Risks to Economic Prosperity
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Summary
Ed Fast, the Finance Critic of the Prime Minister's new cabinet, joins us to talk about the changes to Justin Trudeau's cabinet and what they mean for the country. He also gives us his thoughts on the new ministers and their appointments.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
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your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Caliburton, Co-Worthodox Brock, thanking
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you once again for joining us here today. And if you can't watch or listen to the whole
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thing right this moment, you can download it later on. Listen to it on platforms like
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CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it, it is out there. And with this content
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the ever-moving Liberal Agenda with new content every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time.
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We're just a touch behind, but we are glad you are here. We have an amazing topic today.
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Of course, the new cabinet for the Trudeau government has been sworn in today. We're going to go
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over that in just a second with our guest. He's a good friend of the show. He's coming
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back, the Member of Parliament for Abbotsford. He's also the finance critic of Record. We
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have Ed Fast. Hello and welcome. Thanks for coming back on.
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And you did have, we did have good reason for going a little late. You were just sworn
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Thank you. Thank you. I was there with Doug Shipley and a few other Shipleys and enjoyed
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the swearing-in ceremony and then had a meal at the Parliamentary Restaurant.
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Very good. Well, well-deserved. And of course, Bev Shipley, a Member of Parliament for
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Southwestern Ontario, just recently, I guess, retired in the 2019 election. So it's great to
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see him again, I'm sure, and spread some good cheer and some memories. Catch up. Big day. The Liberal
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Cabinet was sworn in, as I mentioned off the top. And I think the one thing that really stands out
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to me is the fact that Stephen Gilbeau was moved. Mr. Censorship. Stephen Gilbeau was moved from
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Heritage, Mr. Bill C-10, centering what you can watch and see on the internet, now in the environment
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and climate change portfolio. My goodness, if you were out West, my goodness, anyone in the oil and
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gas industry, I'm sure people in the mining industry in Northern Ontario and elsewhere and
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in the Yukon. But now we have a real hardcore activist in the environment and climate change
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portfolio. Well, I would say that if you are someone who's interested in maximizing Canada's
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potential, not only in natural resources, but in development generally, the appointment of Mr.
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Giebel, as Minister of Environment, should send shivers down your spine. Mr. Giebel has proven that he is
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willing to go to extremes to implement his agenda, Justin Trudeau's agenda. And as you know, with Bill
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C-10, he was the minister responsible for the bill that would have censored what we post online. He would
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have given the CRTC the power to look over our shoulders, tell us what we can and cannot post on
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social media. And now we have that same minister in charge of our environment file. That should concern
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every committee. Our leader, Aaron O'Toole, put forward a statement just a little while ago, basically
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calling out this new cabinet, saying it poses a serious risk to economic prosperity and national unity.
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And if you go down these names, it really does show that. I'm starting to get very concerned. We have
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Melanie Jolie, who was demoted at one time because of some errors she made in her portfolio. Now,
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she's been elevated to the foreign minister, one of the top diplomatic post. Well, the top diplomatic
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post. I can't see how that makes any sense either. Well, Jamie, I'm not going to cast aspersions on any of
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the individuals that have been appointed, other than to say that there are virtually no new faces
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here. The only new, really new face is Sean Fraser. And I think that's a good appointment. He's a capable,
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eminently capable member of parliament. I think he'll do well in his new immigration portfolio.
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But for the most part, this cabinet is just, it's like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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It's the same faces, just in different portfolios. We'll be making the same basic mistakes in those
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portfolios. I'm not encouraged at all by what I've seen in today's cabinet.
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Are you surprised at all that Harjit Sajan, I guess another British Columbia member of parliament,
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was moved out of the defence portfolio? He was put into international development and minister
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responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada.
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Well, I'm not surprised that he's been shuffled out of defence. I mean, that was a disaster of file.
