The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Trudeau’s Tainted Trade

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

00:00:10.620 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps with the likes of Brock

00:00:13.460 with new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. We ask that you like,

00:00:17.700 comment, subscribe and share this program. There are eyes and ears that need to see and

00:00:22.920 listen to the information being given to you right now in this next 20 minutes or so. And

00:00:28.920 we need to ensure that Pierre Polyev is the next Prime Minister of Canada for that. We need you

00:00:32.560 to do that and also tell your friends they can download this program on platforms like CastBox,

00:00:36.720 iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. You name it, it is out there. Another great show lined up for you

00:00:41.600 today. Last week we talked to Greg McLean about problems with the Bank of Canada, raising interest

00:00:46.600 rates to try to slow inflation. But Justin Trudeau keeps the printing presses going and continuing

00:00:51.920 the deficit spending. But now today we're going to talk to Kyle Seabach and it's a bad thing on my

00:00:57.400 part. This is the first time he's been on the show, Member of Parliament for Dufferin-Kaladin,

00:01:00.860 also the Shadow Minister for International Trade. Because the other side of the coin,

00:01:03.900 thank you for joining us, is the fact that we as Canadians, as a country, have seen eyeballs

00:01:10.940 and interest in investment disappear quite rapidly under the Justin Trudeau Liberals.

00:01:18.880 Yeah, it's a real challenge. Foreign direct investment is a challenge in this country right now

00:01:23.280 because we've become a generally inhospitable climate to invest as a result of the many

00:01:29.440 action that the government's taken over the years. And we've seen hundreds of billions of dollars in

00:01:34.600 the oil and gas industry gone. We see it now happening in the mining sector. They're, you know,

00:01:40.420 when you're in a competitive atmosphere where there are potential mines in many parts of the world

00:01:46.700 with process, you know, government regulations and rules that are far less onerous. And of course,

00:01:54.520 yes, we want rules and regulations that make sense. But when they burden the company to the point where

00:01:59.820 it scares off investors, Canada doesn't become that friendly of a place to do business. And we lose that

00:02:05.040 money. We lose those jobs, those opportunity, and that opportunity for wealth.

00:02:09.320 The crazy thing to me is this. So what happens when they make it so impossible to open a new mine in Canada,

00:02:16.760 what ends up happening is the need for those minerals still exists, right? Especially critical

00:02:21.560 minerals. So what happens is that mine ends up going somewhere else to another country where the

00:02:28.400 per ton of ore greenhouse gas emissions will be higher, where the labor standards will be lower,

00:02:35.220 where the environmental standards will be lower. And of course, we lose the jobs. And of course,

00:02:41.000 corporations that make money pay taxes for all the things we need in this country. So we lose all of

00:02:45.920 that. So Justin Trudeau can pat him on the back and say, well, we're doing something to lower

00:02:51.940 emissions, which of course, they really aren't. But they do things like this, which damages us

00:02:57.600 economically, increases greenhouse gases globally, and degrades the environment globally. But he says

00:03:03.360 he's protecting the environment. And it's all false.

00:03:06.400 Yeah, well, the thing is, Justin Trudeau will never feel the pain of his decisions.

00:03:11.540 No, he will never feel the hurt when businesses are closing because of the spinoff jobs in the oil

00:03:17.140 and gas industry. He will never see the pain in the fact when the German chancellor comes to Canada

00:03:23.040 asking for our energy. Trudeau tells the chancellor basically to take a hike. And then they go to Qatar

00:03:30.840 to sign a multi-billion dollar deal for their oil, their energy. I mean, it's worse than that. They, to great fanfare,

00:03:36.760 announced their Indo-Pacific strategy. And of course, a big part of that is trade, right? It's an emerging market.

00:03:41.960 It's growing all the time. We want to have a lot of exports there. Well, LNG would be a huge export

00:03:49.560 possibility in the Indo-Pacific, whether it's Japan, whether it's South Korea, many other places. But that's not even

00:03:56.520 mentioned in the Indo-Pacific strategy. It doesn't mention LNG. It's unbelievable in my mind. And LNG

00:04:04.280 is a fantastic transition fuel away from coal, actually lowers global greenhouse gas emissions.

