The ArriveScam Scandal never fails to disappoint.
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Summary
In this episode of The Blue Pritchard, we have Larry Brock, the Brockinator, join us to talk about the Arrive Scam App and the $54 million it cost the Canadian government to develop.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blue Pritch. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Cawortha Lakes Brock, with new content
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for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time on today's show. Is it a cottage? Maybe a
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chalet? We'll talk this and much, much more as we investigate the Arrive Scam app and everything
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that comes with it. To talk about this much, much more, we have the Brockinator, the Prosecutor,
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Larry Brock, Member of Parliament, Brantford Brant, here to join us. Thanks for coming on the show
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once again. Thank you, Jamie. Always a pleasure to be on your show. Should call this the Brock
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print again. We keep saying we'll rename it. Maybe one day we'll get to that. All right. You are in
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committee, along with Michael Barrett and others, investigating the Arrive Scam app. I guess Arrive
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Cannes Arrive Scam. It looks like a scam. There's money going everywhere. People are tripping over
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themselves to try to get ahead of this story or maybe put their lean on the story out there.
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Why don't you tell us, we've got a few clips, so we're going to get into that, but I want you to
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give kind of a brief overview for our viewers and listeners, and then we'll get into the clip.
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I think it's important that we set the stage. So at the heart of this scandal, and this is exactly
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what it is, it's a scandal, is that we have three consulting companies, one of which in the clip
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you'll see the president of GC Strategies, who has received tens of millions of dollars in hard-earned
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taxpayer money over the course of the last five or six years for essentially not producing a product,
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not producing anything of any substance, but rather simply acting as a middle person to locate
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professionals to actually do the work on behalf of the government. Take the Arrive Can app. They didn't
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perform anything, no intelligence, no services. They simply use their network of IT professionals
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and other entities to locate people who could actually do the work. In exchange for that,
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they receive commissions of anywhere from 20% to 40% of the contract price. So we know-
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Not a bad gig if you can get it. We know that the Arrive Can app cost taxpayers $54 million.
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For an app that could have been developed over a weekend for $250,000.
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So it begs the question, how much commission did GC Strategies actually receive? And why are they,
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Jamie, taking on the role of a bureaucrat within the CBSA? We already know that the Trudeau government has
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increased the size of our federal bureaucracy by close to 40% during pandemic and post-pandemic.
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Why aren't these individuals simply opening up their Rolodex and trying to find companies that could
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actually fulfill the needs of the government? They could have done that and save the taxpayer
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tens of millions of dollars. GC Strategies doesn't even have a business. He's essentially working out of
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his basement. How many employees? Two employees. The whole two employees. Yes. They win a $54
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million contract. Correct. Not doing any work. No. None. Zero. That's, that's a heck of a job.
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Okay. Quite a scandal. That is quite the scandal. $54 million. This was the app. Of course, when you're,
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you're leaving Canada, you're coming back, you write down how you're feeling, all that other stuff.
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Now they have dedicated lines coming in. So people still, I guess for $54 million, they want to keep using it.
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They can't just throw it in the garbage now. Precisely. I know it's voluntary, but it's still
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there. It's still in the airport. It is. I see the signs. Yeah. With more lines than I think Nexus
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and the kind of the normal stream. That's correct. Yeah, that's quite correct. That's correct. So,
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so last Thursday at committee, we had the president of GC Strategies on the stand. Seems like a stand-up
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guy. So in this clip you're about to see, he references Mr. McDonald. He was the Canadian Border
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Service Agency. Correct. Okay. So maybe without giving too much away about the clip, what was kind
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of, well, I guess we should play the clip first. Maybe we should. Let's play the clip and I'll provide
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some context. All right. Cue up clip one. This is about a two minute long clip. Stick with us. I promise
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you it will be worth it. Two minutes of your time. The ending's kind of unbelievable. If you don't throw
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your hands up in the air like the broccinator did, I got problems. All right. Play cut one.
