The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - February 22, 2022


The Emergencies Act

Topics
Vaccine Mandates
Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Jamie Schmael John Broussard Blaine Calkins Justin Trudeau Theresa Tam Alex Brock Fintrack James Zoom Rick Phil
Freedom From Mandates, and the Liberal Emergencies Act The Situation in Ukraine

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

176.83

Word count

3,423

Sentence count

206

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode of The Blueprints, we discuss the Prime Minister's Emergency Act, which was passed on February 28th, 2019, and what it means for Canada's economy and the economy at large. We're joined by three members of Parliament: Blaine Calkins, John Broussard, and James Braidssard.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.920 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Schmael, member of Parliament for Halliburton, with Alex Brock, with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:00:12.440 We ask that you like, subscribe, comment, share this program. Together, we can push back against that ever-moving liberal agenda.
00:00:18.940 Great show for you lined up today. A lot happening in Ottawa. We're going to talk about the emergency sacked.
00:00:23.260 But before I do, remember, if you can't watch or listen to the entire program, download it, leave it on.
00:00:28.640 Listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify. You name it, it is out there.
00:00:33.340 So bringing back two individuals. I know we're not in this studio. A lot going on, so we weren't able to get into the brand new studio.
00:00:39.540 But doing over Zoom, we're bringing back two friends of the show.
00:00:42.500 We have Blaine Calkins, the Member of Parliament for Red Deer Lacombe. He's also the opposition whip.
00:00:48.260 And John Broussard, Member of Parliament for Barrie-Innisville, also the House Leader. Good afternoon, gentlemen.
00:00:55.000 Hey, James.
00:00:55.820 Good to be here, Jamie.
00:00:57.080 Well, let's talk about the Emergencies Act. I know there's a lot going on. A big vote yesterday.
00:01:02.020 Okay, who wants to kick it off? How did we get here?
00:01:04.680 I can't believe we're even discussing this for the first time since the beginning of this legislation in the 80s.
00:01:11.160 So I'll kick it off. Procedurally, the government announced on February 14th that they were going to invoke the Emergency Act.
00:01:17.180 They had several days to table that in Parliament, a motion to debate it.
00:01:22.320 So they did an order in Council, and they publicly released the regulations.
00:01:27.300 We started debate on it on Thursday. It lasted all weekend, with the exception of Friday, and it culminated in the vote last night.
00:01:38.360 So, Blaine, do you think this could have been avoided? Do you think we really needed to get to this point?
00:01:42.540 Well, no. I mean, the whole problem is that Canada's Prime Minister doesn't understand the entirety of the Canadian population
00:01:49.680 and has demonized, vilified, and politicized issues that he hadn't ought to have,
00:01:55.640 especially at a time when everybody in Canada was struggling.
00:01:58.440 Everybody was, in their own way, fighting through the COVID measures that were put in place.
00:02:05.440 But I think we're here now because the leadership of the Prime Minister has failed Canadians,
00:02:13.920 and he's politicized just prior to the last election the issue of vaccine mandates,
00:02:19.480 pitting unvaccinated and vaccinated Canadians against each other.
00:02:22.580 And that's what has been boiling and infuriating Canadians with recent announcements that truckers,
00:02:30.120 who were once hailed as heroes, would be unable to continue on with their duties if they needed to go across international borders.
00:02:37.000 They've even threatened to take away interprovincial travel for these same workers.
00:02:42.060 And the government and the NDP, for that matter, have simply lost touch with the working class of Canada.
00:02:46.720 And on Blaine's point, Jamie, if I can add to what we're really seeing is a manifestation of anger and anxiety right across the country.
00:02:55.540 Canadians are fed up.
00:02:57.000 A couple of weeks ago, we put a motion before Parliament to at least have the government come up with some sort of exit strategy.
00:03:03.100 We're seeing other G7 countries announce, we're seeing provinces and territories announce ends to restrictions, mandates, passports, and all of that stuff.
00:03:13.020 And we put a motion before Parliament, every single Liberal, with the exception of one, including the NDP, voted against that.
