Maxime Bernier’s anti-lockdown People’s Party is not going away
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Summary
Maxime Bernier joins us to talk about the People s Party of Canada and how it plans to continue to grow in the coming years. He also talks about the challenges the party will face in the next election, and how the party plans to deal with them.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Anthony Fury. Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Comment.
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One of the big questions in the recent federal election was how would the People's Party of
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Canada fare? The fledgling party was first founded in 2018 and its first time out in the 2019 election
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offered a so-so result garnering just shy of 300,000 votes across the entire country. But
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this time around, things were different. Leader Maxime Bernier was pretty much the only party
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leader who offered an alternative perspective on lockdowns, vaccine passports, and other pandemic
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measures. People responded with great passion. Some really loved him, some did not. Bernier attracted
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massive crowds at rallies and at one point some pollsters showed him exceeding 10% of popular
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support, which was quite something for a new party. Once the votes were tallied, the PPC in fact got
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5% support and almost 850,000 votes, beating out the Green Party, whose leader participated in the
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debates when Max did not. How does Maxime Bernier feel about the election results? What's next for
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the PPC? Is it just a lockdown protest group or does it have legs beyond that for future elections?
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Maxime Bernier joins us now. Hey Max, thanks for stopping by. Great to have you.
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Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be with you.
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So how do you feel about the results? How did things go in the election for the People's Party of Canada?
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Yes, you're right. You said in the introduction that 2019 we had 1.6% of the vote. We wasn't able to
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elect anybody, but you know, it took 20 years and six elections for the Green Party of Canada to have
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more than 1.6. So for this election, I'm very pleased, 5.1%. Actually, it took 25 years for the Green Party of
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Canada to have more than 5.1% of the vote. So yes, this party is growing. And you're right to say that
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we are right now the only real opposition. If you look at our platform and the platform of the
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Conservatives and the Liberals, they have the same platform on the most important issues for the
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future of this country. And yes, this campaign, we focus on the COVID-19 hysteria and freedom of
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choice. We are for freedom of choice and we are against a vaccine passport. So that was an important
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theme of that election. But I believe that the next election will be there. It will be a, it is a
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minority government. So the party will be ready for the next election. And actually, the good news for
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us is because we had more than 2% of the vote, half of our expenses will be reimbursed by Election
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Canada. So now we will have more money in the bank to be able to build the party and build the
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organization all across the country. So what you're telling me is that this is long term and you're not
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going anywhere. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. This is long term because we understand that we are in a
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socialist era right now. It is everywhere in school, universities, journalists, politicians. And I
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understand the strategy of the Conservative Party of Canada with O'Toole. And they started that with
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Scheer. Their only goal is to be in government. So that's why they're going to the left. And O'Toole did
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that during this campaign. And I believe that they will go further to the left for the next campaign
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to try to have more support. So we will be the only real Conservative Party in this country.
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And I think we have an opportunity to grow. Now, you know, as you know, we don't have a seat in
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Parliament. But that will give me more time to travel across the country and to build the organizations
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and also to be with our partisan and being sure that we will keep that momentum.
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So tell me a bit more about you saying now half of your expenses will be covered by Elections Canada
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because of the vote count you garnered. Explain to me more about how the PPC will become more of a kind
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of, I guess, established official party because you're saying, yes, you don't have a seat in House
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of Commons. You're not getting an MP salary. And then, of course, when you're an MP, you get
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however many numbers of staff to hire to work in your office. But you are saying you're still going
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to have a formal infrastructure and you're going to be, I guess, traveling around the country
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Yes, absolutely. During that election, we had only five people working at the office.
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So we'll be able to have a bigger team and a more structural organization. We are starting
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that right now. And also, the most important is to, you know, we did that election without
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any debt. The money that we spent during that election was the money that we raised. So we
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are in a good financial situation. And we are fiscally responsible as a new political party.
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So now we have money in the bank. We'll receive more money from Election Canada and we'll be
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able to grow. But our platform will be the same. You know, the platform of this campaign
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was the same one of the 2019. So that's why I'm saying we are doing politics differently
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because we don't try to please to everybody. We have a platform. We believe in that platform.
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And we believe that the more we speak about it, the more Canadians are able to understand
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our platform and know our platform, the more support we will have. Because we believe that
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the freedom ideas are the best one for this country. And as you know, we created that party
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based on four principles, individual freedom, personal responsibility, fairness and respect.
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And all our policies are in line with these principles. So I discussed a little bit during
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the campaign about the inflation tax. I believe that that would be an important theme going
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forward because that huge deficit of $354 billion that Trudeau did and O'Toole and Trudeau are
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the same. They want to spend more of our own money and that we don't have. That will create
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inflation. And I believe that maybe at the next election, the COVID hysteria may be a subject
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or not. If not, that must be maybe the economy and the inflation.
