The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - February 06, 2020


The Debt-to-GDP Ratio is Rising


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

168.34279

Word count

2,098

Sentence count

137

Harmful content

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode of The Blueprint, Conservative MP for Carleton and Shadow Minister for Finance Pierre Pouvreau joins us to talk about the federal government's ongoing deficits and the impact they pose on the economy and the future of the country.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:08.320 The cost of living keeps going up, deficits keep going up,
00:00:12.060 and he has to raise taxes to pay for his out-of-control spending.
00:00:16.840 Talk is cheap, except when this finance minister does it. It's very expensive.
00:00:22.940 It's the fact that he punished two strong women for doing the right thing 0.99
00:00:27.460 while he moved hell and high water to protect his buddies at SNC-Lavalin
00:00:32.520 from facing a day in court.
00:00:37.400 Welcome to The Blueprints, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:40.140 I'm your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps
00:00:43.080 of the Lakes Brock in Ontario, and this is the first blueprint
00:00:46.260 of the 43rd Parliament, and I have an amazing guest with me,
00:00:50.420 the official opposition's Shadow Minister for Finance, Pierre Polyev,
00:00:54.300 the Member of Parliament for Carleton in the Ottawa area.
00:00:56.640 Thank you so much for joining us today.
00:00:58.180 Good to be with you, Jamie.
00:00:59.200 And because you are here, we now have video, we have audio,
00:01:02.380 we have a backdrop, so all because of you.
00:01:04.480 We're pretty excited about that.
00:01:06.140 Wow, well, it's nice to be famous.
00:01:07.640 Not bad, isn't it? That's good.
00:01:09.160 So we're kicking it off new style here for the 43rd Parliament.
00:01:13.180 And I guess we should start off, I guess, with the obvious.
00:01:16.500 You had thought about running for leader of the federal party.
00:01:20.280 You thought it over and thought, well, just not time.
00:01:23.900 You have a newborn child, and family is the most important.
00:01:27.820 That's the decision I came to in the end.
00:01:29.560 It was a tough one.
00:01:30.640 I spent about five weeks reaching out to people, building a perspective team,
00:01:35.800 listening to people about the future that they wanted to build for the country,
00:01:39.940 but ultimately concluded that the absolutely massive time commitment involved
00:01:47.620 wasn't consistent with where my family was.
00:01:50.960 We just have one child so far,
00:01:52.940 but we haven't really mastered the balancing act of professional and personal life.
00:01:59.240 I've been an obsessive workaholic into my entire adult life,
00:02:02.920 and I didn't have established the balance in my life
00:02:09.960 to ensure I could be a good father and a good leader at the same time.
00:02:15.640 And I know it's a real talent and a real skill that some people take time to develop.
00:02:20.220 And anyway, I made the decision not to do it,
00:02:23.780 but to keep serving my constituents in the Carlton riding
00:02:26.320 and to continue to serve Andrew Scheer's shadow cabinet as finance critic
00:02:31.260 and to serve the future leader as part of his or her team
00:02:36.180 in whatever way they see fit.
00:02:40.480 Well, I think many people would agree that they could see you as prime minister one day,
00:02:43.960 so it's good you have leadership aspirations potentially in your future
00:02:47.240 and maybe we'll reconsider at some point.
00:02:49.040 Well, I don't know about that, but yesterday is history,
00:02:51.660 tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift,
00:02:53.280 and that's why they call it the present.
00:02:54.500 Well, because you are the finance critic, let's start with Canada's finances.
00:02:59.100 Okay, headline.
00:03:00.760 Reoccurring federal deficits could be risky for future generations,
00:03:04.000 study says.
00:03:04.600 This is from CTV News, dated January 15, 2020.
00:03:08.900 So, the next federal deficit is supposed to swell to $28.1 billion,
00:03:13.700 significantly up from what we were first told for 2020-2021.
00:03:17.800 It's supposed to hit $11.6 billion, but that's in 2024.
00:03:21.660 That's a few years out from their projections.
00:03:25.620 This does not, as the headline tells us, not bode well for future generations.
00:03:30.980 Not at all.
00:03:31.820 In fact, the situation is quickly deteriorating.
00:03:34.860 The deficit was supposed to be about $21 billion,
00:03:38.180 according to the most recent federal budget,
00:03:40.200 and it is now up $7 or $8 billion just since March.
00:03:45.360 So, that's a phenomenal turn of events.
00:03:49.760 And it happens in a world economy that is growing,
00:03:52.800 where commodity prices are about average,
