Off to the Leadership Races
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Summary
In the wake of Justin Trudeau's announcement that he's stepping down as Prime Minister, we have a lot to talk about. To talk about this and much more, we bring on Michael Barrett, MP for Leeds, Grenville, Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes and Critic for Ethics, to talk all about it.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to a special prorogation edition of the Blueprint, Canada's Conservative
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Podcast. And in spite of Justin Trudeau, we will have new content for you every single
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Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly,
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share this program. If you want Pierre Polyev to be the next Prime Minister, we need your
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help to do that. Don't forget, you can subscribe on YouTube, hit the bell when new content
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is made available. Tell your friends too. They can download it on platforms like CastBox,
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iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. So the House of Commons has been shut down. Justin Trudeau
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is residing as Prime Minister once a new leader is chosen for the Liberal Party. In the meantime,
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Canada gets to sit and wait as new tariffs are on the horizon. To talk about this and much,
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much more, we bring on Michael Barrett, the Member of Parliament for Leeds, Grenville,
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Thousand Islands, and Rideau Lakes, and the Critic for Ethics. Thanks for coming on the show.
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It is a very busy time. Holy smokes. If not only because Justin Trudeau shut down
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the House of Commons and has said that he's going to resign, we have an awful lot to talk about.
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All right. So for those, I noticed on some social media and emails and calls we're getting in the
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office, people are trying to figure out what does all of this mean? So let's unpack it first.
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The House of Commons has been prorogued. Just give us a brief 30-second idea of what that is
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and what has happened in the meantime until the March 27th return.
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Sure. So the Governor-General, on advice of the Prime Minister, has prorogued Parliament.
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And so that means that the House of Commons and the Senate aren't going to sit until the date
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that the Governor-General has allowed. And that's at the end of March when a new speech
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from the throne will be read by the Governor-General, kind of lays out what the government's, their plan is.
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And in the meantime, there are no committee meetings, no sittings of the House, no, the Senate won't sit.
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And it means that all legislation that was before the House is effectively dead, including my Common Sense
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Conservative private members bill that would have had real penalties for people who perjured themselves
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in front of Parliament, a $50,000 fine for contempt and mandatory six months in prison for perjury.
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And it's no wonder Justin Trudeau prorogued. If he needed another reason, he was worried about his
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friends having to be accountable with more Common Sense Conservative legislation on the way.
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But it kills all of the bills, private members bills, government legislation, and it means that
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the House doesn't sit and Justin Trudeau can continue to avoid accountability for the disastrous
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So just to lay it out even clearer, so those pieces of legislation that were quite controversial
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in our eyes, in many Canadians' eyes, the censorship piece of legislation and others, the Liberals
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would have to start over then at that point, unless, I guess, unanimous consent, but they
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probably won't get it, I guess, if it was to survive the throne speech.
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So they would have to start this whole process over again.
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And the process when we come back is there's a speech from the throne which can be programmed
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for a vote. But by the 26th of March, the Commons must vote on supply. They must vote to give the
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government money. And that is a matter of confidence. So that'll be two days after the
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House comes back. And I believe that it requires an opposition day in advance of that. So in the
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first 48 to 72 hours after the House resumes, the government will face a vote of confidence and
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we'll see if Jagmeet Singh, once he's satisfied that he's got his pension secured, if he's prepared
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to put Canadians first, like Conservatives have been doing for months, if not years, in advance
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And I think his pension gets vested the end of February. So I think he will be clear at that
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end of February. And so once that date looked like it was clear, he suddenly had, he seemed
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Yeah, his bank account looked like it was going to grow and his spine grew at the same
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Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Okay, so that's been dealt with. So at the same time, in less
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than a week, we have a new President of the United States coming in, being sworn in next
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Monday, with a threat of some major tariffs. So we have Parliament not sitting, we have a Prime
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Minister in a lame duck situation, we have the Cabinet fighting within themselves to become
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the next leader of the Liberal Party. All the while, we had a job report just a few weeks
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ago, I guess now, that said the vast majority of jobs that are being created in Canada come
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in the public sector, not on the private sector. So we have a whole bunch of little fires burning
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here. And we just seem adrift at a time when we need some leadership. The Prime Minister should
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have called an election, obviously, for selfish reasons, he didn't.
