The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - The Prime Minister referred to China our biggest security threat.

00:00:00.000 We are Canadians, only Canadians, could carve the world's best country out of a big, cold,

00:00:20.960 vast land, because we never give up. We never back down. We never run away. We stand united,

00:00:27.920 tonight together always because this country its people and promise are worth fighting for

00:00:35.260 because while some say this is as good as it gets we know the best is yet to come thank you very much

00:00:41.800 87 hello and welcome once again to the blueprints this is canada's conservative podcast i'm your

00:00:48.120 host jamie schmale member of parliament for halliburton quarter lakes with new content

00:00:51.800 every single tuesday 1 30 p.m eastern time don't forget to like comment subscribe and share

00:00:56.980 this program on today's show the conservative convention in calgary is over amazing news going

00:01:03.300 forward we're also going to talk china and what it means for canada and the future to talk about

00:01:09.100 this and so much more we bring on the whip the party's whip be nice to this guy chris workington

00:01:15.520 member of parliament for grand prairie thanks for coming on the show very good to be here so glad

00:01:19.800 you're on the show and yes always be nice to the whip well now you have me in the hot seat so there

00:01:24.440 you go. Yeah, that's right. Way to limit your career if you put the whip too much on the hot 1.00

00:01:29.580 seat. Thanks for being on the show. It's great to be here. Calgary just ended. Yeah. Over the

00:01:34.100 weekends, 87% of delegates voted for Pierre's leadership. That is a strong message that he is

00:01:41.300 the right person to continue leading the party into the next election whenever that'll be.

00:01:45.520 It is. It's a strong mandate, obviously, for the leader, but it's also a strong mandate for the

00:01:49.520 message. The fight that we've been in for the last number of years, and it's really an endorsement

00:01:55.340 to continue that fight, to fight for Canadians. Over 8 million Canadians sought to have us as

00:02:01.560 their voice during the last election. This was an unprecedented level of support that this party

00:02:06.400 hasn't ever seen in terms of vote totals, obviously higher than we've seen in elections on a percentage

00:02:12.600 basis for years. And what Canadians are looking for is a voice that will stand up for

00:02:19.680 those that have fallen behind. We're seeing Canadians who can't afford to eat, they can't 0.99

00:02:25.720 afford to pay their rent or to afford their homes. We're seeing communities that have been ravaged

00:02:32.280 by crime and people are committed to fixing it. They want Pierre, they want our party to fight

00:02:41.360 for the things that they know were possible.

00:02:45.100 See, what Pierre said,

00:02:47.060 the fact that it doesn't have to be like this.

00:02:50.780 It can be better.

00:02:51.900 We know what it was before,

00:02:53.440 and it can go back to that

00:02:54.380 if we can focus on the solutions.

00:02:56.920 And that's what we're going to be doing.

00:02:58.000 That's what our team is going to be doing.

00:02:59.660 That's what Pierre was endorsed.

00:03:01.720 That's why so many people came out and endorsed him.

00:03:04.140 It was crazy to read or listen in the media

00:03:08.440 leading up to the convention.

00:03:09.580 Like, the message you were getting, if you were glued to the CBC or CTV, it was like all doom and gloom.

00:03:16.780 You know, it's going to be razor thin.

00:03:19.400 You know, we're lucky if we get through the weekend with Pierre still here.

00:03:24.100 87, like, that is better.

00:03:28.080 Amazing Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but that is better than what Stephen Harper got in his leadership review.

00:03:32.900 So this is a solid signal that Pierre, yes, to all the things you just mentioned.

00:03:37.180 And, you know, the youth that we've been able to attract, like even at the convention, it was incredible.

00:03:44.580 The amount of young people that are energized and getting involved.

00:03:48.480 It's incredible.

00:03:49.300 It was interesting.

00:03:50.560 As you know, all of us have a delegate spot that's designated for youth.

00:03:55.540 And so we, all of us, you know, there's every riding is kind of given that opportunity.

00:04:01.980 What we saw is far more youth at the convention than would have filled those spots.

