Let’s not mince words. Canada is in a recession.
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Summary
On today's show, the B.C. Conservative leadership race is over, and the Canadian economy continues to sputter along. To talk about this and so much more, we bring on Greg Mclean, the Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Cawortha Lakes, with new content for
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you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and
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share this program. Tell your friends too. They can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes,
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Google Play, and Spotify. On today's show, the B.C. Conservative leadership race is over,
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and the Canadian economy continues to sputter along.
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Well, when we're talking about finances, economics,
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the British Columbia Leadership Race has completed,
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And anyone that watches and listens to the show knows
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but, you know, it's still good to be recognized anyway.
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Canada's economy has unexpectedly ground to a halt and slipped into a technical recession.
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New numbers from Statistics Canada show GDP shrank in the first quarter of the year at an annualized rate of 0.1%.
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That's not much, but it does mean a second straight quarterly contraction, which meets the definition of a recession.
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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.
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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.
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Worse headwinds, as the minister said. And yet we're the only one that's that's in a recession.
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The numbers, though, that I think mean more to me
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than whether we're in our technical recession or a recession
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is that household savings fell to the lowest level
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And that's because the cost of everything has gone up.
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The cost of gas, the cost of food, the cost of rent.
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Okay. Now, you said this is happening for a while.
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We have a chart here that we're going to put up.
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So you think about it, these last two quarters are the ones at the end here where we show two quarters of contraction.
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But take a look just a couple quarters back where we had a significant contraction as well.
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The reason these are white versus orange is because these are final and these are still being speculative.
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But the issue we have, of course, is the reduction in the economy that's happening.
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Less people working, less GDP happening, of course, across the economy.
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But what we need to look at is where are the actual jobs and who's actually being paid for what.
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In the third quarter of, in September of this past year, so after the second quarter numbers,
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we looked at where the jobs were actually happening.
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Private sector employment is going down in Canada.
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So the government's spending more for what we call the mush sector.
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Municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals.
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A lot more of those jobs that get paid for with people's taxes.
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And a lot fewer jobs that are actually generating the taxes to pay for those jobs.
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As a result, bigger deficits, not just at the federal level, but at the provincial level as well.
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All of these governments are in massive deficits.
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That's because the economy has not been doing well for quite some time.
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We need to get back on track and get a taxation system and economic system that works for Canadians again.
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Gets all people back to work and motivated to work.
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RBC said about a trillion dollars over the last 10 years left Canada for other jurisdictions.
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The brains have, the talented people have fled as well following those opportunities.
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Now we're seeing the quarterly growth, but now we have RBC with another shocking chart here.
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The mortgage delinquencies in the greater Toronto area.
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Think about the last media clip we had when it actually indicated that two quarters of
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economic growth or shrinking economic growth is an indicator of a recession.
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Another indicator, of course, is more and more bankruptcies.
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Recessions are something that are felt across the economy.
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So unemployment is rising in Canada, 6.9% this quarter, up from 6.7%.
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We've got a lot of indicators here that things are going bad for this economy.
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But again, household savings is one that's going down, and delinquencies as far as your mortgages go.
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One of the number one payments you have in society is your house.
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The number one payment you have to make is your house.
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A lot of people that bought five years ago or four years ago or three years ago,
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they've got rising mortgage rates, especially if you were on a variable rate.
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When that reset needs to happen, of course, when people actually get back into,
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you know, that ratio of what their property is worth versus what they're paying for that property.
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The trouble is now when they're doing that reset is the cost of their,
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the price of the real estate, the value of their real estate has gone down.
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So therefore, their ratio of what they have to pay is sometimes not meeting what they need to.
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And as a result, less money coming in the door because they haven't kept up with inflation as far as their earnings go.
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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.
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They are stuck. And one of the ways to look at it is say, okay, do I continue to make this payment?
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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.
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That is the most natural thing. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, feeding your kids, feeding yourself is the most important thing you do.
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Yes, absolutely. So because, let's talk about the feeding part.
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Food banks saying one in four Canadians are food insecure.
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Never seen this level before. Mortgage delinquencies, businesses closing, investment leaving, food bank usage up.
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This actually proves your point. This has been going on for a while.
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Quite some time. Remember when I was the chair of the Economic Growth Council?
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We toured across the country. We met about 200 organizations across Canada.
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And they're all indicating this is what's happening in the economy.
