Pierre Poilievre: What I Want to Build (and Break) To Fix Canada

0:00 This is a special bonus episode of the Knowledge Project featuring Pierre Polyev, the leader of the conservative party of Canada and leader of the official opposition. I've always avoided politics on the platform, but lately I've been frustrated, not as a partisan. But as a citizen. Political conversations around the world have become nothing but angry sound bites and gotcha moments. We've lost the ability to explore complex issues with nuance and good faith.

0:27 This isn't just a Canadian problem. It's happening everywhere. So I decided to do something about it, even if it's just a small step. With that in mind, I've invited both of the leading candidates to the Canadian election on the show. They've both said yes, but only one is yet to record. Whether you follow American politics closely or just catch the headlines, our conversation explores issues that affect your daily life.

0:52 We dig into why prices keep rising, how tariffs impact your wallet. The real effects of immigration on policy, what's happening with healthcare, and even how AI is reshaping society. These aren't just political talking points, they're the forces shaping our future. I wanna point out that these questions were not provided in advance and no editorial control was given to the candidates team. I also want to point out that our editing for the episode is incredibly minimal and nothing of substance.

1:22 We're back to our regular programming Tuesday with an incredible episode on AI with OpenAI chairman and Sierra founder Brett Taylor. It's time. To listen. And learn.

1:41 Yeah. Welcome to the show. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Many Canadians know you from the headlines that often compare you to Trump. To focus on conflicts. But your friends and family describe you as caring husband and father and someone deeply committed to serving Canada.

1:56 What do you want voters to know about you that doesn't make the headlines? You know, being opposition leader by definition requires that you fight a lot. I mean it's uh two sword lengths apart in the House of Commons and the the system is dude deliberately adversarial. Uh so that you can hold government to account. But I think It's important for people to know what I'm fighting for. And um

2:19 What I really want is to give everyone the same chance I had. You know, I was um I started started from very humble beginnings. Um It was adopted by a couple of school teachers and Calgary and

2:34 And yet I've been able to make it here. And uh the story is the same for my wife. She came here as a refugee from Venezuela and Uh she's been able to have a great life, as has her family. And uh We believe in that. We believe that

2:48 this is a country where you can start anywhere and and get anywhere. So uh that's what really motivates me. That's my purpose in politics. Uh that's my why. And if there was one thing that I I w I want people to know About the

3:03 Me as they consider their decision, it's why I'm doing this, why do what I do. Then you can get into all the specific policies about how you get there. But that's really what pushes me forward and gets me out of bed in the morning to do this job. Do you think the comparison to Trump is fair?

3:19 No, I don't think so. I don't I mean, we don't really share anything in common. I mean he comes from a Extremely um Uh. privileged background. He, you know, he was born into a very wealthy millionaire family and

3:33 Um I was born in very humble beginnings. There's a lot of policies that he has that I disagree with. And uh I think I'm distinctively Canadian in my outlook and in my goals. So I don't really see the comparison.

3:47 And um I'm a Canadian. I'm Pierre Polyev. I'm no one else. Um just me. You mentioned being the head of the opposition and the adversarial role that that necessarily entails. As the leader of the country you have to unite everybody. How do you envision doing that?

4:06 Well, it's a big job, I mean Yeah. I think right now people are more divided than ever in Canada. And um I think it's a bit by design the government of the day is I sought to divide people in order to uh to stay in power.

4:22 And I think that's the wrong approach. We need to unite people around what I call the Canadian promise. Make everyone feel like they can achieve something in this country. by uh being part of the community and by working hard. Uh that's what's missing right now.

4:40 Uh I also think we have to get away from identity politics. which divides people based on their group, origins. And separates them into categories. The reason why we haven't had big sectarian divisions in Canada is because we didn't we judge them as people as individuals.

4:58 Rather than you know, their gender, their race, their religion. Which has increasingly become a vogue approach. Bye. you know, the uh the modern progressive left. I think the opposite approach is better.

5:11 I think it's better to treat everyone like an individual. And give them a chance, uh We should um We should stop the divisions that we see between different groups. And uh basically so look you're Canadian first. If you come to Canada, sure, bring your culture or bring your

5:27 your language, your food, um, your traditions, but The problems from abroad have to stay. At home, we bring here a place where we leave all that behind. And unite for our flag. We always thought of that as assimilation when I was growing up, right? So

5:44 uh welcome people but also assimilating into our culture. Have we forgotten that? I think there's been I think the government has tried to encourage people to to to to divide into different camps. And that has metastasized onto our streets with these horrible Protests that target Jewish

6:06 places of worship and schools and businesses. Um And I I think that's wrong. I mean, we we've always had immigrants from The Middle East. Uh and they never

6:17 th they never that never led to any kind of violence or firebombings of places of worship. They've got. Debate it if they were in a university class together, but It never went beyond that. And uh I think lately uh the

6:32 There's been this emphasis on dividing people into different categories and what you naturally get as a result is a lot of uh hostility. uh group based hostility and even violence. And I think we need to put an end to that. I think You can Everybody can keep their own cultural traditions. I think that's fine.

6:49 Um but At the end of the day, we're Canadian first. Above all our other identities. And every single person should be judged based on what their conduct is, not where they came from or where their grandfather or grandmother was born. Has becoming a parent change what you think is important for the future of Canada?

7:09 Yes, it has. Um We have uh we have two great kids. Uh we've got a little Cruz, he's three years old. Um, he's very ambitious, curious. Uh inquisitive And uh

7:23 I know that he's gonna do great whatever he does. Um, I think he'll be a a merchant or something. He likes to trade. He wants something from you, he'll pick something else up and bring it over and offer it as a trade. So Maybe he'll be a a commodities trader or something. And then uh little Valentina, she has some special needs. Uh she's six years old and she's

7:42 Nonverbal right now. And um So she has a hard time. And And um but we we've learned to

7:51 to take her cues and and really celebrate the the raw authenticity that she has. She's um She's totally Uh real.

8:02 Like uh what you see is what you get. And that's what I love about her. Um she has none of the you know, the games that people play to put on an air of this or that feeling. She's just like you get exactly what she's what's inside her is what comes out of her. And um what's special about that is when she gives you that burst of love, it's like really powerful. But

8:23 I I also think about like what's gonna what's her life gonna be like. How is she going to How is she gonna pay her bills? When she's older. What what uh what will her will her life look like when she's sixty? And um I probably won't be around by then. I was over

8:39 I was a late bloomer, I think I was thirty nine when we had her. So when she's up in her years I I won't be there. So I think how how would how do we build up a nest egg for her? So that uh she can have a good life. And then I think about a lot of other families lay that are perhaps not as

8:55 Fortune is us who have a child. With a disability, how do they pay their bills? So I think it's given me a lot more Empathy

9:06 Challenges and hardships that families have to fight through. There's a lot going on in everybody's world and we can only see what goes on in our world. That's right, yeah. That's true. Um, so I think having kids and experiencing some of those challenges you can it helps you to empathize with With other people who are out there and

9:24 Fighting their own battles. I know being a single parent, some nights I go to bed and I'm like, I don't even know how I survive today. Yeah. Or how I did it, and then I look at other people I'm like, How do they do it? How many kids do you have? I have two, fifteen and fourteen. Okay. They go to school nearby? Yeah. Okay, so you don't have to show for too much or do they have sports? That's why we moved here is just so we could reduce commuting time and Okay, so they could walk to school. Do they have sports as well? Well, they have extracurriculars with the school. So like between that and homework, they're pretty wiped. Like wow, they're getting ninety minutes a night usually of homework. That's a lot of homework.

9:59 But they're they're doing it. Yeah, well most of the days. That's important. Um you've been campaigning against the liberals for years and To many voters now, the promises sound very similar on carbon tax, crime. Energy and investment. So how are you different now?

