00:02:30.000hello hello my name is daniel tyree and this is long live canada episode 21 we're back with
00:02:39.240another great episode for us tonight i was away last week i will admit it i will admit it i was
00:02:46.440i was tired guys i needed a break i took it easy last week it was a lot of work leading up to dom
00:02:51.720con it was a lot of work catching up and cleaning up afterwards i finally got a got a got a chance
00:02:57.400to kick things into into lower gear take a bit of a rest last week and I didn't feel like streaming
00:03:03.500so I'm sorry but we're back this week another fun episode ahead of us I thought it would be fun to
00:03:09.020take a bit of a pause from focusing on federal politics and look a little bit into what's going
00:03:15.320on in the provinces in particular we have two provincial elections going on simultaneously
00:03:20.000on opposite sides of the country one in British Columbia and one in Quebec uh to be to be totally
00:03:26.740honest, I don't really want to talk about the nuances of the actual elections as much as use
00:03:31.760these as an opportunity, a springboard to discuss the situation in each of the provinces
00:03:40.180in a bit of depth because I do think that Quebec politics, generally speaking, is quite interesting
00:03:47.840and immigration has been a bit of a central topic in the election so far. As for the British
00:03:53.440Columbia election it's just kicking off this week and not much has happened yet but boy is British
00:04:01.000Columbia politics bizarre filled with scandal and controversy and a really interesting kind of case
00:04:09.440study into the challenges of party politics which frankly frankly I have a bit of a unique perspective
00:04:17.580on, given my professional background in party politics, in the PPC. So those are the two big
00:04:25.640topics we're going to touch on tonight. How are you guys doing? How's everyone doing?
00:04:33.060Heading back to school, September, fall, cooling down. How's everyone doing? How's everyone doing?
00:04:39.840Before we get into things, I do want to remind everyone to go check out our website. Make sure
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00:04:48.740watching this show and you're not even a dominion society member you can head over to join.dominion
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00:04:57.200change you get you get you get the cool swag you get the you get the classic dominion society pin
00:05:02.600but also what about all the guys that need to renew their memberships you know we passed the
00:05:07.640one year mark big big accomplishment but so many people who signed up last summer have not renewed
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00:05:17.180beautiful sir john a mcdonald pins exclusively for people who have been a member for two years
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00:05:52.720people haven't renewed. So while we've seen a lot of new members signing up, we need a lot of our
00:05:57.160old members to keep coming back. So, and yeah, you got to get the hat. Definitely cop in one of the
00:06:04.080clean long live canada hats we have all sorts of merchandise available at our shop website
00:06:11.280shop.dominionsociety.ca you can find t-shirts hoodies stickers hats i think we have some new
00:06:17.520merchandise in the works as well glorified button peddler where it's just a really elaborate pin
00:06:24.240business at the end of the day a really elaborate pin business uh with a very very uh nuanced
00:06:31.520marketing platform uh uh or a policy or a strategy and kenny's doing well starting school hey
00:06:39.520starting school this guy's working hard working hard fellow canucks it's that time of year it's
00:06:46.160that time of year getting cold getting cold still beautiful weather here in ottawa john wallace has
00:06:51.760renewed his membership thank you john thank you so on ken to first evan likes that sir john a
00:06:59.520mcdonald pin you'll have to wait a year evan i know you just signed up recently so welcome aboard
00:07:05.120they are awesome buttons we do have mean button game yeah we do have some flags available i think
00:07:10.720only the dominion society flags are currently available which is just out of the frame here
00:07:14.960but they are beautiful they are beautiful we don't have the red ensigns currently available
00:07:20.720that has a whole story behind it which i'll which i'm looking forward to getting to tell you guys
00:07:25.040one day but it's one of those things that's got to be a secret got to be a secret for now
00:07:31.600just signed up two weeks ago welcome aboard big ape zero
00:07:37.280oh awesome doing great hubby and son postering next week in bc we have strong operations going
00:07:44.160on all over the country we're going to be moving on to to putting flyers and mailboxes very soon
00:07:48.880we have a big batch of flyers being produced and will be distributed to some of our more
00:07:54.240competent chapters all over the country who are already killing the postering and ready to move on
00:07:59.520to the next step awesome i'm glad everyone's having a great night it's it's been beautiful
00:08:04.960here in ottawa a nice nice late summer warm fall whatever you want to call it indian summer that's
00:08:10.720what we used to call it when i was a kid i don't know if you're allowed to call it that anymore
00:08:14.240uh but we don't care about rules so let's get right into things let's get right into
00:08:20.640competent chapters yeah we have some competent chapters we have some that are very young and
00:08:24.720just getting started we have some that are uh very effective and ready to move on to the next step
00:08:30.800uh can women sign up women men anyone can sign up anyone any canadian citizen age 16 or older
00:08:38.160is eligible to join as a member as long as you agree with our views a nice night out in montreal
00:08:45.920beautiful to see beautiful to see we love the pins active chat tonight active chat tonight folks
00:08:53.280so let's talk a bit about quebec politics so uh i i i thought this would be important to talk about
00:09:00.480tonight because immigration has been a pretty central topic throughout the quebec election so
00:09:05.840far there's been some uh some clips uh from the debates hitting my hitting my feed so i thought
00:09:11.680ought to be a good chance to to talk about about it and it's because the the leading party in the
00:09:17.040polls the pq the party quebecois the separatists have uh been pushing this as a as a main topic
00:09:25.300here uh just a couple weeks ago at the end of august uh uh uh paul st pierre plamondon pspp
00:09:34.400the leader of the pq uh was under attack for putting forward the idea of an immigration
00:09:40.460moratorium this is a very necessary first step this is the first step of our remigration plan
00:09:46.060shut the doors so we can solve the problems in the country so it is a bold take uh a bold position to0.99
00:09:54.080take now of course more recently it's looking like it's looking like uh uh they're kind of
00:10:01.020walking this back it's a bit more nuanced so uh as of this week we see uh uh the pq leader says
00:10:07.040his immigration comments were distorted by his opponents. Their position on a moratorium is a
00:10:12.080little bit more, a little bit more complex than simply shutting off the taps entirely, which to
00:10:18.080be honest, should be the position, right? This is, we've let in far too many people, especially over
00:10:24.040the last five years, we need to close the doors. It's led to increasing in housing prices, stagnated
00:10:30.480wages, the erosion of our community and our sense of identity here in Canada. This is a necessary
00:10:36.840first step but it's not the one that the pq is taking despite people's uh misunderstandings uh
00:10:44.040the plan is laid out very clearly on their website this is their immigration policy from the right
00:10:49.000from the horse's mouth um so you see they they do want to continue the intake of 250 000 to 300 000
00:10:57.480over the course of a four-year period which is a a lot for just quebec this is just quebec not
00:11:04.200nationally just Quebec. So right now they only take right now Quebec for those who don't know
00:11:10.960there is the Quebec Canada Accord which gives Quebec more autonomy over their immigration
00:11:16.240system than other provinces. You see they they they limit the numbers coming into Quebec and as
00:11:23.880well they they have more influence over selection of immigrants mainly to prioritize the French
00:11:30.360language. They only want people to speak French to be settling in Quebec. Now, there is more
00:11:36.960immigrants from France to Quebec than the rest of Canada, but this has also led to a lot of
00:11:41.980immigration from mostly African countries, Haiti, Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire,
00:11:49.920all these countries. So it doesn't really maintain the demographic security of Quebec.
00:11:56.300uh their their sense of identity has been focused so much around language nowadays so while they do
00:12:05.520have more influence over their or more control over their immigration system in Quebec than other
00:12:09.460provinces uh it's not protecting the demographics of Quebec very much now their position on the
00:12:17.680moratorium is explained in more depth here so declare a moratorium on permanent economic
00:12:22.860immigrants from outside of quebec in order to select permanent residents from among temporary
00:12:27.420immigrants composed of foreign students and temporary foreign workers so while they while
00:12:33.260they are suggesting to put a pause on new people coming into quebec they don't want more people to
00:12:39.420come in they want to select their they want to continue to give people uh permanent residency
00:12:45.740citizenships but they don't want more people in they want that citizens to be selected by people
00:12:50.700from people who are already in the province uh so this is a a pretty moderate position
00:12:57.180to be frank uh so this is this is how we've gotten a bit more insight into the position of the pq
00:13:04.460and immigration has been a hot topic on the debate stage a lot of people attacking the pq
00:13:08.620for their position on on immigration the more left-leaning parties that is and even on uh
00:13:15.900debates between the the conservative party in Quebec and the the pqs on this topic so while
00:13:22.540Quebec's an interesting case in Canada and across the western world because historically Quebec's
00:13:29.420Quebec's politics has always been focused on identity in a way that the politics of most
00:13:35.260western countries haven't been uh through the post-war period in particular uh western countries
00:13:41.260have been very very liberal i mean throughout most of our histories we've been uh uh like
00:13:46.780liberalism has come through the west through um uh former english colonies and so on quebec's
00:13:55.660always been a bit of an outlier and even more so than uh other european countries even more
00:14:01.340so than france because quebec has always been a a a sort of nation within a nation so they say
00:14:09.100uh they've been a small francophone minority within a huge uh an anglophone continent right
00:14:16.700surrounded on all sides by english canada or by the americans so they their politics has always
00:14:23.420been uh so widely focused on on uh identity on preserving their french language on for
00:14:32.620preserving their unique culture within a sea of uh english-speaking uh countries surrounding them
00:14:41.900unfortunately in the post-war period much like the rest of the world they have been very
00:14:45.900liberalized they went through the quiet revolution at the same time as kind of the the trudeau era
00:14:51.660the the pearson trudeau cultural revolution in canada for so long their their politics
00:14:59.340was focused on not only language but also religion right they were also a catholic minority within a
00:15:05.740broadly protestant uh country the us and canada uh so their politics have always been about
00:15:13.100preserving their religion their their their nation their language uh but in more recent years it has
00:15:20.700been kind of focused simplified down to just language and the result is the kind of africanization
00:15:28.220of quebec in more recent years as as immigrants have skewed from those countries i mentioned
00:15:33.260already algeria haiti kong uh congo algeria uh cameroon all these all these countries so
00:15:44.860while the the the french language is still going strong in the in the province um they they they
00:15:51.260are still losing their sense of identity just like the rest of the country it's quite unfortunate to
00:15:56.060to see now even though you see now the the the strange thing with the the pq case is even when
00:16:04.660they approach immigration as a topic it's not through the lens really of identity anymore
00:16:10.180it's it's much uh more in the same vein as some of these more immigration restrictionist left
00:16:17.120leaning countries like we see in uh the scandinavian countries like sweden and denmark where
00:16:24.080immigration restrictionism has taken off in more left uh left-leaning country uh left-leaning
00:16:29.740parties rather uh it's all focused around uh protecting the social safety net it's around
00:16:37.140protecting uh the the education system the the the welfare state uh the health care system all
00:16:45.100these things and that's that's what pierre uh uh sorry paul saint pierre plamondon is focused on
00:16:51.160uh particularly quotes here he says schools were overflowing everywhere in quebec incited data
00:16:57.640about the increase that he attributed to immigrants but the statistics he shared were actually adding
00:17:02.680up to a combination of immigrants and quebec born children of immigrants um so it again we don't we
00:17:10.520see these people straying away from the focus on identity even tonight in the uh in the
00:17:21.160leadership debate that's currently going on right now or was going on just a few hours ago0.90
00:17:28.840i just tweeted about this moments ago there's a um there was a debate between ruba gazal
00:17:36.760one of the party leaders there uh the leader of quebec solidaire i believe and uh paul st
00:17:43.320Pierre Plamendon, where she tries to point out hypocrisy. She tries to point out hypocrisy
00:17:51.160because the PQ is putting forward pronatalist positions simultaneously with this moratorium
00:17:58.820type position, this immigration restrictionism. So she's pointing out this flaw. She says,
00:18:06.800quote, translated to English, schools are overcrowded. Here, I'll pull it up. I'll pull
00:18:12.700it up. She says, schools are overcrowded, according to what Mr. St. Pierre Plumendon tells us,
00:18:18.160because there are too many immigrant children, yet you propose a baby bonus. Are there too many1.00
00:18:23.500children or not enough children? And this is exactly where you fall into this trap. These
00:18:28.780people aren't comfortable making the identitarian pitch on immigration, which is what people really
00:18:35.180want. The truth is, this is not hypocrisy at all. We do need fewer immigrants and more Canadian
00:18:41.400babies, more Quebecois babies. And that is to establish demographic security in our own1.00
00:18:48.100countries, or our own provinces. We don't want them being Africanized. We don't want them being1.00
00:18:54.160transformed into something else. And that is a perfectly normal and a perfectly reasonable
00:18:58.320position. But these politicians pigeonhole themselves, right? By making it all about
00:19:05.100economic factors all only about civic factors about uh our institutions our education system
00:19:11.880our health care system these are obviously problems but central to everything has to be
00:19:17.020the demographic security of our people in our homelands right and since they're not willing
00:19:24.820to go to that space because they don't want to be called racist they don't they don't want to be
00:19:29.880called white supremacists. They won't be called names. They shy away from it. And it leads them
00:19:36.700to being stuck in these positions where it can be seemingly inconsistent. Are our schools
00:19:42.580overwhelmed or do we need more babies? Which one is it? And the reality is we do need both. We need
00:19:48.600fewer immigrants. We need more babies because what needs to be established is we need to maintain1.00
00:19:53.360Quebecois as the majority population, the super majority population in Quebec. Canadians as the0.61
00:19:59.560supermajority across the country. But if you're not willing to embrace the realities that culture,
00:20:08.140that identity, that demographics are central to maintaining our countries, then you fall into
00:20:15.980this wishy-washy middle area where you fall into these traps. So it's disappointing to see that
00:20:22.140even even the separatist parties even the the parties that are apparently kind of uh more
00:20:29.580nationalist in in their bent more identitarian even they are not willing to go into these areas
00:20:34.700yet uh it's it's very frustrating to see from the pq especially given kind of quebec's history as a
00:20:42.700a very identity-focused part of the Western world. So really, I would expect better from
00:20:51.700the PQ. It's interesting that immigration restrictionism is taking off on the left.
00:20:57.560That shows how popular this sentiment is becoming, how much people are rejecting
00:21:03.640immigration, that even left-wing parties are adopting these ideas. But really, the solution
00:21:09.580needs to come from a particularist a right-leaning perspective on preserving identity and until
00:21:15.620they're willing to go to these areas it's not going to catch on um really separatism in Quebec
00:21:21.440uh the the reality is there is a a strange kind of reality in Quebec because uh nationalism
00:21:31.620in the true sense of the word is has always been caught up in in separatism right because they
00:21:37.960believe that uh to preserve their their their nation uh what's necessary is to separate from
00:21:44.760the anglophone majority of of canada uh historically they've seen uh it the
00:21:50.920english-speaking kind of establishment of canada the political establishment political elite of
00:21:56.560canada to be what's threatening their identity um through through the erosion of language and and so
00:22:02.820on and that's why they quebec has come forward with so many bills and so on to preserve their
00:22:07.520language uh from threats of the anglophone the kind of majority and elite but the reality now
00:22:16.240is really what's threatening their demographics what their their identity in in quebec is
00:22:22.080immigration it's not it's not uh anglophones telling them uh we have to speak english it's0.81
00:22:28.400now just foreigners muslims uh africans coming into quebec and in transforming the cultural
00:22:34.240fabric of the country, of the nation, of the province. So this is my problem with separatists
00:22:42.320in general. It seems like such a fool's errand at this point to focus on separatism. Because0.96
00:22:47.760separatism in Quebec through multiple referendums failed very much in part because of the ethnic
00:22:54.320vote. This is what Jacques Perizeau, the premier during the second referendum said. He chalked up
00:22:58.860failure of the referendum to money and the ethnic vote um because the reality is these immigrants0.99
00:23:05.180tend to vote for staying in canada because they benefit from the social services that are only0.84
00:23:10.940possible uh with the support of the rest of the country and this situation has only gotten worse
00:23:16.940right this is exactly why separatism will fail in alberta fail in in uh quebec because this this
00:23:23.740ethnic vote has only gotten more larger. This voting bloc has only gotten much larger since0.81
00:23:30.320the last referendum in the 60s. So this will continue to fail. And this is why I think it's
00:23:35.500such an unnecessary distraction. And this is one of the things that PQ is running on, right? They
00:23:39.420are running on bringing forward a new separation referendum if they win this election, which they
00:23:46.480seem to be on course for. But the reality is the popularity of separation is much lower than it was
00:23:53.640during the last referendum. It's unlikely to succeed. And it's really a waste of political
00:23:58.780capital. It's a waste of volunteer hours. It's just simply not going to succeed until we have
00:24:05.360a substantive remigration platform. So this is exactly why I tell nationalists in Quebec,
00:24:12.480nationalists in Alberta, you need to set aside this priority of separation. Even if you want
00:24:18.180to separate, your priority needs to be remigration. We need to get rid of these people that shouldn't1.00
00:24:24.160be here. If you still want to leave after we've remigrated millions of people, then you'll be more1.00
00:24:29.800able to. But right now, the priority needs to be on remigration. And I do hope that through this0.82
00:24:36.380grand collaboration on remigration with Westerners, with Easterners, with rural people,0.90
00:24:45.140city people with uh francophones with anglophones with indigenous people i hope that we can find
00:24:50.900this grand collaboration on remigration where we can find a more perfect union between the
00:24:56.600founding peoples of canada in order to preserve our collective identities uh the reality is
00:25:02.180personally i don't think that what quebec needs to maintain their identity i don't think it's
00:25:10.480separation. I think what is necessary is a government in Ottawa that wants to preserve
00:25:15.540Canada's identity, whether that's the French-Canadian identity, the English-Canadian
00:25:20.400identity, the unique identities, regional identities across the country, be that the
00:25:26.040Acadians in New Brunswick, be that the unique culture of Newfoundland, be that the unique
00:25:32.460culture of ontario british columbia alberta there are so many nuanced micro identities within
00:25:41.980the canadian uh populace what's really necessary is a federal government that's focused on
00:25:48.940preserving those identities so we need to put our differences aside stop focusing on projects like
00:25:56.220separation and unite together to take control of the federal government and reorient it towards
00:26:02.660a preservation of culture and identity that respects all the different nuances across
00:26:08.000Canada. So that's what that's what I'd like to see. That's what I'd like to see. And I think
00:26:13.620that Quebec has in the the the Quebecois, the French Canadians have a unique role to play
00:26:21.080Because the reality is, unlike, there is a huge amount of deprogramming that needs to go on in English Canada, where our sense of identity is so eroded.
00:26:32.260Whereas Quebec still has a very strong sense of identity, even though it's not represented in parties like the PQ anymore.
00:31:30.600whether that be the dominant fisheries of Eastern Canada
00:31:35.080or the resource extraction of Western Canada.
00:31:38.040It's the same people influenced over generations
00:31:41.100by unique geographies, industries, and so on
00:31:43.100create these these different subcultures all of which need to be preserved so the reality is what
00:31:49.660what is best for canada what is best for quebec is is completely overlapping so we need to put our
00:31:56.940differences aside share this one coherent message uh mission which is re-migration in order to
00:32:05.020preserve identity so i think what's going on in quebec is is interesting uh i i'm happy to see
00:32:14.300strong debates with immigration taking kind of center stage to see foreigners like ruby gazelle
00:32:21.500uh questioning uh the the the the coherency of some of these ideas pushing back on promoting
00:32:30.300immigration while being pushed back by actual heritage canadians like paul sapi or plam and
00:32:36.040don but i i wish they would take a more active stance on on identity because that's really the
00:32:42.540most important thing and that's what the people want to hear that's what the people need to hear
00:32:46.000and but time and time again it gets watered down by these by these weak politicians who are so
00:32:54.220scared of being called names uh they're they will continue to allow the replacement of their people
00:33:00.800as long as they speak french that's not good enough that's not good enough for the people
00:33:04.640of quebec it's not good enough for the people of canada so we need to we need to abandon these
00:33:11.100projects like separation put them on hold you know i we need to build a very unique
00:33:19.160broad coalition across the country around this issue of immigration, re-migration.
00:33:25.760And that's exactly what our strategy here at the Dominion Society is, right? We are a single
00:33:31.100issue organization. I don't care what you think about economics. I don't care if you're a
00:33:35.580ANCAP. I don't care if you're a communist. I don't care if you're a socialist.
00:33:40.480I don't care what your take is on climate change. I don't care if you're a protectionist,
00:33:48.680a free market, free trader. What we need to do is we need to all accept that the most important
00:33:58.480issue is the demographic collapse of Canada. The only solution is remigration. And we need to,0.98
00:34:04.680it doesn't matter if you're left-leaning, doesn't matter if you're right-leaning,
00:34:07.900as long as you agree on remigration, I don't care if you're from the cities, I don't care if you're
00:34:11.580from the country, we need to put our differences aside and create a broad coalition around this
00:34:17.560single issue and that's why we focus on just one issue at the dominion society we want to collect
00:34:25.500everyone that is awake to the realities of demographics identity and uh and create a
00:34:34.860vehicle an organization to put to to use all of our time and abilities our skills in order to
00:34:42.680convert our ideas into a political reality. We have a super chat here from an excess mail,
00:34:50.780$10. I've heard people say the OGL goal of the Parti Quebecois was to create a melting pot
00:34:59.220Quebecois, basically a multicultural mass that drink le bleu, smoke Quebec classics and speak
00:35:04.480french that does seem to be the the idea of the modern cover uh pq
00:35:12.160i do believe they were more of an identitarian party on founding but uh it's just not the case
00:35:18.480anymore thank you for the super chat um so that's that's that's my quick window into into quebec
00:35:26.080politics i think it's very interesting i think there's a lot that the rest of canada can learn
00:35:29.920from Quebec but the reality is Quebec has strayed so much from that there the the PQ is not a
00:35:36.520nationalist party it's very much a civic nationalist party it's very much a neo-nationalist party that
00:35:42.640views things purely through the mechanisms of the state that still views people as you know
00:35:49.800economic units rather than as component parts of a greater nation that I in in this article right
00:35:57.180here he says he says to us all Quebecers are 100% Quebecers but we just have a bad public policy
00:36:09.560that needs to be fixed he said the flip side of the issue is that many people hesitate to bring
00:36:13.820up for fear of being accused of racism or intolerance so they there you have it like he
00:36:20.060he thinks that everyone can be a Quebecer this is not the case the Quebec the Quebecois are
00:36:25.560unique people, a small subset of people with roots from central and northern France who came
00:36:34.520across the ocean, settled the St. Lawrence Valley since the early 1600s to underwent an ethnogenesis
00:36:42.640with these smaller groups of French people mixing in with some Irish, some Scottish, some English
00:36:48.480to create a unique culture not found anywhere else in Canada or not found anywhere else in the world
00:36:53.800With their own kind of unique twist on the French language, with their own slang, with their own cultural traditions, be that dance, song, holidays, so on.
00:40:39.320yeah too many people don't like there's such an apprehensive apprehension uh around quebec
00:40:53.520in in english canada in different provinces this is a very common sentiment that that uh that that
00:41:00.120uh quebec federal politicians uh be it trudeau the senior or trudeau the junior or there are many
00:41:06.820other uh uh prime ministers with uh with quebecois roots have ruined the country and as such there's
00:41:14.800an apprehension towards quebec um or their the difficulties that they pose on things like0.79
00:41:19.640pipeline projects um or or their or the money they get through equalization there's a there's a
00:41:25.260a lot of uh apprehension around quebec around the the entire country and that that i find so negative
00:41:32.700like i i want all canadians to be proud of both the the english heritage of canada and the french
00:41:39.980heritage of canada i want i i find it my my role in canadian politics to make anglophones more
00:41:47.180francophilic and francophones more anglophilic because i think both aspects of canada's history
00:41:52.940are beautiful and unique and it's so sad to me that there are anglophones out there that are not
00:41:58.720proud of the the history or not aware of the history of uh champions like uh like samuel
00:42:06.380de champlain as we've talked on on previous episodes uh of the beautiful history both of
00:42:13.100english canada and of french canada because that's what makes canada a unique place in the world
00:42:18.340Right. We're not we're not just a new we're not just discount America. We're not just Britain. We're not just France or Canada. And as such, we're a unique compromise between English and French, between between the old world and the new, between rural and urban.
00:42:40.440where this unique compromise of identities to found this country, this culture, this identity
00:42:48.200that's not found anywhere else in the world. And embracing both aspects of that, both solitudes,
00:42:54.280Anglo and Franco, is how we understand our unique place in the world, how we understand our unique
00:43:01.240history and from such our unique future. So I'd like to see more Anglophones embrace Quebec and
00:43:09.640i'd like to see more quebecers embrace english canada because it's both aspects uh that will
00:43:16.120that make us who we are and and it's how and that's how we will find the unique solutions
00:43:22.280for our future uh in in my view french canada is very much the heart of canada
00:43:29.080and english canada is very much the head i don't mean to offend either groups uh uh but that is
00:43:36.520is there are things that the French can take from English Canada and there's things that
00:43:42.740English Canada can learn from French. It's that passion, that identity, that heart that English
00:43:49.740Canada needs to take away. And it's the organization, the structure, the logic that perhaps Quebec can
00:43:57.460take away from English Canada to forge a new future. And I'm hopeful that we'll be able to do
00:44:03.060that within the dominion society and then perpetuate that through the rest of the country so
00:44:09.300i'm very bullish on how we can develop the organization in french canada over the next year
00:44:15.380there's some things in the works we'll see what we can work out and once we're able to
00:44:19.540hammer that out i think we can really uh transform the narrative across across the country
00:44:24.100okay i've been talking about that for a lot longer than i thought uh the other thing i want to talk
00:44:35.080about though is british columbia politics and again i don't want to get uh trapped too much
00:44:40.820into the the nuances i don't think much has happened in the election so far but i think
00:44:44.960what's really interesting about uh british columbia is party politics in general and perhaps
00:44:53.140this is just me being a weird politics nerd uh perhaps it's just my own uh personal interests
00:45:03.540but what's going on in british columbia is just crazy it's just crazy how the the landscape has
00:45:08.820transformed uh so we we have kind of two main parties in british columbia uh that are vying
00:45:16.580for this this new election the conservatives and the ndp but to really understand the situation
00:45:21.300you have to kind of rewind a good 5-10 years. Because what many people might not realize is
00:45:29.440that the British, the BC Conservative Party is a very new party. It's a very young party,
00:45:36.240at least as a mainstream option. Until very recently,
00:45:40.640the two main parties in British Columbia were the NDP and the Liberals. And the Liberals
00:45:47.800were the kind of center-right party. They were basically the conservative party in British
00:45:54.300Columbia and the NDP were the main left of center option. So the comparison would be like federally
00:46:01.180we have the liberals on the left and the conservatives on the right. In British Columbia,
00:46:05.900it was the liberals on the right and the NDP on the left. And through the dying Trudeau years,
00:46:13.180the justin trudeau years the the liberal brand in british columbia really suffered and the uh the
00:46:18.700conservative party was able to grow the way the the the the provincial election cycles were were
00:46:25.260synced up the the provincial conservatives actually benefited from the kind of pierre
00:46:30.060polyev wave more than the federal conservatives ended up doing to be honest uh and at the same
00:46:34.860time the the bc liberal party kind of died so this was uh the bc cons were were a very uh
00:46:42.540where were kind of small fringe kind of ppc type party for the longest time uh it was only in the
00:46:49.100last election where they really exploded and as a result there's been a lot of dysfunction
00:46:56.300in the the bc conservative party which i'm sure some of you have been following it's been quite
00:47:01.500quite the crazy dynamic um but basically the the the the bc cons went from a very small party to
00:47:08.480the second largest party in the country within a single election cycle they had no elected
00:47:13.480representatives uh john rustad crossed the floor from the bc liberals to the bc conservatives to
00:47:19.920make their first elected representative and then they were able to take off in the polls and become
00:47:24.920the second largest party in the span of one election which is pretty unprecedented it's
00:47:29.740pretty unprecedented think about the struggles the ppc has gone over over multiple years not even
00:47:34.960struggling to elect anyone let alone become a massive force in in uh in the political uh the
00:47:42.300the overall politics the bc conservatives at surge to that result they went from one representative
00:47:49.000to one short of forming government the uh the ndp were able to form a minority a majority
00:47:55.460government in the last election two years ago with with a majority of one but the the bc
00:48:03.940conservatives have been a very interesting case study in the struggles of growing a political
00:48:11.240movement very quickly so before the last election before that big result for the bc conservatives
00:48:17.880you had the uh the bc liberals they they rebranded to bc united in order to distance themselves from
00:48:24.520the Trudeau brand. And that was a big mistake. People didn't recognize them. People recognized
00:48:30.200the conservative brand because there's so much conflation between federal politics and provincial
00:48:34.420politics that the BC conservatives were able to ride the wave of Pierre Polyev's popularity before
00:48:41.360Trudeau was and Carney were swapped out. And BC United became just an unfamiliar political brand
00:48:48.800despite having multiple elected representatives. And before the election, they ended up folding
00:48:53.540and a bunch of people jumped ship into the BC Conservatives. And what the result was,
00:49:00.700you've had this large caucus, you know, they have 40 some people elected under the Conservative
00:49:07.960banner, but it was a very disunited caucus, because you had people that were literally
00:49:14.140former BC United, former BC Liberals joining the caucus. You had some people that were further
00:49:20.980right you had some people that were further left it was a very uh unsustainable mix within the
00:49:27.380caucus and the reality is uh like it's very i speak from experience it's it's difficult to
00:49:34.020to select a a coherent slate of candidates right this is what the the the headquarters at bc
00:49:42.020conservatives were were tasked with this immensely uh fast-growing brand they they decided to let
00:49:49.220these people in from the bc liberals who are obviously a little bit more left-leaning than
00:49:54.180than the rest of the caucus and although people are able to uh to to to set aside their differences
00:50:01.940through an election campaign that quickly fell apart afterwards and the last two years have been
00:50:06.180a mess for the bc uh conservatives right you had the party slowly force out john rustad you had
00:50:13.940the subsequent uh leadership election within the bc conservatives um with five candidates ultimately
00:50:20.980carolyn finley was able to win that and then since then you've had a a completely dysfunctional
00:50:28.420caucus uh as well and over the last few months i think it's been four months since uh since carolyn
00:50:35.540finley became the the leader of the british columbia uh conservatives you've seen the party
00:50:41.220continue to fall apart uh obviously the dallas brody left and informed one bc on the on the the
00:50:48.500kind of right flank as well you had a smaller party center bc uh start to be built with a bunch
00:50:57.880of former uh liberal operatives and then just over the last few months it's been completely
00:51:04.120dysfunctional you over the last uh few weeks in particular there was the there's been so much
00:51:10.260dysfunction within the back room uh a bunch of people uh staff leading headquarters that were
00:51:15.880no longer aligned with carolyn finley you had a bunch of mps leave uh to to try to start the bc
00:51:23.360party and then ultimately go to to center bc i think it was uh and then just in the last few days
00:51:30.220as carolyn finley was trying to to hold on to to leadership she she kicked out three more mps from0.73
00:51:36.760the party including John Rustad the former leader and Trevor Halford the who who was the the interim
00:51:43.120leader complete dysfunction because the result this is just the result of trying to select a
00:51:52.040full slate of candidates in a very new young party with a with a staff that might not be the most
00:51:57.820experienced and then you're you're you're left with this these difficult situations where you
00:52:04.420want to pick electable people to run as candidates, but you also need to maintain a sort of ideological
00:52:11.440alignment. How do you purity test people to make sure they're totally in line with the vision
00:52:16.480while still building a big enough tent that can actually win an election? And the result is there
00:52:24.220there wasn't a a uh an ideological commitment amongst across that could unite the entire
00:52:33.100caucus and as a result you see this fracturing all over the place now ultimately carolyn finley
00:52:39.660and there was all sorts of other drama right there was there was this uh there was like carolyn1.00
00:52:45.860finley axed a bunch of her staff members uh who helped run her campaign and replaced them with0.73
00:52:51.160random people with more experience. She had a guy from Alberta named Apollo Chung acting as I think
00:53:00.340her chief of staff who was then pushed out after there was a controversy around some leaked audio
00:53:05.920of him talking about embezzling funds or controlling the leader and stuff like this.
00:53:10.500Multiple different executive directors of the party being appointed and dropped. And then
00:53:16.380ultimately carolyn finley on the weekend resigns as the uh as the leader of the bc conservatives
00:53:25.380uh this was just on sunday i think yeah sunday the 20th the 20th yeah sunday uh she resigns and
00:53:35.920then monday david ebby the premier uh the ndp premier calls an election to capitalize on
00:53:44.240on the dis the complete chaos within his main opposition party uh so you have to kind of
00:53:51.240respect uh the cynical politics from from david ebby uh to to to trigger an election but it doesn't
00:54:00.480look like it's being received very well by the populace it is a completely unnecessary election
00:54:04.840right there's no he's chalking it up to trade negotiations to trump like this he's trying to
00:54:10.520copy what doug ford did successfully at the start of this trade war when when there was an actual
00:54:18.360somewhat legitimate perceived as legitimate excuse to throw an election where a new mandate
00:54:23.160was required but now after these trade negotiations have been going on for you know the better part
00:54:28.120of a year it does seem much more cynical uh the the conservatives seem to have gotten behind their
00:54:35.080new interim leader lauren dirksen who's another former bc uh liberal by the way
00:54:42.600um and a bunch of these people who had left to go join the the the center bc all jump ship from
00:54:50.680center bc to go back to the bc conservatives without even telling their the people running
00:54:55.480the party uh last week they were making statements we will run for center bc if there's a snap
00:55:01.240election called a snap election gets called and all of them go back to join the bc conservatives
00:55:06.600uh so it's just perpetuating the same dysfunction even if they win even if they get a similar
00:55:11.640result the caucus is still as disunited as possible so it's been really weird to be honest
00:55:17.560watching the conversation around around uh the there's all this drama and carolyn finley you
00:55:24.440you have a lot of types who are kind of uh representing carolyn as like a as a like an
00:55:30.560anti-establishment candidate i never really understood that
00:55:33.560i didn't really talk about the um the the bc conservative leadership race as it was happening
00:55:42.400i didn't like any of the candidates to be honest people didn't like carolyn elliott because she
00:55:47.920had a lot of kind of establishment types from eastern canada running her campaign that seemed0.99
00:55:53.400to be the main reason people didn't like her. I thought her message was actually pretty good,
00:55:57.820a pivot towards focus on cultural issues, which I think is necessary in provincial politics
00:56:02.580and federal politics. I thought she was a step in the right direction, but people didn't like
00:56:07.160her because of her campaign team. And then they kind of got behind Carolyn Finley as an1.00
00:56:13.800anti-establishment candidate. But like the reality is she's a former Harper era conservative. She's
00:56:20.580very much aligned with pierre polyev she's just as establishment as any other option uh so i never
00:56:27.720really understood that she ended up winning very narrowly 51 to 49 on the final ballot and this
00:56:35.300kind of like shows demonstrates the the issue of these kind of democratic leadership elections
00:56:43.760i've never really liked it to be honest there's a lot of talk about grassroots blah blah blah
00:56:49.960um but just to assume that that like the the membership can choose the best like strategic
00:56:57.720leader for a political party is is a bit absurd and it's manifest in in carolyn finley uh she had
00:57:04.160like the a 41 to 51 to 49 leadership result is is terrible for a party it just shows that no one
00:57:14.320like for a leadership election to be effective it needs to be a blowout you need to show that
00:57:20.200a party is united a caucus is united behind the the the leader the reality is a lot of the insiders
00:57:26.860were against carolyn finley and they've been working to sabotage her a lot of people are
00:57:32.020talking about how it's so corrupt and against the grassroots but these same people need to
00:57:36.900realize that carolyn finley was an awful choice for a leader like that woman is never going to
00:57:41.840win that the was never going to be able to win a general election uh i don't like leaders that
00:57:47.180are super old i'm apprehensive as uh of women as as leaders in general um i don't think that0.98
00:57:54.660that it plays very well in general elections we've seen so many uh female candidates end up
00:58:01.860end up losing in general elections um so she like the people talk oh it's a portrayal of the0.81
00:58:10.820grassroots but the reality is like she just wasn't a very good candidate she couldn't unite the party0.74
00:58:15.480once she won the election she couldn't unite the party through the election that's why she
00:58:20.120she had such a slim major uh such a slim majority and then she couldn't manage her her party
00:58:26.400afterwards and it really shows the dysfunction of democratically selecting leaders i've noticed a
00:58:33.180very funny trend in canadian politics over the last few years in which people tend to like
00:58:40.540interim leaders better than they like democratically elected leaders and we've seen this
00:58:45.520a couple of times with the conservative party people like rona ambrose who replaced harper
00:58:50.140as the interim leader were very were very popular she's kind of looked back on as like a what could
00:58:55.720have been type candidate um as well uh people like don davies who who was the interim leader of the
00:59:03.980NDP before Avi Lewis took over. Trevor Halford, even for the BC conservatives. I don't know if
00:59:11.200it's just because these people kind of keep it simple. They don't try to impose their vision
00:59:15.760too much. They kind of keep it. There's not as much pressure on them. There's not as much
00:59:20.940expectations. But there does seem to be a trend that people prefer these leaders that are not
00:59:26.960democratically selected, that are selected by the caucus based off of what's kind of strategic
00:59:33.960at the time as opposed to these democratically elective uh choices which often result in these
00:59:39.920very divisive leadership elections that break up parties more than they more than they bring them
00:59:45.620together um as well it'll be interesting to see through this election what happens to 1bc
00:59:51.180what happens to 1bc how many candidates are they going to be able to run will they be able to
00:59:56.900maintain the one seat that they have or even expand that or will they be or they fall into
01:00:01.500the PPC trap where it's very difficult for fringe parties to win even one seat. And if you can't
01:00:06.720maintain that one seat, then you lose all sorts of financial resources from the government.
01:00:12.560Members generally get all sorts of money for staff and stuff like this that can be important
01:00:19.900supplements to a party's budget. And you get way less, you don't get time to speak in the parliament
01:00:27.180or the legislature you don't get as much media coverage and then you fall into this kind of trap
01:00:32.140where you can where there's enough money to to continue to run the party but not enough money to
01:00:37.500to win elections the reality is uh the canadian political system i know this at the federal level
01:00:43.740at least uh i'm not sure how it translates to to all the different provinces which have their own
01:00:48.280different uh their own different rules and so on uh but the the reality is at the federal level at
01:00:56.220least, there are a lot of rules that advantage big parties at the detriment of small parties.
01:01:05.040For example, very simply, at the federal level, there's all sorts of reimbursements that are
01:01:10.460given based off of results. So there are different budgets at the local level and at the federal
01:01:17.760level. If a party gets over a certain threshold of the vote at the federal level, they get 50%
01:01:23.300of their campaign funds back. If you get over 10% of the vote at the local level, you get 60%
01:01:27.600of the campaign funds back. So as a result, the big parties, the liberals and the conservatives
01:01:31.960are able to use the same money over and over again, right? They get massive reimbursements
01:01:37.160locally and federally, but small parties like the PPC, as I was involved in,
01:01:42.740they don't get those same benefits. Very few PPC candidates got over 10% of the vote.
01:01:48.040so they didn't get their money back the party in the first election didn't get over two percent of
01:01:53.860the vote so they didn't get the the campaign reimbursement back as such small small parties
01:01:59.380end up just burning money through elections whereas the big parties get to cycle that money
01:02:03.680back into their organization and use it on the next election and so on and so on this is a massive
01:02:09.320systematic advantage for big parties and a disadvantage for small parties and it stops
01:02:14.540them from growing right big parties get to cycle the same money over and over and over whilst
01:02:19.620continuing to set fundraising records while small parties are disadvantaged it's backwards
01:02:24.400you think that small parties would get more support uh financial support and the big parties
01:02:30.480would be able to deal with it but this is the back this is all backwards and in in at least
01:02:35.980federally and it makes it very difficult for small parties to to start and grow uh this is just the
01:02:43.780reality of the situation and so it'll be very interesting to see if 1bc is able to kind of
01:02:50.180survive through this election even just winning a single seat would be a maintaining dallas brody's
01:02:56.080seat would be an important goal for for 1bc more so than running even a full slate of candidates
01:03:02.100i'd say because their chances of winning are just very slim they're very slim uh these small parties
01:03:07.520need to be realistic because they do play an important role i'm not against small parties
01:03:12.260I do think they can hold larger parties to account by offering a different vision, by keeping them accountable on their right or their left flanks.
01:03:25.380But they need to at least win a seat and survive in order to do that.
01:03:30.160The PPC has not been able to be a big impact, especially over the last few years, because of their ineffectiveness at winning large parts of support and being able to convert it into seats.
01:03:44.220As such, the conservatives don't really need to care about them very much.
01:03:47.420They're not a real threat to them, so they can just kind of ignore it and play towards the center.
01:03:52.540So I do think these fringe parties are important, but as well, it's important to be pragmatic
01:03:57.240for the people running those parties in their goals and messaging.
01:04:02.320And to be honest, I've found that 1BC has been kind of on the decline for the last year.
01:04:13.880I don't see really what spits them apart.
01:04:16.740And I think that these more right-wing fringe parties need to be, I find too often they're just more libertarian. They're more capitalist than their moderate alternative. And that's not really the dimension, the axes that you need to take in order to differentiate yourself from the mainstream conservative parties.
01:04:41.020mainstream conservative parties are actually too libertarian themselves so so trying to outflank
01:04:45.900them on economics saying we need to lower taxes more we need to be more of a free market we need
01:04:51.000to be more free trade is actually not a good dimension in order to appeal to a to an average
01:04:57.940canadian voter base which in the the reality is the average community the average canadian does
01:05:04.320believe in a role for the state. Trying to out-libertarian the right parties is not the
01:05:11.120right way to go. It needs to be around these issues that are ignored, like these issues of
01:05:15.900identity, more so than about trying to make for an even smaller government, even lower taxes.
01:05:21.720It's just not a good way to appeal to a large enough demographic cohort that can threaten the
01:05:28.580mainstream conservative parties and drag them in any which direction so uh 1bc i thought there was
01:05:34.820some some hope there for a while but it's kind of uh fallen off after some of the the the conflicts
01:05:41.260within the party where they they ended up uh getting rid of most of their most competent most
01:05:47.220effective staffers in the in the in the it's apparent in their the transformation of their
01:05:53.000messaging and aesthetics and in everything over the last year so yeah i i think bc politics is
01:06:04.140very very interesting it's it's been fascinating to watch the evolution of the bc conservatives
01:06:09.520and it really demonstrates the the the challenges of growing a political movement and going from
01:06:16.040kind of fringe to mainstream and the inevitabilities uh the inevitable growing pains
01:06:22.100that a political movement will experience