00:04:09.720 And the economic benefit to Canada would be massive. Yeah, absolutely. And we've talked many

00:04:17.160 times in this show about the anchors in our economy, right? The oil and gas sector is hurting,

00:04:21.880 the mining sector, the lumber sector is hurting. What part of the economy is firing on all cylinders

00:04:28.440 right now? You can maybe argue real estate, but that's a tough one. Real estate and hiring 0.53

00:04:34.280 government employees. Government workers, nine out of 10 new jobs are government workers.

00:04:37.480 Yeah, that's really what's happening with softwood lumber is a catastrophe. So we're now on eight years

00:04:46.280 without a softwood lumber deal. Within several months of the Stephen Harper forming government

00:04:51.480 in 2006, what's called Lumber 4, it's the fourth dispute, it was resolved within a few months,

00:04:57.400 and we had an agreement in place till 2015. That agreement's expired. It's now 2023, no agreement,

00:05:05.160 no end in sight. They can't even get the Americans to talk about softwood lumber,

00:05:10.280 $8 billion in duties collected, right? And under the last agreement, Canadian companies would get

00:05:16.920 about $6 billion of that back. Imagine what that would do for employment, productivity,

00:05:24.280 all kinds of investments in Canada. And these guys are asleep at the switch.

00:05:29.160 Just before COVID hit, and you were there too, I remember our Western colleagues raising questions

00:05:35.800 in the House of Commons regarding the closure of one mill after another, after another. And all

00:05:42.680 our Western colleagues were banding together to raise awareness. COVID hit, and of course,

00:05:46.520 it disappeared in the headlines with everything else that was closing. This is something that the

00:05:53.240 effects are being felt in these communities that aren't being felt in Ottawa, because the government's

00:05:58.920 always first to get fed. That's right. And the strategy is not the right strategy that the government's

00:06:04.840 using. They think that if we win the disputes out of the WTO or we win it under NAFTA or the successor

00:06:13.880 USMCA, if we win these disputes through panels, the Americans will come to the table and it'll get

00:06:19.720 resolved. Except the WTO dispute resolution system's not working, and the Americans are ragging the puck 0.99

00:06:26.360 on the dispute resolution for softwood under NAFTA and USMCA. So the only way this gets resolved

00:06:33.080 is if Justin Trudeau picks up the phone, talks to President Biden, and makes it a priority. And the

00:06:40.760 fact that it hasn't happened shows you they really don't care if this gets resolved or not.

00:06:48.040 Our footprint in the world stage right now is being hurt. We know that the-

00:06:52.600 No, but Canada's back.

00:06:53.560 Well, Canada's back.

00:06:55.240 I'm sorry. You are absolutely right. I'm sorry. We saw the work behind the scenes done with like

00:07:03.800 Australia, the UK, United States for military, for other trade, in terms of just working together.

00:07:11.320 Canada is not even a part of the conversation. Nobody says, hey, why isn't Canada at the table?

00:07:16.920 This is something that's deeply disturbing.

00:07:19.240 Whether it's AUKUS, whether it's the quadrilateral security dialogue, whether it's IPEF,

00:07:24.840 Canada is on the outside looking in. And now it's starting to happen in various trading schemes.

00:07:31.400 Canada's on the outside looking in because the world and especially America is saying,

00:07:36.280 what does Canada add? What's the point of including them? They don't actually add anything.

00:07:41.160 And so this is after eight years of Justin Trudeau. This is where we are.

00:07:45.160 We're not even really considered a reliable ally on security and trade with the United States,

00:07:50.600 who's our closest ally and largest trading partner. This is how badly they've deteriorated

00:07:55.080 the relationship in eight years.

00:07:56.760 Well, we're still dealing with the effects of Beijing's interference into our elections

00:08:01.080 and potentially other things we saw. And we still don't have any idea what happened to the two

00:08:05.720 scientists from the Winnipeg lab, the top secret lab, still waiting for answers on that.

