Juno News - A rising conservative movement in Quebec (Ft. Eric Duhaime)

00:00:00.000 Quebec is currently in its provincial election campaign, but this race is different from the

00:00:06.020 others because there is a grassroots conservative movement taking place in a province known for its

00:00:13.940 liberal politics. The Conservative Party of Quebec, which has existed since 2009, was once a very small

00:00:21.140 party that only received 1.46% of the votes in the last general election in Quebec. However,

00:00:28.040 the party has since grown from 500 to 60,000 members, receiving up to 24% in the polls,

00:00:36.100 placing second in some polls, and having a few seats coming up in the seat projections.

00:00:42.540 The party saw these positive changes under its new leader, Éric Duhaime, who was previously known in

00:00:49.440 the province as a radio host and columnist. Duhaime has been quite popular due to the fact that he was

00:00:55.220 one of the only opposition leaders to oppose the government COVID mandates and restrictions,

00:01:01.080 which were particularly harsh in Quebec. I had the opportunity to catch up with Éric Duhaime

00:01:06.560 while he was on his campaign bus touring the province to speak to Quebecers to talk about

00:01:12.860 the platform Liberty 22, which the party has released, as well as other issues that face

00:01:17.780 Quebecers. All right. So, Mr. Duhaime, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:01:23.020 It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

00:01:25.460 So, you previously were a radio personality and you had columns, and now you are running to

00:01:31.960 be Premier of Quebec as leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec. So, what made you decide to make

00:01:38.520 the jump from, you know, talking politics to doing politics by getting involved the way that you have?

00:01:44.760 Well, I voted for François Legault in the last provincial election. I thought that he wanted to

00:01:51.000 downsize the state in Quebec. He promised us that he would cut 5,000 bureaucrats. He told us that, you know,

00:01:57.880 he would improve our healthcare system. He told us all sorts of things that sounded very attractive,

00:02:03.960 that he would reduce the waiting lists for healthcare, for kindergartens. He told us that he would exploit

00:02:10.600 our natural resources. He was a big fan of exploiting oil and gas in Quebec. And then he arrived in power

00:02:17.800 and completely switched. So, I have the impression that he was flashing on the right when it was election time,

00:02:22.920 and he's been turning on the left since he got elected. So, for me, this is unacceptable. And we saw it also

00:02:28.520 during the crisis, the pandemic. He also took stands that were, for me, outrageous. And he deprived

00:02:34.520 many Quebecers of their democratic rights, their civic rights, and their individual freedoms. And he

00:02:40.840 did put our democracy on pause for over two years. So, that, for me, was just way too much. So, I decided

00:02:47.480 to run for a party that was very small at the beginning. When I took the leadership of the party,

00:02:52.120 we had 500 members. Today, we're the largest party with 60,000 members. We're now at, what,

00:02:57.800 20%. And according to certain polls, we went from 1% to 20%. And it keeps going up. So,

00:03:03.800 we're very excited. There is a momentum. There is something going on. We had a very good week

00:03:08.680 for the first week of the campaign. And hopefully, we'll have a very good week this week as well.

00:03:14.920 Right. And for sure, your party has grown tremendously since you became leader. And since you

00:03:21.000 were one of the only opposition leaders in all of Canada to speak out against these very strong

00:03:26.600 COVID measures that many say infringed on personal liberties and freedoms, while these mandates are

00:03:33.880 hopefully behind us. I mean, in Quebec, I was there yesterday and there's nobody wears masks. It looks

00:03:39.480 pretty much normal. There are still other overreaching COVID policies, especially in the private sector

00:03:44.600 and in other institutions. We've seen some universities, at least in Ontario, mandate boosters,

00:03:49.400 for example. And then others like sports teams, maybe that affect children. As premier, would you

00:03:56.920 seek to ban all discrimination based on COVID vaccination status?

00:04:01.400 Well, I've been a big critic of it from day one, especially if the vaccine, you know, was protecting

00:04:08.280 us 100% and we couldn't transmit it or catch it when we were vaccinated, we would have a completely

00:04:14.440 different debate. But right now, as we know, it doesn't deprive us from, you know, catching it. So,

00:04:21.080 why are we discriminating? So, it seems that it's kind of a revenge by the government

00:04:25.800 to penalize those who didn't behave properly according to his own standards. And that's what's

00:04:31.560 very shocking. And, you know, when you want to impose such strict measures, discriminatory measures,

00:04:38.280 you need to have a scientific proof that it's absolutely, it's an absolute necessity. And we never

00:04:44.280 had that proof. It's the opposite. We have no, we have no studies. We deprive people from their basic

00:04:49.400 freedoms without very little evidence when any, like here in Quebec, as you know, we have carefews.

