The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - The Liberals are Taking the Speaker to Court.

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your

00:00:10.860 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton. For the legs, Brock, we do appreciate

00:00:15.040 you joining us today. I know it is the summer, the weather is warm, and you want to be outside

00:00:19.500 enjoying it. It has been a tough go the last year and a half, but we will have new content for you

00:00:24.300 every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. And because of that, we ask for a couple of reasons

00:00:30.380 that you like. Comment, subscribe, share this program, because we want to, one, ensure that

00:00:35.780 Erin O'Toole is the next Prime Minister of Canada, and number two, that someone in your social media

00:00:40.160 network would have access to the Conservative message, the Conservative thought, and a few

00:00:44.320 ideas that you might not be hearing in the mainstream media. And with that content, we have

00:00:49.520 the host of The French Blueprint. He's also the House Leader and the Member of Parliament for

00:00:53.720 Louis-Saint-Laurent in the beautiful province of Quebec. We welcome Gerard Dentel. Thank you very

00:00:58.200 much for coming on. Oh, thank you so much, Jamie, for the invitation. I deeply appreciate that.

00:01:03.300 Well, we have some pretty startling content today, and it really is a first for Canadian history,

00:01:11.360 I think, in at least the recent memory, at least. We have the federal government suing the Speaker

00:01:18.020 of the House to keep documents related to the firing of two scientists at the Winnipeg High Security

00:01:24.680 Microbiology Lab and their content on and their connections with the potential Communist Party

00:01:31.380 of China. And this is something that the House voted on. The majority in the duly elected House of

00:01:38.980 Commons voted to see these documents, and the government continues to obstruct. Tell us a bit about that.

00:01:44.500 Well, this is totally incredible. And when we got news of that on the first site, my talk was,

00:01:50.660 well, this is crazy. This is not possible. I think that maybe I've not read it correctly. And so I have

00:01:55.520 to review everything. And I double check and I even triple check. And yes, it's true. Believe it or not,

00:02:01.960 the Canadian government is suing the House of Commons of Canada. We have never seen that in our history.

00:02:08.380 Looking people who are elected being sued by their own government about the fact that we want to tell,

00:02:16.180 to have the truth about something that is very mysterious and very concerning for the national

00:02:22.100 safety of Canada. And so this is why we are very stunned to see the Canadian government suing the

00:02:28.980 House of Commons, the Speaker of the House, Anthony Rota. But on behalf of him, all of us,

00:02:34.600 the 338 members of the House of Commons are suing among them. Well, yes, the Liberals,

00:02:43.360 the Cabinet Minister. So this is totally crazy. The Prime Minister and his minister are members of the

00:02:49.240 House of Commons, but the Prime Minister and his minister are suing exactly themselves and all the

00:02:54.940 other and all of us. So this is totally unacceptable. This is a threat to democracy, to parliamentarian,

00:03:01.560 and I've never seen that in my life. And I would say, you know, like you, I've been a journalist. I

00:03:07.960 follow the political scene for many years, and I can't believe what we are looking right now. What

00:03:13.460 you are seeing right now? A government suing the House of Commons to do not produce document about

00:03:21.040 public document who are very concerning Canadians.

00:03:24.320 You brought up something very important, and I think it's good to make this distinction. Because

00:03:29.960 we are in a parliamentary democracy, even members of the Cabinet, so the Cabinet is the government,

00:03:35.220 they are members of Parliament as well. And the Speaker is kind of the referee is the House of

00:03:41.440 Commons, and the government answers to the legislative branch. Now, again, as Gerard, you just pointed out,

00:03:47.760 the government is suing the legislature, or not suing, is taking the legislative branch to court. The Speaker is a

00:03:55.080 Liberal, and the House voted with all opposition parties in favour to see those documents and what they

00:04:02.740 contain. And instead, we got a bunch of redacted documents, and they refused to actually produce it despite

00:04:08.480 the attempts over and over again by the duly elected members of that chamber to see what's inside.

00:04:16.120 Well, and you know, what is troubling is that we are all, as Canadians, we are all concerned about things

00:04:22.380 that happen at the National Microbiology Laboratory of Winnipeg. And so let me remind everybody what

00:04:28.720 happened, because there is four different events that are very concerning. First of all, this laboratory

00:04:34.160 gives the highest rank of security for a searcher who is directly linked with the Army of China.

