In this episode of The Blueprint, Conservative MP Richard Bragdon, MP for Tobik Mactaquak in the beautiful province of Manitoba, and the Deputy Opposition Critic for Ethics and Accountable Government, Larry McGuire, joins me to talk about the new alliance between the Liberal and New Brunswick MP's.
00:03:10.200Spend-happy at that time. They weren't spend-thrift, believe me.
00:03:12.260And this Prime Minister has outspent them, makes them look like child's play in regards
00:03:17.740to spending. And part of that, you know, we were supportive as far as helping people get
00:03:22.920through COVID. But there's a lot of this is untracked spending, and it has nothing to do
00:03:27.460with COVID. So this government has outspent. I think we've already elected the first NDP
00:03:31.920Prime Minister in Canadian history, and his name's Trudeau. And, you know, but we need to
00:03:37.180be cautious, because the motion that we put forward today as an opposition day motion from
00:03:41.760the Conservative Party is one to just alleviate a small fraction of that by getting rid of
00:03:46.240the GST on fuels. And everybody in Canada has to travel someplace to get to work, take their
00:03:52.100children to hockey practice or music lessons, just wherever they're going. And it's really
00:03:59.940hard on families right now. When, you know, MNP did the study that shows 50% of Canadians
00:04:04.860are within $200 of insolvency at the end of every paycheck. This is really harsh on families.
00:04:10.380Absolutely. And especially the Parliamentary Budget Officer said one-third of all spending
00:04:14.880that was done during the pandemic had nothing to do with COVID, but was couched in the language
00:04:18.420of COVID. And I think that's the issue we had, and especially when all this printed money
00:04:22.600into the atmosphere is causing massive problems for people, especially those in the housing
00:04:27.140market. Well, when you look at the housing market, Jamie, it's severe. I believe it was
00:04:31.800six years ago when Mr. Trudeau became Prime Minister. The median price or the average home
00:04:38.900price in Canada was like $429,000 in that ballpark. And that has over doubled in six years to where
00:04:45.660the median price for a home or average price is over $870,000. That is totally unattainable
00:04:51.940for so many Canadians across the country. And for people starting out wanting to purchase
00:04:57.700their first home, that just seems like a faraway distant dream now. And so what can we do to
00:05:04.020somehow hold this government in check, especially now that they're moving further, further to
00:05:08.220the left, let alone on the whole issue of making sure that we're much more energy secure, much
00:05:14.780more, have a much more stable and secure food supply chain and increasing our manufacturing
00:05:20.060capacity because there doesn't seem to be any interest in any of that from either the NDP or
00:05:24.740the Liberals. Already, they've had a boot on the energy sector of this country, and it's having
00:05:29.300devastating consequences, not just for us here at home, but also internationally. We've got to start
00:05:33.760replacing dictator oil and energy with democratic oil and energy. And I think that certainly would be
00:05:39.620things that we'll be advocating as conservatives to make sure we've got to look at this whole thing
00:05:43.700and get Canada back on the right track because we have unbelievable potential.
00:05:46.520Absolutely, we do. But we're suffering under a lack of vision. And whatever vision they do have,
00:05:52.320it's more government spending. Yes. And less private sector growth. We need the opposite.
00:05:57.480Well, we've doubled federal spending and we know what happened. And that seems to be a badge of
00:06:00.980success for this Liberal government. How much can we spend? It doesn't matter if you actually get
00:06:04.700results. It's what we spend. We just talked about housing. We talked about gasoline. What about food,
00:06:11.220Larry? You're a farmer. Fertilizer prices. Farmers are really worried about this.
00:06:16.200Well, they are. And, you know, thinking the CP has gone back to work at noon today here just an hour
00:06:21.840or so ago. But it is costly on food. We've got a war going on in Ukraine, a Putin war, not a Russian
00:06:28.540war. It's driven by Putin. And, you know, Ukraine provides 30% of Western Europe's food supply. And
00:06:38.240it's a big problem there. And Russia also supplies food. Neither one of them are going to be able to do
00:06:44.160the proper job of putting a crop on the ground this year. And this has just exacerbated the cost
00:06:48.260of things like fertilizer and transportation of crop inputs here in North America as well and around
00:06:53.760the world. And so we could end up with a food shortage in some areas of the world. And we're
00:06:59.300already seeing people, you know, going hungry in Ukraine just trying to get out of the country.
