The results are in.
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
190.39575
Summary
Tracy Gray, a Conservative MP for Kelowna Lake Country, British Columbia, joins the show to talk about the decline in Canadian living standards, and how this is playing out in our day to day lives.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:10.120
host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Cawortha-Lakes Brock, with new content
00:00:13.720
for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. It is the summer months. We do not stop.
00:00:18.900
There is lots of content to get to. Don't forget to tell your friends. They can like, comment,
00:00:23.720
subscribe, and share this program. Get this Conservative message out. You can also download
00:00:27.580
it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out there.
00:00:32.320
On today's show, we are going to be talking about the sad decline in Canadian living standards,
00:00:38.020
and to talk about that and much, much more, we bring on the one and only Tracy Gray,
00:00:41.540
the Member of Parliament for Kelowna Lake Country. Thank you very much for taking time out of your
00:00:45.360
beautiful schedule. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. And your beautiful riding. My goodness,
00:00:49.500
I can't believe you are, you know, representing such an amazing riding in this country, in British
00:00:55.400
Columbia, and the summer is the time to really enjoy that. It's a wonderful riding and incredible
00:01:02.180
people that are in my riding, for sure. Oh, absolutely. Well, thank you very much for
00:01:06.540
coming on the show. I know we're going to talk about something that is difficult to talk about,
00:01:12.860
and that is the declining living standards of Canadians over nine years, after nine years of
00:01:19.720
Justin Trudeau. And every metric, we were talking just before the show, every metric is just getting
00:01:24.580
worse for everyday Canadians. Well, the middle and those on the lower end of the income scale are
00:01:32.060
getting squeezed the most. The wealthy just seem to be getting better off as time goes along under
00:01:38.140
this Liberal government. Yeah, the working class have really been crushed during the nine years of
00:01:44.240
this NDP Liberal government. And the results of their policies and legislations have really been
00:01:50.980
playing out. You're now seeing the results of those. So there's so many different metrics that
00:01:55.200
we can look at that is then playing out in people's everyday lives. So when you look at, for example,
00:02:01.100
the GDP per capita, and I know that the Liberals quite often will talk about GDP, but that's like,
00:02:07.420
you know, having a company where you're talking about gross sales. Yeah. And then saying, oh,
00:02:11.940
our company is doing great, which it might be, but you also have to look at costs, right? You might be close
00:02:17.460
to bankruptcy, even though your sales might be up. And so GDP per capita is much more relevant. And that
00:02:23.300
does actually show how productive a country is. The media in Canada, right? Exactly. It doesn't mean
00:02:29.560
that people themselves aren't working hard. It just means as a country as a whole. And our productivity
00:02:36.540
is down. And what that means is that our quality of life is down. And we can see this rate right across
00:02:42.100
the board. We actually have one of the worst GDP per capita is in OECD. And we're on track to
00:02:49.420
actually be the worst. And the OECD has actually said that if we don't change our, our policies here
00:02:54.700
in, in Canada, we actually will be, we will be the worst. And so for quality of life, you're looking
00:03:01.100
at, I mean, we can just see what's playing out in our neighborhoods. We know that it's harder for
00:03:06.200
people to, to live. We see homelessness encampments are up, mental health, more mental health challenges.
00:03:14.420
Youth are saying that they will never afford a home. You know, they're losing, they're losing hope.
00:03:19.960
We know that rents have doubled over the last nine years. The cost of housing has doubled. Mortgage
00:03:26.280
payments are up. And, and we know that interest rates are still more than double, you know, than they
00:03:32.120
were four years ago. So it's, it's going to be really hard for people that are refinancing their
00:03:36.920
mortgages. And for anyone trying to get into, into owning a home for young Canadians, it's, it's
00:03:44.780
really challenging for them and, and, and they're losing hope.
00:03:47.960
And there's, yeah, there's this whole generation that has kind of lost out on the dream that your
00:03:54.600
generation, my generation, I'm pretty sure we're relatively the same in age, but, and all before us,
00:04:00.240
they had that opportunity to, to get a good job, to, you know, get a house, start a family and start
00:04:08.060
that cycle. There is a group here, a generation here that will not be able to, or it's going to
00:04:13.800
be very difficult for them to achieve that major piece. And it's sad.