10:20 Well, to the extent that they are the same at all. Um, the difference is sincerity, because I've been saying the exact same thing the whole time. And they've been In the last two months they've adopted pale imitations of my policies to try and kind of trick people into thinking they're getting conservative policies by voting liberal, but

10:42 Um let's on the carbon tax, for example. Um the liberals have not gotten rid of the carbon tax that they brought in. They've just uh made it disappear from the gas pumps through a Or a regulatory. Command.

10:55 But they can easily reverse if they're reelected. The law is is still in place. And they do admit they want to increase it on Canadian industry. Which I think will be extremely destructive. Given that we're already in a

11:08 trade dispute with our biggest market. Where there is no such Carbon tax. So I will get rid of the entire tax. Um

11:16 For everyone and for real. Well, let's go with uh investment. Um Mr. Carney wants to keep C sixty nine. This is the no development law. Um, like all the major b businesses that do development say that this law will strangle their ability to dig mines, build pipelines, L and G plants, they just won't happen.

11:38 With this law in place. So while he makes a lot of kind of hints that he might like to speed things up. when you actually look at the things you need to do to achieve that. He's against them all. He wants to keep C sixty nine. He's not prepared to commit to what to six month of uh permitting. Uh, he won't get with rid of the industrial carbon tax. He wants to keep the energy cap in place, which doesn't exist in the States.

12:02 I want to get rid of that. Uh so on uh on the specifics uh of what we actually get done. The differences are actually very stark. on the sort of marketing side, uh he's tried to adopt similar words to trick people into thinking they're getting my policies by voting for him. So tha that's ultimately it. I think if we go

12:21 If the liberals are reelected, you will you will see a continued outpour of investment to the United States. You will see that we do not build LNG plants. uh pipelines or any other self reliance projects. That will break our dependents on America. So um I really want to unleash enterprise in this country.

12:40 We can do it. We can bring our money home. We can make this the fastest place in the OECD to get Building permits. Uh we can have uh lower taxes on investment. One idea that I think

12:52 a lot of your listeners would find interesting. is that I I wanna pass what I call the um Canada first reinvestment tax cut, zero capital gains. When you reinvest. And

13:03 Canada. So if you're building homes or you're opening a business or buying a C and C machine or a three D printer or a conveyor belt. uh with the money here in Canada. Then you get that tax deferral, but if you take the money out of Canada, you don't.

13:18 So you think of a a guy selling a business after forty years, right now there's no incentive for him to keep it in Canada. His incentive is to put it abroad where there's lower taxes. This would mean that he'd have a Massive tax deferral advantage. If you reinvested the money in Canada. It would also mean companies that are already have invested abroad.

13:36 would have a tax free way to bring the money back. I think this is gonna be a A real Like Rocket fuel for our economy.

13:44 Günstig ohne App Bei Aldi gibt es einen Preis für alle. Diese Woche Bio-Joghurt mit Crispy Müsli, 150 Gramm für nur 89 Cent. Oder Igloram Spinat, 750 Gramm für nur 1,69 Euro. Entdecke weitere Angebote in deinem Aldi Nord. Aldi Let's dive into the economy a little bit because when I talk to people, yeah.

14:07 uh who maybe work in government or they're older They don't necessarily understand how natural resources go into fulfilling an economy. So how do we create economic value? a as a nation and then translate that into a better life for all Canadians.

14:27 How would you explain that to somebody? Well, if you're not working in the natural resource sector, y you might say, Well what why do I care about this sector? Well the the answer first and foremost is it is our single biggest export sector. So When we're selling more of our raw materials or

14:45 Better yet, value added. um to them and then selling them. It brings our dollar up, which means we have more purchasing power. Um and that means we have a higher quality of life and standard of living. secondly, th they pay these resource companies pay an absolutely enormous amount of tax. So if they are Firing all cylinders, it means that

15:05 that y your kids when they graduate they won't have to pay the pay as much for The roads and s hospitals and schools because it will be paid for by a a booming resource sector, which is probably the biggest if you combine the resource industries, they are the biggest by far.

15:21 And then all the people who work for them, they too pay taxes and eat at local restaurants and and feed into our overall economy. So Um without our resource economy we would be An economic ruin. That's happening slowly.

15:37 It's kinda like where the The frog in the warming water, but every year we get poorer and poorer. But we could on we can reverse that as soon as we want. Decline is a choice. It's not my choice. My choice is to unlock the power of our resources. Um to make this the fastest place to get a permit.

15:54 to reward First Nations By helping them have a stake? in the royalty revenue that comes out of these projects. um and to train up, you know, three hundred and fifty thousand young people. To fill the trades jobs. And they're incredible jobs. Like often people see someone in

16:09 work booths and A hard hat, they say, Well, that's a a tough uh maybe's maybe's maybe is a making uh thirty, forty grand. These jobs can be two, three hundred thousand dollars a year. So let's train up the uh

16:22 the young tradespeople to fill those jobs that we can become the richest country in the world. Do you think we could ever get to a point where we had no income tax? If we really unreached our natural resources? Well, of course income tax were only temporary to pay for World War One. So the we saw how that worked out. I I can't make that promise. I'd love to. Uh, they'd definitely make some headlines if I promise that right now. But we uh we definitely need lower income tax. I call income tax the fine we pay for the crime of hard work.

16:51 Um every time you go out and put in a little more effort, you You get punished more. So I'm committing to lower income tax by fifteen percent. uh on the average worker and senior. And you know, as our financial situation improves, I like to lower them even more.

17:07 One of the differences between you and your opponent, Mr. Carney, is you've said uh no to the WEF, whereas he's heavily integrated into that. Why do you have such strong feelings on that and how does that impact everyday Canadians? I just think it um It's an organization that has a very top down mentality.

17:30 I don't believe in top down. I don't believe that there's this sort of group of Globetroting experts that can tell us how to live our lives. that can you know, who can tell us which industry should go up and which should go down, what cars we should drive and what words we should speak and how our money should be spent. I really believe in

17:48 distributed decision making um personal freedom. Um letting people live their own lives and chart their own course. The other thing I found

18:00 Is that I mean I've been around politics a long time, so I've met a lot of these people who are considered part of the elite and I I talk to them and I ask them questions and then I go out to my Constituency and I talk to the

18:14 Truck drivers and mechanics and farmers. And I find the latter group is actually smarter. Now they don't use all the same fancy language. But if you ask them just sort of nuts and bolts type questions. uh they're smarter. Like m you know.

18:30 Mr Carney, for example, told us in twenty twenty one, Don't worry about inflation. There won't be any inflation. We should print even more money. Well, he was totally wrong. Like utterly wrong.

18:41 Um you know, it's a jaw dropping mistake. And with huge human consequences. Um In my writing when the when the money print started, the quantitative easing. I was getting farmers and

18:55 small business owners saying, There's gonna be inflation. There's gonna be inflation. Yeah. So how is it these people who Who don't attend. lectures and don't go to international summits. knew more about the real functioning of the economy. than all of these so called experts.

19:13 Um, what I think is we need a government that's humble. And leaves people. Their money. Their freedom of choice. Um

19:22 uh and lets them make their own decisions. And uh that's my philosophical difference with that group and And it's um

19:33 I I believe in the common people. I think when you say that, what a lot of people might hear is Well that means cutting services and um that would have an impact on lower income families. So can you share how a free market approach

19:49 Would help our economy. Well still protecting vulnerable communities? Well, I don't see those two things being a juxtaposition. What we have seen first of all, I wanna protect all of the social safety net we have, particularly for the most vulnerable. But what we see is that when government grows beyond a basic social safety net, it actually doesn't benefit low income people. It starts to massively transfer wealth. from the working class to the extremely rich. And uh this is sort of the irony that

20:19 The Yeah, I always say like to say Robin Hood has been kidnapped. Um and uh in reality, uh Robin Hood was uh fighting against taxes. He wasn't fighting for a bigger government to take from the working people to give to the aristocrats, which is what we I think increasingly see.