00:03:22.020 And it was a simple request to at least come up with a plan by February 28th.
00:03:26.180 And we also saw that Dr. Theresa Tam had said that we have to get back to some normalcy.
00:03:30.860 So Conservatives have tried to move the country forward.
00:03:33.760 The Prime Minister continues with the Emergency Act to invoke what it is effectively a nuclear option to keep the country under control.
00:03:41.300 I do want to unpack that nuclear option comment before I get to that.
00:03:45.760 Just to talk about, before this was even brought forward, the government just seemed like they wanted to continue to use force rather than compromise.
00:03:56.520 If you think about it, as you just mentioned, a lot of countries were opening up, restrictions were being relaxed all across the globe.
00:04:02.740 And then at a 90% vaccination rate, the truckers were going back and forth throughout the whole pandemic when there wasn't even a vaccine during the most deadly time of the virus.
00:04:14.580 And there goes the vaccine mandate on the truckers.
00:04:18.200 It just seemed, just why bother at this point to do that measure?
00:04:23.720 Of course, the United States imposed similar measures.
00:04:26.660 But there wasn't even a phone call to the President to say, you know what, I think this has gone a bit too far.
00:04:33.300 Well, if I can start, and Blaine will certainly pick up on this.
00:04:36.680 To me, it's all about control.
00:04:38.120 We've got a Prime Minister who just seemingly doesn't want to, you know, relent on any control of any aspect of this pandemic.
00:04:45.600 That's why, as I said earlier, we tried to move the country forward by developing an exit plan.
00:04:51.660 It was voted against by the Liberals at a time when we're seeing provinces and territories announce similar measures of vaccine passports and mandates.
00:05:02.420 And they're limiting them.
00:05:04.880 They're actually ending them.
00:05:06.160 And they've got specific dates to do that.
00:05:08.660 So, you know, it's also, Jamie, the problem is it's not just the mandates on the truckers,
00:05:15.020 but it's the language that the Prime Minister has been using, as I said, in this manifestation of these protests and the anxiety and the anger that people are feeling right across the country, not just here in Ottawa.
00:05:26.420 We saw, obviously, publicly in Ottawa a big display of that anger and anxiety.
00:05:32.280 But it's the language he's been using, calling Canadians racist, misogynist, extremists.
00:05:37.140 Do we tolerate those people?
00:05:38.880 I mean, this is not a Prime Minister who is acting as a Prime Minister.
00:05:43.300 He's vilifying people who he doesn't agree with.
00:05:47.020 That's not what a Prime Minister is supposed to do.
00:05:48.860 A Prime Minister is supposed to be the Prime Minister of all people, whether you agree with their views or not.
00:05:53.560 And we're seeing him act in a way.
00:05:56.420 And really, when you think about how all of this anger started manifesting itself,
00:06:00.920 it's when he appeared on that Quebec TV show, and it was widely publicized and broadcast,
00:06:05.700 referring to Canadians as misogynists, racists, extremists.
00:06:09.100 Do we tolerate their views?
00:06:10.580 Do we accept their views?
00:06:11.460 Because that's when Canadians started saying, you know what, that's not what I am, and that's not who I am.
00:06:16.820 And, you know, what we've seen now is almost a natural conclusion of what the identity politics is all about,
00:06:27.180 which the Prime Minister has been practicing for the last six years.
00:06:29.760 We've seen it for six years.
00:06:31.440 Canadians have only seen it in the last two years because they've been paying attention.
00:06:35.600 And the debate, Jamie, has been very, very polarizing.
00:06:40.260 Again, there hasn't been a lot of unity, except the Prime Minister's press conference at 11 a.m. yesterday
00:06:47.080 did actually contain language that he was going to pretend to be the great unifier.
00:06:52.740 He talked about the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ottawa, their right to, I guess, peace and quiet supersedes the right of a truck driver in Canada to earn a living,
00:07:07.020 the right of a truck driver who is fired for not getting vaccinated to even access employment insurance to provide for his or her family.
00:07:14.480 The Prime Minister, a year ago, in January of 2021, when asked about vaccine mandates and passports,
00:07:21.920 actually his initial reaction was that he didn't think it was a good idea because it would trample on the rights and freedoms of Canadians.
00:07:28.360 Well, somebody did the math for him prior to the last election and said, if we actually divide Canadians on this issue,