00:04:19.700
Yeah, it is. It is. It's, it's, it's incredibly sad because it used to be that if you, you know,
00:04:23.780
if you worked hard, you could, you know, probably have a, have a decent car, save enough for a down
00:04:30.380
payment. And it used to be on average that for the average home, about five to seven years to save for
00:04:37.360
a down payment. It now takes more than 25 years across the country and even longer in places like
00:04:43.220
Vancouver, it's up to close to 30 years to save for a down payment. So, you know, if you're, if you're
00:04:49.480
someone in your twenties, you're now looking at your fifties before you'll be able to, to afford a
00:04:54.140
home. And so that's, that's, that's really, really tough, really tough for people, really tough for
00:04:59.960
the working class. And another metrics that isn't looking good are the unemployment numbers. So from
00:05:05.640
May to May, 2023 to 2024, it's a percentage up and it's on a trajectory to keep increasing as well.
00:05:15.000
So unemployment is another indicator that the economy is not strong. Yeah. And so government
00:05:21.080
has three ways basically to raise revenue, right? They can tax borrow prints using a combination
00:05:26.160
thereof and to an excess can, you know, to botch the currency of the economy. We're seeing a lot of
00:05:33.100
that happening with what Justin Trudeau did, but what people expect, what taxpayers expect is service
00:05:39.880
for dollars, right? They expect value. And one thing that we're seeing is that almost the entire,
00:05:47.880
well, I'll let you say, you know, let's queue up cut one. The revenue collected from the GST, it's not going
00:05:55.880
Budget 2024 forecasts that the federal debt will rise to $1.2 trillion this year. And the interest Canadians
00:06:04.960
will pay in servicing that debt will increase to $54 billion this fiscal year. That's more than the
00:06:12.760
government intends to spend on provincial healthcare transfers. The budget also shows that the government
00:06:19.040
raised $51 billion in revenue from GST last year. Yeah. Isn't that incredible? It's just going to
00:06:26.220
service. That's it. We're getting no value from that tax. Yeah. The cost for us to service the debt
00:06:31.800
in Canada just keeps increasing. And those numbers that we're seeing for the debt, that's going to
00:06:36.380
keep increasing. And so that means that there is less money to spend on healthcare transfers. There's
00:06:42.920
less money to spend on all of the services and maybe initiatives that the government might want to
00:06:49.640
spend on. So it's putting us in a really difficult position. And especially when we've seen the finance
00:06:54.600
minister recently saying, you know, oh, well, you know, do you want a country that wants to leave debt
00:06:59.880
to their children? Well, that's in fact what they're doing. Yeah. Big time. That's in fact what
00:07:04.260
they're doing. And, and, you know, they've incurred the debt, not just during the time of, of COVID,
00:07:10.940
because they were already in debt before, but they've continued on with that spending.
00:07:15.380
Yeah. And housing starts are down. Housing starts are down. Let's QL cut two. Let's hear more of
00:07:22.420
Claims were made in liberal budget 2024, that they will build 3.87 million homes by 2031 or about
00:07:30.720
550,000 homes per year. So for every day of the year for the next seven years, that's completing
00:07:37.080
1,515 homes each day or one home every 57 seconds. So given what builders are saying, how realistic is
00:07:45.700
this? Not a chance. That's pretty impactful right there. It is very impactful. They have no plan to
00:07:53.280
achieve their actual housing goals, despite the fact they keep repeating those same talking points.
00:07:57.980
They have spent a lot of money. The liberals have spent billions of dollars and yet the results are
00:08:03.880
poor. So we haven't seen a government that has spent so much to achieve so little. And we've had
00:08:09.160
similar testimony from other witnesses at the housing committee, basically saying the same thing in,
00:08:14.560
in, in, in different ways. And so it's very consistent right across the board saying, you
00:08:18.940
know, there, there's just no way that these numbers that the, um, that the liberals have come up with
00:08:23.480
are actually achievable. See the liberals, I think, uh, just in observing them over the last nine years,
00:08:28.600
they like to start the clock at the point where the crisis happened, not how we got here, right?