20:38 For example, the government's now spending twenty one billion dollars on consultants. That's twice what it was spending. Ten years ago. Are these consultants uh you know waitresses and welders? No. They're very high priced, extremely wealthy people, often getting paid to do work of little or no value.

20:57 twenty one billion dollars for context is fourteen hundred dollars for every Canadian family. So we're not talking about small Um, look at what happened when the government printed money. over the last four years it decimated the poor. Poverty

21:12 went up. Now twenty five percent of people are in po poverty. Food bank lineups increased by over a hundred percent. Uh, one in four of our kids is going to school undernourished. When the government spends money it does not have it drives enormous inflation and that always h hurts the poorest people. The rich

21:30 are not only f inflation proof. They're inflation positive. They benefit, you know, at Mr. Carney's CEO, um. I think you had him on your show. He was talking about how inflation helps Brookfield.

21:43 Because they can raise the rent and their asset values go up. So it's an enormous wealth transfer from the working class to the super rich. I'd just say it's it's kind of like a Taking from the have naughts to give to the Havs. So what I'm talking about

21:58 is actually um creating opportunity upward mobility. Um by Yeah. G having sound money that that protects its value.

22:08 having low taxes for working class people. Speeding up permits for housing. The the The obstructionism that blocks home building, again, very good if you live in a mansion because your mansion is now worth more money due to the scarcity of homes. Very bad.

22:23 If you're a working class kid trying to buy a house or you're a new immigrant. Uh so most a lot of the cov poverty we're seeing today is not because of a lack of government assistance, it's because government is is is Actively tilting the scale. Against the least fortunate.

22:40 And that's what I'm trying to to achieve. When I say bottom up, I mean let's help the working class. The people in poverty. The newcomers achieve the life of their dreams by enabling uh th their opportunities. One of the things that seems different between when I was a kid and now

22:59 I think is that I used to feel like there was more a quality of opportunity, not necessarily a quality of outcome, but a quality of opportunity. Like I can do anything. And I could be anyone. And I I feel like a lot of people have lost that. Yes, I agree with you on that. And we need to to bring that that that's what I call the Canadian promise, that just this idea that okay, it doesn't matter where you start.

23:23 You can achieve anything you want. You can go from zero to hero. And uh we have these you know, y I travel across the country and the stories I hear of, you know, some some guy who's retiring at sixty five and he He showed up. Poor as a church mouse and built it all from scratch.

23:40 Um that's the Canadian dream. Um I g I've got a friend who uh who lived uh just a little ways from here in little Italy. His family came here with nothing and they paid off a house in downtown Ottawa in seven years on the on the wage of a a road construction worker and his mom making sandwiches at a seniors home.

24:00 growing vegetables in the back yard and their grandkids wouldn't even be able to make a down payment in seven years now. even though they're more educated and have Good English language skills. So I wanna bring that back. I wanna bring hope and opportunity back that Anybody who puts in a good day's work and

24:18 Strives hard and follows the law and is honest and decent, can have a beautiful life. That's what Canada should be all about. How do you plan to balance the budgets while ensuring essential services and what impact Do you think this will have? the they going from an unbalanced budget where we're borrowing

24:37 Essentially from our kids in the future. Uh to a balanced budget on the economy. So there's two questions there, how to balance and then what's the impact of a balanced budget. Um We have to stop the growth in government spending. I I would uh bring in a hard dollar for dollar law

24:54 that says any new dollar of spending needs to be met with a an equal dollar of savings. They brought this in in the nineteen nineties in the US under Bill Clinton. And uh They balanced the budget, they paid off four hundred billion dollars of debt. And they had a booming economy at the same time. So That law then lapsed.

25:13 in tw two thousand one and America went right back into deficit. Yeah. problem is the the great Thomas Sowell said the number one rule of economics is scarcity. People always want more than there is to have. And um

25:27 the number one rule of politics is to ignore the number one rule of economics. And so I think that We've got uh politicians who by the nature of the job don't have to experience scarcity, they just Externalize it through money printing, taxing, and borrowing.

25:44 If you had a law that internalized the scarcity required the government control itself. rather than just going to the taxpayer. or to the lending markets. that would enforce a value for money discipline within the machinery of government.

25:59 And so um I would reduce the size of the bureaucracy through attrition. We have seventeen thousand public servants retiring every year. We don't need to fill every single one of those spaces. Um, we we need to cut back on these consultants to twenty billion dollars for consultants, really? Like when we have a fifty percent increase in the size of the public service, do we need consultants to do their work for them. Um, I am going to cut back on foreign eight. I don't think that uh we should be sending seven or eight billion dollars out of our country at a time when

26:29 We can't house our people or provide drinking water and First Nations reserves. And um We're not going to give money to multinational companies that ultimately take it out of the country in the form of these corporate grants. So those are some specific areas that we're gonna rein in. And what's the effect of a balanced budget? Well, first of all, it means less inflation.

26:49 Um, inflation is the silent thief that creeps up whenever government is spending more than It brings in And that's because There's just more money chasing fewer goods. uh we have to stop that because it it's slowly but surely eroding the buying power of our working class people.

27:07 The only way to stop inflation is to stop the deficit spending. That Sparks it. I have a theory and maybe correct me if I'm wrong on this, that Canada can't be on par with the US to invest. We have to be better than the US to invest in. So when we talk about multinational, we want Canada to be the premier

27:29 country in the world and with all the uncertainty in the US, maybe it's an opportunity for us to actually become that. What are the steps that we can take to become The investment of choice. For companies when they're setting up a factory. Right. Yeah, that's a good question. Um it's funny you raised that because um

27:48 Uh Wilfred Laurier. a century ago had the philosophy that we always had to be lower taxed than the Americans to compete with them because they had so much economy of scale. Um That would be ambitious to get lower than them, but But

28:03 the principle is sound. Like we capital goes where capital grows. If you can get a better ROI uh south of the border. you put your you might put your money there. Now that's what's been happening. In the last ten years there's been a net outflow of five hundred billion dollars of investment to the US from Canada. And um That's partly because our taxes are extremely high.

28:25 Uh, this is a great place for businesses to take money. Not a great place to make money. So you can get a lot of grants to to do R and D. But as soon as you become profitable, where do you want to declare that profit? Well, a lot of companies choose to do it outside of Canada.

28:41 Secondly, it's very slow to get anything done in Canada. We have the second slowest building permits in the OECD. And um It takes seventeen years to get a mine approved. three times longer to get approval for a housing develop in in Canada versus the UK or the US. I was speaking to a really successful British Columbia businessman and he started up uh a pr application for a a plaza.

29:06 In B C Took him seven years. He flew down to Dallas. And the mayor met him at the airport? and uh said, uh, what do we have to do to get this done? And they sat down, hammered it out. He had his permits in seven weeks.

29:20 So where do you think the next plaza's gonna go? It's not gonna be in So To answer your question, what's the solution? We should set a goal. to bring together all three levels of government.

29:31 and get the fastest building permits. In the world. In the developer off. Really. Yeah, you know, um sure, we can protect the environment and public safety. But we don't have to uh take seven, eight, nine years to do that. You can do it in

29:45 Let's try getting it down to six or seven months for major projects. I'm gonna incentivise the municipalities to speed up permits for housing developments. And of course we're gonna get rid of the no development law C sixty nine and C forty eight so that we can rapidly approve massive natural resource projects, nuclear plants, and them data centers, the the associated power stations to feed them electricity.

