The Blueprint： Trudeau’s Budget with Jasraj Singh
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the resignation of the entire board of the Trudeau Foundation, and whether or not a public inquiry should be launched into the matter. We are also joined by Jasmine Hillan, the Finance Critic in the House of Commons.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, for the likes of Brock,
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with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. We're glad you can join us
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and we hope that you can like, comment, subscribe and share this program. Get others to join it.
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Of course, if they can't watch or listen to the entire program right this second,
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download it, listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. You name
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it, it is out there. Lots to talk about today. We have news that the entire board of the Trudeau
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Foundation has resigned and also a topic that we haven't covered yet is the 2023-24 budget. The
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federal budget came down a couple of weeks ago. What a disaster that is, stifling innovation,
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productivity, etc. We're going to bring on a great guest to the show. He's been on before. He has
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his own podcast as well, Jasrez Hillan, the Member of Parliament for Calgary Forest Lawn. He's also
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the finance critic, busy guy. Thanks for coming on. Jamie, thanks for having me. You are an absolute
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legend and it's always great to join your podcast and be alongside with such greatness.
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Well, you keep saying stuff like that. We're going to have to have you on every week. I think
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we're going to have to bring you on as a permanent guest. All right, let's talk about something that's
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breaking today. Of course, at Constituency Week, we're both in our constituency offices.
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The entire board of directors of the Trudeau Foundation completely resigned. All of them,
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including the CEO, walked out. There's a few stragglers carrying on so the entire organization
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doesn't collapse. Of course, $200,000 roughly was given back as a potential alleged illegal
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donation from Beijing, funneled through some other individuals. So what is your take on all this as
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you watch this coming around? Of course, the topic today is the budget, but this is kind of
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breaking. So I just want to get your thoughts on what's going on. Yeah, and I think that it just
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plays into the whole thing where, you know, this foreign interference from Beijing is, it's a very
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serious thing. And the only person that's not taking it seriously is Justin Trudeau himself.
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You know, we are asking that there should also be our, you know, our leader, Pierre Paul Yev,
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the future prime minister of Canada, today also said that we should get an inquiry into the Trudeau
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Foundation to find out what happened. How did this money get funneled into there? And what led,
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what actually led to these people resigning or wanting to resign? We know that it's because of this
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donation that was taken, but it leads into this bigger, this bigger problem of foreign interference
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that, that obviously Trudeau is doing his best to try to avoid at all costs. And we saw that when
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they were trying to stifle or they're trying to filibuster the foreign, the, the proc committee
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for more than 36 hours, I think it was. It just goes to show that what are they hiding? We all need to
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know. Canadians need to know, because at the end of the day, we need to know that our democracy is
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free, free from foreign interference and that it is, and we put back, you know, restore the confidence
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back into our public institutions. So I think all of this plays into that. And I think the more things
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come out, which I feel like there might be more that comes out as well from the story that, you know,
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Canadians at the end of the day need to know that they can have confidence in their democratic
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institutions. We've been calling for a public inquiry almost right from the beginning. Of
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course, a special rapporteur that, that the prime minister appointed just to kind of drag things on
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until that person, David Johnston makes the decision on whether or not we should have a public
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inquiry. Let's stop that step. Let's get right into it. Call the public inquiry. Let the procedure
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and health, health affairs committee, proc committee do their work as well. Let's try to figure out
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the, what's going on. First of all, how deep is this? And obviously the questions that come after
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that is when did the prime minister know anything, if at all, and, and what was done about it, if
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anything? You're here. That's absolutely right. I couldn't have said it any better than that,
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Jamie. That's why I said you're a legend. Well, I'm going to turn to you, the legend, the guy who's
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rocking in question period. I got to tell you, the budget has given, unfortunately, a lot for you to
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work with in terms of criticizing and also proposing alternatives. But my goodness, not even a hope
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in the, not in the distant future and bringing the budget to balance. We all heard the comments
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from the prime minister the other day at a town hall talking about using the credit card. If you
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don't have any money, you can use the credit card. Well, since he took power in 2015, that's all he's
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been doing is using the credit card to run the country. It's, it's unbelievable the amount of debt
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we're under now. You know, you said there's a lot in there. Unfortunately for us to criticize,
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it's too bad. There wasn't enough in there for Canadians or for small businesses or for,
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for our Canadian economy to, to get better. So there was this, as our leader said, this budget
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was a direct attack on Canadian paychecks. The reason for that is because it's a higher tax,
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higher spend, higher inflation budget that they put out. You know, you had Chrystia Freeland a few
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weeks ago coming out saying, we're going to focus on fiscal restraint. And they blew right
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through that when they had more than $60 billion of new spending in this budget. And what does that
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do? That gives Canadians more pain, more hurt, more taxes, more inflation. And at the end of the day,
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this was a time for them to show that they were responsible. They were responsible government.