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One of them, of course, is the taxation system to make sure we don't continue to bleed jobs to other jurisdictions,
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primarily jobs that are based on brain power, not minerals and farming and everything else,
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where you have to be attached to Canada in order to get those jobs and actually get that economic activity,
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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.
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So the motivation is there for them to actually set up elsewhere.
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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.
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They see the end result of their efforts being rewarded here in Canada versus a better situation somewhere else.
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That's number one. Make sure you're good people. Stay in Canada.
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Well, it's interesting, too, because we're talking about all this hardship and the pain that Canadians are facing.
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But at the same time, there was a poll released, I saw it on CTV, we should have got it,
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but it's showing that Canadians feel the country is on track, right?
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More Canadians feel the country is heading in the right direction than they did in 2018.
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And this is mind-boggling to me because of all the hurt going around.
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Let's also show how the media also frames what's going on.
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Food bank, like we just said, food bank uses jobs.
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But Canadians feel the country's on the right track.
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But look at the way the media, the state broadcaster for one, is covering this situation we have in Canada.
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Stephen Harper's economics have failed us miserably.
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So an ordinary Canadian just picking up the paper, reading this, is like, whoa, this is pretty bad.
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This is May 29th. Canada slipped into a technical recession on an annualized basis as economic growth.
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The language, the way it's framed, totally different.
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Like, this is someone's fault, nobody's fault. Oops, it just happened.
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Yeah, and there's a value to language, and of course that language motivates people.
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Everything that liberals talk about now, it's a crisis that's caused by somebody else.
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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.
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To label everything a crisis means you've watered down the word crisis at the end of the day.
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Let me offer the pandemic was a crisis we had to adjust to.
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Everything else is, of course, situations unfolding.
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If we get into a war at some point in time here in the future, that will be a crisis.
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But to talk about economics as if there's a crisis here just is a terrorizing word at the end of the day.
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So it's meant to motivate people to feel really terrified about something.
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We need to make sure we're operating effectively.
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But what I really want to see from this government is an actual level setting.
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What do people expect from this Mark Carney liberal government?
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Because, frankly, the measurement of anything he's doing economically,
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For somebody who is supposed to have a good grasp in economics, then he's failing miserably.
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And you take a look at what he's actually taking credit for.
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Some of it's based on some of the ideas that we've brought to him as conservatives, including dropping some of the taxes.
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I'd like him to drop more of those hidden taxes.
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And some of it's based on what he says he's going to do with the military.
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But with the military, he's not moving nearly quickly enough compared to the plan that we put forward.
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In the last spring economic statement, he actually did talk about training.
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And that's something we had on the table in the last election.
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Spend more money on getting the technical jobs trained in Canada that you've neglected for a decade.
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It's good to see when he takes some of the pages of our policy book and actually tries to move forward with them.
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But everything we're measuring his performance on is primarily hope at this point in time.
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I think Canadians want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and let's accept that it's one year into his mandate.
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I'd like him to succeed, too. I want our country to succeed.
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But every measure I'm seeing says, not success, not success, not success.
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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,
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to get out of shrinking GDP, to actually get back on track to building things in this country.
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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.
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If they put billions of dollars into infrastructure here, how they actually model they're going to actually make money on that investment.
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So these are things that have become much more explicit in Canada than they've become.
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I would love to see him reverse some of the terrible changes that his so-called predecessor took Canada down the rabbit hole on.
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You take a look at the Memorandum of Understanding signed with the government of Alberta,
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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,
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But he's kind of massaging that language, so he says, I'm only partially getting out of the way.
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Recognize the Liberal government still has an interest base,
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and that interest base is still the one that says, shut down the oil and gas sector.
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Make sure you're paying attention to global warming.
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And I will point out in the spring economic statement,
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$3 billion additional spent on international climate change efforts.
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Ironic that it happens just before Stephen Gilboa leaves,
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But you take a look at the billions, they've shoveled out the door, an extra $3 billion now for climate change.
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Take a look at where Stephen Gilboa eventually lands and see if it's one of these funded organizations.
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This is continued complicity with an agenda that actually isn't working for Canada and isn't working for the world.
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Every reduction we make in Canada by offshoring jobs just means we're increasing emissions elsewhere.
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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.
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Most energy producers around the world, oil and gas, do not take account of the environmental effects the way Canada does.
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And it's funny in the House of Commons when Mark Kearney talks about the accolades they get from some of these NGOs.
