Mark Carney’s massive conflicts of interest.
Episode Stats
Words per minute
171.06027
Summary
On today's show, we are joined by Eric Melillo, MP for Kanora-Kanata-Kawakanong, to talk about the latest food price report and the Prime Minister's conflict with Brookfield Access.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
00:00:13.840
your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Cawortha Lakes with new content
00:00:17.460
for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe
00:00:21.980
and share this program. Your friends can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google
00:00:26.560
Play and Spotify, you name it, it is out there. On today's show, we are going to talk about
00:00:31.600
the latest food price reports that is showing Canadians will be paying a lot more for groceries.
00:00:37.440
Also, the Prime Minister appears to continue to be in conflict with Brisbane Brookfield
00:00:42.680
Access. To talk about that and so much more, we are bringing on Eric Melillo, the Member
00:00:47.060
of Parliament for Kanora Kiwaitanong. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.
00:00:51.540
Good to be back. Apparently, it's been a minute since you've been on the show. Yeah, I think
00:00:55.240
like five or six years, maybe. I was starting to think you didn't like me. Oh, I apologize.
00:00:59.320
And you know what? Looking back, it actually gets worse because we were only audio at the
00:01:04.900
time. We didn't have video in this podcast. That's how long ago it was. After the 2019
00:01:10.180
election, you and Raquel Dancho were the guests talking about the youth and how the youth, according
00:01:17.020
to the Liberals, and so they thought they had the youth locked down. They had that vote locked
00:01:20.980
down. Turns out, you weren't unicorns after all. It actually grew into a bigger movement.
00:01:25.660
Absolutely. I think what we're seeing is more and more young Canadians looking to the Conservative
00:01:30.940
Party with the cost of living, whether it's groceries, gas, housing. I mean, youth have given
00:01:36.880
up completely on their dream of home ownership. It's no longer a goal that they're looking to
00:01:41.440
as something attainable, but just a faraway dream. Many can't afford groceries. Many aren't
00:01:47.320
even thinking about home ownership. There are a whole slew of problems in front of young
00:01:52.660
people, jobs, the economy, and this has come to the point. So the Conservative Party has
00:01:58.900
actually expanded its group of voter base, that being young people.
00:02:04.780
Absolutely. And we see that in MPs that we've elected as well, especially in this last election,
00:02:09.280
Suckman Gill out in the Lower Mainland in BC. We have Jonathan Rowe in Newfoundland and many
00:02:15.620
others that are joining the fold. I mean, we see it in the voter coalition as well. I think
00:02:19.520
young people that are coming to looking at our party. You mentioned the cost of living,
00:02:25.100
the unemployment. Youth unemployment is at the highest point it's been since 2010 if you take
00:02:30.240
out the COVID pandemic. So I think a lot of young people aren't able to find jobs. They're struggling
00:02:36.000
with the cost of living. They've given up, to your point, completely on the dream of home ownership.
00:02:40.080
It's not even something that is thought of as an attainable goal. It's just this sort of faraway
00:02:44.500
dream that although their parents and grandparents had it, it just doesn't seem like it's reality
00:02:48.580
in Canada today after what's now 10 years of Liberal government.
00:02:51.580
And the latest job report shows a bump in the number of part-time jobs, which any job is good,
00:02:58.860
but at the same time, the number of full-time jobs, that's not where the growth was.
00:03:04.000
And when you look at the sectors that did experience some bumps, it was all sectors that rely on government
00:03:11.140
funding, right? Social programs, there was some defense spending that went into it, but it isn't
00:03:16.440
being driven by private sector investment, which is the key to growing the economy in a way that's
00:03:22.240
sustainable in the long term. Absolutely. Full-time employment is down. To me, that's the headline of
00:03:27.980
the latest job numbers. And at the end of the day, even those with a part-time or in some cases full-time
00:03:33.380
job, many Canadians with jobs are still going to the food bank. They're still struggling to get by.
