Standing up for Canadian farmers
Episode Stats
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207.4529
Summary
In this episode, Conservative MP's John Barlow and Randy Hoback discuss the impact of China banning the import of Canadian canola, and the impact it has on farmers across the country. Canola is a $27 billion industry in Canada and employs 250,000 people.
Transcript
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You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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The cost of living keeps going up, deficits keep going up,
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and he has to raise taxes to pay for his out-of-control spending.
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Talk is cheap, except when this finance minister does it.
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It's the fact that he punished two strong women for doing the right thing
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while he moved hell and high water to protect his buddies at SNC-Lavalin
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Hello and welcome to The Blueprints, Canada's Conservative Podcast
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and your source for clear, concise, Conservative conversation.
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I'm your host, Jamie Schmell, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corp.
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with the likes of Brock, bringing you what you need to know from Ottawa.
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Joining me today is John Barlow, the Labour critic.
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And Randy Hoback, he's the Member of Parliament for Prince Albert,
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So thank you, gentlemen, for joining us here today.
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and about, well, I guess six weeks now, going on almost two months,
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we learned that China was going to ban the import of Canadian canola.
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Maybe you can give us a quick recap on what happened in that situation,
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Well, it's, you know, about six weeks ago or so, Jamie,
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we had news from sources in China that China was banning the importation of canola seed
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from first was one of our largest exporters, Richardson's,
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and then a second one a few days later, Viterra.
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And the impact of this cannot be understated for our producers.
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China takes 40% of our canola that's produced here in Canada.
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You know, the timing with this as our producers were getting ready to start the seeding season,
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a lot of them had already purchased their seed and their inputs and fertilizer,
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so it was really difficult for them to make any adjustments.
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They planned these strategies, you know, months, years in advance.
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you're looking at the futures and where your best opportunities are.
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And, you know, this is 45,000 canola producers across Canada.
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250,000 jobs are directly related to the canola industry.
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So to lose our number one market at this time of year is extremely painful for our producers.
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And this is just yet another market we have lost.
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You know, it's our Canadian agriculture industry
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that's paying the price for liberal failure after failure after failure
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when it comes to their foreign affairs policies
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and eroding trust with some of our most important trading partners.
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Well, I think you touched on, I'll get to Randy in just one second,
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I think you touched on how important agriculture is to our economy.
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agriculture is number one for economic activity.
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So it basically touches all parts of the country.
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I know this has been focused as a Western Canadian issue,
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There are, you know, ripple and reciprocal industries across the country
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who rely on not only canola, but the agriculture sector.
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And when canola is struggling and our farmers are struggling,
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We've seen that the price of canola dropped more than 10%
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And it has brought the price of other commodities down with it.
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So the number that we've heard from our stakeholders in the industry
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is this has cost Canadian farmers close to a billion dollars already
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Because we came out as a team, led by our leader Andrew Scheer,
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with a plan on how to deal with this situation.
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And the Liberals dragged and dragged their feet on this.
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And, you know, actually we've been very active since March 11th
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when we were first received notice that JRI was shut out of the marketplace.
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You know, basically working through the committees trying to, you know,
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get the game plan from this Liberal government,
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at least that they're acknowledging that there's a problem
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or that there's a solution or at least a path forward.
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In fact, we've tried to have nine emergency debates in the House.
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Yesterday we tried to do an opposition day on it.
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so we only had one and a half, what, two and a half speakers on there.
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You know, there's lots of people we want to talk about.
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But, you know, Andrew came out Monday with a very simple plan.
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You know, basically let's talk about the cash advance program.
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Let's make sure farmers have access to the cash flow
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they need to get the crop in while we're in this disruption.
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And we've seen the Liberals announce part of that yesterday.
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Because you cannot ask farmers to take on more debt
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without giving them a market to sell their canola into.
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And, of course, we've got to tell the Chinese that we're serious.
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So the simplest thing you can do and the easiest thing you can do
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They actually will take action if something happens.
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You know, we've seen in the other markets that have shut down,
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whether it's Durham in Italy or pulses into India,
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this government's response has been nothing, just silence.
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They just say, well, I guess you lost that market now too.
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farmers are paying for liberal mistakes, and that's not right.
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And farmers are going to continue to pay for liberal mistakes.