00:07:34.540 we should be able to win a majority government.
00:07:36.420 That's the gamble that he took.
00:07:37.960 It didn't work.
00:07:38.820 It backfired on him.
00:07:39.680 He is now embarrassed, and these truckers who have come down here have embarrassed and humiliated him,
00:07:45.180 which is why we're using the Emergencies Act.
00:07:47.220 Look, the reality is all of us have been here in downtown Ottawa.
00:07:51.840 We walk around.
00:07:52.780 Are people inconvenienced?
00:07:53.860 Yes.
00:07:54.580 Some people are inconvenienced.
00:07:56.520 That is absolutely true.
00:07:58.240 But the biggest charge that will be laid, in my opinion, on anybody down here in Ottawa is mischief.
00:08:05.180 And for that, the government has invoked the Emergency Measures Act, the former War Measures Act.
00:08:11.300 This is a complete overreach of the government.
00:08:14.840 I'm glad you brought that up.
00:08:16.260 Yes, mischief and trespassing seem to be the most common charges.
00:08:19.700 So did we really need to go here?
00:08:22.060 There were powers in place already to compel tow truck drivers to assist police.
00:08:26.340 There were already laws in place that would have dealt with the potential clearing of the blockades,
00:08:32.980 or even from the blockades from starting in the first place.
00:08:36.300 The fact that the federal government is now involved in this, something that is fairly isolated,
00:08:42.020 because the border's already been closed, or cleared, I should say, before the invoking of this act.
00:08:47.680 Like, this just seems like overkill to a situation that didn't need to have the Emergencies Act invoked.
00:08:55.320 It could have been done with existing legislation.
00:08:57.800 This is all about political theatre, Jamie. 0.96
00:09:00.280 The Prime Minister was looking weak and inept, and rightly so, 1.00
00:09:06.160 because his response and his ability to govern Canada is weak and inept. 0.99
00:09:11.140 So this is about saving his political fortunes. 0.67
00:09:13.380 Because every police officer in Canada has the ability to enforce the criminal code across all of Canada
00:09:19.600 when they see a crime in progress.
00:09:22.200 So these measures are not needed.
00:09:24.240 I'm sure the police always would like to have more authority,
00:09:27.340 but these measures were not needed.
00:09:28.780 This is, like I said, a political solution to a political problem,
00:09:32.400 not a legal issue to a legal problem that the police had.
00:09:36.580 Well, effectively, it's a nuclear solution to a problem that, you know,
00:09:41.400 and Jamie, you were quite right when you talked about some of the legislative and regulatory powers
00:09:46.700 that are already existing.
00:09:48.420 Let's not forget that the City of Ottawa declared a state of emergency.
00:09:52.600 The provincial government declared a state of emergency.
00:09:55.580 Within those state of emergencies, they give themselves certain authorities and powers,
00:10:01.040 not the least of which, under the Police Act, is to consolidate police,
00:10:04.960 if they choose to, from all over the province, which is effectively what happened.
00:10:08.420 They didn't need the Federal Emergency Act to do that.
00:10:10.800 The transport minister has authority to deal with blockades at borders
00:10:18.180 using extraordinary powers that they have.
00:10:21.380 I know the prime minister yesterday in his press conference talked about
00:10:24.120 the need to confiscate tow trucks in order to move trucks.
00:10:28.300 Well, that certainly falls under police powers as well,
00:10:32.220 that they can confiscate vehicles in the performance of their duty
00:10:35.140 in order to effectively remove the trucks that were available.
00:10:38.520 None of what the prime minister has indicated, despite his ability to stand in front of a bank
00:10:44.800 of TV cameras and reporters and exasperate his opinion on things,
00:10:49.680 none of this was required.
00:10:51.540 Certainly, we weren't facing an issue of terrorism.
00:10:54.440 At least, we didn't see any evidence of that.
00:10:56.640 We weren't facing a situation where, you know, the state of our democracy was at risk.
00:11:02.480 And the charges, I think, reflect, as you indicated, charges of mischief, or Blaine indicated,
00:11:08.660 charges of mischief and trespassing certainly are not enough to constitute or qualify
00:11:15.860 the invocation of an Emergency Measures Act, which is the equivalent of a War Measures Act.
00:11:21.060 And we recall during the FLQ crisis, I mean, I was a young child at the time,
00:11:24.580 but, you know, we all learned this through history.
00:11:26.840 We had ministers of the Crown that were being kidnapped and murdered.