00:03:38.580
I think that's why we're seeing two million Canadians in a single month using the food bank
00:03:43.520
record numbers. Again, this is unheard of in Canada, but this is just the reality of the
00:03:48.380
Liberal economic plan at work. Yeah, it really is to think that two million Canadians, like numbers
00:03:53.380
that we never thought were possible before. And unfortunately, it's not getting much better
00:03:57.360
because the latest food price report, and I'll get this right here. So next year, 2026,
00:04:03.560
Canadians are on average going to spend $1,000 more next year on groceries than they are
00:04:10.320
this year. And that's on top of last year, 2024, 2023, where we've just seen increase after increase
00:04:17.980
after increase to the point now, the annual cost for a family of four on groceries, $17,571.79. Unreal.
00:04:28.880
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. It really is. And I mean, you say unbelievable, but if you go to the grocery
00:04:34.220
store, you see it every single day. And I think it's a lot of essential staple items, you know,
00:04:39.860
things like beef, meat, coffee, I know is one that's jumped up. Yeah, coffee is number one,
00:04:44.720
actually, for the jump. So a lot of things that Canadians are consuming or wanting to consume
00:04:49.840
every single day. And it's to the point where, I mean, when the Liberals first took office, I think
00:04:54.540
that we had a very good economic situation. And as time went on, as taxes have gone up,
00:04:59.420
as big government programs have continued to drive up the cost of living, people started to,
00:05:04.880
you know, cut back on some of the vacations and the concerts and some of those fun things. And then
00:05:09.760
now we're seeing cutbacks to children's activities and some of the more useful things. And it's at the
00:05:18.060
point now that many Canadians are just, again, struggling with the necessities. They're not
00:05:24.060
even thinking about vacation, they're just thinking about putting food on the table. And that's how much
00:05:28.000
things have changed for the worse in 10 years. It's completely unbelievable.
00:05:33.700
Yeah, when you think about in 2019, prior to the pandemic, like the effects of the Trudeau policies
00:05:40.000
were taking some impact with our resource sector and other, but the economy was still managing
00:05:46.140
to get by. The pandemic hit, of course, we know what happened. The government spent like crazy,
00:05:52.000
inflation's out of control. And now we're into the spot now where government spending continues,
00:05:57.320
about $80 billion in the hole this year. No foreseeable end to that. At the same time,
00:06:04.220
we have these agreements being signed with Alberta and the federal government to try to get a pipeline,
00:06:10.500
but it's all loaded on the one side where there are barriers on the British Columbia side,
00:06:15.760
unfortunately, with David Eby, the premier there, saying no. So will this nation building project
00:06:22.700
ever get a shovel in the ground? I hope so. I really do. I really hope it does. But the way
00:06:29.020
the Carney liberals are structuring this deal, there are many factors that would stop it.
00:06:36.480
Absolutely. It seems like Prime Minister Carney is trying to say some of the right things,
00:06:40.640
position this for failure. I don't understand any other logic as to what he's doing. I think it
00:06:47.400
makes sense. A lot of his caucuses is already out saying that this paper they signed isn't actually
00:06:52.300
going to get any of a pipeline built. So, you know, the Prime Minister, Mr. Carney, he ran on this
00:06:59.000
election and he was the man with the plan to get all these big projects built, get our economy back
00:07:03.100
on track. To your point, Jamie, what we're seeing is putting up barriers to getting those projects
00:07:08.020
built. And I think we're seeing not just a continuation of Trudeau's economic plan, but
00:07:12.800
doubling down on it. I think it's $90 billion in new spending was announced in this budget after
00:07:20.060
the Prime Minister promised that spending would go down. He promised that, you know, Canadians can
00:07:27.480
judge them by the prices at the grocery stores. Exactly. Yep. Prices are going up. And prices are
00:07:31.140
going up. You know, but by every metric he's setting for himself, he's missing. Yes. And, you know,
00:07:36.320
that's what the Prime Minister is going to have to explain to Canadians why he's setting all of
00:07:42.360
these standards, missing every single one of them as prices continue to skyrocket. The inflationary
00:07:46.940
industrial carbon tax still in place. Still there. Still there. By the relatively the same amount that
00:07:53.120
was taken off during the consumer carbon price. Exactly. Yeah. So interesting that for show you
00:07:59.140
remove the carbon tax of the retail level, but behind the scenes where people don't see it,
00:08:03.800
it's still being added. Exactly. Yeah. It's a hidden tax. All Canadians are paying it. And, you know,
00:08:08.980
especially on things like food, it's hitting the farmers, it's hitting the transportation, it's hitting
00:08:13.640
the grocery store itself. And that's being passed down. And, you know, now Canadians don't see it.
00:08:20.020
You know, the Prime Minister is saying the right things. But in reality, what he's actually doing
00:08:24.720
is continuing and doubling down on that same disastrous Liberal record, driving up more
00:08:30.360
inflationary spending, adding to the cost of living. And of course, when you take the housing
00:08:34.940
challenges and couple that with the grocery prices, it's one cost of living crisis that all
00:08:40.540
Canadians are facing. Yeah. No rebate. No rebate on this carbon tax, unfortunately. So it's really
00:08:45.760
something. But you're right. You know, housing, people can't afford to buy, builders can't afford
00:08:51.080
to build. It's a weird conundrum, the fact that we have a housing crisis all across the country right
00:08:58.500
now. Right. And we can't seem to get anything built because the cost of materials, the cost of
00:09:03.540
everything is way more than what people can afford because wages aren't growing at that same pace.
00:09:08.560
And we see it around your area. Sault Ste. Marie, we just had a very sad announcement just before
00:09:13.780
Christmas. Algoma Steel weighing off a thousand workers. We just had more, a few hundred more in
00:09:19.520
Sudbury. Absolutely stunning for a community of those sizes that rely on mining and the steel
00:09:27.720
industry. Absolutely. It's heartbreaking. That's right. I mean, mining, steel, I had forestry to that mix
00:09:33.580
as well. We saw an announcement with Cat Paper. I know that they had a bit of support, but that's
00:09:38.440
running out. That was temporary support. Ear Falls sawmill in my district. And I know, of course,
00:09:43.140
in British Columbia and in other areas as well, you know, workers across the country are, you know,
00:09:48.100
they're getting hit from all sides now, right? They've lost their job. Food prices are going up.
00:09:53.140
They're struggling to find housing. All of these things are just layering on top of each other,
00:09:58.680
making this economic situation that much more catastrophic for Canadians.
00:10:02.740
So even with the, this announcement with Alberta and Canada, I want to get back to that just
00:10:07.800
quickly and it leads us into our next topic. Prior to the election, Mark Carney's election,
00:10:14.220
he was always on the side of keeping the ground. That's right. But the company he was chair of,
00:10:19.260
Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Asset Management, was investing in oil development
00:10:26.000
in other parts of the country, around the UAE and others. So they were holding off development in
00:10:31.420
Canada, stifling our economic growth, stifling jobs, opportunity and wealth created at home here.
00:10:38.560
Investing over in other jurisdictions, creating those jobs, those opportunities, all that wealth.
00:10:45.220
And he moved his head office from Canada to New York City. Unbelievable. Just goes to show you.
00:10:53.560
So now we have Canada's top public servant and a few other Brookfield executives appearing at the
00:10:58.540
Ethics Committee to kind of take a dive in and a deeper look at the conflict of interest or potential
00:11:04.580
conflict of interest that the Prime Minister has with his stock shares and stock options in Brookfield.
00:11:12.660
And this was something that kind of continues to bubble because when you looked at the disclosure of the Prime Minister,
00:11:21.340
he still had areas that raised a lot of questions for a lot of people.
00:11:27.820
And let's queue up cut one here. We have the Ethics Committee going on, looking at Brookfield.
00:11:33.000
This is Michael Cooper, a colleague from Alberta, questioning officials here to actually find out how deep this goes
00:11:40.640
and what is actually at stake here. Is the decisions being made by the government still benefiting the Prime Minister
00:11:49.060
in a backhanded kind of way? So let's play cut one.
00:11:52.280
Mr. Carney's ethics disclosure states that he is entitled to carried interest payments, a.k.a.
00:12:00.460
future bonus pay, in respect of the performance of Brookfield's global transition funds.
00:12:07.680
But what is missing from Mr. Carney's disclosure are the holdings in this fund,
00:12:14.300
the companies that this fund is invested in. Would you agree that this is a significant and material
00:12:20.060
omission from the standpoint of knowing the extent of Mr. Carney's conflicts of interest?
