The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - July 20, 2017


Summertime update

Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Tony Clement Omar Khadr Speaker
Gord Brown advocates for Thalidomide victims Leader’s Speech

Episode Stats


Length

3 minutes

Words per minute

157.92

Word count

609

Sentence count

29


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

When Parliament is on summer break, what do MPs do in their spare time? What are they up to? What do they do to keep up to date with their constituents? In this episode of The Blueprint, Conservative MP Candice Miller talks about what she and other Conservative MPs do when Parliament is not in session.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:09.000 Well, they thought they were going to have an easy day over there today, but not so fast, Mr. Speaker.
00:00:16.640 What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?
00:00:25.320 And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:30.720 Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:34.820 Have you ever wondered what MPs do when Parliament is on summer break?
00:00:40.540 I mean, the whole term break sounds like we're splashing in our splash pad pools or just maybe just getting our feet up at the dock, something like that.
00:00:52.620 You know, there's a little bit of downtime. There's a little bit of time with families that have been long separated by the ongoing responsibilities in Ottawa.
00:01:02.500 But most MPs use that time to reconnect with their constituents.
00:01:08.840 Conservative MPs are out going to, yeah, they're going to barbecues and festivals and those kinds of things in their writings.
00:01:15.600 But they're doing that so that they can be accessible to their constituents here firsthand about some of the issues that constituents want to raise.
00:01:24.780 Maybe there's some issues that an MP has to help them with where government isn't not responding to their needs or their concerns.
00:01:32.280 So a lot of the time of the MP, a little bit of time for vacation, obviously, but a lot of the time, I'd say 80% of the time, is spent actively having those conversations with people in the writings, making sure that you're accessible, hearing what's top of mind for people about the issues of the day, whether it's Omar Khadr or the NAFTA trade talks, whatever it is that people want to talk about, you've got to be there to listen.
00:02:00.920 Now, of course, we have responsibilities in Ottawa.
00:02:03.340 Some committees are still meeting during the summer months and we all have offices in Ottawa that have to be managed and make sure that they're doing a good job on behalf of their constituency and on behalf of the Canadian taxpayer.
00:02:14.880 But a lot of the work for Conservative MPs, at least, that's who I can speak about, are back in the constituencies being there and being accessible and having office hours and attending those 50th wedding anniversary parties.
00:02:29.060 Or maybe it's something to do with high school graduations.
00:02:33.780 I attended a lot of high school grads in the last few weeks myself.
00:02:38.220 And for Canada 150, Canada Day, and really the week before and the week after, if my constituency tells any tale, it's that there was a lot of events to go to.
00:02:47.500 Most MPs were not in Ottawa for Canada 150, they were actually in their constituencies.
00:02:53.720 I myself travelled close to 700 kilometres to make sure I was in multiple parts of my riding, multiple communities on Canada Day and the day after and even the week before.
00:03:04.060 So I know a lot of MPs were doing the same thing to celebrate that very special moment with our constituents, the people that we represent, the people that we speak on behalf of and we advocate for.
00:03:17.420 So Canada 150, not a day off for any MP that I know.
00:03:21.080 We are out there making sure that people saw us and were able to access us and were able to have those conversations and to celebrate with us as well.
00:03:34.060 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:03:42.780 To find more episodes, interviews and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada, search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.