Full Comment - Maxime Bernier’s anti-lockdown People’s Party is not going away

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Anthony Fury. Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comment.

00:00:09.200 One of the big questions in the recent federal election was how would the People's Party of

00:00:13.320 Canada fare? The fledgling party was first founded in 2018 and its first time out in the 2019 election

00:00:18.900 offered a so-so result garnering just shy of 300,000 votes across the entire country. But

00:00:24.680 this time around, things were different. Leader Maxime Bernier was pretty much the only party

00:00:29.420 leader who offered an alternative perspective on lockdowns, vaccine passports, and other pandemic

00:00:34.800 measures. People responded with great passion. Some really loved him, some did not. Bernier attracted

00:00:40.620 massive crowds at rallies and at one point some pollsters showed him exceeding 10% of popular

00:00:45.100 support, which was quite something for a new party. Once the votes were tallied, the PPC in fact got

00:00:49.740 5% support and almost 850,000 votes, beating out the Green Party, whose leader participated in the

00:00:56.580 debates when Max did not. How does Maxime Bernier feel about the election results? What's next for

00:01:02.540 the PPC? Is it just a lockdown protest group or does it have legs beyond that for future elections?

00:01:08.960 Maxime Bernier joins us now. Hey Max, thanks for stopping by. Great to have you.

00:01:13.860 Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be with you.

00:01:16.640 So how do you feel about the results? How did things go in the election for the People's Party of Canada?

00:01:21.780 Yes, you're right. You said in the introduction that 2019 we had 1.6% of the vote. We wasn't able to

00:01:31.100 elect anybody, but you know, it took 20 years and six elections for the Green Party of Canada to have

00:01:37.400 more than 1.6. So for this election, I'm very pleased, 5.1%. Actually, it took 25 years for the Green Party of

00:01:46.620 Canada to have more than 5.1% of the vote. So yes, this party is growing. And you're right to say that

00:01:56.440 we are right now the only real opposition. If you look at our platform and the platform of the

00:02:04.100 Conservatives and the Liberals, they have the same platform on the most important issues for the

00:02:10.600 future of this country. And yes, this campaign, we focus on the COVID-19 hysteria and freedom of

00:02:19.620 choice. We are for freedom of choice and we are against a vaccine passport. So that was an important

00:02:28.160 theme of that election. But I believe that the next election will be there. It will be a, it is a

00:02:35.880 minority government. So the party will be ready for the next election. And actually, the good news for 0.96

00:02:42.420 us is because we had more than 2% of the vote, half of our expenses will be reimbursed by Election

00:02:51.240 Canada. So now we will have more money in the bank to be able to build the party and build the

00:02:57.760 organization all across the country. So what you're telling me is that this is long term and you're not

00:03:03.660 going anywhere. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. This is long term because we understand that we are in a

00:03:10.880 socialist era right now. It is everywhere in school, universities, journalists, politicians. And I

00:03:18.900 understand the strategy of the Conservative Party of Canada with O'Toole. And they started that with

00:03:25.420 Scheer. Their only goal is to be in government. So that's why they're going to the left. And O'Toole did

00:03:32.640 that during this campaign. And I believe that they will go further to the left for the next campaign

00:03:38.440 to try to have more support. So we will be the only real Conservative Party in this country.

00:03:45.900 And I think we have an opportunity to grow. Now, you know, as you know, we don't have a seat in

00:03:52.780 Parliament. But that will give me more time to travel across the country and to build the organizations

00:04:00.480 and also to be with our partisan and being sure that we will keep that momentum.

00:04:09.580 So tell me a bit more about you saying now half of your expenses will be covered by Elections Canada

00:04:14.220 because of the vote count you garnered. Explain to me more about how the PPC will become more of a kind

00:04:19.460 of, I guess, established official party because you're saying, yes, you don't have a seat in House

00:04:24.420 of Commons. You're not getting an MP salary. And then, of course, when you're an MP, you get

00:04:27.860 however many numbers of staff to hire to work in your office. But you are saying you're still going

00:04:32.380 to have a formal infrastructure and you're going to be, I guess, traveling around the country

00:04:36.640 operating like a party leader.

00:04:39.320 Yes, absolutely. During that election, we had only five people working at the office.