00:07:03.880We need to make sure that our supply chains are intact to be able to provide not only the
00:07:09.220finished products that help as farm inputs, but the manufacturing of those products through natural
00:07:15.440gas and other means while we transition. But we know, but we just, I always say you can't throw
00:07:21.160the baby out with the bathwater. We've really got to make sure that while we are transitioning that we
00:07:26.060continue to use the full potential of what's in front of us right now. Well, as an Ontarian, I sat
00:07:32.320through 15 years of liberal rule, and we saw what used to be the manufacturing hub of Canada
00:07:37.600slowly get decimated over those 15 years because of failed liberal policies. And those same brain
00:07:44.020people are here in Ottawa now, and it seems to be we're going down the exact same track. And we here
00:07:48.260in Ontario have some of the highest electricity rates anywhere in North America. Let's talk about,
00:07:52.500so if we want to talk about manufacturing and bringing back those jobs and building things,
00:07:56.260we have to address the key issues that are deterring investment in those kind of things.
00:08:00.520Quickly, let's talk about oil and gas. We talked about a few times, especially because Larry just
00:08:05.400mentioned the conflict in Ukraine. Even if we wanted to, as a nation, as Canadians, wanted to
00:08:13.920supply the European market and others with oil and natural gas to displace some of the Russian oil and
00:08:20.900gas that is kind of supply, well, it is supplying a vast majority of Europe, especially Germany with the
00:08:27.700Nord Stream 2 pipeline upon completion. Even if we wanted to, we can't, because we can't build
00:08:33.640anything in this country. The liberals have made it almost impossible. The bills that they put in
00:08:38.500place, the regulatory regime that they have in place, has disproportionately and unfairly stifled and
00:08:44.620strangled our energy sector. And our Canadian energy sector has a great story to tell. We have some of
00:08:49.720the best environmental regulations in the world. We pay our workers good wages in the energy field and sector.
00:08:55.660It's a great new story. Would it not be far better for Canada to be the provider of the world's energy in
00:09:03.940comparison to unsavory authoritarian and dictatorial regimes? And when you put it to Canadians like that, it makes sense to Canadians.
00:09:11.600And I've heard more and more in my riding back home and across New Brunswick, and I think this is happening across the country,
00:09:16.340it's time we are getting our energy resources to the world that need it. It can prosper our country, while at the same time,
00:09:24.020make us less reliant on foreign sources of oil from unsavory places. And I'll just say this, and I know Larry will have much more to add to this,
00:09:30.540being on the committee as well, but the Keystone XL pipeline, for example. The United States, up until just a couple of weeks ago,
00:09:38.000were importing to the tune of 680,000 barrels a day of oil and crude from Russia. You know how much the Keystone pipeline
00:09:45.600could have been providing the United States at the same time? With good, democratic Canadian oil, 800,000 barrels a day. Amazing.
00:09:54.420And the Americans will say, well, it would take two years to complete, but they canceled it 13 months ago.
00:09:59.240We would have been upon completion. This would have been already ready to go. So that argument, I don't deal with at all.
00:10:07.180But what really frustrates me, Larry get into this too, is that the first thing they did, Joe Biden did, was to cancel Keystone.
00:10:15.220One of the next things he did was lift the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, which allowed Russia to provide energy to Germany,
00:10:24.480Yeah, fund this war and neuter the position of Germany and other European countries, because that was allowed to happen.
00:10:32.460And then when the United States became dependent, he begged OPEC, Joe Biden begged OPEC to up their production when they wouldn't do that.
00:10:39.920He went to Venezuela. Like, where was this prime minister to say, Mr. President, we're right here.
