Full Comment - How to rescue Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives from irrelevance

00:00:00.000 hey it's anthony fury thanks so much for joining us for the latest episode of full comment

00:00:10.440 should conservative leader erin o'toole stay or should he go what's the state of conservatism

00:00:15.960 in canada today what's the future of conservatism in canada our next guest perfect person to talk

00:00:22.180 about these big picture questions tasha keratin joining us now national post colonist and

00:00:26.460 principal at strategic public affairs firm navigator hey tasha how's it going oh it's good

00:00:31.720 anthony how are you i am doing well and i'm glad to have you on the program because you know you

00:00:35.760 literally wrote the book or at least a book on sort of big picture questions around uh conservative

00:00:39.980 issues it was i know a number of years ago now you wrote a book called uh rescuing canada's right

00:00:44.380 blueprint for a conservative revolution but i think the kind of things that you talked about

00:00:48.600 back then in that book with your co-author adam defala that's kind of i think a conversation

00:00:52.800 people would like to have right now yes it's um it seems that the right is still in need of rescue

00:00:59.160 uh the last two elections in canada anyway we've seen um you know results that are disappointing to

00:01:05.560 people in the conservative party and i think in the conservative movement writ large uh sort of

00:01:10.160 fractioning again of right of center support um the rise of the people's party in the last election

00:01:15.960 was something that is of concern to a lot of people in the conservative party it's an eight a bit

00:01:20.160 of their vote so um there's a lot to hash out here and well as we know uh erin o'toole is going

00:01:26.320 to be fighting for his political future so there's a lot to get into in terms of future of him and the

00:01:31.960 party too all right let's do it so that question of should he stay or should he go i mean i feel

00:01:36.340 like in some sense the question will just kind of answer itself because there are mandated

00:01:40.660 leadership reviews that happen it doesn't have to you know happen right now now now tomorrow kind

00:01:44.980 of thing i know there's also um the reform act that michael chong put in that we'll see

00:01:49.220 conservative mps well they have been able to say at caucus this is what we want to have happen

00:01:53.200 and you know if a leader can't rally his own troops if he can't rally his caucus well obviously you

00:01:57.760 can't stay as you know you can't rally the nation either so i feel like it's it's kind of going to

00:02:02.040 figure itself out how do you feel the process is going to go well the process took a turn um with the

00:02:08.480 you know the decision by caucus that they are going to allow themselves to review leadership it's

00:02:14.280 something that they voted on at the caucus meeting that they held uh on the 5th of october and as a

00:02:20.000 result um there could be a review of 20 of the caucus decides that that they should do so um i've

00:02:27.900 spoken to a number of conservatives in the party and they don't feel that that is an imminent

00:02:32.080 situation they did expect in fact that this would be the result um at the caucus meeting that there would

00:02:37.260 be support for the for the principle of review right but that not that the review would happen so

00:02:41.880 that's where things are at of course the membership also has the right to review and they have a

00:02:46.320 convention so like you said there are touch points here that mr o'toole could face and will face and

00:02:53.360 between now and then he has a lot of work to do convincing caucus and also the membership at large

00:03:00.060 that you know his vision for the party or the vision that the party is going down in the last

00:03:05.120 election is the right one or perhaps that he wants to make some changes because clearly it didn't

00:03:11.140 achieve the results that he uh he expected well what do you think should happen well uh-huh i think

00:03:17.760 a lot needs to happen it doesn't just involve the leader i think the conservatives have to

00:03:22.640 soul search yet again as to you know what who they are and what do they need to do and um i wrote a piece

00:03:30.020 in the national post um on the weekend about this issue with regards to the future of canada because i

00:03:36.100 think one of the problems the conservatives are facing is that they are out of step with the

00:03:40.580 demographic changes that are happening in our country have been happening for a while will

00:03:44.240 continue to happen in fact have been the story of canada since its very creation we are a nation

00:03:50.020 of immigrants we are a country that is not only built by immigration it's beholden to it we have

00:03:55.860 uh below uh two children per one the replacement rate anyway um per woman in terms of children

00:04:02.620 to so-called native-born canadians or people who are first generation here so we know that

00:04:08.800 unless we have immigrants new canadians coming to canada we can't fill the labor market shortages

00:04:14.580 that present and in fact a lot of them in the pandemic have been exacerbated as well uh so we

00:04:20.300 need to have new blood in our country consistently right that means changes to how our society looks

00:04:26.460 functions um and the conservative party has not been successful in capturing the most recent waves i

00:04:33.180 will say last 30 years of uh immigration to canada as voters um prior to that there was successful

00:04:41.180 outreaches under the brian mulroney um uh you know double the two governments that he had back-to-back

00:04:46.140 majorities in the 80s to as they were called then cultural communities that was the sort of term that

00:04:50.940 was used a lot of outreach was done but there there needs to be outreach done because that is the

00:04:56.780 future voter base in canada not just that it's also the future base in terms of uh social you know

00:05:03.340 functioning i mean how are people being integrated into our country political integration is important

00:05:07.740 too so conservatives need to connect with those communities they have not done so and if they don't

00:05:13.260 they're not going to win the suburbs the cities the urban areas where more and more people are living

00:05:17.740 and more and more votes are well in what ways are they not doing that specifically because 2011 of

00:05:22.220 course uh stephen harper got a majority government won a lot of those writings when you look at a lot

00:05:26.540 of those writings where there are uh you know those new immigrant communities the conservative candidate and

00:05:31.180 and and sort of the the leading sort of members of the uh of the writing association there they

00:05:35.980 typically reflect that community what are the things that need to be done differently well 2011 was

00:05:43.180 a bit of an anomaly in fact i i've spoken to a number of people since this article came out and

00:05:48.380 there's been a lot of interest in it which is great and i i welcome that because i would like

00:05:51.900 to to delve more into this topic get people's perspectives and what's emerged is that a lot of

00:05:56.940 people felt the three elections that stephen harper fought um there were other factors and i had sort of

00:06:01.820 identified these already that made it uh easier for the conservatives to take those writings and to take power

00:06:07.180 in general which were weak liberal leaders you had you know martin dion and ignatiev not exactly

00:06:12.460 uh trio of like of big winners there um and you also had jack layton splitting the vote in 2011 on

00:06:19.420 the progressive side that helped a lot in the communities you're talking about the 905 particularly

00:06:24.940 where you had yes you're right there are riding associations that are very reflective of the

00:06:30.540 particular communities that have established themselves there um but it was more about the other side

00:06:34.940 you know their vote was split liberals were split so it helped the conservatives win um that hasn't

00:06:41.180 happened since and we know that in the gta uh it's all red the liberals have have swept uh you know

00:06:48.220 mississauga milton um you know they even took that writing from lisa rate last time around a really

00:06:53.500 strong conservative candidate former cabinet minister it's clear that something is going on and the

00:06:59.580 conservatives need to connect not on the basis of gee we want your votes for the next election we're going

00:07:04.300 to show up at your dinners like jason kenny did for many years and just you know be there it's a

00:07:09.500 question of connecting on the values that conservatism stands for and that's why the party has to

00:07:14.460 do a deeper dive into what it is and connect to the issues that matter to new canadians and that

00:07:20.300 identifying the piece it really is you know establishing yourself in a new country making your

00:07:25.820 way economically making a better life for your children very important to immigrants and new canadians

00:07:31.980 um being successful in an environment that's not familiar to you and conservatives have a lot of

00:07:37.740 answers to those questions they also have a number of hurdles they have to overcome based on the

00:07:42.380 perception of the conservative party rightly or wrongly these people may have how do they deal

00:07:47.020 with that perception if we're assuming that it's largely wrongly you know narratives that liberal

00:07:51.420 strategists put forward that you know the old canardo this is a racist party a racist candidate

00:07:55.740 or what have you and then to your point no matter how much outreach there is you're still going to get

00:07:59.500 hit uh with that label uh well i guess here's the question you said rightly or wrongly is it rightly

00:08:04.220 or is it wrongly well it's both i i think the wrongly piece is that conservative parties around

00:08:08.860 the world uh tend to be tagged with the anti-immigration label there are far-right parties you

00:08:14.220 see this in europe quite a bit who are anti-immigration so people who have experiences that are political

00:08:19.980 experiences that are different than living in canada people who come from other countries whether it's

00:08:24.700 europe but mostly the developing world who may come from africa who may come from south america

00:08:29.820 um and asia and south asia what they call what conservatism is painted as there is not what is

00:08:36.940 necessarily here so you know right-wing punters uh are very negative things you talk to someone

00:08:42.060 who's lived that experience in central or south america and they're like oh right wing like no right

00:08:46.220 right you know um so that label has to be disputed people have to understand that label is not the same

00:08:50.860 thing here so that's one hurdle the second thing though is that there is actually um an anti-immigration

00:08:57.020 streak that does run through the conservative party and more the people's party definitely

00:09:02.780 but it is it is there and it's been there interestingly enough i think since the split with

00:09:08.140 the reform party um i was speaking with brian mulroney um former prime minister primarily uh over the

00:09:13.580 weekend actually about this because he was interested in the piece as well and he had some thoughts he

00:09:17.420 wanted to share and one of them was he felt that reform was sort of a break between the progressive

00:09:22.620 conservative and the sort of conservative party we have now it's like you know a bridge in there

00:09:26.940 but that bridge was seen as anti-immigrant by a lot of new canadians and as a result that that

00:09:33.420 feeling has carried over to the conservative party because many people see it as dominated by former

00:09:38.460 people from the reform so there's that piece and second under stephen harper there were things done

00:09:43.420 that immigrants really didn't like um the basically you know about 90 percent of family reunification

00:09:49.420 disappeared it was made very difficult to reunify with your family because immigration became very

00:09:53.900 economically focused and family reunification was pushed off the table the liberals bought it back

00:09:58.380 it's no no surprise um and one can understand from an economic perspective well you know if you're

00:10:04.300 bringing over your grandparents your relatives all people who aren't necessarily in the prime of their

00:10:08.780 working lives aren't going to contribute the same way are going to use the health care system

00:10:11.660 people oh this is a dream this is bad well here's the reality for if you're coming to a new country

00:10:17.020 and you have no support system and family is incredibly important to you the message that

00:10:21.580 telegraphs to you is a we want to make it harder for you to succeed here and b we don't share your view

00:10:26.620 that family is a cornerstone of you know of life and it's a value that ironically conservatives have

00:10:34.140 right right conservatives are you know faith family three enterprise that's a sort of

00:10:37.180 uh i guess the russell kirk american trifecta that people sometimes use as a basis for what

00:10:42.620 conservative thought is it's very simplified but family is really important and that piece did turn

00:10:48.220 off and i've spoken to new canadians about this that really did turn off a lot of people in new

00:10:51.900 canadian communities that the conservatives did that and yet at the same time you also hear the

00:10:55.740 counter argument from a lot of conservatives that okay we are the party that is at least more

00:10:59.420 welcoming to social conservatives which you get more of from people in new immigrant communities uh

00:11:03.980 we are the party that is much more amenable to small businesses we know justin trudeau famously

00:11:07.900 saying oh they're all tax cheats and so forth got to change the rules about them so so much of the

00:11:12.620 new canadian experience uh has a strong connection to conservative party platforms and and sort of the

00:11:20.220 general conservative approach right now so how do you make that all work together well social

00:11:25.020 conservatism doesn't necessarily translate to the same type of social conservatism that new canadians

00:11:29.420 have to say that you know um new conservatives have the same values as the christian right

00:11:33.900 uh and i don't yeah i don't mean anti-gay marriage and i don't mean anti-abortion so much so but the

00:11:39.020 the family unit issues that you're getting at i understand but there's not necessarily an automatic

00:11:43.660 solidarity if you will um simply on the basis of that between social conservatives that were

00:11:49.260 established social conservatives in canada and social conservative or communities that come over

00:11:52.780 that may have socially conservative views i think we've seen actually the conservatives try to play

00:11:56.540 on that they tried to play on that on the um the marijuana legalization issue uh it didn't really work

00:12:01.740 either to say well you know you don't like pot like you know look what the liberals are going

00:12:05.180 to do well that didn't work they didn't get the votes in scarborough they didn't get the votes in

00:12:08.940 places where they they ran campaigns like that i think rather than um you know trying to say uh look

00:12:16.220 we have a social conservative wing that is like you kind of thing i think it would be more effective

00:12:20.540 to say here are the principles that that all conservatives have including the social conservatives

00:12:26.220 including i would say even libertarians i mean i don't think many libertarians are anti-family in fact

00:12:31.020 it's hard to find anyways really anti-family it's a question of how you define the state's

00:12:35.900 relationship with the family and that is something that is different than the way the liberals do and

00:12:40.300 you see it for example with child care policy um you know the liberal child care policy is we will

00:12:45.500 give money to the promises for spaces the conservatives did differentiate on that so we will give it directly

00:12:49.580 to families um but it's not enough to simply have sort of one issue you have to sort of holistically

00:12:55.980 say well you know what is a conservative what is a conservative society to your point you want to

00:13:00.940 have a small business what does what do you need for that small business we don't say we're going

00:13:04.620 to throw government money at you but you need consumers you need uh people to spread the word

00:13:09.500 about your business maybe you need people to work in the business and hey when you bring your family

00:13:13.020 in guess who might end up working in the business with you um you know i this is the kind of

00:13:18.700 big picture of saying we want to give you the ability to have the supports in the community that will

00:13:22.860 allow you to be successful community is not government it is a different animal it is local

00:13:27.340 it can be voluntary associations it can be uh you know immigrant welcoming associate it could be

00:13:33.020 a lot of things it is not a you know federal government program it is not a provincial it is

00:13:37.820 something that people often band together these sort of little platoons of society that edmund burke calls

00:13:42.220 them where people will do things on their own but you need to have a critical mass of community to do

00:13:46.860 that so that is a place where the conservatives can say look we're not about top-down government we

00:13:52.700 want to enable these supports that are around you we want to enable the village basically to

00:13:56.860 quote hillary clinton though i don't usually do that a lot um to help you be successful with

00:14:01.500 things you want to do which is like you said earn your living start a business perhaps uh get your

00:14:06.700 kids a great education put a roof over your head do these things all the things that are important to

00:14:11.020 you we believe in that small you know that that that vision too it is not about top-down it is about

00:14:17.820 bottom-up and government should be minimal government shouldn't take too much money from you

00:14:22.300 we need government but we know its place but there are other things in the community we're not

00:14:26.540 all islands you know um tasha you're talking about such a such a big picture conversation here

00:14:32.140 that i agree with you a conversation that needs to be had the challenge is that i feel like so

00:14:37.020 many people uh pretty much everybody in canada under 45 or whatever the age mark is has now more

00:14:43.580 likely been brought up and been acclimatized to the idea that oh there's a problem in your community

00:14:48.380 in your life in your business what have you why isn't government solving this in a way that that

00:14:53.020 did not happen a couple decades ago a few decades ago the author neil ferguson and he's not the only

00:14:58.460 one pointing this out but he has a he has a book called the great degeneration where he talks about

00:15:02.940 the erosion of civil society is one of our biggest biggest threats right now and one of the things

00:15:07.660 that's been really unfortunate about the pandemic is civil society just doesn't exist it's just us sitting

00:15:12.060 at home and then the government tells you what you can and can't do and so forth so we've got

00:15:15.100 another 18 months of people who have further been distanced from civil society and to have those

00:15:20.620 conversations you know up on the stage anytime it says you know why isn't the government solving

00:15:25.020 this problem and then trudeau or whoever turns around and says well you don't care about group x or

00:15:29.500 you don't care about problem x no i care about it deeply but i think we can solve it as a community

00:15:33.660 together kind of thing how do we overcome that i mean what you're putting forward it's such a

00:15:37.660 hurdle of a conversation it's one i'm with you i'm with you on but it's a challenge oh it absolutely

00:15:43.740 is and it's a very fair question because the pandemic has definitely exacerbated the role of

00:15:48.060 government um it made people actually more interested in government than ever before in

00:15:52.540 fact um at navigator we did a number of focus groups and some in-depth research into how people

00:15:58.700 felt uh about the new government how liberal voters in particular felt about the new government what they

00:16:03.580 were looking for and the insights that we got big picture was big government they want a government

00:16:08.780 that takes care of them and that's not to say all conservative you know voters feel that way but

00:16:13.180 the government will respond to its supporters chiefly and that is what they're looking for it is

00:16:18.860 government has become your friend much more in the last 18 months that's absolutely true however

00:16:24.780 there are always pendulum swings and i think that the swing will happen as people do emerge from

00:16:29.660 the pandemic this isn't a short-term thing by the way what i'm talking about is not you know

00:16:33.740 let's fix this for the next election here's the recipe for erin o'toole in the next two years it's

00:16:39.500 really um you know a a decades-long process because immigration will keep shaping canada and by 2030

00:16:47.980 we're going to have a very different country one-third of canadians will be born outside of it

00:16:52.380 one-third like that is it's a huge and that's in just 10 years basically um it's something that we

00:16:59.100 have to remember so people's experience of politics will be very different than what people

00:17:03.020 who are here for generations have lived we have to bridge that gap and the conserves are in a

00:17:07.820 position to do that i think that people will get sick of government intervention at a certain point

00:17:12.140 again it takes you know some swings and some time but i think that the hunger also for those

00:17:17.580 connections that are we've been missing i don't know about you but you know i went to a wedding

00:17:22.220 the other day the first wedding i've been to in two years basically it was the most joyous thing because

00:17:28.620 totally yeah yeah it was incredible and and i think people will be hungry for more of that um

00:17:34.460 so i i do think there will be an appetite for this kind of engagement again yeah and i guess

00:17:39.340 you know the question is to what degree did erin o'toole focus group himself into a position where

00:17:48.060 he didn't engage with these questions because a lot of people are saying the problem with erin

00:17:52.060 o'toole's loss is that he actually abandoned conservative principles others are saying the

00:17:57.820 problem with erin o'toole's loss is he didn't go far enough to what people wanted he didn't go

00:18:03.100 far enough to the center far enough to the left or what have you and that's kind of the tension i

00:18:07.580 feel right now in in the question of uh both within the movement and then you know the old

00:18:11.820 joke is you can always find some of the cbc and toronto star to tell the conservatives why they

00:18:15.180 need to be more left but you know put that aside even within the tent there's a question about where

00:18:20.540 to head and where they did not correctly head right and there was a poll out i saw in fact just this

00:18:26.060 week which showed that apparently the reason he lost is people didn't know him which is interesting

00:18:31.100 that you know that was the liberals banked on that that he was not very well known

00:18:34.300 partly because the pandemic couldn't get out there was a new leader do you think that's true and

00:18:38.300 that's why they went with the devil they knew i think there's a certain amount of truth to that

00:18:41.820 but i do think also that erin o'toole's main problem is that for the conservative base some of which

00:18:46.380 didn't turn out by the way that was one of the issues that the conservative uh vote faced in this

00:18:50.780 election too is not everybody showed up because many people who supported him initially i mean he gave

00:18:55.660 the impression during leadership that he was a very right of center you know blue blue tory um very you

00:19:02.460 spoke out about things like cancel culture on university campuses and freedom of speech and

00:19:07.260 and then he canceled a couple people yeah right and so um people were expecting you know that was

00:19:15.900 the erin o'toole that showed up then and then the erin o'toole that showed up for the the election was

00:19:20.940 i think the real erin o'toole from everyone i've spoken to who knows him said well that's actually who he

00:19:25.340 is he is not it's not like he's a centrist guy but he is more progressive conservative than he is just

00:19:30.460 purely conservative and he started doing that even at the convention when you know climate change is

00:19:35.420 real folks and that's not what the party agreed to and it was that schism there that got a lot of

00:19:40.140 attention the signs were already there that there was a split between expectation and reality and

00:19:45.660 the reality he delivered you know some people felt disappointed by that they were looking for

00:19:49.820 something else so the lesson to me in all this is you've got to be genuine you cannot i mean i get

00:19:54.700 it he wanted to win the leadership he was up against mckay who was more centrist so he wanted to

00:19:58.700 differentiate and you know capture the more right of center vote but you can't do that and then switch

00:20:05.900 you have to be yourself because if you don't win on your own merits well it's gonna bite you someday

00:20:10.300 you know kelly leach saw that movie too when she ran for leadership a couple leaderships ago i mean i

00:20:15.100 know kelly leach since she's 18 years old she was never a hardcore right wing uh you know anti-immigration

00:20:23.180 like the stuff she spouted off was not her and she didn't win votes for that and i think a lot of

00:20:28.780 people who you know knew her were confused by the position she was presenting and it you have to be

00:20:34.380 yourself and so erin o'toole to me as a leader he has to convince the party to go with him not the

00:20:39.420 reverse it's like okay this is the path come with me not uh i'm gonna just bow to you do say what you

00:20:45.740 want and then then take off over here can't do that he has to have a vision and that vision i will

00:20:51.260 say too it's not just about new canadians so it's a very important piece it's also about having a

00:20:57.260 vision of canada and what is canada in the next you know 20 years um we talk a lot about climate

00:21:03.100 change for example that policy that they had it was interesting but impossible to explain in a

00:21:08.860 soundbite and quite frankly i don't think people really liked it they climate change is a weird issue

00:21:14.620 people care a lot about it but they have no idea what they really want to have done and if it's

00:21:18.620 you know it's true and and if this came through in our research as well if you know people people

00:21:23.820 trust the liberals to care about it even though they couldn't name anything that liberals had

00:21:27.740 actually done it was really weird it's a perfect issue because i know the conservatives there's

00:21:31.340 always what's erin o'toole's climate change plan what's it going to be how is it going to match

00:21:34.460 up to the liberals and so forth and i know this is an incredibly contentious issue again in the

00:21:37.980 conservative movement my position which some people would really support other people in the

00:21:41.740 movement really against is i go look why don't we follow the voluntary principles here businesses

00:21:46.940 are doing a lot they're putting r d into it there's a green revolution coming just let it happen let

00:21:50.700 it do its thing we don't need to be in the paris deal we don't need the carbon tax get out of this

00:21:56.300 stuff they're nationally determined contributions and there's your differentiator because you got the

00:22:00.140 green party you've got the liberal green party you got the ndp green party etc etc propose the

00:22:05.180 alternative vision and then some people say well hold on a second that's a big problem because our

00:22:09.500 focus groups tells voters don't want that i mean where do you head on an issue like that yeah i

00:22:14.780 think honestly um there are things that canada can do as a country and government can help facilitate

00:22:21.900 this it's not the government will be you know extracting the ore itself right we do talk about

00:22:27.580 the need for electrification uh you know moving away from fossil fuels this is all very nice but

00:22:33.820 unless you have the raw materials to build electric cars they are not going to happen where are we

00:22:38.860 going to get the nickel the cobalt the actual it's you know you actually have to do some dirty

00:22:44.060 stuff here you have to do mining which isn't really dirty but that's how people perceive it it's

00:22:47.820 like oh it's not environmentally friendly well guess what you don't get to the environmentally

00:22:52.060 friendly without uh doing some things that people have an impression are not environmentally

00:22:57.660 safe in fact mining has come a very long way and that's a whole other conversation about um the

00:23:03.020 extraction process but canada could be a leader in electrification and the production of the

00:23:08.780 components to build an electric world electric cars electric power um we you know if you want

00:23:15.980 a grand vision for this country i know that you know the ring of fire in ontario alone is a source

00:23:21.900 that could be you know extremely beneficial not just to canada but to the world and that's a

00:23:25.900 government role to be the incubator for that you could yes exactly because you need i mean you need

00:23:30.620 roads you need infrastructure you need things you need also environmental permission you have

00:23:34.380 you know all these things there are layers and hurdles companies have to go through the point is

00:23:38.220 if it's a government you have a vision for this and say okay well you know what uh the oil sands were

00:23:43.580 harper's vision that was his vision he really had this vision of canada's a petro state well maybe

00:23:48.060 canada's not a petro state maybe canada's meant to be um you know an electric state and how do we get

00:23:53.180 there and what would we do i think there's ways to make this interesting and think outside the box just

00:23:58.620 nobody's really doing that so i think that that's the kind of thing conservatives can grab onto you

00:24:02.620 as well um you propose something that is a big picture you know the liberals have their signature

00:24:07.820 policy now this will be trudeau's legacy will be daycare it will be child care that is his legacy

00:24:12.380 it's going to be you know done over the next couple years will that be undone good luck uh you know you

00:24:17.740 may not subscribe to his view but once it's done it's there it'll be very hard to pull back it's

00:24:22.620 interesting when you talk about vision because you also mentioned brian milrooney and when i think of

00:24:26.540 a canadian political leader i would say brian milrooney and perhaps jack layton are the only

00:24:31.820 recent federal political leaders i say recent i know brian when he's been out of office for many

00:24:35.980 years who had a strong vision i guess stephen harper had that vision as well i feel like in

00:24:40.700 the american leadership echelon you get much more visionaries i mean donald trump he certainly had a

00:24:46.380 vision whatever you think of drain the swamp build the wall that's a vision barack obama definitely

