The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - October 23, 2020


The Liberal Cover-Up

Topics
WE Charity scandal liberal corruption scandals accountability in ethics
Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Justin Trudeau Michael Barrett Jamie Schmael Stephen Harper Kielbergers Andrew Scheer Sam Harris Leslyn Lewis
The Debt-to-GDP Ratio is Rising A Clear Plan for Dealing with China

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

171.74

Word count

3,471

Sentence count

229

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode of Conservative MP for the riding of Rideau Lakes, MP for Leeds and Grenville, Michael Barrett, joins us to talk about the WE Charity scandal and the opposition day motion calling for the release of documents related to the scandal.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 It's Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Schmael, member of Marlman for Halliburton for the Lakes Brock.
00:00:08.720 Thank you very much for joining us again. We have an amazing show lined up for you.
00:00:13.020 Of course, if you're paying attention to the news lately, we could be on the cusp of a federal election.
00:00:18.600 Yes, during a pandemic, an election that nobody wants because the Liberals, of course, aren't getting their own way on the WE charity scandal.
00:00:26.220 And as you may have known and may be paying attention in the media, there has been a lot of things happening behind the scenes, including committees being filibustered, which means no business is getting put forward.
00:00:39.040 Nothing is moving because the Liberals do not want the truth to come out.
00:00:42.900 And of course, we hear them say all the time there is no big deal, nothing to see here.
00:00:47.820 Well, if that's the case, let's see all the documents and see what the truth is.
00:00:51.940 So clearly something is up. And to talk to us more about that, we have our ethics critic.
00:00:59.300 He's also the member of parliament for Leeds, Grenville, Thousand Island and Rideau Lakes.
00:01:03.700 Michael Barrett, thank you very much for joining us here today.
00:01:06.900 A pleasure to join you as always, Jamie. Good to see you.
00:01:09.440 Because you are a big fan of the show, you've been on a number of times before.
00:01:12.900 I thank you for bringing out your blue suit, white shirt. That is greatly appreciated.
00:01:16.820 That is your wardrobe of choice. You seem to really gravitate toward that, but you look good. I appreciate that.
00:01:24.180 Well, that's high praise coming from you. Yeah, definitely, definitely the go-to blue suit, blue in many shades.
00:01:32.080 A number of variations of the blue tie and the white shirt. Yep.
00:01:35.960 So we're going to have a lot to talk about. That's why we need our audience.
00:01:39.200 Those watching and listening at home to like, comment, share, subscribe to this program.
00:01:45.560 And if you can't watch it all today, you can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it.
00:01:52.740 It's out there. And together we can help push back against the ever-moving liberal agenda.
00:01:56.200 Because as Michael Barrett knows and many others know, we are able to expand the audience and expand the potential of hitting undecided voters with a message of common sense and the conservative values that we move forward here.
00:02:10.300 And that we're going to talk about now because a lot has been developing on the WE Charity scandal.
00:02:15.180 And Michael Barrett, today is a opposition motion day, which for those outside the parliamentary precinct, outside the Ottawa bubble, it's a day that gives the opposition parties the ability to talk about whatever they want.
00:02:29.440 And the Conservatives have put forward a motion talking about, well, actually, you know what, Michael Barrett, why don't you tell us what that's about?
00:02:38.360 Yeah, for sure. Thanks, Jamie.
00:02:39.460 And so opposition days are really the opportunities for the different opposition parties to put forward proposals for the government, put our items on the agenda, and in some cases push back against the government's agenda.
00:02:54.980 Now, today, it's the first time we've had an opposition day after the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament.
00:03:00.620 And I'm sure, you know, we've covered this off before on the show, but prorogue just means that hit the reset button, shut down everything, shut down committees, no question period, anything like that.
00:03:14.080 So here we are, we're back, we're dealing with this opposition day motion, and it all comes back to the WE scandal.
00:03:21.540 We have, for a couple weeks now, tried to get the production of documents at committees, tried to do that at the Finance Committee, which ordered documents that ended up being heavily redacted.
