Ezra Levant sits down with Maxime Bernier
Episode Stats
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Summary
Maxime Bernier was the founding leader of the People's Party of Canada and a former Conservative minister who split from the party after narrowly losing the party's leadership race to Andrew sheer. He's a likable fellow, someone I wish had stayed within the conservative party, but we ll sit down with him and talk to him about his plans today on a special episode of the Ezra Levant Show.
Transcript
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tonight what's maxime bernier up to i've gone to montreal to find out it's january 6 and this
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is the ezra levant show 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 to
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the government about why i publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so
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it's a snowy day but i've gone to montreal to meet up with maxime bernier he was the
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founding leader of the people's party of canada a former stephen harper conservative minister
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who split from the party after narrowly losing the last leadership race to andrew sheer he was
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the source of some controversy because of course he split the conservative party after the party
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spent so much effort trying to unite the right but in his own defense i'm not sure if the party was
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that conservative under andrew sheer i'm going to ask him some questions today about his plans
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now that the ppc did not re-elect any mps including himself is he still going to fight for the freedom
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ideas that became his signature is he going to run in the leadership for the conservative party
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a second time what's he going to do he's a likable fellow someone i wish had stayed within the
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conservative party if he had i think he'd be the heir apparent right now but we'll sit down with him
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and talk to him about his plans today on a special episode of the ezra levant show
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update i just landed back in toronto after being delayed in montreal for the snowstorm
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and i landed to learn that um the video of my interview with maxime bernier was delayed as
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you may know i recorded it in bernier's new studio and it was the first time they used it so there are
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all sorts of snafus with getting the video and the sound back so i'm sorry about that we were able to
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get some footage that we'll play tonight but the rest will have to wait till tomorrow and i apologize
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sometimes things like this happen in video i'm pleased to say our side worked very efficiently and
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effectively but at the studio that bernier had in montreal it was their first time doing it and
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there were some first time glitches so anyways i hope you enjoy this i'll play the rest tomorrow
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and i'm back in toronto now so we'll have a regular show thanks for your patience i've traveled to europe
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in recent years and i've seen the rise of populist nationalist democratic parties that focus a little bit
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on free speech uh controlling borders immigration yeah i've seen it in all across europe sometimes
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they actually win yeah sometimes they come in second yeah but they're very viable like even like
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italy right now there's a real populist movement with salvini um and there's a place in canada for us
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well i mean brexit won trump won i thought maybe you would be that force and i know from the success of
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rebel news that there are a lot of people who want to talk about those issues i've just mentioned
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why institutionally have we not been able to copy brexit trump salvini here builders in holland even
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the um even le pen in france some people object to her but just the populist nationalists let's take
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let's get out of the the un or get out of uh the eu why haven't we been is it the media is it the
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culture why can't we do that here well first of all uh we didn't have a we didn't have a populist
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leader before and i think i'm the first one uh but uh i think we will that's that's our future at
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the people's party the more we are are there the more we speak about our ideas the better it will be
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for us and maybe uh the immigration crisis in europe was a little bit bigger than in canada
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right now we still have illegal migrants that are crossing the border in quebec it's still
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you know it's not sustainable but you don't speak about that in ottawa right now the conservatist party
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doesn't speak about that right now so what are they afraid of like what are they really afraid of
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the cbc already hates them they can't double hate but they're afraid to be uh people who say
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maybe you're racist you know what happened to me at the last election kinsella with the
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conservative party of canada the conservative paid kinsella to discreet our party i heard you're
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suing is that right suing him yeah i'm suing absolutely it's it's my reputation it's our reputation
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but they're afraid of that they're afraid of the mainstream media and but you need to do the
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fight and people people know that we we are doing that fight for a better country well let me ask
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you about that because i mean in germany for example the alternative for deutschland the afd party
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it's been around for 10 years or so i'm not sure exactly and it's starting people are getting used to
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them they're comfortable with them and and they're a fact of life and they're not going to go away and
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they've managed to resist the cancel culture let me ask you this you don't have the seat in parliament
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now you have professional dirty tricksters like warren kinsella smearing you as a racist um you were
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telling me earlier that um you were speaking somewhere in quebec and someone tried to have
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you banned which never would have happened in the past are you worried that you will be canceled you
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will be de-platformed you're a pretty big fish to be de-platformed but they de-platformed big people
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in the u.s and the uk i'm glad you're starting your youtube channel and i'm glad you want to keep
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working but are you worried you will be shut out banned from the cbc banned from newspapers other than
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far-right maxime bernier are you worried that you're going to be demonized
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uh i hope it won't happen but that's a risk um and if that happened that would be that would be huge
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uh because you know former minister you know member of parliament for 30 years look at my past
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you know look at my videos that i did a couple of years ago it's always about the same ideas
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so they cannot say that bernier is a extreme right-wing radical they cannot if they look at
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what i said the last 30 years as an active politician and so i i don't think it will happen
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but that's a risk and i hope in canada it won't happen um i was at the coulisses du pouvoir in french
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uh couple of weeks what does that mean uh the coulisses du pouvoir it's uh it's uh it's speak it's the
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daily uh not daily weekly uh show in french cbc radio canada speaking about politics uh like the
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house it's in french in quebec and so but for for the country and i was there and i explained to them
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and what i was doing and so i hope i will still have some well that's good they still invite you
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to be at the radio canada or cbc but uh it's a big challenge for us one phone call from the
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prime minister's office and that'll stop it can happen yeah let me ask you one last question
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you've been very generous with your time um i think about quebec and in i mean i don't know
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i don't speak french very well at all so what i hear is filtered through the anglo media which
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i know i'm getting a distorted view but legault and the cac party started from scratch not too long
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ago replaced both the red and the blue team replaced both the parti quebecois and the liberals
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majority we already talked he's the most popular premier in the the country based on polls
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and the most important in quebec is very very popular and i mean i don't know how important the
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immigration comments and the secular you know no burkas in the workplace i don't know how important
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they are i think people care about that and i think in quebec they maybe care extra much because
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they've been talking about identity and they're worried quebecers are worried that they'll lose
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their hundreds of years of history and they'll be washed away like a drop in the sea
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so i'm a western boy originally from calgary and i'm in toronto now and i'm right wing reform party
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preston manning but maybe the hope comes from quebec i always thought of quebec as a socialist
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place and economically it probably is but culturally maybe by some definitions it's a conservative place
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and maybe quebec can be an example for the rest of us and that good news can come from quebec and a role
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model can come from quebec maybe not on economics but on culture and that on pipelines yeah not on
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and those are big things but on on immigration i think you have a point there how can we get that
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to spread to anglo canada yeah but i try to do that and but on on immigration identity quebec
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use and still fight for their identity francophone in in north america and i think in english canada
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they know what's happening right now in europe and they're looking at it and they say you know
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we must do like we did in the past being able to select our immigrants and it's a privilege to be
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canadians and not these people who are crossing illegally our border borders right now so that
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debate on immigration i think we can have i hope at the next election i will be able to have a debate
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on that subject i was not able to you know i was shut down and oh you're by kinsella and the
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conservative party you're a racist you're so i hope that and that didn't happen in quebec
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in the media in quebec people know maxime bernie and they're used to that debate nobody said in
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quebec that i was a racist yeah and kinsella was not credible in quebec but in english canada you know
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and people say what's what's that language about immigration they were not used to that but the
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more you speak about that the better we'll be so there's a nice i think there's a future for a
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populist party in this country that's why i'm i'm fighting for that all right very interesting um
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we spoke yesterday you told me you're having a new show a weekly show that's why i'm here and i said
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well if i go on your show can you come on mine tell us a little bit about your plans for the weekly
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show i'm glad you're coming on youtube i hope you're not de-platformed on youtube tell me um
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without giving away you know you're i don't want to steal your thunder but tell us what you can about
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your new program um and the kind of things you want to do yeah first of all i will uh comment the
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news for sure i will have an interview uh every every week with a different person and i'm very
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pleased that you were the first one thank you thinking about free speech and uh we'll have a
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discussion about the deficit and monetary policy with a statistician and an economist at a couple
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of shows from now we'll have university professor having some discussion so the goal is to have
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debates and to engage the discussion and i'm open also to have some leftists that want to debate
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something with me at my show i'm open for that and and and the goal for me personally it's to use
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the social media and youtube and to promote our ideas because we think that we have the best ideas
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based on freedom personal responsibility respect fairness so that's why it was important and it is
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important for me to start that youtube channel well we'll sure be watching it and if it's on youtube
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we'll be able to embed your tube video your youtube videos right on our website so people will find
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it and we'll be sure to keep an eye peeled yeah that's the official people's party of canada youtube
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channel perfect we'll have a link to it on the show great to see you i'm glad you're in high spirits i'm
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glad you've got big plans and i hope that some of your ideas will find purchase in the canadian
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political culture because we sure need it thank you for having me as well right on nice to see you
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well that's it for today my friends i'll be back in toronto tomorrow if any of the planes will still
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depart from the snowy airport here until then on behalf of all of us from rebel world headquarters
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to you at home good night and keep fighting for freedom