00:08:11.000 But the other point is we can be competitive with China. We just choose not to, right? 0.98

00:08:15.720 Like we have here in Ontario, we know this, we have some of the highest electricity rates

00:08:20.520 anywhere in North America. How's that for a factory when you're starting to set up business?

00:08:25.800 We have every level of government with huge amounts of regulations, huge amounts of rules,

00:08:33.000 that is just putting the stop, the brakes on these investors, these companies that want to

00:08:39.800 produce here, but can't, or it's just too much for them. They can't wait 10 years to get a permit to build.

00:08:46.040 No. And even if you just look at, if you want to talk about cost of things,

00:08:49.640 you know, Canada is a massive exporter, right? We are an exporting nation.

00:08:52.840 60 to 65% of our GDP, depending on the year, is trade. So it's massive for us.

00:08:59.720 Let's take agricultural exports just for an example. With all the things that are going on,

00:09:04.520 with carbon tax one, with carbon tax two coming, every agricultural product is now more expensive.

00:09:12.200 And then you're competing globally to export these products, right? Same thing with other commodities,

00:09:19.000 right? If you're talking about natural resources, same thing. When you're mining those resources,

00:09:24.200 everything involved in there is subject to a carbon tax one, carbon tax two. Everything we

00:09:28.680 now try to export is more expensive, which means it's harder to export these things. The government

00:09:33.880 crows about how the value of Canada's trade has gone up so much. Yeah, because there's been a massive

00:09:40.360 inflation crisis. So the price of everything has gone up. So this is the challenge that we have,

00:09:46.440 not only domestically, everything's expensive, but when we're trying to export our products,

00:09:51.640 everything's expensive as well, which lowers our opportunities. Absolutely. And for domestic

00:09:57.640 producers, you can only put so much into the price of the final product before the market just can't bear that.

00:10:05.800 And what happens? You close down, you move, jobs are lost, all because of government. Well, that's exactly right.

00:10:11.880 And the worst part of it, of course, is the carbon tax is doing nothing to actually protect the

00:10:17.480 environment, right? We all know it. Greenhouse gas emissions don't go down under this government,

00:10:22.520 other than during the pandemic, when the economy contracted significantly. Every other year,

00:10:27.720 greenhouse gas emissions have gone up under this government. So it's not an actual environmental

00:10:32.920 plan. It's a tax plan. It's hurting exporters. It's hurting consumers. It's hurting businesses.

00:10:40.120 I really, for the life of me, I can't understand why they think it's a good program. British Columbia

00:10:44.840 is a perfect example. They've had a carbon tax longer than any province in Canada, and their emissions

00:10:49.640 keep going up. That's right. You do not see the results that are told by the higher ups, the government

00:10:55.800 class, that you make your life more expensive, you punish yourself, and we'll fix the climate. Well,

00:11:02.840 it's not happening. It's not happening. And you know, my riding is similar to yours. It's a predominantly

00:11:07.320 rural riding. And in my riding, people commute a long distance to work. That's the general pattern.

00:11:12.440 There's no alternative, right? It's not like the Trudeau government has said, we're going to invest

00:11:17.320 massively in mass transit and other things. So you want to drive your car and pay a carbon tax? Good for

00:11:22.280 you because we've got all these electric buses and trains and other things you can jump on to go to

00:11:26.840 work. No, they can't. They have no alternative. They heat their homes with propane, right? They drive to

00:11:32.360 work. All these things have a carbon tax, right? All these things are making your life more expensive,

00:11:37.960 and there's no alternative. So if there was an alternative, it could make some sense. But there

00:11:43.000 isn't, right? So all it is, is a punishing tax that does nothing to lower emissions. Absolutely. I think

00:11:49.400 that is a general argument I think we accept. If there was an alternative, you can kind of see

00:11:56.760 that. But at the same time, you also need oil to actually make things, right? Pretty much everything

00:12:01.880 is made with oil. Absolutely. The modern world runs on oil. Why you would shut down an industry that is

00:12:06.680 proven affordable and available, which in Canada we have some of the highest environmental and labor

00:12:14.200 standards anywhere in the world, why you would punish the industries here, as we said right at the

00:12:19.800 beginning of the show, when we can display some of the bad actors. 100%. It's all virtue signaling.