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One is the Canadian Climate Institute, I believe, which had, as far as we can tell, next to zero employees,
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gave the government a glowing report because they were funded by the government and only identifiable through a post office box.
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Like you said, they're shoveling money out the door, keep people quiet, give them all these government grants,
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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.
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I'm so glad you raised that, Canadian Climate Institute.
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Because we actually did an order paper question on this, how much money they've been funded by the government,
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and is millions upon millions of dollars that they've been given by the government over the last 10 years.
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And for this government, the Mark Carney government, he's actually included them in defining the sustainable finance taxonomy going forward here.
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So for all those people that are producing minerals and other resources in our economy,
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recognize that it looks like you're easing on one side with the actual emissions formula,
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but you've actually got a finance formula that's able to come and bite you pretty hard,
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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.
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And again, we call that that circular economy the Liberals have built for themselves.
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And like Canadian Climate Institute, let's name, I could name a dozen of them.
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You know, Canadian Climate Institute, here's a bunch of money.
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We'll give you more money to do government work.
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These are the types of organizations that we need to call out.
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Yep. Because their information, their propaganda is anything but objective.
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And it's completely self-serving at the end of the day.
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Yeah, I would agree. All right. Prime Minister was back in the United States making another speech.
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Very different approach here. Cue up, cut four, I think we're at now.
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This is the Prime Minister. You'll remember the Prime Minister basically, you know, fluffed off the United States.
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It's not that important. Well, he changed his tune. Play cut four.
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Many of our former strengths, based on our close ties to America, have become our weaknesses.
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Canada Strong will help make America great again.
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You know, in this whole discussion with trade with the United States, we've always focused on the noisy guy south of the border.
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And he is somebody who says one thing and then says something else.
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a couple of days later, or may actually implement some of the changes he talks about,
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So if you look at his strategy, it mirrors the President of the United States' strategy.
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He says one thing to one group and another thing to another group on so many files.
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No matter what side of this argument you're on, he's going to say something that appeases you.
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So whether you're pro-trade with the United States,
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he's going to tell you the other message he told you before.
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And everybody's going to say, I believe what he said when.
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It's an indication that I think it's the first time
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we've actually seen in the trade relationships,
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Now, he's going to get that benefit of the doubt for up to three years of his term.
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And eventually, people are going to say, hold on, you said this then.
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And then they'll look at that sort of doublespeak that's been going on since he became prime minister.
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This is the problem, is actually getting him focused.
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Where are the metrics that you're going to evolve here to actually make sure that we actually do better as an economy?
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do better with trade, do better with employment, do better in so many ways for the outcomes for
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Canadians, because right now those outcomes are clearly not happening well. I remember we had the
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one clip here about how Canadians are rating their savings. So savings are going down in Canada.
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Recognize what that means, because even though asset values, except for houses, are still going
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up, the markets are still going up. So families with stock portfolios that are built over years
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their values are still going up, even though their houses are plateauing or going down.
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Whereas families that don't have large stock portfolios are not moving at all,
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Think about that from a demographics perspective.
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The ones with large accounts are going to be older people.
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The thing about the demographics we have is there is a cliff.
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You think about it like a straight line going up.
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We've got a line going up and then plateauing and then going up.
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That plateau is going to move forward in time as the economy moves along and as people age.
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And that plateau needs to ramp up pretty quickly.
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We have to make sure that people are continuing to save, continue to add value here.
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That means getting better jobs, better outcomes for all Canadians.
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Anyone with stuff seemed to believe that the status quo was okay, right?
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And everyone else is caught in the description we talked about, bank usage, all that.
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But as you know, the guests get the last word, so the floor is yours.
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We saw this across the country with meeting with over 200 organizations and the Economic Growth Council.
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I can only thank them so much for everything they've given to us.
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Those outcomes include what we do here, taxes, trade with others.
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There's so many things we need to make sure happen better here.
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Think about the people that are actually building across this economy,
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people that add jobs to society, people that build things here,
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and make sure we have a great, prosperous country here going forward.
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Greg McLean, Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre.
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Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program
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the media isn't covering it to the way it should
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because you would know that it was bad Liberal policy
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It's not by magic our economy is sputtering along.
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It happened deliberately because of decisions made here in Ottawa.
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We've been trying to fight back, but again, we need your help.
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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.
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We'll have new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
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Until next week, remember low taxes, less government, more freedom.