EZRA LEVANT ｜ Poilievre's support for freedom propelled his political stardom
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Summary
A feature interview with Andrew Lawton, our friend from True North. He's written a new book called Pierre Polyev, A Political Life, and it's a bestseller. We're going to spend the whole course of the show going through it.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends, a feature interview with Andrew Lawton, our friend from True North.
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He's written a new book called Pierre Polyev, A Political Life, and it is a bestseller.
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We're going to spend the whole course of the show going through it.
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You don't want to miss it, but let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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All right, here's my interview with Andrew Lawton.
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Tonight, a feature interview with Andrew Lawton about his best-selling book about Pierre Polyev.
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It's June 19th, and this is The Ezra of Net Show.
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You know, they say history is written by the winners.
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That's why the good guys win all the battles, because the bad guys aren't left there to tell
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One of the things that frustrates me as a Canadian, and this has been the case for decades,
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is that the stories of our conservative or freedom-oriented heroes were written by their
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So, when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, there was an orgy of attack books about him.
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And I just think it's the same in comedy, the same in filmmaking, the same in TV shows.
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For some reason, those cultural industries are overwhelmingly left-wing or, at best, liberal,
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And so, when someone from our side—and by our side, I don't mean a partisan conservative.
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I mean someone who just cares about freedom, cares about ordinary folks, not just the incumbent
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elites—when someone from our side actually writes a book about, for example, Pierre Polyev,
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the leader of the Conservative Party, and the likely next prime minister, I think it behooves
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us to say, this is a miracle, it's a unicorn, we have to support it, because when has that
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And so, you may know that I am introducing our favorite guy, author, journalist, my friend
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Andrew Lawton, because he just wrote a book called Pierre Polyev, A Political Life, and
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Even if it wasn't a good book, I would still say it behooves every conservative to buy it,
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because we need conservative—and I'm not—I don't mean that like you're a party man.
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So, how did you know that this book was going to be so needed?
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When did you—was it when Polyev became the new leader, and you thought, okay, we've got
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So, just as a bit of context, I wrote a book about the Freedom Convoy in 2022, and that
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book just became this huge success, even though Indigo had blacklisted it, the mainstream media
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It was the number one bestseller for, I think, seven weeks.
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So, I think what it showed there is what you said, that there is an appetite for these
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stories in Canada, irrespective of what the media says is the official title of the summer.
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And I think in general, there's also an issue in Canada in that we don't have people telling
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In the US, you have political columnists and talk radio people and Fox personalities that
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Not all of them are good, but they're committed to doing it, and there's a market.
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Whereas in Canada, who are the conservative historians?
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I mean, Tom Flanagan wrote about the Harper campaign in 2004 and 2006 afterwards, but that
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And so for me, when I was watching the leadership rallies that Polyev held, these rallies that
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would bring out thousands of people, I was looking around and seeing, much like I had
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seen with the Freedom Convoy, there's something bigger here that's happening that needs to
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As he became the leader, as I saw that momentum continue, as I saw Polyev really campaigned
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as a very different type of person from his predecessors and as a different person in
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There's a story here that needs to be told to introduce this guy to Canadians before the
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You know, I think one of the most important things you did in the book, and I'd like your
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reaction to this, is you didn't just digest what had already been written about the guy.
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Because like I say, that's got a bias built in because it would be written by CBC, Canadian
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So if you were just going to say, well, all I know about Pierre Polyev is what's being published
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to date, even if you're trying to have a balanced book, it's not going to be balanced because
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You did a ton of primary research, by which I mean interviewing people.
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I want you to talk about that because with books like this, people say, oh, I already
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Or do you just know what the CBC and Althea Raj and Rosemary Barton say about it?
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Because if you're just consuming the news, you have one perspective.
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Give me some examples of things that you uncovered or discovered that are not part of the common
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So I didn't want it to just be his Wikipedia page and send it to book form where it just
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takes any mention of him in the news and throws it together in a timeline.
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At the same time, I also know that Polyev's success in part has been because he's brought
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So I wanted it to be accessible in a way that it does cover old ground for people that don't
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But there was a focus that I had on talking to people that have been involved, not just going
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But before then, I mean, people may not know, even in your own audience, that he was your
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communications director when you were an Elias candidate.
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And that was just this chaotic time in Canadian politics.
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And that was something that had to be in the book.
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And that's something that a lot of people, it's out there, but a lot of people now in
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You were, I was telling you stuff when I sat down to interview you and that was-
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I forgot that I had co-written an article with him.
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Because I had asked you for a copy and you were like trying to, you were looking in the
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Let me interject and tell you, I've known Pierre Polyev as you've just indicated for
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And what I tell people who ask me about him, I say, look, no one knows what's in a man's
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heart, but he has been saying the same principled things since he was in college.
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So maybe he'll have a change of heart when he's in power.
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But if past behavior is a predictor of future behavior, I've known him since he was in his
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And he has been saying the same thing ever since.
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And I would actually go even before that, because when you talk about things that I
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found that weren't really part of the public discourse already, I found letters to the
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editor he wrote even as a teenager, an op-ed he would write for the Calgary Herald here
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And he had not just a principled conservatism back then when he was talking about, you know,
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opposing the capital gains tax to bring it into the current context and other things like,
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He was even criticizing conservative leaders at the time.
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He, I mean, this is Ralph Klein is held up as being this, you know, granddaddy of Western
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But Polyev was saying publicly, well, there are these people in this party that aren't
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So for a guy that wanted to work in politics, that was a pretty bold, maybe foolish, but
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So going back to even his teenage years, he was saying the exact same things he's saying
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now on the issues that matter and on that core idea and on freedom.
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I mean, he wrote an essay in university, which the prompt that he was given was, as prime
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But the title of his essay, and it was run by Magna, was Building Canada Through Freedom.
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And even some of the phrases are almost identical to things he said when he announced his leadership
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And that was, of course, 25 years later, 23 years later.
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You know, on the one hand, that shows a remarkable focus and continuity and reliability, and
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What about those who would say, well, look, even since he was a lad in diapers, he was thinking
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I guess it's an American experience more than a Canadian one, I regret.
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I'm just saying you remind me that even when he was a student, he was this way.
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And, you know, the book is subtitled A Political Life for a Reason, because his life has been
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He had a very brief stint working, you know, in the private sector.
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And then for the last 20 years, he's been a member of Parliament.
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I don't even think I'm saying it was a criticism.
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Well, I think it is a legitimate criticism, because on one hand, he's talking about, you
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know, the ordinary middle class experiences of Canadians.
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Most Canadians haven't been making a six-figure salary since their 20s.
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But I also point out that the career politician label tends to be overlooked when people like
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And it's the kind of thing, when you're going after a liberal, you say, oh, he's a career
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When you're going after a conservative, you say, oh, he's a career politician.
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I think I was more interested not in making a judgment of, is that good or bad?
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I was more interested in figuring out why it was.
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And I talked to some of the people that had worked with him very early on in his career.
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And it was interesting that he had actually spoken to the MP he sat next to when he took
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his seat for the first time, Joe Preston, and said, you know, Joe, I'm a little bit concerned
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that, you know, you're here, you're a business guy.
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What can I do to learn a little bit more about that?
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And it was some of those conversations that led him to invest in property and just have
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So he'd have to worry about paperwork and taxes and just all the things that are something
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And he was aware that it was a bit of a blind spot, that it was a bit of a gap in his experience.
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And he had also, at one point, which I found fascinating, and again, had never been reported
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elsewhere, talked to someone who had volunteered on his campaign about leaving politics, about
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serving a couple of terms, leaving, and then coming back and maybe being finance minister
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This was the sense that I got that, well, if I leave, what if my seat's not there when
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What if it's not actually as easy to transition back into it?
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So I could see how he ended up in that path dependency.
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And again, the book is not to make a pro or anti-Polly a point.
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It's just to talk about who he is and tell that story.
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And as a result, as I started writing it, it really became a history of the modern conservative
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movement and how this group of ragtag folks in Alberta reform politics became really the
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You know, I want to ask you about that because I knew him as a young guy from Calvary when
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And one of the things that has always frustrated Westerners, and I remember this being a topic
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of discussion in the reform party, was how to get ahead in the federal government, you
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And the odds of being bilingual, if you're born and raised in Calgary or Saskatchewan,
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Odds of being bilingual if you're in Montreal is pretty high.
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And so that was regarded as a kind of systemic barrier to Westerners.
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And his French, I mean, it's not perfect, but it's better than Joe Clark's French.
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It's miles better than Preston Manning's French.
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That's the one province he's not leading in the polls, which you can forgive a guy from
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You know, and I love, you know, I got to tell you, there's some politicians from Quebec I
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But to listen to Gilbeau, so he says, Pierre Poignet, like he really says it in a French
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Like he's not trying to, like I, there is something about the Laurentian elite that if
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you try and speak French and they'll give you a touch of respect.
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And I hate to give any credit to Stephen Gilbeau.
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So his father's family is of Franco-Saskatchewan lineage.
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I think it's his father's grandfather immigrated to Saskatchewan from France.
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And Polyev's father is, again, he grew up in the West.
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He's not a native Francophone, but he thought French was important.
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So he actually tried to instill in Polyev when he was young, a bit of that foundation.
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Now, like a lot of other kids from Alberta, Polyev had very little interest in it.
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And anything he learned, he had lost by the time he was working for Stockwell Day in Ottawa.
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And it was only when he was a candidate, and actually when he got elected, that he started
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to realize, hey, I should probably learn French, which I think in Canada is synonymous with
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Preston Manning had to just do this painful, painful debate in basically reading a prepared
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It's hard for someone to, it's hard for anyone to learn a language later in life.
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In fact, it's sort of fun to see bilingual kids.
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If a mom speaks this and a dad speaks that, a kid might speak three languages.
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Well, and Polyev's kids are basically trialing you because they're, yeah, his wife is very
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And so basically they're learning all three of them.
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Give me a little bit about her because I, you know, the first I saw her was at the leadership
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She is a walking, talking rebuttal to, you're racist.
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You're against, well, like she is such an asset.
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And what's interesting, I'll say it's a bit of context in that Polyev is unique in using
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And I don't mean that in a negative way, but deploying his spouse in politics.
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Lorene Harper, I think, did maybe one interview and the entire time Harper was prime minister.
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And Jill Scheer, you know, was at events, but not a household name.
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And Rebecca O'Toole, you know, Aaron O'Toole's wife.
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I mean, these are all spouses who were there and they were supportive, but they were never
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They were never starring in ads in the way that Anna is.
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She's, you know, from she's a refugee from Venezuela.
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She's escaped that socialist hellhole that is that country because Canada offered her family
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I mean, her speech at the Conservative Convention just lit the whole crowd up.
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That, you know what, that was the moment for me.
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I guess it's partly because she herself was a step.
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So the political life, the political communication, she's aware of it.
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And she was, there's a fair bit in the book about how they met and how they started dating.
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It's been a little polarizing to women who have read it because Paulyev had a confidence
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about it that he reached out to her because they had met because she was working on the
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And, you know, she eventually, you know, emailed him because they had agreed, you know, she
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would email his parliamentary email address and he didn't ask her out.
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Now, I want to talk about something that has surprised me in a good way.
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I started off by saying our side does not write the history.
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We don't write the books, the TV, the movies, the documentaries.
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I mean, we're starting to a tiny bit, but it's a drop in the bucket.
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Your book is published by Sutherland House, which is a little bit right of center, I would
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I would say they're non-political, but they publish the right of center.
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Their boss is Ken White, who was the founding editor of the National Post, was the guy who
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breathed the conservative life into McLean's magazine.
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Any publishing house that published your trucker book, I mean, most publishers wouldn't touch
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it because they would not be invited to cocktail parties.
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I'll give your publisher credit, and obviously credit to you and the book.
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But you've actually, this is, you've got to give it credit when you see it, you've actually
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The book has not been blacklisted this time like your trucker book.
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Give us some heartening news, and let's hear it.
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Tell us the surprises, and we'll just marvel at it.
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So, The Freedom Convoy was my first book, and I was so excited.
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But what had happened was, the book was coming out, I cleared like three weeks of my schedule.
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Because I knew that I was just going to be morning to night interviews, I was going to
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be speaking places, and then, you know, basically-
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I did your show, I did a podcast, and I was grateful for it.
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I, I, it absolutely helped, but no interest at all.
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When I saw the interview request pouring in for this book, I was worried that, oh, maybe
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that means it won't sell, because, you know, maybe there's an inverse relationship.
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But, no, I, I've done 30 interviews with CBC, if you can believe it.
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Every, every single CBC radio show, uh, across, or every, every radio station.
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Yeah, I mean, for the CBC radio ones, the questions were pretty much identical in every
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market, because they, there, there was a script, and I don't mean that in a critical way, but
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But I did power in politics, and had a great time with David Cochran.
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I did, you know, the house with Catherine Cullen.
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I, I, you know, slipped in a couple of references to Polly, I'm wanting to defund the CBC when-
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And, and, and, and to be fair, I, I think CBC had a, there, there was one thing that worked
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in my favor, which was the same day my book came out, a book about Justin Trudeau came
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Yeah, but I, I think they would have realized that the stakes were very high, and, and, you
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But that's another thing, because they've got to be, maybe they're trying to be slightly
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better behaved because they know a new boss is coming.
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Maybe, and, and I think that, generally speaking, there was a sense that I got from the reporters
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that I spoke to that they genuinely want to understand-
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You're the free book L on the guy, and you, you probably had access to sources.
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Like, if the CBC were to call me up, saying, hey, what about that op-ed you co-authored
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Yeah, it's, and look, Paul Wells, who I, I've always gotten along with well, I did an interview
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on his podcast, and he had basically said, anytime I told anyone you were writing the
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book, they would all just roll their eyes, because it's basically going to be this hagiography,
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There are things in the book that I'm sure Polly of doesn't like, and things that he
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does like, but more crucially, because of my investment in the right of center world
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in this country, there were people who took my calls, like you said, that wouldn't have
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taken the call of some Toronto star or CBC reporter, and as a result, even if you don't
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like Polly of, my book has a much deeper view of who he is and what world he inhabits
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I'm sure that every single opposition war room member of the Liberal Party has read it,
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and of course, the Liberal, sorry, the CBC, in my mind, is just an auxiliary to the Liberal
00:21:25.340
Party opposition war room, so they'll all have read it out of genuine interest and to
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Yeah, the indigo across the street from Parliament Hill has been sold out pretty much every day.
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So it's all the staffers and journalists that are going to buy the map.
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CBC, give me, and I just want to hear this because I share your happiness for this.
00:21:46.140
Yeah, the Doctrional Post ran a few, ran an excerpt in an article.
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The Toronto Star had phenomenal coverage of it.
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Now, the review was not particularly favorable.
00:22:00.160
They mentioned, if they hated you, they'd try to starve you off.
00:22:07.300
So I think the mainstream media realizes what's happening.
00:22:13.880
Well, I powered politics on CBC, and I did an interview on Global as well.
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I did an interview with a newspaper in Ottawa, the Hill Times, and one of the questions the
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reporter asked is, well, on one hand, you criticize the mainstream media, but here you
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But I said, my issue with the mainstream media is that they are not spending time talking
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about these things or talking to people like me.
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So I would go on CBC every week if they wanted.
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My frustration with them is that they're setting aside a part of the country.
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So I'm not going to boycott the mainstream media, irrespective of whether there's a book,
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because my whole point is that we need to be on that platform.
00:22:58.920
You know, you make me- I mean, all this talk about things 20, 30 years ago.
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There was a time when I lived in Calgary, whenever I was coming to Toronto for whatever reason,
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I would tell the CBC and they would put me on just because they were so desperate for
00:23:14.260
There was a show, I don't know if you remember, maybe before your time, called Face Off.
00:23:21.020
A permanent guest on the left, Judy Rebick, sorry, permanent host.
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A permanent host on the left, Judy Rebick, formerly the head of the National Action
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You had a permanent host on the right, Claire Hoy, a conservative commentator.
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But they would bring in guests two at a time, a liberal and a conservative.
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So they were- in Toronto, they were always trying to get a Western conservative voice.
00:23:45.920
The idea that there would be a show with a built-in conservative voice is unthinkable today.
00:23:52.160
By the way, they replaced Crossfire with Avi Lewis's own show.
00:23:59.440
So those early days, Eddie, this is off topic from your book, but I do remember when the
00:24:04.920
CBC at least went through the motions of having another point of view.
00:24:10.220
Yeah, because the problem with a lot of these panels is that you tune in and the panel is
00:24:17.080
And it's like, well, who's representing the conservative viewpoint?
00:24:21.940
Geographically, that's all the way from, I don't know, Montreal.
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I think it ends at Yonge Street as far as Toronto.
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And so when you got cooking for it, you've done the media rounds, I'm thrilled to hear
00:24:43.860
We launched it in Calgary, which I thought was so fitting, because that's where Polyev
00:24:52.160
I'm actually off to Winnipeg right after this interview to do an event there.
00:24:56.100
So that's the other thing that I never got with the Freedom Convoy.
00:25:03.000
And I think part of that is because there is a momentum right now that in conservative
00:25:08.040
politics, there hasn't been for the last nine years.
00:25:12.700
And even if someone is not voting for Polyev, you can't deny that the conservative party
00:25:16.820
is looking and feeling a lot different right now than it has been the last two elections.
00:25:22.920
And I give the truckers some obvious credit for that.
00:25:32.680
And sorry to interrupt there, but when you mentioned Aaron O'Toole, the number of conservative
00:25:37.000
caucus members that I spoke to, members of Parliament, for this book was sizable.
00:25:42.340
The way that Aaron O'Toole is viewed and spoken about by that group wouldn't surprise you,
00:25:54.380
And that's something that as well in this book, I think, shines through.
00:25:57.300
Some of these comments were on background, so I couldn't quote them and certainly couldn't
00:26:01.300
But there has been a changeover where a lot of people really, really are so happy that
00:26:09.340
And I mean, it's not just me having a Biden moment.
00:26:18.980
Well, listen, we have something called Rebel News Live once a year in Toronto, once a year
00:26:25.600
Consider this an invitation if you haven't received one already.
00:26:41.220
There's a lot of pundits and bloggers and YouTubers and podcasters out there.
00:26:46.100
But to write a book and publish it, the authoritative book, the first book, the book that even the
00:26:52.140
bad guys at the CBC read is an important accomplishment.
00:26:56.760
As I started the interview, who writes our history?
00:27:00.840
Imagine if Althea Raj had been the first one with a book on Pierre Paulyab.
00:27:06.620
Imagine if that Cochran fellow, the CBCer, was the first.
00:27:11.700
I think it's incredibly important that you set the default.
00:27:16.560
And others will publish books, too, and that's great.
00:27:18.800
But you were first, and that's very important culturally.
00:27:22.940
Folks, you can get a copy of the book on Amazon.
00:27:27.760
Do you have a special page you want to refer to, or is Amazon?
00:27:30.000
No, just look up Amazon, Pierre Paulyab, A Political Life.
00:27:32.860
It's also available on Indigo, but Amazon, it'll be at your door probably the next day.
00:27:37.620
Well, listen, at the beginning, I sort of half-joked that even if it was a crappy book, I would
00:27:46.100
But I think, you know, Andrew Lawton and his actual work at True North and before that and
00:27:49.580
other publications to know it's not a crappy book.
00:27:53.600
It's a book with new facts that you only get by interviewing people, not just by, you know,
00:28:00.740
And the fact that it is breaking down barriers, and the fact that you've been interviewed 30
00:28:06.800
I think it's important that we support this book.
00:28:14.240
Buy it to read it, but buy it to support it, and buy it to send a signal that Canadians want
00:28:21.400
You know, that's our motto, telling the other side of the story.
00:28:23.260
Today, the guy who's telling the other side of the story on Pierre Paulyab is Andrew Lawton.
00:28:28.700
The book is called Pierre Paulyab, A Political Life.
00:28:34.980
Until next time, and on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you