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They would listen to Canadians. They would, you know, listen to the opposition. This is time to help
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people out. And this budget didn't do that. We see that, uh, growth is basically going to be
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stifled. Our economic growth is not going to go anywhere. And it's unfortunate because Canada could
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have been a world leader. We could have had when, if, if we look at the globe, global scale, if,
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if the rest of the world is, is going to be hit with a economic slowdown, this is a time in Canada
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could have went blue past all expectations and help support the world as well. And one example of that
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is our, our energy sector. Canada could have been a world leader today in LNG, but it's the prime
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minister who continuously says that there is no business case. Like we saw when the German chancellor
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came to Canada, literally saying, let's give us your product. We want your LNG. And what did he do?
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He turned around and said, there's no business case for that. Yet he found a business case to give
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$21 billion in cushy contracts to liberal insiders and consultants. This is just a theme of this out of
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touch government that, that has done nothing but cause pain on Canadians and up to our economy.
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Canada should be supporting our resources, our hardworking farmers, rather than attacking these
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two sectors so that Canada can become a world leader and we can displace dirty dictator oil around
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the world and bring strong paychecks to our Canadians. We had three simple asks in this budget.
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We said, we want a budget that's going to bring home stronger paychecks, which means lower taxes,
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lower the deficit so people can take home more. Number two, bring home more lower prices and get
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which includes getting rid of the job killing carbon tax scam, which you know, it's a scam now
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because the liberals for years were saying this is going to make the environment and the economy and
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Canadians better. But the public budgeting officer said completely false. So this is a scam. We say
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scrap the scam, axe the carbon tax that people keep more of their hard earned money in their pocket and
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actually use technology instead of taxes to help fix the environment and work with the industry.
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The third thing, bring home more homes that people can afford. We know that there's a housing crisis
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all across the country and that we need to get more homes built. We need to get the government
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gatekeepers out of the way on a municipal level that are stopping from projects getting built.
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Canada's 64th in big projects as well right now when it comes to permitting. We need to get these
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gatekeepers out of the way. This budget addressed none of that. We know that we're still at 40 year
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high in inflation, highs in food inflation and gas inflation. Everything is just conflated right now.
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This budget did nothing to help support Canadians. A conservative government would bring down the taxes
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because we would bring down the inflation. We would cap government spending, bring down the interest
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rate so people can get more affordable homes getting built in this country as well. But more
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importantly, bringing down the interest level at the Bank of Canada would ensure people can start
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affording their mortgages and rents again. Well, Jaz, of course, they have the grocery rebate. That's
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what the Liberals are coming back with. And I don't doubt, judging by everyone I've talked to,
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the phone calls, emails, I'm sure we're all getting the poll after poll that is coming out that's saying
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it's getting harder and harder for Canadians to feed their families. Of course, any kind of rebate
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will be better. But the bottom line is the problem is, this is a one time thing, right? When that's
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gone, which it will be quickly because prices are out of control, the inflation crisis is still with us.
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We are not actually fixing the problem there. They're almost just just a little bit here you go,
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here you go, just to keep you going. But they have no idea how to actually put the fire out.
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And they just keep pouring more gasoline, 40 billion in the hole this year, 40 more billion next year.
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And it goes on and on in the tens of billions of dollars.
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Absolutely. Look, if you look at just the rebate first, it's nice that they call it a grocery rebate.