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I think Canadians from coast to coast to coast understand that he should have never been given
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that file in the first place. And he certainly fumbled the ball on that, especially sexual misconduct
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in the military, something he really has never taken seriously. But to see him still in cabinet
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is a great concern. He's been shuffled off into international development. But quite frankly,
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he shouldn't be in cabinet at all. And as a British Columbia, obviously, I want to see great
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representation from our province. But having him there as our representative really reflects very
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poorly on the Trudeau government. We see that Chrystia Freeland is back in the finance portfolio,
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again, Deputy Prime Minister. Given that inflation is at its 20-year highs, 4.1%. Prices are going up
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everywhere you look. Is there someone, is there kind of an adult in the room, if you will, that will have
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the guts to stand up at the cabinet table and say, look, we can't keep printing money. We can't keep
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spending $424 million more than what we have every single day, or print more than $400 billion,
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which the Bank of Canada has effectively done. Something needs to give before we debauch the
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economy, the currency or combination thereof. Well, you asked, is there an adult in the room
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that can stand up to Justin Trudeau? And my answer is, I'm not sure there is. We've seen this government
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take unprecedented steps to borrow and spend future generations' money. And this is money that has to be
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repaid by my children, my grandchildren, and someday maybe my great-grandchildren. In fact, the Parliamentary Budget
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Officer has made it very clear that based on the Trudeau government's current trajectory, the budget won't even be
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balanced until the year 2017. 50 years from now, and that doesn't take into account the additional
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spending commitment team made during the election, which have to be piled on top of that. And that is
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the legacy that we're leaving behind for our children. Now, don't get me wrong. We've come through a pandemic
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and some additional spending and borrowing was required. But you may recall during the Harper years,
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we also had a global recession in 2008-2009. And what did the Harper government do? Well, yes,
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they did invest in our economy by borrowing a little bit and investing that money in things that made a
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long-term difference that strengthened our economy, things like infrastructure across our country.
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And yet, what we've seen with the Trudeau government, their spending has gone far beyond
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just coping with the pandemic. Everyone knows that he, the Prime Minister, allocated an additional
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$100 billion of what he called stimulus funding, which ended up not being stimulus funding. It was simply
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spending money, spraying money around to all the special interest groups that he hoped would re-elect
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to his government. And in fact, he was successful. He sprayed that money all around. He was re-elected.
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But you know what? It's my children, your children and grandchildren that are going to have to pay for
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this. And there's no plan to manage this massive debt that this Prime Minister is leaving behind.
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In this minority parliament, of course, you need the help of at least one other party,
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the Liberals do anyway. The NDP want to spend even more money. It doesn't look like the Liberals are going to
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take the opposite approach. So if they're teaming up with the NDP and they want to put, you know, more cash,
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you know, print more cash, you know, we're going to have some very serious problems. As you mentioned, as the
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interest payments keep coming up and get bigger and bigger and take up a bigger part of the federal
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budget, there's going to be less money for those services that future generations need and want.
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That is correct. I think what we've done is we've positioned ourselves as an economy, as a country,
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to face very stiff fiscal headwinds. And by fiscal headwinds, I mean very significant challenges in
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trying to pay off the debt that is being left behind, to continue the services that
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Canadians have come to expect from their federal government. And there's only three ways we can do that.
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One is to reduce spending. Second way is to increase taxes. And the third way is to generate economic
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growth. We as Conservatives believe that the way to address this is to generate economic
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growth. And to do that, you have to address some of the challenges that we have within our economy.
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We have some structural deficiencies in our economy that have to be addressed so that we can generate
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the kind of economic growth and tax revenue that will allow us to afford this massive debt. And we have
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not seen that plan from Justin Trudeau. My theory is the NDP now will extract even more concessions
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from a spendthrift prime minister, whether it's going to be on dental care, national dental care
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program, national pharma care program. We don't know what this is going to look like. We know the NDP
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is going to hold the prime minister for ransom, and Canadians will pay the price.
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You've seen media reports all across the globe, really, warning and forecasting higher energy
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prices. We here in Canada have an amazing energy industry, but it's always pushed to the sidelines
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by this government. We've seen massive pieces of legislation that regulates our ports to death.
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We can't get pipelines built. We can't seem to get our natural resources to market other than
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the United States. But yet we're doing everything we can domestically to cripple this industry where
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demand is rising. And you're seeing warnings in some countries where shortages might be a reality
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this coming winter. And we have the ability to do this. We have the ability to extract our resources
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and provide the marketplace, the demand that they need, in the most ethical, responsible way possible.