00:04:45.660 So we'll be able to have a bigger team and a more structural organization. We are starting

00:04:53.080 that right now. And also, the most important is to, you know, we did that election without

00:05:01.000 any debt. The money that we spent during that election was the money that we raised. So we

00:05:06.720 are in a good financial situation. And we are fiscally responsible as a new political party.

00:05:14.120 So now we have money in the bank. We'll receive more money from Election Canada and we'll be

00:05:20.180 able to grow. But our platform will be the same. You know, the platform of this campaign

00:05:25.620 was the same one of the 2019. So that's why I'm saying we are doing politics differently

00:05:31.360 because we don't try to please to everybody. We have a platform. We believe in that platform.

00:05:36.860 And we believe that the more we speak about it, the more Canadians are able to understand

00:05:42.540 our platform and know our platform, the more support we will have. Because we believe that

00:05:47.420 the freedom ideas are the best one for this country. And as you know, we created that party

00:05:54.000 based on four principles, individual freedom, personal responsibility, fairness and respect.

00:05:59.540 And all our policies are in line with these principles. So I discussed a little bit during

00:06:06.000 the campaign about the inflation tax. I believe that that would be an important theme going

00:06:12.300 forward because that huge deficit of $354 billion that Trudeau did and O'Toole and Trudeau are

00:06:21.540 the same. They want to spend more of our own money and that we don't have. That will create

00:06:27.540 inflation. And I believe that maybe at the next election, the COVID hysteria may be a subject

00:06:34.000 or not. If not, that must be maybe the economy and the inflation.

00:06:39.260 And that was the question I wanted to ask you about if when the next election comes around,

00:06:43.480 COVID-19 is less a discussion point and lockdowns are not really on the table or we've just moved

00:06:49.860 on to a different issue and so forth. I take your point that your platform in 2021 was very near

00:06:55.140 identical to your platform in 2019. But it does seem like the people who are attracted to your

00:06:59.400 rallies, the people who voted for you were voting for you, not so much because of a number of the

00:07:03.960 points in the platform, but because of your opposition to lockdowns and vaccine passports.

00:07:09.200 Do those people, do you anticipate those people stay with you as voters for the next election? Or do

00:07:13.820 you have to forge a new coalition of electoral support?

00:07:17.160 I believe that the majority of them will stay with us. And we will still have a discussion about

00:07:26.580 COVID-19, I believe, in two years or three years. But maybe that will be the economy. Maybe that will

00:07:33.180 be also the Canadian unity. As you know, the Western alienation, nobody's speaking about that. We are the

00:07:40.200 only party that will change the equalization formula to be less generous. We will build pipeline by using

00:07:46.860 the constitution section 90 to 10. We won't sign the Paris Accord. We won't impose a carbon tax. That

00:07:54.180 may that may be an important important policies for the next election, because I believe that maybe

00:08:02.520 Western alienation will be bigger when you have 30% of Albertans that are ready to separate. You need to

00:08:09.660 have an answer to that. And we are the only national political party that has an answer to that. So

00:08:15.600 that may be also part of the campaign next time. But I'm very pleased that at this campaign, we

00:08:22.200 actually are well known for our opposition to COVID-19. And the next election, that may be another

00:08:29.900 subject, we'll see. But we have more and more people that are interested in our platform. And so I'm pretty

00:08:38.040 sure that this party will be able to grow after the next election. Max, a lot of political analysts,

00:08:43.980 a lot of pollsters were trying to break down who are the people who are supporting the People's Party

00:08:48.920 of Canada. Some are disaffected Conservative voters, others come from this party or that party, people who

00:08:54.300 had stopped voting, who had never voted before. I mean, you're probably the best person to answer

00:08:57.760 this question. Who are PPC voters and supporters? Yeah, I wish I can tell you an answer to that

00:09:07.260 question, because we don't do any polling. And I'm looking at the public polls. But what I know from

00:09:14.180 traveling across the country, you know, we had people that came to me during our rallies. And you know,

00:09:20.160 I had a man 55 years old, and he said it would be the first time that I will vote at the federal level.