00:12:25.860
Yes. And unfortunately, though, the disclosure rules allow for secret investments, essentially.
00:12:34.400
And by keeping these future shares, these options, the performance pay,
00:12:38.880
it could potentially be worth tens of billions of dollars.
00:12:42.040
So the allegation and what they're trying to achieve here at the Ethics Committee is
00:12:47.300
is these decisions that Mark Carney is making, these decisions his government is making,
00:12:54.860
Absolutely. And to give more context to what Mr. Cooper was asking about there,
00:13:00.600
there are, I believe, about 1,900 companies owned by Brookfield
00:13:05.620
that are not included in the Prime Minister's declaration.
00:13:09.500
So that's not being vetted, it's not being looked at, those are just companies that exist
00:13:16.620
so that as long as Brookfield is doing well, the Prime Minister will do well and gain from that.
00:13:21.540
And you already mentioned the hypocrisy where Mr. Carney is very fine to support pipelines
00:13:28.320
and I believe investments in coal and other sources outside of Canada.
00:13:35.840
But his entire career, he's done everything he can to keep our resources in the ground
00:13:42.500
So I think it raises a lot of questions about who the Prime Minister is working for.
00:13:47.180
Is this Mark Carney standing up for Canadians or is he standing up for Brookfield?
00:13:49.800
Well, considering 1,900 companies, that's a sizable amount.
00:13:53.480
I think that's unfathomable to the average Canadian to have that many,
00:13:58.080
being invested in that many companies and having that impact,
00:14:04.820
Absolutely. Let's continue the questioning here in the Ethics Committee.
00:14:07.840
Cue up, cut two. Michael Barrett's up here, the ethics critic.
00:14:13.240
Increases in Brookfield's performance increases the value of the instruments
00:14:25.000
In relation to the stock options and deferred share units,
00:14:27.860
yes, as the value of Brookfield increases, the value of those instruments increase.
00:14:32.380
There are also carried interest entitlements that relate more specifically to funds that we manage.
00:14:38.960
So I think what this is kind of pointing out is that the ethics screen that is supposedly in place,
00:14:45.320
it's not really catching what it's supposed to.
00:14:48.800
It's not actually putting up the walls, the barriers, that prevent these things from continuing to happen.
00:14:57.780
The potential that decisions made by the Prime Minister and this Liberal government
00:15:01.860
could, in fact, turn around and benefit those same people after they've done politics.
00:15:07.360
Absolutely. The vast majority of what the Prime Minister owns through Brookfield is falling through the cracks of that screen.
00:15:17.420
And, you know, let's remind Canadians that this is the Liberal government
00:15:21.120
that has the most ethics violations of any other government in Canadian history.
00:15:25.660
They're the most, objectively, the most unethical government by that standard.
00:15:29.040
So it raises a lot of concerns, I know, for myself and for folks I talk to back in northern Ontario
00:15:37.980
And again, at a time when Canadians are struggling just to put food on the table,
00:15:41.900
we have Prime Minister and Mark Kearney, who's clearly well-invested and well-connected with Brookfield
00:15:49.020
and I think has a history of hypocrisy in his decisions that make a lot of people concerned
00:15:56.780
that he's going to be making decisions with the interests of Brookfield in mind,
00:16:01.920
Exactly why I think Conservatives prefer smaller government.
00:16:06.240
So the market makes decisions, not the government trying to make investments in companies
00:16:13.140
or pathways they want the public to take, right?
00:16:18.100
You should be maximizing your freedom, not controlling the citizen's behavior.
00:16:23.060
And I think for those coming on the other side, from the lobbyists and lawyers,
00:16:29.240
Because you don't necessarily have to make the product work.
00:16:32.660
Sometimes it does, you get lucky, but the innovation doesn't come at a rapid pace.
00:16:36.640
The spark of innovation is in the marketplace, is in customers deciding what works best for them.
00:16:42.720
So for the companies, yeah, you know, lobby a few bureaucrats and politicians,
00:16:48.320
get some money handed your way, a lot easier than actually trying to make a product
00:16:52.480
and compete in the market space and hustle for the dollars of the consumer, right?