00:08:34.080
The conservatives like to look at the whole picture because government will say, and the
00:08:38.100
liberals will say, well, we have a program, right? We have a new program to fix the problem that we
00:08:41.960
created in the first place. We look back and figure out how we got here, right? And we like to
00:08:47.480
not stop doing what the liberals are doing. But at the same point, I think the liberals do recognize
00:08:52.840
that when, when people are desperate, they do turn to government, right? And, and they, they seem to
00:08:58.320
feed off this, this idea of dependence on the government. I guess that's the leftist mindset,
00:09:03.020
but the government will provide, right? But at the same time, I think that's why when we talk
00:09:07.880
about indicators today on the show, overall happiness is down, the enjoyment of life.
00:09:13.740
Canadians are more stressed than ever. Mental health is up. Addictions are up. Homelessness is up
00:09:17.940
because what we have known for so long is, is being overturned by this liberal ideology.
00:09:25.940
Yes. And, and so, you know, we're, we're looking at cause and effect.
00:09:29.520
Cause and effect. That's right. Cause and effect. So what are the results of the actions that you have
00:09:34.420
made? That's right. And so, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit of time for that to play out.
00:09:39.200
And we've now seen after nine years, the effects of the liberal and being propped up by the NDP,
00:09:47.240
their policies and their legislation. And so now we're seeing the results. And so they're trying to
00:09:52.580
sort of come out with, with different programs and different band-aids to try and, you know, help with
00:09:57.860
help as they say, with some of these situations, but they're not actually,
00:10:01.440
they're not actually fixing the causes, which, which is the increasing debt, which is increasing
00:10:07.500
taxes. When you look at the carbon tax, how that is playing out and increasing costs everywhere.
00:10:14.000
They're not acknowledging that, you know, they're not acknowledging the causes that are actually
00:10:18.600
then affecting the results that we're seeing. And, and that's part of the issue. And that's why
00:10:23.160
it's really important for, for us to, uh, to accentuate that and to really bring it up so that
00:10:28.680
people know that, no, this is actually, you know, the, the liberal government has caused these issues
00:10:33.460
based on decisions that they've been making over the last nine years.
00:10:36.940
The biggest pollutant or an organic economy is the government itself, right? And the more,
00:10:42.180
like you said, the more the government expands its tentacles into places it should not be,
00:10:47.520
or has never gone before, the less choice, the less quality that Canadians get, because if the
00:10:54.340
government's the only one providing it, or the government's the only one doing it, you get what the
00:10:57.740
government gives you, whether you like it or not, whether you need it or not. Sometimes you reach
00:11:02.060
for that hand, right? But it's the clenched fist behind their back that you don't see coming.
00:11:06.380
Yeah. And I mean, the higher, the higher cost of living is, is really playing out,
00:11:09.540
um, is really playing out for people. And, and, and we hear it every day. I hear it from,
00:11:13.900
uh, from residents in my community. I'm sure you do. And we all do just how, how tough it is for
00:11:18.640
people, how they're making those really tough decisions, you know, of not, uh, you know,
00:11:23.240
children not being able to do certain activities, how they're not going to visit relatives this
00:11:29.140
summer, how they're not going to, um, be able to, to, you know, save for maybe a different home. And
00:11:35.660
if your family's expanding and so people are having to make really tough decisions and, and it is
00:11:40.840
affecting people's every, everyday lives. I mean, just look at food banks, you know, food bank usage
00:11:45.340
is the highest ever in Canadian history. That's a result. You know, that is a result of liberal
00:11:51.420
policy. And they're not wanting to talk about that. No, they'll tell you life's never been so good.
00:11:56.820
Yes. Life, life has never been so good and everything is wonderful. And, and, but, but that's
00:12:02.020
not the reality for many, for many people, for many Canadians. And it, you know, you, when you look at
00:12:07.760
seniors on a fixed income, you know, the costs just keep going up. They don't have any alternative.
00:12:12.500
No. We, we heard actually at the, at that committee, the human resources committee, we have quite
00:12:17.200
a wide portfolio. And so we, we deal with housing, but also we've had, for example, we did a study
00:12:22.840
on volunteerism and the testimony there was so impactful because we had a lot of not-for-profits
00:12:28.680
coming through saying that they're losing volunteers, seniors, because they're having to go back to
00:12:33.240
work. They, they're losing volunteers because people can't afford to, to come to volunteer because
00:12:40.940
of the cost of, of fuel. And, and so they're losing volunteers that way. They're losing donations
00:12:47.320
because people just, they just don't have the capacity anymore. And they're seeing people
00:12:51.620
that are clients that used to be, you know, that, that used to be people that donated there.