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You're absolutely right, Jamie. In fact, your comments go to the heart of what I just mentioned,
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and that is the structural deficiencies we have in our economy. We are over-regulated. We make it
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incredibly difficult for investors to invest in our economy because they don't trust this prime
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minister. They don't trust this liberal government to put in place the kind of regulatory environment that
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is going to be welcoming to investors that will allow projects to be approved, that will allow our
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oil and gas to be shipped all over the world because it is the most ethical oil and gas you will find
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around the world. And nobody is suggesting that overnight we're going to be able to stop using oil
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and gas. It's just not going to happen. The world is still going to need fossil fuels for decades to
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come. Well, if we're going to be using fossil fuels for the next little while, why not at least ship
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the most sustainably extracted and produced oil in the world? And that is here from Canada. And the
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problem is we can't even get it shipped across our country because we have an anti-pipeline prime
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minister. We have an anti-resource liberal government that just does not understand how important the
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re-resource sector is to our economy. Not only that, like you're in British Columbia, what's the
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forest industry? That's an industry that was hurting before the pandemic. We know that mills were closing
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for a whole bunch of reasons and then the pandemic hit. How's the industry faring right now? Is it still
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struggling? Well, not only the pandemic hit, but we had the massive forest fires of a good chunk of our
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forest. You may recall back in 2006, when Stephen Harper was elected, the first thing he did was to
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get a liberal MP to join us and to appoint him to negotiate an end to the software lumber disagreement
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that we had with the United States. David Emerson was appointed to resolve that dispute and he did it
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in short order. And we had peace for well over a decade in our forests. And wouldn't you know it,
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in 2015, Justin Trudeau gets elected. The software lumber agreement expires. He has this great meeting
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with Barack Obama in the rose garden of the White House. And he announces that within weeks, they were
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going to put in place a process to resolve the soft lumber dispute. And here we are, six years later,
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there is absolutely no prospect right now for resolving that dispute. Yes, it's impacting our soft lumber
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industry. Fortunately, and unfortunately, in some respects, the pandemic has also generated this demand
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for housing, that the price of lumber has just skyrocketed. And it's actually now factoring into
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the inflationary pressures that we are seeing across Canada, across North America, actually. And so the
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lumber industry is doing reasonably well. But I can tell you that once this spike in lumber prices
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abates, we'll be back down to a situation where our forestry companies are going to be struggling
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because of the fact that this prime minister has not made forestry a priority for his government.
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Ed, we only have a few minutes left. And I always give the guests, as you know, the last word. So
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you can comment on anything you like. The inflationary crisis, we can talk about the cabinet
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that was just sworn in today, or whatever you want. The floor is yours.
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Well, let me talk about inflation. And I want to make sure that the blame rests where it should be.
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And the blame doesn't rest with the governor of the Bank of Canada. It's not the Bank of Canada.
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The reason that we have inflationary pressures, at least in part in Canada, is because we have a
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government in place that is borrowing and spending without any prospect of actually repaying this
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massive debt we're incurring. What happens when you borrow and borrow and borrow and pump more money
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into the economy? You have more money chasing the same number of goods. And what that does,
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it leads to inflation. Now, there are other inflationary pressures from around the world. So
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the prime minister's responsibility is to manage borrowing and spending so that it doesn't exacerbate
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inflationary pressures. Today, our inflation rate is at somewhere in the order of 4.4%. It's going up
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and up and up and up. The last six months, we've just seen increase after increase. Canadians are feeling
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the pinch at the pump when they gas up. They're feeling the pinch when they're buying groceries. They're feeling
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the pinch definitely when they're going to buy a house or even rent. This is going to be a real problem for
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Canadians going forward. The cost of living is skyrocketing. And this Liberal government has no plan in place right now
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to address that very significant challenge for families across Canada. And my other fear is,
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of course, that as inflation continues to go up, the Bank of Canada will eventually be forced to increase
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interest rates, which translates into mortgage interest rate increases, which means families that have
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basically based their home purchases on the fact that we have low interest rates may not be able
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to rely on those low interest rates for a longer period of time. This is going to start pinching
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families across our country. I feel sorry for them, because the inflationary pressures have not been
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managed well by Justin Trudeau. And that's why we are hoping that he will listen to us when we make
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suggestions about how to control spending. How do we focus on moving back to balanced budgets as we
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had proposed to do? Unfortunately, our Prime Minister isn't someone who likes to listen very much to the
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opposition. Yeah, we've certainly noticed that in the past six years. Ed Fass, thank you very much.
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Member of Parliament for Abbotsford, also the finance to predict a record. We do appreciate his time and his
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insight on these very important issues. Again, we'll be back every single Tuesday with new content
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as always, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That is the Bluebirds.