00:24:50.460 had a strong vision out there i mean they have much more uh greater frequency of visionary leaders

00:24:56.460 here do we just suffer from a deficit of that do do they have it but they just don't they just don't

00:25:01.260 present when you know the curtain call rises and they say okay do the show i mean what's going on with

00:25:06.700 true leadership in canadian politics right now well i think it is lacking i think was it certainly there's

00:25:12.620 there's a sense that you know i mean the conservatives always have this this this push pull because they are

00:25:17.260 not in favor of big government to begin with so having big government visions isn't something

00:25:21.260 that conservatives you know want to have i mean stephen harper like i challenge you name something

00:25:25.340 a big legacy piece that he's left there is none but that was probably his intention to be honest

00:25:30.780 because his intention was to shrink the size of government right um which he did and he did in

00:25:35.020 fact when you said name name one thing all i can think of is that the count of the federal public

00:25:39.820 service did not actually go up over 10 years yeah so there you go so this is the kind of thing that

00:25:45.740 you know um that he but it's it's not something you can put on a wall it's not something you can

00:25:50.300 put like okay free trade something that will endure for like for generations or the gst which while it

00:25:55.740 was a hated policy it's still there and quite frankly yeah if we were smart we'd have a higher

00:26:01.100 vat or gst and a lower income tax like european countries do but we don't but anyway the point is

00:26:06.220 those were the two signature policies mr moroney put in uh jean christian expanded that to free

00:26:11.820 trade with mexico so we have the north american free trade agreement he did a lot of um well i mean

00:26:16.780 you know trading with china we can talk about another show but trying to expand canada's reach

00:26:21.500 into other markets he was very much business focused in that way working with business and he

00:26:25.420 also slayed the deficit paul martin did do that um you know a lot of pain to the provinces perhaps but

00:26:30.780 that was done so there are things you can say okay he did that he did that i think that that is a

00:26:35.100 problem conservatives have we have to find a vision that doesn't involve necessarily emptying the public

00:26:39.900 purse but does involve government actually doing something leading on something and i think you

00:26:44.620 can do that like i said i think um you know canada's role in in providing solutions to green power is

00:26:50.620 something we could we could potentially be a big player in um i think also you know knowing that

00:26:57.340 canada is an immigration society that um moving forward with ways to really engage and i guess overcome

00:27:06.060 some of the barriers because this generation of new canadians faces issues that you know my parents

00:27:11.100 generation didn't my mother got called a crouch by the way she's from germany just even in the early

00:27:15.580 2000s by one of her neighbors in a small town in ondario i swear really you're still yes she yes and

00:27:21.660 she got she faced a lot of anti-german prejudice when she came to canada in the 60s she's told me stories

00:27:25.820 of this but it's not the same as someone who comes you know from uh let's say sri lanka or comes from

00:27:32.460 india or comes from africa and they get you know racially stereotyped they face that prejudice day

00:27:38.060 in day out and we know inequality and systemic racism is a huge huge issue right now it is an

00:27:44.300 issue for people from communities and it's issue for people who are not who say this should stop

00:27:48.700 moving forward on that issue what's the conservative's policy on that like what what's

00:27:52.940 their what's their answer to make equality of opportunity a reality for people take down barriers

00:27:57.980 that's something they have to think about too because that's a big part of the conversation

00:28:01.260 especially for those younger voters you've talked about they've had it they're not you know they

00:28:05.100 want they want things to change and government does have a role in that so i think that's something i

00:28:10.380 have to think about what meaningful policies should conservatives embrace because i think justin

00:28:13.980 trudeau's answer is just let's fine people or imprison them for putting out mean tweets and so

00:28:18.940 forth which is just not a direction i want us to head in but well there's a huge conversation around

00:28:22.860 that with various legislation what's the more meaningful way uh to bring about that that sort of inclusive

00:28:28.780 society well i think it's i mean it's a very individual thing um which is something that

00:28:33.740 conservatives believe it starts you know it starts from from you um it's it can't be forced on you um

00:28:39.500 at the same time i think education and opportunities for people to improve their status of living is one of

00:28:46.860 the key drivers because the more that you see other people who look like you succeed the more you believe

00:28:51.980 you can and the more you will and the more representation there will be um so i know that

00:28:56.860 education is is a provincial uh jurisdiction but there are ways the federal government can insert itself

00:29:02.300 to enable opportunity for new canadians for people from communities to actually access the kind of

00:29:08.940 education that native-born canadians might find much easier to do i think also there are ways of

00:29:14.940 ensuring that when people do come to canada and we've talked about qualifications in the past the

00:29:20.220 people who come here um you know that that their qualifications are more easily recognized that

00:29:25.740 there are not systemic barriers to saying okay well just because your degree is from here we don't you

00:29:29.420 know you'll have to do like 50 hours of retraining well maybe some people have to but many people may

00:29:34.780 not is there a way to streamline that to work with professional associations to work with the

00:29:40.140 provinces to say hey let's make sure that when people come here they can actually get on their own

00:29:44.060 two feet faster and you know be that doctor be that nurse we need people like that so i think that

00:29:49.340 you know enabling people to make the most of what they have um and then i mean in terms of erasing

00:29:55.660 prejudice i think that you do also have to make a concerted effort to have people from communities

00:30:00.060 represented in your own party i mean it's only like now i think six percent of the caucus is what

00:30:05.980 you would call bipoc and uh black indigenous or people of color the liberals it's 30. all right and

00:30:11.820 i'm not saying you know tokenism and just pick people because they're from no there are so many qualified

00:30:16.540 people women have faced these barriers forever too in terms of getting nominations that may not

00:30:21.340 have the connections or may you know not have the money to help people have their shot if they don't

00:30:28.140 win the nomination at the end of the day fine but if they had a fair shot and didn't you know and

00:30:32.140 didn't win it it's different than saying you started from you know way back here and this person

00:30:35.740 had more of an advantage there's so much talent out there and i think that would be very important

00:30:40.380 for the conservatives to ensure that they are more representative of the society that they're

00:30:43.980 trying to connect with tasha before we go so much of our conversation has been about the deficits

00:30:48.300 with the conservative party right now with platforms positions where to head and i'm sure

00:30:52.860 liberals hear this sort of stuff and go this is exactly where we want them thinking that all you

00:30:56.380 know it's doom and gloom and we're really in the gutter right now at the same time 2019 election

00:31:00.620 2021 election say what you want about andrew sheeran aaron tool they got more votes than justin

00:31:05.980 trudeau so the popular vote sort of prevailed at least for the conservative so all is certainly not lost

00:31:12.300 how lost are things i mean are we just talking about a couple little surgical tweaks here what

00:31:17.260 what do you see as being the future no it's not surgical because the conservatives can get more

00:31:22.620 votes but if they're concentrated in ridings or parts of the country where there aren't many ridings

00:31:27.740 or electoral districts they're not going to get more seats and i don't think proportional

00:31:31.580 representation would help the conservatives either because uh you know it's the argument oh well then

00:31:35.340 they could ally and form who are they going to ally not going to happen right so so you know you

00:31:41.020 either you win big you go big or go home right so you've got to win the cities you've got to win the

00:31:46.220 suburbs and maybe you won't get downtown but you've got to get that 905 you've got to get the outer the

00:31:51.260 suburbs of vancouver you've got to be able to go where the growth is and be part of that growth if

00:31:56.460 you're not you're going to become a regional rump party over time it's going to happen because you're

00:32:01.900 too concentrated in those few spots so and i don't think that's what the conservatives want at all

00:32:06.780 even people who you know who live there they don't want that i don't think the west wants to see itself

00:32:11.100 as a regional party in the conservative mold um i think you know they want to be part of something

00:32:15.500 bigger than that and there's a way to do that but you've got to put the work in and unless they do that

00:32:21.020 you know that will not happen becoming part of something bigger great place to leave that tasha

00:32:25.740 keratin thanks so much for stopping by great to chat with you great to read your columns up in national

00:32:29.740 post thank you anthony it's been a pleasure likewise all the best full comment is a post

00:32:35.580 media podcast i'm anthony fury this episode was produced by andre prue with theme music by bryce

00:32:40.860 hall kevin libban is the executive producer you can subscribe to full comment on apple podcasts

00:32:45.980 google spotify or wherever you get your podcasts you can help us by giving us a rating or a review

00:32:51.180 and by telling your friends about us thanks for listening

Full Comment - October 11, 2021

How to rescue Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives from irrelevance

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