Looking back upon a wild year in Canadian politics.

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Well, here we go. This is episode number one of the Rupp Report with Richard Rupp. I'm Mike Wixon, and here is, well, the man of his first hour, Richard Rupp. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Thank you very much, Mike. And I want to suggest to everyone to please subscribe to this channel because we're going to be giving you the 2024 year in review for Canadian politics, and we're going to continue and give you a lot of inside information of what's happening in Ottawa and across the country. [00:00:41] Speaker B: It's interesting that you say inside information. On many other shows that I know you from, you're often referred to, I think, as the insider, in many cases, probably within your own. Within your own party affiliations as well. And the reason that it's good for you to be here is because this inside perspective on politics and the workings of our government in Canada is something that you concern yourself with every day. [00:01:06] Speaker A: I certainly do. I certainly do, and I love it. [00:01:09] Speaker B: All right, well, let's do this. To start the year in review off, what I'd like to do is focus on the most unpopular person, I think probably in Canada, if not Canada and other parts of the world, Justin Trudeau. Reflecting on the past year, what do you think the most significant political scandals involving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might be? [00:01:33] Speaker A: Well, I think there's really two main ones. Originally this year it was the foreign interference inquiry, and I think that was really big because it wasn't fully reported on the news. But if you dug deep, there was a lot of interesting information about how foreign nations and foreign nationals are interfering in our electoral process, all the way from nominations to federal elections, and including the last two federal elections in 2019 and 2021. So I'd say that's the first one. And then, of course, most recently is this huge scandal that's happening in Ottawa with the former Finance Minister, Chris Shaf Freeland, kind of stabbing Trudeau and him strapping her back and. And her stepping down and the knives are out and. And there's definitely problems with the Federal Liberal Party right now. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Let's start with the first one, really. The, the revelation about how we deal with other countries and some of the dealings that we have in that way. Something else comes to mind is the, uh, the assassination that took place with foreign international forces, frankly, on Canadian soil. That seemed to be a big botch on the Prime Minister's part as well. But in really starting to understand how nations deal with Canada and what we do in that process, what were some of the biggest takeaways for you? [00:03:06] Speaker A: Well, of course, part of the foreign interference issue is the killing of a prominent Sikh in Canada with the accusation that it was the Indian government and Prime Minister Modi behind it. The ceasing of diplomatic relations between the two nations, which I think is really unwise because India is the world's largest democracy and a very potential future trading partner with Canada that one day could compete with China. So that's one issue. But it all falls under the big blanket of foreign interference. So, for example, one of the scandals that came up in. In the inquiry was that the person who is now the MP for Don Valley north in the city of Toronto, Han Dong, who was a former Ontario MPP under Kathleen Wynn, and he replaced a former MP, Liberal MP that was elected in 2015 by the name of Gang Tan, who was accused of being very closely related with the Chinese consulate. So what happens is he gets into trouble, they kick him out, they bring in Handong. Han Dong now has come out that in order for him to win his nomination, for his name to be on the ballot, you have to have Liberal members voting in a nomination for whoever's a successful candidate. So that person becomes the name on the ballot. What happened there is the Chinese consulate brought in visa students from. From China, which are not allowed to be members of a Canadian federal party, bused them in from other ridings, provided them with false documents so that they could vote for this one particular guy and sway the vote towards Handong. Unfortunately, Handong got caught and he got kicked out of caucus. But that doesn't mean that the Liberals don't still want him in caucus because of his connections with the Chinese consulate. So there's many examples where there's been a number of ridings where the votes have potentially been tilted in the balance of a pro Chinese candidate. [00:05:17] Speaker B: The other thing is, this is the one that we detected. And really what was done was nothing. You know, there was no traitor found in the midst. [00:05:26] Speaker A: There was no one was named. No one was named. [00:05:28] Speaker B: And so there. There in itself, we don't really even know the goings on in this scenario. [00:05:34] Speaker A: Correct. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Let alone what the hell else is going on with other foreign interference of the same variety. Certainly we have pockets of cultures in Canada of nationalities in Canada that will vote together. That is something we see consistently. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Correct. [00:05:50] Speaker B: If we're just detecting one out of all of those various cultures, what else is happening with foreign interference that we're not even talking about? [00:05:59] Speaker A: Well, that's the whole point. It's huge. The information really hasn't been released. Some things have been leaked out, but, but none of the names have been named. And the question now also is, why isn't the RCMP investigating it? Why haven't, if there's been an investigation into it in an inquiry, why hasn't the RCMP started laying charges? [00:06:24] Speaker B: That's an amazing question. Okay, onto the second major scandal. You spoke of Christia Friedland's resignation. And frankly, the more I think about her, the more that I think she really is, she really is a riser. She just wants to rise to power. And I don't know that I've seen any evidence of her doing. I mean, Trump certainly is not a fan of hers. [00:06:50] Speaker A: Of course not. [00:06:51] Speaker B: So I don't know if she would have amazing dealings with the incoming president. But now she's looking like she's making a head run directly at the head of the party, of the Liberal Party. [00:07:05] Speaker A: So let's look at a few things. So, first of all, when they renegotiated NAFTA during Trump's first term, right. Usmca, Trump made a fool out of both Trudeau and Chrysia Freeland. Chris Shafreel was running to Washington. She was negotiating with their trade negotiator, Robert Lighthouser, who's an excellent negotiator. Donald Trump himself is one of the world's best negotiators. And we're sending in really the B team to negotiate on behalf of Canada. And let's face facts, Canada walked in with a better deal than they walked out of. Trump bettered his hand for the US And Canada walked out with a worse deal. And the fact was Trump was willing to negotiate, cut Canada right out and just negotiate with Mexico if Canada wasn't going to come to the table. And Canada finally had to. So that's just the first part of it. [00:07:56] Speaker B: The second, that's the original vibe, by the way, that Canada came running to the table. [00:08:00] Speaker A: That's right. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Because they didn't want to be left out. [00:08:03] Speaker A: They would have been left out. I mean, you're dealing with a master negotiator in Trump, and we're really not bringing, sending our best people over. So she's, she is lacking, Trudeau has been lacking for a long time. But back to your point, Christia Freeland really has been thinking that she would be the leader ever since 2015, the replacement leader, the next leader of the Liberal Party. She really was positioning herself for it and she thought she would have it as deputy prime minister, as finance minister. And that made a lot of sense. Now, what a lot of People don't know. Here's some inside politics that most people don't know. There was a by election a couple years ago in, in a riding in the GTA in Toronto area called Mississauga Lakeshore. And that was when a case when the. The Liberal decided to step down, not seek reelection. When the seat is left vacant, you have to call it a by election. Within six months, they recruited the former Ontario Finance Minister, Charles Sousa. And what most people don't know, but what Charles Souza has openly said in circles in Ottawa and, and I'm privy to, he was promised that he would be the Finance minister. And Krisha Freeland got word of that, obviously saw that the knives were out for her and that Trudeau would, you know, throw her under the bus. So what she did was the moment he got elected, and Souza did not want to be run for federal election, but because of the promise he said he was going to run. [00:09:32] Speaker B: That was his involvement. [00:09:33] Speaker A: That was his agreement. Right. So that being said, once he did win the seat, Krishelan starts, well, listen, I can't accuse Krishelan, but sources started leaking to the press of his involvement with a Chinese bank and started tarring his name. So the whole idea of him being the finance minister was put on ice. The kibosh was in. So Krishn shows that she's very resourceful and she's going to do everything she can to be the future leader. Now, my understanding from the news is that Trudeau on a zoom, told her, you know, we're going to replace you from Finance Minister with Mark Carney. [00:10:17] Speaker B: Apparently he didn't mince words either. Apparently the zoom