00:12:25.000 It is all virtue signaling and it's making every aspect of life more difficult. I go back to agriculture

00:12:29.960 because it's a big part of our exports. So it's a big part of my portfolio. You know, we're competing

00:12:34.760 with American farmers who of course don't pay a carbon tax. So whether it's, you know, driving your

00:12:39.960 combine, whether it's drying grain, the Americans are not paying a carbon tax. Our farmers are on all

00:12:46.600 of those things, right? And so how are we to continue to compete both, you know, with our largest trading

00:12:52.920 partner and around the globe? It's just, it's becoming more difficult for the people that actually

00:12:58.360 work in this country every single day. It's interesting. I brought this up a couple of shows

00:13:03.240 ago. This is a few years ago. One of the most left-leaning states in the United States, Oregon,

00:13:09.720 had a referendum on whether or not they wanted a statewide carbon tax. It came back overwhelmingly

00:13:16.040 against. Yeah. Yeah. Because as we keep saying, unless there's a viable similar alternative,

00:13:23.960 then it doesn't do anything but punish behavior that you can't change. It's like saying,

00:13:29.560 we're going to put a tax on food, right? A massive tax on food. And your alternative is to stop eating,

00:13:36.200 except you can't. So all you do is eat and pay a massive tax. This is the same thing with what's

00:13:42.760 happening with how the carbon tax is applied right now. Yeah. Making food more expensive

00:13:46.520 for the everyday people. People are getting poor because of this government. And if you hurt the

00:13:52.600 farmers that produce the food, what's going to happen? You're going to have fewer of them and the food

00:13:56.840 that they do produce is going to go through the roof. 100%. And it's not like the government

00:14:01.720 is going to stay home too, right? Justin Trudeau is still going to fly. They just want you to stay

00:14:05.080 home. That's right. They don't want anything. They just want you off the road. That's right. You're

00:14:09.480 clogging up traffic. Exactly. Let's get you out of the way. Yeah. 100%. And this is the pace that

00:14:15.640 Justin Trudeau is taking us very quickly. And that's why we need Pierre Polyev as the Prime Minister.

00:14:20.920 100%. This country needs a real transformation from the path we're on to the path we should be on.

00:14:28.360 And I think we can do that. I think that Canadians are realizing that it's the policies that the Justin

00:14:35.560 Trudeau Liberals are doing are actually creating the issues that we're dealing with now. Price

00:14:40.600 inflation, currency inflation. We're having a massive spending spree at the federal level. And the list

00:14:46.520 just goes on and on. Not to mention the fact that there is evidence suggesting that Justin Trudeau knew

00:14:53.560 about interference in our elections from Beijing and did nothing about it. You know, when you look

00:14:58.040 at all the things that they've done and the state the country is in, it's amazing to me that there's

00:15:03.880 people that still think that he's doing a good job. I mean, for example, if you want to talk about

00:15:08.360 inflationary spending, government spending is up 46% from 2015. 46%. I think it's $170 billion more

00:15:16.440 a year the government's spending every year, right? Which drives inflation and other things. And then

00:15:21.320 you ask yourself, what's better in this country eight years later? Is healthcare better? Can you get

00:15:26.440 a passport faster? Is our military in better shape? All these things. And the answer to all of it is no.

00:15:32.040 Yeah. Well, Justin Trudeau said basically he has no interest in meeting his 2% targets with NATO.

00:15:38.520 He basically told the military, good luck with what you have. And they're buying their own kit in some

00:15:43.640 circumstances. We have soldiers in Latvia right now, I think it's Latvia, that are buying their own 0.92

00:15:47.720 helmets and paying for their own food. While the Prime Minister takes a $170,000 vacation with his

00:15:57.160 friends. Right. Yeah. While they're being deployed. While the country has asked them to do,

00:16:01.640 you know, step up, well, they stepped up when they signed the paper to put themselves into service,

00:16:05.320 but to take that giant leap forward, put their lives on the line, go into potential combat or

00:16:11.240 just in another country. Now they're telling them, buy your own stuff. We'll get to it eventually.

