never seen this level before. Mortgage delinquencies, businesses closing, investment leaving, food bank usage up.
00:06:32.300 This actually proves your point. This has been going on for a while.
00:06:37.520 Quite some time. Remember when I was the chair of the Economic Growth Council?
00:06:41.360 We toured across the country. We met about 200 organizations across Canada.
00:06:46.020 And they're all indicating this is what's happening in the economy.
00:06:48.520 And so it's that kind of grassroots approach.
00:06:51.140 This is what's going wrong.
00:06:52.420 This is what we need to do to fix it.
00:06:54.200 One of them, of course, is the taxation system to make sure we don't continue to bleed jobs to other jurisdictions,
00:06:59.940 primarily jobs that are based on brain power, not minerals and farming and everything else,
00:07:05.180 where you have to be attached to Canada in order to get those jobs and actually get that economic activity,
00:07:10.280 But the ones where you're actually adding some sophisticated value as far as knowledge power, advanced artificial intelligence, all these things that are part of the knowledge economy, as we call it, those are moving to jurisdictions where it's more profitable for them.
00:07:27.080 So the motivation is there for them to actually set up elsewhere.
00:07:30.100 What we need to do is have a good playing field in Canada here where people are motivated to start businesses here, build families here, and make sure they prosper here.
00:07:39.160 They see the end result of their efforts being rewarded here in Canada versus a better situation somewhere else.
00:07:45.680 That's number one. Make sure you're good people. Stay in Canada.
00:07:48.660 Well, it's interesting, too, because we're talking about all this hardship and the pain that Canadians are facing.
00:07:57.240 But at the same time, there was a poll released, I saw it on CTV, we should have got it,
00:08:02.340 but it's showing that Canadians feel the country is on track, right?
00:08:07.200 More Canadians feel the country is heading in the right direction than they did in 2018.
00:08:11.840 And this is mind-boggling to me because of all the hurt going around.
00:08:17.060 But put up this graphic.
00:08:18.580 Let's also show how the media also frames what's going on.
00:08:24.960 Okay?
00:08:25.520 Like, people are...
00:08:26.340 Food bank, like we just said, food bank uses jobs.
00:08:28.480 Jobs gone.
00:08:29.120 Investment's leaving.
00:08:30.440 But Canadians feel the country's on the right track.
00:08:33.080 Doesn't really jive.
00:08:34.440 Doesn't make sense, does it?
00:08:35.740 But look at the way the media, the state broadcaster for one, is covering this situation we have in Canada.
00:08:44.360 So look at 2015, very angry, right?
00:08:48.260 Stephen Harper's economics have failed us miserably.
00:08:52.440 Look at that.
00:08:53.160 So an ordinary Canadian just picking up the paper, reading this, is like, whoa, this is pretty bad.
00:08:58.460 Then flip over.
00:08:59.360 This is May 29th. Canada slipped into a technical recession on an annualized basis as economic growth.
00:09:06.360 The language, the way it's framed, totally different.
00:09:10.600 Like, this is someone's fault, nobody's fault. Oops, it just happened.
00:09:15.280 Yeah, and there's a value to language, and of course that language motivates people.
00:09:19.900 Everything that liberals talk about now, it's a crisis that's caused by somebody else.
00:09:24.140 That crisis that we say we're in, I'd like to say that, number one, we have situations we have to deal with across this country.
00:09:31.440 To label everything a crisis means you've watered down the word crisis at the end of the day.
00:09:36.940 Let me offer the pandemic was a crisis we had to adjust to.
00:09:40.760 Everything else is, of course, situations unfolding.
00:09:43.480 If we get into a war at some point in time here in the future, that will be a crisis.
00:09:47.860 But to talk about economics as if there's a crisis here just is a terrorizing word at the end of the day.
00:09:54.160 So it's meant to motivate people to feel really terrified about something.
00:09:58.140 We need to make sure we're operating effectively.
00:10:01.380 But what I really want to see from this government is an actual level setting.
00:10:05.760 What do people expect from this Mark Carney liberal government?