00:03:55.800 where the United States of America has record low unemployment and solid growth.
00:04:00.460 So, all of the variables are in our favor right now.
00:04:05.100 Things are, the wind is at our back.
00:04:08.420 But in spite of that, we're still running these very large deficits.
00:04:12.940 This year, the debt-to-GDP ratio will increase slightly,
00:04:16.600 and it will come close to doing so in all of the next four years,
00:04:21.780 before you even account for the spending promises that the liberals made in the last election.
00:04:29.140 So, these deficit numbers you're quoting, let's be clear,
00:04:32.600 they don't include the liberal spending promises from the most recent October election.
00:04:38.980 So, in other words, what you're talking about is the best-case scenario.
00:04:43.100 You also haven't taken into consideration the possibility of some sort of economic shock.
00:04:48.680 There are all kinds of risks that exist in our economy today.
00:04:52.100 The consumer is maxed out on their debt.
00:04:56.580 The insolvency rates are up double digits.
00:05:01.000 The global economy could weaken.
00:05:04.740 There are a whole series of risks that, if they metastasize into reality,
00:05:10.380 we all mean these numbers will be far worse than we already see.
00:05:13.640 Well, it seems that if you look, as you mentioned,
00:05:16.620 where the U.S. economy is growing and where Canadians are shrinking,
00:05:20.280 a lot of it, according to the Financial Post,
00:05:22.640 manufacturing is down significantly when compared to the United States.
00:05:25.700 We're looking at oil and gas.
00:05:27.580 We're looking at IT, finance, real estate.
00:05:30.900 They're all significantly lopsided when you compare it to the United States
00:05:35.100 and how well things are doing.
00:05:36.300 They're basically at full employment.
00:05:37.980 That's right.
00:05:38.640 The American economy has just been roaring.
00:05:40.640 They made a decision to cut taxes and eliminate unnecessary regulatory red tape,
00:05:45.540 and that has really unleashed an economic torrent south of the border.
00:05:49.340 Oil and gas production, for example, has doubled in a decade.
00:05:52.820 The U.S. is becoming a net exporter of oil, something we never would have imagined.
00:05:57.580 And remember, they're our number one, frankly, our only foreign market for petroleum products.
00:06:02.860 So we, you know, next door here in Canada, we see basically a prolonged downturn in the Alberta economy,
00:06:12.000 lifelessness in our manufacturing sector, and overall, you know, the growth was just downgraded for next year,
00:06:20.940 and we're barely growing, and some, you know, in some months we've actually been shrinking on a per capita basis.
00:06:27.780 So the reality is we need to unleash our economy.
00:06:30.140 Absolutely.
00:06:30.620 We need to unleash the free enterprise system.
00:06:32.760 That is the only system that has ever delivered sustained economic prosperity.
00:06:36.980 That means sweeping away unnecessary regulations, opening our marketplace for large resource projects like pipelines,
00:06:46.420 lowering the tax burden on both our entrepreneurs and on our workers to reward risk-taking and hard work.
00:06:53.620 Those are the recipes for a successful economy, and we still can do that.
00:06:59.580 Well, that's the thing.
00:07:00.180 If you're going to invest your money, which is often and most times done with after-tax dollars,
00:07:05.060 you are going to take some risk in investing in a company or putting your money somewhere.
00:07:10.900 There should be some reward, or else people aren't going to put their money into certain places.
00:07:14.620 That will not grow the economy or come up with the next great product.
00:07:17.300 Exactly, and that's why, you know, in the first several years of the Trudeau government,
00:07:22.000 U.S. investment in Canada was down by half, but Canadian investment in the U.S. was up two-thirds.
00:07:26.880 Basically, money goes where it can get an after-tax return on investment, and that place is not Canada right now.
00:07:34.900 The stock market has risen almost twice as fast in the U.S. as it has in Canada.
00:07:40.120 Now, you might say, oh, well, that only matters to stockbrokers and the base streeters.
00:07:44.580 Well, actually, it matters to retirees who have their money invested in mutual funds in Canada.
00:07:50.560 It matters to businesses who rely on the stock market to raise investment to hire staff and buy equipment.
00:07:56.880 It is one of the indicators of how much money is pouring in versus pouring out of the economy.
00:08:02.840 And right now, money is leaving our economy, and along with it will be jobs and wages.
00:08:07.180 Well, there are a number of challenges Canadians are facing.
00:08:10.020 We talked about it during the last election, but it seems for the left of the political spectrum,
00:08:15.240 it seems the solution to every problem is more government, more taxes,
00:08:19.880 and that's the only answer they have for anything.
00:08:23.240 But they fail to recognize that there is a different side that is more successful in the vast majority of cases,
00:08:29.320 which is, as you said, freeing up the market and allowing people to produce the next product or service
00:08:34.500 that people want to freely buy with their money.
00:08:36.940 Precisely, and that's the genius of the market system.
00:08:39.120 It's the free and voluntary exchange of work for wages, product for payment, investment for interest.
00:08:43.620 That generates wealth.
00:08:46.020 The left is very good at spending wealth, but they have no idea where it comes from in the first place.
00:08:51.880 And where we have an opportunity as Conservatives is to put ourselves forward as the party
00:08:56.240 of unleashing opportunities so that every single Canadian who works hard can achieve his or her dreams.
00:09:02.840 And that is the vision for the Conservative Party and for the official opposition
00:09:08.120 that will take us into government in the next election.
00:09:10.940 You know, we need to turn our First Nations communities into opportunity zones, 0.52
00:09:15.660 places where it's easy for leaders on those communities to attract investment.
00:09:22.120 I've been to places like the Okanagan, where the communities are attracting,
00:09:27.120 are opening golf courses and wineries, housing developments, shopping centers,
00:09:31.580 and other things, all generating on-reserve revenue for First Nations people to use
00:09:38.140 to improve their quality of life and employ their people.
00:09:40.940 That is a model that is, I think, hopeful and optimistic for many communities across the country.
00:09:47.700 We need to make it possible for First Nations communities to allow their people to get mortgages 1.00
00:09:52.000 on normal commercial terms so they can have a home.
00:09:54.360 You can't have a home, you can't get a credit rating or collateral,
00:09:57.780 and you can't build up savings for your future through home equity.
00:10:02.020 So let's get people the ability to actually own a home.
00:10:05.780 These are the kinds of opportunity-filled ideas that will allow our people to enrich themselves
00:10:14.160 and fulfill their dreams rather than just to build more and more government programs
00:10:20.800 that make all of us poorer.
00:10:23.960 Well, there's the thing, too, when you're talking about opportunity.
00:10:27.580 Nobody, I don't care what you do, whether you work on a farm,
00:10:30.720 you work in the oil and gas sector where you have an office job,
00:10:33.940 nobody is going to create a product or a service or even get up in the morning
00:10:38.260 and break their back at work if they're going to see a vast majority
00:10:43.180 and an increasing majority of their paycheck being taken away in the form of taxes,
00:10:47.680 leaving them less to enjoy life.
00:10:50.140 It's kind of like a war on work.
00:10:53.060 It is.
00:10:53.500 We have in this country a system that punishes you through, it's like a fine.
00:11:00.240 Income tax is like a fine you pay for the crime of working hard.
00:11:04.300 You go out, you get a job, you earn some money, and then you lose it based on how hard you work.
00:11:11.140 I think it's not just for well-off people either.
00:11:15.520 It's for working class folks.
00:11:16.900 Absolutely.
00:11:16.920 If you're on social assistance or disability assistance and you go out and get a job,
00:11:21.520 the clawback rate of your social assistance benefits combined with the new tax burden
00:11:26.840 that you pay for EI, CPP, income tax, gas tax to get to work means that you have to have a negative wage.
00:11:35.060 We're actually punishing people for the crime of hard work in this country.
00:11:39.860 And how can we expect people to ever get ahead when the system is stacked against work and effort and initiative?
00:11:47.240 That's what we need to change.
00:11:48.460 And that's what conservatives, I think, need to bring forward.
00:11:50.660 We need to be the party of opportunity for everyone.
00:11:53.280 Pierre, I could talk to you about this all day long.
00:11:55.260 Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule.
00:11:58.400 Appreciate the work you're doing in the House and fighting for Canadians and their hard-earned dollars.
00:12:02.900 Thank you very much.
00:12:03.720 And let's keep working at it.
00:12:05.160 Take care.
00:12:05.340 Once again, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:12:08.220 That's The Blueprint.
00:12:14.620 Thank you for listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative podcast.
00:12:19.200 To find more episodes, interviews, and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,
00:12:23.100 search for The Blueprint on iTunes or visit podcast.conservative.ca.