The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - February 14, 2018


MP Brassard on Trudeau’s insult to Veterans

Topics
Trudeau's insult to Veterans
Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Justin Trudeau Tony Clement Erin O'Toole John Broussard Phil McCollman Charles Adler Conservative Caucus Murray Brewster John Barrasso David Common Omar Khadr O'Reagan
Andrew Scheer launches the Supporting New Parents Act Trudeau must show leadership

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

162.97

Word count

1,680

Sentence count

124

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, John Broussard and Tony Clement discuss Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's latest attempt to take veterans to court over a broken promise made to them in the 2015 election. They discuss the Prime Minister's decision to bring back the Equitas Lawsuit against the government, and why it's another example of Trudeau breaking a campaign promise.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 You are listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:09.040 Is the Prime Minister actually saying that taxpayers should be on the hook when he breaks the law?
00:00:20.420 What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?
00:00:30.000 All these deficits leading to nothing but burying Canadians in taxes.
00:00:40.680 And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:44.500 Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Clement, Member of Parliament.
00:00:49.300 And with me for the first segment is John Broussard, our Member of Parliament for Barrie-Innisville.
00:00:54.640 John, welcome to the show.
00:00:55.900 Great to be here, Tony. Thanks for having me.
00:00:57.320 Well, it's been quite an active week for Mr. Trudeau when it comes to veterans, not in a good way, I might add, certainly in an insulting way.
00:01:05.360 Why don't you go through some of the things that have been going on?
00:01:07.700 Well, the Prime Minister was in Edmonton last week, and he was doing his town halls right across the country, stopped in Edmonton.
00:01:16.860 Had a few questions, one of them in particular from a veteran who served in the Canadian Armed Forces,
00:01:23.360 served in Afghanistan, unfortunately lost his leg in Afghanistan.
00:01:29.320 And he had a simple question for the Prime Minister.
00:01:32.380 You know, why aren't we getting what you promised in terms of the pension, the lifelong pension that the Prime Minister...
00:01:39.600 And in a completely shameful and embarrassing way, the Prime Minister's response to that veteran was,
00:01:48.740 well, veterans are asking more than what we can give right now.
00:01:53.480 And he was talking in particular as well about the court case, the Equitas court case.
00:01:58.140 And I just thought that was shameful because this is a Prime Minister, Tony, that, you know, stood in Belleville with his hand over his heart.
00:02:03.940 He promised a return to lifelong pension for veterans.
00:02:07.560 He said that no veteran shall ever have to fight their government.
00:02:09.940 Call it a sacred obligation.
00:02:11.520 Well, he's referred to sacred obligation.
00:02:13.600 I actually have printed off how many times he's referred to it.
00:02:16.540 It's at least 30 times since he came into government.
00:02:20.420 And so it was just a shameful display and embarrassing, not just for our country, but, you know, embarrassing for these veterans,
00:02:29.080 many of them who supported the Prime Minister based on those two promises alone in the last election.
00:02:32.980 Should mention that the exchange between Mr. Trudeau and the courageous veteran, that's been seen over 10 million times by Canadians.
00:02:43.120 And it still is generating a lot of commentary.
00:02:46.180 Let's talk a little bit about this promise that he made, you know, not to sue veterans or not to pursue these matters in court.
00:02:54.700 That's another broken promise, isn't it?
00:02:56.820 Absolutely.
00:02:57.460 And, you know, the thing about the Prime Minister is he took advantage of an opportunity.
00:03:02.400 And the opportunity was that the Equitas case had been filed.
00:03:06.460 It related to pensions post-new veterans charter compared to pre-veterans charter when veterans had a lifelong pension.
00:03:13.680 So he saw an opportunity to effectively, you know, shoot for the stars and hoping to hit the moon with a campaign promise.
00:03:23.040 But it goes back to Aaron O'Toole.
00:03:24.980 Aaron was trying to fix the issue.
00:03:27.080 In fact, he was a former minister, former minister of veterans affairs, somebody who has been a great mentor to me on the veterans file because he knows the veterans file intimately.
00:03:36.820 He developed an abeyance agreement with the Equitas group.
00:03:41.600 And so he was in the process of working out an agreement.
00:03:46.620 And that's widely known among everybody that was involved, not just Aaron, but those within the Equitas group.
00:03:52.880 The abeyance agreement was held.
00:03:54.400 Unfortunately, Aaron ran out of runway because of the election.
00:03:57.920 So in between that period, Trudeau saw that opportunity.
00:04:01.280 He leaped at it, made those promises, and ironically enough, after the abeyance agreement was up in May of 2016, what's the first thing that the prime minister does?
00:04:12.580 Take veterans to court, reinstituted the Equitas lawsuit.
00:04:17.160 Not only did he start it again, but he also brought back the same government lawyers who were arguing the case before Aaron developed the abeyance agreement, which, you know, this guy was really anti-veteran.
00:04:33.520 And so he sent, Trudeau sent two clear messages.
00:04:37.080 Number one, the falseness of the promise that he would never take his veterans to court.
00:04:41.360 And secondly, by bringing back the lawyer who was arguing the case on the behalf of the government, really was a kick in the gut for these veterans.
00:04:47.600 It's almost a double victimization for these people.
