The current government has done an absolute disservice to the safety and wellbeing of everyday citizens.
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Summary
The Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach is out of control. Some of Canada's most notorious criminals are living the easy life. So the person who exposed it all, Frank Caputo, joins us today to talk about it.
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, Co-Worthalikes, Brock, with new
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content for you every single Tuesday at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like, comment,
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subscribe, and share this program. On today's show, I guarantee you the mainstream media is not
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covering it. The Liberal government's soft-on-crime approach is out of control. Some of Canada's
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most notorious criminals are living the easy life. So the person who exposed it all is Frank Caputo.
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He's here to join us today to talk about it. He's the Member of Parliament for Kamloops, Thompson,
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Caribou, and the beautiful province of British Columbia. Thank you so much for joining us.
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Thanks for having me, Jamie. It's a pleasure and honour to be here again.
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Well, I love having you on the show, and you did some pretty extraordinary work
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just recently, exposing the fact that awful human beings like Paul Bernardo, Luca Magnata,
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they are now living the easy life, so to speak, in medium security. Tell us about how you came upon
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Well, for those who don't know, Jamie, I used to work in federal corrections. I was a parole officer,
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so I know this area quite well. And I knew that a member of parliament could actually attend a
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penitentiary and go in. You technically don't have to give notice, but we did. And I went in,
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and I was greeted by some people that were fairly high up in federal corrections. And I said,
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look, I'm here not to gawk at Paul Bernardo. I'm here to see his conditions. And they said,
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well, his cell's like everybody else's. Can we just take you to a cell? And I said, no,
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I want to see his cell. So that's how it started. Had a meeting with a couple of union officials.
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And then off we went to the, what is called is a living unit. And the living unit has what they
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call ranges. Ranges are where they're kind of like the hallways that house inmates. So we went
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I saw a cell that looked like every other cell. And I've seen a lot of cells. I've been in a lot
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of jails. Looked like a cell like every other cell. But here's the problem. Paul Bernardo is not
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like every other offender. So a lot of people don't know this, but when you look at maximum
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security, if you were rated on a scale of one to 10 in terms of security, it's like an eight and a
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half, right? Medium is probably like a six. And then minimum is like a two. So the perimeter security,
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that's the outside security. It's the same for medium and maximum. But what you don't
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get is the difference inside. In maximum security, it's like there's door after door after door.
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They clang. It feels, you feel the tension. There's frisks. In medium security, if you took
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away the fences, it actually looks like a university. Pave it, put a little bit of grass. It looks
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like a university. You go from building to building.
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At certain parts in the evening. Yep. Yep. When we walked by, there were inmates that were doing,
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they called them inmate jobs and golf carts or little, you know, kind of, I don't know if ATVs
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would be the right, the right term, but you know, just little, little areas to do their work,
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doing their work. And we walked freely in to Bernardo's unit. And in fact, when we were walking
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out, I didn't know this, but one of the correctional officers said to me, do you know who just walked
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by you a little while ago? And I said, no. And he said, that was Luca Magnata. So there's actually
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that freedom to roam that you would never see in maximum security. So went to the Bernardo cell.
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Looked like every other cell. See all these kind of like, you know, things that everybody
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has different things, different ways of arranging their things. It looked just like an ordinary
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cell. But this isn't an ordinary maximum security jail for the likes of Bernardo.
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I walked outside. And when I was walking outside, I saw an ice rink. And there were hockey nets that
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were propped up. And the CSC, the Correctional Service of Canada, to my dismay, when I revealed
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this, they set out to discredit me. Obviously, as a conservative, they don't want this truth out
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there. So their term was, we haven't had a working ice hockey rink, something along those lines.
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There were nets there. And I asked, skates are available. That's what they said.
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With blades. Right. With blades. Now, they didn't deny that. But they set out to try to discredit
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me. And the Canadian press obliged and the CBC obliged. I stand by everything I saw. Every word
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I say. And for those who haven't seen the rink, you can go to my Twitter, go to my social media.
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The rink is there. And you can actually see the tennis court markings that it goes into. It has
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halogen lights on top. That was very surprising for me. Again, we can debate, Jamie, whether that's
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appropriate for medium security. That's actually a separate discussion. The discussion here is
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whether Paul Bernardo should be having access to these amenities.
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Exactly. Some of these awful human beings. Because it poses the question, if some of Canada's
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worst people, Luca Magnata, of course, killed and dismembered his roommate and sent those body
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parts to different places, one being the Conservative Party of Canada. I think it's no, everyone knows
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what Paul Bernardo did, those horrific acts. Who's actually in maximum security then?