00:03:34.000 We tried to order documents with respect to speaking fees.
00:03:37.480 Now, remember, this all comes from members of the Trudeau family, having received half a million dollars from an organization, the WE organization, that was awarded a half a billion dollar contract to administer on behalf of the government, on behalf of you, the taxpayer.
00:03:53.640 And so, you know, when it comes to scandals, you have to follow the money.
00:03:58.580 So we ordered production of documents with respect to the money.
00:04:02.340 And that's really what led to the Prime Minister shutting down Parliament.
00:04:06.100 So over the last two weeks since we've been back, we've been trying to get answers, try to order those at committee, and the Liberals have filibustered.
00:04:12.820 And so they've just talked up the clock.
00:04:14.780 The Ethics Committee, I think we had 14 hours of nonsense from Liberal members reading the newspaper into the record and reading Privy Council memos into the record, trying to put us to sleep, you know, philosophy lectures from them.
00:04:29.780 And so we're ordering today in the House, we've put a motion forward to have a special committee to deal with corruption in government that would order the production of these documents with the passage of the motion, but would also change the composition of the committees.
00:04:49.000 Now, the standing committees would, in their current forms, are, you know, usually split pretty evenly.
00:04:57.420 They're split between the opposition and the government because we're in a minority.
00:05:00.920 And most of the committees are chaired by a member of the government, by one of the Liberals.
00:05:05.480 And so this special committee would be chaired by a member of the opposition.
00:05:09.180 The opposition would have the majority on the committee as well as the chair.
00:05:13.180 And we'd be able to deal with all of this, all of these corruption allegations, whether it's, you know, ventilators ordered from a company owned by a former Liberal MP, though the ventilators don't have regulatory approval.
00:05:27.860 The issue with respect to the commercial rent assistance program, and there's a connection there between the Prime Minister's chief of staff and a family member of hers at the organization that was administering that program.
00:05:41.060 And so we want to deal with all those. We want to get everything off the agenda of these other committees.
00:05:45.900 Let finance do its work, which is important during the pandemic.
00:05:48.660 Let the ethics committee, government operations, official languages, all the committees that were doing studies on this WE scandal, let them get back to their business.
00:05:58.360 And let's have a dedicated set of members deal with the issue of corruption, misappropriation with government spending during the pandemic.
00:06:07.480 A lot of what you just talked about was inside baseball stuff, right?
00:06:10.800 This is inside Ottawa, inside the parliament, parliamentary precinct stuff.
00:06:16.280 But what has made this kind of spread out even further is the fact that the Liberals are saying, if this motion is passed, we think we might trigger an election.
00:06:27.300 We think we might call a snap election and send people to the polls during a pandemic, an election that nobody wants.
00:06:35.120 And the fact that this will be the first time in history a motion triggers the fall of a government.
00:06:41.380 Well, that's right.
00:06:43.380 And if the Liberals deem this a vote of confidence in the government, which they say they have, really, they're just trying to bully the opposition into not supporting this motion, believing that the opposition doesn't want an election.
00:07:01.260 And look, we don't, you know, we've amended our motion to include text saying that the passage of this motion does not warrant a general election.
00:07:12.980 You know, we're in the second wave of the pandemic.
00:07:15.420 But what we're trying to address is the third wave of liberal corruption.
00:07:18.740 We have, you know, Justin Trudeau twice found guilty of breaking ethics laws.
00:07:22.620 You remember his trip to Billionaire Island.
00:07:24.040 You remember his criminal interference in the prosecution of, or his interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
00:07:30.640 And now here we are with his latest scandal.
00:07:35.580 And we just want answers.
00:07:37.100 We're not looking to go to the polls on this question.
00:07:40.500 But his government has said that, hey, you know, if you ask us questions about corruption, we're going to dissolve the government.
