Western Standard - Michelle Rempel and the fraudulent culture of Canada's Liberals

00:00:00.000 Good day, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to this special edition of Hannaford, a weekly

00:00:21.460 politics show. My guest today is Michelle Rempel-Garner. Great to see you, Michelle.

00:00:27.360 Great to be on your show and see you too, Nigel.

00:00:30.720 Well, it's been too long.

00:00:32.740 We should have done this a long time ago.

00:00:34.540 Michelle Rempel-Garner is the Conservative MP for Calgary Nose Hill.

00:00:38.780 She is no stranger to the headlines.

00:00:40.780 And earlier this week, all in a good cause, by the way,

00:00:44.680 but earlier this week she was kicked out of the House of Commons

00:00:47.480 for basically calling Edmonton MP Randy Boissoneau a fraud.

00:00:52.300 That was on Tuesday.

00:00:53.660 On Wednesday, Ms. Rempel resumed her seat. 0.92

00:00:58.240 On the same day, Mr. Boissoneau resigned from cabinet to work on clearing his name from the allegations of fraud.

00:01:06.400 Michelle, this looks like the tip of an iceberg.

00:01:08.720 What's really going on here?

00:01:10.500 Well, for anybody who's been following the Randy Boissoneau saga, it really is like a made-for-TV movie.

00:01:19.920 writers for Netflix could not have come up with a crazier plot so I mean Mr. Boissoneau I guess

00:01:28.700 he had a company and at one point he decided that he wasn't going to be with the company but there's

00:01:37.180 some question on when that happened and what his business if he was still affiliated with the

00:01:42.420 business at different points of time that company received a lot of government contracts it is now

00:01:47.660 being i believe um investigated for allegations of certain types of misconduct um there's there's a

00:01:55.020 whole bunch of other incredibly weird things that have happened with that particular issue

00:02:02.140 but then like this has been going on for months he should have been ejected from cabinet a long

00:02:07.100 time ago but then this week news broke that he had falsely claimed indigenous heritage and that

00:02:13.660 this company that he either formally owned or owned we're not sure um that it it had also claimed

00:02:19.900 indigenous um ownership and at some point in time it did receive government contracts so there was

00:02:26.300 there was a lot of questions about that what what that all meant um but obviously that that that

00:02:31.100 received a lot of outrage particularly from first nations leaders that there was a very prominent

00:02:37.340 Cree lawyer who was quoted as saying that identity fraud is fraud and using that statement uh you

00:02:44.300 know I stood in the House of Commons made a statement asking for his resignation and for

00:02:48.860 that I was ejected from the House of Commons and Mr. Boissoneau was allowed to remain in cabinet

00:02:54.540 now to your point he did resign the next day um but it's just it shows a broader problem Nigel

00:03:01.820 like my question is why was that man allowed to sit in cabinet for this long it sort of shows

00:03:06.860 a rot in the Liberal government. There are other cabinet ministers that should probably be given

00:03:10.860 the boot. But overall, it's time for an election. I mean, if I'm being ejected from the House of

00:03:17.100 Commons for speaking truth, and Randy Boissoneau gets to sit out the day with a car and driver,

00:03:22.380 something's very wrong with this country. So we have to fight back.

00:03:25.500 Well, I think we do. And I think our interests in this are in good hands with yourself and some

00:03:32.060 of your colleagues but let's just talk about the uh this this matter of the liberal tolerance for

00:03:43.260 ambiguity back in 2015 the party published a a poster showing nine indigenous members who were

00:03:54.060 liberals one of them was mr boissoneau now i noticed when that was renewed a few years later

00:04:01.660 his name was not on there which suggests to me that somebody had said well this is questionable

00:04:07.900 let's take him off but it was not questionable questionable enough for them to remove him from

00:04:14.940 cabinet when in fact to stop them from giving him an even better job so you and i both remember

00:04:22.780 what the life was like under Stephen Harper. I don't think this would have flown under Stephen

00:04:29.360 Harper, but it does fly under Mr. Trudeau. Is there a different kind of culture in the Liberal

00:04:36.800 Party that we should be aware of? Well, I think a lot of Canadians are living with the liberal

00:04:43.120 culture right now, right? You know, let's talk specifically about this issue, the false claim

00:04:50.560 of indigenous heritage and ancestry. That's a really serious issue in the context of achieving 0.68

00:04:56.820 First Nations reconciliation. This is a monumental task. It's sensitive. You know, a former cabinet

00:05:03.060 minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould weighed in on this yesterday. And it's something that any government

00:05:09.220 of any political stripe will have to address. But to your point about culture, the way that the

00:05:14.180 liberals have addressed this issue really has been a lot of fluff over substance. You know,

00:05:18.620 The example I've used is, the classic example is Justin Trudeau vocally supporting a national holiday to solemnize reconciliation, and then on its first observance, taking a surfing holiday.