30:09 Let's be the fastest place that gets done. The other thing I want to do is create these shovel ready zones. So that we can do all the environmental research on the front end and And the business can just look online and say, Okay, well this is these are the ten things we need to do to comply. Oh, and look at that.

30:27 What's that? That's a permit. It's pre published. It's a legally binding permit. I don't have to apply for it. It's already there. There's no risk. There's no risk. And then the investor doesn't have to w to think, jeez, I'm gonna spend seven years on lawyers and consultants and lobbyists. And we're gonna have to lock down all the capital and collect all the investors to get to a potential no at the end of the if the yes is up front with clear conditions, then Problem solved.

30:50 And then of course we are gonna cut taxes on investment, energy, work. And um home building. So that there's a great ROI. to bring the money home here to Canada. You mentioned regulations. Is there I mean

31:03 It sounds like regulations just only increase. Like there's a natural entropy to regulations where it's just they keep growing and we never get rid of them. Is y your government considering a policy that would be, you know, for every new regulation we get rid of five or ten or Well that's good. I I went with two. Um we know it's two for one. That's after initial cut of twenty five percent. So our commitment is cut twenty five percent. And then bring in a two for one rule. Overseen by the Auditor General, not by the government.

31:33 And the reason that's important because the current there is a one for one rule right now. So what the government is doing is they've kept the number of the ti number of titles Down. but they've merged more regulation under each title.

31:47 And so if you don't have an independent audit of how much actual regulation there is. Not just in Rule count, but in compliance cost. then you'll never actually reduce the size. It's uh every creature in y in nature.

32:03 Seeks to survive and multiply. You know, and uh that's their first law of like Any organism and bureaucracies are no different. They they set up and then they expand and they enlarge and the I've never in all my years on the finance committee had a an agency come before us for the budget consultations and say, You know what?

32:22 You hired us to solve a problem five years ago. And We're happy to report the problem is solved, so you can shut down our agency and we can move on. That's never happened. They come back and say, You know the problem we we we we set out to solve. It's bigger than ever before, so you need to double our budget and reward us for the failure that we caused. So you actually need hard binding restrictions on their growth.

32:45 When when we were last in government We had the economic crisis and we needed to get projects done quickly. So our Minister of Infrastructure said to the bureaucrats, we need the application forms for projects to be one page long. And they wrestled and they fought, and they said it can't be done. They got it down to one page. And then he said, We want one environmental review.

33:05 And they said, No, this will be a disaster. There'll be species that will go out of existence and water will be Destroyed and Well, they got it down to one review. So what happened? Twenty three thousand five hundred projects got done from concept to completion. in two years and the environment commissioner, an independent officer, went out and en did a full m study and review

33:27 and couldn't find a single environmental problem that had resulted from it. So that means that all the other pages of bureaucracy, all the other environmental reviews, they weren't actually providing any incremental protection for Mother Nature and They were just giving work for consultants and bureaucrats to do. Well that's not what we need. We need to get projects done. So let's let's c cut the bureaucracy and the waste and uh As uh Bob Stanfield said.

33:53 Stop stopping And start starting. Why do we default to no? It's safer. Safe just to say no to everything, right? And

34:02 Nothing can uh go wrong on the surface. I mean obviously there's enormous negative consequences to saying no, but you can't see them. It's all the wonderful things that would have happened but didn't. So it's just easier for a bureaucrat to say, No, you're not going any further and it takes

34:18 Boldness and audacity to push through that. Canada's economy creates less value per worker than America's. And the difference in the last ten years has grown. Quite a bit. Mm to a meaningful degree. Most people don't understand. this on their day to day lives. So what is this productivity gap and why should ordinary Canadians care about?

34:41 Well productivity is a very simple concept. You don't eyes glaze over in the hearing, but it really is measured in a very simple way. It's the GDP of the country divided by the total hours worked.

34:52 In that country. And so today. We generate fifty three. dollars USD for every hour we work as Canadians. The Americans generate seventy eight dollars.

35:03 So you can see that they're making almost fifty percent more. economic value in an hour worked. Why is that? I mean if you put two workers side by side, an American and a Canadian, why I I would argue we have better workers. So why is the American generating more value? The answer is that he has more tools and technology.

35:24 And uh we know that because of another Calculation. Take business investment in Canada. Divide it by the number of workers. In Canada we get fifteen thousand dollars of investment per worker.

35:37 career In the States it's twenty eight thousand. Mm-hmm. we're way behind even the OECD average. We get sixty five cents of investment per worker. for every dollar an OECD average worker gets. So we're we're capital starved.

35:53 our workers are not getting the same C and C machines, the same um large uh heavy equipment, the the same uh factories and mills and other things that actually generate. Output transcript: And why is that? Well again, we go back to the same two problems, very high taxes, very slow permits.

36:12 This is not a place where you can get things done and even if you do, you're punished for it. So by removing those penalties and making this A rewarding place to invest with a green light that gets you off. to the races. quickly.

36:25 And then a low tax environment where you benefit from what you do. I think the money's gonna pour in. You know, I think of and you can turn it around really quick. My grandfather came from Ireland. I don't know the exact date now. Um unfortunately he's no longer with us, but

36:41 It would have been about sixty, sixty five, sixty years ago, I think. Because Ireland was poor. That was what it was known for at the time. Now Ireland's per capita GDP is twice Canada's. And why? Because they opened up to free enterprise. They have very low taxes, very fast permits, lots of free trade.

37:00 And uh they don't have any of our resources. They're not next door to the biggest economy in the world. So they shouldn't be anywhere as rich as Canada, but they're twice our GDP. But it it shows that if you unlock free enterprise, then you can achieve incredible boosts in your living standards in a very short period of time. And that's what I think we can do in Canada. We should be the wealthiest country in the world. Absolutely. You got the most third most oil, the fifth most gas, the first in uranium, first in potash, the biggest oceanic cloth coastline in the world.

37:33 The most fresh water The fifth most farmland per capita. Uh the fifth most lithium. uh the abundant rivers for hydroelectricity. Like we have so many resources. It should be a corticopia of wealth, and that's what we will be.

37:48 I wanna talk about what's on everybody's mind, tariffs. How should we respond to the US as tit for tat. the right approach in a situation where one trading partner is significantly larger than the other. I do think you need to retaliate because if not, there's no deterrent value. The offending country in this case it's it's the US administration.

38:09 needs to know that there's a cost for its producers in tariffing Canada. So I do believe in in retaliating. On day one, what I would propose to the president is Let's put the tariffs. On ice? Let's sit down and renegotiate the Khizma.

38:24 And A very quick turnaround. And in the meantime, let's be terrifying no chaos, no market ups and downs. And the uh the daily stock market drama.

38:38 No tariffs for let's say hundred or one hundred and twenty days. Let's try to get a deal. in that deal. I would seek a permanent end to the tariffs. protection for our sovereignty. the things that I would put on the table as offers, I would make sure they're all things we can pull back immediately if the president again breaks his part of the bargain and starts terrifing us again.

38:58 There are some things that I think most Canadians would be comfortable offering. for example, if you poll most Canadians want to rebuild our military anyway. So This is not something that we need Donald Trump to tell us to do. We can do that and What we can offer.