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What it is, it's a GST rebate, actually, that they've introduced once before. But you said it right.
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We need to find long term solutions that are going to help Canadians in the long term.
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We need to let Canadians keep more of their own hard earned money in their pocket.
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When we look at the GST rebate, where if we suppose a family gets a little more than $400
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one time payment, if you look at just the spending of this government, the new spending on their new
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budget, that's going to slam each and every household, Canadian household with an extra
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$4,200 in cost. So it evaporates, it vaporizes any type of support that they're showing that
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they're trying to give. One way to help lower food prices, let's get rid of that carbon tax
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so that it'll be cheaper for our farmers to produce, for it'll be cheaper for them to transfer,
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transport the food and get into our grocery stores. That's one great way that we would do
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immediately to help lower the cost. The second thing is we would get rid of this ridiculous 30%
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fertilizer reduction that they came out with. None of these policies by this Liberal NDP
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coalition are actually helping to reduce the cost of living. It's actually inflating it. It's making
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it go up even more. We have to get rid of these ridiculous policies so Canadians can have a chance
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to survive. You know, there was another recent poll, one in three Canadians are saying that
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they're financially just completely wiped out or they're worried about that. This is not the Canada
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that me and my family came to as immigrants, where there used to be a Canadian dream. The Canadian
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dream is gone right now because one in five newcomers also, because of the cost of living,
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are saying they want to pack up and leave from this country because they just can't afford it anymore.
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And the second reason is foreign credential recognition, which under peer poly of government,
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we have a plan for that as well, where we'll recognize credentials within 60 days of them
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landing here. So, you know, with a conservative government, we'll have actual long-term sustainable
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plans because along with supporting our farmers, if we support our energy industry, Canada become
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a leader in help reducing emissions, not just in Canada, but around the world because we can
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displace that dirty dictator oil. A couple of things that you talked about, you're talking about
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lowering prices, right? One thing to do is, as you pointed out, stop printing money, stop devaluating,
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devaluing, sorry, the currency and wrecking people's savings. You can stop doing that. But
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also, you could add supply to the market. Of course, when you have too many dollars,
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chasing too few goods, you have price inflation as well. And one way to lower the price of energy
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is to put more of it into the market. One place to lower the cost of food is to allow farmers to
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produce, not like other countries around the world. We're not going to name them, but it's very easy to
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point out which countries are somehow and some reason, on purpose, shorting their food supply,
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causing shortages around the world, which makes absolutely no sense. And people are just having
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to deal with the problem. Of course, the rich elites will never stop eating the best cuts of
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meat or staying at the best hotel or flying private. That's just for the common folk, right?
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And you mentioned energy. This was in the news a couple of days ago. A Spanish company,
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I believe it was, wanted to do an LNG project out in New Brunswick, which would have created amazing
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jobs and opportunity and wealth for that province. Opportunities that now won't be realized because
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of the policies implemented by Justin Trudeau and his energy killing C-69 to name one. C-48 is another.
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Absolutely. So C-69, it's a no new pipeline bill. C-48, no new tanker, but not the tanker ban,
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which, yes, we can get our product to the West Coast, but a tanker can't take it into the world
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markets. Another great way that we can get more production and more energy in the market is
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pipelines. We need more pipelines. Justin Trudeau has killed every single pipeline that was on his
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desk. He's killed 15 good LNG projects that are still sitting on his desk that he has done nothing
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with. We could have been that world leader and we could have produced more. We look at our home
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heating bills over the last just six months, over the winter. Home heating costs doubled. That's
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even before they raised the carbon tax, which they did on April the 1st. We need to get rid of these
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failed policies, get more built, more produced so that we can give more to the world. And you're
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absolutely right, Jamie. It's these failed policies that are hindering Canada that proves it in their
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budget when they're showing that there's not going to be any economic growth happening for the next few
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years. We're actually going to be stifled. We're going to have the slowest growth in the G7.
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Canada should not be in that position. Canada should be a welcoming country. The industries
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that we're talking to, we ask them, why isn't anyone investing in Canada? What's the holdback?
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Two things they say, government regulation or burden, which we call the gatekeepers, which is Justin Trudeau.