call was really quite brief. There was one statement from him and a lot of staring. So moments later, it seems she resigned. [00:10:30] Speaker A: If you know anything about what happened with Jody Wilson, Raybould, Jane Philpott, Selena, Cesar Chavan, then you'll know that that's the case. It's a lot of staring, very sharp, very quick, sharp words. He's not one to be questioned or jousted with. And that's it. He's a dictator. This is, this is the way he wants it and that's it. So I'm not surprised that that's how it went down. But she was smart. She outplayed him. She wouldn't do the financial. The fiscal report. She stepped down, but she's kept her seat. She's going to run again. And now she's starting to, you know, people that are on her side are starting to leak stories to the media that she should be the next leader Trudeau should step down from now and she should be the next leader now. We'll talk later on the show about my thoughts about Trudeau, what's his future. But as for Christia Freeland, I think she is definitely gunning to be the next leader. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Let's talk about the future a little bit. We've got an upcoming federal election. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Trudeau is obviously hacked at the Liberal Party like ice with a chisel. What is left? What have the overall effects been to the Liberal Party and do they stand any chance of making a rebound in time for the federal election? [00:11:58] Speaker A: Well, if we take recent events as an indicator, I think they are going to have a very difficult time. So let's just take two recent by elections. One was the by election in Toronto, St. Paul's where it was a Liberal seat. You're in the 416. It's very Liberal or NDP heavy. And they lost that by election to the Conservatives and they've held that seat for, I think it was 34 years. So that was a huge indicator that the pendulum is swinging to the right in Canada. The more recent one is the one out in B.C. that just happened the same day there was a by election, the same day that Christopher Freeland stepped down on Monday. And that writing goes between blue, red, back and forth. Blue, red. So it was red two to two terms ago then. Sorry, it was blue two terms ago, then went red, it went Liberal. This time the issue is the spread between the votes. The Conservative won the seat back again, had over 9000 votes. The Liberal came in second place with only just over 2000. And I believe the NDP was like about 1400, 1500. So the gap in that area and BC is. It's kind of like our California for that gap to happen in a writing that's kind of centrist, that's a huge indicator that the Liberal Party is just decimating. And they might not even have official party status or they might. Sorry, I should say they might not even be official opposition after the next election. [00:13:36] Speaker B: The next election. Do you think that they'll split that evenly, maybe with the ndp, who seem to have zero identity at all at the moment? [00:13:44] Speaker A: So that's the hard thing because Singh has really destroyed the ndp. He really was the wrong guy to do it. And again, back to the ethnic politics. Back to the. I won't say foreign interference, but let's say back to ethnic politics. He recruited members of the Sikh community that were never NDP before, for the most part only in areas of Brampton and Surrey, B.C. to become NDP members to vote for him. He won on the first ballot, and the NDP has been decimated ever since. You know, he's not, he's, he wasn't their best choice. And you really. This is a really low IQ guy, maybe a lawyer, but he's not a very intelligent guy when you see him on tv. So here's the thing. It could be that NDP voters decide to just hold their nose and vote Liberal to block the Conservatives. But I think at this point, there's, there's such a distaste of Trudeau that the NDP will come back home, vote for the ndp, because of the differences between the Liberals and the ndp, which there aren't much, and just kind of split that left vote. But the more important thing is in Quebec, the Bloc is doing so well in the polls that they could become the official opposition. [00:14:56] Speaker B: I wonder what you think about the growing call from within the party for Trudeau to step down. Do you think that the Prince will actually leave the throne? [00:15:04] Speaker A: So that's a really interesting question. And here again is some inside information. What we're hearing in Ottawa is that in the Liberal caucus, some backbenchers that want Trudeau to step down are not ready to make that call yet until he does his cabinet shuffle. And by the time the show comes to broadcast, the cabinet shuffle may have already happened. But my understanding is that they are just keeping it quiet right now in case they get appointed as a minister called to cabinet. But if they don't, that's where the knives are going to come out. I still don't think Trudeau. The