The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - What to Expect as Supply Chain Interruptions Continue to Worsen

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

00:00:08.480 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, the likes Brock, thanking you

00:00:12.220 for joining us once again with new content every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. With that

00:00:17.940 content, we ask that you like, subscribe, comment, share this program, help us push back against the

00:00:23.080 ever-moving Liberal agenda. And of course, if you can't listen or watch the whole program right this

00:00:27.740 second, you can download it, listen to it later on on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play,

00:00:32.180 Spotify, you name it, it is out there. Another great show lined up for you today. And I'm not

00:00:37.200 just saying that because we're actually in person this time. I'm bringing on Randy Hoback, Member of

00:00:41.580 Parliament for Prince Albert. He's also the Shadow Minister, newly appointed Shadow Minister for

00:00:45.520 International Trade. And welcome, Randy, for coming on the show and being the first back in person.

00:00:51.320 Well, what an honor to be here in Ottawa. Isn't that a nice change for here in West Block to actually do 0.59

00:00:56.380 this podcast with you, Jamie, and talk about something that's relevant to Canadians and that's

00:01:00.080 supply chain issues that they're facing here today? Absolutely. And it's fitting that we are

00:01:04.500 in person talking about this because I think this is an issue that every single Canadian is dealing

00:01:08.420 with. I think if you go into a store nowadays, you're looking at shelves that are empty, you're

00:01:12.880 looking at prices that are going through the roof. If you can find the products you need, there are

00:01:17.960 warning signs everywhere you look. And maybe you can just take us to what is going on? Why are we

00:01:24.300 seeing these empty shelves, something where we saw kind of during the pandemic, but it's really

00:01:29.500 coming back with a vengeance? You know, every sector is a little different. The reason isn't

00:01:33.060 just a generic reason right across the board. You can't just blame shipping. You can't just blame

00:01:36.540 COVID. You can't blame one issue. Every sector has a unique thing that has happened over the last year

00:01:41.740 and a half that's creating a problem in their sector. I'll use the example of ABS pipe. You know,

00:01:45.980 if you want four-inch ABS pipe to build a house, good luck finding it. And if you want to talk about

00:01:51.720 inflation, well, you can find little chunks of ABS pipe that's the same price as a 20-foot or 12-foot

00:01:55.960 chunk of ABS pipe. So instead of being, you know, $12, it's $40 now because you just can't get it.

00:02:01.380 Well, the reason you can't get it is they had issues with getting the resin out of China that

00:02:04.900 actually makes the ABS pipe. So it kind of dominoes back into that sector. And then when you look at the

00:02:10.000 domino and follow it through and how it impacts every Canadian, well, if you're in the construction

00:02:15.900 industry, if you're building houses, all of a sudden you're at a point where, okay, I can't do any more

00:02:19.840 to this house because I don't have ABS pipe. The drywallers can't put the drywall in because

00:02:23.640 the piping's not in, the electricians, everything gets backlogged. And we're seeing that in every

00:02:28.100 sector, something along that lines that's creating a problem. Auto sector, it's microchips. You know,

00:02:34.260 you can look at the forestry sector this spring. We've seen huge prices jump in price of wood.

00:02:38.480 It's leveled off here now this fall, but there's examples this last year that showed basically a

00:02:45.000 shock in the system because of lack of supply because of shortages.

00:02:48.060 Yeah, I think, you know, I drive around in my community and I look at car lots. They barely

00:02:53.540 have anything on their lot. Like you said, if you're looking to build a house, it has repercussions

00:02:58.340 along the way, especially when we're talking about housing. We want to get that supply online.

00:03:01.980 But if we're having significant delays, it's going to really hurt those that are trying to get into

00:03:08.120 the housing market.

00:03:09.240 So, you know, and that's a good example, Jamie. When you look at the car industry, you know,

00:03:13.000 microchip has been blamed for this problem. We're down a million cars here in Canada in production.

00:03:17.500 So if you think about a million less cars being built in Canada, and that's forecasted again for

00:03:22.240 next year. Now that's due to supply shortages for microchips and other componentry, but it dominoes

00:03:27.140 through the whole sector. So if you think about the manufacturing side here in Ontario,

00:03:30.640 you've got less people working because you're building a million less cars. You've got the

00:03:34.500 suppliers going to that sector who are not hiring as many people because they're not being called on

00:03:38.660 to supply as much componentry for that car. And then you take it into the retail sector. Okay,

00:03:42.760 I've just built a new car dealership in Charlbrook, Saskatchewan. It's a nice new building.

