Western Standard - April 09, 2024


'Imagine if you woke up from an 8 year coma, today, in Canada' ~ Pierre Poilievre


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

168.29344

Word Count

546

Sentence Count

33


Summary

Learn English with Justin Trudeau. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a speech on the need for a carbon tax in Canada, and why it s time to bring it home, at the federal election on Oct. 19, 2019.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Mr. Speaker, imagine if, in fact, you were in a coma for the last eight years.
00:00:06.000 You would have gone to sleep in a country in 2015 where inflation and interest rates were rock bottom.
00:00:13.360 Taxes were falling at faster than any time in Canadian history.
00:00:16.580 The budget was balanced.
00:00:18.060 Crime had just fallen 25 percent so that small-town folks could leave their doors on locks.
00:00:24.000 Our borders were secure and our immigration system was uncontroversial.
00:00:28.240 Everyone agreed it worked and was the best in the world.
00:00:31.440 Housing costs half of what it does today.
00:00:34.340 The average rent was $950, an almost laughably low number by today's standards.
00:00:41.260 Take-home pay had risen by 10 percent after tax and after inflation in the preceding years.
00:00:48.680 The New York Times had just called Canada the richest middle class.
00:00:53.280 In fact, they said that Canada's middle class was richer for the first time than America's.
00:00:57.920 This, with lots of trouble in the world, wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and, yes, Ukraine, none of which caused inflation here at home.
00:01:07.920 At the time, of course, we had Prime Minister Harper, who was able to keep inflation and unemployment low, even while the world suffered turmoil.
00:01:16.380 But now you've awoken, eight years later, to find a completely different place.
00:01:20.900 Inflation, after hitting a 40-year high, is still 50 percent higher than its 2 percent target.
00:01:27.340 The economy is shrinking in per capita terms.
00:01:30.240 It's smaller than it was six years ago, perhaps the first time that has ever happened in Canadian history.
00:01:35.240 Canada is expected to have the worst OECD growth out of 40 countries for the next five and a half years and the next 35 years.
00:01:44.680 It now takes 25 years to save up for a down payment for a mortgage in Toronto.
00:01:49.800 And many people have had their existing mortgages extended to 90 years and 120 years, meaning their great-grandchildren will still be paying it off.
00:01:58.700 Houses in Canada now cost 50 percent more than in the United States.
00:02:02.960 You can buy a castle in Sweden for a lower cost than it is for a two-bedroom in Kitchener.
00:02:12.440 Toronto is the worst housing bubble in the world.
00:02:14.780 Vancouver, the third most expensive when comparing median income to medium housing prices.
00:02:20.680 This is the nightmare that would have been unimaginable to you had you fallen into that coma and just awoken now.
00:02:26.340 But there is good news.
00:02:28.880 You don't want to fall back in the coma because the best is yet to come.
00:02:32.360 We now have a common-sense conservative alternative that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget, and stop the crime.
00:02:41.020 We call on the Prime Minister to meet the Premiers and talk to him about their desire to see the tax cut or eliminated altogether.
00:02:48.980 Let us grant relief to our people now until there can be a carbon tax election, where the people of this country will restore the common-sense consensus that will allow anyone from anywhere to do anything that their birthright is.
00:03:02.520 That with hard work, you can afford a good home and good food in a safe neighborhood, in the country we love, in this, all of our homes, your home, my home, our home, let's bring it home.