00:05:32.460 You know, Randy Boissoneau being allowed to sit in cabinet with false claims of indigenous heritage while having this other cloud of scandal about this former or we don't know what company that he was affiliated with swirl around him.

00:05:49.320 It's just, it is this culture of, of arrogance.

00:05:52.780 And again, that, that, that results

00:05:56.060 in really bad public policy.

00:05:57.700 It's why you see that, that culture of arrogance

00:06:00.400 of not understanding where, what, what the needs

00:06:03.040 of Canadians are and prioritizing internal promotion.

00:06:07.700 It results in the housing crisis,

00:06:09.660 in a broken immigration system,

00:06:11.640 in people not being able to afford groceries.

00:06:13.960 And that's why these guys need to go.

00:06:15.900 They have lost the immoral authority to govern

00:06:18.480 a long time ago and uh you know it's why the conservatives my party we've been putting

00:06:24.400 forward a very simple message about fixing these issues and it's why that's resonating with

00:06:29.120 canadians is because canadians know they deserve better than what's being on what's being served

00:06:33.840 that like you said that that really negative rotten culture of the liberal government that's

00:06:38.320 being served to them right now michelle a moment ago you mentioned food prices people being able

00:06:44.880 to afford groceries. Two headlines this week, both involving Mr. Trudeau, seem to me to

00:06:51.820 be connected. I wonder if you feel the same. The first headline was a comment that he made

00:06:56.500 in Brazil to a civil society organization. I think they're called Global Citizen. At

00:07:04.480 any rate, basically, he made a very specific comment about the primacy of fighting global

00:07:10.680 change over meeting the grocery bills he actually said words to the effect of you know it's very

00:07:19.000 tempting to say well let's deal with global warming later because right now we can't afford

00:07:26.180 groceries and that's got to be feeding my children has to be first and then he having mentioned that

00:07:31.440 he said but that's not what we need to be doing we have to stay on task with global warming

00:07:37.160 seemed a frighteningly insensitive comment from somebody

00:07:42.400 who probably doesn't have to worry too much about where the groceries are coming from

00:07:46.940 or who's going to pay for them.

00:07:48.660 The second related is this morning's announcement of GST cuts

00:07:52.260 on a range of products for two months, a GST holiday, they call it.

00:07:59.120 Food, children's clothing, toys, all the Christmas things.

00:08:04.160 Alcohol as well, as a matter of fact.

00:08:06.220 GST Holliday, do you connect these two statements?

00:08:12.900 I guess a few things.

00:08:15.620 Go ahead.

00:08:16.360 It will come as no surprise to your listeners when I say that Justin Trudeau has failed on virtually, well, on all policy fronts.

00:08:23.960 So let's talk about, you know, commitment to the environment and about food affordability.

00:08:29.220 OK, so Justin Trudeau put in place a very detrimental piece of policy to the Canadian public, which is the consumer carbon tax that I mean, if that worked the way that he said it was going to work almost 10 years ago, you know, we'd be living in a land of milk and honey where milk and honey was a lot less expensive than it is right now.

00:08:53.120 And we would see a material, we would have seen a material reduction in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. And on all of those fronts, he's a failure. He has not accomplished any of those goals. It's the opposite, right?

00:09:05.540 In fact, one of the only times in Canadian history we've actually seen a major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions with economic growth was under when former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

00:09:17.080 Today, what we're seeing is emissions growth while Canadians are paying far more for everything because the consumer carbon tax compounds as it goes along a supply chain.

00:09:29.260 Right. We know that for a fact. So, you know, when you're talking about these other announcements, the conservatives under our leader, Pierre Paliab, have had one consistent message this this this entire time, which is we need to ask the carbon tax.

00:09:41.800 When we ask the carbon tax, we will see permanent reductions in all of these prices across the board.

00:09:49.240 And, you know, this is why we have been so vehemently opposed to what the liberals are going to do anyways, which is increase the carbon tax next year.

00:09:58.400 So, you know, they can talk about whatever they want, but at the end of the day, they still have this ineffective, extremely detrimental tax, the consumer carbon tax on increasing the cost of everything, while planning to increase that next year.