00:04:49.820 Well, double victimization.
00:04:51.280 And then when he, you know, promises a lifelong pension and doesn't deliver it.
00:04:55.240 In fact, I think probably the most telling part of this whole thing with the lifelong pension and the announcement that O'Reagan made just a couple of days before Christmas.
00:05:04.140 Absolutely the worst time to make these type of announcements, especially when they don't fulfill their promise.
00:05:09.900 David Common of the CBC, who is their veterans reporter, sorry, it was Murray Brewster of the CBC, who is their veterans reporter, asked the Minister of Veterans Affairs,
00:05:21.240 can you guarantee that this new pension for life is the same or more than what a veteran would have got under the old system?
00:05:31.280 So in other words, is it equal?
00:05:33.280 Is it one veteran, one standard?
00:05:35.140 And the Minister of Veterans Affairs said, no, I cannot guarantee it.
00:05:40.220 So that tells me that they know, the government knows, the Minister of Veterans Affairs and the Prime Minister knows that this pension for life that they announced is not the same.
00:05:49.240 It's going to be a sham.
00:05:49.900 It's not the same as what they had promised unequivocally to veterans and what was understood broadly among the veterans community when Justin Trudeau made that promise in Belleville.
00:06:01.360 One other thing that came out of veteran Brock's intervention at that town hall meeting with Mr. Trudeau is the fact that, you know, they're spending on other things.
00:06:12.000 He drawed the distinction between the Cotter settlement of $10.5 million versus what veterans would like to see.
00:06:19.320 So talk a little bit about that.
00:06:21.540 Well, again, I mean, just absolute shameful behavior on the part of the Prime Minister.
00:06:27.740 You know, this is a government, Tony, who has no problem with tens of billions of dollars in debt and deficits.
00:06:34.740 No problem with billions of dollars to the United Nations.
00:06:38.580 No problem with billions of dollars to all of Justin Trudeau's pet projects around the world.
00:06:45.260 No problem giving Omar Khadr $10.5 million.
00:06:48.620 But our veterans are asking for more than what the government can give right now.
00:06:54.200 I think that is absolutely reprehensible.
00:06:59.080 The fact that he made those promises, that particular promise on the pension, and then says that they're the veterans are asking for more than he can give.
00:07:09.340 I mean, what more can you say about that?
00:07:10.900 And you know what?
00:07:11.940 Politically, you've seen the reaction across the country.
00:07:14.760 You've seen the reaction among veterans.
00:07:17.000 Yeah, I mean, he's opened a deep, deep wound.
00:07:20.880 And I'm telling you, I traveled across the country this summer, Tony, as you know, meeting with veterans groups.
00:07:26.300 I was on Charles Adler last week.
00:07:29.600 And Charles Adler said to me, so, you know, what is it that the veterans are looking for?
00:07:33.940 And you know what they're looking for? 0.99
00:07:35.220 They've lived through a generation of bullshit, and they're tired of it. 0.99
00:07:40.080 They want to know the truth. 0.99
00:07:41.440 What can we do for you?
00:07:42.520 And if we can do something, then do it.
00:07:44.700 If we promise something, keep that promise.
00:07:47.340 If we can't do something, tell them why we can't do it.
00:07:50.640 That's all they're looking for.
00:07:51.820 Yeah.
00:07:51.880 And in this case...
00:07:53.540 It used to be called respect.
00:07:54.640 Well, respect.
00:07:55.840 But again, when it comes back to that sacred obligation, which is critically important,
00:08:00.160 and I don't think there's a Canadian out there, a Canadian that's listening to this podcast,
00:08:04.060 that doesn't agree that the government should be doing all we can for our veterans.
00:08:10.100 You know, they're willing to go out there.
00:08:11.280 They're willing to put their life on the line.
00:08:13.200 They're willing to have Canada's back.
00:08:14.880 All they ask for is for Canada to have their back when they return.
00:08:17.580 Not just their back, but the backs of their family as well.
00:08:20.340 And I don't think it's too much to ask.
00:08:22.180 And we are working right now with Phil McCollman, who's our Shadow Minister of Veterans Affairs,
00:08:26.280 to come up with good policies as we head into the next election.
00:08:29.800 Not bold our veterans, but tell them what we can do for them based on that sacred obligation that we have for them.
00:08:38.280 John Brassard, Member of Parliament, great to have you on the program.
00:08:41.140 I certainly wish you and Phil McCollman, another hardworking member of our Conservative Caucus,
00:08:48.140 the best of success in some good, positive policies for veterans in the future,
00:08:53.100 and also holding Mr. Trudeau to account that that exchange that was captured from his town hall
00:09:00.120 really shows the real Justin Trudeau.
00:09:03.400 I mean, the mask kind of fell away for a couple of minutes there,
00:09:06.760 and we saw something that was quite nasty and uncaring.
00:09:10.640 Everything is fake. Everything is false. Everything is contrived with these guys.
00:09:14.820 All they want is for what plays out on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram.
00:09:19.660 You know, when it gets into policy decision-making behind closed doors, they don't live up to it.
00:09:25.300 And in fact, I will suggest this, Tony, that the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, lied to our veterans.
00:09:31.200 Well, there you hear it, folks. Thank you very much for being on the program.
00:09:34.160 Thank you for joining us here on Blueprint.
00:09:40.640 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:09:45.520 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:09:50.640 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.
00:09:56.320 Thank you.
00:09:56.820 Thank you.
00:09:57.820 Thank you.