The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Liberals in Free Fall

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your

00:00:12.100 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, the Lakes Brock, with new

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00:00:37.620 On today's show, a carbon tax break for Atlantic Canada. The rest of the country, not so much.

00:00:43.540 Well, to hear talk about this, it's going to be a wild show. To talk about this, we have Damien

00:00:46.840 Keurig, the Member of Parliament for Battle River Cofred in a beautiful province of Alberta.

00:00:51.320 Thanks for joining us. Thank you very much, Jamie. It's good to be here with you and wow,

00:00:57.140 what a weekend. What a weekend. I cannot believe we even have to talk about this. It is just mind

00:01:04.140 boggling what the Prime Minister announced on Thursday of last week. The Atlantic Canadians

00:01:09.860 are getting a break on the carbon tax. They're also getting money for heat pumps.

00:01:14.940 Heat pumps. Heat pumps. So, you know, we had a very interesting couple of weeks, maybe even a month or so,

00:01:22.480 where the Prime Minister was seeing poll numbers drop. And quite substantially, especially in Atlantic

00:01:27.680 Canada, because it gets cold there. And people heat with propane and oil and that kind of thing,

00:01:32.660 which is all subject now to the carbon tax and the clean fuel standard. So, a massive rise in the price

00:01:39.480 of fuel. And it was the poll numbers that actually got Justin Trudeau to react.

00:01:44.720 That's quite something because for, conservatives have been talking about how simple things like

00:01:50.580 being able to heat our homes has become unaffordable with Justin Trudeau's carbon tax. And now,

00:01:55.840 all of a sudden, after being lectured, and Canadians being lectured for a number of years about how good

00:02:02.580 they supposedly have it, finally the Prime Minister, it's like this little crack in the facade,

00:02:08.380 this fake facade of the carbon tax, that shows that they're acknowledging, basically, that all

00:02:14.600 of a sudden, life has become unaffordable. But instead of giving Canadians a break, instead of

00:02:19.120 giving all Canadians a break, and as Jamie, I don't know about you here in Ontario, but I know back in

00:02:25.080 Alberta, it gets cold in the winter, the maritime's cold as the snow comes. But instead of giving all

00:02:30.200 Canadians a break, 3% of Canadians will get a break with this announcement. And what was interesting

00:02:36.880 about this announcement is he made a big deal out of it. It's simply a pause. So he's not saying

00:02:41.660 Canadians will be able to have a break in the long term. They're simply pausing the pain for

00:02:46.440 three years, and then they'll make sure that Canadians still suffer later on. And the carbon tax 0.87

00:02:50.980 goes up every single year. So in that three-year period, well, after the next election, then the

00:02:57.480 Atlantic Canadian provinces will be hit with a massive sticker shock. Yeah, yeah. And they're saying

00:03:03.340 that everybody, it's like Oprah, free things, free things here, free things there, that everybody

00:03:09.920 will get these heat pumps, which, fine, and a lot of people may choose to put a heat pump in their

00:03:13.820 home. But for the Prime Minister to come and say that this is free, well, I'm sorry, government

00:03:19.900 doesn't give anything out for free. It's taxpayers that are ultimately paying for this, they're paying

00:03:25.500 for it at the carbon tax, they're paying for it. And what's worse is we're deficit financing these

00:03:29.380 things. So we're paying higher interest rates on the things that the Prime Minister is supposedly

00:03:34.100 giving out for free. Exactly. Government doesn't have anything until it takes it first, either

00:03:39.660 taxing, borrowing, or printing, combination thereof, and that's exactly what's happening here.

00:03:44.340 Let's queue up cut one, Super Producer Nick. We're going to listen to the Prime Minister

00:03:48.240 say this announcement, and try not to laugh on your way through it, but let's listen to the

00:03:53.560 Prime Minister play cut one. Today, we are announcing a three-year pause

00:03:59.120 on the federal pollution price on heating oil, so that we can give everyone the time and ability

00:04:06.740 to switch to heat pumps.

00:04:10.580 So the time and the ability. So people aren't doing it on their own, so the government must

00:04:15.460 force you into moving in the direction the government wants you to go.

