Uh, but from your point of view, what's kind of characterizing this session of parliament as you get back into it? Is it still very much a Canada versus Donald Trump and all of its, uh, measures kind of situation, or what else is going on?

You know, um, uh, the US president has said some, uh, inflammatory things, but, uh, to be frank, uh, you know, that's all just, um, political rhetoric from the prime minister to gain support.

Uh, you know, we're continuing on, uh, working with the United States.

And, and I mean, even yesterday in the House it was brought up that, uh, we've had a 50% increase in, uh, government spending contracts with the United States.

So while there's a rhetoric on one side saying, you know, d- "Buy Canadian," and, and so on and so forth, which is important, the opposite is happening.

Uh, you know, same with defense, uh, contracts.

Uh, they're throwing out the F-35.

Talk about why you've introduced this motion, and maybe give people some background on this in case you haven't been following it.

better at that you are petitioning against for?

Yeah, and I'm not worried about a courageous policy that ruins the government.

I'm worried about a courageous policy that protects the sovereignty of Canada, the safety of Canada, the security of Canadians.

That's what I'm pushing for, and our whole Conservative Defence team on the National Defence Committee.

what we're trying to hold the government to account to do.

And so overall, we need a better strategy.

Maybe we can use this as a good segue into the other topic of the global eye that you wanted to speak about.

This is the part of the podcast I always like throwing the question back to the guest, but is there something you would like to talk about that we haven't touched upon yet?

So what is the act and what motivated you to bring forward this piece of legislation?

Thank you.

I read the details of that case that you're referring to and it's absolutely disturbing and it was very heavy and I actually couldn't finish reading it.

It was upsetting.

But you spoke to the crux of it, which is the families having to be re-traumatized going through parole hearings.

And they do this over and over.

So the bill that I've introduced, Bill C-235, is speaks to cases the most heinous of crimes in Canada where a victim is abducted raped and murdered in the same case or sorry in the same incident and if passed then my bill would allow judges the discretion to increase parole ineligibility from 25 years that it is right now up to 40 years and that would prevent families having to go back every two years or less for very painful parole hearings.

So what are some of the issues you hear most from your constituents?

I don't quite understand the sort of the org chart here on how this all works.

Well that's a great question and you would probably have to ask him and in fact my office will reach out to him shortly and say hey can we sit down and go over some lessons learned but What I can tell you, because it's not very transparent to us, even in the opposition, in committee there was confusion as to who was in charge of what.

This is an agency that has a confusing chain of command.

I brought that up personally in questions in the Defence Committee.

And another good example, one possible thing that might have frustrated them, the F-35 contract, massive contract, second only to the submarine contract, VERY POLITICALLY SENSITIVE FILE.

BUT IT WAS EXPLICITLY KEPT OUT OF THE DEFENSE INVESTMENT AGENCY, EVEN THOUGH THAT WAS RIGHT IN ITS PURVIEW.

I CONFIRMED THAT IN COMMITTEE WITH SECRETARY OF STATE that no, it won't, it was what he said to me in Defence Committee, be part of the Defence Investment Agency, thus keeping that decision, it appears, as a political tool.

And I'm not necessarily saying that's what's happening here, but this doesn't seem like a good sign, I guess, is what I'm saying.

It took more than one election cycle to prove it, so it served its purpose, at least for the moment, as being an aspirational goal, a general policy direction that, of course, can be subject to change.

And, you know, there was lots of implications it was a done deal, but it is just we are now, the government is now going into more negotiations.

Look, it's a bit of an illusion, and people are getting excited for it.

You know, replacing the submarines is long overdue and welcome.

But even that has a few problems.

For example, our North Strong and Free document of 2024, the government put out, called for the government to have a national security strategy for deciding you know what types of uh equipment and what our plans are what the threats are they've not put that out even though their own document calls to have one out every two years and that was what would guide it would be the foundation of uh purchasing submarines so in in my mind you need a national security strategy first which they skipped Then you need operational requirements, and they've done that part.

And the Navy has said both of these two submarines meet their needs.

Do you have any worries that maybe we don't get across the line if, like you said, it's not quite a done deal yet, despite the sort of appearance of that on Monday, if we still have more work to do on this bid? Are you worried at all that maybe it falls apart or something doesn't happen?

Why do you think it's important for us to make this move in Parliament?

Because this is about the families.

So.

At the heart of this bill, it's compassionate in that it's sparing the victims' families who have to appear year after year to go to these parole hearings.

And in many of cases, of these most heinous cases that we're dealing with, the victims' families, they just feel obliged or dedicated to go to represent their loved ones, advocate for them, who, you know, they can't speak anymore.

And they relive the trauma their loved ones over and over as these heinous criminals describe and sometimes and it's documented that they love or they are fed by describing these heinous crimes in graphic detail and that somehow feeds their perverse needs and the families that feel dedicated to be there have to go through this year after year in the case of the proctor family, because there are two murderers, two offenders, sometimes it's every year.

So if the parole is increased to 40 years, then that reduces the, you know, it gives a very long time before there is a parole hearing.

than some private members' bills have in the past?

Have you received any form of response?

Yeah, excellent question.

And I sent a follow-up email directly to the minister, and her office has responded that she's seen... my request and that they forwarded it for further discussion within their circles.

So that's positive news.

It doesn't mean there's any change in the case but they have received it, they are considering it and furthermore they acknowledge the importance of how quickly a decision needs to be made to get this treatment continued.

So I am hopeful and I have reached out and spoken with Charlie's mother And as soon as we have any information in, I will happily share that.

Seems quite uncommon to see that sort of language used by an expert, perhaps lending itself to convey the gravity of this situation.

Undoubtedly, there is significant gravity in the situation.

But now that it's done, were you surprised at all this result or is this what you were expecting?

It was what I was expecting and it's not because I was confident in myself and my own abilities but what I quickly learned as we started knocking on doors and my team and I knocked on thousands of doors over the course of what is considered a relatively short campaign.

We very quickly got and I very quickly got a feeling that people in our riding are struggling and and they're getting worried about crime and and they really we were able to connect with so many people and and i just had such positive results that that's what gave me the confidence and and frankly that's what is driving me to do this and and so uh yeah we felt confident once we started getting that feedback from constituents

Do you think those are the issues that made those changes in voting behavior? Or what do you think were the big issues that you won on?

But the biggest issues that we heard and that I heard at the doors was people are ready for a change and they wanted to see something different in our riding.

And we really connected well with people, families that are struggling to feed their children and people that are dealing and addressing with crime.

It's affected so many people's lives and we have such a solid relationship.

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