Mandates, Democracy and Unity
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
213.11597
Summary
In this fiery episode, Conservative MP Raquel Dancho and her colleague, Stephen Ellis, discuss the lifting of some of Canada's most restrictive travel restrictions, and the need for a plan to give Canadians hope for the future.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:08.280
host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Kawartha Lakes, Brock, with new
00:00:11.740
content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time, give or take. We ask that you
00:00:16.840
like, comment, subscribe, share this program, help us push back against the ever-moving
00:00:20.900
Liberal agenda. And do we ever have a great program for you, a fiery program, in our brand
00:00:25.920
new studio? We have a couple of guests for you. They're going to talk about mandates,
00:00:29.380
we're going to talk about getting back to normal, and we're going to talk about people
00:00:32.660
pushing to have their message heard. So, if you can't listen or watch it all right this
00:00:37.860
second, please download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name
00:00:43.400
it. It is out there. Two returning guests here for this fiery program. We have Raquel Dancho,
00:00:48.180
the Member of Parliament for Kildonan St. Paul in the beautiful province of Manitoba. She's
00:00:52.660
also the public safety critic for the Conservative Party. And we also have Stephen Ellis, Dr. Stephen
00:00:58.580
Ellis, Cumberland Colchester. It's his writing. He's also the Special Advisor for COVID-19.
00:01:03.780
We welcome them both back on an important topic. A lot has been happening in Ottawa.
00:01:11.700
So, we have Joel Lightbound coming out today, saying that the government needs to ease restrictions.
00:01:17.060
We need to talk about a plan to give people hope for the future. And maybe we'll start with you,
00:01:22.420
Raquel, because you had a fiery speech yesterday in the House of Commons. I think anyone who has not seen that
00:01:27.540
speech needs to go to our Facebook page and listen to that speech. It is amazing.
00:01:32.740
Basically, what you said yesterday is what Joel Lightbound, the Liberal MP from Quebec,
00:01:37.780
Yeah, so two things on Mr. Lightbound. Number one, I applaud his courage. He put a lot on the line,
00:01:43.460
and I wonder, I hope he stays in Liberal Caucus, but based on Trudeau's track record of dealing with
00:01:48.260
those who don't agree with his very narrow vision of what diversity means, I fear that he may not be
00:01:54.580
long for that Liberal Caucus. But I really applaud his courage. And the second thing is,
00:01:59.460
is I think we've heard what he said before. I think Conservatives have been saying for quite some
00:02:04.340
time that we need to come forward with a real plan. We need to see the government bring forward
00:02:09.060
thresholds, metrics to give Canadians hope that we are going to get out of this, that these
00:02:13.460
restrictions are going to end, that these divisive policies are going to end. I know Michelle Rumpel-Garner,
00:02:19.140
which she was held critic over well over a year ago, she was talking about please present a plan
00:02:23.300
to give Canadians hope. And Dr. Ellis, I know that you have particular expertise on this. I'm not
00:02:27.700
sure if you'd like to pick up about what kind of, you know, we need a plan. I think that's a valuable
00:02:31.540
and reasonable thing to ask two years into this. I agree 100%, Raquel. You know, it's very disappointing
00:02:36.660
to have this lack of leadership that has plagued this country for many years now, and certainly been
00:02:41.860
magnified over the last two years. And it has, as Jamie said, taken away the hope for Canadians as to what the
00:02:48.740
future is going to bring for all of us. And now that we begin to see these lifting of restrictions
00:02:54.260
and mandates and lockdowns, Canadians can begin to have plans for their future and to have some
00:02:59.060
excitement back in their life. You know, as we were speaking beforehand, it's so liberating to think
00:03:04.980
that, hey, you don't have to have a pass or a mask, those kinds of things, and to get back to that life
00:03:11.060
that we've all been used to. So it's an exciting day for Canadians, absolutely.