00:04:19.100 I think this highlights the real basis of what the carbon tax is about. It is about forcing

00:04:24.460 Canadians, forcing people to change. And the Liberals have talked from the beginning about

00:04:30.320 how the carbon tax is about the environment. Well, we've seen over the last eight years

00:04:34.880 that it hasn't actually worked. Every metric to which they said that it would help, it has

00:04:39.940 not. So definitively, the carbon tax is not an environmental policy. But then what they

00:04:45.080 fail to talk about, and it's truly misleading, when they talk about affordability, when the

00:04:51.460 carbon tax, by nature of how it is designed, is meant to make your and my and every Canadian's

00:04:57.800 life more expensive. And so they're succeeding in doing that, yet now all of a sudden, because

00:05:03.300 there's a drop in poll numbers, they are now having to address this on the other side of

00:05:09.260 it. It truly is just chaos when it comes to public policy. And ultimately, Canadians are the 0.99

00:05:14.840 ones that are having to pay the price, whether it's for the supposedly free heat pumps, or

00:05:20.540 for the fact that 97% of Canadians are not getting this break on the carbon tax when it

00:05:25.600 comes to the cold winter that's, well, it's snowing outside in Ottawa today, Jamie. So people

00:05:31.220 are going to be turning on their heat, and they're paying the carbon tax.

00:05:33.600 And they will pay the carbon tax. And it's quite just amazing. I got to give Prime Minister Trudeau

00:05:42.800 credit. You know, I don't give it often. But the ability to have, you know, no emotional

00:05:48.680 discomfort on what he is saying. Like, the government created the problem. Now he wants

00:05:56.780 people to carry him on their shoulders because he solved the problem, which is horrible government

00:06:04.220 policy that will kick in in three years' time. And this is, as you said, this is about raising

00:06:10.040 the cost of living on things the government considers bad. This is having the exact effect

00:06:15.300 they wanted. Now that it becomes politically unpopular, they have to gear down a bit. It doesn't

00:06:20.420 mean they don't want this at the end of the day.

00:06:22.020 It is nonsensical. And it comes down to bad public policy. It's making Canadians' lives

00:06:27.920 more expensive. And it is breaking the ability for Canadians to do the most basic of things

00:06:32.700 like buy groceries, eat their homes. And that's by design what they have done. And yet now they're

00:06:38.580 backtracking from that. After, I might mention, and I know you've heard this in the House of

00:06:42.540 Commons on a weekly basis for the last, since I got elected in 2019, I have heard the Liberals

00:06:50.000 lecture us about how great their carbon tax is, and now they're backing down on it.

00:06:54.300 And there was a motion, Conservative motion, to remove the carbon tax. And every single

00:07:00.080 Atlantic Canadian MP, Liberal, voted against it.

00:07:03.680 Several times. And this isn't just about politics, but this is about making sure that

00:07:09.020 life is affordable for all Canadians. Canadian winters are cold. Why don't we give them a break?

00:07:13.820 And I think that, you know, it shows that we have a Prime Minister who is desperate right

00:07:18.860 now. He's seeing his poll numbers drop. He's seeing frustration from coast to coast to coast.

00:07:24.100 And now all of a sudden, he is desperate to try and change the channel. But I don't know

00:07:28.740 about you, Jamie, but when I speak to my constituents, they are worried about being able to afford their

00:07:35.860 next meal. They're terrified about the price of fuel at the pump, the bills that they have

00:07:40.280 to pay. It's becoming unaffordable. That's by design what the Liberals have inflicted.

00:07:45.100 Absolutely. Let's cue up cut number three, because it even gets better here. Play cut three.

00:07:51.280 The price signal on heating oil is not resulting in enough people being able to switch to electric

00:07:58.380 heat pumps, despite people wanting to move to these cleaner home heating options.

00:08:04.160 I think that clip is very telling. Yes. That clip is extremely. So the price that the home

00:08:12.440 heating oil has got to has got so unaffordable for people, it's hard for them to look for

00:08:17.340 alternatives at the point. So the government caused people to suffer. The suffering was too much that

00:08:23.640 they cannot look for alternatives. So now we have to take money from other parts of the country,

00:08:28.780 taxed, borrowed, or printed, combination thereof, to help get these people in a better position using

00:08:35.020 a government-chosen option, which is heat pumps, which not necessarily works for everybody.

00:08:42.700 Like, this is, it is absolutely incredible. And he says it with a straight face. Like,

00:08:48.060 that's what boggles my mind. Like, you really have to shove this shovel in pretty deep to listen to

00:08:52.860 what's going on right now. You know, I grew up farming, and there's, uh, shoveling manure is a good

00:08:58.000 comparison. Well, that's what I was getting to. Exactly what the Prime Minister is doing. But,

00:09:01.120 but exactly what he just shared there, Jamie, is, is an admission that their entire carbon tax scheme

00:09:08.160 is an abject failure. That's right. It is a failure from, from front to back. And while they carve out

00:09:14.460 a small exemption, a pause, it's not even an exemption. It's a pause, that's right. A pause for, for three

00:09:18.660 percent of, of, of Canadians. 97% of Canadians are still hurting. And meanwhile, they've, they've

00:09:25.740 implicitly acknowledged that the whole plan is simply a failure. British Columbia has had the

00:09:31.140 carbon tax in the longest. The provincial carbon tax emissions ever since it's come into effect have

00:09:35.860 continued to rise. And it's no longer revenue neutral as it started out to be. So then it becomes

00:09:41.500 a cash grab for the government. It's not about saving the planet. It becomes about padding the

00:09:47.040 government's bottom line. Yeah. When it started in, in 2015, they said it would never go above

00:09:52.780 50. That's right. Yeah. Well, that was a lie. And then, then they lied about it and, and, and waited

00:09:57.400 till after the next election. And then it, well, all of a sudden was $170 a tonne. Well, there, there

00:10:02.340 are, are, are those that suggest that it should be much higher than that, including some within

00:10:06.660 the Liberal Party. So where does it end? It, it's driving Canadians to, to, into poverty and certainly

00:10:12.420 into energy poverty at a time. And, and certainly from being from Alberta, we, and I'm proud to

00:10:18.180 represent an energy producing region to think that there are Canadians facing energy

00:10:23.100 poverty. It is, and it shows how truly, uh, uh, things have deteriorated over the last eight

00:10:29.800 years. Uh, it's become unaffordable and, and, uh, and yet we have all of these resources that

00:10:35.660 should be available and affordable for Canadians and produced in a, in a clean and ethical way.

00:10:41.580 Like the Shamwell spokesperson. There is more. The icing on the cake, Damien. Cue up cut number

00:10:48.280 four. This says it all. They said the quiet part out loud. Play cut four. Is your government

00:10:54.140 open to, uh, because of the affordability crisis right across this country, looking at other

00:10:58.620 carve outs for other types of home heating in the future? That's a discussion that we'll

00:11:02.720 have down the road when we know that this one is working, but I can tell you Atlantic Caucus

00:11:07.040 was vocal with what they've heard from their constituents. And, uh, perhaps they need to

00:11:12.660 elect more liberals on the prairies that we can have that conversation as well.

00:11:22.200 What do you think, Jamie? Tell us what you really think.

00:11:27.420 So clearly Albertans are not electing enough liberals. That, that seems to be the sum of it.

00:11:34.060 There's, there's two things here. For the last number of months, the environment minister,

00:11:40.060 Stephen Guibault, has been picking fights with prairie provinces, saying that there will not

00:11:45.880 be exceptions. There will not be exemptions. It is national standards the whole way through.

00:11:51.620 And then this comes along, throws all of that out the window, showing that there are double standards

00:11:56.220 that exist within the Liberal Party. And then for that minister to come out and say, well,

00:12:01.740 the solution is elect more people that you disagree with, that don't want to do what's best for you

00:12:07.460 in order to do the things that you've promised not to do. Like, like it's political comedy, Jamie.

00:12:14.620 Yes. Putting it simply, yes. And, and I think increasingly, uh, Canadians are seeing through this.

00:12:22.220 It is, it is, it is absurd to think that a minister of the crown would suggest that a, uh, that they

00:12:30.320 should only listen to people that vote for them. Right. Yeah. As a leader, and, and you and I know

00:12:36.500 this, we may not agree with everybody, but it's our job to listen. A hundred percent.

00:12:41.280 Yet you have that minister saying that they only care about liberals. They only care about people

00:12:45.580 that support the carbon. And they're going to punish those that don't. They're going to punish those.

00:12:49.020 It's truly despicable. And it is despicable. I just can't believe she said the quiet part out loud.

00:12:54.300 I'm sure she got flack for that immediately after she was done. But it, again, it's, it's about the

00:13:00.780 seat count, right? 32 seats in Atlantic Canada, right? They were at risk of losing a ton of those

00:13:06.560 seats because, because you can say, what about those MPs, Liberal MPs in Northern Ontario? It gets

00:13:11.580 very cold in Northern Ontario. There was no carve out. Yeah. They have a few, not many, hopefully less.