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And now we're starting to see pork and the pork sector,
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You know, it's not just spring planting right now,
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but all these financial issues are hitting them all at once,
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about how Justin Trudeau views his job more as a figurehead
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or even laying in bed at night and wondering, you know,
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how many people are going to lose jobs because of this situation
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It doesn't seem that he's actually focused on any of this.
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Well, again, if you look at his facial expressions,
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You know, that's what's so frustrating when you sit in the House of Commons,
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you look across at this guy, you ask him a question,
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And then he kind of shrugs at you and gives you that smirk,
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Reality is, like John said, there's some, what,
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45,000 producers in Canada that are really sitting there saying,
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And I need some assurances that this government will have our backs.
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You know, their latest announcement yesterday was that they're going to do
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Well, we've been asking them to do a delegation to China.
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That's where the problem is, not Japan and South Korea.
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And we know what a disaster John McCallum was, the former ambassador.
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And it comes back to, okay, how are you going to resolve this problem?
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Second of all, they haven't even called the Chinese ambassador here in Ottawa.
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Why haven't you called them to the office and said,
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The ag minister and the trade minister and the minister of foreign affairs
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And, you know, we're waiting for an invite letter to come from China.
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We've been waiting, what, two and a half weeks,
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almost three weeks, for even officials to go over there to inspect the sample.
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So this whole handling has been bungled right from day one.
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And it goes back to what you initially said, Jamie,
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And it just goes to every, you know, solution that Liberals have to a problem
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is when there's a problem there, just to throw a bunch of money at it
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and hopefully it resolves itself without showing some intestinal fortitude
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You know, the announcement with the expansion to the advanced payment program,
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you know, I've had, you know, two or three farmers yesterday after that announcement
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was made, one in Fort McLeod and another one today in Nanton,
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has said, you know, I don't need to be taking on more debt.
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So unless they come out with all of these things that addresses this problem,
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just giving the farmers more access to, you know, loans that they have to pay back.
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But how are they going to pay this back if they can't sell the canola after harvest next year
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when they're already sitting with their bins full of the canola that they harvested last year
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I think we really have to highlight the fact this is a loan.
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This is not a payment like they did to Bombardier or to other companies.
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This is actually a loan where they actually have to take it out and pay it back.
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And they have to, you know, all the consequences that come with a loan.
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So if you don't have market access, if you can't sell that product in the fall,
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And, you know, to be giving $250 million to the Asia Infrastructure Bank,
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what kind of message does that send to China when you are decimating our agriculture sector?
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And as Randy said, there are other commodities that there's some anxiety out there
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that are also have a target on their back, whether that's pork or peas.
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But the Liberal government refuses to take any definitive action.
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And action number one would be to withdraw our support of the Asia Infrastructure Bank.
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And that's $250 million, but it would send a very clear message to China that we mean business.
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Well, it also goes to the effect that our relationships,
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we're actually spending money through that infrastructure bank to build pipelines.
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You know, this sounds like some comedy series that you'd see on TV, really.
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When you start looking at all the things that this government's done,
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you can't write the script and say how ironic or how hypocritical that script would be.
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We've seen this over and over and over again when this prime minister travels abroad.
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In fact, one of the farmers in my writing said, take away his passport.
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Because whenever he travels abroad, the amount of damage he does is phenomenal.
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That would have been a really good opportunity to solve that crisis with India as far as the tariffs on their pulses.
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He embarrassed Canada on the international stage.
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And then a couple weeks later, he goes to a TPP signing ceremony where he's the only leader who decides not to show up at the signing ceremony.
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And it's not like there was bad weather or anything else.
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Well, let's remind people who he was meeting with.
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Well, the leaders of Japan, the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, all our TPP partners.
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These are all our friends and allies who all of a sudden are sitting there saying, what the heck?
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You know, we worked really hard to get this agreement.
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And now, you know, the trade minister, Champagne at the time, says everything's ready to go.
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And then all of a sudden, the prime minister refuses to sign it.
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Didn't he have a meeting with someone from Facebook at the time that he chose?
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I think they made all sorts of different excuses.
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And hopefully he addressed him by the right name, not the leader of Japan from China.
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It'd be tough to say, Randy, that we can include President Obby of Japan as a friend now after how he's been treated by our prime minister,
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whether it was at the TPP meeting or last week when he met here in Ottawa.
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Well, I think that, you know, we're seeing that with agriculture.
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I'm from Ontario, but you guys from out west, when you tell people back home, and I'm sure they're paying attention to this, it just must shake their heads.
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You know, Jamie and, you know, John and I did a little bit of a video on this yesterday.
