The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - January 13, 2021


What Will the Liberal Government Do for the Canadian Aviation Industry？


Episode Stats

Length

19 minutes

Words per Minute

163.95773

Word Count

3,191

Sentence Count

181

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. It is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:07.520 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Court of Lakes Brock. New
00:00:11.540 content every single Tuesday. We appreciate your attendance here today. As usual, if you
00:00:18.120 can't watch us all on this program on Facebook, you can download us later on and listen to
00:00:23.580 us on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it. It's out there
00:00:28.040 together we can push back against the ever-moving Liberal agenda. Although we did take a week
00:00:33.620 off last week during the Christmas holidays between Christmas and New Year's, we are back.
00:00:38.500 We have a great guest. We're going to talk about the airline industry and a few things that
00:00:42.640 have happened since we took that break, especially on New Year's Eve, which I really want to focus
00:00:47.520 on to start. So I'll bring in our guest, Stephanie Cusey. She's the Member of Parliament for Calgary
00:00:52.360 Mindepore. She's also the Shadow Minister for Transport. Good friend of the show. Thank
00:00:56.400 you, Stephanie, for joining us. Jamie, thank you so much for having me here today. I truly
00:01:01.320 appreciate the opportunity to come here and talk to Conservatives from coast to coast to
00:01:05.540 coast. And those who are looking for a different message than the mainstream media, someone who
00:01:11.000 might consider voting Conservative, and that's why we ask you to like, comment, subscribe, share
00:01:16.520 this program. And this way we can hopefully, and our goal is to form the next majority Conservative
00:01:22.740 government here in the great country of Canada. Now, the airline industry, this is why I brought
00:01:27.600 you on, Stephanie, because this is something that was, as an Ontarian, really frustrated me.
00:01:33.560 So before Christmas, just to give you some background, Doug Ford talked about some measures
00:01:37.560 he was taking to lock down the province after numbers started to surge. And we've seen similar
00:01:42.840 surges in Manitoba and Alberta and Quebec and elsewhere. One of the issues he pointed out was
00:01:49.340 how testing is not being done at our airports. Specifically, in this case, he's referring to was
00:01:56.080 Pearson International Airport, which is one of the hubs. Calgary is a little different. We'll talk about
00:02:00.260 that in just a second. Now, immediately after he said that, after he challenged the federal government
00:02:07.140 to start bringing in rapid testing at our airport, something that the Conservatives federally have been
00:02:13.280 calling for for months, months and months and months. The blue checks on the Twitter mafia went
00:02:19.880 ballistic, just went absolutely off the charts. We have some graphics here. I don't know if we can show
00:02:29.320 them here of some of the some of the Liberal MPs who were losing their minds. Some of them, some of our
00:02:35.700 favourites are posted there, how this was just absolutely, how could Doug Ford say this?
00:02:42.920 Then, and there's another one, another Ontarian. Then, a few days later on New Year's, sorry, Stephanie,
00:02:49.420 you are here. I'm teeing this up for you. I'm teeing this up nice for you. Then on New Year's Eve,
00:02:54.740 after calling Conservatives obstructionist and even you and Michelle Rempel-Garner and many of our other
00:03:01.800 colleagues who have been calling for this for months were just pushed aside. Then on New Year's Eve,
00:03:08.980 in comes news that, guess what? We're starting rapid testing on January 7th and nobody can enter the
00:03:16.140 country without a clear test. Otherwise, you're brought to a federal quarantine facility. Stephanie,
00:03:21.200 I have talked too long. I take it from there. What is going on?
00:03:25.700 Not at all. Not at all, Jamie. I think you've set up the issue really nicely. I mean,
00:03:31.140 I think there are two factors here and you've touched on the first one. The first one is,
00:03:35.920 frankly, the motivation behind this announcement and, yeah, this announcement and this new measure
00:03:42.660 taken by the federal government. Why did it take them so long to come to this conclusion that this
00:03:47.840 was a necessity for all Canadians entering the country? So, I think Canadians are right to question
00:03:53.400 the motivation of why now, why suddenly, when the official opposition has been calling on this for
00:03:59.540 months and months and months. But I think more important and more critical at this date, January
00:04:05.780 5th, less than 48 hours before the expected implementation of this new measure, Jamie,
00:04:11.340 is just the unrealistic expectation to implement this measure so quickly that has left airlines
00:04:18.360 in a complete tizzy as to how they will implement it. And I will add, you know, this is a government
00:04:23.820 that has given the airline sector no support up until this point. And you've heard me go on and on
00:04:30.080 about this as the shadow minister for transport. We have criticized repetitively the lack of support
00:04:36.840 that this government has given the airline sector. And what have we seen as a result of that?
00:04:42.200 Well, tens of thousands of jobs lost across the country to start. The loss of regional routes,
00:04:49.100 communities actually completely isolated at this point with no in or out routes as a result of
00:04:54.400 this government's inaction. And as well before, right before the holiday season, Jamie, we saw the
00:04:59.600 possibility of several air towers being closed across the country in major centers like Windsor and
00:05:07.040 and Regina as a result of this government's inaction. So this government has been completely
00:05:12.080 absent in support of the airline sector for coming on 10 months now. And then now they have the audacity
00:05:19.220 to ask the airline sector to implement this program in a matter of days with very little instruction.
00:05:26.880 I will tell you they were still working on the interim orders as late as last night. I've been in
00:05:31.580 constant communication with aviation stakeholders. But guess who else this affects, Jamie? This affects
00:05:36.420 thousands of Canadians that are abroad right now in a panic contacting our constituency offices
00:05:42.460 because they don't know what to do. There's been very little guidance given as to the process up to
00:05:49.860 this point. They know, we know that it has to be 72 hours in advance. It's all Canadians over the age
00:05:55.300 of five. But it has to be from a named vendor on a list as provided by Global Affairs. And anyone has yet
00:06:02.420 to see that list. So if I'm sitting in Puerto Vallarta right now, Jamie, with my family of four, and I've scheduled
00:06:07.880 for a flight on January 8, I'm at a loss for what to do. And I don't know what's going to happen when I show up at
00:06:13.440 the airport, much less come to the port of entry. It's a complete chaos that was started by this government
00:06:20.340 months and months ago as they abandoned the airline sector, and continues now as they ask for rapid
00:06:26.440 implementation with very little guidance and certainly no support, Jamie.
00:06:31.720 Now, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, like the airline industry and others, but in this
00:06:38.540 particular topic, we're talking about the airline industry, they had ideas months and months ago on how
00:06:44.740 they could implement different measures to help keep travellers safe and the airline somewhat
00:06:50.780 going, if you will, based on the fact that they are bleeding dollars every single day.
00:06:59.620 You are absolutely correct. Any airline, any of the major airlines are looking at a net loss of $20
00:07:06.140 million a day as a result of the government's inaction and lack of support and effort to help them.
00:07:12.500 But more importantly, you are correct. The industry has invested incredible resources in trying
00:07:20.700 to find alternatives and solutions for the travelling public. We look at tons of examples across the
00:07:27.120 country. First, they did a pilot project in YYZ to look at those arriving internationally to see
00:07:35.160 the rates of COVID upon arrival. Then WestJet implemented another pilot project at YVR. Following that,
00:07:43.940 we saw the very well-known McMaster pilot, which compiled scientific evidence to see the numbers of
00:07:52.560 Canadians arriving with COVID. Upon their evaluation of the data they collected, their data showed that
00:08:02.280 it was about 1% of individuals arriving in Canada with the COVID virus. They took the testing process
00:08:10.940 where they did a test upon arrival, results usually at day two. They found out that 0.7 of that 1%
00:08:17.680 showed positive at that time. At day seven, it was down to about 0.3. And at day 14, it was less than 0.1.
00:08:26.140 And they actually even attribute that potentially to, I hate to say it, Jamie, but Canadians breaking
00:08:31.320 quarantine. And so the point is that, you know, after seven days, we are not seeing any information
00:08:39.980 in the data that would show us that there was a necessity beyond a seven-day quarantine. But my
00:08:44.400 points are, number one, you're absolutely correct. The government, pardon me, industry has invested
00:08:50.740 time and time again in these pilot projects. And you mentioned my hometown of Calgary, YYC, the COOTS
00:08:57.340 project here, implementation. And I'll get back to that in a moment. But we've seen incredible
00:09:03.580 investment by this industry in an attempt to implement nationwide testing for individuals
00:09:11.000 returning to Canada to gather data, but also to reduce quarantine. Now, the next question is then,
00:09:17.140 this is being implemented here at YYC with a lot of success. Why? Why can't the government just take
00:09:24.020 this one project here in Alberta and replicate it all across the country? We've done it successfully
00:09:30.460 here in Alberta. Why can't we implement this at YYZ? Why can't we implement this at YVR? Instead of
00:09:36.740 counting on thousands of other third-party vendors internationally, which we have raised many
00:09:44.940 questions as the official opposition, will take a lot of time to determine the certainty, the efficacy,
00:09:52.720 the time. I know many Canadians abroad are worried as they've seen certain third-party vendors jack up
00:09:58.680 their prices as this information becomes available, that this requirement is going into place.
00:10:05.120 Jamie, it would have been far simpler to have rolled out nationwide rapid testing at our airports,
00:10:12.280 like we've done at home here in Alberta, with the 14-day, and I would say, I would go so far as to say
00:10:17.800 even reduce to a seven-day quarantine, rather than go through this international rigmarole.
00:10:24.660 I was actually thinking this morning, Jamie, that I'm so grateful I'm still not a management consular
00:10:30.640 officer in the Foreign Service today, where I am in any country abroad scrambling to determine vendors,
00:10:37.740 to determine credible vendors, to determine cost-affordable credible vendors in an effort
00:10:43.540 to get Canadians back to Canada. I'm glad I'm not in that position, but the government has
00:10:48.160 approached this completely wrong, and industry agrees. So this is one quote that came from the
00:10:53.020 Prime Minister when the opposition was calling for stricter measures at the border. This is a quote,
00:10:57.280 there is a lot of knee-jerk reaction that isn't keeping people safe. That is having real challenging
00:11:03.420 impacts on communities, on community safety. Now, challenge that to the tweet that came out next
00:11:12.100 after the government announced the measures on January 7th with rapid testing and the requirement
00:11:17.360 of a COVID-negative test. Now, he is saying, this is something that we need to move forward on
00:11:24.160 to protect Canadians. That about-face, apparently testing is horrible until the Liberals decide it's
00:11:32.080 an okay thing to do. Something that we've all in the opposition bench has been calling for,
00:11:36.620 that we've seen in other countries, and start to somehow bring some of their economy bats back
00:11:43.860 as safely as possible. Yeah, and you mentioned it at the start of the show, Jamie, and that is that
00:11:49.300 we do have to question the political motivation. Why this measure? Why now? You are absolutely correct.
00:11:57.740 But having said that, the Liberals are experts in creating chaos. I think we've seen this time and
00:12:04.340 time again. We look at the measures that were implemented initially at the beginning of this
00:12:09.280 crisis. They wanted to have uninfringed spending limits in an effort to implement their programs.
00:12:17.500 We, as the Conservative opposition, held them to account to not have this. They actually made
00:12:23.040 several errors in their legislation, which forced us to return to the House to correct those measures.
00:12:29.180 I mean, I even look at something like an issue that's very important in my backyard, Jamie,
00:12:34.480 the Trans Mountain Pipeline there. They're talking out of both sides of their mouth. They're saying,
00:12:40.200 we want to do this, yet we don't see any shovels in the grounds in terms of really any
00:12:45.760 true motivation to move this project forward. So it's the same thing here. It's a reactive decision,
00:12:53.320 and what does it do? It forces Canadians to have to respond to that, and public servants. I have a lot
00:12:59.420 of sympathy for the public servants that continuously have to respond to the whims of this government,
00:13:05.180 and specifically at the transport and public health agencies at this time. But Liberals do this
00:13:10.380 constantly. They make reactive decisions that create chaos for Canadians.
00:13:15.900 Or they take too long to make them because they'd rather study it. So they're at one point telling
00:13:19.780 people, you must quarantine, you must quarantine, but yet we're going to study the decision on whether
00:13:25.080 or not to implement rapid tests. Well, if it's so imperative that we quarantine, the rapid test should
00:13:30.240 be a no-brainer, you would think. Clearly not. So what's in store for the airline industry? How are they
00:13:35.500 going to recover from the pandemic? We could also expand it to all the travel industry, but that's a
00:13:43.060 little difficult and probably a longer conversation. But for the airline industries that is bleeding
00:13:49.940 money right now, they're looking forward to the vaccine, I'm assuming, the rapid testing. Hopefully
00:13:55.680 it gets expanded. What else are they saying? No, that's a very good point. They have been suffering
00:14:03.840 for several months now, as I've mentioned previous times as a result of the inaction of this
00:14:09.260 government. I think most importantly, Jamie, they are looking to get through the next 72 hours as this
00:14:14.760 government determines its final interim orders for implementation. I have said this as a former
00:14:20.520 consular officer. I've had talks with our foreign affairs shadow minister, Michael Chong. I foresee a
00:14:26.780 consular nightmare like we have not seen since the beginning of this pandemic. So I really think the
00:14:31.980 airlines right now are focused on getting through the next month until these orders are recognized and
00:14:39.560 they've had some time to adapt to that. Beyond that, you are correct. They are looking forward to the
00:14:45.340 vaccine as the public gets more comfortable with traveling. And I know certainly some of the major
00:14:53.060 carriers such as Air Canada, WestJet, they have done their best to adapt to this time. I've said this time
00:14:59.020 and time again, there's been very little guidance from the federal government, they came out with
00:15:02.920 one health and safety documents back in August called flight plan. But really, we haven't seen
00:15:07.900 any direction since that time. It's it's more interesting, actually, it's the more it's the
00:15:13.580 smaller carriers, for example, such as Porter, Central Mountain Air that I talked to, that really decided,
00:15:19.820 hey, we're just going to sit back and wait for the vaccine to, to arrive and to be distributed through
00:15:28.060 throughout the communities. So I think they are definitely looking forward to the vaccine. But,
00:15:33.500 you know, every month is a matter of life or death for for this industry. And you touched upon the travel
00:15:40.620 industry. And certainly, we do see the ripple effects throughout the entire industry. So you're,
00:15:46.780 you are correct in assessing that it does go beyond the airlines. But I think that the for the airlines,
00:15:53.900 it'll just be a continuing sort of holding on by this by the skin of their teeth, until the market
00:16:01.420 returns as a result of the vaccine and Canadians become increasingly comfortable with air traffic.
00:16:07.980 Because I think this government has shown when every other nation in the G7 and the G20 has received some
00:16:14.780 form of support from their government. And this one is not in month 10. I just I don't think they can
00:16:21.020 count on it. And and I don't blame them. Well, Stephanie, I don't even know how to ask you for
00:16:28.940 a closing comment on that, because that kind of says it for itself. Did you want to add anything else
00:16:35.020 before I let go? I would just like to commend the airline industry. I mean, this is the industry
00:16:41.340 that brought Canadians back when they were stranded all around the world, left to rot by the government
00:16:48.220 for the following eight months. And now we're being told to pick up their bootstraps again to
00:16:53.980 implement this new process to bring all the Canadians back who have had the necessity or the means to travel
00:17:01.180 externally. And why, Jamie, does this always fall upon industry and Canadians, especially when the
00:17:08.780 problems are our government made? And in this case, they certainly were and they aren't providing the
00:17:14.780 solutions. And don't forget, I want to reiterate, you mentioned it earlier. We, as the opposition,
00:17:21.020 has been calling for Health Canada to ramp up their efforts to approve a wide variety of rapid testing
00:17:28.540 for Canadians so that we are able to safely and responsibly reopen our economies. And this is
00:17:35.820 something that has been at a snail's pace, it feels like, when many other countries, and I've said it
00:17:41.180 many times on this program, have approved rapid testing in various forms. A lot of it in the European
00:17:47.500 Union, which many would say is the gold standard, the United States, and slowly Canada is getting there,
00:17:54.700 but it is taking forever. A snail's pace is generous, Jamie.
00:18:02.540 Well, that is perfect. Well done, Stephanie Cousy, the Shadow Minister for Transport, also
00:18:07.180 the Member of Parliament for Calgary, Mindepore. We always appreciate her participation on the show.
00:18:12.060 I know you've been on many times before. We hope to have you on many times again as this situation
00:18:17.420 unrolls and unravels. And we do appreciate your input. That as a critic, but also as a former
00:18:23.020 diplomat, you certainly give us a lot of knowledge outside of that. So we appreciate your time.
00:18:30.620 Thank you so much for having me, Jamie. It's always great to be here. This is a great podcast.
00:18:35.660 You're a great host. I'd love to be back anytime. Well, with compliments like that,
00:18:39.820 you can come back next week. So remember, new content each and every Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time.
00:18:46.380 Please comment, like, subscribe, share this program, help us push back against the ever-moving
00:18:51.500 Liberal agenda, and also reach members of your network, your friends, maybe a neighbour that might
00:18:57.420 not have access to this program. Maybe they might hear a different message, something they're not
00:19:01.660 hearing on the mainstream media, and like the Conservative message. And together with that, we can
00:19:05.980 help move toward making Erin O'Toole the next Prime Minister of Canada. So thank you very much for
00:19:11.340 joining us. Remember, low taxes, less government, that's the blueprint. Thanks for joining us.