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Yeah, and we can't look past at the very end of the last session, when Justin Trudeau,
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when his finance minister quit, Christian Freeland quit the day of their fall economic update,
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the one that Mark Carbon Tax Carney's fingerprints were all over. It blew past their massive $40
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billion deficit promise, and was over $60 billion in deficit. And we still don't know how
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they managed to do that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer looking for answers, Canadians looking
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for answers, and we can't bring a finance minister to committee or bring witnesses before
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parliamentary committees. Justin Trudeau is avoiding accountability after he and Carbon Tax
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Carney blew past their fiscal guardrail by $20 billion into the red. And it's the exact wrong
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time for the House of Commons to be shuttered, unless it were to take it to Canadians for them
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I think there needs some stability, and I think a lot of Canadians are feeling that at the political
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level, on the federal level, because now we have different premiers trying to fill that void.
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You know, Daniel Smith, Doug Ford, and many others trying to step forward to have some kind of
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relations with the United States and the governors at a time when massive tariffs, if they are imposed,
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could cause hardship. Like, nobody's looking after Canadians. Liberals are looking after themselves.
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That's right. They've put party before country on the eve of a promise from President-elect Trump
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to bring in 25% tariffs across the board to the Canadian economy. This is a perfect storm
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where we need real leadership. And premiers are now doing, as you said, more foreign affairs work
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than they've ever done. And someone needs to. But it's not their job.
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It's the job of the prime minister. And the foreign affairs minister, she was tangled up in whether or
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not she wanted to run for Justin Trudeau's job or not, and fight with her cabinet colleagues about
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who's going to step into the limelight. And Canadians are going to pay the price. It could result in
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massive job losses and a real hit to our economy. It's, you know, Canadians are rightly concerned.
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And I think that the frustration that I'm hearing from people about why Justin Trudeau chose now to do
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this instead of, you know, having an election, instead having that resolved before the inauguration,
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which would have been the responsible thing to do, putting country before party.
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That's right. And let the new administration in Canada deal with the new administration in the United
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States, have that stability, and have that mandate as well to negotiate. So we have that liberal
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leadership. As you mentioned, the foreign minister, Melanie Jolie, tried to figure out whether or not she
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was going to run. She isn't. And he didn't end the former Treasury Board Secretary, now Transport
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Minister. She's said no. So that leads to, actually, before we get into that, I want to talk,
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actually, I do want to talk to you about Justin Trudeau here going to the American media. Before
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Christmas, he shut down all conversations with Canadian media about his future, all of that
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stuff. So we have a couple of clips. Let's play, let's cut one. Again, CNN, we're going on with
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Jake Tapper. Let's play cut one. The struggle that you were having domestically, your disapproval rating
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had to do with, as I understand it, discontent with your government because of high inflation and
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the economy. Seems like voters in both of these, you know, liberal democracies are sending a message
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to left-wing parties, liberal parties, we don't like how you're doing the economy when it comes
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to inflation. We don't like how you're doing immigration. There are a lot of feelings involved.
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I mean, if you look at the actual numbers, inflation in Canada was lower, came down quicker. Our economy
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bounced back faster after the pandemic than anyone else's, including the United States. We're projected to
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grow faster than the United States and all other G7 countries next year. Our economy is doing very
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well. The amount of delusion in that statement is quite impressive, but the fact that people feel
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hungry or they feel broke, you know, it's just, you're just not understanding the Canadian people
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just understanding how smart he is. And if you can just stick with them a little longer, utopia is on
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the horizon. Well, this is exactly like Christopher Freeland saying, it's just a vibe session. So it's not,
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you know, you're not really hungry. You're not really poor. You're not really in line at the
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food bank or sleeping under a bridge or living in your car or living in a tent. It's just a vibe.