00:10:46.080We've got the lowest carbon fossil fuels in the world here under the best regimes of extraction that my colleague on the Natural Resources Committee, Richard, just pointed out here.
00:10:54.960And yet, you know, here we are. We're in a position to be able to supply. We had a group in from Finland the other day.
00:11:01.100We could supply them. Twenty percent of their energy is coming from Russian oil right now.
00:11:06.860Qatar just signed an agreement with Germany over the weekend to supply some of the fuel that they were getting from Russia.
00:11:12.900There's alternatives to that energy, and we are in a great position to have been able to supply that if we'd have had the initiative and direction and vision over the last five or six years to be able to move those products.
00:11:28.240We also have to be very cognizant of the other elements.
00:11:32.300As we move to the other sectors of society or the new types of energy that the Liberals and the NDP want to talk about, and we are as well, the critical elements are the things that we also talk about here.
00:11:44.060China controls 80 percent of those in the world, Jamie.
00:11:47.140And, you know, we have our own sources here and very good sources, but if the critical elements were cut off to Canada,
00:11:54.360how then can we supply our own needs with, you know, the batteries that we need in the future, electric vehicles and everything else that may be coming down the road?
00:12:04.420But right now, that's what I say about the future, but right now we've got these fossil fuels in front of us that our neighbors and allies, really, need in the world,
00:12:13.880and we should be able to supply them, and we can't.
00:12:15.900Yeah, you're right. The Liberals, and we do too, I think all parties are talking about moving away for fossil fuels, and what does that look like?
00:12:21.560But I think the difference here, when we talk about it, we talk about adding, in terms of adding more options that are cost-effective and widely available.
00:12:31.900I think the Liberals and NDP, that coalition, just wants to subtract, right?
00:12:36.440There's a period of time where we are now, A, to when we get to point B, when we're off fossil fuels.
00:12:41.060What happens in the middle? I think that's the important question.
00:12:43.920Liberals and NDP want to just shut down oil and natural gas, but what happens to the cost of available energy sources to keep people warm,
00:12:51.300to fuel their vehicles, to get them where they need to go, to run their everyday, the middle is what the left is missing.
00:12:58.140Totally agree, Jamie, and this is the difference between fanciful ideologues and idealism,
00:13:04.800where, oh yes, it would be in an ideal world, we would be beyond carbon fuels.
00:13:09.140But then there's the reality of where people are living right now, and what they know the reality is,
00:13:13.820every time they're filling up their car, it is costing more and more from their back pockets
00:13:18.780and taking it out of their families' budget every month.
00:13:21.280What we do know is that we now have cross-jurisdictional comparisons that we can look at.
00:13:27.100We know other jurisdictions became, not too long ago, the world's number one energy exporter
00:13:34.080and developer and producer of energy, while at the same time reducing the carbon footprint
00:13:39.780more than what we were doing here in Canada under this current administration.
00:13:44.960While we virtue signaled and we talked about becoming green, our carbon emissions kept going up,
00:13:50.460while others were developing their natural gas sector and transitioning and using those fuels to replace coal
00:13:56.700and to supply the world with democratic energy sources, I think it's worthy of a re-evaluation.
00:14:05.740When we are blessed with the kind of resources we have in this country, we need to be the champions of all types of energy.
00:14:11.840I'm for all of the above, whether it's nuclear, whether it's solar, wind, all of that's great.
00:18:07.080Yeah, well, I'll just finish by saying that we've got a situation where these natural resources help pay for our social programs in Canada, too.
00:18:34.560We are able to have hospitals and schools and have the government that we have and the services we have because of transfer payments that came from the West, from our oil and gas and energy sectors in large part.
00:18:46.400I, for one, am very thankful for that.
00:18:48.760And the last thing we need to be doing is continue to pit region against region.
00:18:52.280Let's build a great Canadian story and do it together.
00:18:55.660Can't get any more East and West than this.
00:19:09.660We've got a great, we've got a refinery right in New Brunswick that could sell refined petroleum products to the rest of the world at premium price.