00:09:26.100 And, you know, I've met people like that. Our organization in Saskatoon, that was a former NDP

00:09:33.760 that was in charge of our organization. And he came with us because our position on COVID-19 and

00:09:39.760 against the vaccine passport. So but I believe that the majority of our supporters may be former

00:09:46.820 Conservatives, that they're looking at the Conservative Party of Canada. And on the most

00:09:52.100 important issues, like I said, they're not conservative anymore. And I understand a renewed

00:09:56.940 tool and the establishment of the Conservative Party, when your goal is only to be in power,

00:10:02.900 and you will you will say what Canadians wants to hear to be able to be in power. But by doing that,

00:10:10.280 they're giving a lot of credibility to the leftist narrative. So it's very hard to say.

00:10:16.820 But we are a kind of a coalition under the freedom umbrella. And I believe that that coalition can

00:10:26.820 grow again at the next election.

00:10:28.600 There certainly seemed to be a lot of energy, enthusiasm, momentum behind those rallies. What

00:10:35.140 was going on at those rallies? What was the message? What was the energy?

00:10:39.220 Well, my main message was always the same, you know, I was saying, you know, when tyranny becomes,

00:10:48.980 the law revolution becomes, becomes our duty. And I was asking, you know, we need to have an

00:10:55.860 ideological revolution in this country, a common sense revolution, a freedom revolution. And I believe

00:11:02.740 that that was people liked it when I was saying that, because they know that if you look here in

00:11:09.380 this country and other countries, the world culture is everywhere, socialism is everywhere. So if you need

00:11:17.300 to win, if you want to win that battle of ideas, we need to start. And step by step, that's what I said,

00:11:24.100 you know, my goal. And I said to my candidates before this campaign, our goal is 4%. And we had 5%, 5.1%.

00:11:33.780 But because that we didn't have a strong organization on the ground to get out the vote,

00:11:39.700 I believe that, you know, we will have been able to have 6% or 7%. But at the next campaign,

00:11:47.300 we'll have a more professional organization, and we'll be more organized to get out the vote.

00:11:53.140 But, you know, I believe that we, we have a bright future. So the people who came in our rallies were

00:12:01.300 people that, you know, were fed up with the situation. A lot of people coming from a former communist

00:12:09.140 country, Russia, and they were telling me, Maxime, this part, this country is not going in the right

00:12:14.980 direction. I don't like that. And I understand if we don't stop that right now, you know, we can be

00:12:21.940 in a, in a situation that we won't like in a couple of years from now. So we'll see what will happen.

00:12:28.020 But on vaccine passport, we started that in Quebec, and now it's in Ontario, it will be in it's in BC,

00:12:34.740 it will be in Alberta. And, you know, I was saying that during the my rallies, we don't want a kind of a 0.98

00:12:42.100 society where you have two kinds of citizens. And that's what we are having right now. The good one

00:12:48.980 are the vaccinated ones, and the bad one are the unvaccinated ones, that discrimination and

00:12:55.140 segregation. And that team was very popular, because I believe that our people were real freedom fighters.

00:13:04.820 You know, it's, it's interesting, at some of those rallies, they were, let's say, about 200 people,

00:13:10.980 and then the final vote in that writing would, would be, let's say, 2000 votes, for instance,

00:13:16.260 for the People's Party, something like that. And it's interesting to see that you can have one rally

00:13:21.300 that makes up 10% of the people who vote for you. That's normally not, you know, liberals will get,

00:13:27.140 you know, 50 people out at a rally, and then whatever, 15,000 votes in that writing,

00:13:32.580 it suggests that the support is very passionate support. But I guess the size of the rally doesn't

00:13:40.180 always tell us, it isn't always emblematic of what the final vote tally will be.

00:13:44.580 And maybe I believe that some of our people did not vote. Because if you look at the participation

00:13:52.420 rate, that's one of the worst, since a long time, 40, around 40% of the population didn't vote. And I

00:14:00.180 believe that we have a lot of our supporters in that. So we need to have a better organization

00:14:06.340 on the ground to be able to grow. And that would be one of our focus right now, starting right now.