00:11:30.040 We had bombs going off.
00:11:31.840 We had, you know, other things, significant things that were happening in the province of Quebec.
00:11:38.680 I've gone around Ottawa.
00:11:40.140 Not one window of any shop has been broken.
00:11:42.680 Not one door has been broken.
00:11:44.780 And yet, this was the political solution that the prime minister used to make himself,
00:11:51.040 as Blaine said, looked a little more powerful because of his weak and inept response to this 0.83
00:11:58.040 issue. 0.90
00:11:59.800 I wouldn't even call it a crisis.
00:12:02.280 But it was just, it was the wrong thing to do at the wrong time.
00:12:06.580 And I know he's going to take a lot of credit for it, but it wasn't needed because of the
00:12:11.000 other legislative, regulatory, and statutes that are available to all levels of government,
00:12:15.700 not the least of which are the provincial government.
00:12:17.940 All right.
00:12:18.120 Before I get to kind of what's next, I do want to talk about something we kind of haven't
00:12:22.280 touched on yet, is the freezing of bank accounts for those that may or may have donated to the
00:12:28.180 cause or have, I believe I've seen reports of being purchased.
00:12:32.240 I believe at this, according to this one news site, 70 accounts have been frozen so far worth
00:12:37.420 about 3.22 million.
00:12:39.320 I think this sets a dangerous precedent because not only does it show that the government can
00:12:43.780 come in and seize your accounts, if it disagrees with something you believe in.
00:12:48.120 But also for the greater investment community.
00:12:51.340 Canada is always, or at least I believe, hopefully, still known as a safe place to put
00:12:55.900 your money and invest.
00:12:57.220 But I'm just worried about the precedent this sets.
00:13:02.180 Well, certainly everyone should be concerned because, you know, the government is using
00:13:08.400 the guise of the protest as a means to seize or freeze the bank accounts of Canadians.
00:13:14.960 The finance minister in her press conference on last Friday had indicated that they were
00:13:19.960 going to move to make these measures more permanent, not within the scope of the Emergency
00:13:25.080 Act.
00:13:25.620 But actually, I suspect that means that they would introduce legislation that if, you know,
00:13:32.180 there's any political dissent at all and you contribute to that financially, that somehow
00:13:37.000 the government or, you know, its authorities would freeze your bank account for donating
00:13:43.680 to a political cause.
00:13:45.780 And, you know, that should be extremely troubling to Canadians and to political parties like
00:13:53.840 conservatives.
00:13:54.380 If the government does, if you don't agree with the government, you know, are they going
00:13:58.720 to freeze your bank account because you donate to a political party, whether it's a separatist
00:14:04.020 party, like, for example, the Bloc Québécois or anything else?
00:14:08.200 Like, this is a very, very dangerous slope that the government is taking us down.
00:14:13.000 And again, it speaks to, you know, the diminution of our democratic institutions and the trust that
00:14:18.700 people need to have, not just in our parliamentary institutions, but our banking institutions and
00:14:24.560 law enforcement as well.
00:14:25.880 It's very troubling to hear what the government is intending through this, especially if they're
00:14:30.100 already musing about making this more permanent.
00:14:32.880 It's one thing, Jamie, to clear the streets.
00:14:35.540 It's another thing to clear Canadians' bank accounts.
00:14:38.120 This is very, very problematic because underpinning every right and freedom that we exercise as
00:14:42.520 Canadian usually lies a financial transaction.
00:14:44.980 So whether we're buying something to go to a protest, whether we're buying something or paying
00:14:51.160 for something to exercise our freedom of speech, such as paying for our cell phone or our internet
00:14:54.860 service, whether we're donating to our places of worship or anything like that, we're exercising
00:15:01.160 our fundamental freedoms and they all require a transaction.
00:15:04.000 And it is actually very Orwellian that the government would be using their powers unfettered and not
00:15:10.820 actually cross-examined in front of a judge through a bank account, likely from intel from
00:15:16.460 hacked data for these transactions, is something that I think all Canadians should be alarmed about.
00:15:26.000 Yeah, especially when you see Fintrack saying there is no evidence of increased extremist donations
00:15:31.340 and you see, and even in the text, the references to information provided by the CBC as to why