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It's just feel, they caught feelings. They didn't catch a bad break or the devastating consequences of
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liberal policies in this country and liberal decisions for the last nine years. And going on
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American media, well, last year, you know, Pierre Pauly, a leader of the opposition, taking many
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orders of magnitude, more media questions than Justin Trudeau. Now the media would say that
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Pierre doesn't speak to them, but the numbers tell a different story. But Justin Trudeau avoided
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Canadian media much of the time last year. And then when he's on the ropes, he literally leaves the
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country and goes and talks to the Americans. Now, Jake Tapper might forget, but the last time that
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he covered Justin Trudeau, he actually coined the term truanon for all of the folks who,
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you know, who live in the liberal delusion and probably need to go outside and touch grass.
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But he was pretty, it was a pretty softball interview because, you know, but Jake Tapper
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doesn't know the Canadians. There's no real pushback, right? Yeah. He doesn't know the
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people who are lined up in the food banks and suffering from the consequences of Justin Trudeau's
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policies. Exactly. So let's, the fun continued now with Jen Psaki, cue up cut two and play cut two.
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Is it more of a global trend issue in terms of where your approval ratings are now, which is the
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lowest they've been in your 10 years, nearly 10 years? Or is it a you issue as people should
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understand it? I think it's probably a bit of everything. For me, where I lean in on is,
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all the good things we were able to do. We've put forward policies that are going to make a
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difference for decades to come in Canada. And I think right now we're seeing a time in politics where
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emotions and social media is carrying an awful lot of weight in how people feel about things.
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But I'm always going to lean back on what are the substantive things that are being done?
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A severe housing shortage, a housing bubble. We have record lines at the food bank. We have an
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economy that's very unstable at the moment. Debt levels going out of control. Inflation hurting
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family budgets. A carbon tax that keeps punishing business and farmers. And the list can just keep
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going on. Absolutely. Gun crime having doubled. It's violent crime in our cities. We have an opioid
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epidemic. We have people dying by the tens of thousands with the drug policies that he's
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responsible for. It's delusion. What the effects of the policies of the Trudeau NDP liberals will be
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felt in this country for a very long time. He's absolutely right about that. Look at what they've
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done. And it's no wonder that he ran across the border to, you know, to take refuge with some
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softball interviews. Yeah. Like Justin Trudeau and his status, he will never be hungry, right? He will
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always have everything he needs. He'll just travel around the world and lecture everyone else about
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potentially having enough money for a vacation. All right. Liberal leadership race. We have, as I
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mentioned, a couple that have dropped out. Looks like Mark Carney is inching towards that. He's on the
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Daily Show yesterday, I believe, with Jon Stewart, saying that he was the outsider. This guy is the
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most elitist person. This guy's incredible. Carbon tax Carney is so well connected to this
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liberal leadership that it's hard to know where to begin. But he was the economic advisor to the head
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of Justin Trudeau's economic task force, a task force of one, well, the one person being Mark Carney.
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And the first liberal financial document that came out after he became the advisor was one with a
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$61 billion deficit blowing past their $40 billion, massive $40 billion deficit promise. So that's his
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most recent contribution to the economic vandalism of the Trudeau NDP liberals. But he's been hand in
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glove with Justin Trudeau for years. He was an advisor to him during COVID. Justin Trudeau said that he
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worked very closely with Mark Carney during that time. And Mark Carney supports all of the same policies
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that Justin Trudeau advances. He is just like Justin. Oh, exactly the same.
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He, there's a reason we call him carbon tax Carney. He's been peddling the same policies that have
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wreaked the economic despair that Canadians are feeling raising the price of gas groceries and
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home heating, just like Justin Trudeau. And he's trying to impose that carbon tax on countries around
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the world, right? On developed countries around the world, trying to get them to instill a hardship
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amongst their citizens. Luckily, people are pushing back against this, especially here in Canada.
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Canada. So Telsat, a Quebec company, got $2.14 billion to connect those in Canada who have not
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been connected to the internet. So of course, this is a company that really doesn't have a satellite yet,
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that is kind of designing and figuring out how that would work. And of course, there's a tweet of
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yours asking Elon Musk, who has Starlink, and how much that would cost to connect every Canadian.