00:04:42.860 First concern. Second one, there is two high-profile searchers in this laboratory who had the highest

00:04:50.040 clear security access to everything, and both of them left, were fired, and were fired, and when they

00:05:01.200 left the building, they were escorted by the RCMP. Everybody has seen someone losing a job, but I've never

00:05:07.020 seen someone losing a job with the escort of the RCMP. So there is second concern about that. This laboratory

00:05:14.620 sent two virus to the Wuhan laboratory in China, third event. And the fourth one is that when everything

00:05:23.020 was known, two high-profile administrators of this laboratory were left their job. So one, two, three, four. Four big

00:05:34.020 concern, and Canadians deserve answer. So this is why in the committee, we asked twice to table documents.

00:05:43.060 And let me be clear with that, Jamie, because this is very important. We don't want to have access to

00:05:46.960 everything about the document. We're just asking to follow the procedure in that specific case. It's not

00:05:53.040 the first time. It will not be the last time. It happened for the last 150 years. It's that those documents

00:05:58.300 are table to the clerk's office. The clerk, with some people who know what they're talking about,

00:06:04.220 will reread that. And if there is something to hide for national security, they will hide it. That's the

00:06:10.140 procedure we just wanted to do, as we are doing for many years. So we asked once in the committee,

00:06:17.180 with the support of the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, and the Green. So it's quite important to know that we are the leader

00:06:22.700 of that, but all the other opposition parties support us. We asked once in the, in the, in the

00:06:28.620 April, in the committee, the government refused. We asked a second time in the committee, the

00:06:33.580 government refused. We had a vote. We spent a full day of debate in the House of Commons. We had a vote

00:06:39.420 on that, and the government refused to table those documents. One, two, three. Then there is a fourth

00:06:45.980 time. When I left, I raised a privilege, a question of privilege. As a parliamentarian, I thought that

00:06:52.540 that's three, three times. And that's a clear vote in the House of Commons of all the members who decided

00:06:57.500 by a majority to ask, to, to, to, to table those documents. Well, I, I, I raised a question of

00:07:04.220 privilege because my privilege as parliamentarian were abstract. And the fourth time, what we got is

00:07:10.540 something that's very special, but unfortunately not enough. First of all, the director of this, the

00:07:17.980 Health Agency of Canada went to the, went to the House of Commons, received a blame because it was

00:07:23.660 not, it didn't deliver what we were asking for, but he had to table those documents and he refused. So

00:07:30.620 one, two, three, four. Four times the government refused to address correctly order of the House. So this

00:07:39.820 is why now we are looking at this government knocking at the door of the federal court to say,

00:07:47.260 shut down, cover up. We don't know everything. We don't want to know everything about that. This is

00:07:52.540 totally unacceptable. You're looking at the, let me talk about constitutional. Maybe I will be a little

00:07:58.220 bit too, too, to, to, to, to detail, but it's quite important. You have the executive branch knocking at

00:08:04.540 the door of the judiciary branch to shut down the legislative branch. Only Justin Trudeau can do

00:08:11.260 that. Only Justin Trudeau can do that. This is totally unacceptable. This is a breach to Canadian

00:08:16.380 democracy. This is a breach to Canadian parliamentary tradition. And this is a breach to the country that

00:08:22.460 we are and we love freedom country. Well, according to the national post,

00:08:27.260 you mentioned it, it's the, the sharing of the information between the Wuhan lab in, in China,

00:08:31.980 which was, uh, I think of a fairly decent concern. And also what the national post reported as well,

00:08:39.260 talking about one of the doctors that was escorted out by the, the RCMP or that doctor is, uh, or has

00:08:46.220 filed for a couple of patents on some pretty, pretty dangerous diseases, one being Ebola and

00:08:51.100 the other Marburg viruses. And, uh, that's, that's a couple of years ago in 2017 and 19. So I think it's

00:08:57.980 very important that we get the answers to these questions, but what could possibly be in these

00:09:02.540 documents? I, I, obviously we, we don't know, but it must be bad if the government is going to this

00:09:09.180 length to cover this up. We all know that this is one of the trademark of this liberal government

00:09:15.740 is cover up. They tried to cover up the weed charity scandal. They, they tried to cover up

00:09:20.700 the Abakan strip and the vacancy of the prime minister. Each and every time there is an ethnic 1.00

00:09:26.300 issue, it's the cover up strategy. Remember a year ago, almost a year ago, the government was ready to

00:09:31.980 call an election to be sure that the parliamentary committee will not be created to scrutinize what he

00:09:37.740 has done in the weed charity scandal. So this is a trademark of Justin Trudeau, cover up, cover up,

00:09:43.420 cover up, no ethic at all. So this is why under Aaron O'Toole's leadership as the conservative,