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One of the concerns I have is there's lots of stress in the agriculture sector right now.
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Farmers are facing a lot of pressures that they didn't bring on themselves.
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This has been brought on by this government, and it's an activity.
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And I'm really concerned about the mental health of farmers out there right now.
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I'm very concerned that a lot of people are at their limits, and I want to ensure that they seek help if they feel that they're, you know,
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they just can't go forward or they're frustrated and, you know, there's help out there.
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This is now and present where it's okay to talk to people about your problems.
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It's okay to reach out and get the support you need if you need that mental support or that health support.
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And I'm also asking people to look out for their neighbors.
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Like, one farmer told me his 1,000 acres of canola, he lost a buck a bushel, so there's $50,000 of old crop.
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Now, he's also going to seed another 1,000 acres, and he doesn't know what the value of that new crop is going to be.
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It might be, he might have lost $200,000 of the value of, you know, $2 a bushel, 50 bushels an acre on 1,000 acres.
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So, you know, he's got the bankers still looking for his payments.
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He's got the seed companies and the fertilizer companies and everybody else down the line wanting to be paid.
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And all this federal government's done for him is give him another loan that he has to pay back also.
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And a farm operation is just like any other business, right?
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It operates basically on two sets of papers, expenditures and income.
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And you can't be spending more than you're taking in for too long.
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Which also segues into how Justin Trudeau is running the country.
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They know that there's things that are out of their control.
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But there are a few things, a couple of things specifically, that they expect the government to be able to make predictable for them.
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That's transportation of their commodity and access to markets.
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And this liberal government has failed them miserably on both.
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Whether it's the grain backlog last year, which this could certainly lead to again this fall.
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And, you know, they have cost us just about every market imaginable.
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And that's adding to that anxiety and that stress within the agriculture sector, which is too bad.
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We understand that the potential growth in this industry is second to none in our country.
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But the two that we really rely on in Western Canada, energy and agriculture,
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are the two that the liberals have just decimated over their three and a half years.
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Yeah, you know, I guess to be cynical, if we wanted to solve the transportation problem,
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just remove all your export markets, then you don't have to worry about putting the grain on rail and getting it to market or to port.
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So and that's almost seemed to be like the liberal philosophy in a lot of sectors where it's oil and gas sector or the environment.
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You know, instead of having a progressive program out there, they just shut things down or tax it.
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There's been nothing progressive in this government at all when you look at the last three years.
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And, you know, we're going to go into spring seeding here.
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We're going to get a good crop because our farmers grow the best quality product in the world.
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And because of no fault of their own, they could be carrying over a lot of inventories that have value.
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But because you can't get them to market or you can't sell them into your export market,
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they're sitting there being devalued below what they're actually worth.
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And while China plays hardball, we just learned the fate of some Canadian nationals who were sentenced to death.
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And I think we've heard it in the news that we've never been so alone.
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The world for farmers is getting smaller and smaller, especially the world that we can sell products into.
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You know, I just was talking to some beef guys, and I'm going to confirm this here,
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but it sounds like even embryos and semen that we normally sell out of Canada into some of these markets, including China, have been cut off.
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And one of the big companies here in Canada that does that has actually shipped their bulls into the U.S.
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And it's fulfilling the same market, but only now out of the U.S. instead of out of Canada.
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Again, it doesn't make sense, but that's what they have to do in order to react to lack of activity or the bungling of this relationship with all these countries that this level of government has done.
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No, just the fact that this has been going on for, you know, almost two months, still no resolution now or certainly in the foreseeable future.
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And that just continues to show, A, the inaction or the inability or unwillingness of the Liberal government to take strong action, show a backbone,
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like show Canadian agriculture that you are fighting for them and no more platitudes, no more just throwing money at things.
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They want a resolution and they want somebody to stand up and fight for them, not just sit on their hands.
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They want certainty, not another government program.
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And, you know, again, they just want to know that we have their back or fight for them, and we will.
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And Andrew presented a program on Monday, very simple, that if they followed it would at least lead in the right direction.
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The reality is they're not listening to anybody and they don't understand the situation.
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Thus, I don't see it being fixed until October.
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Well, thank you very much, Randy Hoback, Member of Parliament for Prince Albert and also Deputy Critic for Trade.
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John Barlow, Member of Parliament for Foothills and our Critic for Labour.
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Thank you, gentlemen, for taking time and joining us today.
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This is The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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