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You know, the Commissioner of Corrections was just talking about this recently. And most people
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who are there are people who are serving their first two years of a life sentence. That's who
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there are people who generally have issues inside of the jail, as in they get into fights.
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But the reason that this is the case, it directly corresponds to the Liberal government. They have
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control of the regulations. And I'm not going to get into legal nerdery here. This is a podcast.
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But let's just put it this way. The government controls the regulations. The regulations tells
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corrections how to do their job. Okay? We'll leave it at that, broad strokes. The government refuses to
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change those regulations. They could change the regulation tomorrow to say that a dangerous offender or
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somebody who's committed two first-degree murders shall be housed in maximum security. They don't.
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Now, they will say that they care about victims. They will say that they care about justice. But
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when the rubber has to hit the road, they refuse to act. Corrections, in my view, the Commissioner
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could also issue what's called a Commissioner's Directive. The last one was issued in 2018,
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so on custody, I believe. And they could do that. Again, crickets. Silence. They won't do it.
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They say this is the least restrictive penal environment, as in the least restrictive environment
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to control somebody. I think we should be looking at the just and appropriate environment. And it is
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not just that the likes of Paul Bernardo are in medium security, especially with the amenities that
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they have there. I agree. Let's queue up cut one. For those listeners or viewers who haven't seen or
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heard your social media, I encourage you to go to Frank's feed and check out his video. It is
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truly astonishing. But let's play cut one. And this gives you an idea of what Frank's video
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is all about and gives you a bit more context into what we're talking about. Let's play cut one.
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So let's take this back a second. He is a serial murderer, a serial rapist, a dangerous offender.
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And that's when I started to get angry because I walked outside and I had a look and I said,
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what's that? Looks like a hockey rink. It was. Inmates can go and they can get skates and they
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can play hockey. There are hockey nets and everything. If you want to play in the evening,
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there are halogen lights. It looked just like an outdoor basketball court at a community center or
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at your local baseball stadium. Like you said, I do agree that the different levels of security have
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their place. I agree. I'm with you that the fact that you have some pretty awful people
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almost getting this easy ride after what they did. I think that is way beyond what I think most
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Canadians will tolerate. Well, I think a lot of Canadians don't tolerate it, Jamie. And one thing
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we have to say is this. As a Conservative Party, we are a party of the rule of law. We are a party
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of law and order and a party of justice. We believe in human rights. Nobody's saying lock the door,
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throw away the key, you don't get a shower, you don't get food or any of that. But there is a place
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for minimum security and I believe that. There is a place for medium security and there is a place
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for maximum security. Building on my prior point, there is no human right to a tennis court. There is
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no human right to the weight room that Paul Bernardo has access to that would be the envy
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of 95% of Canadians. I was just in maximum security and you know what? They still get recreation. So
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this whole idea from the Correctional Service of Canada where they say, oh, recreation is important.
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You're right, it's important. But what happens when people are in maximum security? They still get
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exercise. So that's just a false narrative that I really think detracts from the greater issue is
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where should people like Paul Bernardo be housed? Should it be a medium security or should it be
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a maximum security? And that's a, I stand with you on that one. So we have that section. So those,
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the correctional side, but then we lead to the actual living outside. What is going on with crime
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in this country? Unbelievable what happened a few weeks ago. Toronto police, of course, dealing with
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a massive amount of car thefts. Mississauga as well. I think the stat was about 20 cars a day,
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roughly in the GTA, stolen, out of control. And I'm sure they didn't mean it this way. I really
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don't think they meant it this way. But Toronto police put out a bit of a, had a media conference
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and basically told people to leave the fobs at the front door. So when the criminals come in for them
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and kick down their door, they don't have to hurt anyone. So let's play cut two. And then we'll,
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we'll examine that a bit. This is a Toronto police news conference. Again, I don't think they meant it
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that way, but dealing with the situation they are and the way the liberal government is treating
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the criminal justice system, I can understand it. So let's play cut two. A message echoed by Toronto
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police speaking at an Etobicoke safety meeting last month. Constable Marco Ricciardi had a new
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message for vehicle owners who keep their fobs in Faraday pouches. To prevent the possibility of
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being attacked in your home, leave your fobs at your front door because they're breaking into your
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home to steal your car. They don't want anything else. It seems there are no consequences.