39:14 the Americans is that the more they trade with us, the more powerful our economy will be, and the more d national defense we can find. And I will put that defense money into the defense of our sharent, which is I think what they really want. They're saying, you know, enough Uh enough of this situation where we protect your Arctic waters and your Arctic uh skies Uh if you want to to be uh

39:36 We wanna be your partner. We don't want to carry you. Yeah, we exactly. So do your part. And Canadians agree with that. And I think we can offer that. We can our two countries can build the in ways that are good for both of our economies. And I think if we put that on the table

39:54 And we do it in a way though that we can pull back Any commitments we've made to them at the the instant the deal is violated. then we will be in a strong uh position not only to nail down a deal, but to crystallize it so we don't end up with this chaos again. How do we become less dependent on the US at the same time as being their partner? We don't want to end up in a situation where somebody can turn off our economy on a tap on this. And that's where we are right now.

40:20 We have to build pipelines for for sure. Our single biggest export is oil. And gas. If you add gas, it's some it's by far orders of magnitude our biggest net export. But unfortunately a hundred percent of our gas goes to the Americans, about ninety five percent of our oil goes to them. Uh and that is a function of not having any way to get it off.

40:42 We have Now one pipeline that has just started chugging. Westward. Still some of that oil though actually goes to California. Um, but we need a pipe.

40:53 Pipeline West. Maybe pipe one north, maybe one through the um port of Churchill. And Hudson's Bay. And I would ideally like to have an east west pipeline.

41:04 Uh so I I intend to get uh the shovel ready zones uh to create a national energy corridor with pre approval for pipelines. Second thing is L and G We have the We're the fifth biggest supplier. But we're selling it for four bucks to the Americans when we could be selling it for fourteen to the

41:22 Europeans and a similarly high price to the Asians. Now. You get gas overseas you have to liquefy it? and put it on a ship. So you need these big liquefaction plants that compress and cool the gas into a liquid. We have an enormous advantage there too because our cold weather makes it twenty five percent cheaper to liquefy.

41:40 Liquefication is obviously a function of cooling things down. So uh then the second thing is it's eleven days to ship to Asia from B C, it's twenty days from the US Gulf Coast. So again, another massive advantage over the Americans. The final advantage is we have this abundance of hydroelectricity. The Americans don't have enough electricity. to serve their existing demand, let alone to power more industrial activity. We do. We're net exports of electricity, and we can produce even more. The biggest infrastructure project in Canadian history is L and G Canada in Northwest B C.

42:13 Approved by Harper. Facilitated by First Nations chief. Ellis Ross, who's my candidate in that area. Forty billion dollars. This is by far the biggest project. Put this into perspective. There were eighteen of these projects on the table.

42:29 Back in twenty fifteen. eighteen Like these are this is an enormous amount of investment we could be bringing. But The squamish people

42:39 They they took fourteen years to get an approval for their project. It's an indigenous led project. And the government made them jerk around for fourteen years. We should be approving these things in in months. And then the coastal First Nations in B C would become literally the richest people in the world. exporting our gas overseas to Asia. And then in the East Coast, we can do it out of Saganay, out of Newfoundland, potentially out of the Maritime provinces.

43:05 and go around the Americans and say to them, You know, you don't want our gas? Fine, we'll sell it to the Europeans and then the Asians and we'll make a heck of a lot more money doing it. How does the lack of free trade between provinces impact people? Higher prices, lower wages. Um things cost more because there are a bunch of hoops through. And then lower wages because we can't

43:27 generate as much uh wealth. You look at The trucking sector, for example. We don't have harmonized trucking regulations across the country, so you're going over the border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, uh there's a weight uh a weight regulation difference.

43:43 So, you know, you can't move products seamlessly between those two provinces. How can you have free trade in this country? Um obviously uh the lack of pipelines is a form of a trade barrier. Um, and uh we need to knock down these barriers. I'm committed to sit down with the provinces and say, look I'll make you a deal. We can calculate how much GDP boost we get every time you knock down a trade barrier.

44:07 And that means more federal revenues. I will give you those revenues. So if say Saskatchewan arbitrarily gets rid of all of its protections and lets free trade into its province from other Canadians Well my officials will sit down and say, Well that's this is the GDP boost in the federal revenue.

44:25 Haul from that. Let's give that to the Saskatchewan. And that will create a powerful incentive for provincial governments to knock down those barriers. I like that. You like that one? It's a s it's a carrot.

44:36 That's a good one. Thank you. I wanna go back to the the Trump and tariffs just for a second. It seems From the outside. it looking in a lot of

44:46 What he's trying to do is slow the rise of China. Yeah. Or to level a playing field between the US and China. Uh And

44:55 Out of the things that you mentioned that you would do. Yeah. Never used the word China. Look, uh I think we do need to stand up. against Chinese uh interference in our country, whether it's foreign

45:09 Political interference. Or whether it's unfair trade practices that de industrialize Canada and make us overly dependent on them. Uh, there's a lot of risks to that. We also need to keep China out of our Arctic waters. Skies and soil. by having a stronger national defense.

45:27 I look, I I think if we have to choose between Beijing and And the US, obviously the US is our closest neighbor. They're the biggest economic and military superpower in the history of the world, and up until recently they were very friendly to us. the president's wrong headed tariffs. Notwithstanding, we still need a strong relationship with the United States.

45:49 And um one of the things I would say to the Americans is If you want to strengthen yourself vis a vis China. You don't do it by picking fights with Canada, for God's sakes. Like what what is Canada how how how does ostracising and alienating Canada achieve that? You should give us more. Access to your market.

46:08 And we should trade and grow our economies in Synchronicity. rather than fighting with each other. Because Trump tariffs against Canada actually only strengthened China because they weakened both Canada and the US. So the argument I will make is uh how do we strengthen

46:25 ourselves as North Americans against the Chinese threat. We need to knock down the crazy tariffs. The Americans need to respect our sovereignty and And uh we need to separately but cooperatively strengthen our militaries. I wanna talk about media for a second. I know this is uh a thing for you. It's a thing

46:46 Many people don't understand, so I I wanna get into it a little bit here. Many Canadian media outlets are partially government funded not only via the Canadian periodical fund, but they get subsidies from for journalist salaries, the government is a large advertiser Um, not to mention regulatory barriers that are put in place to prevent competition

47:09 Which When I think about this, it sort of raises concerns for me about bias and editorial freedom. How would you ensure that journalists can hold all politicians, including you accountable while preserving a diverse and independent press. Well, first and foremost free speech. I would repeal C eleven, that's the uh censorship law.

47:32 which gives extraordinary powers to the CRTC to control uh what content uh is seen to to boost certain types of content that they deem to be Canadian in nature, although there's no real definition of that. And then discourage other Content. Uh and I think that will over time B A

47:53 Sereptitious way of trying to manage the debate in favor of what the government wants people to see, I would repeal that entirely. Um We need to look at the internet. And the

48:06 the the rise of social media differently than this government. They they think it's They think that having too many voices is a threat. I think it's an opportunity. I mean you wouldn't be able to do this you wouldn't have been able to do this thirty years ago, um, unless you wanted to You don't wanted to invest tens of millions of dollars in a production studio and a distribution plan and you'd have to sign deals with a broadcaster.

48:28 to get yourself on air. Um but the fact that you have this voice is the result of social media and the internet. Um the existing media is not threatened by Rising costs. Or um

48:43 uh a diminishing number of people interested in reading news. Their challenge is there's massive increase in competition. There's actually more media today than there ever has been. It's just that it's not the traditional media that we think of. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think we should open the door and

49:02 Let the lights in. You know, the government's approach reminds me of uh Bastia, the French uh philosopher. He said there there are some that believe that we should ban windows. So that we can sell more candles. is then people will have to buy more candles to illuminate their homes, instead of letting the sunlight in.

49:19 And I don't believe that. I think we should open up the drapes and let the light come in and let everyone have a voice and the the ultimate regulator of what you read and see is the Is the reader, viewer, or listener? And uh hopefully they they tune in big numbers for this podcast. Well, we'll make this available to any Canadian media outlet that gets a copy of it. Excellent. Uh so they can put it on their side. I like the sounds of that. Do you think your position on media allows you to be covered accurately? When when one candidate is saying we shouldn't be offering as many subsidies to media and one candidate is offering more subsidies to media

49:56 How do we Like I don't understand this. I think it's a problem. I think it's a problem, you know. I I I think it makes it very difficult for media to make a judgment.

50:08 Without keeping the back of their head well which politician is going to pay the biggest subsidy. Yeah, and I think that's That's worrisome. Um the the media should be objectively

50:19 reporting on the the stories. But if You know, a politician is coming along and saying, Well, I'm gonna give more money to this or that outlet than than my opponent obviously that can create the perception of bias in the in the resulting reporting. That's

50:36 I don't think government should control the media, I think the idea of a free press is that it's independent from the government. I wanna come back to free speech for a second. How do we protect free speech in the digital age while addressing the spread of harmful content online and what role, if any, should the government play? Well d how do you define harmful content? I think on the extremes it's pretty easy, right? When you have people marching down the middle of the street saying death to a certain group of people.

51:03 That's harmful content, right? That's hate speech. Um conspiracy theories on the other hand I would say is not harmful content. But where uh I think, you know, one of my perceptions here is this might be the last election or legacy media. is directing attention. The next one might be LLMs. And if we start regulating free speech, we're gonna start regulating what LMs can and can't say.

51:27 And that's how we'll control our LLMs. Like uh large language models. Large language GP. People will be getting their information from a different source than they're getting it from today, perhaps. I don't know. Hypothesizing here. Jeez. That's something else. I hadn't thought of that. Uh um so yeah, what now what if they just replace politicians with the uh large language models then uh Well, I think some of them that might be a good thing. My goodness you had me worked there for a sec.

51:57 Well, there's already a lot of artificial intelligence in government. It's just a different kind. Oh, the less high tech kind. Um What was the question though? Sorry, I've distracted myself. What role, if any, should the government play in the process of regulating speech?

52:15 The criminal code already bans incitements to violence and incitement to genocide Are there utterances that are that are designed to to Instruct. Uh a violent

52:28 Or Um hostile attack against a particular group of people. That is in the criminal code already. And that has not been a little bit more. Harmed free speech.

52:38 What I worry about, you know, we you're talking about people marching down streets and s uh You know, a lot of that is not the result of free speech, but it's about a a very toxic ideology that has been pushed from the top down. uh you look at the way the Jewish community has been targeted. Well

52:57 Governments have pushed. ideologies through universities and schools and um even government departments that have given grants to Extreme racists and Anti Semites. And uh

53:10 So the ideology is not coming from, you know. Joe and Jane public going online and just blurting out obscenities about a particular group. It's coming from a really toxic radical ideology that has per proliferated in halls of power over the last roughly decade. We had uh one guy Lath Maruth

53:32 Who's said things about Jews that I can't even repeat. The guy got a grant, uh, for an anti racism program. uh the University of Ottawa had hired a guy as a professor who had committed a terrorist attack in Paris before he came to Canada. Um Some of the the schools are pushing kids to go into these

53:50 Awful. Anti Israel. anti Jewish protests. I I I see that as a a top down phenomenon, not a bottom up one. So I don't think that we should use that.

54:02 as an excuse to take away legitimate political discourse in uh the the internet. Talk to me about crime. I mean we sort of um alluded to it a little bit there, but I mean, it's gotten to the point where, you know, my parents are afraid Uh it's a very different country than I grew up in when I was, you know, fourteen, I was out roaming the streets in the middle of the night and there wasn't a worry. Right. Um you know, I'd sneak out of my bedroom and like go to the local grocery store and get one of those McCain frozen cakes and I would eat that. Well, that's really badass. A McCain frozen cake. Back in the day.

54:41 My parents are afraid to go outside. Crime is is dramatically increasing. Police officer w we watched with my kids we watched a guy Piss uh on a police car at a red light the a few months ago and The guy didn't even get out of his car to arrest it. Yeah. Uh what's going on with crime in Canada. Well the cops tell me that, you know, they call that they call it phido.

55:04 Uh. I'll say it the polite way, forget it, drive on. They say it in an impolite way. They see a crime and they forget it and drive on because it's not worth their time to arrest people anymore. Um, the

55:18 The liberal catch and release laws make it so that It's extremely easy to be released from prison. So I'll give you uh an example. Bill C seventy five. is the liberal bail law. And it requires judges release the

55:33 Accused. under quote the earliest opportunity under the least onerous conditions. That's required by law. Now, bail is one thing if you're a first time accused. you know, never been accused of anything in your life, you might not be guilty of anything. That's what bail is for.

55:50 But what they're doing now is releasing people who have like sixty, seventy prior convictions. And if you wonder about the veracity of that In Vancouver The police had to arrest the same forty offenders six thousand times, forty guys. Each one of these guys seemed

56:06 was arrested on average once every Two days. A hundred and fifty times a year. For one guy. And

56:15 The police they bring'em in. The judge gives them bail. police are still filling out the paperwork, the guy's already out in the street. The police then have to catch him again. And bring him back in and and you can be you can have like sixteen or seventeen live charges waiting trial. And accumulating them.

56:32 And the good news is We don't have a lot of criminals in Canada. The bad news is they're extremely productive. Uh or destructive. You take those forty guys off the street in Vancouver You eliminate

56:44 Six thousand crimes. But that's a lot of Livesaved. Business that are not gonna be burnt or smashed or robbed if you take forty guys off the street.

56:56 Um then you've got house arrest under C five. Allows Serious offenders. Like really grave crimes. to do their sentence in their living room.

57:06 So they can just walk out the front door and re offend. Um, they've gotten rid of mandatory jail time for bank robberies and extortions and serious of of lots of drugs. That's the cause of this crime wave. And uh I'm gonna reverse all of it. I will be repealing the catch and release law, C seventy five. Our peel house arrest for serious offences.

57:28 I'm gonna be bringing in a three strikes your outlaw. If you get convicted of three serious violent offenses. you will be permanently ineligible for bail, parole, probation, or house arrest. It will be jail, not bail. the that such offenders will get a minimum of ten years and they will only be released after that ten years if they earn their release.

57:47 Through impeccable behavior, clear, and by learning an employable skill. So no longer will we have parole where by by law you're automatically given back release. You'll have to earn the release. And that will make jails into a real repair shop. Like let's fix these people up and get them back into a s productive

58:05 law abiding mindset before we put them on the street. Um we're gonna secure the borders. with more scanners of shipping containers, two thousand more CBSA officers. and we're gonna treat addiction. Addiction is out of control. We're gonna treat fifty thousand people who are suffering from addiction. Break that cycle.

58:24 And I think we can really bring back a peaceful Um good life on our streets in Canada. How much of do you think crime like the the lead domino to sort of crime and maybe addiction? As the lack of opportunity or the feeling, the perception of the lack of fairness, lack of opportunity.

58:44 I think that's probably one of the causes for the drug crisis. And then the drug crisis does lead into a lot of other crimes. So if you can think you think of yourself as being um Thirty four years old. And you feel like you have no future at all, you can't afford a house, you're not gonna be able to start a family.

59:02 You run off your legs. If you'll Life has become pointless and directionless. You can see how you might end up. Trying out a uh a powerful narcotic and then getting addicted.

59:15 And uh so I think we need to give our younger generation a feeling of hope again that they're they're not only create great things for the country, but give them a chance at a better life. Um I do think that's part of the equation. It's interesting you you sort of said like y you try it, you don't

59:34 when I was driving by one of the Um injection sites the other day with my kids. The only thing I can ever think of to tell them is like nobody thought they would be addicted when they started it. Right. Absolutely.

