CPC leadership candidate Jim Karahalios： The Party establishment is out of touch with the grassroots
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Summary
Jim Carajalios has been active in the Ontario PC Party for many years. He is a lawyer with two engineering degrees and has been involved in conservative politics for 15 years. In this episode, we talk to him about his political life, his views on the carbon tax, and what he would do with Maxime Bernier if elected Tory leader.
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. Our goal is to interview all of the candidates running for the leadership
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of the Conservative Party of Canada. So far, we've had two, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan,
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and today, our third. His name is Jim Carajalios. He's been active in the Ontario PC party.
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His wife is actually an Ontario PC MPP. And I should tell you, it's a very interesting
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conversation, if I may say so myself. I encourage you to stick around, including for when he says
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what he would do with Maxime Bernier. Very interesting. Before I get out of the way,
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let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus, which is the video version
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of this podcast. You can get that at rebelnews.com. Okay, here's the podcast.
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Tonight, our latest interview with the candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership.
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We'll talk with Jim Carajalios. It's March 5th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say
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to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Well, the Conservative Party of Canada is choosing a new leader, and I say, I'm glad for that.
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But who will it be? What will they stand for? How will they fight Justin Trudeau? And more
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importantly, fight against the media party. It's a question that we think about a lot here at Rebel
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News. And although we're not formally a Conservative Party outlet, we do support the
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party in general, despite our criticisms of it. I think it's very important that we have a strong
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leader of this party. And I think it's critical that Justin Trudeau be unseated in the next election.
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One of the things we're doing in this leadership campaign is that we're inviting each of the
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leadership contestants to come here on the show, preferably in studio where it can be more
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intimate, and to talk to us. The first interview, more of a biographical nature, but then as the
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campaign goes on, maybe sharper conversations about different issues. This marks the third
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leadership interview that we've done, the first being with Dr. Leslyn Lewis, the second conducted
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by my friend and colleague, Kian Bextie with Derek Sloan. Today, I'm pleased to present to you a
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conversation with Jim Karahelios. And he joins us in studio now. Jim, nice to see you. Thanks for
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Good to see you, Ezra. Thank you for covering stories that the mainstream media, as they like to
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call themselves, don't cover. So you're always there to cover the right stories.
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Right on. Well, thanks for saying that. And I know one of the stories that you've focused on as an
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activist is one of the things that we focused on early in the life of Rebel News, which is fighting
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the carbon tax. That's, I think, how I came to know you in that capacity. Why don't you refresh the
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memory of our viewers of who you are politically? Because you've been an activist for many years.
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Right. I'm a lawyer with two engineering degrees. I've been involved in conservative politics for 15
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years since Stephen Harper became the leader, and I was inspired by his leadership. But when Patrick Brown
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took over the Ontario PC party, we had a couple things going on. He imposed a carbon tax top
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down, like red Tory establishment politicians like to do, on the membership. And then soon
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thereafter, we started seeing nominations with vote rigging taking place in Ontario. So I started
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an Axe the Carbon Tax campaign. I remember that one. And that was before it was cool.
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Yes. I mean, you were on it, Ezra, but it wasn't just me. But yeah, it was not cool. And the
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mainstream media said it was a fringe movement. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Tell me a little bit
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about that, because I know that we face pushback for daring to challenge that sacred cow. I don't
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think I ever heard from you what it was like pushing against the nominally conservative party
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leader, Patrick Brown, on that issue. What was that like? Well, it was funny reading the media,
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how they would say it's a fringe movement. Everyone's moved on from the carbon tax question.
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And I knew in my heart that the conservative voters, not only conservative voters, the general
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public was not sold on this carbon tax. And what really comes after a carbon tax from the top,
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from the red Tories, is then they've got to force, the establishment's got to force nominations to go
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a certain way and block candidates from running that they suspect might not be in favor of a carbon
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tax. Because it really becomes a litmus issue, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Because it's not just
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opposing a tax. It's, oh, you're a denier, you're morally unacceptable. Like, it's shocking to me,
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the deplatforming. We're dealing with this right now with Dr. Patrick Moore, who was deplatformed
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from a speaking conference over this in Regina. It really is a crazy religious issue in its own way.
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Like, it's like a, it's a substitute religion. It's a superstition, this theory of...
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And apparently, if you're in favor of a carbon tax, you can get away with anything. You can get away
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with vote rigging. You can get away with misusing taxpayer money.
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They mentioned that a couple of times. That was one of your battles with Ontario's PC party.
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Well, it didn't start that way. It started with the acts of the carbon tax movement. And then
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very shortly thereafter, candidates were being targeted in nominations. Either they were being
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disqualified from running or they suffered losses because of ballot box stuffing. And so the other
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campaign that started was Take Back Our PC Party, which David Menzies interviewed me a couple times
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during the PC leadership. You know, they tried to shut down my campaign because they couldn't
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convince grassroots conservatives that they're on the right side of the issue.