00:03:47.660 Well, all of a sudden, I have no cars to sell. So how do I maintain that building? How do I keep

00:03:51.780 my staff hired? Do I lay off my sales staff? Do I go and buy used cars? These people are being faced

00:03:56.980 with lots of decisions on how to run their business. So it is an effect. And then of course,

00:04:01.020 if you blow the engine in your car, guess what? It's full retail plus. So yeah, it's definitely

00:04:06.540 having an impact on Canadians and it's going to show up in your wallet here fairly quickly.

00:04:09.960 So we talked about the last couple of weeks on this show about the skyrocketing price of energy.

00:04:17.360 We're reading in newspapers and seeing it on media about warning after warning of potential

00:04:24.320 shortages and price increases. Now we were talking off air before we started the show,

00:04:28.920 you had filled up your tank of propane and noticed a pretty real shock.

00:04:33.500 Yeah. So you go, about last time I'd fill up my tank, it'd be about 32 cents a litre.

00:04:38.060 It was 75 cents a litre. Just filled it up here two weeks ago. You know, whoa. And then you start

00:04:44.340 looking at the shortages in the price of gas. You know, the impact is starting to show up in

00:04:50.060 people's wallets. But that is what Trudeau wants. When you look at his carbon tax and his proposal,

00:04:55.800 he's adding a tax to gas to raise the price of gas, which means if you're in a lower income,

00:05:01.020 you're going to pay more to go to work. You're going to pay more to go out and buy things.

00:05:04.560 And if you live in rural Canada, guess what? It's just now cost you a lot more to go buy basic

00:05:09.660 needs like groceries. And that's something that could have been offset. It would have been

00:05:13.680 properly planned. But again, this government doesn't react unless it's a crisis. And we

00:05:19.240 haven't seen any reaction in regards to this issue. And it's just getting worse and worse.

00:05:23.260 So let's talk about agriculture, because you did mention rural Canada. Farmers are dealing with a

00:05:27.480 real issue in terms of fertilizer issues and potential price increases there as well.

00:05:32.580 Yeah. You know, I was just talking to a friend of mine just outside of Saskatoon coming in here

00:05:36.560 yesterday. He was told basically, we've got the fertilizer now. You pay for it now at today's

00:05:41.860 price, which is extremely high, or risk not even getting it. Now we haven't added in the new policies

00:05:47.800 where they want to see fertilizer reduction, which is going to reduce yields. We haven't added in the

00:05:51.760 fact that we haven't had a great crop in Western Canada. We've got probably one of the worst crops

00:05:56.160 we've had in probably the last 20 years because of drought. All those things are going to show up in the

00:06:00.540 grocery stores. And it's just a matter of time. And, you know, so the poor farmer, he's sitting

00:06:05.340 there, he didn't really get that great of a crop last year, but he's got a reasonably good price

00:06:08.960 right now. He's getting good, good price for his grain. But now he's looking at what I got to spend

00:06:13.640 for fertilizer next year. And then he's looking at these new regulations that are coming in and

00:06:17.460 trying to figure out how he's going to manage that. And then he's also hearing that we need to

00:06:21.440 produce more food. We got to grow more food. Well, you can't do one without the other. You got to put

00:06:27.760 the nutrients to the crop to grow the crop or you don't. And again, that's bad policy. That's

00:06:33.740 having an impact on average Canadians. It's going to hurt them in the wallet. Absolutely. In Ontario,

00:06:38.340 we're seeing problems with processing in terms of beef. We're seeing price increases in pork and

00:06:43.380 right across the board. Yeah. Don't buy bacon these days. Don't buy bacon. Yeah. Bacon is absolutely

00:06:47.660 in. And I love bacon. As you can tell, so can I. But this all goes back around to the other problem we

00:06:55.420 have is what the Bank of Canada is doing, printing approximately $400 billion since the start of this

00:07:00.740 pandemic and really changing the way government has that relationship with the Bank of Canada.

00:07:07.940 Of course, the government's issuing the bonds, the bank's buying them up. And this is causing

00:07:12.380 another problem. We're having a lot of, we have so much money, but too few products that's being

00:07:17.400 chased by it. That's right. And again, come back to COVID. Now people are, you know, over the last year

00:07:22.200 and a half, what did they do? They stayed at home. So what did they do? They looked at their basement

00:07:25.400 and said, well, I want to redo my basement. If I'm going to be here, I want to live in a nice

00:07:28.500 basement. Well, I got this check coming in from the government, so I've got the money now to do that.

00:07:32.400 All of a sudden, you're shocking the system and you're, everybody at the same time is remodeling

00:07:35.780 their basement. So all of a sudden, you have a shortage of lumber, price of lumber goes up,

00:07:39.260 there's your inflationary. You got a scenario in other sectors that follow that same path. If you look at

00:07:44.560 snowmobiles, I have a good friend in Prince Albert, ran out of snowmobiles this time of year last year

00:07:48.740 because people were saying, hey, I can't travel to Mexico. I can't do other things that I'd normally

00:07:52.620 do in the wintertime. So I went and bought a snowmobile. So all of a sudden, there's a shortage

00:07:56.120 of snowmobiles. Well, a snowmobile manufacturer now has to gear up and try to forecast next year,

00:08:01.800 okay, am I going to sell as many snowmobiles this next year in 2022 as I did in 2021, or is it going

00:08:07.940 to be less? You know, those decisions are made last July. They're not made right now. So there are

00:08:13.460 problems that they're trying to source their way through it. And as you see Canadians going out and buying

00:08:17.500 different things all at the same time, it's creating inflationary pressures and causing

00:08:21.000 things to go up in price. Yeah, I'm really, really struggling to figure out the Prime Minister's

00:08:29.480 direction on this. As we talked about on this show before, a small chunk, if you will, just over

00:08:37.020 $100 billion was the kind of the COVID relief, the wage subsidy and all of the CERB and stuff like that.

00:08:42.060 But there's all this other stuff that's being couched in the language of COVID that has absolutely

00:08:46.000 nothing to do with COVID, including, I believe it was $100 million slush fund that the government

00:08:51.540 can give away at their discretion. Yeah. You know, I roll my eyes because when I looked at some of the

00:08:57.540 people that were taking advantage of the programs, they definitely didn't need the program. But they

00:09:00.920 said, why not? It's there. I'm going to take advantage of it and utilize it. Did they really need

00:09:05.140 to? No. But there is a due date coming to those folks. There's a day when they're going to have to pay

00:09:11.160 it back, whether it's in taxes or a direct payment back to the coffers of the Canadian government.

00:09:14.660 That is a day coming forward. It comes back to not having a sound policy in place to deal with COVID

00:09:21.140 and understand what sectors really relied on the COVID relief and what sectors didn't. I'll use the

00:09:25.840 example of the restaurant sector or the travel sector. They needed help. No question about it.

00:09:29.980 They were hit hard and really, really felt the pain and probably still need help moving forward.

00:09:35.520 But there's other sectors. You know, if you sold cross-country skis or snowmobiles or things like that,

00:09:40.320 you didn't need any COVID help because you're run off your feet just trying to keep things on the

00:09:43.860 shelves and taking care of all the customers' needs and wants. So, you know, if they would

00:09:48.100 have had a little better of a filter or a better screening process in how they administered the

00:09:51.320 funds, they could have saved a lot of problems. So, we also have seen these images off the shore

00:09:57.060 of California, Long Beach in particular, of these cargo ships just out at sea, drifting, waiting to be

00:10:04.080 unloaded. And we're having not that exact problem, but in British Columbia, and we

00:10:10.240 all have thoughts and prayers going out to our neighbors and friends dealing with the flooding

00:10:15.940 and severe conditions out there. There are different issues at our border in terms of

00:10:22.660 our ports trying to get material and goods in.

00:10:25.240 Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I talked to the Port Authority across Canada, and if you

00:10:28.780 talked to them, they said Vancouver's a problem, and that was before the flooding. There's problems

00:10:33.820 with border services out there basically not having the room or the capacity to store a container

00:10:37.560 before they actually inspect it. So, in that scenario, you've got customers waiting for

00:10:41.840 their containers, knowing that it's sitting there either on a ship or in port, but because

00:10:46.100 it hasn't cleared customs, it can't move. And because customs is delayed and behind so bad,

00:10:51.180 things are being held up. Well, that ship, that container is now charging that demerge or

00:10:55.820 that cost onto that consumer and to that retailer that's waiting for those products, just because

00:11:01.020 border services doesn't have their act together to get stuff through efficiently and effectively.