00:14:14.180 I asked you the question, who are PPC voters? Who are the supporters? You mentioned people coming

00:14:18.900 from former communist countries. I know the PPC candidate in my own writing is someone who has

00:14:25.140 come from a former communist country. Let me ask you who are PPC candidates? Who are the people

00:14:30.500 who are putting their name to run for the party? Yeah, I was very proud of our candidates. You know,

00:14:36.420 we didn't have we didn't ask for diversity. But we had diversity, we had, you know, dad at home,

00:14:44.100 we had a truck driver, university professor, lawyer, small business owner, students, you know, and also

00:14:54.820 people from different ethnicity. And like I said, you know, we don't, we were very, we had a very strong

00:15:03.460 process to select our candidates. And, and we had people, you know, that the only condition we asked,

00:15:10.260 asked them, do you believe in the four principles of this party? Are you ready to fight for Canadians

00:15:15.940 and to put our country first? And after doing a review and a background check and social media check

00:15:22.900 and a credit check, we, we approved them. So not right now, it would be easier from us because our

00:15:29.700 goal at this election was to have 238 candidates. So one candidate in every writing, but we were not

00:15:37.380 able to achieve that with the time. And so we had only 300 and 12 candidates. So but now what we will

00:15:45.220 do, we will reappoint our candidates and the one that's already to do the fight again for the next

00:15:51.620 election, as soon as possible. So right now, these people would be able to campaign in their writings

00:15:58.580 to, to be present on social media. So that will help because we know that we may have an election in

00:16:04.980 two years or three years. So we just need to be ready. And we don't want to wait at the last minute

00:16:11.140 to have a full slate of candidates. So we'll be better organized, we'll have better tools for our

00:16:17.460 candidates. And that's why you know, I'm very optimistic for the future.

00:16:22.340 Max, I want to ask you on related to something of you saying having very diverse candidates. So a few

00:16:27.860 days ago, there was a bit of a bit of a news story you posted to social media that you had received

00:16:32.980 what you described as offensive requests from quote, far left activists masquerading as journalists.

00:16:38.500 And this was from a few people from different news outlets. And the questions were largely,

00:16:43.060 I guess, talking about how do you respond to allegations that your party has racism and

00:16:48.260 tolerance, anti-immigrant position, and you were sort of upset by that. And then you did post some

00:16:52.820 of their email addresses and said, look, you know, complain to these journalists about their work or

00:16:56.260 whatever, tell them what you think of, as you wrote, their disgusting smear jobs. But in fairness to

00:17:01.460 them, I do want to put that question to you then, because these questions have been put forward,

00:17:05.140 allegations about your party, racism, anti-immigrant positions. How do you respond to that?

00:17:10.180 Yeah, first of all, they tried that in the 2019 election with Kinsella, that was paid by the

00:17:16.260 Conservative Party of Canada, he received $120,000 to discredit our party. And that campaign was very

00:17:23.700 successful on his side. You know, we had a Jewish candidate and Muslim candidate that was, that were

00:17:30.900 candidates for us at the last campaign in 2019. And they were doing door knocking and oh,

00:17:36.420 I don't want to vote for that racist party. That's why I'm in court right now in the court right now with

00:17:42.180 Kinsella. I must have my judgment before the end of this month or early October. And, you know,

00:17:50.420 I'm suing Kinsella for $325,000 for defamation. I will win that case for sure. And because he said that

00:18:01.060 I was a racist, a Nazi, and it's based on nothing. Because of our immigration policy, we just want fewer 1.00

00:18:08.580 immigrants who are the only party. And that's still a position of our party. We want more skilled 0.97

00:18:13.140 immigrants and less refugees and less people coming under the reunification of family.

00:18:19.460 And we want our immigration policy to fulfill the economic needs of our country. So 150,000 0.99

00:18:26.420 must be the maximum, not 400,000 a year. For me, it's a mass immigration. And we believe in

00:18:33.060 sustainable immigration. So these journalists came back with that. I believe that, you know,

00:18:39.060 they tried to ignore us during the campaign because, you know, they don't want to give us

00:18:45.060 any visibility. Because I must say that they know that if they do a fair coverage, our policies and our

00:18:53.940 platform based on common sense and freedom, it's very powerful. So they decided to ignore us. And that

00:19:01.940 was their strategy. But it didn't work because we were able to grow more than three times the vote

00:19:08.980 that we had at the last election. And at the end of the election, they tried to go back to the strategy

00:19:14.020 to discredit us and saying that we are a racist party. That's not true. And actually, I was very

00:19:22.660 mad when they said that prominent journalists that are saying that we are a danger for this country.

00:19:28.580 When you speak about freedom, about liberty. And if you read our platform, we are not.

00:19:34.020 So we will ignore them and we'll do our campaign on social media. We'll be more more active on social

00:19:41.860 media. And actually, I gave an interview to Jordan Peterson five days ago. And I spoke about that,

00:19:49.140 that the mainstream media that was not covering us during the campaign. And Jordan told me, Maxime,

00:19:56.180 don't, don't do anything with that. You know, you can be very successful using only social media,

00:20:02.820 and the mainstream media are dying. So that will do that in the future. And if they're not serious,

00:20:10.180 and they don't want to ask questions about our platform, we won't answer them anymore.

00:20:14.980 Speaking of questions for platforms and things that are maybe dying in terms of their audience

00:20:20.100 numbers, lots of questions of whether or not debates actually matter, formal debates,

00:20:23.620 and whether or not the viewership has been eroded for them over the years. And nonetheless,

00:20:27.620 in 2019, you did participate in at least some of the federal leaders' debates that were televised.

00:20:33.300 This year, you did not. My position was, well, if he participated last time and the sky didn't fall,

00:20:38.820 I don't see why he can't participate this time. What's the big deal? Annamie Paul,

00:20:42.660 Green Party leader, she participated in the leaders' debates. Nice lady, 0.64

00:20:46.260 but it just seems like she didn't attract the same support and votes that you did. The Green Party

00:20:50.980 actually lost a lot of votes. How did you feel about being excluded from the leaders' debate?

00:20:56.580 Yeah, I was disappointed. But you know, that's why the strategy during the campaign was to

00:21:01.940 do a lot of rallies. You know, I did three to four rallies a day, almost every day of the campaign,

00:21:08.180 and try to reach more Canadians, because I was not able to be there at these debates. But at the next

00:21:15.060 election, I'll be there. The condition was to have four percent of the vote. We had 5.1 percent. I'll be

00:21:22.100 there. And that would be interesting, because we'll be the only real opposition on every subject. That was

00:21:30.020 not a debate, actually. That was a conversation between political parties that share the same views.

00:21:36.260 And if you look at the viewers, I believe that the majority of Canadians were watching only the 31st

00:21:45.220 minutes, and it was not so interesting. So my goal would be to be there and just to speak about our

00:21:51.940 platform on different issues. You know, we are saying no to climate alarmism. We are saying

00:21:57.140 no to the Paris Accord. That would be the same thing at the next election. So I believe that

00:22:03.460 that will help me to reach a little bit more people that may not on social media. That would be,

00:22:10.740 and I'm very pleased that I will be able to participate at the next election in these debates.

00:22:16.500 And talking about you being busy with so many rallies every day, I do just want to say for the

00:22:21.140 listeners, because I know you pointed out people are talking about you now, but they didn't cover you

00:22:24.500 before the election. We did try to book you on this podcast prior to election day, but you were too

00:22:30.020 busy. You were too busy doing the rally, so you declined our request. We did have Erin O'Toole 0.99

00:22:33.940 on the program. We tried to get Jagmeet Singh on the program, and we almost found a date,

00:22:37.380 but we didn't make it work there. So I guess we were trying to get you on the show, but you were at a

00:22:41.700 lot of rallies. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. And I'm very pleased that we're doing that right now.

00:22:47.140 Well, Max, so moving on, a lot of the things that you're talking about here,

00:22:53.460 some people see as maybe that should be conservative positions in terms of not being

00:22:57.860 so enthralled with excessive climate change provisions like carbon taxes and so forth. I

00:23:03.780 want to talk about the dynamic with the PPC and the Conservative Party. In particular,

00:23:08.180 a lot of people who were saying the vote for the PPCs is a vote for Justin Trudeau,

00:23:13.460 and that you arguably reduced the Conservative seat count and maybe even changed the outcome

00:23:18.660 of the election. How do you respond to that, that you're basically a spoiler,

00:23:22.340 keeping Justin Trudeau in as Prime Minister? You know, saying that, it's taking for account that

00:23:31.540 Conservatives own these votes, and they are not, and they are not conservative anymore. And so that's