00:03:15.140
So the province of Saskatchewan announced today that they're lifting restrictions on the vaccine
00:03:19.460
passports as of this coming Sunday. By the end of the month, all other restrictions will be lifted.
00:03:25.300
And so I think that is giving people some hope, some renewed vision that we can get back to normal.
00:03:31.300
And some of these measures are temporary, but in terms of the federal mandates, when travel,
00:03:37.140
that kind of thing, nothing seems to be moving.
00:03:40.020
I think Trudeau in his remarks yesterday doubled down.
00:03:42.500
He doubled down on legitimizing his approach to this, which, I mean, it was only two,
00:03:47.220
two and a half weeks ago that what sparked this entire movement and demonstration across
00:03:52.340
the country was his new mandate. And so this is two years into the pandemic, and he's still using
00:03:57.700
the same tools that he's been using all along. And we know that all these tools are important,
00:04:01.540
but we see other jurisdictions across the world moving forward and at least giving their
00:04:05.940
constituents and their citizens hope. Here's a plan. This is how we're going to go about doing this.
00:04:10.340
And I think it's perfectly reasonable for Canadians to expect that two years into this,
00:04:14.820
two years of trauma, two years of hardship and job loss and mental anguish, and we can go on and
00:04:20.260
on and on. Every Canadian has felt different levels of trauma. I think it's reasonable for Canadians to
00:04:25.940
say, okay, enough is enough. We need to know how this is going to end. And we need to see a positive
00:04:31.860
move forward. And I was so disappointed. Last thing I'll say, so disappointed sitting across from the
00:04:36.020
prime minister, 20 feet away from him. He's been silent on this large, other than to come out
00:04:41.300
of hiding and name call and raise the temperature. He's been silent. And he takes this massive platform,
00:04:47.300
the world is watching, and just doubles down. No compassionate leadership, no bridge building.
00:04:52.580
I was incredibly disappointed. I think a lot of Canadians were. And even his
00:04:55.700
chief medical advisor, Dr. Theresa Tam, is saying, we need to rethink these mandates. We need to rethink
00:05:01.700
provincial and federal ways of doing business, which I think has been our message for a long time.
00:05:07.460
Absolutely. You know, and I think when we look at other jurisdictions around the world, we realize
00:05:11.620
that the UK's vaccination rates are much lower than those here in Canada and other countries like
00:05:17.860
Denmark, et cetera, again, lower than Canadian standards. Canadians have done their part for
00:05:23.140
everybody. You know, they've had each other's backs. Let's be honest. It's Canadians who've had each
00:05:27.140
other's backs. And the prime minister has showed this lack of leadership over and over and over again,
00:05:33.140
being very divisive. I can't understand it. That's certainly not any style of leadership that anyone
00:05:38.020
that I know could possibly understand or support. And, you know, I think it's exciting that we want to
00:05:43.380
bring forward this message of hope for Canadians and unifying Canadians and that obviously the government
00:05:50.580
in waiting is that of the Conservative Party. And we're ready and willing, able to move forward and
00:05:56.340
govern this country in the way it should be. And isn't it concerning that the prime minister and
00:06:01.140
Joel Lightbound spoke to this, and we've been talking about it forever. That's the other frustrating
00:06:04.660
part. A lot of the stuff that Joel Lightbound was talking about just in his press conference
00:06:08.900
this morning, we've been talking about for months, if not years. And the division, you know,
00:06:14.740
this was not a polarized topic. The idea of mandates and vaccines was not polarized prior to going into
00:06:19.780
the election. But when the election was called, the prime minister's poll numbers started to go
00:06:24.820
downhill. He needed a new victim, right? We had east versus west, rich versus poor, urban versus
00:06:29.620
rural. Those were all the visions that were sowed before the election. Then it became vaccinated versus
00:06:34.820
unvaccinated in order to win the election. That seems to be his go-to, the way that he operates in
00:06:41.460
elections is to divide and conquer, I guess, is the way that he does that. Rather than presenting a
00:06:46.420
unifying vision for the country that people can really get excited and get behind and move forward
00:06:51.140
together as a united country, which we know is not easy in Canada. This is a lot of hard work to
00:06:55.860
keep Canada united as a country for so many different historic reasons. And we're just seeing
00:07:01.220
him take the divisions and use them to his advantage and just sort of twist this evil knife
00:07:06.980
to further divide Canadians. And again, I think it was not the case that his government this time
00:07:12.340
around, this minority government, his second minority government, won the lowest percentage of the
00:07:16.740
popular vote in the history per capita in the history of Canada. So they have a very weak hold
00:07:22.100
on power, relatively speaking. And yet he's just doubling down on this divisive rhetoric. And I
00:07:27.220
think your average Canadian, and we're seeing this in the polls, over 50% of Canadians now are saying,
00:07:31.780
you know what, I've had about enough of this. I've done everything I was told. This is too hard on my
00:07:35.380
kids, too hard on me, too hard on my elderly parents. Let's move forward. And yet the prime minister
00:07:40.020
has completely been disconnected from that. So I think his speech was tone deaf. The world was watching.
00:07:44.340
It was an opportunity to show, you know, almost, you know, a prime ministerial level of leadership,
00:07:48.980
so to speak. And it fell very flat and tone deaf. And we're seeing a massive shift, I think,
00:07:53.300
within even media in Ottawa, saying, okay, this isn't, this isn't working. This is not deescalating.
00:07:58.740
Where's the leadership? You know, and I think Canadians, as you said, Raquel, they readily and easily
00:08:04.340
recognize that enough is enough. You know, people have given up everything, you know, the fact that you
00:08:10.420
couldn't, and some places still cannot visit your loved one in a nursing home. That's very,
00:08:15.780
very traumatic for people. And you think back to the times where, you know, people, they're not even
00:08:20.820
hugging each other, they're missing out on birthdays and bar mitzvahs and weddings and funerals.
00:08:26.580
This is unacceptable. I really think and believe that it's important that we understand that
00:08:32.260
our lives are not simply about COVID. We have to think about our financial health, our social health,
00:08:37.300
our mental health, and our physical health. And when we look at that, that's the idea of a government
00:08:42.420
is to take all of those things into consideration to not be one minded and exclusionary. And as you
00:08:48.580
said, Raquel, divisive. And that's what we've seen from this government. And that's intolerable to all
00:08:53.540
of us. And just think of this, the measures that the government has put in place that have really
00:08:58.260
punished those for differing views. You think about the fact that those who aren't getting vaccine for
00:09:05.220
whatever reason, they're now ineligible for employment insurance, like, that's their money
00:09:10.180
that they put in, they paid into, and now they can't even access it. Because this, this prime
00:09:14.420
minister just wants to divide and conquer. Yeah, and I think, you know, our party has been very loud
00:09:19.060
and clear right from the get go, when vaccines were first being procured, our support for vaccination,
00:09:23.300
and the hard work we put in to deliver that option for Canadians at a massive scale. Of course,
00:09:27.700
we were very slow to get those vaccines at first, which I believe, still to this day led to the third
00:09:31.860
wave of the pandemic. But once we got them, it was great to see. And we had a huge uptake.
00:09:36.260
And we also know many, many thousands of Canadians have died of COVID, have long COVID,
00:09:39.780
delayed surgeries, the trauma is real, and some people will never take their masks off,
00:09:43.220
will never travel. And that's important to acknowledge. Absolutely. And, but that being said,
00:09:48.260
just like you said, we need to, we need to have a prime minister who's going to bring us together
00:09:52.900
and move forward. It's almost as if this, for him, he's happy if this never ends. He seems to just
00:09:58.900
enjoy, as you said, punishing people. And the policies aren't changing at all. There's,
00:10:03.940
there's just no, um, no collaboration. And our, our, our leader had brought forward yesterday,
00:10:09.300
showed real class and leadership and said, wrote him a letter and said, let's meet all parties
00:10:13.780
together. Let's sit at the table and talk about solutions. It is time. And, um, well,
00:10:18.660
we saw his response to that in the speech yesterday, no change. He might as well have stayed at home
00:10:22.500
in hiding for all the good that speech did. So I'm, I continue to be disappointed, but I have hope.
