Ezra Levant Show (March 19 2021) f Erin O’Toole loses against Trudeau — Bring back Stephen Harper!
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Summary
The Federal Conservative Party is in full swing in cyberspace, and there's a lot to be excited about, including the speech by Erin O'Toole tomorrow night. But if things continue the way they are right now, what should the party do after the speech?
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Today, the Conservative Party convention starts. It's not in any place. It's
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in cyberspace, so I'm not sure how much fun or excitement will come from it. But one thing that
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I'm interested in is the speech by Erin O'Toole. That's tomorrow night. Sheila Gunn-Reed and I will
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do a live stream of it. But look, if things continue the way they are, Erin O'Toole is going
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to get crushed like a bowl of eggs. What should the party do after? Should they just give them
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another shot and then maybe another? I have a proposal to bring in a candidate with name
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recognition, a track record of success, and the ability to unite different parts of the
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Conservative coalition. I'll tell you who I think should start preparing for a leadership
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run for the Conservatives if, in fact, Erin O'Toole gets crushed this spring, as I think
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he will. So listen to my podcast for that. But first, hey, do me a favor and consider
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becoming a Rebel News Plus subscriber. That's what we call our video version of this podcast.
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It's eight bucks a month, and that basically gets you this video show. Sheila Gunn-Reed,
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David Menzies, Andrew Chapados. And importantly, it keeps our lights on. We pay the bills with
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that. Because as you know, we don't take a dime from Justin Trudeau's bailout. So please
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go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. It's just eight bucks a month. All right, here's
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Tonight, the Federal Conservative Party convention begins online. It's March 18th, and this is the
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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.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's
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Well, no one knows for sure, maybe not even Justin Trudeau, but the official thinking, the
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conventional wisdom is we're going to have a federal election this year. The question is
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is it in the spring or in the fall? The fact that Justin Trudeau has totally flubbed the
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vaccine process? Well, that looks bad even if you're an anti-vaxxer. It's embarrassing
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for him, but I don't think anything can embarrass Justin Trudeau. I think we're going to have
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Well, today, the Federal Conservative Party started its convention, its last chance to
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meet as a party before going into that vote. Of course, because of the pandemic, the party
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will not actually meet. It'll be all done via Zoom, an online conference, which isn't very
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I want to tell you, I've gone through the conference schedule, and in fact, tomorrow
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night at 5.15 p.m. Eastern Time or 3.15 p.m. Mountain Time, Aaron O'Toole is going to
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have his big leadership speech. That's the moment. Now, normally that would be in front
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of a big crowd and people would go wild and there'd be people with signs. It'll be interesting
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to see how that works when it's really just a YouTube video. It's tough for any speaker to
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get energy from an empty camera. Normally, you like crowds clapping, so it'll make it
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a little bit of a tougher speech, but obviously the speech can be scripted and even filmed in
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advance. It wouldn't surprise me if the speech for tomorrow night has actually already been
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recorded, edited, and perfected. Sheila Gunn-Reed and I will be live streaming that speech for
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you tomorrow. We'll start about 15 minutes before it, so 5 p.m. Eastern Time, 3 p.m. Mountain
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Time. I'll be here in our Toronto headquarters. Sheila will be out west, and we'll have a
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chat. We'll play the whole speech, then we'll come back and talk about it, and you can participate
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too with what we call live stream super chats. So I don't know yet how the convention is going
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to go, but there's a few things I can observe right away. First of all, Aaron O'Toole, the
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leader of the Conservatives, is very much scared of this convention. I know that because of the
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steps he's taken to weed out any socially conservative members of the party who posed
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some sort of threat to him at the convention. I'm not sure what threat that was, but that
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was the reason why Aaron O'Toole sacked Derek Sloan from the caucus and then proceeded to
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dissolve Derek Sloan's local district association. I find that very unusual. But if you look at
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what's been going on over the last few months, it fits a pattern. Aaron O'Toole eliminating anyone
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who might be a rival. We've done a series of shows on this. I showed you the CBC story where
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conservative lobbyists like Tim Powers talked about how Aaron O'Toole has to distance himself
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from conservatives like Jason Kenney and from the hostility to the carbon tax that is a bedrock
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of conservative viewpoints. And Aaron O'Toole indeed has talked about he's a net zero candidate,
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which is impossible if you want fossil fuels. More recently, Aaron O'Toole demoted Pierre
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Polyev, the finance critic for the Conservative Party and really the most effective MP in the
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entire caucus. Other things along the way, insulting rebel news, which I don't think makes any sense,
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but he did it. And just last week, a bizarre and shocking decision to throw out the party's age-old
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policy plank that called for a reduction in foreign aid. Now, Canada's unemployment rate is
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almost 10%. It's actually the worst out of all G7 countries. Trudeau's debt is staggering. It's in
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the trillions now. And there's many problems that need pressing help if you're looking to help poor
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people. Well, you could look at people within this country, even if you wanted to be woke about it,
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getting clean drinking water and Northern Indian reserves that Trudeau once said was his high
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priority. Imagine being in favor of diverting money to foreign countries, including, as you know,
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Trudeau still gives foreign aid to China itself. Opposing foreign aid isn't just the right thing to do.
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It's extremely popular with vast swaths of Canadian population. But Aaron O'Toole just threw away
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that policy plank too. As you know, in recent weeks, O'Toole has hired the former vice president
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of Huawei Canada and has quietly removed the ban Huawei petition from the Conservative Party page.
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I'm worried about the direction the party is going. We'll see in his speech tomorrow how he wants to
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present himself to the country. Really, this is his last chance, in my opinion, before the campaign
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begins. And if you scroll through the party's official convention page, you'll start to see
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what Aaron O'Toole's version of the Conservative Party looks like. Here's on screen a list of the
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official speakers of the conference. You'll notice, obviously, Jason Kenney is not on there, but
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neither is Pierre Polyev. Polyev, of course, was demoted and the Conservatives said, no, no,
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we're putting him in an even better position. Really? He has no position on the Speaker's roster.
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That's odd. He had an amazing week. Remember just the other day when the Kielberger brothers were
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summoned to Parliament? Take a look at this exchange between Pierre Polyev and the Kielbergers.
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What was the role exactly of Mr. Chen, Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister in setting up this
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program? I don't think he had any role in it. Mr., is that the answer for both of you?
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Yes, that's correct. Who are you referring to, sir? Can you remember Ben Chin? Ben Chin.
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There was no role. Craig, no role? Not that I'm aware of. Then why did you send him a message on
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LinkedIn on June 27th saying, hello, Ben. Thank you for your kindness in helping shape our latest
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program with the government. Warmly, Craig. Sure. So I sent 100 messages because I only had
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seven people, eight people on LinkedIn before that. And so that day, 100 messages went out. My EA
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sent them to people to join on LinkedIn, and he was one of them. Yes. I actually didn't, but my EA did.
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Craig, this is your message. It's signed by you. And if I could be clear, it doesn't just say,
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I wish you well. It says, Ben, if you choose me, thank you for your kindness in helping shape our
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latest program with the government. Warmly, Craig. You sent that. Did you not? Yeah, I don't dispute
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that that was sent. Sorry, sorry. You got yourself in a lot of trouble here. You've just said a moment
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ago, you thought that the Prime Minister's Senior Advisor, Mr. Chen, had no role in the establishment
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of the program. But I have correspondence where you thanked him for helping shape that very program.
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It's rare that a political committee meeting is that riveting, that gripping, just for sheer
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entertainment and wow factor, let alone for actually achieving conservative goals.
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Pierre Polyev is a star, which is maybe why he was left off the roster.
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Well, look who's on the roster. As you can see, one of the speakers is named Waleed Solomon.
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He's not an MP. Who's he? Well, he works for one of the largest law firms in the world.
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He was best known as Patrick Brown's best friend and ally in his disastrous pro-carbon tax leadership
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of the Provincial Conservative Party. Waleed Solomon has also been accused of being soft on
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Islamism. He's denied that and sued anyone who said that about him, including other conservatives.
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Having Waleed Solomon on the platform of speakers and banning the likes of Jason Kenney and Pierre
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Polyev says a lot about the direction of Aaron O'Toole. If you click on related events on the website,
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the first thing that comes up is another scary indicator. Again, these aren't official party events,
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but these are events that the party is promoting on their website, advertising to people to join.
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And you can see it's by a group called Clean Prosperity. What's that? Well, you can probably
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guess that's a global warming activist group. I don't know how they got on this list. I assume
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they paid money to Aaron O'Toole. And of course, Aaron O'Toole is proud to be associated with them,
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unlike, say, Rebel News, Pierre Polyev, or Derek Sloan. I find it deeply troubling. These little
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indicators we'll see in the speech tomorrow night. I'm not prejudging it, but recent events tells me
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I should have a low expectation. Tomorrow's speech is at 5.15 p.m. I imagine there'll be a little
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preamble video, a prepared, produced video that shows the great successes of Aaron O'Toole's six
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months as party leader. Well, if that were the case, it would be quite a short video. This is when he
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needs a bump. Parties often have a bump in the polls from their conventions because the conventions give
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them a chance to showcase themselves on their own terms, and the media often covers them. I doubt that's
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going to happen here. There's not a lot to show, and most of the proceedings are not going to be
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made available to the public. In fact, there's a frequently asked questions section on the page
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that says, will any of these sessions be available online for viewing? And the party explicitly says,
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no, they will not. It's almost like it's a secret convention. I presume the party's leadership
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speech tomorrow night will be made public, but I don't expect there to be a bump in the polls.
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In fact, if you look at that CBC poll aggregator that we've looked at before, and again, I don't
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trust the CBC as far as I can throw them, but all they've done here is simply aggregate all the polls.
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So they're just putting it all together in one place, and they're extrapolating from that, based on
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region and province, how many seats they expect each party to get. You can see there's a bit of a
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bandwidth there, but they predict that the conservatives will lose a dozen seats if Aaron O'Toole
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stays on course, and they say that the likelihood of a Liberal Party majority is 46%. The likelihood of
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a Liberal Party minority, again, is another 44%. That's a 90% chance of a Liberal victory, only a 10%
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chance of a Conservative victory, and that would only be a minority. So what happens if, let's think a few
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months into the future, what happens if those poll predictors come true? If Waleed Solomon, the
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mastermind behind Patrick Brown's success in Ontario, becomes the mastermind of the same disaster for Aaron
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O'Toole. What happens if he, in fact, rolls the party back and gives Justin Trudeau a majority win? Well, some might
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say Aaron O'Toole simply didn't have enough time. He'll want to hold on and get a second chance and run for the
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party again. I can understand there would be some fatigue in the party from having leadership races. There was just one
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six months ago. But if Aaron O'Toole can't even muster party support now in his, quote, honeymoon phase, how is he
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going to do it later? Would Pierre Polyev throw his hat into the ring? And by that, I mean, would he
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challenge Aaron O'Toole's leadership if Aaron O'Toole loses the seats he's expected to do? I'm not an expert in the
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Conservative Party constitution, but I expect one of the reasons O'Toole's having his conference now is so that
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there's no legally required leadership mandate for quite a while. Again, I'm not an expert in the
00:14:26.540
rules. Pierre Polyev briefly threw his hat into the ring, at least in an exploratory sense, in the last
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leadership race before suddenly dropping out. I was very sad that he did. I thought he was excellent.
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Perhaps something was brought to an attention, some opposition research designed to embarrass him, perhaps
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some personal scandal. I simply don't know, but I was sad that he dropped out and I hope he reconsiders.
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But what if he doesn't? Or what if he does and the party just can't win? Peter McKay, who came in
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second in the last leadership race, was no winner either, I believe. Is the Conservative Party doomed
00:15:03.180
to an eternity in opposition? Could Justin Trudeau do what his father Pierre Trudeau did and govern
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pretty much for 16 years? That was Pierre Trudeau from 1968 to 1984. There's only a brief break in there
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for Joe Clark. What should Conservatives do? Who has the policy smarts? Who has the true Conservative
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beliefs that would unite the party, both fiscal Conservatives and social Conservatives,
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populists and downtown Toronto fancy pants? Who can do that? Who's strong enough to stare down the media
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when they're just giving them a rough time? Definitely Aaron O'Toole is not. Who has the name recognition
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to instantly take a jump in the polls and whose personal temperament, whose personality is a fit for these
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troubled times? I know a guy. His name is Stephen Harper. He was the most successful Conservative
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leader in a generation. He put back together a fractious Conservative movement that had split
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amongst the Conservative Party and the Reform Party. He wasn't beloved by journalists, but he was respected
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by them. In this era of wasteful spending, his penny-pinching approach and his economist's pedigree would serve him
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and our country well. And more to the point, he's a winner. He didn't win his last election, but by then I think
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people were fatigued and the media and the perfect storm in the campaign gave it to Trudeau, but just barely.
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Well, now it's Trudeau's perfect storm of incompetence, debt, and high unemployment. I say,
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bring back Harper. Let him put things together again. Is he really enjoying himself being a consultant?
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Unlike Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper doesn't crave status and pedigree. Unlike Brian Mulroney,
00:17:07.920
Stephen Harper doesn't crave money. I think he's enjoying talking to Israel's leaders and India's
00:17:14.400
leaders and people he finds genuinely interesting, but I've got to think that whenever he turns on the
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TV and sees Trudeau muck it up again, or see Trudeau being a lightweight at the G7 or the G20,
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that a part of Stephen Harper thinks, I should be there, not that chump. So I say,
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let Aaron O'Toole give his speech tomorrow and Sheila and I will give you our true and honest reaction.
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And I say, let Aaron O'Toole run in the next election. It's too late to change it.
00:17:45.760
But if he does what everyone thinks he'll do, blow it. I think the answer isn't to give him yet another
00:17:52.480
try or even just to ask the party to go through yet another leadership with candidates of no count.
00:17:59.280
I think the answer is to draft Stephen Harper. He's still young enough. He's still engaged enough. He's
00:18:05.600
still smart enough. And I think maybe he's the only guy who can bring the conservative party's
00:18:11.680
confidence back. You know, we had a petition for Stephen Harper a few years back. I don't know if
00:18:16.960
you remember. When he retired, we put up a petition to name the Calgary International Airport
00:18:23.520
Harper International Airport. The story got a little bit of buzz, but it didn't happen. Did you really
00:18:28.880
think Justin Trudeau was going to give him that? Well, let's stop talking about airports and let's
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actually petition the man himself. You know, I've known Stephen Harper for quite a while
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and I know one thing about him. He's thought about government and governing as a conservative
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his whole life. I don't believe his true purpose is to be a lobbyist or a consultant or a jet setter
00:18:53.440
for its own sake. I believe his purpose is to give conservative leadership to Canada. And I believe
00:19:01.360
that his whole family would support him, especially now that his kids are grown up and he can focus all
00:19:06.240
his attentions on the job at hand. If you agree with me that Stephen Harper should start wrapping up his
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career and think about coming back to serve the country, obviously that's a personal decision for
00:19:20.080
him to make, but he's a man with a public spirit. If you think he should decide to come back, then I ask you
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to go to bringbackharper.com and sign the petition. I want to get thousands of conservatives to sign the
00:19:37.760
petition that we will deliver that petition to Stephen Harper and tell him, boss, you're not done yet.
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You got one more mission to save this country. If you agree with me, go to bringbackharper.com and sign the petition.
00:19:55.280
Well, if you want to talk about conservative politics, you've got to talk to Andrew Lawton.
00:20:10.880
He knows his stuff. He's one of our favorite guys and he works for True North. He joins us now via Skype.
00:20:17.040
Andrew, great to see you. The Conservative Party convention is on and normally you'd be there,
00:20:22.240
but there's no there. It's all an online conference, isn't it?
00:20:26.880
Yeah, and my approach to this is kind of yet another virtual event. It's difficult a year in
00:20:31.520
to get excited about too many Zoom events, but this is the era in which we're living.
00:20:36.320
Yeah, I don't blame anybody for this. I mean, the conservatives probably couldn't hold this event
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anywhere in Canada. They'd have to fly down to Florida to find a place that would allow them to meet.
00:20:47.120
And of course, that wouldn't work with the quarantine. I'm not as interested in the virtual
00:20:54.000
nature of the convention as I am. A few little signs of the party's direction. Let me give you
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a couple examples. Clean Prosperity, which is sort of a global warming think tank, is having an official
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event. I don't see the Taxpayers Federation there. You have speakers like Waleed Solomon, Patrick Brown's
00:21:16.080
former top aide. But Pierre Polyev isn't the speaker. And I'm worried that these are little
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signals and symbols of the party's direction. What do you think?
00:21:27.200
Yeah, it's a bit concerning that conventions, and I'll take a step back on this actually,
00:21:32.240
because the problem with political conventions is that they are more about theater than they are
00:21:37.280
about substance historically. Despite debates on policy resolutions, a lot of the outcomes are very
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scripted. And under normal circumstances, why people go to these things is to schmooze, people want to
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hobnob, people want to do all sorts of things. And yes, you have special interest groups that want to be a
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part of it by hosting their hospitality suites and all that. But there is a big issue right now, because
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this is, despite the virtual nature of it, Aaron O'Toole's coming out party to the conservative base
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as leader. You may remember it was in August that he became the leader. He gave his victory speech at,
00:22:10.880
you know, three in the morning or something like that. But this is his first time to really address
00:22:15.600
the base, address the party membership since that night. And in doing so, he's addressing people
00:22:21.440
that voted for Derek Sloan, who voted for Leslyn Lewis, who voted for Peter McKay. And the thing about
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that is that of the four candidates in the race, Derek Sloan's now out of caucus. Peter McKay's not
00:22:33.360
running again. So there's a lot lacking in the coalition. And his thing has to be,
00:22:40.080
can I keep this party together? So I think that's the big narrative out of here. And it is
00:22:44.720
interesting to go back to your question about who the party is choosing to really make as part of
00:22:49.680
that coalition. Yeah. I remember when I briefly ran for office some 20 years ago, Stephen Harper
00:22:57.520
was the new leader. And I watched him rebuild the conservative party. The first thing he did is he
00:23:02.960
brought back the breakaway MPs, Monty Solberg, Deborah Gray, Jay Hill, who went into something called the
00:23:09.360
Democratic Representative Caucus. So the Canadian Alliance had fractured. He put that back together.
00:23:16.080
Then he put it together with the conservatives. He did that deal with Peter McKay. So just watching
00:23:21.520
Harper rebuild the coalition, there was room for social conservatives. There was room for fiscal
00:23:26.960
conservatives. There was room for Western conservatives. Like, you could see it in real
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time as he literally brought people in one by one. You could feel it. I don't feel that with Aaron O'Toole.
00:23:39.360
I see him pushing aside Derek Sloan. I think he pushed aside Pierre Polyev. Like, I just don't buy the
00:23:47.440
excuses that he was repositioning Polyev. Where is he in the lineup? I just, I'm worried about him. I don't
00:23:54.880
think it's going to win. And even if it did win, I mean, I mentioned in my monologue, O'Toole just came out in
00:24:01.040
favor of maintaining foreign aid at Trudeau levels. That's the most un-conservative thing I ever heard. It's not a
00:24:07.520
political winner. I think he's just afraid of being conservative. Anyway, I'm ranting. What do you think?
00:24:13.600
It's funny, when you mention foreign aid, I used to, in the before times, travel a fair bit for the nature of my work.
00:24:19.360
And, you know, everyone who's ever been on an airplane has heard that whole, you got to put your
00:24:23.040
own mask on. It's a different kind of mask than what we're used to now. But you got to put your
00:24:26.960
own mask on before you assist others. And that's the reality, is that countries have to look out for
00:24:31.440
their own interests before they help others. And in great times, yes, Canada may have had some extra
00:24:36.000
money that it could spare to other countries around the world that were struggling. But the one thing we
00:24:40.720
saw in the pandemic is that we actually, as a country, have not been able to look after ourselves. We
00:24:45.280
weren't able to shore up personal protective equipment. We aren't able to produce any vaccine
00:24:50.000
at all domestically. We aren't able to import at a rate that is anything to be proud of vaccine
00:24:56.000
from elsewhere in the world. And it's other countries that have now had to come to Canada's
00:25:01.280
benefit on this. So I think the foreign aid discussion in the COVID era is a very interesting
00:25:07.520
one. When Canada could not look after itself in a time of crisis, why are we talking about maintaining
00:25:13.120
foreign aid to other countries that, by the way, I would say has not been particularly effective?
00:25:19.520
And I don't think this is a contentious issue in the Conservatives. I think if you were to put
00:25:23.840
ending foreign aid 100% on a ballot question at a Conservative Party of Canada convention,
00:25:30.480
it would probably pass 90%. So I find it odd that this is the one he's choosing to go against the base on.
00:25:37.280
Yeah. Well, and as I said in my monologue, I just think it's the latest in a series of things.
00:25:43.520
He's scaring me on a few things. I'm worried he's going really wobbly on the carbon tax.
00:25:48.560
And even if he says the words, I'm against the carbon tax, I feel like de facto he's approving
00:25:54.640
a carbon tax by other names. It scares me. Can I throw one crazy idea at you? I don't think you
00:25:59.760
heard my monologue because I just recorded it before you came on. I said, look,
00:26:04.240
I want a Conservative to win. I want Trudeau to lose. I think that's obvious for anyone who knows me.
00:26:10.800
But I also am realistic. I look at the polls. O'Toole has not had a bump in his six months as
00:26:16.240
leader. I just don't see him getting traction. And I feel like he's demoralizing part of his base.
00:26:21.840
Maybe I got it wrong, but that's how I see it. I think he's cruising for a bruising. Go ahead.
00:26:27.120
Yeah. I guess the challenge is that right now the message seems to be,
00:26:31.440
hi, I'm Aaron. Let me introduce myself to you. And he's been somewhat, I think,
00:26:36.000
self-aware in that sense from the day he took the stage in August and accepted,
00:26:40.160
and even some of the videos and messaging he's put out since then of just being candid.
00:26:44.320
You don't know me. Here's who I am. But at a certain point, you have to ask,
00:26:48.240
why are you still introducing yourself? What is it that's missing? And is it just that
00:26:52.400
Canadians aren't paying attention to politics? Perhaps. We know, and I know from being a candidate,
00:26:57.360
a lot of the time people do not start paying attention until the last couple of weeks of the
00:27:01.280
campaign. But when you look at, okay, we have a prime minister right now that's been pretty mired
00:27:06.960
in scandal. You've got government spending that's up to just untold levels, some of which can be
00:27:12.640
attributed to spending programs that people would welcome. But other spending is just stuff like the
00:27:18.320
we scandal. And you've got a new, fresh conservative leader who you think would get a bit of momentum just
00:27:23.920
by virtue of being new, of being a fresh face. So yeah, there is the question of where are you
00:27:29.760
going to get that support from? Are you going to get it by introducing yourself to undecideds? Are
00:27:34.320
you going to peel support from the Liberals, from the NDP? I know Aaron O'Toole has focused a fair
00:27:39.040
bit on Quebec as the goal to get some support from the bloc from there. And I haven't yet seen the plan
00:27:45.120
as to where they want to grow. Yeah. You know, this whole, let me introduce myself to you line.