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And that was the question I wanted to ask you about if when the next election comes around,
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COVID-19 is less a discussion point and lockdowns are not really on the table or we've just moved
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on to a different issue and so forth. I take your point that your platform in 2021 was very near
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identical to your platform in 2019. But it does seem like the people who are attracted to your
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rallies, the people who voted for you were voting for you, not so much because of a number of the
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points in the platform, but because of your opposition to lockdowns and vaccine passports.
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Do those people, do you anticipate those people stay with you as voters for the next election? Or do
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you have to forge a new coalition of electoral support?
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I believe that the majority of them will stay with us. And we will still have a discussion about
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COVID-19, I believe, in two years or three years. But maybe that will be the economy. Maybe that will
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be also the Canadian unity. As you know, the Western alienation, nobody's speaking about that. We are the
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only party that will change the equalization formula to be less generous. We will build pipeline by using
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the constitution section 90 to 10. We won't sign the Paris Accord. We won't impose a carbon tax. That
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may that may be an important important policies for the next election, because I believe that maybe
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Western alienation will be bigger when you have 30% of Albertans that are ready to separate. You need to
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have an answer to that. And we are the only national political party that has an answer to that. So
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that may be also part of the campaign next time. But I'm very pleased that at this campaign, we
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actually are well known for our opposition to COVID-19. And the next election, that may be another
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subject, we'll see. But we have more and more people that are interested in our platform. And so I'm pretty
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sure that this party will be able to grow after the next election. Max, a lot of political analysts,
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a lot of pollsters were trying to break down who are the people who are supporting the People's Party
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of Canada. Some are disaffected Conservative voters, others come from this party or that party, people who
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had stopped voting, who had never voted before. I mean, you're probably the best person to answer
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this question. Who are PPC voters and supporters? Yeah, I wish I can tell you an answer to that
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question, because we don't do any polling. And I'm looking at the public polls. But what I know from
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traveling across the country, you know, we had people that came to me during our rallies. And you know,
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I had a man 55 years old, and he said it would be the first time that I will vote at the federal level.
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And, you know, I've met people like that. Our organization in Saskatoon, that was a former NDP
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that was in charge of our organization. And he came with us because our position on COVID-19 and
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against the vaccine passport. So but I believe that the majority of our supporters may be former
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Conservatives, that they're looking at the Conservative Party of Canada. And on the most
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important issues, like I said, they're not conservative anymore. And I understand a renewed
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tool and the establishment of the Conservative Party, when your goal is only to be in power,
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and you will you will say what Canadians wants to hear to be able to be in power. But by doing that,
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they're giving a lot of credibility to the leftist narrative. So it's very hard to say.
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But we are a kind of a coalition under the freedom umbrella. And I believe that that coalition can
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There certainly seemed to be a lot of energy, enthusiasm, momentum behind those rallies. What
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was going on at those rallies? What was the message? What was the energy?
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Well, my main message was always the same, you know, I was saying, you know, when tyranny becomes,
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the law revolution becomes, becomes our duty. And I was asking, you know, we need to have an
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ideological revolution in this country, a common sense revolution, a freedom revolution. And I believe
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that that was people liked it when I was saying that, because they know that if you look here in
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this country and other countries, the world culture is everywhere, socialism is everywhere. So if you need
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to win, if you want to win that battle of ideas, we need to start. And step by step, that's what I said,
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you know, my goal. And I said to my candidates before this campaign, our goal is 4%. And we had 5%, 5.1%.
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But because that we didn't have a strong organization on the ground to get out the vote,
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I believe that, you know, we will have been able to have 6% or 7%. But at the next campaign,
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we'll have a more professional organization, and we'll be more organized to get out the vote.
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But, you know, I believe that we, we have a bright future. So the people who came in our rallies were
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people that, you know, were fed up with the situation. A lot of people coming from a former communist
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country, Russia, and they were telling me, Maxime, this part, this country is not going in the right
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direction. I don't like that. And I understand if we don't stop that right now, you know, we can be
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in a, in a situation that we won't like in a couple of years from now. So we'll see what will happen.
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But on vaccine passport, we started that in Quebec, and now it's in Ontario, it will be in it's in BC,
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it will be in Alberta. And, you know, I was saying that during the my rallies, we don't want a kind of a
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society where you have two kinds of citizens. And that's what we are having right now. The good one
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are the vaccinated ones, and the bad one are the unvaccinated ones, that discrimination and
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segregation. And that team was very popular, because I believe that our people were real freedom fighters.
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You know, it's, it's interesting, at some of those rallies, they were, let's say, about 200 people,
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and then the final vote in that writing would, would be, let's say, 2000 votes, for instance,
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for the People's Party, something like that. And it's interesting to see that you can have one rally
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that makes up 10% of the people who vote for you. That's normally not, you know, liberals will get,
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you know, 50 people out at a rally, and then whatever, 15,000 votes in that writing,
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it suggests that the support is very passionate support. But I guess the size of the rally doesn't
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always tell us, it isn't always emblematic of what the final vote tally will be.
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And maybe I believe that some of our people did not vote. Because if you look at the participation
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rate, that's one of the worst, since a long time, 40, around 40% of the population didn't vote. And I
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believe that we have a lot of our supporters in that. So we need to have a better organization
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on the ground to be able to grow. And that would be one of our focus right now, starting right now.
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I asked you the question, who are PPC voters? Who are the supporters? You mentioned people coming
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from former communist countries. I know the PPC candidate in my own writing is someone who has
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come from a former communist country. Let me ask you who are PPC candidates? Who are the people
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who are putting their name to run for the party? Yeah, I was very proud of our candidates. You know,
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we didn't have we didn't ask for diversity. But we had diversity, we had, you know, dad at home,
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we had a truck driver, university professor, lawyer, small business owner, students, you know, and also
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people from different ethnicity. And like I said, you know, we don't, we were very, we had a very strong
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process to select our candidates. And, and we had people, you know, that the only condition we asked,
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asked them, do you believe in the four principles of this party? Are you ready to fight for Canadians
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and to put our country first? And after doing a review and a background check and social media check
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and a credit check, we, we approved them. So not right now, it would be easier from us because our
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goal at this election was to have 238 candidates. So one candidate in every writing, but we were not
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able to achieve that with the time. And so we had only 300 and 12 candidates. So but now what we will
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do, we will reappoint our candidates and the one that's already to do the fight again for the next
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election, as soon as possible. So right now, these people would be able to campaign in their writings
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to, to be present on social media. So that will help because we know that we may have an election in
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two years or three years. So we just need to be ready. And we don't want to wait at the last minute
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to have a full slate of candidates. So we'll be better organized, we'll have better tools for our
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candidates. And that's why you know, I'm very optimistic for the future.
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Max, I want to ask you on related to something of you saying having very diverse candidates. So a few
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days ago, there was a bit of a bit of a news story you posted to social media that you had received
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what you described as offensive requests from quote, far left activists masquerading as journalists.
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And this was from a few people from different news outlets. And the questions were largely,
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I guess, talking about how do you respond to allegations that your party has racism and
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tolerance, anti-immigrant position, and you were sort of upset by that. And then you did post some
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of their email addresses and said, look, you know, complain to these journalists about their work or
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whatever, tell them what you think of, as you wrote, their disgusting smear jobs. But in fairness to
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them, I do want to put that question to you then, because these questions have been put forward,
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allegations about your party, racism, anti-immigrant positions. How do you respond to that?
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Yeah, first of all, they tried that in the 2019 election with Kinsella, that was paid by the
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Conservative Party of Canada, he received $120,000 to discredit our party. And that campaign was very
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successful on his side. You know, we had a Jewish candidate and Muslim candidate that was, that were
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candidates for us at the last campaign in 2019. And they were doing door knocking and oh,
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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
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Kinsella. I must have my judgment before the end of this month or early October. And, you know,
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I'm suing Kinsella for $325,000 for defamation. I will win that case for sure. And because he said that
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I was a racist, a Nazi, and it's based on nothing. Because of our immigration policy, we just want fewer
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immigrants who are the only party. And that's still a position of our party. We want more skilled
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immigrants and less refugees and less people coming under the reunification of family.
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And we want our immigration policy to fulfill the economic needs of our country. So 150,000
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must be the maximum, not 400,000 a year. For me, it's a mass immigration. And we believe in
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sustainable immigration. So these journalists came back with that. I believe that, you know,
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they tried to ignore us during the campaign because, you know, they don't want to give us
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any visibility. Because I must say that they know that if they do a fair coverage, our policies and our
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platform based on common sense and freedom, it's very powerful. So they decided to ignore us. And that
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was their strategy. But it didn't work because we were able to grow more than three times the vote
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that we had at the last election. And at the end of the election, they tried to go back to the strategy
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to discredit us and saying that we are a racist party. That's not true. And actually, I was very
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mad when they said that prominent journalists that are saying that we are a danger for this country.
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When you speak about freedom, about liberty. And if you read our platform, we are not.
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So we will ignore them and we'll do our campaign on social media. We'll be more more active on social
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media. And actually, I gave an interview to Jordan Peterson five days ago. And I spoke about that,
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that the mainstream media that was not covering us during the campaign. And Jordan told me, Maxime,
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don't, don't do anything with that. You know, you can be very successful using only social media,
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and the mainstream media are dying. So that will do that in the future. And if they're not serious,
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and they don't want to ask questions about our platform, we won't answer them anymore.
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Speaking of questions for platforms and things that are maybe dying in terms of their audience
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numbers, lots of questions of whether or not debates actually matter, formal debates,
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and whether or not the viewership has been eroded for them over the years. And nonetheless,
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in 2019, you did participate in at least some of the federal leaders' debates that were televised.
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This year, you did not. My position was, well, if he participated last time and the sky didn't fall,
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I don't see why he can't participate this time. What's the big deal? Annamie Paul,
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Green Party leader, she participated in the leaders' debates. Nice lady,
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but it just seems like she didn't attract the same support and votes that you did. The Green Party
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actually lost a lot of votes. How did you feel about being excluded from the leaders' debate?
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Yeah, I was disappointed. But you know, that's why the strategy during the campaign was to
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do a lot of rallies. You know, I did three to four rallies a day, almost every day of the campaign,
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and try to reach more Canadians, because I was not able to be there at these debates. But at the next
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election, I'll be there. The condition was to have four percent of the vote. We had 5.1 percent. I'll be
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there. And that would be interesting, because we'll be the only real opposition on every subject. That was
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not a debate, actually. That was a conversation between political parties that share the same views.
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And if you look at the viewers, I believe that the majority of Canadians were watching only the 31st
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minutes, and it was not so interesting. So my goal would be to be there and just to speak about our
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platform on different issues. You know, we are saying no to climate alarmism. We are saying
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no to the Paris Accord. That would be the same thing at the next election. So I believe that
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that will help me to reach a little bit more people that may not on social media. That would be,
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and I'm very pleased that I will be able to participate at the next election in these debates.
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And talking about you being busy with so many rallies every day, I do just want to say for the
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listeners, because I know you pointed out people are talking about you now, but they didn't cover you
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before the election. We did try to book you on this podcast prior to election day, but you were too
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busy. You were too busy doing the rally, so you declined our request. We did have Erin O'Toole
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on the program. We tried to get Jagmeet Singh on the program, and we almost found a date,
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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
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lot of rallies. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. And I'm very pleased that we're doing that right now.
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Well, Max, so moving on, a lot of the things that you're talking about here,
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some people see as maybe that should be conservative positions in terms of not being
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so enthralled with excessive climate change provisions like carbon taxes and so forth. I
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want to talk about the dynamic with the PPC and the Conservative Party. In particular,
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a lot of people who were saying the vote for the PPCs is a vote for Justin Trudeau,
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and that you arguably reduced the Conservative seat count and maybe even changed the outcome
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of the election. How do you respond to that, that you're basically a spoiler,
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keeping Justin Trudeau in as Prime Minister? You know, saying that, it's taking for account that
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Conservatives own these votes, and they are not, and they are not conservative anymore. And so that's
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not my fault if Aaron O'Toole is not a conservative. Look at his platform on gun control, on climate
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change, flip-flop every day of the campaign. And I believe that the real Conservatives know right now
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that what is the goal to elect Aaron O'Toole if he has the same policies than Trudeau. So that's why
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I believe that these people are coming on our side. And I was telling them during the campaign,
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don't vote against something. Don't try to vote against Trudeau and just to get rid of Trudeau,
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because you'll have a Trudeau light with Aaron O'Toole. Look at his platform. Vote for something.
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Vote for your values. You know, if you want the Conservative ideas to win the battle,
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we need to speak about it openly with passion and conviction. And that's our role at the PPC.
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You know, we want to win that battle of ideas. And we believe that the real conservative ideas,
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based on freedom, property rights, individual freedom, and personal responsibility,
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are the best ideas for this country. We have a vision of this country. I understand that the
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population is not ready for that vision, but it's not because the population is not ready that we won't
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speak about it. We believe that the more we speak about it, the more support we will have. And actually,
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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
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little bit more. But I believe that the conservative will go further to the left, just to be able to be
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in government. But if you have a conservative government that won't do anything conservative,
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it's a waste of your votes. And I believe that more people understand that. And that will be the same
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You're very hard on the conservative party right now. But let's be honest. In 2017, there was a
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leadership race. 50% of the people on the final ballot selected Andrew Scheer. 49% of people in
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the ballot supported a person who talked about free markets, libertarian principles. Yourself,
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Maxime Bernier. A very narrow loss. I guess a lot of people are still asking, well, Max,
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why didn't you just stick around? I know you weren't happy. You said, oh, I don't think Andrew
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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
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,
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
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