00:10:15.380 So, you know, I just don't think Canadians buy this.

00:10:17.740 I honestly think that they know that Justin Trudeau is full of it, that he's not delivering on anything except for making their life more expensive.

00:10:27.660 Just to close, I'll say, I think what Justin Trudeau is looking for right now is he's got a

00:10:31.900 very restless caucus. They haven't really showed any public courage, but I know that there's been

00:10:37.340 a lot of media stories talking about what they're doing behind closed doors. I think he's looking

00:10:41.340 for ways to buy time until Christmas for his own political fortune, but there's no question in my

00:10:46.780 mind that he's only worried about his own political fortunes. He's not worried about making life

00:10:53.180 permanently more affordable for Canadians. I'm sure you're correct about that. With these GST cuts,

00:11:01.820 do you sense that there might be some kind of a deal with the NDP going on here?

00:11:08.460 Some arrangement to just keep the NDP from finally pulling the pin on that government?

00:11:14.540 I don't think that there's any deal that needs to be made. The NDP will prop up the Liberal

00:11:20.380 government no matter what happens until their leader becomes eligible for his pension to vest

00:11:25.980 his pension in February 2025 and even then I don't think that I think they'll just continue to support

00:11:31.260 the the Liberal government um I watch them every day in the House of Commons they um they are

00:11:38.140 completely like you'll notice Nigel like even on the issue we're talking about before Randy Boissoneau

00:11:43.100 they weren't raising that issue in the house like they weren't they weren't the ones that were um

00:11:48.620 you know, actively pushing and prosecuting Randy Boissoneau's questionable issues over the last

00:11:55.000 several months. No, they are allowing this Liberal government, all of their cabinet ministers that

00:12:00.960 are under, you know, clouds of scandal to continue because I'm sure that the Liberals, the leader's

00:12:06.420 pension has something to do with that. And because I just, like, these are not people who are in it

00:12:11.020 for Canadians. They are in it for themselves, for their political salary, and they don't want to go

00:12:15.600 to an election because they are worried about losing their seats and it's as simple as that

00:12:19.520 and it's so gross to watch every day so how would you characterize these gsd cuts and is it just a

00:12:26.940 stunt again like you have to look at what the trudeau government's overall agenda is and that

00:12:33.940 is to tax canadians and raise the price of goods on everything for me like i all they needed to do

00:12:41.920 was ax the consumer carbon tax.

00:12:44.700 That would make life permanently more affordable

00:12:47.780 for Canadians.

00:12:48.700 And the fact that they won't do that

00:12:50.300 and they're trying to deflect from the fact

00:12:54.380 that they are going to increase that tax

00:12:56.320 and which is going to increase the cost of everything.

00:12:58.980 I just, I think I know Canadians know better.

00:13:01.760 And I'm gonna rely on the wisdom of Canadians on that

00:13:04.420 and continue to push the government

00:13:05.920 as all of my conservative colleagues are,

00:13:07.920 as well as our leader to ax the carbon tax.

00:13:11.920 Do you think Mr. Trudeau actually believes in his heart in the carbon tax as a solution to what he also, I think, believes in global warming?

00:13:25.440 I don't make a habit of trying to get into Justin Trudeau's head.

00:13:28.780 I feel like that's a very polluted place to be.

00:13:32.400 You know, I would flip the question a little bit.

00:13:35.800 And I would say, I don't think Justin Trudeau is trying to understand or has the capacity to

00:13:39.640 understand what an average Canadian is going through. You know, I have a couple of close

00:13:45.960 friends of mine who live in my riding. They're not particularly political. You know, they probably

00:13:51.480 make a combined income of under $80,000 a year. And they just lost, long story short, they can't

00:13:59.480 stay in the home that they're living in right now and they can't find a place to live. And this is

00:14:03.400 in calgary um and you know when when they came to me and talked they said you know like what do

00:14:09.640 what should we do and for for me as a legislator to to not have a like you know it's like here's

00:14:16.040 what we're doing here's how we're trying to fight the government to make life more affordable i

00:14:20.040 don't think justin trudeau has the plight of people who are in those types of situation and

00:14:26.440 there are millions of canadians in that situation right now in your heart so you know for me it's

00:14:30.040 It's less about trying to get in Justin Trudeau's head and trying to take the very real concerns

00:14:35.760 of millions of Canadians that are related to housing affordability, food affordability

00:14:40.200 into the House of Commons and speak truth to power.

00:14:43.480 You know, what Canadians need is a long term cut to the cost of living.