00:09:49.260 we will, when we will be in office, we will be sure to have a bill, strong, very strong law to be

00:09:56.380 sure to address those epic issue. But let me remind you also, when you talk about the national post,

00:10:02.380 uh, relating the fact that one of the researcher who was escorted by the RCMP, her name is on patent

00:10:09.980 on some discovery and some invention in China. Technically speaking, she can't do that, but she

00:10:15.580 had to inform and to get the support of the Canadian government if she's doing something 0.99

00:10:21.500 related to her work here in the country and with a foreign country. It could be America, it could be

00:10:27.580 France, it could be Great Britain, it could be China, but at least you have to inform and to get

00:10:33.100 the green light from the Canadian government. So I raised in the House of Commons last week a question

00:10:38.700 directly to the Prime Minister. I said, so did you give her the green light for that? The answer of

00:10:44.140 the Prime Minister was absolutely, you know, crazy. He said, well, I learned that this morning reading

00:10:47.980 my newspaper, so I asked for your inquiry on that. Well, finally he's opening the eyes, but exactly at the

00:10:53.100 same time, when he's asking, when he's doing something correct, he's on the other side, on the back of

00:10:59.020 everybody, he's suing the parliament. So this guy has no ethic at all. This guy is, there is one

00:11:07.660 one ethic for him, and one thing for the rest of us. There is a link, as you know, with the Liberal

00:11:13.500 List, where they want to hire or to name some judge and everything. They have to look at the Liberal

00:11:18.780 List, and there is the rest of us Canadians. This is the pattern of this Prime Minister, but when we talk about

00:11:25.180 national security, and this is why we are asking those tough questions. We all know and we all recognize it's not an easy

00:11:31.500 task to raise those questions. But because we care, us, we deeply care about national security,

00:11:38.780 and I can assure Canadians and all the Conservatives who are listening to us, you can count on us to take

00:11:43.820 the government for account at each and every time. Our national security will be in trouble, and that's

00:11:49.820 exactly the case right now. Now, Gerard, you're a former journalist. After all these scandals that the

00:11:56.060 Prime Minister has had, my goodness, you listed off a few already, not to mention the We Charity,

00:12:01.260 and a whole bunch of others. Where is the media outrage on this? Like, seriously. I know you have

00:12:11.020 to shake their head on it. It's true. We have, as you mentioned, the fact that we have not only a couple

00:12:18.860 of scientists being escorted by the RCMP under suspicious circumstances from the top secret

00:12:25.980 lab in Winnipeg. We also have the fact that the government is suing, or not suing, taking the

00:12:32.460 legislative branch to court, the Speaker of the House of Commons, to the judicial branch to stop

00:12:37.420 the documents surrounding those firings, those escorting of scientists out of the building.

00:12:43.580 The media lost its mind to a $16 glass of orange juice. What the heck is going on?

00:12:54.940 Okay, let me, first of all, yes, I'm a former journalist, like you. I've been a journalist for

00:13:01.500 20 years, like some other colleagues among us, like John Barlow, like Dick Bertold, and others too.

00:13:10.060 Kellen Walk was a journalist too, and some people are saying, well, all the conservative journalists

00:13:15.420 are now in the House of Commons, so this is why. Well, let me be clear. First of all, there is, yes,

00:13:20.460 some report from CBC, National Post, Globe and Mail. Those are serious media, so they cannot say that this

00:13:26.860 is some conservative stuff or whatever. This has been done. In the French media, I had one huge interview

00:13:34.300 of 10 minutes on the LCN, which is linked to the TVA network, so I've done that. But unfortunately,

00:13:40.780 I have to recognize, like you, that this is not a huge coverage. And my simple question is that,

00:13:48.060 could you imagine Stephen Harper suing the House of Commons? Just imagine that. Could you believe that

00:13:57.500 a civil servant will receive a blame from the House of Commons under the leadership of the

00:14:03.020 prime ministership of Stephen Harper? This is my simple question that I'm asking to some former

00:14:08.940 colleague? I said, could you imagine Stephen Harper doing that? What will be your coverage of that?