00:10:10.540 Because, frankly, the measurement of anything he's doing economically,
00:10:13.500 For somebody who is supposed to have a good grasp in economics, then he's failing miserably.
00:10:19.120 He's got a higher unemployment rate.
00:10:21.000 The trade's going down significantly.
00:10:23.120 The job creation is not there.
00:10:25.020 It's all government spending.
00:10:26.340 The deficits are going through the roof.
00:10:29.000 And you take a look at what he's actually taking credit for.
00:10:31.680 Some of it's based on some of the ideas that we've brought to him as conservatives, including dropping some of the taxes.
00:10:36.820 I'd like him to drop more of those hidden taxes.
00:10:39.060 And some of it's based on what he says he's going to do with the military.
00:10:41.960 But with the military, he's not moving nearly quickly enough compared to the plan that we put forward.
00:10:47.760 In the last spring economic statement, he actually did talk about training.
00:10:51.080 And that's something we had on the table in the last election.
00:10:54.100 Spend more money on getting the technical jobs trained in Canada that you've neglected for a decade.
00:11:00.480 So these things have to happen.
00:11:02.120 It's good to see when he takes some of the pages of our policy book and actually tries to move forward with them.
00:11:07.180 But everything we're measuring his performance on is primarily hope at this point in time.
00:11:11.340 I think Canadians want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and let's accept that it's one year into his mandate.
00:11:17.800 I'd like him to succeed, too. I want our country to succeed.
00:11:20.820 But every measure I'm seeing says, not success, not success, not success.
00:11:25.880 So we've got to start getting that point across that we need to change course here to get better economic results for this country,
00:11:32.340 to get out of shrinking GDP, to actually get back on track to building things in this country.
00:11:38.880 A regulatory system that works so people can invest money here and see the path to completion at the end of the day so it can actually model out how much they're going to make money.
00:11:49.740 If they put billions of dollars into infrastructure here, how they actually model they're going to actually make money on that investment.
00:11:56.340 That's not there right now.
00:11:57.540 So these are things that have become much more explicit in Canada than they've become.
00:12:01.120 I would love to see him reverse some of the terrible changes that his so-called predecessor took Canada down the rabbit hole on.
00:12:12.400 I haven't seen that yet.
00:12:13.780 You take a look at the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the government of Alberta,
00:12:17.120 and it's one of those things where you could make this a lot more direct and a lot easier for people to actually say,
00:12:25.180 okay, you actually are getting out of the way.
00:12:27.380 But he's kind of massaging that language, so he says, I'm only partially getting out of the way.
00:12:32.880 Recognize the Liberal government still has an interest base,
00:12:36.640 and that interest base is still the one that says, shut down the oil and gas sector.
00:12:41.500 Make sure you're paying attention to global warming.
00:12:44.220 And I will point out in the spring economic statement,
00:12:46.900 $3 billion additional spent on international climate change efforts.
00:12:52.280 Ironic that it happens just before Stephen Gilboa leaves,
00:12:55.640 But you take a look at the billions, they've shoveled out the door, an extra $3 billion now for climate change.
00:13:01.180 Take a look at where Stephen Gilboa eventually lands and see if it's one of these funded organizations.
00:13:06.520 This is continued complicity with an agenda that actually isn't working for Canada and isn't working for the world.
00:13:14.180 Every reduction we make in Canada by offshoring jobs just means we're increasing emissions elsewhere.
00:13:19.720 And it's one world.
00:13:21.700 The emissions go everywhere.
00:13:23.000 So let's make sure that we participate in the economy because we are a very efficient producer of energy here and a very responsible producer of energy.
00:13:32.140 Most energy producers around the world, oil and gas, do not take account of the environmental effects the way Canada does.
00:13:38.820 And it's funny in the House of Commons when Mark Kearney talks about the accolades they get from some of these NGOs.
00:13:48.480 One is the Canadian Climate Institute, I believe, which had, as far as we can tell, next to zero employees,
00:13:55.760 gave the government a glowing report because they were funded by the government and only identifiable through a post office box.