00:14:50.680 And you know, we have a simple plan for that.

00:14:52.460 It's four points.

00:14:53.720 But axing the carbon tax and fixing the budget, you know, Justin Trudeau, our party leaders

00:14:59.480 talks about putting a cap on spending and ensuring that one dollar in, if the government

00:15:05.600 wants to spend one dollar, it has to be found somewhere else. We know the Liberal government

00:15:09.580 has just wasted money on like the We Charity scandal. I could go through billions of dollars

00:15:14.480 of scandal. That's where my headspace has to be. But I can tell you one thing, Nigel,

00:15:21.440 that is not where Justin Trudeau's headspace is, for sure.

00:15:24.180 Let me ask you this. We don't have an awful lot of time left.

00:15:30.480 But in October, it was discovered that the so-called Green Slush Fund had some questionable expenditures.

00:15:43.060 The Liberal government has not provided the information that the House of Commons has asked for.

00:15:49.580 And as a consequence, business has effectively come to a halt.

00:15:56.440 How long can that situation go on before you have to have an election?

00:16:04.400 Can this go on until October?

00:16:06.380 Well, you know, briefly with the time that we have left, and I'm looking forward to getting back to Calgary this afternoon,

00:16:12.980 I'll say this, the Parliament, so Parliament ordered the production of these documents.

00:16:18.780 In our democratic system, parliament is supreme in these matters. The government is obligated to hand these documents over to parliament. The fact that the government is thumbing its nose at parliament, again, this isn't the first time they've done this. It really shows their disrespect for democratic institutions.

00:16:36.860 And, you know, if we're supposed to, you see the geopolitical instability that we're dealing with, Nigel, around the world.

00:16:43.420 If Canada is supposed to be a shining light of democracy, then the Liberal government can't just thumb its nose at Parliament because it feels like it and it wants to avoid future scandals.

00:16:53.500 So this is really up to the Liberals to end this by handing the documents over.

00:16:58.740 I can't tell you again.

00:16:59.880 I don't want to purport to get into the heads of Liberals, but for our part, the Conservative Party, we're holding the line on this because it's something that's worth fighting for.

00:17:09.020 Our democratic institutions are worth fighting for.

00:17:11.720 It's what our constituents expect us to do, and we will certainly continue to do that, to hold the Liberals' feet to the fire and use every tool that we have in the book as parliamentarians.

00:17:21.920 Look, we are just about out of time, and I know you want to get to the airport, so how about I just ask you this.

00:17:27.260 With Parliament deadlocked over the Green Slush Fund, is it possible for this government even to pass legislation or introduce a budget?

00:17:41.120 Well, I mean, what the government has to do, the Liberal government, is comply with an order of Parliament to hand over documents related to a major scandal.

00:17:52.040 This is an order that Parliament made. It's something that they have to comply with. They

00:17:58.520 can't just thumb their nose at Parliament, which they've done in the past. So this is up to the

00:18:03.880 government. If the government wants to put forward legislation and debate legislation, then they need

00:18:08.760 to comply with an order of Parliament. And that is something that Conservatives feel is a hill to

00:18:14.440 die on uh you know you can't in a free and democratic country nigel the government can't 1.00

00:18:21.000 just be allowed to dismiss parliament because when they dismiss you know me they're dismissing 0.96

00:18:26.600 nearly 120 000 people that i represent and then you multiply that across parliament and you see

00:18:32.520 what kind of an impact that has on canadian democracy so i certainly hope that they they

00:18:36.680 could end it today they could hand over those documents today and we could get on with business

00:18:40.520 But I really think that the government, the Canadian public should be putting pressure on the liberal government to do the right thing and to support our democratic institutions.

00:18:49.520 But, you know, while hope springs eternal, this is Justin Trudeau that we're talking about.

00:18:54.520 So I just I think we need an election. This is it's just I can't even some days watching these guys.

00:19:01.520 Michelle Rempel-Garner

00:19:05.680 the Member of Parliament

00:19:07.300 for Calgary Nose Hill

00:19:09.040 Michelle, thank you very much for being with us

00:19:11.720 today and for

00:19:13.000 a safe journey back to Calgary

00:19:15.780 as always and

00:19:16.920 we'll be watching for further headlines

00:19:19.780 from you as the days go by

00:19:21.820 Thank you so much, Michelle

00:19:31.520 Thank you.

Western Standard - November 22, 2024

Michelle Rempel and the fraudulent culture of Canada's Liberals

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