The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - May 09, 2017


Tony goes to D.C.


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

150.02448

Word count

1,226

Sentence count

80


Summary

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

In this episode, Conservative MP for Parry Sound Muskoka, Tony Clement talks about his recent trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with a House of Commons committee on public safety and national security. He also talks about border security issues and trade with the United States.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:09.000 Well, they thought they were going to have an easy day over there today, but not so fast, Mr. Speaker.
00:00:16.640 What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behaviour?
00:00:25.320 And now, here's your host, Tony Clement.
00:00:31.380 Welcome, one and all, to Volume 2 of Blueprint, the Conservative Party of Canada podcast.
00:00:38.920 And I want to thank the Office of the Leader of the Opposition for the opportunity.
00:00:42.040 My name is Tony Clement, Member of Parliament for Parry Sound Muskoka, and your host for The Blueprint.
00:00:49.100 Well, first off, I want to talk about something that might be of interest to folks,
00:00:52.740 because what does an MP do when he or she is not in the House of Commons and not in her or his constituency?
00:01:00.500 I spent two days last week in Washington, D.C. with a House of Commons committee,
00:01:06.760 the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
00:01:10.960 We visited Washington, D.C. as a committee,
00:01:14.760 and it was part of the committee's study of Canada's national security framework.
00:01:20.400 So I was there with a colleague, Diane Watts, from Surrey, B.C., a Conservative MP from Surrey,
00:01:27.740 but also with Liberal MPs and with an NDP MP, all members of the committee.
00:01:33.440 And we had a series of meetings, of course, to really gain insight on Canada, U.S., border security issues,
00:01:41.160 anti-terrorism, the border control, transportation security, all of these issues that are part and parcel of our national security.
00:01:50.880 I serve as the Conservative Party's national security and public safety critic,
00:01:55.160 and as a member of the Public Safety and National Security Committee, it was my honor to be part of that session as well.
00:02:01.920 So a number of meetings. We had, of course, congressional meetings.
00:02:05.000 It was kind of an interesting day to have congressional meetings on the Thursday
00:02:08.540 because it was the day that the House of Representatives in the U.S. was having the vote on Obamacare.
00:02:15.240 So a little bit of distraction going on there in Congress,
00:02:19.440 not dissimilar to sometimes when we have a big vote in the House of Commons,
00:02:23.300 your mind is really focused on that vote.
00:02:25.940 But we had a number of congresspeople, congressmen and women who did agree to meet with us,
00:02:34.020 mostly from border districts, districts that were either on the Washington state, B.C. border
00:02:42.000 or the New Hampshire border with Quebec or, in one case, New York, upstate New York fellow.
00:02:49.040 So people like Congressman Daniel Kildee, a Democrat from Michigan, met with us.
00:02:54.940 We also met with, as I say, congresspeople like Susan Del Bene from Washington and her staff
00:03:01.320 and Anne McLean-Cooster, again, a New Hampshire congresswoman and her staff.
00:03:08.100 So it was a great opportunity to talk about border issues, but also talk about Canada-U.S. trade.
00:03:14.340 I mean, you're not just wearing your national security hat.
00:03:16.720 You're also there advancing the argument that it is important for the U.S. to maintain and enhance trade links with Canada.
00:03:24.580 You know, there's a big debate going on post-Trump about whether the United States should sign off
00:03:32.200 and remove itself from NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement,
00:03:36.700 or what sort of changes the United States is going to pursue.
00:03:40.100 So we wanted to get our two cents worth in about how important that border trade is for their own districts,
00:03:47.500 that they have jobs that are important to them as congresspeople that they want to maintain and enhance,
00:03:54.920 and those jobs are dependent upon Canada-U.S. trade.
00:03:58.060 So that was really important.
00:03:58.960 On the national security front, we talked about terrorism threats, cyber security, intelligence gathering,
00:04:06.100 information sharing, oversight of national security activities and national security agencies.
00:04:12.940 So these were all very important issues.
00:04:15.660 Did I raise the issue of these illegal border crossers coming from U.S. to Canada?
00:04:22.720 You bet I did, and, of course, made the point to all who would listen that this is something that we're quite concerned about,
00:04:32.040 and we're concerned about how many are crossing, and we want to work with the Americans to prevent illegal border crossing
00:04:39.780 because we have rules in place, and we have people who are legitimately trying to advance their case
00:04:45.960 that they are genuine refugees who should be welcomed to Canada,
00:04:49.420 but illegal border crossers who are fake refugees, obviously, that is not something that we're interested in promoting
00:04:55.460 or seeing occurring at the levels that is going on.
00:04:59.620 So that was obviously a topic.
00:05:01.520 We got to visit the terrorism screening agency, which is the watch list, basically.
00:05:07.780 There's about a million people around the world on this terrorism watch list
00:05:12.900 and how they go about within a legal constitutional framework to add people to the watch list.
00:05:19.820 Of course, we have some concerns about names that appear on there that shouldn't be on there,
00:05:24.420 and they are quite aware that the list is not perfect,
00:05:27.540 but they're constantly working with Canada and with allies to improve that watch list.
00:05:33.100 So that was very interesting.
00:05:35.180 Hey, I also got to visit the NASA offices.
00:05:37.720 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has an office in Washington.
00:05:42.140 Of course, Cape Canaveral and Houston are their main operational centers,
00:05:48.040 but they do have a presence in Washington, D.C. as well.
00:05:50.640 So we got to meet with some of the directors there and see what their plans are.
00:05:56.260 Hey, good news for those who think that space travel is important.
00:06:01.080 President Trump has signed off on continual funding for the mission to Mars,
00:06:05.440 the manned mission to Mars.
00:06:06.360 So that's very exciting and could be a reality.
00:06:09.940 Certainly, I'm hopeful within my lifetime, and if you're a younger listener,
00:06:14.320 definitely within your lifetime, and that's very exciting.
00:06:17.180 And there will be all sorts of breakthroughs, technological breakthroughs,
00:06:21.380 that will occur because we will, as a civilization, be pursuing this mission to Mars.
00:06:28.160 So that was kind of cool.
00:06:29.360 I got to see their operations center there where they had a live feed from the International Space Station
00:06:35.400 as well as some of their other sites as well, and that was very cool to see too.
00:06:40.380 And I got to do it on May the 4th, which was Star Wars Day.
00:06:43.140 You know, May the 4th be with you, and so on.
00:06:45.640 So that was kind of fun to do that, to do real space stuff on International Star Wars Day.
00:06:51.920 A great trip.
00:06:53.060 I want to thank the committee for having me as part of that.
00:06:56.880 And, of course, there will be some follow-up that will occur as well as we continue our discussions at committee.
00:07:03.580 For instance, the National Security Committee is reviewing Bill C-23 right now,
00:07:11.300 which is the pre-clearance bill that will expand pre-clearance to the United States to make it easier for travelers to get their pre-clearance
00:07:20.020 and to land at domestic airports in the United States and vice versa, of course.
00:07:24.800 So we will continue to hear witnesses on that particular topic,
00:07:29.080 but certainly having those discussions in Washington, D.C. was very, very helpful to all of the committee members who attended.
00:07:36.640 So that's my report from Washington, D.C.
00:07:39.320 I hope that was useful to you as it was for me.
00:08:09.320 Thank you.