00:14:03.740 Like you said, they're shoveling money out the door, keep people quiet, give them all these government grants,
00:14:09.700 because they'd never be able to survive in the private sector, because you actually have to compete and actually come up with a better idea or product.
00:14:16.480 And they just siphon off the government.
00:14:19.340 I'm so glad you raised that, Canadian Climate Institute.
00:14:21.220 Because we actually did an order paper question on this, how much money they've been funded by the government,
00:14:26.280 and is millions upon millions of dollars that they've been given by the government over the last 10 years.
00:14:30.760 And for this government, the Mark Carney government, he's actually included them in defining the sustainable finance taxonomy going forward here.
00:14:39.580 So for all those people that are producing minerals and other resources in our economy,
00:14:46.520 recognize that it looks like you're easing on one side with the actual emissions formula,
00:14:52.540 but you've actually got a finance formula that's able to come and bite you pretty hard,
00:14:56.300 So you're not going to be able to raise money to invest in the resources that you need to get to markets across the world.
00:15:03.420 That's one of the main things here.
00:15:04.800 And again, we call that that circular economy the Liberals have built for themselves.
00:15:08.940 They fund these organizations out of nowhere.
00:15:11.240 And like Canadian Climate Institute, let's name, I could name a dozen of them.
00:15:14.140 We have made many.
00:15:14.580 You know, Canadian Climate Institute, here's a bunch of money.
00:15:16.900 Tell the Canadian public good things about us.
00:15:19.020 We'll give you more money to do government work.
00:15:21.660 It is incestuous.
00:15:23.260 These are the types of organizations that we need to call out.
00:15:25.780 Yep. Because their information, their propaganda is anything but objective.
00:15:32.900 And it's completely self-serving at the end of the day.
00:15:35.680 Yeah, I would agree. All right. Prime Minister was back in the United States making another speech.
00:15:40.960 Very different approach here. Cue up, cut four, I think we're at now.
00:15:45.600 This is the Prime Minister. You'll remember the Prime Minister basically, you know, fluffed off the United States.
00:15:51.160 It's not that important. Well, he changed his tune. Play cut four.
00:15:54.180 Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses.
00:16:00.700 Let's be absolutely clear.
00:16:03.100 Canada Strong will help make America great again.
00:16:07.600 Oh, sounds pretty MAGA.
00:16:09.660 What do you think of that?
00:16:11.580 You know, in this whole discussion with trade with the United States, we've always focused on the noisy guy south of the border.
00:16:19.600 And he is somebody who says one thing and then says something else.
00:16:24.180 a couple of days later, or may actually implement some of the changes he talks about,
00:16:31.460 Mark Carney's the same.
00:16:32.600 So if you look at his strategy, it mirrors the President of the United States' strategy.
00:16:36.380 He says one thing to one group and another thing to another group on so many files.
00:16:40.240 And everybody wants to believe him.
00:16:42.080 Like I say, he's one year into his mandate.
00:16:44.160 No matter what side of this argument you're on, he's going to say something that appeases you.
00:16:51.220 So whether you're pro-trade with the United States,
00:16:53.700 he's going to tell you this now.
00:16:55.280 You're anti-trade, you're anti-Trump,
00:16:57.080 he's going to tell you the other message he told you before.
00:16:59.620 And everybody's going to say, I believe what he said when.
00:17:02.480 It's that dichotomy of what he's saying
00:17:04.380 and that kind of pool of misinformation
00:17:07.760 that goes around and around.
00:17:10.160 It's an indication that I think it's the first time
00:17:12.540 we've actually seen in the trade relationships,
00:17:14.820 his strategy with trade is the same
00:17:16.340 with the strategy with everything else.
00:17:18.120 He can say one thing to one group
00:17:19.600 and another thing to another group,
00:17:20.900 And everybody wants to believe him.
00:17:23.520 Now, he's going to get that benefit of the doubt for up to three years of his term.
00:17:27.180 And eventually, people are going to say, hold on, you said this then.
00:17:30.120 What are you saying now?
00:17:31.160 And then they'll look at that sort of doublespeak that's been going on since he became prime minister.
00:17:36.220 This is the problem, is actually getting him focused.
00:17:39.780 What are you delivering here?
00:17:41.240 Where are the metrics that you're going to evolve here to actually make sure that we actually do better as an economy?
00:17:46.840 do better with trade, do better with employment, do better in so many ways for the outcomes for
00:17:52.900 Canadians, because right now those outcomes are clearly not happening well. I remember we had the
00:17:58.460 one clip here about how Canadians are rating their savings. So savings are going down in Canada.
00:18:04.460 Recognize what that means, because even though asset values, except for houses, are still going
00:18:09.180 up, the markets are still going up. So families with stock portfolios that are built over years
00:18:16.340 their values are still going up, even though their houses are plateauing or going down.
00:18:21.060 Whereas families that don't have large stock portfolios are not moving at all,
00:18:26.940 and they've actually plateaued.
00:18:28.220 That's true.
00:18:28.800 Think about that from a demographics perspective.
00:18:30.920 The ones with large accounts are going to be older people.
00:18:34.740 The thing about the demographics we have is there is a cliff.
00:18:37.720 We need to make sure that continues.
00:18:39.440 You think about it like a straight line going up.
00:18:41.440 We've got a line going up and then plateauing and then going up.
00:18:44.800 That plateau is going to move forward in time as the economy moves along and as people age.
00:18:49.600 And that plateau needs to ramp up pretty quickly.
00:18:52.660 Right now, it's not.
00:18:53.620 We have to continue growth.
00:18:54.800 We have to make sure that people are continuing to save, continue to add value here.
00:18:58.440 That means getting better jobs, better outcomes for all Canadians.
00:19:01.660 We also thought of that during the election.
00:19:03.460 Anyone with stuff seemed to believe that the status quo was okay, right?
00:19:08.000 Everyone else just suffers along.
00:19:10.320 And everyone else is caught in the description we talked about, bank usage, all that.
00:19:17.060 Greg, we're pretty much out of time.
00:19:18.580 That was a great discussion.
00:19:19.700 I know we have so much more to talk about.
00:19:21.200 But as you know, the guests get the last word, so the floor is yours.
00:19:25.100 Well, thanks so much, Stephen.
00:19:26.240 Thanks for having me here.
00:19:27.160 First of all, we need a better economy.
00:19:29.140 We saw this across the country with meeting with over 200 organizations and the Economic Growth Council.
00:19:34.760 So many people gave us so much input.
00:19:36.440 I can only thank them so much for everything they've given to us.
00:19:39.280 But the actual diagnosis is clear.
00:19:42.740 You know, get better outcomes for Canadians.
00:19:46.580 Those outcomes include what we do here, taxes, trade with others.
00:19:51.520 There's so many things we need to make sure happen better here.
00:19:54.120 But it starts with the entrepreneur.
00:19:56.040 Think about the people that are actually building across this economy,
00:19:59.180 people that add jobs to society, people that build things here,
00:20:03.740 intellectual property that stays here.
00:20:05.760 These are things we have to build upon
00:20:07.080 and make sure we have a great, prosperous country here going forward.
00:20:10.020 Greg McLean, Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre.
00:20:12.620 Thank you for your time.
00:20:14.060 Thank you for yours.
00:20:15.200 Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program
00:20:17.900 because as we pointed out on it,
00:20:20.780 the media isn't covering it to the way it should
00:20:23.800 because you would know that it was bad Liberal policy
00:20:26.620 to get us to the point we are at now.
00:20:29.300 It's not by magic our economy is sputtering along.
00:20:32.100 It happened deliberately because of decisions made here in Ottawa.
00:20:36.820 We've been trying to fight back, but again, we need your help.
00:20:39.360 So please tell your friends to download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify and tell their friends about it as well.
00:20:46.600 We'll have new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:20:50.460 Until next week, remember low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:20:54.300 That's the blueprint.