00:11:04.400 And that goes back to lack of planning at the port and lack of funding to put the proper

00:11:09.840 equipment and machinery in place to move things efficiently. That should have been done, you know,

00:11:15.900 even back into the, you know, Harper's days, there was talk about we need to spend more money

00:11:19.740 at the Vancouver port. Well, there's another example about that. And as we talk about new types of

00:11:24.640 ships and new types of products being shipped, we have to get our ports up to speed in regards to

00:11:28.520 that. So, if we're looking at hydrogen-powered vehicles and ships and things like that,

00:11:32.860 well, we can't even load those because we couldn't even fuel them. So, there's things like that that

00:11:37.200 definitely need to be addressed on the transportation side, logistics side. But, you know, you throw the

00:11:40.820 flood in there, that's a problem. You see NNCP run through that lower mainland. We reached out to

00:11:45.300 them and the port souls, they're so busy right now trying to figure out what's up and what's down.

00:11:49.180 I get it, but that's definitely going to be a problem because that's a major port. And then you

00:11:53.140 mentioned Long Beach. Well, two weeks ago when we were talking to people down in Long Beach,

00:11:57.020 you know, there's some crazy things that were going on in Long Beach. You just looked at it. The problem they

00:12:00.320 were facing there was they had all these empty containers and they had no place to put them.

00:12:05.640 So, they had none of the carriers that they use for containers available because they're full of

00:12:09.160 empty containers. And then you had a bylaw in Long Beach basically saying that, you know what,

00:12:13.660 you can't stack a container more than too high because we don't like the looks of it.

00:12:17.720 Well, sorry, there's 60 ships sitting out in port. There's car machinery and manufacturers waiting

00:12:22.580 for consumer goods to finish off a product. And you're worried about whether the container

00:12:27.160 are stacked two high or four high or eight high or ten high. I'm sorry, there needs to be some sort

00:12:32.020 of waiver. So, I'm hoping Biden stepped in here two weeks ago. Hopefully, that solved that little

00:12:35.760 bit of an issue and they can start to break that logjam. Get the empty containers put to the side,

00:12:39.920 get the ones that are on the ship unloaded, and then reload those ships back with those empty

00:12:43.640 containers and get them out of Canada or out of North America so we can get our supply chains working

00:12:47.400 again. It still goes to the point that I think we've over-regulated ourselves to death and we're

00:12:51.900 seeing it, as you mentioned, at Long Beach. But we here in Canada have regulated our ports to death.

00:12:58.340 We're shutting down our oil and gas industry. We're putting mining on its knees. Softwood lumber,

00:13:02.820 the lumber industry is hurting, and it was before COVID. But it's all because of horrible government

00:13:08.460 policy that is starting this. And we're starting, we're actually in the middle of it, that we're

00:13:13.580 actually seeing it firsthand, the results of those bad decisions. We have line five, still a problem.

00:13:19.400 Yep. Well, you look at line five, and I was on the special committee last year and we looked at that.

00:13:24.220 You know, I don't think Canadians understand their fate is held by a U.S. court. So whether you get

00:13:29.860 propane for heating your furnace this winter is held up by a U.S. court or a U.S. decision,

00:13:35.040 not a Canadian decision. And looking at a Canadian alternative, well, the NDP and Liberals won't even

00:13:39.380 talk about that. They say it's not even feasible. They'd rather run 400 rail cars of oil through the

00:13:44.240 border or 800 trucks across Windsor Bridge into Sarnia than actually look at maybe another pipeline

00:13:50.500 that would feed into there. Or they'd rather bring in oil from another continent that's dirty oil that 0.98

00:13:55.300 actually probably puts out even more greenhouse gases or considerably more than what you'd get

00:13:59.520 out of Western Canada rather than use our own oil. So, you know, it just makes people shake their

00:14:03.560 heads about why this government can't get their head around what makes sense and what's common sense.

00:14:08.120 So I know you're new to the role. What will you be pushing the government to do to help fix this

00:14:12.760 problem or ensure that there are presents under the tree for some Canadians or the paper to wrap

00:14:18.140 it in? Yeah, you know, in this role, there's the trade agreements. We hear the Asian deals sitting

00:14:23.880 around the corner, negotiations around the corner. So we're looking forward to seeing what that mandate

00:14:28.040 is for the minister on that one. When it comes to supply chains, it works not just with myself.

00:14:32.900 I also have to work with Melissa Lampman, who's the transportation critic, and John Barlow,

00:14:36.880 who's the ag critic, and probably other people in manufacturing, because each sector is impacted.

00:14:41.420 But right now, what I need to see happen or want to see happen is efficiency is brought in right

00:14:45.920 away so that we can actually get this stuff, break the bottleneck, get the stuff flowing as quickly

00:14:49.760 as possible, get the gifts here for kids for Christmas, because let's face it, the last two

00:14:53.600 Christmases haven't been that great. This is the first Christmas where Canadians can actually get 1.00

00:14:57.900 together with their families and actually have a normal Christmas, it looks like. So let's make sure

00:15:02.480 they have the gifts to give to the kids at Christmas. So let's break these blog jams.

00:15:06.220 And then let's look at it in a more macro sense and say, what do we need to do to become an

00:15:11.160 efficient handler of goods going into the future? So what do our ports need to become

00:15:18.020 efficient? And what are we going to be handling for different types of ships? They may not be

00:15:22.100 diesel powered, like I said, they may be hydrogen powered, there may be other fuels that they're

00:15:25.760 using in the future. We've got to be able to handle those big ships and those types of products. 0.99

00:15:30.560 So, you know, there's a combination review that will go into transportation and review

00:15:34.760 going into ag, getting ag products shipped out. And again, the oil and gas sector, they're shipping

00:15:38.980 more and more oil by rail. And that impacts ag goods, it impacts manufacturing goods that

00:15:44.800 are, you know, basically, you've got one rail car, do you put oil in it? Or do you use a different

00:15:49.060 type of rail car and put Christmas gifts in it?

00:15:51.500 At the end of the line, everything we've talked about today compounds the problem why things are

00:15:57.860 getting so expensive, the delays, the regulations, the rules, the problems, the fees, this is all

00:16:03.780 compounding. On top of that, you have $400 billion printed out of thin air, causing a whole storm all

00:16:11.060 at once to happen. We're out of time. But, you know, from the Member of Parliament from Prince Albert,

00:16:17.820 where we have, in your area of Saskatchewan, three Prime Ministers, I always give the guests

00:16:22.080 the last word. It's all yours.

00:16:24.460 Well, you know, Jamie, first of all, it's great to be back in Ottawa. It's great to be talking about

00:16:28.300 these issues and actually looking at the Minister face-to-face and holding the accountant question

00:16:32.020 period. I'm really looking forward to seeing that next week. But, you know, it's also nice to see the

00:16:35.760 committees will be up and running here shortly. You know, it bugs me that we couldn't have been here

00:16:39.500 a month ago. And we could have been. There's no reason that we couldn't have called back the

00:16:43.500 government a month earlier. And we could have been dealing with these issues and highlighting

00:16:46.520 some of the problems so the government and the bureaucracy can maybe address them and deal with

00:16:49.540 them. Right now, we've got Trudeau over in the U.S. talking to Biden. Hopefully, he's talking about

00:16:54.980 softwood lumber. So hopefully, he's talking about border issues. Hopefully, he's talking about these

00:16:58.540 types of issues at our ports. You know, there's lots of things that are happening here in the supply

00:17:03.500 chains that Canada and U.S. need to work hand-in-hand in. And I'm not even sure if it's on the agenda.

00:17:09.520 And that's rather disappointing because these are important to Canadians and important to people

00:17:12.680 right across North America. And he needs to be aggressively pursuing the results that we need

00:17:17.020 to have success for Canadians. He doesn't need another photo shoot. He just had one two weeks

00:17:21.440 ago. He did. Well, we were told during the election campaign that just had to happen,

00:17:25.860 $610 million for relatively the same result, that it was the most important election in a generation.

00:17:32.420 But yet, here we are almost two months since election day and the House of Commons has yet to sit.

00:17:36.220 Yeah. So it's important for him if he thinks he can get a majority, but it's not necessarily the

00:17:39.320 importance of Canadians that's front and centre in his priorities. Absolutely. Randy Hoback,

00:17:43.500 Member of Parliament for Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. We appreciate his time. We appreciate

00:17:47.620 your time as well. With new content every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, we ask that you

00:17:52.440 like, comment, subscribe, share this program. Together, we can push back against the ever-moving

00:17:56.740 Liberal agenda. And again, if you have a friend, someone in your network that would like to hear this

00:18:00.960 message, something they're just not getting in the mainstream media, please ask them to download this

00:18:05.520 program on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it, it is out there.

00:18:10.500 And as always, remember, low taxes, less governments, more freedom. That's the blueprint. Hear, hear.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - November 17, 2021

What to Expect as Supply Chain Interruptions Continue to Worsen

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