00:04:06.820 These were youth that were fighting for delegate spots that would have otherwise gone to others.

00:04:11.660 And that is a very, very positive sign when you see that kind of support and endorsement by young people from across this country.

00:04:22.100 Because, you know, for many of us, it's not easy to get to Calgary.

00:04:28.200 There's expense, there's time that needs to be taken off of work.

00:04:31.340 But for young people to get to there, it's just even that much harder.

00:04:34.960 And so for the numbers of people that showed up that are young just demonstrates how committed they are to seeing a change in Canada.

00:04:44.740 I think it's more than just support for our party.

00:04:47.660 I think it's a desperation that things have to change for them and their future.

00:04:52.720 And they know it.

00:04:53.500 And they're committed to being part of that.

00:04:55.080 That's what the exciting part is, is that they don't just want it to happen.

00:04:59.580 They're getting involved in making sure that it happens.

00:05:01.860 And that's what I saw in Calgary.

00:05:03.680 And I think it's even more than we saw in the last election.

00:05:08.460 I think that there's an engagement by young people that has been growing even since the last election,

00:05:16.300 which I think is fantastic news for our party, but more importantly, fantastic news for the country.

00:05:22.580 100%. And even in my own case, it was amazing to see how many youth members I had.

00:05:27.680 But they're hungry to get involved because I think they remember, whether they were born or through their parents, that housing was once affordable.

00:05:37.460 Paychecks were once rising faster than inflation.

00:05:40.660 You could actually get ahead, maybe even go on a vacation.

00:05:44.040 You know, like there was a sense of normalcy.

00:05:47.080 And I think what the Liberals have done over the last 10 years is totally, I think, eye-opening to them.

00:05:56.060 when, you know, maybe they were kids and they remember,

00:05:58.500 yeah, we used to go on vacation and now we're struggling to eat

00:06:01.200 and now we have to go to the food bank.

00:06:02.500 Like, this is not how it's supposed to be.

00:06:04.280 That's not, this is what we're living now is not normal.

00:06:07.240 No, it's incredible.

00:06:08.120 I was talking to a young guy at convention

00:06:10.860 who had just got his law degree.

00:06:13.240 And so this is a guy that's, you know, he's a professional.

00:06:15.700 He's a couple of years into his profession.

00:06:19.080 And, you know, he remembers a time that if you were a lawyer,

00:06:22.360 you could afford rent.

00:06:23.680 That's right.

00:06:24.120 But he's still looking for multiple roommates just to cover the cost.

00:06:29.840 You know, this isn't normal.

00:06:30.840 This isn't how it was with, you know, with our generation.

00:06:35.200 You know, once we kind of got our feet under ourselves,

00:06:38.480 you know, we started to, you know, started to get ahead.

00:06:42.500 We started to, you know, put a down payment on a house.

00:06:44.980 We settled down.

00:06:45.960 We moved out of mom and dad's place.

00:06:47.520 We never dreamt about not being able to afford groceries.

00:06:51.720 That was not part of our reality.

00:06:55.880 And I think young people know that this isn't normal.

00:06:58.460 As much as liberals say this is as good as it's going to get

00:07:01.120 or this is awesome, we keep hearing from the liberals

00:07:04.000 on the other side saying things have never been better.

00:07:06.760 Or you have to prepare to make sacrifices.

00:07:08.700 Well, they do sometimes admit that people do.

00:07:12.260 And then they go back and they start this rhetoric

00:07:14.360 that things are good and that it's all right.

00:07:19.300 People know it's not right.

00:07:20.380 They know that the inability to afford just the essentials is not normal.

00:07:26.920 They also know that when the police are coming to their door

00:07:28.960 and telling families to go into the basement

00:07:31.420 because there's been multiple shootings on that street

00:07:34.500 or they're expecting more shootings, that's not normal.

00:07:37.380 That's not right.

00:07:39.120 People are fed up, and they're not just getting angry.

00:07:43.720 They're putting forward a solution.

00:07:46.080 They're getting involved, and that's what's the most exciting point

00:07:48.480 is that people are prepared to do the heavy lifting

00:07:53.280 to make sure that this country can go back to a place

00:07:56.660 that we can all be proud to be part of.

00:07:58.340 Well, let's talk about more heavy lifting.

00:08:00.360 Mark Carney was supposedly elected to get a deal with the United States.

00:08:04.920 We're still waiting.

00:08:05.980 About 76% of all our trade goes to the United States.

00:08:09.420 We have maybe a deal, maybe an interest in a deal with China now,

00:08:13.700 apparently, for some of their canola and beef

00:08:16.700 in exchange for vehicles and other other things um at the same time um let's cue up cut one here

00:08:23.940 we have uh mark carney making a speech i know it was a an older clip and uh but it frames up what

00:08:30.120 we're about to talk about next clay cut one the world has changed much since that last visit

00:08:37.540 and i believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new

00:08:46.700 We cut out the part where with Scott Moe, the Premier of Saskatchewan, I kind of looked over like, what?

00:08:55.120 What does that mean?

00:08:56.020 I think every Canadian is kind of looking and saying, what?

00:08:59.820 It'd sure be nice if we would know what this new world order was before we go to China and make a deal about joining this new world order.

00:09:07.920 I can't explain what the new world order is.

00:09:10.380 I can't either. But, you know, it's first China, which we have about three to four percent of all 0.96

00:09:17.000 our trade. Then then the prime minister goes over to Qatar, Qatar, and starts talking trade there.

00:09:23.680 It seems that like China and Russia are tight. Russia's, you know, attacking Ukraine.

00:09:30.140 There's China's tight with North Korea. Like, I guess the conversation should go also to your

00:09:35.400 point, what is the new world order? But do we want to be like extra close buddies with these nations

00:09:41.480 that are probably not the best actors? Well, I think that there's two different parts of the

00:09:45.780 things that he talked about when he was in China. One is one that we would all agree in, which is,

00:09:50.680 agree on, which is we should have good trade with China. They're a big country, they have a lot of

00:09:56.880 purchasing power, they produce a lot of things. So there's no question that we're going to have a

00:10:00.120 trade relationship. But what he talked about was deepening our security arrangement with China,

00:10:08.620 which is deeply concerning. This is a country that held two of our men, the two Michaels,

00:10:15.000 indefinitely with no explanation. They made all kinds of claims and trumped up charges about

00:10:20.720 what they claimed that these guys were up to. But this is a case where we have a country that has

00:10:26.300 been shown to be involved in election interference here in Canada.

00:10:34.080 I don't know that we want to deepen our security arrangement with these folks.

00:10:39.240 I don't know that they can be trusted on those levels.

00:10:42.060 And yet Carney's not only talking about making a trade,

00:10:46.360 working on the trade relationship, which I think we can all agree is important,

00:10:51.240 but he's talking about deepening our security arrangement with them,

00:10:54.860 which I think that Canadians are rightfully very, very concerned about.

00:10:59.820 And notwithstanding what he claims that he got in terms of an agreement on trade,

00:11:06.020 if you talk to the people that are actually being impacted like that,

00:11:08.980 there's no guarantee that China is going to make it better on a permanent basis for our ag producers.

00:11:19.340 Exactly.

00:11:19.620 This is a temporary fix, but what he is doing on the security side might be permanent.

00:11:24.860 And that is something that I think every Canadian needs to ask questions about.

00:11:29.100 Yeah, I didn't mean to put into question the support for trade in general.

00:11:33.660 China is a huge population.

00:11:34.800 Yes, we should do trade.

00:11:36.300 I think there is more question.

00:11:38.360 Well, because that is not new.

00:11:43.380 It's a big shift.

00:11:44.420 But he did talk about the new world order.

00:11:46.920 Yeah.

00:11:47.160 So then we have to really ask, what's included on that side?

00:11:51.780 When he's in China, we've never got a resolution or a commitment by the Chinese 1.00

00:11:57.080 that they're not going to engage in political interference here in Canada.

00:12:01.340 We have, even during the last election, we had threats against conservative candidates

00:12:05.340 that had bounties on their head from the Chinese government.

00:12:10.240 Where's the contrition on the Chinese side? 1.00

00:12:12.700 Where is a commitment from them that they're not going to engage in this kind of activity?

00:12:16.440 I mean, they had a bounty on one of our conservative candidates' head.

00:12:20.900 And what were they intending to do to that guy, to Jay?

00:12:27.860 Joe, pardon me, I don't understand how we can engage in China in a new world order on issues of security 1.00

00:12:36.480 when we haven't resolved the massive security threat that they are.

00:12:40.640 As a matter of fact, during the last election, Mark Carney even said that China is the greatest security threat against Canada.

00:12:47.480 Where's the resolution to that before we engage in the new world order with them?

00:12:50.900 All right, let's cue up cut two.

00:12:52.180 We have the Minister, Zhou Li, here, the Minister of Industry, I believe is her new title.

00:12:57.100 Let's play cut two.

00:12:58.300 It's a new year, and we're now in a new era of partnership with China.

00:13:04.180 And so it was important for us and the Prime Minister to come as this first visit to Beijing

00:13:11.980 and meeting, obviously, with Premier Li and tomorrow with President Xi.

00:13:16.820 All right, let's cue up cut three.

00:13:18.380 I'm going to bounce right into that.

00:13:19.580 Play cut three.

00:13:20.120 Let me be clear. We are here because we share a goal. We share a goal on getting to net zero.

00:13:27.480 We believe we have lots of common interests with respect to how we use clean energy to get there.

00:13:33.280 And we have common interests around how to get there on a conventional basis.

00:13:38.220 And we're going to exploit that for the benefit of Canadian workers and for Canadians.

00:13:43.120 Okay, so we just had the jobs minister and then we had the natural resources minister speaking back to back.

00:13:49.380 They're talking about some pretty interesting stuff,

00:13:52.480 especially when China's going nowhere near net zero.

00:13:55.380 But also our auto industry is kind of hurting,

00:13:58.220 especially in Ontario.

00:13:59.560 Well, this is incredible, what the minister just said.

00:14:02.620 No Chinese official has made this commitment,

00:14:05.560 but now we have a Canadian official,

00:14:08.420 Minister of Mark Carney's government,

00:14:10.440 making a commitment on behalf of China

00:14:12.840 to somehow convince Canadians that we should get to net zero,

00:14:16.680 which basically will handcuff us compared to all of our trading partners.

00:14:23.140 You know, no such commitment exists in China in terms of actually getting to net zero,

00:14:27.780 but he's making those claims and they're outrageous claims and nonsense,

00:14:32.180 and I think the Canadians will see right through them. 0.95

00:14:34.280 Yeah, I hope so. Just hearing that kind of thing, like what is, to your point earlier, what is the plan?

00:14:39.860 Let's queue up cut four. This is our leader respondent.

00:14:43.240 While we hope for the best, it would be naive to assume that things will go back to exactly what they were.

00:14:50.260 Whether the next administration is Republican or Democrat, tariffs may be here for the foreseeable future.

00:14:56.560 None of that, though, is an excuse for letting our guard down and repeating past mistakes

00:15:01.580 by making Canada even more vulnerable to aggressive powers like the People's Republic of China,

00:15:07.860 which the Prime Minister himself called our greatest threat only a few months ago.

00:15:12.180 It was with great irony that the Prime Minister quoted one of the greatest heroes of the 20th century fight against totalitarian communism, Vaclav Havel, less than a week after launching a, quote, strategic partnership for a new world order with the Chinese communist regime.

00:15:30.960 A partnership that includes plans to deepen engagement on national security issues at a senior level.

00:15:36.800 We ran in the last election primarily affordability, yes, but also making Canada as strong as possible.

00:15:42.980 That meant getting our energy out to world markets other than the United States.

00:15:48.440 This is what the world is asking for.

00:15:50.440 We still, under Mark Carney's government, still have no credible path to getting that done

00:15:57.400 and no commitments on behalf of this government that it will go around the tanker bank, go around C-69.

00:16:05.380 You know, they say they have these guardrails and parameters, but nobody's really biting yet.

00:16:10.860 And this is how we make our, and this is what's so frustrating, right?

00:16:14.160 We have the ability.

00:16:15.580 Our energy is in demand.

00:16:17.260 Our minerals are in demand.

00:16:19.040 Like, we need to get them out, and we can't yet.

00:16:22.400 Well, what we saw at a time of crisis, when we had the Ukraine war, Russia-Ukraine war that started,

00:16:29.360 Germany built LNG terminals within a year.

00:16:32.860 This was a massive lift to make sure that they responded to a crisis.

00:16:39.460 Mark Carney said that he needed to be elected during a time of crisis

00:16:42.200 to ensure that we saw a significant change in the way that we had infrastructure in this country

00:16:47.340 to lead to better and different trade, circumventing the United States.

00:16:52.140 To this point, Mark Carney has done nothing.

00:16:54.920 There's not one shovel in the ground on any project.

00:16:59.240 Not just the ones that you and I have been pushing for.

00:17:01.880 there's no projects. There's nobody coming up saying, yeah, we're interested. Like it's not

00:17:07.400 only, it's not only, um, industry that's, that's not coming to the table because they're saying

00:17:11.500 that the conditions that the government is putting into place are, are, are, are just too, um, too

00:17:16.840 difficult to, to, uh, to meet. Uh, but, but, but the government isn't even approving any project.

00:17:23.300 It's one thing if there's approvals and then the company pulls out, that's a, that's a different

00:17:26.680 question than if the government is still withholding the approvals on these projects.

00:17:33.380 We, as a party, heard from Mark Carney after the election. He said that he needed the bill

00:17:40.880 called C-5 that would remove all encumbrance from the government simply being able to approve

00:17:47.480 these large projects. He's not used that bill once. Not once has he signed an approval to

00:17:56.760 circumvent the processes to ensure that stuff got built in this country. This is the guy that said

00:18:01.720 he was going to build at unimaginable speed. That was the commitment. There was two commitments

00:18:05.920 that he made. One was that we were going to build at unimaginable speed, and none of that has

00:18:11.180 happened. He's also the guy that said he would get a win for Canada with the United States by last

00:18:16.340 July. We're now coming into almost a year after that. And there's no wind coming there. At least

00:18:23.740 it doesn't appear that there is. Mark Carney made a bunch of promises. We have done everything in

00:18:31.560 our power to back him up when we believe that the cause or the work that he was claiming to

00:18:40.020 be getting done would benefit the Canadian economy or undertake to do the same types of things that

00:18:48.140 we saw that needed to be done in this country. So we have fast-tracked his legislation. We have

00:18:55.240 pushed for, you know, solutions to be, to, you know, to happen. But Mark Carney hasn't done his

00:19:03.860 part. And I think that Canadians are starting to see that a guy that demanded all kinds of powers

00:19:11.620 is not now willing to use those powers to do the things that he claimed that he was going to do in

00:19:16.460 the last election. Yeah, there's one thing about making great speeches, but there's another thing

00:19:21.020 about following up and actually impacting people's lives. Because at the end of the day, we can all

00:19:25.740 clap and say, yeah, that was a great speech. But if you're sitting in your parents' basement because

00:19:30.900 You can't get a job, or the job you get doesn't allow you to pay rent.

00:19:34.600 There's another level to this.

00:19:36.780 And I think the fact that, like you said,

00:19:40.920 the enormous power that Parliament gave the government,

00:19:44.980 the ministers and the Prime Minister,

00:19:46.520 to circumvent pieces of legislation,

00:19:48.400 many of those pieces of legislation are barriers

00:19:50.880 the previous Liberal government or the same Liberal government

00:19:53.340 put in place to stop development.

00:19:55.880 That's the other part.

00:19:57.080 It is kind of a farce.

00:19:58.220 they are conceding that all of those laws are an encumbrance to get projects built.

00:20:05.340 So they said there should be a bridge over all of those legislative encumbrances for some projects.

00:20:13.000 He made a list and he said we're going to get some of those over that hump just by his signature.

00:20:18.340 Remember those Sharpie, those signing ceremonies that he was engaged in? 0.98

00:20:24.120 He was doing those every day.

00:20:26.740 He quit doing those because he realized that he didn't want to use those powers anymore

00:20:31.280 or didn't want to remind Canadians that he had those powers,

00:20:34.140 but he wasn't going to use those powers.

00:20:36.340 And so now we are sitting in this no man's land where the legislation exists,

00:20:40.720 the bridge over all of the encumbering, all of the hurdles exists,

00:20:46.120 and yet he refuses to use that.

00:20:47.840 And so Canadians have a right to ask why.

00:20:51.300 We, of course, think that all of those legislative hurdles should just be removed.

00:20:55.920 so that every Canadian, regardless as to if you're connected to the government

00:21:00.080 or not connected to the government,

00:21:02.000 regardless as to if you have a buddy, a lobbyist that's connected to the government

00:21:09.240 and can get you the bridge over, a ticket over the bridge,

00:21:13.560 we believe that every Canadian should have the same right of success

00:21:17.340 and the same right to do what we've always done as Canadians,

00:21:21.020 which is succeed if we were hardworking and if we followed the rules.

00:21:24.160 But, of course, this Prime Minister wants to favour some and not others.

00:21:28.540 So we're saying, okay, we don't agree,

00:21:31.920 but if that's what you think needs to happen in order to get stuff built,

00:21:35.020 we'll give you that.

00:21:35.980 We gave it to him, and he refuses to use it.

00:21:40.120 Yeah.

00:21:40.560 And just a quick antidote, we've got to wrap up after that.

00:21:43.460 I was at a mining conference last week in Vancouver, Junior Explorer.

00:21:47.360 So they're the ones that find the deposits.

00:21:49.200 Lots of time and effort goes into that,

00:21:50.920 and the odds are really low of actually finding a positive or anything significant.

00:21:54.940 Their comment over and over was capital has dried up in Canada.

00:21:58.220 Getting that funding to start drilling those holes is near impossible.

00:22:03.300 Like, it's very difficult.

00:22:04.900 So this, unfortunately, is the atmosphere we're dealing with in Canada.

00:22:08.420 But as we said here, we have a path forward.

00:22:11.620 We want the economy back on track.

00:22:12.980 The guests always get the last word.

00:22:14.520 The floor is yours, Chris.

00:22:15.560 Wrap us up.

00:22:16.040 It's great to see you.

00:22:17.580 Great to be here.

00:22:18.700 Great to be here in Ottawa.

00:22:20.040 where we can fight for Canadians that are looking for hope.

00:22:23.920 And that's what our job is to do,

00:22:26.080 is to continue to bring forward solutions

00:22:28.060 that are going to bring hope to not only this generation,

00:22:31.380 but for generations to come.

00:22:32.620 I'm looking forward to continuing to work with you

00:22:34.920 and our entire team.

00:22:35.960 So thankful to have our leader.

00:22:38.040 He has strong endorsement.

00:22:39.380 We're back here in Ottawa.

00:22:40.560 We're going to be fighting for Canadians

00:22:42.080 that are so desperate for the opportunities

00:22:45.820 and hope that used to exist in this country

00:22:47.640 and we know could exist again.

00:22:49.800 Chris Workington, Member of Parliament for Grand Prairie,

00:22:53.240 and our party's whip.

00:22:54.640 Have I told you what a great whip you are?

00:22:56.200 You're an amazing whip.

00:22:57.420 Thank you for your time.

00:22:58.400 Thank you for yours.

00:22:59.440 Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share this program.

00:23:02.420 We need to get this message out.

00:23:03.840 And you can do that when we have new content for you every single Tuesday,

00:23:06.820 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.

00:23:08.260 Until next week, remember, low taxes, less governments, more freedom.

00:23:11.320 That's the blueprint.

00:23:19.480 We'll be right back.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - February 03, 2026

The Prime Minister referred to China our biggest security threat.

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