00:07:47.080 We're going to go to the governor general, say we need an election, and force Canadians out to the polls.
00:07:54.040 Can you imagine living in a different country and then reading this in the news?
00:07:58.420 The government will trigger an election if this committee to look into corruption is struck.
00:08:05.980 Like that, it just seems very, like, how is this possible?
00:08:11.180 Yeah, exactly.
00:08:12.260 And, you know, and we hear a lot of, you know, a lot of moral superiority.
00:08:16.980 I mean, from the Canadian left about, you know, about, you know, our democracy versus, you know, what happens in other countries.
00:08:25.080 Oh, look south of the border.
00:08:26.400 Oh, look over here at this country.
00:08:27.960 And any time, any time there's a, you know, a right of center politician who is being chased by legislators in another country, you know, the liberals lap it up.
00:08:43.500 They want to paint Canada's conservatives with the same brush as, you know, politicians on foreign soils and other lands.
00:08:50.920 And here we have, you know, a repeat offender with the Conflict of Interest Act, Justin Trudeau, up to bat for a third time and willing to bring down the government, willing to go to an election to stop investigations into scandals with his government.
00:09:07.880 It's unbelievable.
00:09:09.300 And if we saw this happen anywhere else in the world, we'd be calling for, you know, Canadians to go and monitor the election.
00:09:15.040 We'd be calling, you know, for, you know, statements of condemnation at the United Nations.
00:09:20.480 But here we have it right in our own backyard.
00:09:22.740 And Justin Trudeau is so fearful of what's inside these documents of Canadians finding out about it that he's willing to shut down Parliament.
00:09:30.960 Which, what does that tell you, Jamie, that there's more to see here, right?
00:09:35.900 Absolutely.
00:09:36.300 If it's that easy, if there's nothing to see, put it all out on the table.
00:09:41.740 Let's see what the relationship was between the Trudeau government and the Kielbergers who run the WE Charity. 1.00
00:09:47.300 Let's talk about the rental assistant program that wasn't taken up to the level it was supposed to, but had a connection to someone in the prime minister's office, which then had an effect on that program.
00:09:58.880 It wasn't a very successful program because of a number of factors built into it.
00:10:03.880 But there were potential conflicts that are out there.
00:10:07.920 And I think that that's where I agree with you.
00:10:09.440 We do need, we as the official opposition, we are sworn to hold the government to account.
00:10:15.960 And that's what we're doing.
00:10:17.060 I also agree with you, the fact that consider this happened to a Conservative government.
00:10:23.420 What would the media outrage be?
00:10:25.440 I know the media is covering it right now.
00:10:27.700 Coverage is different than their outrage.
00:10:29.760 They would have experts around the table shaking their fists and falling on the ground and telling us what a horrible thing it is for the Conservatives, which it would have been.
00:10:38.540 But you don't see that to the level the Liberals are.
00:10:41.400 And this is, I think, how they are able to continue to function because that level of outrage is not there.
00:10:48.180 Right.
00:10:48.400 You know, and this is so important that folks are able to, you know, compare and contrast.
00:10:54.660 You know, it was raised in the House.
00:10:55.880 There was an issue years ago.
00:10:57.660 And today, of course, we're hearing from the Liberals, you know, about the days of Stephen Harper and Stephen Harper.
00:11:04.400 And, you know, what did Stephen Harper do?
00:11:06.540 Well, I'll tell you what Stephen Harper did.
00:11:07.720 First of all, he was never found guilty of breaking ethics laws, but he did lay a trap for these Liberals.
00:11:12.780 And that trap was the Conflict of Interest Act and the Conflict of Interest Code for Members.
00:11:20.640 And this came out of a big scandal at the time.
00:11:25.600 And that was ad scam with the Liberals.
00:11:27.780 And we remember the hearings that happened with that.
00:11:29.640 That was about $40 million.
00:11:31.020 We're talking about half a billion dollars.
00:11:32.800 So, you know, this is more than 10 times the amount of money on just the one issue of the Canada Student Service Grant.
00:11:38.320 And it's quite the fight to scrap for coverage.
00:11:43.840 And today, while the Prime Minister is saying that he's going to trigger an election, if we look into, you know, this huge scandal, you know, half a billion dollar scandal in his government.
00:11:55.340 You know, one of the questions at the press conference for him this morning was, what are your plans for trick-or-treating with your children, Prime Minister?
00:12:01.180 So, I mean, like, look, I know that folks are, you know, trying to figure out, you know, social norms during the pandemic.
00:12:10.220 But it's pretty, it's fundamental that our press, it's fundamental that our public are putting the questions to the government, to members, so that we can have confidence in our institutions.
00:12:25.520 The job that members do is tremendously important.
00:12:28.820 And I don't need to tell you that, Jamie.
00:12:30.000 I mean, balancing the work as a constituency MP, as a legislator, as a shadow minister, all of these jobs have important, you know, they're important pieces of our federation.
00:12:43.260 You know, we execute functions laid out in the constitution of our country.
00:12:48.200 And, you know, while we do need to hold the government to account on their pandemic response, and we're doing that, we also need to hold them to account on these ethical issues.
00:12:59.980 And we are, as an opposition, we're able to walk and chew gum.
00:13:04.580 We expect the government to be able to do the same.
00:13:06.860 And certainly, we should hear some more hard-hitting questions than which costume the Prime Minister is going to select for his Halloween this year.
00:13:18.940 Well, you raised a good point, because our former leader, Andrew Scheer, raised this, too, towards the end of his time.
00:13:27.820 The media fawns all over Kamala Harris. 0.58
00:13:31.840 But yet, Leslyn Lewis gets barely a blip, and she was running to be the Prime Minister of Canada. 1.00
00:13:38.340 And the level of coverage, the differences, and the level of outrage is so vast.
00:13:46.900 It's absolutely incredible.
00:13:48.220 So when we say to our viewers and listeners, please like, comment, subscribe, and share this program.
00:13:54.440 We do that for a reason, because we are able to penetrate through what the mainstream media message is,
00:14:00.260 and actually get into people's homes that may not be Conservative supporters per se,
00:14:05.480 but also might be open to voting Conservative or an independent voter where their mind hasn't been made up.
00:14:10.820 Because every Canadian needs to be aware of this,
00:14:14.100 and the impacts of what is going on in the level of corruption that is being alleged here.
00:14:20.260 There is serious concerns about the Kielbergers' relationship.
00:14:23.540 They are the people in charge at the helm of the WE Charity.
00:14:27.820 There is concerns about how the Canada Student Service Grant,
00:14:32.720 which the WE Charity was supposedly involved with in creating, in implementing.
00:14:38.140 We want to know, because the WE Charity also paid members of the Trudeau family
00:14:42.980 almost a half a million dollars in speaking fees,
00:14:45.920 where others were told, no, there are no fees for your participation.
00:14:50.760 Yeah, that's absolutely right.
00:14:51.680 And I think it's critical that Canadians, you know, Conservative-minded Canadians,
00:14:57.500 folks who want to share their perspective with their friends and their family,
00:15:01.780 they do take the opportunity to share this.
00:15:04.580 And I know some of my followers on social media will be watching.
00:15:08.400 We're sharing this on my page as well.
00:15:11.040 It's important that when we talk about, you know, these political issues,
00:15:15.580 these important issues of our time,
00:15:16.840 that we give people, you know, reliable, trustworthy sources.
00:15:21.520 And you're not going to find, you know, more trustworthy, conservative voices
00:15:26.620 than when you're hearing from, for example, you know, from people like you, Jamie.
00:15:32.240 You know, you're an elected member.
00:15:34.900 You're a, you know, you're a shadow cabinet member.
00:15:37.360 You serve the good people of Halliburton, Kawartha Lakes, Brock.
00:15:43.740 And you're dialed in on the issues.
00:15:46.000 And so instead of, you know, Facebook pages or news sources that people are,
00:15:51.420 well, do I need to fact check this?
00:15:52.980 Well, it's been fact checked.
00:15:54.100 This podcast has been fact checked.
00:15:56.860 It's been fact checked by the legislators, by the decision makers.
00:16:00.580 And that's you and your guests.
00:16:02.080 And so that's why I watch The Blueprint.
00:16:04.020 And that's why I encourage my followers to do the same.
00:16:06.820 It's an important and reliable alternative source of news
00:16:11.080 because there's no outside spin.
00:16:16.420 There's no bias from any other source.
00:16:22.060 People are getting the straight goods from conservative members,
00:16:24.980 from your guests.
00:16:26.520 And that's where we're able to let people know