00:16:58.600
There's lots of consumers out there, a little bit in government.
00:17:01.320
Yeah, and this is what a big government liberal approach, that's what it's all about,
00:17:05.400
is creating that system that benefits the companies, the well-connected, all those insiders.
00:17:13.420
You and I both know, of course, that conservatives as a free market party,
00:17:18.600
we have that plan that will lower taxes, lower regulations,
00:17:22.900
allow the country to have a smaller government and bigger citizens
00:17:26.580
that can go out and achieve more in that free market.
00:17:31.140
It's a situation that will prevent situations like we're seeing here
00:17:38.340
with major conflicts of interest with Mark Carney.
00:17:50.360
Nobody tries to break into a communist or socialist country, right?
00:17:56.120
So why we try to replicate policies in some way over time to accelerate that
00:18:02.960
so that people are questioning what the heck Canada is doing in terms of their policy.
00:18:07.700
But every industry that government takes over, it gives you a singular choice.
00:18:25.540
There's, like, three big players that control them all.
00:18:29.980
And those are sectors that people complain about the most.
00:18:33.220
You want to look at where the government has least control?
00:18:37.080
We have every kind of music anyone could probably listen to.
00:18:41.940
And probably ones that we haven't heard of because you never know what the spark of innovation creates.
00:18:47.600
There's a million different tastes for everyone out there.
00:18:50.740
When the government leaves things alone, the market, the innovators, the opportunities come with that.
00:18:58.600
But if the government has its thumb on the industry, you get very little competition.
00:19:07.860
And the price, unfortunately, is not where it should be, which is the lowest possible price.
00:19:14.120
And that's what we need to get back to, Canada, where we have those options.
00:19:22.260
I think, you know, when you look at what the government's involved in and not involved in,
00:19:28.740
something comes to mind is the fact that this liberal government is always, seems concerned about how much money they can spend.
00:19:35.240
They say, look at us, we care so much, we spent all this money.
00:19:38.600
Well, that's great, but what did that money actually achieve?
00:19:40.540
And I think we've seen time and time again in different auditor general reports, parliamentary budget officer,
00:19:46.440
just even conversations with everyday Canadians, you can see that the money is not achieving what it's intended to.
00:19:52.020
If all of these affordability measures they brought forward were going to do something,
00:19:56.260
we wouldn't have an affordability crisis as we do right now across Canada.
00:20:00.520
So everything that this liberal government sticks its hands in seems to get worse.
00:20:07.020
Now we're paying every single cent, every single cent the federal government collects in GSD revenue goes for interest on our debt.
00:20:17.680
So even when you buy something, whatever, and you're seeing that tax taken off, you're seeing how much you paid, that's going on interest.
00:20:27.780
That's not, you know, helping the housing situation.
00:20:33.060
So I was going to say, that's actually an amount that's more than the federal government is spending on health care.
00:20:37.020
So if you have that perspective, giving more money to bondholders than spending on health care in our country, unbelievable.
00:20:46.060
Yeah, it's hard to break, it's hard to grasp this, the fact that we got to this point.
00:20:58.060
But the guests, you may not remember, but the guests always get the last word.
00:21:04.520
Well, just appreciate the opportunity to be back and share this conversation with you.
00:21:11.260
But I think, above all, you know, my takeaway is this cost of living crisis, groceries going up, housing going up, Canadians struggling.
00:21:18.620
All the while, Mark Carney is working for his Brookfield Insiders.
00:21:23.340
I think that is a major concern that I know I have and our Conservative team has.
00:21:28.060
And that's why we're going to keep fighting for Canadians to expose these truths.
00:21:42.000
Eric Mililow, the Member of Parliament for Kenora.
00:21:48.000
Don't forget, every single Tuesday we'll have new content for you.
00:21:53.440
And just before Christmas, it's the good, the bad, and the ugly.
00:21:58.880
We look back at 2025, the year that was, pick out a few good things and not so good things.
00:22:10.660
They can download this program and future ones on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
00:22:17.420
Until next week, remember low taxes, less government, more freedom.