Reckless spending continues to fuel Canada’s inflation and affordability crisis.
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Summary
In this episode, we are joined by Adam Chambers, the Deputy Shadow Minister for Finance and a good friend of mine, to talk about inflation, the cost of living, and the challenges facing the oil and gas industry.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Caworthal Lake Sprocket with new
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content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. We are not slowing down. We are
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not taking time off. We will fight back against that ever-moving Liberal agenda. And with that,
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we have a great guest for you lined up today. And before I get to him, I just want to remind you
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to like, comment, subscribe, share this program, and together we can do that pushback as I mentioned
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earlier. And of course, if you can't listen to the entire program right this second, you can download
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it, listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify. You know it. It is out there.
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So without further delay, we're bringing back Adam Chambers, a Member of Parliament for Simcoe North.
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He's also the Deputy Shadow Minister for Finance, a great friend of the show, my next-door neighbor.
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We're going to talk about a lot of kitchen table issues today. We're talking about inflation,
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the cost of living. Everything seems to get harder and harder under this Liberal government,
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not to mention that they're actually okay with high prices of gasoline. So Adam, thanks for coming
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All right. Inflation is almost at 8%. It's absolutely incredible. The Finance Minister,
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Chrystia Freeland, gets asked about that at a news conference, and she goes into talking points
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basically about how this must accelerate their investments, their so-called investments,
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into green energy. It's like they don't even care that the price of everyday items is driving
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people, many hardworking people, into almost poverty to trying to pay for the increases
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that are skyrocketing right across the supply chain.
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You're exactly right. It's another example of the government being behind the curve.
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You know, 12 months ago, they were telling people, don't worry. They were using the word,
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it's transitory. And yet every single month or quarter that there's another data point that kind
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of undercuts their entire narrative, they keep kind of saying, you know, don't worry, look at the
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inflation around the rest of the world. Now they're blaming inflation on the war in Ukraine,
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which no doubt has an impact on the price of goods. We're not disputing that. But inflation was
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at 30-year highs before the war started. And now we're at the highest level since 1983. And interest
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rates at that period of time were significantly high in order to bring down inflation. So the
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government's behind the ball. I asked a question in question period just six weeks ago about what
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the government is going to do as there were signs the growth in the economy was slowing. And the answer
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I got back was, we've had the strongest growth three to six months ago. Not forward looking,
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always looking rear view mirror. They're being caught behind the curve once again. And I'm not sure
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they're prepared for the economic, potential economic challenges that lie ahead.
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Well, well, you said a lot there and to pick up on some of it, like there's more money in the
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atmosphere right now. It's obviously worth less now, because as you pointed out, we have,
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we have currency inflation because of the printing of almost $400 billion in currency. At the same time,
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the demand, which has increased the price of everyday essentials, all hitting at the same time,
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not to mention that what's the solution that the government has and the NDP have? Well,
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let's tax the oil and gas companies. Well, that's only going to drive the price up even higher.
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Like you're punishing a group, a business. Yes, they're in it to make money, but they've been
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trying to expand their footprint here in Canada for as long as I can remember, decades. And they're
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dealing with the brunt of it. And you can't just up production just on a snap of a finger. It doesn't
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Well, there's a couple of things happening there. First, you know, the NDP is talking about
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excess profit taxes, in particular in the oil and gas industry. I mean, where was the NDP
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talking about, were they thanking the oil and gas industry for the last 10 years when they were
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having massive losses and they were keeping inflation and prices low for people? I mean,
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it really doesn't make sense. If you're going to go after them now, what about the flip side when
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things weren't going so well for that industry? I haven't really seen them defending the industry
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over the last 10 years when they had some serious challenges. The second is for some reason,
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the answer to inflation, both primarily from the NDP, but even some in the government caucus,
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is to make government revenues bigger, is to grow the size of government. Well,
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the federal government's actually never made as much money as it's making right now. Every month,
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it's breaking records for the amount of revenue that it's bringing in. The federal government has
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more money than it knows what to do with, and I'm not sure that giving it even more money is going to
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solve the inflation problem. In fact, giving this government more money means inflation is likely to
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get worse because they're going to spend it, and that's what's driving one of the things that's
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driving inflation. We've talked about this before on this show. It's like the government's solution
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to the inflation crisis just to spend more. They can find a way to spend their way out of this. It's
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like fighting cancer with more cancer. It absolutely doesn't make any sense whatsoever, and the media
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is sadly very silent on this. I think there are real alternatives that we're proposing that just
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get overlooked because it can't make Justin Trudeau look bad. Well, you raise an incredibly good point.