00:16:30.940 what's really going on in Ottawa.
00:16:33.420 And not someone else's spin about, you know,
00:16:36.020 why the Conservatives did this or why the Conservatives did that.
00:16:38.760 And the answer to the question on why are we moving this opposition day motion,
00:16:42.060 it's to get answers for Canadians and to restore confidence
00:16:45.220 in our public institutions.
00:16:46.440 It doesn't matter which party is in government.
00:16:50.060 They must.
00:16:51.280 They must protect and hold sacred the integrity of the office of prime minister
00:16:55.880 and hold sacred the integrity of the government.
00:16:59.520 And when they don't do that, it is an obligation of the official opposition
00:17:04.620 to hold them to account to get answers for Canadians.
00:17:08.220 And then once Canadians have that information,
00:17:10.120 well, they're able to make an informed decision when they go to the ballot box,
00:17:14.240 whenever that might be.
00:17:15.080 Now, we don't want that to be after this vote
00:17:17.320 because we want an opportunity for the truth to come out.
00:17:19.860 But we'll see if Justin Trudeau has the courage of his convictions on this.
00:17:24.720 He doesn't on most other things.
00:17:27.560 So the opposition motion is being debated today in the House of Commons.
00:17:31.740 What happens next?
00:17:32.960 There's a vote later on this week.
00:17:34.680 Where does it go?
00:17:36.420 Where do you, where do you, what do you see happening?
00:17:38.240 Is it going to pass?
00:17:39.420 Is it not?
00:17:40.560 Just based, you're in these negotiations now.
00:17:43.500 How's your sense of things?
00:17:44.620 So the Bloc Québécois, which is the third party in the House,
00:17:49.020 has said that they're going to support the motion.
00:17:51.800 And this morning in the House, we heard from the NDP that they're not sure yet.
00:17:57.220 They're trying to cut a different deal,
00:18:00.040 make a different arrangement with the government.
00:18:02.340 And if they're successful in that, then they won't support this motion,
00:18:06.620 which is really unfortunate.
00:18:08.260 It's going to come to a vote tomorrow afternoon, right after question period.
00:18:11.060 And members are going to have to stand and be counted.
00:18:14.960 And if they stand for ethical, accountable government,
00:18:20.400 or if they're going to be complicit in the cover-up,
00:18:22.720 complicit in the corruption that's happened.
00:18:24.480 And so certainly we're encouraging NDP members
00:18:29.140 not to take their marching orders from the Liberals,
00:18:33.180 but to hold sacred the trust that was put in them by Canadian voters.
00:18:39.560 And obviously this issue of accountability is universal to Canadians from coast to coast.
00:18:46.880 Perfect. Thank you very much, Michael Barrett.
00:18:49.200 Shadow Minister for Ethics for all your hard work on the file and everything you're doing.
00:18:53.320 It is absolutely amazing.
00:18:54.600 Hold the government's feet to the fire because you're right,
00:18:57.180 it doesn't matter which party you support,
00:18:58.620 you should want ethical government in charge running your country.
00:19:02.560 And at a time during a pandemic where hundreds of billions of dollars
00:19:05.900 are being put out the door to help Canadians in need and also develop new programs.
00:19:11.220 We want to ensure that parliamentary scrutiny is front and centre
00:19:14.660 because we want to make sure that those dollars are being accounted for
00:19:18.100 because they are, it is your money as taxpayers.
00:19:21.180 Government doesn't have anything that it first must take from the hardworking people.
00:19:26.320 So we want to respect that.
00:19:28.480 So thank you, Member of Parliament for Leeds, Grenville, Thousand Island, Rideau Lakes,
00:19:32.020 Michael Barrett.
00:19:32.840 Keep up the good work and any parting words quickly before we let you go.
00:19:36.600 Oh, it's a pleasure.
00:19:37.560 I'll be watching your show and look forward to having me back
00:19:41.240 and I'll be sure to represent the blue suit again next time.
00:19:45.540 All right. We look forward to that.
00:19:46.740 Remember, new content every Tuesday afternoon, 1.30 p.m. Eastern time.
00:19:51.460 Please like, comment, subscribe and share this program.
00:19:56.140 If you can't watch it all now, please download it later.
00:19:59.060 Do it on Spotify, CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, you name it.
00:20:02.460 It's out there together.
00:20:03.380 We can push back against the ever-moving liberal agenda.
00:20:06.280 And to close, remember, as always, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:20:11.100 That's the Blueprint.
00:20:11.840 Thanks for joining us.