59:49 And um This stuff is very dangerous, like um two milligrams of fentanyl can kill you. So you might be at a party one night and you're you're having a few drinks and people think try this and your inhibitions are down and You take it and your lungs stop. So um we really have to stop the fentanyl.

1:00:08 And treatment's the way to do it. for addiction we know treatment works. It's hard. It's painful. But the the miracles that I hear are really inspiring and if we can repeat those across the country. Like I went to a treatment center in Monkton and I said to the guys there, you know, often I'm sure politicians come and say, I'm gonna offer This or that helped to you, but I'm actually here to ask you for help.

1:00:30 I need you to get better. So that you can then go out onto the street and find the next guy. And you can pull'em up. by his hand and you can bring him in here and make him get better and he can go out and pull the next guy up. And through that virtuous cycle we can

1:00:44 Defeat. The scourge and And bring um peace back to our streets. I hope you're right. Healthcare in Canada is primarily a provincial responsibility, but the federal government provides crucial funding and guidance. How would you work with the provinces to ensure consistent high quality healthcare

1:01:01 across the country. So we're gonna preserve the funding. Uh there's a funding increase that's baked into the Canada health transfer right now. We're gonna preserve that. Um But we think there's some really low cost things we can do to massively expand uh the availability of physicians and nurses. So we have for example uh

1:01:22 twenty thousand immigrant doctors, thirty two thousand immigrant nurses who can't work. Because they don't have a license in Canada. It's not'cause they're not qualified. It's just there's no way to prove their qualifications. That doesn't involve years of bureaucracy. And um

1:01:39 So when I got my eye surgery here in Ottawa, uh the technician He's actually a doctor. in the UAE. He lives here with his family in Ottawa. He flies to the UAE

1:01:52 Does ten days of surgeries and comes back here, we only let him work as a technician. So Are you really telling me that Emorite eyeballs are different than Canadian eyeballs? Uh then I went back for my checkup a year later and I I I brought up the story again. He says There's five people like me in this one clinic. Immigrant.

1:02:11 eye surgeons who are forced to work as technicians. In Toronto they say if you uh you have a heart attack, don't call nine one one, call a an Uber,'cause the driver's probably a doctor. Um So we have all these doctors. So how do we get them licensed? Because we had just let anybody become a doctor. We can't just say, Well, you were a doctor in some other place you're The answer is to have a a national licensing

1:02:33 Test. like we already have for the trades. For seventy two years we've had a licensing standard in the trades that's recognized in every province and administered by the federal government. It still respects provincial jurisdiction'cause it's voluntary. And it still hits our high standards'cause there's a real test. we could get these people tested, licensed, and serving communities right across the country would also help with Canadian kids who study in Ireland or the Caribbean or the States.

1:03:01 Come back and quickly get licensed. uh that would uh that's like an extremely low cost way to free up doctors nurses into our system. Many voters worry that private care or expanded choice could undermine the principles of universal health care. How do you see

1:03:19 innovation or reform fitting into the system. And what safeguards would you put in place to ensure equal access? For Canadians regardless of income. So We'll protect the Canada Health Act and we'll make sure that no one is ever

1:03:36 denied uh care because of an inability to pay. Uh, I think that's a basic Canadian value. And uh the the provinces really do administer the f the care itself and how it actually comes through. I don't know

1:03:51 the federal spending powers there to basically make sure that nobody's left behind that you don't have a system where Someone can't get an essential treatment because they don't have a ha they can't afford health insurance. And uh I think we need to preserve uh we need to preserve that universal Healthcare

1:04:09 That we've all relied on. What we need to do though is sort of knock down some of these barriers. That Have made it. Two

1:04:18 bureaucratic and have blocked. Uh you know, like I said, uh non Canadian trained physicians from working. Uh And we also need to speed up, by the way, uh drug uh approval. So we have lots of advanced medications and treatments that are available in the States and EU that are not available yet here'cause our bureaucracy is so slow.

1:04:39 We should speed that up as well by by recognizing treatment that are working in other comparable and advanced jurisdictions. think that would be a way to get faster improvements in the system. That doesn't just apply to healthcare. I mean that applies to anything, right? Where there's somebody else who we trust and rely on has done. You know, a hundred percent of the work, maybe we can rely on that for eighty percent of the work and reduce our costs dramatically. I think we need to see more of that. Geopolitic is rapidly changing our

1:05:08 spending on defense, but the future of the military looks vastly different than it does today. Mm-hmm. What does a modern and effective Canadian military look like? Well, we we are going to have to invest in in AI, in r advanced uh robotics, uh, advanced aviation, drone technology. I think we need to bulk up the um

1:05:31 The cyber component of our military. uh you know, the future attacks uh might not be You know, a bunch of troops landing on the shores or a A battalion arriving to invade.

1:05:43 Or even aircraft with a pilot coming in. It could be You know. Uh a Malware that shuts down a power station and deprives a city f of electricity. Uh or scrambles up.

1:05:56 Our banking uh records. So your um your mortgage uh is not what you thought it was going to be. or uh scrambles up the data in the government so that the people don't get their their benefits. Uh those sorts of kind of uh cyber attacks might be the the norm in the future and we need to be ready to defend against them. We should have the most advanced cyber and high tech warfare and defense capabilities anywhere in the world.

1:06:23 to protect ourselves and our allies. And I also think there's a great opportunity for our economy. look at the Israelis now. They uh they have conscription, we're never gonna have conscription. But their young people go into the forces and they learn all about technology. And they then leave and they start businesses and they call it the Starbu Start Up Nation because they have

1:06:43 Such incredibly brilliant young people that come out of the military with all these extra skills. Well, we should be thinking the same way. Our young our cadets were not obviously the military, but they are obviously being mentored by military. And our reservists who are who are still going to university. Uh why don't we find a way to give them the best cybersecurity skill possible? And then when they when they leave the forces, they have an honorable discharge, they go off and they work for a bank.

1:07:12 uh defending their uh the IT network. uh or or some similar job, we could use that as a as a real technological springboard for our economy at the same time. As a former employee of one of our intelligence agencies, I would agree with that. Okay, you probably can't say any more than that. We have great people who who work in these agencies and and we are the world leader in some of these capabilities. Um Canadians have been brought up not to talk about our success, too, which is I don't know. Like you tell me, you would know more. Like we we don't like the tall poppy, you know. We don't like the people who who stand out or who go for bold ambitions, who go for goal. Right.

1:07:51 And I don't know why. Like we're content to go for bronze when we we could be going for gold and we should be going for gold. How do we change that? How do we change that mentality in your view? I think we need to celebrate our successes for one. I mean my kids, you remember we used to have those Canadian Heritage commercials on T V? Yes. Uh like when I talk to my kids, they don't learn about famous Canadians. They don't learn about Timothy Eaton. They don't learn about

1:08:17 People who start up businesses, who are successful, who who drive the economy Um they sort of learned some quasi version of socialism in school. And uh they don't learn about Richard Feynman when they're taught math. And I'm like, Why don't like that pulls people in, these characters. We've got to change that.

1:08:35 I think we have to tell our stories and we have to be more proud of our history. Um Because it brings us together and that's shared sense of accomplishment. is uh what binds the country together. And um

1:08:48 I that's gonna be part of my goal is to You know, we're gonna we're gonna put all our heroes back in the passport, for example. Um no more tearing down statues. I think we should build new statues. I was meeting some First Nations people. And I said, uh We should ha build statues in honor of

1:09:06 Your greatest heroes. Hm let's expand. The uh the the celebration of history. Rather than tearing it down.