00:04:55.800 We're still waiting for the first study to show us that putting people in, you know, in the 0.71

00:05:01.880 public place only a few hours a day altogether, being more crowded, is better than extending it

00:05:07.960 over 24 hours a day. We've never, ever had a proof. When we asked for some scientific proof,

00:05:13.400 the premier came out with a poll. I'm sorry, but the methodology of the poll might be scientific,

00:05:18.360 but a poll is not science. A poll is politics. And we've been governed by politics from day one

00:05:23.640 during this crisis. We've been always, it's always been very confusing. Mr. Legault was surrounded by

00:05:30.120 17 advisors. We called it a cellular crisis, crisis team or, and out of those 17, only one was a

00:05:38.040 physician, a scientific. 15 out of 17 were people who were political apparatchiks, former chiefs of

00:05:45.640 staffs, former politicians or himself. It was all political. Their first purpose was to make sure

00:05:52.680 François Legault would get reelected. And that's not science. So we want to be governed by science,

00:05:58.360 not by politics, or at least we can figure out when a politician is speaking and when a scientific is

00:06:03.320 speaking. And right now we had a huge confusion over the last few months in Quebec.

00:06:07.560 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, staying on healthcare, the pandemic did bring to light

00:06:14.520 several problems with the single payer public healthcare system, which has been plagued for

00:06:20.440 other issues for years, but now we've seen it really being a total mess. So you're proposing to

00:06:26.840 increase the role of the private sector in healthcare, something that's quite bold in Canadian politics.

00:06:32.680 So can you explain a bit what your healthcare plan with privatization would look like and

00:06:37.320 why it's not something that Quebecers should fear?

00:06:40.920 First off, we want to make sure that we improve our healthcare system. It's been 40 years in Quebec

00:06:47.080 that we went from World Health Minister to another, from one Premier to another, with all sorts of

00:06:52.200 reforms. And at the end of the day, our system is less and less and less efficient. And we think that

00:06:59.640 it's time to open up to the private sector. It's time to have some competition within the system.

00:07:05.560 We just we looked at several models, we saw that the most performing models were in Europe,

00:07:10.440 or look, we looked at, for example, the Swedish model, the German model, we do believe that there

00:07:16.600 could be a private hospital next to a public hospital. And if the government is not able to

00:07:21.240 provide you with this public facilities, the services that you need within reasonable delays,

00:07:27.320 you should be able to cross the street and go to a private facility and be reimbursed by the public

00:07:33.000 insurance, we don't want to, we want to save the universal system that we currently have,

00:07:37.880 we want to respect the Canadian Health Act, but we want to make sure that there's nothing that

00:07:42.840 deprives us from having private providers of services. And if the private sector is also able

00:07:50.120 to do it for cheaper than the public, which is quite possible, and that's what happened in Europe in many

00:07:54.600 places. Well, then you don't even have to wait for a reasonable delay, you can choose to go to the

00:07:59.400 private sector right away. So we're going to increase the services, the quality. And we do

00:08:06.200 believe that competition is always leading to a better model than a public monopoly. And just a

00:08:11.560 monopoly is a monopoly, no matter if it's public or private, usually it doesn't, you know, defend the

00:08:16.520 consumers, patients or our students, the monopoly is no good. And we want to make sure we have

00:08:22.920 competition. And we're going to open up the door to add the contribution of the private sector.

00:08:28.120 So let's talk about the taxes, which are known to be high in Quebec, you are proposing tax cuts,

00:08:33.960 that would save someone with an annual income of $80,000 a year around $2,000. In addition to

00:08:40.520 suspending the gas tax, abolishing taxes on secondhand items, and a progressive reduction of payroll taxes,

00:08:48.760 the Liberals and the CAC are also promising tax cuts. So can you explain what's different about your tax

00:08:54.680 plan compared to theirs? And if you also plan to balance the budget in addition to lowering taxes?