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Mr. Firth, I'm sure that the millions of Canadians who either are watching this or will learn about
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this in the press or seek out the transcript of this particular meeting will be very, very grateful
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that the RCMP has access to this particular evidence. What I can understand is why you would
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take active steps in misleading this particular committee and Canadians with respect to your role
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as it relates to fraud and forgery with respect to modifying without permission and consent these
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transcripts, not sorry transcripts, but the resumes to the government. What I can't understand is why
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you would deliberately lie to this committee on a very innocent question that was put to you by my
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colleague, Mr. Barrett, when he asked you if you knew whether or not Mr. Cameron McDonald from the CBSA had
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a cottage and you said no. Do you know if Cameron McDonald has a cottage?
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I don't know if Cameron McDonald has a cottage. Do you know if he had one?
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I do not know if he had a cottage. Do you want to reflect on that answer?
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Yeah, Mr. McDonald has never referred to it as a cottage. It's a chalet. It's not a cottage.
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I'm thankful for that clarification, Mr. Firth.
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Are you saying you knew all along that he had something that was equivalent to a cottage or a cabin?
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Cottage, cabin, chalet. What was the, so that the cottage, it really plays no real part in all this,
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but why was it important? Why was it important that you play that clip?
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So what you have not shown the audience for, I appreciate it because of the limited amount of
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time that we have for this podcast, is leading up to that exchange. And I still view that particular
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exchange as really a non-important element. Whether or not Mr. McDonald owned a chalet, a cottage,
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a cabin, a camp. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Whatever. Whatever it is. Whatever it is.
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A secondary residence of some kind. A secondary residence of some kind. Whether he had that's
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not material, but what it does show is that there is a pattern of deceit. The questions that preceded
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that we, we spent a great deal of time on the issue of he and he alone, modifying certain pertinent
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details of resumes that were given to him by a company named Bottler. So Bottler's not involved in
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ArriveCamp. They're, they're involved in a completely different government service, but they're intertwined
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with GC strategies. So to qualify for funding from the government, Mr. Firth did not inform the two
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principal partners of Bottler that he was actually taking steps to change their experience level. In
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some cases, having an experience of two to three months and then mushrooming that to several years
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of experience, it was important for him to deliberately commit a fraud on the government,
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because that is the only way that Bottler would have qualified for the project. And if Bottler qualifies
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for the project, then GC strategies collects commission, right? If they didn't qualify, there is no commission.
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So to make matters worse, he admitted to not only changing and altering and doctoring
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the pertinent information on this resume. Once he did it upwards to six times, to again, to continue
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to qualify Bottler in receiving government funding to increase obviously his commission. I was gobsmacked
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as a former prosecutor that he would freely admit to that type of criminal enterprise on more than one
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occasion. So that was the backdrop. So we established that he's prepared to lie, he's prepared to cheat,
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he's prepared to commit criminal acts on the government for the sake of his millions of dollars in commission.
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So then we dovetail into the cottage issue. Again, it's a really modest little point. Whether he owns it or not
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is really immaterial, but it displays a pattern of conduct. And it's a pattern of deceit that really bothered me as a parliamentarian.
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Of course, of course. So where does it go from here? Like, well, first of all, there's a couple of things there.
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But to, to, you know, if for someone like him, if he was, he's trying to hide what he did, I'm assuming, just by
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watching it. But why would you, why would you lie or potentially mislead about something as small as that?
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That's something that could be easily figured out, which puts then a bigger lens on everything else
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he has said. Why would you do that? In my view, it has completely tainted his overall credibility.
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Every response that he has given to all the questions put by all members of the committee is now put under
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a spotlight. And that's why, no surprise, we hardly completed our examination within two hours.
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We are now summonsing him to return to that particular committee for a meeting upwards to three hours.
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Because there are so many little hanging threads based on the evidence that he has provided that
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requires a little more clarification. This goes to the larger picture too that we've been
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setting the stage for in terms of revealing piece by piece to Canadians as we discover it.
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The government's overuse, in our opinion, of consultants, outside consultants, despite,
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as you said earlier, growing the bureaucracy. At one point, I believe nine out of 10 jobs that
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were created coming out of the pandemic were all government jobs. So what are people doing? What is
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this government doing? And, you know, we couldn't get a passport. People needed Service Canada when
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the pandemic happened. It all closed down, right? There were, there were a whole bunch of failures
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on behalf of this government, which is supposed to be leading Canadians through their day-to-day lives.