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And you'll see the answer. It's just on that. Elon Musk said the answer was less than half
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of the $2.14 billion. And liberals went wild that I had the audacity to ask someone that wasn't this
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very special company, why did they want to protect this company that was getting this loan that doesn't
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have a constellation of satellites and doesn't have receivers in place for consumers to use,
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doesn't have the infrastructure. And it's because the owner of the company is buddies with Carbon Tax
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Kearney, Conflict of Interest Kearney. This is a friend of his. So just like this shady deal,
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as soon as Carbon Tax Kearney was appointed, officially appointed the economic advisor to the
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prime minister, all of this good fortune started landing in the laps of people who were connected
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to Kearney. Whether it was getting Brookfield a seat at the table to get their hands on 10 billion
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in Canadian pensions, pension dollars, or this deal, the special deal with Telesat, or for
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bank fees when he wasn't going to play ball with some changes to bank fee regulations, all of the things
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that are going to benefit his bottom line. And it's just liberal elites and insiders helping
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themselves while Canadians need help. And leading up to the December break at the end of the last
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session before we were prorogued and that disappeared, we were trying to get the documents to figure out
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the green slush fund, right? Hundreds of millions of dollars given out to liberal buddies and we were
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trying to get the inside track on what exactly happened and any potential criminal activity
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that may have conspired in that whole sequence of events. But again, we have it for all to see,
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right? Mark Carney's buddy gets rich. And it seems that just in Justin Trudeau's whole mandate,
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it hasn't really been about actually producing, right? Like it's not about results, it's how much can
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we spend, right? The question should be, are we getting results for that 2.14 billion? Well,
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the answer would be no. Can we do it quicker, right? It just seems to be, how can we spend more
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rather than actually getting people connected? But connected should be number one. Absolutely. And no
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government has ever spent so much to achieve so little, unless the achievement that you're looking
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for is the betterment of the bank accounts of liberal insiders. And whether it was arrive scam,
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or the green slush fund, or all of these sweetheart deals, like we see with carbon tax,
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Kearney, liberals, they always put their friends and insiders first. Well, then we also have
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Chrystia Freeland, who looks like she is going to be joining that race. She's no hero for stepping
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down as finance minister, right? She was actually fired on the Friday before she was supposed to read
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that horrific fall economic update given in the winter. She's no hero. She had no problem
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ringing, right? You know, driving up the debt while she was in charge, right? Like she is just as bad
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as carbon tax. Kearney, she is just as bad as Justin Trudeau. It's like the liberals in their
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search for a new leader, they're just trying to change the bus driver, right? It's the same bus,
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it's the same bus company, it's the same route, right? The change in the bus driver will not fix
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what is ailing Canada right now. Any of the names that have been floated to take over,
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to run as liberal leader, they're all Trudeau 2.0. Christopher Freeland voted to increase the
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carbon tax. Chrystia Freeland voted in favor of running up these massive deficits. And you're
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absolutely right, she's certainly no hero. All of the economic devastation, all of the effects
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that Canadians are seeing, whether it's home prices or crime in their communities, and the
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April 1st, the carbon tax is going up again. So we might be, we might see an election this spring,
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we're going to see a new liberal leader, we don't know what's going to happen after prorogation,
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but you know what you can guarantee with Justin Trudeau and whoever his successor is,
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and that's that the carbon tax is going to go up. Why? Because every single one of them
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voted in favor of it, they are just like Justin. And this is the sickening part too,
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with the liberals trying to force out Justin Trudeau. They voted for all of this. They said,
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yes, Justin, keep going. Raise the carbon tax. Deficit spend to your heart's content, right?