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And the second one is economic uncertainty, which Justin Trudeau has created
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with his bad policies and overspending. We need to fire the gatekeepers, get them out of the way.
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We need to make sure that we're looking like Canada is open for business again. We have enough
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resources here. We have our own minerals here. We have our own energy here. We have our own food here.
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The rest of the world needs to get that clean, responsible energy, food, and everything else,
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Well, you are absolutely right about that. But unfortunately, I believe the federal civil service
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swelled, had a big swelling party. They hired about 31,000 new bureaucrats, I believe it was.
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And of course, bureaucrats, they justify their jobs, most of them, if they're not providing
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frontline service, the ones actually doing the work, the ones in the ivory towers in Ottawa,
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they're just thinking of new ways to regulate people, new ways to control industry and stifle
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innovation and growth. And that way they justify their jobs. Having said that, Globe and Mail headline.
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March 28th, Andrew Coyne wrote this. If the government wanted to strangle economic growth,
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this budget, it would produce. Now, of course, the carbon tax, the offsets the government keeps
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is supposed to go to so-called innovation. We will say that. But massive, like above and beyond
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massive spending in certain industries, the industries that the government deems as green,
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those that got the favorable outcomes from government, the nod to continue to produce and do that.
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And of course, if you're a company, why wouldn't you take that free money? It's coming your way.
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Those with the ideas that might be able to produce something better at more cost affordable measures
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with cleaner technology. Well, they have to fight the uphill battle to get the funding from the private
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sector against all this government loan, easy money that's coming in from Ottawa. It's absolutely
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incredible. Yeah, it's, you know what, it's sad to see that the Liberals game plan to try to fix the
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problem that they created is more of a pay to play kind of scheme that, you know, we saw that with
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Volkswagen as well, that they're paying companies in the billions of dollars to try to invest here.
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But we don't know what the outcome of that is. We don't know how many real Canadian jobs or Canadian
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paychecks people can have from those. And, you know, it is the stifling of and it's the crippling
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of our energy sector that's not letting a lot of this, the things to be produced here. Canada is,
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like I said, 64th in permitting, and it can take up to 25 years for a project to get approved.
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That's ridiculous. We need to get these things, you know, fast track so that we can work on these
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things and get good Canadian jobs, good Canadian paychecks from these jobs. But we need to get,
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we need to get this Liberal NDP government out of the way for that to happen, because we will get
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more produced when there's a peer poly of government. And it's also the double standard,
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right? That's being used. The green, the eco activists are saying, well, we can't frack for
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natural gas and oil, but it's okay to frack for lithium, right? And those tailing ponds and getting
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the sludge out. And, you know, they completely turn a blind eye to the child labor being used in parts
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of Africa to get their rare earth minerals needed for these batteries and everything else that they
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seem to proclaim will save the earth. Well, we should be using the most ethical sources possible.
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But we should be able to use the tools at our disposal, which is the resources we have
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domestically. Let's get these people to work here. Let's get our industries back to work.
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Let's start building stuff here again and stop this reliance on other countries around the world.
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Because we saw during the pandemic, what happens when supply chains break down. We said this many
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times for, I don't know how many years that we should be building stuff here because we need to rely
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on ourselves when, you know, you know what hits the fan. We have to be prepared, right? And we should
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be, there's no reason why we should keep offshoring jobs. Exactly. Jobs. And, you know, the other point
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that I want to highlight is also the intellectual property that, you know, these companies are going
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to be coming here, but Canada doesn't own that much intellectual property. Canada should have those
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rights, whether it's, you know, getting these minerals dug up. But the problem right now is,
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who can get a mine built with these policies like Bill C-69? It's impossible. We saw from just before
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the pandemic was, you know, in Alberta was the Tech Frontier mine project that was ready to go.
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It was about a 20-year, you know, approvals project that they were 20 years in. You know,
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the government moved the gold post many times on them and they still met all the requirements.