00:23:38.500 not my fault if Aaron O'Toole is not a conservative. Look at his platform on gun control, on climate

00:23:45.780 change, flip-flop every day of the campaign. And I believe that the real Conservatives know right now

00:23:53.060 that what is the goal to elect Aaron O'Toole if he has the same policies than Trudeau. So that's why

00:24:00.420 I believe that these people are coming on our side. And I was telling them during the campaign,

00:24:05.380 don't vote against something. Don't try to vote against Trudeau and just to get rid of Trudeau,

00:24:11.060 because you'll have a Trudeau light with Aaron O'Toole. Look at his platform. Vote for something.

00:24:16.740 Vote for your values. You know, if you want the Conservative ideas to win the battle,

00:24:21.780 we need to speak about it openly with passion and conviction. And that's our role at the PPC.

00:24:28.180 You know, we want to win that battle of ideas. And we believe that the real conservative ideas,

00:24:34.500 based on freedom, property rights, individual freedom, and personal responsibility,

00:24:39.540 are the best ideas for this country. We have a vision of this country. I understand that the

00:24:44.660 population is not ready for that vision, but it's not because the population is not ready that we won't

00:24:50.100 speak about it. We believe that the more we speak about it, the more support we will have. And actually,

00:24:56.580 I like a proof. The last election was a nice proof of that from 1.6 to 5.1. So now we will grow a

00:25:04.340 little bit more. But I believe that the conservative will go further to the left, just to be able to be

00:25:10.420 in government. But if you have a conservative government that won't do anything conservative,

00:25:14.900 it's a waste of your votes. And I believe that more people understand that. And that will be the same

00:25:22.020 thing at the next election.

00:25:22.660 You're very hard on the conservative party right now. But let's be honest. In 2017, there was a

00:25:28.100 leadership race. 50% of the people on the final ballot selected Andrew Scheer. 49% of people in

00:25:35.220 the ballot supported a person who talked about free markets, libertarian principles. Yourself,

00:25:39.860 Maxime Bernier. A very narrow loss. I guess a lot of people are still asking, well, Max,

00:25:46.020 why didn't you just stick around? I know you weren't happy. You said, oh, I don't think Andrew

00:25:49.460 Scheer will win. Andrew Scheer did not win. And then there's the next leadership race. And Max has

00:25:54.100 this base. And Max has so much support. Max wins. Max becomes prime minister. All these things we're

00:25:59.060 talking about right now, you enact. Why did you not choose to pursue that pathway?

00:26:03.860 Because like I said, when I left the party, I said, this party is morally and intellectually corrupt.

00:26:10.260 Because I try after not winning. But 50% of it supported you. Half of it supported you. 50%

00:26:16.740 of the party supported you, though. 49%. Yeah. Was that part corrupt?

00:26:21.860 Yeah. So the establishment of the party. So that's what I said. I tried for 11 months. I stayed in the

00:26:28.500 party. I had 49% of support. And when Andrew Scheer told me, Maxime, we won't take any of your ideas.

00:26:35.140 That was very popular with the membership. But now we're going to an election. And all your

00:26:40.100 ideas are not popular. We did a lot of survey. So we won't take any of your ideas. So and you're

00:26:46.740 speaking for yourself. And after that, I decided, OK, you know, I don't have any future here. I'm

00:26:52.740 leaving. And that's why I'm telling you, they're doing politics by polling and survey. And their only

00:26:59.540 goal is to be in government. I'm doing politics based on principles and ideas. And my goal is for

00:27:06.340 these ideas to be more popular. And we will win that battle of ideas. So I tried for 11 months.

00:27:13.380 I was not successful. And when I said that the establishment was morally and intellectually

00:27:22.500 corrupt, we had another proof with Aaron O'Toole. Aaron O'Toole decided to run a campaign. He was

00:27:28.100 speaking like me when he was running his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:27:33.380 because he knew that it's very popular with the membership. But after that, because he

00:27:38.660 want he wanted to be prime minister, he flip flop like like Andrew Scheer to speak to have more

00:27:46.740 support than with like the majority of Canadians. And that's why if you don't have real conservative

00:27:52.980 ideas, what is the goal to elect a conservative government if they're not conservative?

00:27:57.940 But I think a lot of people listening to you would go, you know what, Max makes a good point.

00:28:02.660 Andrew Scheer, Aaron O'Toole, leadership races campaigning much more conservative, much more in

00:28:07.380 line with the positions that you are articulating. And I suspect that that is much closer to their

00:28:12.100 personal beliefs and convictions. And then they get in and they do the polling and the sampling and they

00:28:17.460 all talk and the strategists and then they get more, you know, centrist or liberal or leaning to the

00:28:21.860 left or what have you. And they found twice in a row, it hasn't worked. So do you think maybe

00:28:26.820 coming up in the next election or the next conservative leadership race, they'll go,

00:28:30.340 well, yeah, I don't know. Max kind of has a point. And then they are just going to correct this problem.

00:28:35.060 No, no, I believe that they will go further to the left.

00:28:39.460 You know, if you want to be in government, that's the best strategy because we are living in a leftist

00:28:45.780 era, woke and socialist era. You want to be in government, they will be more like the liberals.

00:28:52.980 And that will be their only strategy. And they think in the beginning, oh, we can have a little

00:28:59.620 right wing party at our right. And so we'll be able to show to Canadians that we're not

00:29:05.860 a right wing party. But now this little party is more than a little one. And, you know, we have

00:29:12.260 we had more support than the Greens and will have more support at the next election. And I believe

00:29:17.940 that in a couple of years from now, maybe the conservative party will disappear. I don't know.

00:29:23.700 But I believe that their strategy, if their goal is to be in government, their strategy is to be to

00:29:28.980 the left and they will go to the left. Our goal is not to be in government. I wish a day I can be

00:29:35.780 prime minister. But my goal is to be sure that our ideas would be more popular. We have a vision of

00:29:42.420 this country with a smaller government in Ottawa that will respect provincial jurisdiction, give more

00:29:48.180 autonomy to provinces. By doing that, we'll have a radical decentralization and undoing politics based on

00:29:54.740 ideas. And that's why, you know, we won't do any compromise to elect candidates. We will grow our

00:30:01.700 percentage of the votes. And I believe that the next election, we may have one, two or three candidates

00:30:06.500 elected. We'll see what will happen. But it's a long battle. I'm 58 years old. I'm in shape and we'll see

00:30:13.380 what will happen. Max, where do you think the pulse of the nation is heading politically? You say the

00:30:19.300 conservatives are going more liberal, moving more leftward. Is the nation moving more leftward?

00:30:26.420 Yes, I believe so. I believe so. With all that propaganda, look at the COVID-19. You know,

00:30:33.940 they were very efficient with censorship, propaganda, all everywhere and using fear. And, you know,

00:30:42.420 it will take time for conservative ideas to win. But yes, I believe that we can be in that socialist

00:30:49.540 era for the next five, 10 years. We are in an era like that. And we want to be the only real option

00:30:58.180 for free market people and people who believe in freedom and a smarter government. And I believe that

00:31:08.580 we'll have time to show that. And that's why we are running on the same platform, because we don't

00:31:14.100 do any polling. You know, this election, the most popular policy for us was ending the COVID hysteria

00:31:21.620 and against the vaccine passport. So I spoke a lot about that. But during my rallies also, I was speaking

00:31:27.780 about balancing the budget. I was speaking about the inflation tax that is there. I was speaking about

00:31:34.260 the equalization formula. And I'll do the same next time. Max, when we talk about the things that

00:31:42.020 Canadians support now, it used to be not too long ago that when people wanted to have change in their

00:31:47.220 communities, in their neighborhoods, they would just rally together in civil society and bring about that

00:31:52.900 change themselves. You know, there's the old cliched story about people would just gather together and

00:31:56.900 build a barn physically themselves kind of stuff. That's how the community would rally together.

00:32:01.060 Now, increasingly over the years, more and more people believe that, I guess, government is the

00:32:05.540 only solution to something. There's something they don't like. There's a problem. There's something

00:32:09.540 lacking in society. The government must solve that problem. I believe that's maybe a trend that you're

00:32:14.500 talking about here. Do you believe that that trend can or even will be reversed? Do you believe

00:32:19.780 younger people are inherently wanting more government now? Or are they open to the principles of liberty more?