00:16:17.400 It's unbelievable.

00:16:18.120 Or even like when we raise these questions in question period about how tough it is for

00:16:23.320 Canadians. The response to me is just, it's gobsmacking. They will say, how dare the

00:16:28.760 Conservatives talk down the Canadian economy or things like that, as if we're making it up. I mean,

00:16:34.520 I don't know about you, but I hear every single week and sometimes you hear heartbreaking stories

00:16:39.880 from people who are literally saying, I'm not making this literally saying, I have to choose

00:16:44.520 whether I'm going to heat my home or eat. And this is what's happening. And when we raise these

00:16:50.520 questions, they act like we're crazy. Like how dare we say these things and run down the Canadian economy,

00:16:57.480 et cetera, et cetera. They're so out of touch with the average person. I don't even know what to say

00:17:02.920 anymore. Well, it was actually pretty funny. A few weeks, well, not funny. It's tough to say this,

00:17:09.080 but a few weeks ago, you asked a question to the minister, basically talking about the carbon tax and

00:17:14.600 how life is getting more expensive and harder for a lot of people. And the minister dismissed you,

00:17:20.760 but you had to basically explain how the carbon tax raised the price of everything, right?

00:17:25.640 From the farm to the grocery store. It was like they had no clue.

00:17:29.240 Yeah. No, as I said in my response, they actually don't understand how food gets on their table,

00:17:34.200 right? They just show up in their limousine with their driver, those ministers, and eat as much as

00:17:39.800 they want without worrying about it. But yeah, the farmer's paying multiple carbon taxes on driving

00:17:45.720 their combines, harvesting, planting, drying wheat, other things. The truck that comes to pick it up from

00:17:51.880 the farm is paying a carbon tax on the fuel. When it goes to a processor, that processor is paying a

00:17:57.320 carbon tax on the fuel that it consumes. Then it gets trucked to a grocery store, for example,

00:18:02.760 again, carbon tax for the truck fuel. The grocery store has to heat and cool itself,

00:18:07.480 so it's paying a carbon tax. And then they're stunned that there's all this food inflation.

00:18:11.560 You know, it would be funny if it wasn't like so tragic. That's the problem, right? Like it's comical

00:18:20.840 how they don't understand this, but the results of it are so tragic for Canadians who are really,

00:18:27.160 really struggling to make ends meet every single month. Oh, absolutely. And it's crushing the middle

00:18:32.440 class. It's just crushing the middle class. Yeah. Because the wealthy aren't affected by the 0.56

00:18:36.280 large part. They don't care what their tax rate is or bacon's, you know, 10 bucks a pack. Like,

00:18:41.160 they don't care. It's the middle class. But there's $400 for groceries. That's going to solve

00:18:45.800 everything. Yeah, the one time. Yeah, everything. Yeah, yeah. Until they figure out the next government

00:18:49.480 program to fix the problem that they created in the first place. And that's also the main point.

00:18:53.240 Well, the only way to fix a problem that a government program causes is to create another

00:18:57.240 government program. That's right. Absolutely. And what is it? Reagan who said the closest thing to

00:19:02.920 life on earth is another government program. I think Reagan also said the scariest phrase is,

00:19:08.760 I'm from the government. I'm here to help. That's pretty much sums it up. With this government,

00:19:12.760 100%. Yeah, absolutely. We don't want them taking any more programs here. No, absolutely not. Yeah,

00:19:18.360 we're good with it. And this actually, I think, goes back to JFK, probably Thatcher and many others.

00:19:24.280 The dollar in the pocket of the person that owns it, earns it, is better than being in the hands of

00:19:29.800 government. Because you don't spend it better on your priorities. 100%. And not just that, you know,

00:19:33.880 when the government takes your dollar, right, you don't get a dollar back in services. Well, that's

00:19:38.120 right, yes. Right? You get whatever, 30 cents back in services, because the rest goes to just

00:19:42.680 the churn of the operation of the government, right? So the best way to ensure the prosperity

00:19:49.640 of Canadians is to make sure that they get to keep as much of their own hard-earned money as possible.