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Well, I can tell you this. I was a former Crown prosecutor. I taught a sentencing law course at a
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law school. I can say that in my view, sentencing has dramatically changed. If you want to just look at
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it, I was actually talking with somebody who knows a lot. If you look at it, or provincial jails,
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for instance, 70 to 80% are on remand. That means that they haven't yet been sentenced. So that means
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that at the end of the day, the sentences that are occurring are such that only 20% are serving
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a sentence after their trial or conviction date or guilty plea date. In my view, we have to start
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cracking down on what's important. People will say, you know, conservatives want to be
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discompassionate. They want to be tough on crime. No, we want to be tough on certain crime.
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You're a person that beats your intimate partner. You're a person that steals cars. You're a person
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that robs people. You're a person that commits sexual offenses against children. Those are the
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people we should be targeting. We're not talking about the one-off people, the people who might be
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a bit more of a social nuisance, things like that. We're talking about targeting the right people.
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And the liberals, they don't want to target anybody. They want to make it easier to serve a sentence on
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house arrest for everybody, including gun criminals. And to this day, I've spoken with
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the minister so many times about sexual offenses against children and the inappropriate nature
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of house arrest for that. They don't care. Car theft. Why are we allowing this to subsist?
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We need to crack down on this. The liberals talk a good game, but when the rubber hits the road,
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And I just can't understand that point. If you look at in the GTA, the greater Vancouver area,
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the liberals hold a lot of those seats. So the fact that they would turn a blind eye to their
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constituents having their car stolen, their insurance rates going up, not to mention the
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cost of living crisis that we're dealing with, the inflation, mortgages, all of it. I just don't
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see where the liberals have any compassion and I don't understand it.
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I don't either. I think that they turn a blind eye to just about everything.
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In my riding of Kamloops, Thompson, Caribou, 50% of people don't have a family doctor.
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The healthcare issue, obviously that's largely provincial, but I'm trying to do my best to
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address it. But they just kind of go, whatever. If people are visiting food banks at a record
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number, whatever. Mortgage rates are at 5%. People are paying double and triple, especially
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on variable rates. Whatever. Our military now, it's just in shambles. RCMP, they're having
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trouble recruiting. Military, having trouble recruiting. Whatever. When was the last time
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you saw the Trudeau government say, we have a big problem here and we will address it. It is only
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reactive. You know what? We're doing something about auto theft. Rah, rah, rah. How did it get to this
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point? Bail. Bail's another issue. They just constantly turn their backs on all of these issues
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that are at the forefront of Canadians' minds and they just don't seem to care. After eight years
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of Justin Trudeau, this is what we're left with. But they're going to hold a summit on it.
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That's what they're going to do. Usually on auto theft, they held a summit. On housing,
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they held a summit. The problem is it's their policies that are failing. And they want to come
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around. They caused the problem. Then they come up with a program that they think will fix it. It
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won't. But they'll come up with a program. And when that fails, they'll come up with another program,
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probably hold another summit first. But all the while, Canadians are suffering through that.
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And as you pointed out, the Liberals just say, well, we need more time. We need more resources.
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And eventually we'll fix the problem. But real leadership is avoiding the situation in the first
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place. That's exactly right, Jamie. One of their go-to things is to try to
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blame Stephen Harper. I mean, Stephen Harper hasn't been in power for eight years. They do
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this even on the issue of corrections. Well, Stephen Harper had medium security jails and he transferred
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people there. You know, it's not about Stephen Harper. Take some ownership. You've been here for
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eight years, right? Life was a lot more affordable and enjoyable under Stephen Harper, I would say.
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It certainly was. Housing prices were half of what they were. Gangland homicides were probably half of
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what they were. I would imagine that auto theft was probably half of what it was. And yet the Liberals
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avoid responsibility and looking at the person or the group that is the ones who have caused this.
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And if they want to do it, they can look directly in the mirror. Period.
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And it's tough for those in the correctional service trying to do their job under the leadership,
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if you will call it that, of the Liberal government. Same with police officers, right?
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They were arresting people, seeing them out on bail, arresting the people, like people on bail,
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committing more serious crimes. Like this is demoralizing for everybody. I'm sure Crown prosecutors
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are shaking their heads too. You know, my wife works with a lot of vulnerable women. She can talk about how
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crime is out of control, especially for people who are completely vulnerable, especially women.
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When we talk to our correctional officers, I've been meeting with a lot of correctional officers. Jamie,
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I don't know how they get up to go to the job. The pressures that they are under. This Liberal government
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has, you know, we talk about the broad strokes, medium to maximum, but there are so many policies
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on the individual level as to like punishments. Let's say you punch out an officer when you're in a federal
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penitentiary, right? Those types of things. You stab somebody. There were two officers that I sent a card to
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recently. They were both stabbed by the same inmate. And this is not the first time that this
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had happened. You know, these things are out of control. We have to give a huge shout out to those
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officers because they showed up every single day. They try to make as much noise. And it's just,
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it's just not something that people want to report on. People in federal penitentiaries that protect
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you and I every single day. When I was at La Macaza, I could not believe how exposed those officers
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were. I pointed out that... That's the federal person in Quebec.
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That's the, yeah, sorry. And that's the one that houses Bernardo and Magnata. And in one aspect,
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the correctional officers have their, they have to look over their shoulder to see people coming.
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And they have a mirror. But if somebody's distracted, somebody's talking, there literally
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is nothing there. And there's this one area. It's an entryway to where the correctional officers go.
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And people think like, oh, they're behind bars. They're not behind bars or plexiglass. Not in this
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jail anyways. So the likes of Paul Bernardo and Luca Magnata can come through. And there's not even
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a barrier. And I said to officials, I said, why isn't there even a simple door here? Just to provide
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a half second of safety for these officers. And you know what? One of the correctional officers looked
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at me and he said, we asked for that. And corrections said no. So I would love for the commissioner of
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corrections, Ann Kelly, to go and look at those officers in the eye and say, we will not put a
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door there. Shame on the Correctional Service of Canada for not doing everything. These officers
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often deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, with difficulties of life. They are dealing with
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the Paul Bernardos, the Robert Picktons, the Luca Magnatas of the world. And we fail to recognize that.
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And now they want to come up with a prison needle exchange program. They want to give
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needles in jail. Needles. And the correctional officers are just supposed to say, yeah, fine.
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You can have sharp objects. Well, they already have skates, so.
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Do you know how many cell phones they found in one maximum security jail in one year?
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That's what they found. Okay? That's what they found. Kent Institution. I said, why aren't you
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They'll just find another way. No, they won't. You know what you do? You stop this. The amount
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of drugs that are in jail, the amount of weapons that are in jail, it's a matter of time before
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That is absolutely incredible. Frank, we're pretty much out of time, but as you know, the guests get
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the last word, so the floor is yours. Well, in this whole process when it comes to talking
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about Magnata, Bernardo, one thing that we haven't touched upon today is the victims.
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And we can't forget them. Victims of Bernardo, of people like Russell Williams, Magnata, a
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lot of those people, especially victims of sexual offenses, sexual offenses especially for
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children, they themselves are living a psychological life sentence every single day that they wake
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up. They are imprisoned to that trauma. We cannot forget them. We will not forget them.
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And where possible, I contact victims as much as I can. And I want to let them know that
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when we do this work, that they are always on our mind.
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You did raise a good point too. We have talked about it before in the show. I know we're trying
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to end the show, but as the crime rate increases, so does the amount of victims.
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That is something, you're right, that gets glazed over all the time.
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Yeah, it's easy. It is easy to forget because behind every crime there is a statistic and
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the victim is a statistic. But when you go home and you walk in through your door, you
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are not a statistic. You're just, you are a victim. And if that means that you've been
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assaulted, you've been hurt, you've been defrauded, you still have to live with that. And we just
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And the government ignores that frustration, right? People are doing what they are supposed
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to do, right? They go to work, come home, maybe have a family, whatever, right? They're
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playing by the rules, they're paying their taxes. And yet the government, whose responsibility
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is to protect or provide services for their citizens, are failing miserably, but demanding
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100%. And when you look at this, we talk about the government is inept at preventing crime
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when dealing with bail. They are inept at addressing crime after there's a conviction when it comes
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to sentencing. And they're inept at housing the people appropriately when it comes to corrections.
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This is a government that is not addressing the victims and all that they have been through.
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And that's just on crime. We're not even, we've barely touched housing today. We've barely
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touched the military. Barely touched any of these things. We're now paying more on our
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national debt in interest, I believe, than we are in healthcare. It's just untenable.
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And not only is it untenable, it's unacceptable.
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Right, Caputo, we have to get out of here, but we will have you back on, maybe to talk about
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Thank you very much. Thanks for all the work you're doing for the people of Kamloops,
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Thompson, Caribou, also for the rest of Canadians for exposing what the media, I believe, has not
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been talking about, and that's extremely unfortunate. And because they aren't, we ask that you like,
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Until next week, remember, it's low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.