knives are going to come out. They're all worried about their own jobs. They're all worried about being reelected. They know that Trudeau is dragging them down. So they think maybe if we can get rid of Trudeau and get a new leader, that will give them better chances to win. I think the whole Liberal brand has been destroyed in Canada. I think the whole Liberal brand has been destroyed. You saw in Nova Scotia, they just had an election. The, the Liberals, their own leader lost their own seat, had to step down. I think in general, the Liberal brand has just been decimated, no matter who their leader is. But I don't see Trudeau stepping down before the next election. The alternative thoughts that people are saying in Ottawa is that, I mean, that. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Just seems inconceivable to me. The entire nation. The entire nation. I don't know a single person that doesn't want him to leave. [00:16:34] Speaker A: Even Liberal voters. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Even Liberal Cabinet ministers. Yeah, Even some of his Very own family, I guarantee you. And the prince will not step off the throne. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Well, his half brother, Kyle Kemper. His half brother. Yeah, right. Who's a. Who's a wonderful Guy, supporter of RFK Jr. In the United States. Very intelligent guy. Has told Justin that he should step down. That's his half brother. That the mother, Margaret Trudeau, remarried Kemper and had a son. Here's the thing. [00:17:06] Speaker B: And by the way, he's never taken his advice. [00:17:09] Speaker A: Never once. No. [00:17:11] Speaker B: Even though he's really intellectual, very intelligent. [00:17:14] Speaker A: Probably much more intelligent than Justin is, you have to understand the ego of Justin. So here's the eldest son of a former Prime Minister. The grandfather was very wealthy. The father was very wealthy. And a prime minister of Canada. Justin is the grandson. Very wealthy. Never had to worry about a thing in his life. Everybody just, you know, kowtowed him. He was born with a silver spoon. Everybody just kissed his face. It was just unbelievable. So he's not used to someone telling him no. He thinks that he's this Crown Prince of Canada and it's been built into him since the day he was born. So he ignores the hatred. He ignores all of that. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Well, he loved the youth who voted him in over potential, and they certainly grew up over one term and didn't care anymore that he did that. And in fact, I think that it's disturbing in a lot of ways that his original army has no impact on him getting reelected. In fact, they are leading the charge on this. [00:18:16] Speaker A: Well, I think if you look at the young voter nowadays who might have voted for Trudeau their very first time they voted for Trudeau in 2015, they've all changed. The Conservative Party now, because as they're growing older, it's now been almost a decade. As they're growing older, they can't afford rent, they can't afford a mortgage, they can't afford food. They're underemployed. They're not. You know, they're living in a situation where rent in places like Toronto and Vancouver have literally doubled, house prices have. Have at least, what, gone up 30, 40% in the last nine years? [00:18:54] Speaker B: Well, there's no reality in that same group of people who got so excited about coming to Canada and voting him in about, you know, getting weed and voting him in about all of the university support and student support for internationals that got him in. All of those people now cannot afford to buy an orange. [00:19:14] Speaker A: That's right. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Let alone ever have a home in their. In their possibilities. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Absolutely. So the only thinking that we have right now that I could say about Trudeau leaving is he might actually wait to the New Year. He might prorogue Parliament. He might shut it down. Now, what people don't. May not understand is when you prorogue Parliament, there's all these investigations going on in committee right now against Trudeau. And what he's done. The money that. The billions of dollars that are missing, you know, from the coffers, the scandals, the ethics, et cetera. And once you prorogue Parliament, that shuts everything down. It's now down to zero. It's back to zero. Everything is closed. Any bills that hadn't been passed yet are off the table and have to be reintroduced when they return. So he could prorogue Parliament for three months, six months, a year? Oh, he could prorogue it until the next election. The other thinking is he may just. [00:20:15] Speaker B: That seems like an insane power we need to remove. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Well, but that's the problem with our system. We have the British Westminster system, where if you elect a Prime minister with a majority, or in this case, a minority, but he's backstopped by the ndp, so he has enough votes to have a majority. You've elected a king. He appoints the Governor General who represents the monarch. So imagine the person that's supposed to stand above him, he actually appoints that person. He appoints the Governor General. He points to have the rcmp. He appoints all the senators, which is the higher level of Parliament. So he appoints all of. He appoints all of the senators when the seats are empty, I should say. So all the senators. He's the Prime Minister, is the one who gets to appoint them for any empty seats. He appoints federal judges. He appoints the Supreme Court. You've literally given monarch powers to a Prime Minister. So back to our inner thinking. At best, if he does step down, he will wait until after the New year so that he can come out and say, I was Prime Minister for 10 years, from 2015 to 2025. I was there for a decade. And kind of walk as he thinks with his head high. That would be, I think, best case scenario. But probably he might just stay into the very end. Like, his ego might just be so huge. [00:21:38] Speaker B: I mean, your ego has to be massive. Whenever, where you go, people have, you know, Trudeau signs up. [00:21:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And he can't go anywhere. Okay. So I'm going to tell you a fantastic story that's happened here in the GTA in Toronto. A month ago, he was in Toronto, going along Yonge street in York region, the north part of North End of Toronto, just the northern border of Toronto. And he was campaigning with local Liberal candidates in that area. And when he was in Aurora, he stopped to a restaurant called Staten, Maine. [00:22:18] Speaker B: I know it. [00:22:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, okay. Stopped to a restaurant, Staten Maine, and was having lunch, I believe, with his candidate there, Leah Taylor Royce. And so this is an inside story that I think very few people in Canada have ever heard. So I hope you enjoy it. Normally, I've seen Trudeau at events, you know, 10 years ago, where he would go anywhere and people would flood him and ask to take selfies with him and shake his hand. And there was this love fest. Now we can't go anywhere without protesters or the F. Trudeau banners coming up. So he's there in the restaurant. My friend walks into the restaurant and he goes there often. He sees, oh, it's a little bit busy for a day like this. And then. And then the waitress says, well, Mr. Trudeau is here. So Trudeau was in the other half of the restaurant and sitting, having lunch. Normally, people a few years ago would go up to him at his table. Nobody went up to him. So what Trudeau did was he got up and he went table to table to say hi to everybody. And most people were not interested. [00:23:29] Speaker B: That is so self unaware. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Completely. [00:23:33] Speaker B: I just. The cringe factor is so high on. [00:23:36] Speaker A: This, so it gets even worse. So my. So after Trudeau left, my friend goes, he knows the staff. And he says, so how was it? You know, how did it. They said it was so embarrassing. We had got a lot of complaints from the customers because Trudeau would go from table to table saying hi to people and then asking them, would you like a selfie with me? [00:23:58] Speaker B: No. No. [00:24:03] Speaker A: And the person who told me this story, who was there was a former Conservative mp. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Well, you know what it is? It looks like he has support. When somebody posts a. A photo of themselves with the Prime Minister on their social media, right? That hits the stream of Trudeau, and it actually shows a little bit of support for him. When they do that, even if they would never vote for him, the selfie indicates to people that he has support and he knows it. [00:24:28] Speaker A: The best one is when he gets on the plane to leave Canada and he turns around and he waves to the imaginary crowd. There might be a few people, they're giving him the fear finger or the F. Trudeau banner, but he's waving to, I'm telling you, an imaginary crowd. There's nobody there waving like it's all for show. It's all for the cameras. [00:24:46] Speaker B: Oh, Oh, I hate that. See, that's the thing that I think disturbs me the most. I call him the selfie king of Canada. [00:24:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:24:53] Speaker B: Because that's what he loves to do the most. He. He loves to be the most handsome prince in all the kingdom. [00:24:59] Speaker A: So he thinks, I think he needs. [00:25:01] Speaker B: To take a walk in the snow with some dignity like his dad. That's my own personal opinion. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Well, we're hoping Ottawa gets some snow soon. [00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. Isn't that nice? Hopefully it's in the forecast. The economy is in shambles. Yes, policy decisions have been abominable. The other day I noticed in my stream on social media, our Prime Minister saying, have a look at your bank account. Your carbon tax rebate has been added. [00:25:29] Speaker A: That's ridiculous. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Congratulations. And you know, it actually, that son of a gun, it actually made me look. And sure enough, there it was. $237, I think I thought, yeah, but it's just another ridiculous policy that means nothing economically to people. We are starving all year long. What are you doing? [00:25:46] Speaker A: So you're spending several thousands of dollars every year because of this carbon tax. And if you look at your, for example, your natural gas heating bill, look at the back of it, like, look at the back of it and see what is one of the highest charges. One of the highest charges is the federal carbon charge, which is actually more than the gas that you've consumed. So that's the first thing. And then people don't understand people, you know, on the left, they think, oh, well, I'm getting the equal money back. No, you're actually not. You're getting far less. Because if you add in how the carbon tax increases the cost of your gasoline transportation, the food that you buy in grocery stores, because that's transported to the grocery store, all the things you buy, carbon tax has an effect on it and adds to your, your bottom line cost. And then on top of it, I always laughed at this idea. Who is the money going to? Obviously going in the government conference, but who are they giving the money to? Are they giving a check every month to Mother Nature? At the end of the day, Canada, Canada emits 1.6% of global greenhouse emissions. And there's even a question mark whether carbon is the cause of global warming. There's even question marks about global warming, but let's just say it's one point. We know it's 1.6% of global greenhouse emissions. And our, actually, our numbers have gone up. Even though Trudeau has decimated the oil patch in Alberta, the natural Gas and oil. Oil patch in Alberta has been decimated economically, and yet our numbers are still going up. So it shows that carbon tax is nothing. [00:27:24] Speaker B: Gas prices are through the roof constantly. [00:27:26] Speaker A: Gas prices are through the roof. It's, it's just it. Where is the money going to, first of all? And second of all, it's not. Your rebate is much less than what if you add up everything the carbon tax touches, your rebate is nothing. So why are you even doing the rebate? Just like don't tax, don't rebate, give people more money in their pockets. [00:27:47] Speaker B: He did a rebate that brought up mortgage prices for a tech there. [00:27:51] Speaker A: That's right. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Why are you doing this in an economy where people already. We have housing problems. The public opinion about Trudeau's government overall, in your opinion, like, we could give him a one out of ten, I would assume. [00:28:06] Speaker A: You know, I talk to all sorts of people, all sorts of voters, all the time. Even friends of mine who are Liberals that have voted Liberal their whole life are telling me how sick they are of Trudeau. They can't stand him anymore. So I don't know, are they still going to vote? Are they going to vote party line? Are they going to stay home? Are they going to change their vote? I know many people have switched over to the Conservative side. You see a lot of young voters. Pierre Poliev has excited a lot of. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Young voters and, and the ethnic vote is definitely with him. Because when you come to Canada and you are struggling, it doesn't seem fair. I mean, I see often the public opinion is, you know, I came to Canada and there's nothing here. For me, the promise isn't real. So even that contingent of voters is saying, we need somebody who's more fiscally responsible. We need a government that's looking out for development of business and, and to grow its economy rather than throw it away. [00:29:09] Speaker A: I know people from different ethnic backgrounds that have come here in the 90s, 2000s, and they've been here for a while. They've started businesses. These are educated people, professional people. And a lot of them have either gone, many of them have gone back to their home country, or thinking about going back because the situation in Canada, it's turning into a third world country. It's really bad. I mean, look, our, our dollar 69 cents. [00:29:34] Speaker B: We have a, we have a mutual friend who said that people are selling I'm going back to India T shirts, which made me laugh, because that's a horrible notion that you came to this country, you thought that you were going to have a better life and there was nothing here for you. Your vote was bought. All right, look, I want to wrap this up, but let me do something. We've, I've complained a lot about Trudeau. So have you. And I think probably a lot of people are. If, if we had a better leader, I'm sure it would be a different conversation. So we're looking ahead now. It looks to me like Poliev is going to be the kind of lead possibility, I think, as the next prime minister. What do you think changes and then what are the challenges that Poliev's going to have when he's in office? What are we going to be screaming at him for? [00:30:21] Speaker A: So that's a great question. So, first of all, if Poliev wins and if the Conservatives win and they win a majority, let's, let's give that as the proviso here. The first thing is people expect change overnight, and it takes years to change the whole system from the inside. So that's the first thing. Don't expect an overnight fix. Expect that it's going to take a number of years to change Canada. Look, it's taken nine years to change Canada from what Harper had it as to where it is now, where it's upside down completely. So I think there's a number of things that Poliev is going to be very strong on. One is definitely the economy. I mean, Conservatives are known globally to be stronger for the economy. So that's the first thing you're going to start seeing that job opportunities and job creation and entrepreneurship and made in Canada and things like that are going to be strongly pushed. Another thing that the Conservatives are very strong on traditionally, and Polyev has spoken about it a lot, is crime. Crime has gone through the roof in Canada, and that's really because the federal Liberals have been pushing very easy bail and release laws where the person gets charged, they let out on bail, they don't even have to put up any money. They, they go back and you see, you see it on tv. Carjackings, burglaries, violent crime, gun crime. And the person is already out on bail and they've been charged now a second time or third time or whatnot. And they're recruiting underage people who are protected by the, you know, protected by the law because they're under 18 years of age. So they get gang members, they get young people in to help commit the crimes. So I think economy will be much better under politics. Crime is going to be a much more tough on crime. Policy, because crime has just gone through the roof. [00:32:22] Speaker B: Also, a lot of crime has come into the country. We have some of the largest gang leaders on earth living in Canada. [00:32:29] Speaker A: Yes. [00:32:30] Speaker B: One of the largest Chinese gang leaders lives in Markham, apparently has even executed orders for people's execution for assassinations right here in Canada. I would assume that a new policy in place that they keep talking about for stricter border control, that would be also on the agenda. [00:32:52] Speaker A: That's another point. So another thing that's going to be very strong is immigration. I mean, we used to have under Harper the most admired immigration system around the world in all the G7. [00:33:02] Speaker B: In all fairness, for many years before. [00:33:04] Speaker A: Harper as well, and for many years before Harper as well, yes, Canada had a reputation. Trudeau, the father, had opened it up, had opened up immigration greatly. And, and for many years as well, up until Harper and then up until and including Harper and then after Trudeau just opened the door for qualified people were not let in, but unqualified people were letting. I think that's going to be changed. There's going to be curbing of certain number of visa students that have just skyrocketed, which have caused a burden on the real estate market and particularly in major cities immigration, of getting more qualified people in. You know, Pierre is talking about getting in more doctors, more nurses, getting people licensed more readily, not going through all the, the struggles that they have to get licensed here in Canada. So I think these are a number of things that that are, are going to have. You're going to start seeing some really instant improvements and then cutting the carbon tax. So economically cutting the carbon tax and reopening up our oil and natural gas industries is going to bring more money. It's like when Donald Trump says, drill, drill, drill, right, drill, baby, drill. That we know that we have this natural resource in our country and it's one of the big economic boons to our economy. Doing that will help our economy as it did a decade ago. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Have you ever heard an estimate of what cutting the carbon tax would do in savings per taxpayer? [00:34:38] Speaker A: I've seen different reports. I don't know which one's accurate, but tell me if you've seen something. [00:34:44] Speaker B: No, that's why it's so funny, because it is so. It is such a nebulous number based on who you are, what you spend and what your, what your interactions are with this tax. But cutting it even that is just sort of the surface win, I think, for the Conservatives and they've got a lot to do. As you say, we are almost Polar, upside down. We've had a polar shift from where we were almost a decade ago. So if it takes a decade to wreck everything, will it take two decades to fix it? And then my next question is a lot of, we're talking at the federal level, but a lot of download has happened over the last 10 years to the province, the province, then to the municipalities and they keep downloading and downloading and downloading. What does that mean politically for the next federal election? People are looking at their local leaders now. [00:35:39] Speaker A: Well, so there's some issues. For example, there's the housing fund that municipal leaders are complaining that Pierre Poliev would cut. But the reality is none of that money that's gone to the municipalities have been used to build housing. Housing. They've been used to offset costs and expenditures that some left wing local governments have been spending. The difference here is in Ontario, sorry, in Canada, federally, provincially, they can take on debt. Municipalities can't take on debt. So they have to balance their books. So they take this money that they can get and then they think, oh well, I have a windfall now I'm going to go spend, spend it on something else. You know, some, some local, they don't. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Pocket it, they just get back to zero. [00:36:27] Speaker A: Every single, they get back to zero. And, and the thing is, or they play with the numbers around a little bit. But you know, some municipalities are even talking about going to the UN or actually have gone to the UN to talk about making the their city a sanctuary city. At the same time, those towns here in the GTA are complaining that if Pierre Poiev wins, the housing accelerator fund is going to be cut. So they take that money so that they make it our city as a sanctuary city and they're going to destroy the way certain cities in the United States are being destroyed. I think that's ridiculous. But yes, there is a lot of downloading. If we can just go back to traditional conservative fiscal values, I think that'll make everybody much happier. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Poliev has talked about creating a multi level budgeting approach that would be sort of commensurate with what they're doing in other parts of the world that have made sense of it. Finland has eliminated homelessness, I believe, or one of the Scandinavian countries and they've done it through fiscal responsibility entirely. But they also opened up all of their natural resources for international sale. They were able to step around tariffs, which we're in a position right now. We're being threatened with tariffs every day from a president that's not even in power yet. These are all challenges. I think that we'll be on the watch for over, certainly over the next year, over the next couple of years. A lot needs to change. [00:38:02] Speaker A: Right now, I'm not a fan of opening up. I think we've already opened up our sale of our natural resources to too many foreign nations. Communist China is one of them. I don't think we necessarily need to do that. We have a lot of capital in Canada. I think we should keep our natural resources as much as we can within Canada. But other than that, if we just balance the budget and we stop spending ridiculous money. I mean, look, Trudeau is spending millions of dollars every year giving it to other nations to study things like, like gender equality and transgender issues and things like that. When we have homeless people here in Canada, hungry people here in Canada, veterans that are being underfunded, why are we doing that? Why are we giving money to foreign nations for really frivolous kind of things? [00:38:49] Speaker B: Well, we even. We created a welcome to Canada software kit that doesn't really even exist, that cost millions and millions of dollars. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Or the ARRIVE can scan. [00:38:58] Speaker B: The Arrive can scan. Yeah. What a. That's. I can't believe we missed that scandal off the top. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's actually. That's another one we should have definitely mentioned. Yes. [00:39:07] Speaker B: Well, look, before we get out of here, I'd like to remind people. Richard, first of all, thank you for letting me talk you into doing this. Thank you. It's very helpful, I think, to all of us to have an inside understanding of what's going on. The insider scoop is also a lot of fun, to be honest with you. Please subscribe to the show, whatever platform you're listening to it on. And if people wanted to reach out to you, do you mind sharing an email in case they wanted to share some opinion? [00:39:31] Speaker A: They can check on my website. Richardrupp CA R A C H A R D R U P P CA. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time.