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They voted for all of this and stood behind every scandal that was produced out of it. They defended
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it all. There is no difference. That's right. None. The only reason that the liberal MPs wanted
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a change in leadership is because they saw that their electoral fortunes were declining. They were
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worried about their paychecks and worried about their pensions. They were not worried about
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what was happening on the streets with Canadians. It wasn't enough when Canadians were lined up at
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food banks in record numbers. It wasn't enough when Canadians were choosing between heating and
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eating. None of that mattered to them. It was only when it looked like they might lose their jobs or
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they might not qualify for a pension that suddenly said, well, we need a new leader. Do you need any new
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policies? Well, we'll see what the new guy says, but they're just looking to save their jobs.
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Yeah. And then what do you say? Like, oh yeah, we change our position on the carbon tax or whatever
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they are going to say to try to save face here. Then how do you defend punishing Canadians for that
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the past 10 years, right? Like it'll be an interesting line to balance, but I don't think
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Canadians are going to fall for it at all. Well, no, I think that Canadians are exhausted. I think that
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they are desperate and I think that they're not going to be fooled by Trudeau 2.0. This is going to be
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a very interesting race, but unfortunately, Canada has to suffer in the meantime. Who knows what's
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going to happen next week and if the tariffs are coming? Who knows? We had that press conference
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that where Donald Trump, you know, I think a lot of people thought he was joking when he talked about
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the 51st state. Then he does the press conference that said he can crush Canada economically,
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which is absolutely scary and the fact Parliament's prorogued and the fact the Liberals have a lame
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duck Prime Minister and they're fighting amongst themselves for the leadership. This is a very
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dangerous time, I think. Yeah, it absolutely is. And whenever we talk about these kinds of things,
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it can seem, you know, to people who are watching, like, well, you know, should we give up? You know,
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what do we do? And you and I both know very well, having worked closely with him, that what we're
00:22:12.040
seeing on offer from Canada's Common Sense Conservatives with Pierre Polyev is hope and the restoration of
00:22:19.240
that promise for Canada. Because life wasn't like this before Justin Trudeau and it's not going to be like
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this after Justin Trudeau or Trudeau 2.0, whoever, you know, whoever fills his seat after he does
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resign. And that promise of Canada can be restored and it will be restored, but we need to have that
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election first. And Canadians deserve, they deserve leadership that will put country before party and
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that's obviously not what they're getting with the NDP Liberals and Trudeau and all of his
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all of his successors or those who aspire to succeed him. But really, there's a bright future
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ahead for Canada and it'll be in a partnership with our friends south of the border. But right now,
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in the situation where there's so much disarray, where we have a lame duck prime minister and a
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pro-rogue parliament, it's no wonder, it's no wonder that our trade partners who are looking to cut deals
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with us are taking advantage of weakness that's been created by a weak prime minister and a weak
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NDP Liberal government. And Canadians can rightly blame Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau
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for allowing that weakness. Oh yeah, it's all been self-inflicted. We did go a bit long, but I figured
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usually when we do the show, we're rushing out of here to go to question period. However, of course,
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we don't have to do that. So as you know, the guests get the last word and it was a good way
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to close it out just there. But if you have anything more to say, the floor is yours. No,
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it's so great to have the conversation, Jamie, and you're right. I think you and I have great
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conversations. Usually we end up, last time I think we didn't even get to run the clips because we were
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just having the conversation. Canadians just need to get involved. They need to get engaged at this
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really critical time. If they live in a riding that's held by a Liberal or an NDP member,
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they need to put pressure on them that there must be an election. And it doesn't need to wait until
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March. Canadians are not obligated to see the Liberals through their vanity project right now.
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There is a head to the Liberal Party. It is the Prime Minister and he's the one who's responsible
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for what's happened to Canada. So let's get to an election. Let's restore that promise of Canada.
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And common sense Conservatives are ready to deliver on that promise. I hope so. You heard him.
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Michael Barrett, the Member of Parliament for Leeds, Grenville, Thousand Islands, and Rideau Lakes,
00:24:44.120
also the Ethics Critics. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate that. Yeah, pleasure. It's
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good your riding is nice and close to Ottawa as well. To his point, please like, comment, subscribe,
00:24:53.560
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00:25:08.600
with new content at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time every single Tuesday. Remember, low taxes,
00:25:13.560
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