00:19:55.480 And have a free market system where people can choose what they want to do. Do they want to go

00:19:59.880 to EVs? Do they want to go to whatever the next magical technology is? Or do they want to stick with

00:20:06.120 what we have? And cars are getting better every single year. Every single year. Well, that's it. I mean,

00:20:11.560 when would you choose the government to pick the technology that you should adopt to meet a goal?

00:20:17.560 When? Probably never, right? I wouldn't. Probably never, because these are not, you know,

00:20:23.400 smart business people. It's a government. Yes. So on a really important decision, they've chosen

00:20:29.960 the only technology that they think will get us where we need to go, which is, you know, 100% electric

00:20:37.400 vehicles. Whereas there's a myriad of other options. And if you just said to industry, right,

00:20:43.960 the auto industry, we need your tailpipe emissions to get to here, right? You pick the technology.

00:20:50.360 Exactly. And may the best company win. Correct. Then you unleash all the creative and competitive,

00:20:57.000 you know, juices from those companies, and you'll end up in a way better position than the government

00:21:01.960 saying, do this, right? And this will solve the problem. Because everyone else has to then compete

00:21:08.280 for those very limited funds for investment to create that next product to compete with the

00:21:13.640 government chosen model, which is massively subsidized. And it might not even be a great

00:21:18.040 one either. You know, you got to look at where the minerals come from. Is it child labor being used?

00:21:23.080 Is it where no environmental standards exist, right? These questions have to be asked as well.

00:21:28.680 Is it really green? And there's no chance that they're going to build out the charging infrastructure

00:21:34.360 as they say they are. They are so far behind on even their own projections for building chargers.

00:21:41.480 The electricity upgrades that are going to have to happen, right? Both in generation and distribution.

00:21:47.000 All that stuff is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And it will not be ready in

00:21:52.440 time for their zero emission vehicle mandates. They actually are doing things knowing full well

00:21:58.360 there's zero chance of it being implemented under their timeline.

00:22:03.800 That goes to the other part, right? As they meet their mandated timeline,

00:22:06.760 what happens to anyone who has a combustion engine car? That value goes to like zero.

00:22:11.480 So, but here's the zero emission vehicle mandates work this way, right? You're a farmer and you're,

00:22:17.560 you know, your F-250 needs to be replaced, right? And you know that a battery vehicle,

00:22:23.160 they don't do so well in the winter. They really don't do well when you're hauling things, right?

00:22:27.960 So you go into your Ford dealer and you say it's time to trade her in. I'm ready for my new one.

00:22:33.320 They say, well, sorry, we've sold all of our ICE engines allotment because we have to be at 50%

00:22:42.920 right now. The only thing you can buy is a battery electric. That's how it's going to operate.

00:22:51.080 They're going to have to sell, right? And once they hit that, everything else has to be electric.

00:22:56.760 Imagine the distortions in the market that's going to cause, right? Absolutely. All the challenges.

00:23:01.880 Yep. It's, it's a harebrained scheme if I've ever seen. Oh, it is. It is incredible. We can go on

00:23:06.680 about quite, quite a bit. We've gone way over time. I do this every single week. The conversation

00:23:11.080 just keeps going. I could ask you so many more questions. All right. Guests get the final word.

00:23:16.680 Let's, let's take it away. Kelsey back. What we need is a new government. We are now in a situation

00:23:23.560 where everything's unaffordable and we need change. We need change now. And I got to tell

00:23:29.880 you this, I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I can't wait for the next election to get rid

00:23:35.320 of these guys. I couldn't agree with you more. I can't wait for the next election either.

00:23:39.720 Kyle Seback, member of parliament for Dufferin Calvin, also the international trade critic.

00:23:43.640 We appreciate his time. We appreciate your time as well. This is great content. Please like,

00:23:47.640 comment, subscribe, subscribe, and share this program. New content for you every single

00:23:52.600 Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. Until then, remember low taxes, less government, more freedom.

00:23:57.720 That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 14, 2023

Trudeau’s Tainted Trade

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript