In this episode of The Gunn Show, host Sheila Gunn-Reed sits down with Adam Sos, a new member of the Rebel team based in Calgary, Alberta, to talk about what it's like being a conservative in the modern era.
00:22:37.800And they're going to follow, they're going to follow Big Brother Ontario, rather than making decisions based on the evidence.
00:22:43.420Yeah, I guess it's the difference between the official conservative types, like the conservative leadership, conservative party,
00:22:51.860people who work within the party mechanism, and actual conservatives is, um, the official conservatives, as you say, they don't want to lose anything.
00:23:01.180They, they don't want to be controversial.
00:23:03.260Um, even if that's exactly the thing that's supported by their base.
00:23:07.700And because of that, we see constant fracturings in the conservative movement.
00:23:11.820And I feel as though we could be on our way towards one here in Alberta, where we see a fracture of, you know, rural versus urban conservatives, the anti-lockdown conservative caucus, um, the ones who signed the letter here in Alberta versus, you know, the people who want to hang on to power in Calgary and some of suburban, um, Edmonton.
00:23:34.640And it's one of the best things about conservatives, but it's one of the worst things about conservatives, if you want to get them into power is, uh, principles.
00:23:44.560And I've said this to numerous friends and most of them after a while are kind of like, yeah, you know, maybe I was actually, I was at a local small business in Calgary.
00:23:52.540Um, and it's like a sauna steam kind of place.
00:23:54.760And there was a guy in there, and I guess he was like a super active NDP guy.
00:23:57.980Um, and we were, we were talking about the sort of, uh, the differences between liberals or conservatives.
00:24:04.160Wait, you were talking to someone on the other side of the spectrum.
00:24:10.160Um, and one of the things that he said is like probably true, um, is that conservatives, if our, like you said, the principles, if, if our politicians aren't adhering to the principles, we don't reinforce them just because they're our guy.
00:24:24.680We'll take them down and find someone else who's, who's principled or who, at least for the time being, until they're elected and becomes compromised.
00:24:33.600Uh, conversely, you, you look at the federal polls right now, the liberals are gaining, like whether you're pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, like Justin Trudeau has been the worst at getting vaccines.
00:24:43.780And you look at the price Canadians are paying, like we're paying the most, I think, out of any country.
00:24:48.360Um, some countries are paying 250, 255 per vaccine.
00:24:52.020Um, I think the United States is paying about $5 a vaccine.
00:24:55.440Canada's paying $9 a vaccine and we can't even get them.
00:24:58.320Like the entire world is going to get their vaccines in Canada.
00:25:01.620So even if you're on the side of the liberals, Justin Trudeau has categorically failed at something that, that most liberals are probably inclined towards, which is very much, let's get vaccinated right now.
00:25:11.680Um, he can screw up over and over and over and have scandal and scandal and scandal that dwarf anything, frankly, the conservatives have done, barring maybe these lockdown measures, which are extreme.
00:25:21.660But he just gains in the polls because he's their guy.
00:25:25.560And I think that's extremely concerning.
00:25:26.980So, yeah, it is, it is sort of the saving grace of the conservative movement that we are principled, but very often in practical day-to-day terms, it ends up costing elections.
00:26:53.340And I mean, I know there are a number of, I think that there is sometimes consideration and important space for like pragmatic decision making.
00:27:02.000Um, you, you have to stick to your principles, but sometimes it's like, okay, there might be an election within a year.
00:28:00.900Doesn't matter what kind of conservative you are.
00:28:02.720You're like, yep, I'm, I'm fine with that.
00:28:05.380So he's back to, he's backed away from both those things.
00:28:08.640And he, he, he might win the election if he just came back and said, actually, no, we're completely scrapping this.
00:28:12.940My biggest honest concern with the carbon tax, the, the carbon levy or whatever the conservatives want to call it, um, is it's, it's like a, some parts of it are,
00:28:21.020some parts of it are significantly better than what the liberals are doing.
00:28:24.700Um, but the thing that really, really like gets to me in it is there's a lot of like eat the rich language in there,
00:28:30.880which is like, so, so contradictory to leveled society, market success, like all of these things that we're supposed to be advocating for as a society.
00:28:42.720That sounds like the communist party or sounds like the NDP.
00:28:45.360Um, and I, I don't know what they were thinking, putting that in there.
00:28:48.440Um, they, I've, I've looked at some of the polls and they're suggesting that they're willing to throw away, like maybe 8% of their sort of voting base with the hope of pulling 20% from the middle, um, is what they're kind of saying.
00:29:01.460So they're like, well, we can lose some of the people who've been supporting us for all this years.
00:29:04.500It doesn't really matter as long as we pull a few of these people over.
00:29:07.140Um, the polls may reveal that, but we've seen how effective polls have been in recent years with numerous elections.
00:29:13.040They don't really tell the full story.
00:29:14.940Um, I think we have to return to an era of at least some semblance of, um, principled politics so that we know what we're dealing with.
00:29:23.640I liked, uh, Ezra the other day was saying that he'll take like an honest liberal over a crooked, uh, conservative.
00:29:28.860And I think that's a, that's a good mentality.
00:29:30.700You vote for someone, you want to have at least some loose concept that they're not just going to ebb and flow with whatever CBC puts out in their latest article.
00:29:38.520Um, we need politicians who aren't completely afraid of everything out there and who are actually standing up for something.
00:29:43.940Jody Wilson-Raybould is a great example of that.
00:29:46.600An honest liberal over a crooked conservative.
00:29:49.660Adam, um, I guess in closing, what is in the pipe for you?
00:29:57.820So, I mean, one of the things that I definitely want to do a big plug for, and I think it's really important, is, is fight the fines.
00:30:02.620Um, so rebel has taken it upon itself to, to go out and these businesses and these people who have been ticketed unfairly, um, some for absolutely ridiculous things.
00:30:12.080Like one lady was ice fishing in the middle of nowhere and she wasn't wearing a mask and they gave her a ticket.
00:30:17.240Like this stuff is absolutely laughable.
00:30:19.320Um, so I'm going to be covering lots of stories.
00:30:22.100I want to be an advocate for businesses and go out there and touch base with these businesses who have been really struggling.
00:30:27.300Um, but there's like, like Ezra rebel, they've taken it upon themselves to provide lawyers for so many people.
00:30:34.540Um, and it's actually done through fight the fines.com.
00:30:38.160The funds go to a charitable organization.
00:30:39.960So you're actually getting a tax receipt and instead of the money going to the government or going wherever, you're going to get some of that tax money back.
00:30:46.140And you're helping people fight these outrageous fines.
00:30:48.820Um, this is probably one of the biggest sort of civil, civil liberty initiatives in Canada right now.
00:30:54.140Honestly, the, the, the level and the amount of people we're defending.
00:30:57.460And it's not just that it's individual people.
00:30:59.960Um, it's not just like we're fighting the ticket.
00:31:02.040Each of those tickets represents a family and a story.
00:31:04.760Um, and that's really kind of my hope for rebel.
00:31:06.840What I'm going to be doing over the coming years, hopefully is standing up for small businesses, standing up for freedom, standing up for individuals, um, against an ever-growing tyrannical government.
00:31:16.460I want to go to bat for the little guys.
00:31:18.160You know, that's one of the things I'm most proud of over the last year here at rebel news is we've, we've really just through our civil liberties work become advocates for normal people.
00:31:29.820People who just want to retain some normalcy during the pandemic, keep their business afloat, go to the park, go ice fishing, things that you should not be getting tickets for.
00:31:39.240We're helping every single one of those people who reach out to us.
00:31:43.000So far, we are approaching a thousand people in the fight the fines pipeline.
00:31:47.320And some of those people, uh, have multiple tickets.
00:31:51.240I don't like some of these protest organizers.