00:13:17.220 Alberta Liberal MPs. Did they do a terrible job of advocating for their province? British Columbia

00:13:25.340 too. It's up over $2 a litre for, for gasoline. Yeah. Are they doing a pretty terrible job? I'd say

00:13:31.320 overall, yes, the Liberals are, but it's about seats. It's not about this, the saving the planet or,

00:13:39.460 or, you know, helping people get to heat pumps. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And I think

00:13:45.320 that the fact that, that on national television, they admitted just that, that it has nothing to

00:13:51.160 do about helping Canadians. It has nothing to do about the environment. It has everything to do with

00:13:55.920 that cruel political calculation. And, and unless it benefits the prime minister and, and his party

00:14:03.900 politically, they're not interested in helping. And I think that that's, that's where there's a clear

00:14:09.600 contrast that exists in the Canadian political scene. You, you have one party that cares about

00:14:14.700 Canadians making life affordable for all Canadians, or you have the Liberals that care nothing for,

00:14:20.200 for nothing other than their own, their own political futures. And, and right now, as we're seeing,

00:14:26.440 the fact that they are admitting such failure shows that their political future might be a risk,

00:14:33.340 which I think is, is where as conservatives, we have the chance to make the case to say, look at

00:14:38.460 better as possible. We have a plan that will make life more affordable for Canadians, that we can axe

00:14:45.780 the carbon tax, that we can have environmental policy that actually works, that we can inspire

00:14:50.580 people to, to build things again in this country, not punish them for not voting the, what, what,

00:14:56.900 what a Liberal cabinet minister thinks is the right way. Yeah. That is absolutely awful. What,

00:15:03.240 what, what has just said, I have no doubt Atlantic Canadians will see through this. Yeah. Because,

00:15:07.760 again, as pointed out, it's, it's not an end to the carbon tax. Their, their misery will not

00:15:13.360 end, because in three years, it will come back, and it will come back with a vengeance, because you'll

00:15:18.860 get the higher price three years down the road. That's true. So, Damien, we're pretty much out of

00:15:23.560 time. I, I wanted to play that last clip one more time, just to, just to send it out, but I don't think

00:15:29.260 we have time. Well, it's, I think it's almost queued up. All right, play cut four again. We'll

00:15:32.960 close it out, get your final thoughts, play cut four. Is your government open to, because of the

00:15:37.180 affordability crisis right across this country, looking at other carve-outs for other types of

00:15:41.020 home heating in the future? That's a discussion that we'll have down the road when we know that

00:15:45.080 this one is working. But I can tell you, Atlantic caucus was vocal with what they've heard from

00:15:50.400 their constituents, and perhaps they need to elect more Liberals on the prairies so that we can have

00:15:55.600 that conversation as well. All right, Damien Keurig, final thoughts are yours. The floor.

00:16:01.100 Wow. Please take it away. Thanks, Jamie, for this opportunity. You know, it's, it's, it's been

00:16:06.060 quite a weekend, as we've seen the Liberals admit that their carbon tax is a failure. They admit that

00:16:12.680 they are making life unaffordable for Canadians, and while they, they certainly have not presented this

00:16:18.340 small little carve-out for a few people, delaying the misery by three years while pouring what, what will,

00:16:25.160 I'm sure, be millions of tax dollars into a government-funded program, like you said, that,

00:16:30.340 that, that will, will, is, is manipulating markets. It just shows truly what the Liberals are,

00:16:38.220 that, that after eight years, the pain and suffering the Canadians are feeling is real.

00:16:42.720 But that there is an alternative, where there is hope, there is a chance that we can do better,

00:16:47.860 we can axe the carbon tax, we can bring back affordability on so many levels, and make sure

00:16:52.200 that Canada once, once again becomes the freest nation on earth. And, uh, I can tell you, it will

00:16:58.580 be, uh, uh, dramatically different than what we've seen from these Liberals over the last few days,

00:17:04.980 but more importantly, from what we've seen over these Liberals in, over the last eight years.

00:17:09.820 Better is possible, and I'm proud to be a part of the team that's going to make that happen.

00:17:12.920 Justin Trudeau is just not worth the cost.

00:17:15.540 Thank you so much, Damian Keurig, Member of Parliament for Battle River Crowfoot.

00:17:19.620 We appreciate his time, we appreciate yours as well. New content for you every single Tuesday,

00:17:24.580 1.30pm Eastern Time. Great content here on this program. Please like, comment, subscribe,

00:17:29.440 and share it. Also, you can download it, listen to our platforms like CastBox, iTunes,

00:17:33.740 Google Play, and Spotify. Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government,

00:17:39.480 more freedom. That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - November 08, 2023

Liberals in Free Fall

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