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Now, you're talking about the Ontario PC campaign.
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Well, that came to a head when Patrick Brown was defenestrated. And I mean, that was quite a dramatic
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Right. But what the mainstream media missed is four weeks earlier, I won a lawsuit
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against the Ontario PC party. And they kicked me out of the party and they walked me out of their
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policy conference and they sued me to silence my campaigns and bankrupt me. And I won the court
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case in six weeks when a judge ruled, you know, the mainstream media likes to say the judge said
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there was no merit to the lawsuit. No, that's not what the judge said. The judge said that the lawsuit
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was a strategic attempt to silence my ability to participate in the political process. That's short
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for shutting down freedom of expression, freedom of campaigning.
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Huh. So you've had this love-hate relationship with the Ontario PCs. Your wife is a newly elected
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MPP for that same PC party of Ontario. That's very unusual to me.
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Well, she's doing a great job and she's a strong conservative voice.
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Oh, Belinda Carhalios from the Riding of Cambridge.
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That's right. So she's doing a great job. She's fighting an injection site going into the Riding
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of Cambridge. We've seen injection sites pop up in Kitchener and Hamilton, all around,
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and she's been a strong voice. And she actually introduced her first private members bill,
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Bill 150, which would make it illegal to rig elections in an internal party election. Right
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now there's a gap in the law there and nothing is stopping that. And the corruption runs rampant
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And how does the current conservative party leader in Ontario, Doug Ford, get along with
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your missus? I mean, does he accept and allow this private members bill? Because it sounds
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like it's taking care of all business. How's her private members bill being received?
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Well, it's obviously going forward and fixing a problem. You know, some of the government staffers,
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the kids in short pants came out the day after she introduced her bill and said
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the government was going to vote against it. And then they actually read the bill. And two weeks
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later, she got unanimous support at Queen's Park. So it's moving over to third reading now. So
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between second and third reading. So she's doing a great job being a strong conservative voice in
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Cambridge. I'm really, really proud of her. Great. Well, I mean, obviously you're two independent
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people, but it shows that your family is a very political family. You're very savvy. And I find it
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fascinating, I got to tell you, that you're a dissident, but you're also still within the movement.
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And, uh, and your wife's private members bill, which was first met with some rejection is now,
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you mentioned unanimous consent. I find that very interesting, but I want to pull the camera back.
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What I mean by it, like it's widened the focus because we're talking about things that you
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and I have discussed in the past. That's right. Patrick Brown, carbon tax, things like that. Okay.
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That's interesting. But you're running now to be the leader of the conservative party for the whole
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of the country. And prime minister. There you go. Yeah. So let's talk about things that the
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rest of the country wants to talk about too. I'm not saying carbon tax is unimportant. It's extremely
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important. And corruption, obviously we're against that. What is your sales pitch? What is your
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talking point or your main value proposition to voters? Why would they choose you?
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The establishment of the conservative party has drifted in their wildly off base with the membership
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and the conservative voters. Uh, and I'm running, first of all, to stop the red Tory coronation that
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we see going on. Who, who do you think is going? Oh, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay are the red Tories
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in this race. Okay. Well, which one of them do you think is going to win? Uh, that's a good question.
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If I'm on the ballot, I don't think either one of them are going to win. Now, why do you think,
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I mean, I agree with you about Peter McKay. I don't think he would argue that either. I think he's a red Tory,
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I think. Um, we've invited him on the show. We'll make sure that invitation is clear. I don't think
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he'll come. Aaron O'Toole, I've been following him on social media at least, and he's trying to
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sound a little bit tough. Yeah. The day after, the day after I said I was collecting signatures
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and I announced I was running, Aaron O'Toole has tried to portray a true blue conservative,
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and it's laughable. Everyone knows his track record. He's a red Tory. He should be authentic about
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who he really is. You know, they, they didn't talk about, Aaron, uh, is getting edgy with my candidacy
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in this race. And him and Peter didn't talk about a carbon tax for four weeks while they were running,
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and longer. As soon as I announced, the day after they went to the Global Mail, the pro-carbon tax
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Global Mail, and said, of course we're against the carbon tax all of a sudden. I announced another
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policy that we were going to put in the criminal code, uh, the shutdown of critical infrastructure
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to make these blockades criminal. Uh, Aaron O'Toole, uh, copied the policy five hours later and ran with
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it. I'm not, I'm not ashamed of it. We're obviously moving the narrative in the right direction.
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But if you look at Aaron O'Toole's track record, you look at his team made up of people who attacked
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Andrew Scheer over his faith, and you look at his campaign chair, Waleed Solomon, who ran the Ontario
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PC party under Patrick Brown. He was very, very close to Patrick. Oh, he was his campaign chair,
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just not very close. He was running the show. Right. These are red Tories. And so it matters what
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happened in Ontario provincially to the rest of your viewers. So are you saying that Aaron O'Toole is
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really a placeholder for a red Tory cadre, really the Patrick Brown campaign? The red Tory
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establishment in Ontario ran the Ontario PC party a certain way. Then they went after Andrew Scheer,
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members of Aaron O'Toole's team tore him down after that election. And now we're seeing a top down,
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a top down race with a $300,000 buy-in to make it very, very hard for a grassroots blue conservative
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to get in. Now you can't put that around Aaron O'Toole's name. That's the party itself. I think
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$300,000 is absurd. Right. Obviously designed to keep out grassroots candidates. Now there's
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different milestones you have to make. Tell me, you're so far, you have met the first milestone.
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Yeah, we got the thousand signatures in two and a half weeks. We got approved a week after that.
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There's an entire process where they review your signatures, your application. You do an interview
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with a small committee that no one knows how this committee was created or who's on it. I got approved.
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There were other campaigns trying to get me disqualified. Even Lesley Lewis's campaign
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manager told me at the Ontario PC convention a couple weeks ago that he wanted me disqualified
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from the race. Aaron O'Toole's campaign, you know, Edgy Aaron, as I like to call him,
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he's been a little uptight with me in the race because I'm calling him out on his record and
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being in favor of the Paris Accord. I want to get Canada out of the Paris Accord. They were putting
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some pressure in the back to get me out of the race. But now we're past the first hurdle and we're
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getting into the second hurdle. So you got to raise how much money now?
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$300,000 by March 25th. That's an incredibly short period.
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Yeah, it's a top-down red Tory coronation race.
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So you've got to raise $15,000 a day, seven days a week. How are you doing with that?
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The fundraising is going well, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you this is an easy thing to do.
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This has never been done in Canadian politics in such a short time frame. You remember the last
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leadership, Ezra? They had 18 months to raise money. And most of the candidates didn't raise more
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than $300,000 or $400,000, including Lisa Raitt. She raised $400,000 in 18 months. Now she's the
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co-chair of a committee asking candidates to raise $300,000 in two months.
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$1,625. The donations go through the party. So if you donate $400, you get $300 back.
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And a donation to one of the other candidates, Leslyn Lewis, Derek Sloan, is a vote for Erin O'Toole.
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A donation to Jim Carajalios is a vote for Jim Carajalios. Because if I'm on that final ballot,
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as the blue Tory fighting corruption, fighting the Paris Accord, fighting carbon taxes,
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and fighting the establishment, it's going to be a game-changer in a different race.
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You know, just before we sat down here and turned the cameras on, we were talking about another
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candidate who was disqualified by some internal committee. It's this fella, and I can't say I know
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him, DeCary. Do you know him? I shook his hand at the Ontario PC convention. I don't know
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anything more about him beyond that. Here, here's a quick look at who he is.
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This is a TV appearance he made, I don't know, a couple months ago. Take a look at this.
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LGBTQ people are real people too. I'm just trying to figure out your terms. Are they not real people?
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I think LGBTQ is a liberal term. I don't talk about people that way. I talk about persons.
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And I think we all need the full respect for being a human being, simply.
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Oh, so, okay, so you don't think that being gay, you don't think, what, do you think that's a choice?
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I think it's a choice. And it's how people are behaving, it's one thing. I think government has
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responsibility to encourage the traditional value that we have had for the past years. So
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that's the kind of soak-on issues that I would bring as a leader.
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All right, so that's Richard DeCary. People can agree with him. People can disagree with him. People
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can agree with him, but disagree with how he said it, or whatever. People can despise him. What I don't
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understand is why he is not allowed to be put to the test of party members. And that gives credence
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to what you're saying about this being an internal cabal. I mean, let everyone run. Let an extreme
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red Tory run, okay? Let everyone run and let the party choose. I don't like the fact that they're
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running it like a closed club. Right, so we have a problem with the conservative and liberal
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establishment in this country, that they treat political parties like a private club.
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Well, I've got to say, you know, the way you just phrased that, you remind me of Maxime Bernier.
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Well, Max is a good guy. We can get into Max in a little bit. What are your thoughts on Maxime
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Bernier? Well, I asked him. Let's get into Richard and we'll get to Max, because I have some important
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things to say about Max as well. So my problem with the narrative that's taken place since the
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October election is Andrew Scheer and Richard DeCary, I believe they got targeted with certain
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questions from the mainstream media because they're Catholics and because they're Christians.
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And let me just tell you, no surprise, you will be asked those same questions.
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It's such a lazy playbook, but our side ought to be able to answer those questions and prepare for
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them because they're not a secret. So a thousand people signed Richard DeCary's nomination forms,
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and a small group of a handful of people disqualified him with pressure from the O'Toole
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and Lewis campaign to get Richard out of the race. And Derek Sloan has now jumped all over it within
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minutes. He jumped all over it to get the political capital out of Richard getting out of the race. I want
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everyone to be in the race. I want options for the membership because the ultimate determinator
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or decision maker should be the voter when it comes to races, whether they're nominations or
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leaderships. We should be having open and public nominations. And my biggest concern with what's
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going on here is Richard DeCary, Andrew Scheer. You know, I saw people from Aaron O'Toole's team
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target Andrew Scheer for his Catholic faith, the way he was raised, the way he raised his family. I didn't grow
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up in a home like Andrew Scheer did, overtly Christian. But, you know, there's a double
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standard where you've got a guy like Waleed Solomon, who's the campaign chair of Aaron O'Toole,
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who in 2007 in the Globe and Mail advocated for Sharia law in banking in Canada and Ontario two years
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after Dalton McGuinty said we're against Sharia law in Ontario, Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.
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No one asks the question if that's acceptable of Aaron O'Toole or Waleed Solomon,
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but if you're a Catholic or a Christian, it's a consistent targeting of questions
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where Evan Solomon will spend 11 minutes in an interview talking about the biology of sex
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and not talking about the issues that matter to Canadians. Yeah, it's a little bit crazy,
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but my point that I said earlier is that this is not a surprise and knowing how to handle the media.
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I think handling the media is actually the number one job requirement. And I think it's actually
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Trump's, everyone is so outraged with how Trump talks and insults and pushes back,
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but I think that's the only reason he survived the utter onslaught of 95% of the media party in 2016.
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And that bully nature is the only, Mitt Romney didn't have it, he lost. John McCain didn't have it,
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he lost. I think you need, maybe not to be Trumpian, like a mini-me of Trump, but if you're not willing
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to fight the media, you are dead. I 100% agree. And you'll see Andrew Scheer's polling numbers,
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conservative parties have gone up. When Andrew Scheer is now criticizing the blockades, you know,
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I came out and I said we need to make that criminal. We also have private members bills coming forward.
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And it's fascinating to me that his polling numbers are going up now. And everyone's asking,
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where was this Andrew Scheer during the election campaign? Why did he listen to the lobbyists in
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the back that were telling him how to behave? Why wasn't he acting like himself?
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All right. Well, you said you were going to talk to me about Maxime Bernier. What are your thoughts on him?
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Well, I firmly believe that we need a united conservative party in this country. And Maxime Bernier
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said that he had problems with the conservative party and how it ran, not only based on policy,
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but he believes there's corruption in the conservative party. I've seen that corruption
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from Ontario backroom hacks provincially. A lot of them are on Peter McKay and Erin O'Toole's team.
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And we need to clean up the conservative party. We need to send the establishment a message.
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And I'd love to see Max Bernier run as a conservative in the future, because if we were a united party in
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the last election, we would have had more votes. We would have had more seats. You ask the red
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Tory establishment, they'll tell you they want a big tent party. Well, I saw an analysis where if the
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PPC votes were with the conservative party, and if Max Bernier and other good candidates he had around,
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like Saleem Ansour ran for us, we would have had eight, nine, ten more seats, maybe even more.
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Did you run as a federal PPC candidate? No, I did not run.
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What I meant was I saw PPC candidates that should be allowed to run in internal party
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nominations for us, the conservative party. I think it was outrageous that Saleem Ansour was
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blocked by the conservative party. Well, that's very interesting that you would invite Max Bernier
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back in. I don't think the other candidates would say that, at least not O'Toole and McKay,
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but I don't know without checking. We've gone down this road before of a split party.
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Yeah. And, you know, when I interviewed with you in the Ontario PPC party a couple of years ago,
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there were people locally or provincially that said we should start a new party. And you and I
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agreed that you need one strong conservative party and a grassroots party to take on the Liberals. And
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now we're seeing this split, and we're seeing a third movement start out west with the Wexit
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movement, and that's not good for conservatism long term. It's exactly fracturing under the same
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lines. The right was fractured. And the red Tory establishment think they know better. They think
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it doesn't matter if Max is getting a quarter million votes, if the Wexit movement is gaining
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speed, we can just tell the membership and the voters what they should believe in, and we just
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move on forward. Eventually we're going to win. We're not. We're going to be in hiatus for a very
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long time if we keep fracturing the conservative movement. Well, you've spoken, you used the word
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Coronation. You didn't specify really Aaron O'Toole or Peter McKay, you said both.
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They have teams, you've described them. Right. Including, you mentioned Waleed Solomon.
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I'm slightly familiar with him. He's a big shot at a big Toronto law firm. Oh yeah,
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big pastry firm with Brian Mulroney. Oh yeah. Very large, one of the world's largest law firms.
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Peter McKay is a lawyer at one of the world's largest law firms. And the reason I mention that
00:21:36.040
is because law firms have partners and associates who can each cut those $1,600 checks. You work at a
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big law firm and a big shot partner there says, I'm chairing this campaign. You could have 50 or 100
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And you take care of it that way. And everyone wants to be a judge. So all these lawyers say,
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oh, I'll maybe do some door knocking and volunteer. So McKay has some of that. And he's got the family,
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you know, maybe he inherited some helpers and some support from his dad. Aaron O'Toole,
00:22:13.080
Waleed Solomon at the big law firm. Aaron O'Toole's dad was a politician as well,
00:22:16.280
very well connected. So I guess you said it was going to be a coronation, if not for me. How are
00:22:22.920
you? I mean, we've talked a little bit about your David and Goliath fights before, and you're not
00:22:28.520
nothing. You've been around, you did have campaigns, your missus is an MPP. But it does seem like a
00:22:34.520
lopsided fight. There's two big hurdles for me. And the first hurdle is the $300,000 in donations.
00:22:40.600
Because I announced two weeks later, we had signatures from all 10 provinces and over 180
00:22:47.000
ridings. I'm quickly at 3,000 signatures. I was the last person to jump in the race. So
00:22:51.720
the grassroots support right across the country is there. And now I have to raise the $300,000
00:22:57.320
by March 25th. So you're right. When the Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay campaigns had one hand,
00:23:03.960
in one hand was the knife that they were plunging in Andrew Scheer's back. In the other hand,
00:23:07.640
they were collecting checks from Bay Street to get in the race. That's an advantage for
00:23:12.760
well-connected insider candidates, those that are born into politics, and those that have corporate
00:23:17.720
interests, and people running their campaigns that are in the business of politics.
00:23:21.880
All right. So are you running to make a point, or are you running to win?
00:23:25.000
No, I firmly believe that I have the grassroots support across this country. In two weeks,
00:23:31.000
I got over 1,000 signatures. We're almost at 3,000 signatures. The big hurdle is March 25th.
00:23:36.280
All right. If I get in this race and I'm the blue Tory who wants to get out of the Paris Accord,
00:23:40.920
who wants to clean up the party, who wants to fight the establishment,
00:23:44.200
I see the sky's the limit with our candidacy. But I have to get past March 25th.
00:23:48.600
I got to tell you, 1,000, 3,000 signatures, what you're saying,
00:23:52.760
in a big country in a few weeks, I'm not impressed.
00:24:00.280
I mean, I'm impressed enough, but how are you going to beat O'Toole and McKay, and how are you
00:24:07.560
going to beat Trudeau? If you added a zero to those numbers, I'd say, oh, okay. But how are you
00:24:13.960
going to raise 300,000? How are you going to beat those guys?
00:24:16.840
So the signatures, I'm contrasting to Peter and Aaron, who've taken longer to get the signatures.
00:24:21.480
That's what I'm saying about the signatures. You're right. When I provide a refreshing,
00:24:27.640
grassroots, anti-establishment, get out of the Paris Accord, we're going to ask the carbon tax
00:24:32.680
message to conservative members, my campaign is quickly gaining traction. And if the mainstream
00:24:39.480
media finally starts to cover me, which they haven't wanted to cover for four weeks,
00:24:43.720
my number one goal is getting past March 25th, getting on the ballot, and letting people know
00:24:48.600
who I am, who our family is, and what we're fighting for. And I believe that the vast majority
00:24:54.200
of conservatives agree with the message, because everyone I talk to, and everyone who gets to know
00:24:58.840
what we stand for, gets on side. Now, you mentioned Leslyn Lewis's campaign manager. I know who you mean.
00:25:05.000
I know Waleed Solomon, and I know some of the people in Peter McKay's campaign.
00:25:09.000
Who is with Jim Karahelios, other than Jim? A grassroots conservative. So I don't have...
00:25:15.080
A campaign manager. Of course I have a campaign manager. We have a campaign office in Cambridge.
00:25:18.520
It's being run. I don't like to talk about the people running my campaign because...
00:25:23.640
I'm looking to name-check them. I want to know. Like, it's one thing to be an activist.
00:25:29.240
It's one thing to be a pundit. I am one. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:32.280
And I don't deny that you have some political infrastructure. Your missus
00:25:35.560
successfully became an MPP. Right, right. But all these things that we're talking about,
00:25:40.600
the advantages of the red Tory candidates, they come with their disadvantages, but they have an
00:25:46.680
advantage. He's got boots on the ground. Are you traveling the country? Mainstream media is not
00:25:53.160
covering you. Get used to it. Yeah, of course. Welcome to being a conservative candidate. Absolutely.
00:25:57.480
So what are you doing? What are you doing at Costco? Have you been to Alberta yet? Have you been to BC yet?
00:26:03.080
We've been in the race for four weeks. We've gotten the campaign up and running. We're obviously going
00:26:07.000
to tour the country. We've got to get the signatures in place and the infrastructure in
00:26:11.960
place to hit that tour. But you can't put the cart before the horse. I have regional organizers
00:26:18.040
right across the country. The chair of Manitoba for me actually was Andrew Scheer's chair. I've got
00:26:24.680
people in Saskatchewan that are chairing. Alberta, BC, obviously very strong in Ontario. We've got a
00:26:31.800
campaign office set up in Cambridge. And you can't run in a campaign if you don't have,
00:26:36.920
even in the application they ask for, campaign managers, point of contact, CFOs. And there's
00:26:42.920
other advisors that I keep in confidence because when you're running an anti-establishment campaign,
00:26:48.520
Ezra, and you see that the establishment likes to come down hard on the grassroots,
00:26:52.760
there are people that give me advice that I keep in confidence because...
00:26:55.480
I'm not... I mean, I am curious who they are, but more I was curious do they even exist?
00:27:00.600
Because I enjoy the lack of responsibility of just talking into cameras. I don't... I mean,
00:27:07.880
we do organize. What am I saying? We have 1,600 people signed up for an event on May 19th in Regina.
00:27:14.680
So that's boots on the ground. But at the end of the day, my job is to provide political commentary to
00:27:19.320
Canada. I've got riding a president across... That's different than can you sign up members?
00:27:21.800
I've got riding presidents across the country that are signed up for more campaigns.
00:27:26.520
And what about in Quebec? One of the most interesting things you told me today is that
00:27:29.400
you're open to Maxime Bernier and you want to rejoin what has split. That's very interesting to me.
00:27:36.760
What are your Quebec plans? Because I think like me, your Francais is very, very limited.
00:27:41.720
Well, I speak the universal language of fighting corruption and I'd love to see Max Bernier be my
00:27:45.880
Quebec lieutenant when I'm leader. Have you had any communication with what's
00:27:51.880
Not during this race, no. I think that'd be inappropriate during a race.
00:27:55.560
Well, it would be a hell of a thing to bring to the table and say,
00:27:57.560
I'm bringing Max back to the table. Yeah, I'm going to leave it open to him. As leader,
00:28:00.600
I'm going to clean up the party. I'm going to fix the policy process that he has a concern with.
00:28:04.920
We're going to have open nominations and I'm going to lay it all out for Max and it's going to be up to him.
00:28:09.000
I haven't closely studied the rules for this leadership race, but Andrew Scheer's campaign
00:28:13.960
manager Hamish Marshall did and he gained the system and credit to him.
00:28:18.680
Okay. And one of the ways that Andrew Scheer won the last leadership race is he did the math and he
00:28:23.880
realized one member in Quebec is worth about 10 members in Alberta because of the point system.
00:28:31.240
Now, I don't know the minutia of the system now, but that's why Andrew Scheer went full
00:28:36.200
dairy cartel is because a handful of votes in Quebec outweighed votes elsewhere. My point is,
00:28:43.800
do you have any game in Quebec? Because if you're conceding a province with a quarter of the population
00:28:50.760
to O'Toole and McKay... Why do you think I'm conceding it to O'Toole and McKay?
00:28:55.640
I don't think you are. I'm asking if you are. I'm asking, do you have anything in Quebec?
00:29:00.360
I do have people in Quebec that are supporting and I've got signatures from Quebec and I'm not
00:29:08.440
conceding anything. And every, the dynamic of every race is different. And I think the starting
00:29:14.280
point is it's not gaming the system. There is no gaming of the system.
00:29:18.200
Of course you need to know the rules. And I know the rules in terms of how the votes are
00:29:22.440
Am I right to say that a vote in Quebec in a small membership riding?
00:29:25.800
It depends on how many members are in the riding.
00:29:27.880
Let's say there's 200 members in a rural Quebec riding and 2,000 members in a Calgary riding.
00:29:32.520
The threshold is 100. So if you've got 50 members in a riding in Toronto or a riding in Quebec,
00:29:37.720
every member gets one point. If there are 1,000 members in a riding like Cambridge or out west,
00:29:44.360
it's a percentage. But the race is different. Because when Andrew Scheer ran,
00:29:51.480
the prominent leading candidates in the race were not really from Ontario. Like,
00:29:55.560
Aaron O'Toole finished a distant third in that race. Now we're seeing a race where Peter McKay and
00:30:00.760
Aaron O'Toole are from Ontario. I'm from west of Yonge Street. We don't have a western candidate,
00:30:07.240
aside from Rick Peterson, but he's establishment red Tory in the race. And the western vote is going
00:30:13.640
to be very, very significant. And I don't think Aaron O'Toole or Peter McKay's pro-Paris Accord message
00:30:19.560
is going to be appealing to conservatives in Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC.
00:30:25.560
Rule of law is a big issue. The Paris Accord is a huge issue.
00:30:29.800
Rule of law, seeing as the way we're governing our party and the way we're governing our country and
00:30:34.040
the way Justin Trudeau has been governing Canada in a corrupt manner. And everyone's tired of these
00:30:40.840
backroom negotiations between lobbyists that are setting government policy, whether it's Jody
00:30:45.640
Wilson-Raybould on the left getting kicked out, or someone on the right that's denied the opportunity
00:30:50.520
to run a nomination or leadership. People are tired of it, and they're tired of the establishment.
00:30:54.760
And that's what I'm hearing on the ground. We're tired of the establishment that are not giving a
00:30:59.320
choice to us, that are not defending the taxpayer, that do not see a pro-growth economic agenda for
00:31:06.920
our country, and are not willing to stand up for conservative values. And we're constantly being
00:31:11.640
persecuted because we have Christians in our party. But if you believe in Sharia law or Sharia
00:31:17.720
banking, no one from the mainstream media is attacking those type of positions and saying
00:31:23.640
they're inconsistent with Canadian values. So there's a whole host of issues, and I'm releasing
00:31:29.080
platform commitments every week. You got a couple out of me today that I didn't really want to jump
00:31:33.880
out of the gate on the Max Bernier question, but good for you. There's a lot of important questions
00:31:38.840
on how we unite conservatives across the country to defeat Justin Trudeau.
00:31:44.920
So what are the dates again? You cut off, you said, March 25th?
00:31:51.000
And then what are the other milestones after that?
00:31:52.760
That's it. And then we go right on the ballot. So if I'm on the ballot, it's going to be a
00:31:57.400
different race with me, Peter McCain, Aaron O'Toole.
00:31:59.560
And how is the voting conducted? Is it by mail? Is it online? Is it in person? How does the voting...
00:32:05.000
You know, they haven't disclosed that yet, but typically in the Conservative Party races,
00:32:10.040
we vote by mail. I certainly hope they don't go to an online version like the Ontario PC
00:32:15.960
Party did, which was a disaster. People couldn't get pins if you didn't have an email.
00:32:21.240
Yeah, just awful. So yeah, I think it will be by mail, I assume, but I don't know. I don't know
00:32:26.280
those details yet. I think people are not concentrating on the race because they don't know who's going to
00:32:31.240
be on the final ballot. And this $300,000 threshold is a shame. It really is a shame,
00:32:36.680
because we've got eight candidates in the race. We should have had nine. And it could end up that
00:32:42.360
only Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay raised the 300 grand. Can you imagine the outrage from
00:32:46.840
grassroots Conservatives that see eight candidates right now, and then on the ballot, there's only
00:32:51.240
two? I don't think it would be outrage. I think it would be disconnecting and saying,
00:32:55.400
I'm- Devastating for the party. And we see politicians like Patrick Brown that run on one
00:33:03.640
platform when they're running for leader, and then they flip after they become leader. Aaron
00:33:08.200
O'Toole's copying the same playbook. This concerns me because if someone like Peter McKay wins a
00:33:15.240
leadership as a red Tory, and we know who he is, Conservatives will say, I should have got more
00:33:21.000
involved. I should have tried harder. If they are blocked out of the political process because of
00:33:27.000
some egregious rules, if they have a leader like Aaron O'Toole pretending to be blue, and then he's
00:33:32.600
going to govern as a red, people throw up their hands and say, I'm done with politics. That concerns
00:33:37.400
me tremendously for the Conservative movement, because we need more people involved. That's the only way to
00:33:41.800
beat Justin Trudeau is a movement that turns, that funnels into a party, and that beats Justin Trudeau.
00:33:49.160
Well, it's very interesting, and I am frustrated by the entire process. I am worried that what I see
00:34:00.280
so far, no disrespect, suggests that we're going to have Justin Trudeau as our Prime Minister for
00:34:05.480
another two to six years, and that's too long by me. Well, don't lose hope. That's why I'm in this race,
00:34:12.200
Ezra. If people want me in this race, they can donate. What's your website?
00:34:15.880
JimCarolios.ca. I know it's a long one. We'll put that on the screen so people can
00:34:19.560
see how to spell that. You can always Google it, or even if you Google
00:34:23.480
Jim Axe the Carbon Tax, it'll come up as a top search item. If I get in the ballot,
00:34:28.120
I believe the sky's the limit, and I'm going to win with a pro-Western message,
00:34:31.960
with getting out of the Paris Accord, with fighting the establishment, and we're going to win.