00:32:26.980 You're absolutely right about that. You know, we have a big government in Ottawa, big government governments at the

00:32:34.660 provincial level. And when you have a big government, a government that is interfering more in your day to day life,

00:32:40.660 you know, you are looking to Canadians like children, and you need to take care of them. So the individual

00:32:48.580 responsibility is not there. And that's why we have big government people ask for that. And they're not ready

00:32:56.260 to take their own responsibility. But I can tell you, I was looking at a poll concerning our supporters,

00:33:02.900 public polls. And they were saying that it's young men between 18 years old to 40 years old that are

00:33:12.260 our voters, that we have most support with young men between 18 to 45 years old, something like that.

00:33:21.700 So I believe there's a future. But I believe that it won't happen at the next election. It may be take two

00:33:27.940 elections or three elections. But young people want to be more independent. And look what Jordan

00:33:35.700 Peterson is doing. Jordan Peterson is very popular. But the political point of view of that is to have

00:33:44.820 a smaller government where people must be responsible and trusting each other. Now there's no trust in our

00:33:52.420 society. You know, if you're not vaccinated, you're supposed to be a danger for people who are 0.97

00:33:58.260 vaccinated. You know, if the vaccine is working, and I believe it is working, why I cannot go to a

00:34:04.980 restaurant with a person that had the vaccines. So it's not based on logic. It's not based on science.

00:34:11.620 Everybody can spread the virus. And so it's a division, a segregation in our society. And people ask for more

00:34:19.460 big government. And I believe that there's a future. But maybe the future is not tomorrow.

00:34:25.540 And that's why the Conservative Party of Canada is going to the left. But by doing that is giving

00:34:31.220 a lot more credibility, like I said to the leftists, and it will be harder for us to convince more people

00:34:37.620 to come on our side. Max, before we go, we know the PPC has overtaken the Green Party of Canada. Now,

00:34:44.100 a lot of people previously talking about how the Green Party was really a one woman show,

00:34:48.340 it was the Elizabeth May show. She's gone now. Miss enemy Paul gets in. Nice lady people, you know, 1.00

00:34:54.420 very high on the likability index. But clearly, the party is to some degree, collapsing, minimizing,

00:35:00.180 who knows what future they have. What future does the PPC have after Maxime Bernier? What will you be

00:35:07.140 doing to broaden the tent? Because right now, it does appear to be the max show.

00:35:12.580 Yeah, we had very great candidates all across the country. And I can tell you that when I'll be

00:35:22.900 tired to do that, or the members will ask me to resign, I will listen to that. And I can tell you

00:35:30.580 that we'll have good people that will come. We have good people all across the country that were ready

00:35:37.060 to be candidates. And I believe that this party is there for the long term with Maxime Bernier or without

00:35:42.500 Maxime Bernier. I'm not scared about that. Whether there's a leadership race for the

00:35:47.300 Conservative Party, it's mandated that there is a leadership review, a vote after losing an election.

00:35:51.700 So Erin O'Toole will face some form of judgment from the membership one way or another. Is there a

00:35:56.420 mechanism like that in the PPC in terms of the electorate, the membership having a say in whether or not

00:36:02.740 you are the leader into the next election? Yes, absolutely. We will have something and we'll

00:36:08.900 have also a process for leadership contest that will come and our members will be able to decide

00:36:15.780 if they want me for the next election or not. Maxime, are you optimistic about the future of Canada?

00:36:21.620 The future. The near future, the next three or four years, no. But the longer future, yes. I believe

00:36:32.260 that people will understand that the path that we are going right now is not great for this country.

00:36:39.300 We are losing our sovereignty. We are losing our independence as individuals. And I believe that

00:36:46.100 more and more people will come and understand that. So I believe that, you know, in the next

00:36:52.740 five or six years, we can change that country for the better. Maxime Bernier, thank you so much for

00:36:58.580 joining us today. Thank you. I appreciate that. Have a nice day. Same to you.

00:37:03.700 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Furey. This episode was produced by André Proulx,

00:37:08.820 with theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full

00:37:13.700 Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can help us

00:37:18.740 by giving us a rating or a review and by telling your friends about us. Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - September 27, 2021

Maxime Bernier’s anti-lockdown People’s Party is not going away

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