00:12:56.720
And so that kind of information is, again, those are the results that we're seeing of nine years
00:13:06.860
I'm so glad you brought that up. Wherever I go in my community, that's, I hear that, right? It's
00:13:11.560
getting tougher to find volunteers. Service clubs are shrinking in some cases, not able to, to attract
00:13:17.700
those volunteers because life is so different under this government, right? And this is a time where
00:13:23.220
charities are most needed because the, as you pointed out multiple times over the show, the indicators
00:13:28.520
are showing that people are struggling ever more than before. Yes, absolutely. And so it's, it's,
00:13:34.380
you know, and people want to help, you know, people want to help. They want, they want to give. And so
00:13:39.160
it, you know, it, you know, if people have the extra resources themselves as a family, you know,
00:13:44.340
I have found most people, many people can be very generous. You know, they're the ones that are
00:13:48.540
helping out at fundraisers and, you know, supporting different not-for-profits. But if they don't have the
00:13:54.780
capacity to do that anymore, you know, and they're just looking after their own families, then those
00:13:58.820
not-for-profits that are actually serving quite often, the most vulnerable in the community are
00:14:03.500
even more hard-pressed to meet their, their objectives, to help people that really, you know,
00:14:08.040
really need help. And we all know what happens when, you know, people have less disposable income,
00:14:12.560
right? I hate to say it, but you're, you're not going out to eat as much. You're probably not going
00:14:17.700
for different types of entertainment, whether a movie or otherwise, you, you start to cut back on those
00:14:23.140
things. And, and, and that's where you see the, the, the beginning of, of something more serious
00:14:28.760
coming down the line. And, and I, I think this is where this government is taking us with their,
00:14:34.600
with their policies, right? The, the, the, the stuff that people like to spend their money on to get some
00:14:40.020
enjoyment out of life are being slowly taken away from them. Yeah, we've seen that. And I mean, we've seen
00:14:44.840
in, in many communities, uh, restaurants have closed, you know, small businesses are having a really tough
00:14:50.140
time. Many of them, uh, and there's a lot of the, um, a lot of evidence on this, that many of them
00:14:55.820
still incurred a lot of debt during the pandemic and they, they, they haven't been able to pay that
00:15:00.240
off. And so they're just barely getting by and, and their costs have gone up as well. You know,
00:15:06.760
if, if you're a restaurant, all of your food costs have gone up, um, everything that is shipped to you
00:15:11.100
has, has gone up because of the cost of transportation. And so they're, they're just basically
00:15:16.140
getting by and, and we're seeing businesses shuttering, you know, especially in a lot of,
00:15:20.360
um, uh, business improvement areas, downtowns, we see restaurants closing. And I was talking to
00:15:25.300
one restaurant owner who he, you know, longtime restaurant owner, he says, I had to make a
00:15:29.700
decision with my head, not my heart because I just couldn't, I just can't keep subsidizing it
00:15:35.320
every month. And that's tough. Yes. That's really tough. And those are things people like to enjoy,
00:15:39.760
but don't you dare, says Mark Holland, the liberal minister of health, take a road trip across Canada.
00:15:44.600
Yeah. That's just, uh, you know, no bathroom breaks, he says. I think that was a crazy comment.
00:15:49.640
Anyways, we're pretty much out of time, Tracy Gray, uh, as you know, the guests get the last word,
00:15:52.960
the floor is yours. Well, thank you very much. It was really, uh, an honor to be here. And I just want
00:15:59.000
everyone to know that, uh, myself and our conservative team is, is pressing to hold this
00:16:03.660
government to account. Um, but also to make, uh, suggestions on policies and legislation that will,
00:16:10.740
that will be impactful. And we do that every day in the house of commons.
00:16:13.320
Thank you very much, Tracy Gray, member parliament for Kelowna Lake country. We thank her for her
00:16:17.880
time. We thank you for yours. Don't forget this is the summer, but we do not slow down. We will do
00:16:22.480
content for you every single Tuesday, 1 30 PM Eastern time. Don't forget to tell your friends
00:16:27.480
they can like comment, subscribe, and share this program until next week. Remember low taxes,
00:16:32.240
less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.