1:09:15 Right. I think that's how we unite the country. I totally agree. That You know, we definitely need to to look back and you know, it's not always pleasant what we've done in the past, but also shaming people for something that happened so long ago is not super effective. Um at changing the future. Absolutely. I think uh we can uh we can do this and uh And as you say, I think we need to tell our young people that entrepreneurs are heroes. That's the the guy who

1:09:42 Mortgages as house and doesn't have a good night's sleep for four years. Uh because he's trying to build something from scratch that has a ten percent chance of success. And then it breaks through, that guy should be given a pat on the back. And uh not treat it as some kind of a

1:09:58 You know, a bandit. Because of the success. As AI and other emerging technologies reshape the job market and the privacy landscape, how do you balance innovation with sort of protecting workers' livelihoods and Canadians personal data. That's a very good question. Um, first of all, I think we we do need to ban

1:10:19 And criminalize the unapproved use of other people's images and in um intimate acts. Uh there's really appalling These AI images that take someone's A person and

1:10:32 have them performing different acts. Uh that that is uh intimate acts I think that's really appalling. We need to protect people against that. I think um We need to have stronger protections for our kids against online luring. And

1:10:50 You know, at the same time we need to make sure that the government doesn't abuse these new powers. And some people say, Well, all the powers of A. I need to be concentrated in the government to protect us all. Okay. But we have to make sure the government then doesn't abuse those powers either. Uh, because if there can be abuse in the private sector, there can be abuse in the government. So we have to hold the state accountable and make sure that the

1:11:12 regulations that w the government puts in Or truly designed to protect the public interest, not to protect the interest of just the people who are in power. How do we do that though? Like what does that look like?

1:11:26 When you say that, when you we you mean like what kind of regulations would Joublet bring in, or what are you asking exactly? Like if if you have power, how do we prevent people from abusing that power? I mean you can put you can legislate things, but I mean the question is all this man. for the for the past ten years, I mean, we've seen scandal after scandal and and sort of no consequences to those. So How how does that work? I mean You're talking more just generally about accountability or particularly on the um the AI front? Well both. Like how do we hold the government accountable specifically with well, let's tackle specifically with AI. Like how do we ensure that the government can be held accountable in a world where they might control information flow. I think transparency. People need to know

1:12:13 What rules our government imposing on the AI companies And what instructions are they giving the companies? All of that should be Publicly known. We don't want for backroom manipulations to be allowed. It should be the truth should be public.

1:12:30 And That way the public the people can say, Well listen, you know, in this case I can see that the government is genuinely protecting public interest. They're protecting my my daughter against uh an online threat. Uh But in that case, a different case, the government is using its regulation to advance a political agenda.

1:12:49 And we then the voter can punish that at the ballot box. So I think the answer is uh that transparency, uh, you know, the sunlight is the best disinfectant. I have no data on this other than anecdotal and friends, but trust in government seems to be at a near all time low. Okay. Uh post CoFed.

1:13:10 Is that why do you think that is? Like what would explain that? If if you Just entertain the hypotheses that that might be true. Well, you know, I think part of it is the government keeps telling us of all the wonderful things they're going to do for us, and then it it it results in misery for the the people who are they claim they're helping. Like you know, so they bring in the a monstrous housing program. ten years ago and say, Well, the government's gonna get back into housing and that's gonna make it affordable.

1:13:37 Well then the housing costs double. An entire generation can't afford a home. Or the government says uh we're gonna massively increase spending. Because we're we're trying to help. Well, what happens? Well

1:13:49 largely affluent people actually get the help. And everyone else gets the bill and you got two million people lined up at a food bank. So people say You know, every time they tell me they're gonna do something wonderful for me, it turns out I get

1:14:05 I get stuck with a terrible bill and my life gets turned upside down. And I think naturally people are very frustrated with that and I've tried to channel that frustration towards a positive outcome, which is let's change it. Let's stop Let's stop making these uh ridiculous promises that government is going to do everything.

1:14:24 for us because the government can't give you anything without first taking it away. The government doesn't have any of its own money. So every time they promise these things, they're really talking about taking from you. we need to do is have uh a government that is back to the basics Does a few things right rather than a lot of things poorly, and

1:14:42 and then lets people prosper and grow and build their lives in the whole country. I wanna hit on climate change'cause we haven't talked about that at all yet. Um many Canadians believe in government action on climate change. And I want to ask a a nuanced question on this. So in a world where one country opts in to taking action

1:15:02 on climate change and others can easily opt out. That risks. making us uncompetitive, particularly given the role of natural resources And how they play.

1:15:14 such a vital part in our economy. How will you ensure that Canada does its part in tackling climate change? While also continuing to grow the economy and ensuring Canadian And well.

1:15:28 Canada and Canadians remain globally competitive. That's a good question. I think um We have to remember the problem of carbon leakage, which is when you You increase taxes and burdens on Canadian industry to a point where production offshores in more polluting jurisdictions. And then you end up with even more

1:15:48 global pollution w while you have even less Canadian Output transcri uh and industry. Uh and that's what I think we've seen over the last uh decade. the government has increased taxes on investment, on energy, on

1:16:02 On payroll. So businesses say, well, you know, it's cheaper to go produce in some other place where they have no economations. I'll give you the the most obvious example to me is the Suntek tomatoes in Manitec. They're paying a carbon tax. on the uh C O two they release into

1:16:19 The Greenhouse Even though it's absorbed by the plant life. That's yeah, that's You know, it's grade school science. So The Mexican tomato.

1:16:29 is more affordable in Manitic than the the Manatech tomato. So the government sends a price signal to the consumer to buy a tomato that had to be transported burning fossil fuels from to Mexico by truck and train all the way to Canada. Rather than incentivizing the local purchase. And uh that's an example of, you know, when you punish your own production

1:16:51 you don't necessarily get lower emissions, you just get less opportunity here. So I wanna bring in a tax break for companies that produce goods below emission levels, like uh a tax break for investment over at the aluminum uh the Rio Tinto plant in uh Sagenay, they produce one ton of aluminum with two tons of carbon.

1:17:12 China it's fourteen tons of carbon for every ton of aluminum. So by repatriating production of aluminum to Canada from China, you're not only enriching our economy you're actually reducing global emissions. We want to

1:17:27 cut taxes on low emitting Canadian and industries to to bring the production home. and bring emissions down at the same time. That's my overall approach. I just have two questions for wrap up so Uh one is What do you think other people's biggest misconception about you is?

1:17:48 I think that Yeah, because I I I spend a lot of time with the people in Canada that are suffering the most, the the people who can't afford a home, whose businesses are going under who can't feed their kids. And sometimes I find I find that very upsetting and it comes off

1:18:09 As aggressive. But it's It comes from I don't think people maybe perhaps um they might not know that that it comes from a place of um caring for the people that I'm fighting for. And my challenge is to convert that care into

1:18:24 showing people the r the positive vision I have for the country. the brighter future that we have. With change. And um and that's what I have to convey in these closing weeks.

1:18:36 So that people have hope. I want people to go to the polls not because they're angry, but because they're hopeful. Usually the final question I ask for any guest is what does success look like for you? But I think In your case I wanna change that slightly. What a what does success look like for Canada Four years from now if you're elected. I think it's a place where every kid grows up knowing that they can achieve anything they want.

1:19:00 parents sit them down and say, look, what do you want to do? You wanna be an astronaut, you wanna start a business, you wanna cure cancer. You just want to have a nice house. With a dog? And have a couple of kids that play street hockey in the front driveway. You can do any of that.

1:19:16 And all you have to do is work hard. And um That's what I want the country to have. I just want everybody to have in this country. And that would be a success. Is there anything we haven't covered that you want to get on the record? No, I think that's good. I think that's all.

1:19:30 This was great. Thank you for taking the time today. Thank you for having me. I really enjoy your show and uh Look forward to seeing you next time. Appreciate it.

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