00:15:37.840 they're invoking this.
00:15:39.100 There wasn't actually a massive, you know, threat to our nation at that point.
00:15:44.340 We do have to wrap up very soon, but I do want to talk about what's next.
00:15:47.020 What are we going to do as the opposition?
00:15:48.360 We have the whip and house leader here for the opposition.
00:15:50.900 What are we going to do to help those who are feeling, you know what, I'm done with these mandates
00:15:55.520 or the government's gone too far.
00:15:57.600 What is happening?
00:15:58.840 Why don't you two lay this out?
00:16:00.200 I don't know who to start with here, so I see John's got his hand up.
00:16:03.940 We'll start with John.
00:16:04.800 Yeah, I'm certainly not going to get into some of the procedural and rules-based options
00:16:12.700 that we have, Jamie.
00:16:13.560 I'm just not going to get into that today.
00:16:15.600 But one thing you can be assured of and Canadians can be assured of, all Canadians, whether you're
00:16:21.240 a Conservative supporter or not, and this issue has touched everyone.
00:16:24.900 I mean, you know, like you and like Blaine and like many of our colleagues, I have literally
00:16:30.140 received thousands of emails over the weekend since the invocation of the Act and since
00:16:36.300 the debate started.
00:16:37.540 And I kicked it off on Thursday by saying that the eyes of the nation are upon us, and they
00:16:41.940 certainly are on this issue.
00:16:43.540 But we're going to keep fighting to ensure that the rights and freedoms of Canadians are
00:16:48.800 maintained, that our democratic institutions are held in place, and that the foundations of
00:16:54.300 those institutions are solid, and you can bet that Canada's Conservatives under Candace Bergen
00:17:00.460 will continue to fight on your behalf.
00:17:03.500 Not yours, Jamie, not Blaine, although indirectly we will, but on behalf of all Canadians to ensure
00:17:10.200 that this massive, expansive overreach, this nuclear option that the government imposed on
00:17:16.000 this country is taken back as quickly as possible.
00:17:21.960 Couldn't agree more, John, and it's a pleasure to work alongside you as we are united as a Conservative
00:17:29.460 caucus down here in the fight against Justin Trudeau and his irresponsible method of governance,
00:17:35.480 his demeanor to divide, wedge, and scapegoat, and to vilify those Canadians that he disagrees with.
00:17:43.420 It's clear that when the Prime Minister of the country starts calling his own citizens' names
00:17:47.660 that we would end up where we are today, but we're going to continue to fight against the
00:17:52.040 vaccine mandates, and we're going to obviously continue to hold the government to account
00:17:57.040 to ensure that this government doesn't have the power that it has seized using this emergency
00:18:03.880 order any longer than absolutely necessary.
00:18:06.900 We don't think they need it at all, but we will continue to use every procedural tactic that
00:18:11.500 we have that the law allows for, that the House rules allow for, to ensure that this government
00:18:16.280 is held to account.
00:18:18.380 Excellent.
00:18:18.860 Thank you very much, gentlemen.
00:18:19.980 Really appreciate you coming on the show once again and explaining the process, talking about
00:18:24.420 what the opposition has been doing.
00:18:25.860 I think it's very important because you don't always get this point of view from the mainstream
00:18:30.700 media, so I do appreciate your time, gentlemen.
00:18:33.220 You don't?
00:18:35.320 Hard to believe.
00:18:37.100 And we got through a whole episode without Broussard telling us he used to be a firefighter,
00:18:40.720 so that in itself.
00:18:42.200 How do you know you're sitting next to a fireman?
00:18:44.300 How?
00:18:44.560 Just wait a minute, and he'll tell you.
00:18:47.660 Thank you, Rick.
00:18:48.300 John Broussard, Member of Parliament, very useful, Phil, also the Opposition House Leader
00:18:52.400 and Blaine Calkins, Member of Parliament of Red Deer Lacombe in the beautiful province
00:18:56.100 of Ontario.
00:18:56.800 So the Opposition Whip, we appreciate the time.
00:18:59.120 We have lots more questions, but we'll do it again in a different show.
00:19:01.420 Remember, new content every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:19:04.860 We do appreciate you viewing.
00:19:06.540 We also ask that you like, comment, subscribe, share this program.
00:19:09.560 Together, we can push back against the ever-moving liberal agenda.
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00:19:17.780 As always, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:19:20.500 That is the Blue Cross.