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This government is asleep at the wheel. They are not guardians of taxpayer funds. They are doing an abysmal job.
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Their view is that's money for them to spend as they see fit. Again, bolstered by the support that they're
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receiving from their NDP coalition. They are governing as if they have a majority. They've never respected
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taxpayer monies. This is just a gross example of that misuse.
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Just like to remind people that one of the first things this Prime Minister did, the first piece of
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legislation that he was contemplating putting before Parliament after March 2020, when the world had
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shut down because of the pandemic, would have given that Prime Minister complete power to do or spend
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or borrow or tax anything that they wanted, the government wanted. They would basically bypass
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Parliament for two years, bringing it to 2022, long past when the restrictions were being lifted.
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That's how this government operates. They've been operating that way since 2015.
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Again, mere words. They projected something that would be responsible to do to show Canadians they were
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going to be open and transparent by default. But quite frankly, Jamie, I have lost track of how many
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instances of misuse of taxpayer money, scandal after scandal, shutting down committee, just all kinds of
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political gamemanship that this government is deploying to prevent Canadians from seeing the truth.
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And even when we have our national policing agency, the RCMP, who is charged with investigating crimes,
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I know this is an off topic, but it's near and dear to my heart, when the RCMP was investigating
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Justin Trudeau for his deliberate, constant interference in the independence of our Attorney General,
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and him pressuring her to offer a remediation agreement to a Quebec multinational company,
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and her refusal cost her her job. And then the RCMP wants to investigate, but then again,
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they hide behind cabinet confidence and refuse to release the information requested numerous times
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by the RCMP and also requested numerous times by the Ethics Commissioner. This is the style of this
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government. They are not open. They are not transparent. They have a hidden agenda,
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and that hidden agenda is fleecing the taxpayer. And they're feeling it right now. So when the
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pandemic happened, we printed $400 billion out of thin air. Parliamentary Budget Officer looks over
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the spending that the government did. Half of what the government spent had nothing to do with COVID,
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but was couched in the language of COVID. And because we were printing, we were borrowing,
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we were taxing, all of it combined, leads us to the path we're in now, the situation we're in now,
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which is an inflation crisis. More and more people are using food banks than ever before in history,
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including first-time users. And that, I got to tell you, to cross that threshold to use a food bank
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for the first time, when most people that are using it have jobs, have an income, but they just can't make
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it under this Prime Minister. It's just not worth the cost. So all of this combined leads us to what
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we're dealing with now, and that is the inflation crisis hurting Canadians because they misspent
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taxpayer dollars, not just on Rivecan, on a whole bunch of other things. And now taxpayers are feeling the
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consequences. And we're talking about billions, billions with a B of taxpayer misuse.
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Yeah, and it's sad because people are crying for help right now, and this government does not have
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a clue how to fix that problem, because you have to also look at cause and effect. You have to remember
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how we got here was the cause. This government, bad policy, compounded. Yep. And for a future show,
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I'd be happy to share my thoughts and observations of the latest scandal that's rocking this Justin
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Trudeau government, and that's the Green Slush Fund scandal, which according to some senior bureaucrats,
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is the equivalent of the sponsorship scandal 2.0. We all know how that ended for Jean Chrétien as our
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Prime Minister. I'd be happy to share my thoughts on that on a future episode. Hopefully the same way it's
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going to end for Justin Trudeau. All right, we've got to run off the question period. Good show, by the
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way. We've got so much more to dive into. Final words? The floor is yours. This country needs more
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than ever a common sense, economically responsible government led by our future Prime Minister, Pierre
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Pauliev. Larry Brock. Well said. Member of Parliament for Brantford. Brant, we appreciate his time.
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Thank you, James. As always, we appreciate yours. This is probably something you're not hearing in
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the mainstream media. I know it's tough to flush out, but eyes have to see this program, ears have
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to hear this message. You do that by liking, commenting, subscribing, and sharing this program.
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We'll have new content for you every single Tuesday at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Until then,
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remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's The Blueprint.