00:27:50.240
Um, let's think about another industry. Let's say a film actor or a pop singer. You don't care about
00:27:58.400
an actor or a singer who says, hi, let me tell you who I am. You say, oh my God, who's singing that
00:28:03.760
song? Who's that? Or wow, I just saw an amazing movie. Who's that? So you look at what they do before
00:28:10.560
you care about who they are. I think politics is the same way. Some guy just saying, oh, hi,
00:28:15.600
can I introduce myself? You don't need to introduce yourself if you're really coming out with powerful,
00:28:21.680
motivating, articulate, visionary statements. People get to know who you are pretty quick if you
00:28:28.000
give them a reason to. I mean, I'm thinking of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. No one said,
00:28:34.920
who's the governor of Florida? They said, who's the guy who's got the lockdown right? So it's what he did.
00:28:41.480
Let me come back to my monologue. If O'Toole loses, and I'm not saying he's going to, but boy,
00:28:48.080
it looks so annoying. I got an idea and it's, maybe it's crazy. I want to throw it at you.
00:28:55.160
Who's got name recognition? Who's a true conservative? Who has the respect, if not the like,
00:29:02.760
of the media? Who can build a party, put the pieces back together? What do you think of a petition
00:29:09.340
to bring back Harper? To say, look, buddy, we know you're not loving being a lobbyist consultant.
00:29:14.980
It's not your thing. You're not like Brian Mulroney, who wants status or money. You love
00:29:20.080
conservative leadership. Come back. Heal the conservative party and beat Justin Trudeau.
00:29:27.020
What do you think of that? There's precedent. There's precedent. If you look at Pierre Trudeau,
00:29:30.300
that's what he did. He left, he was out, and then he came back. And, you know, ultimately,
00:29:34.420
his most successful term politically was that term that he came back for now. That's a great point.
00:29:38.900
That's also the term in which he did the most damage. But for him, politically, that was
00:29:42.640
his most successful time. Charter of Rights, National Energy Program, things that you and I hate.
00:29:47.560
He got it all done in his bonus term. Imagine Harper comes back. Boy, I'm warming to the idea.
00:29:52.880
Harper comes back. He's only 61. I just checked. He's 61. That is a very young man in Paris.
00:29:58.940
Donald Trump's 74. Harper's 61. His kids are grown up, so he doesn't have to worry about little ones
00:30:05.760
at home. He comes back in, and he's just sort of like, guys, I told you so about Trudeau. I told
00:30:11.500
you so about everything. He's made a fool out of us. He's blown all the budget. Bring back the grown-up.
00:30:17.380
Bring it. Put the grown-up in. I think the media would actually like it, or if they hated it, at least
00:30:24.060
they would respect it. How could he possibly do worse than Aaron O'Toole? Absence has made
00:30:30.780
the heart grow fonder. He's been away for five years. People miss him.
00:30:35.340
Well, you become a statesman when you've been out of it for a while, and that's something. I mean,
00:30:39.440
I remember when George W. Bush was Hitler, and now George W. Bush is like the model Republican
00:30:44.500
that the left holds up as, why can't all Republicans be like George Bush? And I'm like, where were you
00:30:49.540
guys in 2006 or 2008? Well, it sounds like you like my idea a little bit. It sounds like maybe
00:30:54.920
a little bit. Are you serious? You like my idea? I don't think it's going to happen, but I think
00:30:59.240
it would be interesting. And I will say to Stephen Harper's credit, one of the things that was
00:31:03.460
interesting is that when he left office, he didn't do what everyone else did, which is get a do-nothing
00:31:08.100
role on a law firm where you take no clients, you cash a big check every year. His book even wasn't the
00:31:14.020
memoir of like, oh, yes, my endeavors for public service began on a park bench in Calgary in 1962.