00:14:15.180 I will let them express their decision. I had yesterday a press conference with my colleague

00:14:19.980 from Quebec City, and unfortunately, they didn't raise the issue. Well, you know, if we count on the

00:14:26.620 journalists to do, okay, yes, we are good, we are correct, that's not that. We are here, Jimmy, you

00:14:32.380 and me and all of our colleagues are here for Canadians. We are here to protect Canadians' freedom. We are here

00:14:38.700 to protect national security of Canada. And I can assure you, those who are listening to us, that as long

00:14:44.460 as we are, we'll be there, we will fight for you, whatever the others are doing or not doing. We are

00:14:50.060 there for Canadians, and we will still remain to Canadians to focus on the Canadians' interests,

00:14:56.300 first and foremost. And we're the only ones that will repeal Bill C-10, the internet censorship bill,

00:15:02.380 the one that the government decides what you like, what you want to see, what you get to see, and suppresses

00:15:07.820 the content that they don't agree with. And we're the only one that will repeal that bill, if it passes

00:15:13.980 the Senate. Well, we will see. I will let the colleagues from the Senate doing their job. And

00:15:19.500 as you know, the Senate people are not telling us what to do, so I will not tell the Senate colleagues

00:15:24.700 to do whatever they want. They have their autonomy on that. But I can assure you that, as Erin O'Toole,

00:15:31.180 our leader said, the first, one of the first moves that we will do in the first 100 days of the government

00:15:37.580 of Erin O'Toole will be to repeal the C-10 and be sure to recall the famous article 4.1. And this is

00:15:46.940 totally crazy, because the first draft of the C-10 include the article 4.1, who has a form of

00:15:54.060 protecting the freedom of speech, which was correct. And then on a Friday afternoon, the minister decided to

00:16:01.420 retreat it without any announcement. And I know you have been a journalist, you know, when we do something on

00:16:06.220 the Friday afternoon, because we don't want to have a lot of coverage of tasks. But, well, we were

00:16:12.460 there for that. So we raised this issue. And what is crazy also is that in Quebec, the Bloc Québécois

00:16:18.700 asked three times to recall this article, the bill, article 4.1, who has some protection for freedom of

00:16:26.940 speech. And when us, Alain Reyes and Rachel, the order made the commitment to table it, to table the

00:16:35.980 amendment in the committee, all the opposition parties, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals and the NDP

00:16:43.340 refused to re-put in the bill, the article written by the government itself, which was a protection,

00:16:52.300 a part of protection of the freedom of speech. They retreat it, we have to, we table a motion to

00:16:58.540 to let it back, and they refuse. That's only Justin Trudeau can do that. Only Justin Trudeau's

00:17:03.580 Liberals can do that. 0.97

00:17:04.780 Well, Gerard, we are pretty much out of time. And I always give the guests the final word,

00:17:09.420 but I think you covered pretty much everything we wanted to talk about. I have a question for you.

00:17:14.140 Where are you doing this show from? It doesn't look like your Ottawa office, for sure. It doesn't

00:17:20.140 look like your constituency office. Where are you?

00:17:23.260 And as I'm not a hunter, I'm not Bill Calkins, I would say, son of Quebec. But I am in my writing,

00:17:31.100 Louis Saint Laurent's writing, which is in the neighbour of Quebec City, the suburb of Quebec City.

00:17:39.180 And in this writing, I have Wendake. Wendake is the first nation that live here for all the time,

00:17:47.020 but are established here for the last 350 years, here in Wendake. And there is a nice, very hotel

00:17:53.980 and museum. And there is an event this morning in my writing at this place. So this is why I

00:18:00.620 am very pleased to welcome you in Wendake, which is a First Nation territory, and in part of the

00:18:08.060 Louis Saint Laurent writing, which is, as you will recognize, the best writing in Canada.

00:18:13.020 I think there might be 337 others that might disagree with you on that. But I appreciate

00:18:19.980 the time. The French host of the Blueprint, the French language host of the Blueprint. I hope I

00:18:24.940 did the English language version justice and lived up to your reputation, Gerard. Thank you very much.

00:18:29.980 You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you so much, Jimmy. And thank you, everybody.

00:18:33.100 Thank you. Gerard Dettel, the House Leader for the Opposition, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition,

00:18:37.500 and also the Member of Parliament for Louis Saint Laurent. We thank you so much for joining us. As I said,

00:18:41.980 off the beginning. New content every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern. We ask that you like,

00:18:47.740 comment, subscribe, share this program. Help us push back against that ever-moving liberal agenda.

00:18:53.100 If you haven't had time to watch it all now, you can download it. Listen to it later on on platforms

00:18:57.340 like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it. It is out there. Thank you again. I know it is

00:19:02.940 summer, but we do appreciate you stopping by and listening and watching this program. As always,

00:19:07.980 remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That is the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 30, 2021

The Liberals are Taking the Speaker to Court.

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript