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


The Prime Minister referred to China our biggest security threat.


Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

170.66585

Word count

4,066

Sentence count

257

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The Conservative Party of Canada is in full swing after the party's convention in Calgary, Alberta. On today's show, host Jamie Schmale is joined by Tory MP Chris Workton to talk all things leadership and what it means for Canada and the future of the party.

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 .
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.
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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.