00:31:20.380
No, he wrote about policy. He wrote about a lot of things that matter. And you look what he's done
00:31:25.260
going into work with the International Democrat Union. So no, he likes being in the game. I would
00:31:30.820
imagine that he's not interested in jumping back. But there is something that I would bring up,
00:31:35.700
Ezra, which is that if Aaron O'Toole does lose, that would make Justin Trudeau one of the most
00:31:41.540
successful Canadian politicians in Canadian history. He would have dethroned three conservative
00:31:48.480
leaders in a row, one of whom was a prime minister. And despite whatever misgivings people in Canada
00:31:54.960
have about Trudeau, that is a metric of success that would be very dangerous for the conservatives
00:31:59.900
to come back from. Yeah. Wow. Well, you know what? I'm going to think more about this. We got a
00:32:05.040
petition at bringbackharper.com. We love our petitions over here, Andrew. But I think that you said,
00:32:09.800
I'm not even kidding. You plunked down 20,000 names on Stephen Harper's desk saying,
00:32:16.420
we want you back, buddy. We need you back. Not even want you. Everyone wants something.
00:32:21.180
We need you back. I don't know. I think it's compelling. We'll see what happens. Great to see
00:32:28.700
you. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks. All right. There you have it. Andrew Lawton,
00:32:31.940
one of the best guys around. I recommend the Andrew Lawton show. He's over there with our friends at
00:32:36.660
tnc.new. So the, excuse me, those are the True North guys in Yale. He's doing a great job. Stay
00:32:55.040
Hey, welcome back on my show last night. Tammy writes,
00:32:57.520
It's ridiculous. 10% should be very enough for recall. This bill is a sham. Yeah. You know,
00:33:03.580
the California constitution says 12%. And they haven't had recalls all the time. They've only
00:33:09.800
had one successful recall in recent memory. They've had a few attempts, but you know,
00:33:15.540
the threat is real enough that it causes politicians to be better behaved. 40%. You know,
00:33:21.760
I haven't studied it very deeply, but I doubt there's a single jurisdiction in the world
00:33:25.940
with 40% of the total electors, not just the number of voters. I doubt there's a single
00:33:31.700
jurisdiction in the world that has ever met that standard. Paul writes, this recall smoke
00:33:38.540
and mirror nonsense goes to show that Alberta needs a viable opposition party. The UPC is going
00:33:43.660
down the same road that got the NDP elected. Yeah. Look, I don't understand the point. If you don't
00:33:49.140
want to recall legislation, then don't have one. But having a fake recall legislation, that's
00:33:54.000
literally impossible. And not just that, invites the poison pill approach. I told you that because
00:33:59.180
you can only attempt to recall someone once every turn, some faker, some agent provocateur,
00:34:06.040
some agent of an unpopular MLA can start a petition for recall, let it lapse, and then the MLA is home
00:34:13.980
free. Look, if you're going to do that, why not just don't do it? Bringing in this shoddy recall
00:34:19.700
legislation is really just another way of trying to trick conservatives into thinking that their
00:34:25.060
policies are being enacted. Laurel writes, I'm happy for Pastor Coates, his family and congregation.
00:34:31.800
Let's hope the government's unholy and unjust persecution is finished and they have seen the
00:34:35.940
light. Kudos to the hardworking legal team. I'm very pleased with the success that John Carpe and his
00:34:42.320
group have had. It's frustrating that the pastor was in prison for a full month, but it sounds like
00:34:47.180
he'll be out as soon as tomorrow. We will continue to report on the story at Grace Life Church because
00:34:52.820
I can only imagine if the pastor didn't bend the knee after a month in prison, he's surely going
00:34:58.700
to make his way to the church on Sunday. That's going to be amazing. Well, that's the show for today.
00:35:03.880
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home. Good night