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And it died on the cabinet table of Justin Trudeau because of ideology instead of actually getting
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good Canadian jobs and good Alberta jobs. That was going to create 8,000 good jobs. We would have a
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good input into our economy with it. But again, ideology always trumps common sense with this
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liberal government. Well, as we all know, capital investments, they always take the path of least
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resistance. Obviously, if you're going to put your money forward to take that risk, you want to
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minimize that risk as much as possible. You couldn't be more right. Like, look at the tens
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of billions, billions that have left this country for environments that allow growth to happen.
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Obviously, it's the most responsible and ethical way possible. Every country wants to ensure that's
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happening. But if you look at where the investments are happening right now, a lot of it is government
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money because things, as you just mentioned, can't be done here. Trans Mountain Pipeline is one. If the
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government didn't buy it, that project would not be going forward. Look at what they're
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doing to the investments, right? The selected winners and losers in the marketplace. If the
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government's saying, you know, the environment isn't correct for you to make a go of it here
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without this government support. So we're going to take taxpayer money. We're going to dump it into
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your industry and hope it works. Hope it produces something that we want and can use. But at the same
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time, when that money stops, that whole industry stops because it needs to be proven, right? It needs to
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keep growing. And this is my big concern out of all of it. Where is the endgame here?
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Look, I think that their endgame is making energy as expensive as possible. This is what their plan
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is. It seems like that's the direction that they're heading in. Why wouldn't anyone want their
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country to be the world leader in things that we produce on our own here? We've highlighted food,
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we've highlighted energy, highlighted minerals, critical minerals. We have all that here.
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Why can Canada not be the world leader in that and produce it elsewhere? You know, the US also
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created seven to eight LNG projects in the same time as Justin Trudeau has been in power for. And
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Canada has barely almost finished one project. And what does that show you? It just shows you a
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government that's not willing to budge on its ideology that's going to stifle the economy,
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but hurt Canadians at the end of the day, because we can bring down food and energy prices if we
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produce more. And that's exactly how you were the way you put it before, create more so that we can
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bring down the market value, not market value, but the but the price of it can come down. And we can
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sell it to others. And we can have that's the other thing. Good economy, right? That's that's the whole
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goal. But you know what, it's gonna have to take a peer poly of government first to clean up this
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mess. And second of all, we will be the world leader in these kind of things. Once peer probably
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have become Prime Minister of Canada. I love that optimism. I love it. I think Pierre is on his way
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to be Prime Minister. And it couldn't happen any sooner. I think many people are ready for an election
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right this second, actually, probably years ago. All right. As you know, the we've ran a bit over time,
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but the guests always have the last last words. So the floor is yours. First and foremost, Jamie,
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thanks again. And thanks for the incredible work you do. I just want to highlight the incredible work
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that Jamie has been doing, especially with our First Nation brothers and sisters all across Canada,
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making alliances, but working on true reconciliation. I think this is great first steps for us. When
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Pierre Polyev becomes Prime Minister of Canada, this is a big focus and Jamie is a huge part of that. So
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thank you, Jamie, for all that. Thank you for giving the honour of being on this show again with
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you. Look, I just want to leave people with optimism that, you know, under a peer poly of
00:22:45.920
government, the Conservative government, we will turn the hurt that people are seeing into hope.
00:22:49.840
We will bring more Canadian jobs, stronger Canadian paychecks, and make sure that Canada
00:22:55.000
is a world leader. Energy, food, minerals, you name it, Canada will be the world leader. Let's get
00:23:01.000
Canada back on track and make Pierre Polyev the next Prime Minister of Canada.
00:23:04.900
I couldn't have said it better myself. That guy is a star. Jazz Raz-Hallan, member of Parliament,
00:23:10.780
Calgary Forrest-Lonel. So the finance critic, keeping Christia Freeland's feet to the fire.
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He's doing a great job. Look at him in question period too. This guy's on fire. And I don't think
00:23:21.620
any of your questions have been answered so far, Jazz. But one of these days, the finance minister
00:23:27.320
will give you an answer. Thanks very much, Jazz. And thank you for your time as well. We appreciate you
00:23:32.860
being here. And we ask that you like, comment, subscribe, and share this program. There are
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they can download it, listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
00:23:46.240
Of course, we have new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. Until next week,
00:23:51.360
remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That is the blueprint.