00:34:37.000
But the hurdle is the $300,000, and when I see Aaron O'Toole working with candidates like Leslie
00:34:42.120
and Lewis, a donation of the Lewis campaign or the Derek Sloan campaign is a vote for Aaron O'Toole.
00:34:48.200
A donation for Jim Carholios is a vote for Jim Carholios.
00:34:50.760
You're talking about Aaron O'Toole, and I think that maybe it's because
00:34:53.240
Waleed Solomon is the overlap between Patrick Brown and him. I assumed that Peter McKay was in the poll
00:35:01.720
position. Am I wrong? Well, that's what the media will tell you. What else do I know? I don't know
00:35:07.080
what I know. No, they'll release these junk polls in the mainstream media where they take a poll of
00:35:12.760
every Canadian. You know, we've seen this when Christine Elliott was running against Doug Ford.
00:35:17.640
They do these polls and they ask everybody, who do you think? And the person that has name-wreck,
00:35:23.400
because they've been a cabinet minister because they're the son of... How about sitting MPs or senators?
00:35:27.560
Yeah, they're not registering in these polls either. But the voting, the decision makers and
00:35:33.080
the leadership are the card-carrying members of a party. And so I don't believe...
00:35:37.640
Do you have any support? What I mean is, do you have any support in the caucus?
00:35:40.600
Are there any MPs or senators who are supportive of him?
00:35:43.080
I'm getting... Caucus predominantly is endorsing Peter McKay at this point, but not the majority.
00:35:50.280
The vast majority of caucus hasn't endorsed anyone. I think Aaron's got one caucus endorsement in Garnett,
00:35:55.800
Genoist. I have no idea why Garnett would endorse a red Tory. Peter McKay has more. Most of caucus
00:36:02.120
I'm hearing from riding presidents are waiting to see who's on the ballot past March 25th.
00:36:06.280
So I think you're asking some questions that are early, because when the final ballot on March 26th
00:36:13.480
is set, we'll see. And you know what's interesting? A lot of times people should pay attention to
00:36:19.320
the members of caucus that don't endorse anyone. Because when you're running an anti-establishment
00:36:27.240
campaign like me, getting a caucus endorsement is very difficult. But I can tell you from riding
00:36:33.160
presidents I hear that tell me they're caucus members not endorsing Peter and Aaron. I think
00:36:37.640
that is a nod to, I hope Jim gets on the ballot on March 25th and we have a good solid conservative
00:36:44.280
running. Well we'll have to leave it there. What we're doing for all the leadership candidates
00:36:50.600
who come on the show, and we did this for Les Lewis and Derek Sloan, is that we're taking this
00:36:56.520
interview that we normally just put on the paywall for our premium subscribers. We're going to put it
00:37:00.840
on YouTube and we're going to email it out to all our supporters across the country. There's obviously
00:37:06.440
not a total overlap between our viewers and the conservative party. But in the Venn diagram,
00:37:11.320
I'd say there's quite a bit of overlap. And in the email we'll also have a link to your website,
00:37:16.760
because I view this as a sort of service for us to talk to as many of the leadership candidates who
00:37:22.760
will come on and to make it really easy for people to click. We have extended invitations to McKay and
00:37:30.760
Erin O'Toole and I will make sure that we refresh that invitation today to let them know that they
00:37:36.680
should come on and answer my best questions. And as a reward, if that's the right phrase,
00:37:46.840
we would send that video to every one of our people and say, if you like this guy, click here.
00:37:52.520
I don't know if they will accept, because I wonder if my questions would be too prickly to them.
00:37:58.200
But surely if my question, if they can't face my questions, how could they face tougher questions
00:38:05.240
in the campaign? So I hope Erin O'Toole and Peter McKay come on. I think it would be
00:38:11.160
taken very well by our viewers. And like I say, if you can't take on Rebel News,
00:38:17.720
how are you going to beat Justin Trudeau? If you want to see a more conservative party,
00:38:20.920
you should join the conservative party. So if your viewers on the Venn diagram are not
00:38:24.520
conservative party members, they should take out a membership for $15 to vote in this race. If
00:38:29.400
they can afford a donation, they should do that. Because the opposition party in this country is
00:38:34.680
a conservative party of Canada, and we have a chance in this leadership to make it a true conservative
00:38:38.520
party that stands up for conservative principles. So thank you for all your work, Ezra, and for this
00:38:44.520
interview. Well, it's nice to see you. You too. There you have it, Jim Karahelios. And we'll send this
00:38:49.720
video out to all our people. What do you think? Send me an email with your thoughts to ezra
00:38:55.400
at rebelnews.com. That's it for today. On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
00:39:00.280
to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.