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There are some alternatives. I get that the government doesn't necessarily want to listen
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to its main opposition party in the House of Commons, so let's use some other examples.
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Former Governor of Bank of Canada, Stephen Polo says, excuse me, David Dodge, he was quoted recently
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saying, look, in order to bring inflation down, we have to see prices for energy, in particular oil and
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fuel, also come down. Well, 60 cents of every liter that we pay in gasoline charges is taxes that go to
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some level of government, whether it's federal, provincial, or municipal. In fact, in France,
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their central bank said one of the reasons that France's inflation rate is lower than most other
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areas in Europe is because they cut taxes on gasoline. And so we have to be a little bit
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creative. I mean, listen, if the government is so ideologically wedded to a carbon tax, okay, fine.
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Why don't they then say, listen, if fuel is $1.50 a liter or $1.40 a liter, the carbon tax is this
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number of cents. But if it gets to $2 a liter, we don't need the carbon tax anymore. We're already
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actually have such a high price move up in gas. Anyone who can reduce their consumption is, and
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anyone who's continuing to consume is consuming because they have to. They have to drive to work.
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They have to pick up their kids from soccer practice. They have to drive that truck
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to the job site or deliver goods. You know, some of these folks are independent truckers.
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diesel has doubled in about 12 months or just a little bit more than that. So these are real
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challenges. I think the government has to be thinking a bit outside the box. I mean,
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their plan to fight inflation was just an announcement of things that was in the budget.
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There's nothing new here for people. And the NDP is just, you know, continuing to criticize them,
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Okay. Okay. A couple of things there. As you mentioned, yes, the government is pulling in
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more and more money than it ever has before, but yet we can't get a passport. Canadians can't get a
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passport. The airports are a disaster. Immigration departments backed up about 2 million files. I saw
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veterans are still waiting in line for their benefits. And the list just goes on and on and on.
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At the same time, the plan to fix inflation is to spend more. So they're taking in more revenue.
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So they're just going to spend it on more government programs. They're just going to keep
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circulating all of that. But at the same time, they're actually putting more people
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into financial hardship by doing this. But the rich, they're really wealthy in society. They
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barely notice it. They'll still fill up their cars. They might notice a blimp. Maybe they already have
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the electric vehicles. But at the same time, the ordinary, hardworking Canadians are getting
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punished. It's the invisible tax that are just hammering them one day after the next.
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You're exactly right. Last week, when the Bank of Canada increased interest rates by one full
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percentage point, which was a significant raise, you know, hadn't happened since I think 1998.
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So we're talking, you know, 20 plus years since this has happened. So inflation is very serious.
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The NDP came out and said, you know, at an interest rate increase of 1%, you know, we're going to be
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hurting people. Well, OK, yes, people's costs will increase. But you know what hurts the vulnerable
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and low income people more? Higher inflation. We have to get inflation under control. That means
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the government has to get its spending under control. That means we will have to endure some
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higher interest in the short term, interest rates in the short term to bring down the level of
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inflation to get people's expectations back down. But I mean, this is a result of the government
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continuing to spend. The real challenge, and Jamie, I'd love to hear from you on this. When I talk to
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any business owners in Simcoe North, and I also talked to some over in Brockville last week with our
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colleague Michael Barrett, they cannot find anyone to work. They want to grow. They want to grow their
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revenues, pay more taxes, hire more people. They can't find anyone. Well, guess what? Of all of the
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jobs created and recovered since the pandemic started, 85% of them are in the public sector. So this is
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crowding out jobs in the private sector so that we can add more jobs in the public sector. Look,
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they are great jobs. People do great work for the federal government. I feel for the people on the
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front lines. But when the private sector is looking to hire people and they can't find anyone, yet the
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federal government's growing at 10,000 people per year and still having a hard time doing essential
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services, you have to wonder, this is not economically sustainable. Well, I'm glad you brought that up.
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That was actually one of the things I wanted to talk about, the growth in the hiring in the public
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sector. A lot of job gains has been into the bureaucracy. And I don't think the idea right now
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is we need more government. We don't need bigger government. That's actually slowing down the private
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sector growth. The more layers, the more red tape, the more regulation of the rules, which some of them
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in this pile of 10,000 a year are being hired are hired to do just that. It's actually hampering our
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ability as a country, as a province, our provinces, our territories, to grow the economic activity we
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need to push our way through this. But one after the other, just pile on, pile on. It's deflating in
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some circumstances. Absolutely. Especially when you think about, we'll just use an example that
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everyone can, that resonates with everybody, tourism. We have certain, we have restaurants
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that are closed certain days of the week because they don't have people. We have motels and hotels
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that are not open fully. They've got floors that are shut because they don't have enough people
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to, you know, say, take care of the property and maintenance, et cetera. So that means in a time
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when tourism is supposed to be getting back up off it, on its feet, off of its knees, they're being
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held from recovering fully from the pandemic because they don't have enough people. I mean, this is
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potential economic growth that we are, that is disappearing forever. You know, every hotel room that goes
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unused every night is, is money that can never be recovered, right? That is a perishable good that
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expires at the end of each day, as an example. And so people are, business owners are frustrated because
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they can't find labor. They're having a hard time getting any help from government on this front,
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yet at the same time are seeing the size of government continuing to grow and the services are
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actually not keeping up with that growth. So it's a big problem. I really feel for the small
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businesses out there that are kind of the lifeblood and engine of the actual economy and they're trying
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to grow, but they can't find the people. And so we need to figure out how we're going to stop the
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growth of government, but how we're going to encourage more people to kind of enter and remain
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in the workforce that we can help our small businesses recover fully. Well, that's one thing that really
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doesn't get covered when you're looking at the loss of economic opportunities. The activity is
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the creation that never happens. You know, most organizations try to determine small business
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that, well, if I do this, I may have got here, but at the end of the day, you really can't get a exact
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idea of how much opportunity has been lost by the lack of businesses growing, the lack of opportunity,
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the lack of growth within the private sector. And when you can't do it here, those jobs either don't
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happen, they close down or they go elsewhere in the case of some manufacturing. And those jobs
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don't come back. As you mentioned, those jobs are lost and all the spinoffs are gone with them.
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People are making and businesses, global businesses are making investment decisions. They look at
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a country, they look at a labor force availability metrics. We have one of the tightest labor markets
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ever. In many ways, it's a good thing, right? People are still able to find work if they're
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looking for work. The challenge is when you have bureaucracy and red tape and all these things
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getting in the way, these individuals and businesses are actually choosing to invest their
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money elsewhere. And so that is actually lost. You're right. That's lost forever. It's very
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hard to bring that investment back once a decision has been made. And that's ultimately going to hurt
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us in the long term because we actually need the private sector to be strong and flourishing and get
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back to where it should be. Certainly in the tourism sector, as an example, which is big in our ridings,
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uh, but in other parts too, both in technology and financial technology and manufacturing,
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um, we want to fight for those mandates to come to Canada. We don't want to keep continually losing
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them. And the government, I don't think is being very, uh, business friendly at this moment.
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I don't think they have for quite some time because don't forget. And I like to remind people,
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especially those who are tuning in for the first time that from 2015 to 2019 during
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the Trudeau government's first majority parliament, they immediately started running
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the country on the credit card. They were already spending way above their means and really had no
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apologies for it. And they were told day in and day out, save for that rainy day, because it will
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not always be good time. Sure enough, the pandemic hit and our fitness fiscal capacity was hampered
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because they should have been paying off debt. They should have been storing away ready for the bad
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times. You're exactly right, Jamie. The other thing I'd remind people is while they were spending,
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the government kept saying, interest rates are low. Don't worry. Interest rates are low. We can
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afford this. Now we have interest rates increasing at a substantial pace and rate in order to get
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inflation under control. That means the cost of government borrowing, just like everybody else,
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is also going to increase. That means more money of every dollar is going to pay interest on the
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debt and not go to services that we need. And so the government's narrative is starting to crumble.
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Well, as mentioned, lots more money out there, not worth as much as it was before. And as people
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start to notice these increases, whether it be the grocery store, the fuel pump, you name it,
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everywhere across the supply chain. They make difficult decisions. And when they make those
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difficult decisions, it's usually the discretionary spending that goes first. When they're looking at
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their budget, where they can cut back, where they can try to make efficiencies in terms of their
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spending, it is the discretionary spending that goes first. And that's the stuff you notice on the
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ground at the movies, the restaurants, some sports activities, amusement parks, the fun stuff
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usually get scaled back first. And that's, as you can see, I'm sure you're seeing it where you are.
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Look, people are delaying their trips. They're not taking their RV anymore on the summer vacation
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because they're worried about fuel prices. They're not talking about traveling because they're worried
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about the airports and actually coming back to Canada and making a flight on time and losing
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their luggage. Maybe some of them have delayed their travel because they don't have a passport yet.
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We applied for my son's passport in March. We still don't have it. You've got people worried
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about the economic future. They think that it's very uncertain. Most people now expect inflation
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to stick around for a little longer. And that's important because once inflation embeds itself in
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terms of people's expectations, it can be very hard to bring back down. And there's a very well-known
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professor. He calls himself the food professor on Twitter. Follow him. We will be okay in terms of
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the amount of food that we have in Canada. It will be more expensive, but it's going to be nothing like
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the challenges that people in other parts of the world are going to feel. And we need to be very smart
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about food security. So when we talk about adding more regulations and rules on for farmers in terms
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of fertilizer and costs with the carbon tax, I mean, we've got to be realistic. The world is going to
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go through a global food shortage and we need to step up big, not only just to help our people at home,
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but to make sure we can feed the world. That's actually a topic for a future discussion.
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Actually, we're going to talk about what is going on in parts of Europe, how the government
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is playing in the marketplace and distorting the agriculture sector, especially in countries like
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the Netherlands, which are a huge exporter in agriculture, as well as what Canada is doing
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to its farmers right now with fertilizer and other measures they say are for the common good.
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So Adam, as you know, we always give the guests the last word. Let's talk about what the
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Conservative Party is proposing. Just to reiterate, I know you and many others have talked about it in
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Parliament over and over and over again. But, you know, there's an article in the Financial Post
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today by John Williamson, our colleague from New Brunswick Southwest, who talked about how the left
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loves rising gas prices, but now they're all of a sudden concerned about rising gas prices
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because they're actually hurting people's pocketbook. And it's not politically popular,
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but yet they've advocated for endless rules, regulations and red tape in our oil and gas
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industry. They've championed the carbon tax. They've shut down pipelines, the ability for Canada
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to add to the supply shortage that is out there. But we have done this. The left has done this.
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And yet now they're saying, well, let's tax them. Let's do something else because Canadians are mad
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about this. And rightfully so. Well, and you heard just yesterday, the federal government talking about
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capping like a total cap on emissions for the oil and gas sector. I mean, someone's got to explain
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to Canada how capping our oil and gas emissions is going to help the rest of the world decarbonize.
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If you just think about Alberta for a moment, Alberta moved from coal to natural gas. That is
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way cleaner for the world. Canada with its massive natural gas reserves could help countries like
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India and China in their transition from coal to natural gas as a midpoint until we eventually
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maybe get to some of the green and renewable energy sources. But you know what, Jamie, I'm one of all
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of the above guys. We need oil. We need natural gas. We need green. We need solar. We need all,
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we need all kinds of sources of energy. And Canada has a role to play in almost all of those energy
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sources. We can be an energy, a clean energy superpower, which respects the rule of law,
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respects democracy, respects human rights and respects the environment. The world should want
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more Canadian energy. We absolutely have to be there to provide it. But every single thing that this
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government has done since it's come in has left a lot of people wondering if they're serious about
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our energy sector. And as a closing comment, I think the one thing people need to be paying close
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attention to is this food security issue. You're going to hear more about it. We will be fortunate
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in Canada. You know, it will be tough for a number of people, but around the world, it's going to be really
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tough. And the, and the, and the gentleman to follow is Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, a well-known
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professor at Dalhousie. And that paints a very, very difficult picture coming up. So maybe a future
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conversation, Jamie, we'll talk about food. We can get our colleague on here, John Barlow, who's all
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about that, all about that file and doing an excellent job. But it's, I'm really worried about
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for what's to come on the food security piece for us. I am too. And I think we'll have Barlow on,
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or try to get them for next week. Cause I think you're right. That is a hot issue. Many people
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are starting to pay attention into, and those that aren't, we ask that you like, comment,
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subscribe, share this program together. We'll be able to get that, that word out. But at the same
00:22:55.260
time, as we mentioned before, and I agree with you, Adam, our energy portfolio, that's the strategy
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for Canada should be A plus B, not taking away A, not just B, right? We should be adding, always adding,
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not just subtracting what the left wants to do. They just want to subtract oil and gas,
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rely on the renewables that aren't readily available. They're not affordable for the vast
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majority of Canadians. Until we get to that point, we need that oil and gas sector.
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Absolutely. Thank you, Adam, for being there. Member of Parliament for Simcoe North, also
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the Deputy Shadow Minister for Finance. We appreciate his time. We appreciate your time. And we ask that
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00:23:38.820
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00:23:44.420
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