00:10:27.940
I've hoped the, the winds are changing and we'll see increasing provinces, uh, opening up and
00:10:32.580
hopefully the federal government will catch up. I hope so too. So, uh, Dr. Ellis, do you think
00:10:37.140
it made sense at this point in time for the government to implement some of these mandates,
00:10:41.380
hang on to some of the travel mandates that are in place, hang on to some of these border mandates
00:10:45.380
that are in place? It's, it's, is it time or is it not time to start relaxing some of this?
00:10:49.540
You know, Jamie, yeah, you know, I, I certainly can't see why we know that, uh, the Omicron variant is,
00:10:55.940
is in the United States, for instance, it's in Canada. We all know many people who have had it
00:11:00.740
now. Uh, we know that it's, it's relatively, relatively ubiquitous and given that sense,
00:11:06.420
you know, and also given the idea that Canadians have the right to reenter their own country.
00:11:11.220
How can we block their reentry by saying you need a test or you need to go isolate? And,
00:11:15.620
and we also know the terrible stories that we've heard from people being randomly selected to have
00:11:20.500
another test and having to wait at home many, many days for the answer as to whether you're
00:11:25.220
positive or negative and be in isolation and not be able to be a productive member of society.
00:11:30.100
That type of punishment, again, is absolutely and utterly inappropriate. So I, I think that,
00:11:35.220
you know, some of the things that we need to look at as Canada's Conservatives, being the voice of the
00:11:38.900
people, is how do we move forward with those things? And I think, Raquel, you, you have some things
00:11:43.460
to say with respect to that as well. Yeah, Dr. Ellis, very level-headed response there that I think a lot of
00:11:47.460
Canadians are connecting with. And, and one thing I want to say on travel, what I heard from a lot of
00:11:50.900
my constituents was the reason they got them actually, well, to do their part. That was the
00:11:54.020
message from governments, for sure. But a lot of it was a motivating self-interest. Like, I want to
00:11:58.740
travel. I want to travel. Yeah, I want my life back. Governments have said, we promise to give you
00:12:03.620
your life back if you do this. And then Omnicrom came along and we know it was, you know, this is,
00:12:08.100
we're learning things as we go. I recognize that. But people had been promised their lives back. People have
00:12:13.220
been promised to go deal with their businesses across the border, or their properties,
00:12:17.220
or take their kids to travel to get some relief from all of this chaos. And that opportunity was
00:12:22.660
shut down. And now if you try to travel, the policies are so vindictive in a way that it
00:12:27.220
punishes you, shame on you for traveling. But they were promised they could travel if they stepped up.
00:12:32.340
And so in, in some, what I'm saying is, I think that we, people lose trust in government at a time
00:12:38.100
that we need to have trust. And it's things like that, that make people not trust their governments.
00:12:43.300
And so I think it is really time for this national discussion to happen. You know, timing is
00:12:48.820
everything. And I'm glad to see it happening finally after two long years. Absolutely. It's a
00:12:52.900
great conversation, our brand new studio. Usually I give the guests, it is kind of nice, isn't it?
00:12:57.620
It is hopefully the one of many. I usually give the guests the last word, but we do have to cut away
00:13:02.580
because we have question period coming up. We have the leader that's going to take over on this channel.
00:13:06.820
So please stick around for question period. Candice Bergen and the rest of the team, uh,
00:13:10.580
holding the Liberal government to a town. We do appreciate you joining us here today. If you like
00:13:14.420
the content, I think it was really good. Please like, comment, subscribe, share this program. Together,
00:13:19.220
we can give a narrative that is not being talked about on the mainstream media. As always, new content
00:13:24.020
every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.