00:09:00.840 Well, there's several things I need to say here. First off, our tax cuts are much more generous than

00:09:07.480 all the other parties together. Like you said, we want to increase the first $15,000 that you earn

00:09:13.080 currently in Quebec is not taxable. We want to increase that to $20,000. Then from $20,000 to $92,000,

00:09:19.240 we want to lower the bracket by 2%, which means it's like between $2,000 and $4,000 for an average

00:09:26.440 family in Quebec that we're going to give them back every single year. How are we going to fund that?

00:09:32.600 Unlike the others, we're not going to impoverish the next generation. The Liberals are proposing two

00:09:39.000 things. They're proposing to increase taxes for people who make more money, so it's not a tax grab

00:09:44.840 there, and also increase the deficit. So shuffle that on the back of the next generation. Mr. Legault wants

00:09:51.720 to fund his tax cuts by going in Le Fonds des Générations, which is a fund that is put aside for the

00:09:57.720 next generation. So he wants to indebt the next generation to buy the next election, and we think

00:10:03.400 that's totally irresponsible. What we're proposing as Conservatives is first off to increase the revenues

00:10:09.640 of the state by exploiting our oil and gas in Quebec. We do believe that there's a huge potential there,

00:10:16.280 especially with the crisis in Europe right now. We do believe that we could make a lot of money if we

00:10:21.880 have, for example, natural liquefied gas. And we also do. So that's the first and a new source of income. The

00:10:30.200 second thing is we want to stop subsidize the multinationals like the government does. Quebec is very generous

00:10:36.280 generous in subsidizing huge businesses. We want to stop that. We do not believe that it's the role of the state to

00:10:42.360 choose winners and losers among private companies. You know, there's a lot of small businesses in Quebec who don't have the

00:10:49.240 money to hire lobbyists to go after the government and after the minister in there and their cocktails

00:10:54.840 and to try to get the, you know, to get a few, a few checks here and there. So that needs to end. And

00:11:00.360 the third thing is we want to make sure that it's the government that it's going to squeeze himself

00:11:04.920 during the, well, while we're in an inflation economy, because not the average families to give

00:11:10.440 them a break. We need to downsize this, the role of the state. Francois Legault promised to cut 5,000

00:11:15.880 bureaucrats when he ran last election. He did the exact opposite. He increased the state like crazy

00:11:21.320 over the last four years. We do believe it's time to downsize the state. So we're also going to do

00:11:25.640 cuts in the fat of the government. So those are the three sources of revenue to fund our tax cuts.

00:11:33.960 Right. So I often travel to Quebec. I was there this weekend and there's signs everywhere saying we are

00:11:40.840 hiring and I'm in a labor shortage. And there's a lot of signs saying businesses reducing their hours.

00:11:46.680 So they can't, they're not making as much money as they used to because they can't have staff.

00:11:50.840 And this is after two years of government restriction that prohibited them from operating

00:11:55.400 at full capacity. What is, what are you proposing to address this critical issue? Because I mean,

00:12:00.600 politicians use often like to talk about creating jobs, but right now it seems that it's not the jobs

00:12:05.880 that are needed, but the people to fill them. It's a very good question. There's, there's several

00:12:11.160 things we can do. As I just pointed out, if the government stops hiring more bureaucrats,

00:12:15.960 and there will be more people available on the market. So that's one, one source of new employees.

00:12:22.040 The second one is the seniors. There's a lot of, there's 15% of people who are retired right now,

00:12:27.080 who would like to work, but there's no incentive because many of them feel that they're, you know,

00:12:32.760 their pension is cut so badly that they're, they're, they're working for nothing because

00:12:36.440 they're changing their brackets. Right? So we want to increase to double the credits,

00:12:41.400 the tax credits for the 60 to 64 years old and trip for 65 years. That would be very good job.

00:12:49.320 And you don't need to come to work five days a week. You could wait, work a day or two. That's

00:12:53.720 going to give a hand to everybody. They have experience. They could be mentors and what they do.

00:13:00.440 So we do believe that's another solution. The third one is all the immigration thing. 0.90

00:13:05.400 The bureaucracy is just awful. Just for seasoned workers, for example, it could take a year or two

00:13:11.080 right now in Quebec to get your seasoned worker because there's a duplication between the federal

00:13:16.120 government and the provincial government. There's all sorts of papers that you need to fill.

00:13:19.960 I spoke to a lot of businesses or, or farms that are telling me it takes them, you know,

00:13:25.160 it costs them up to $15,000, $10,000 to $15,000. They have to hire experts just to fill papers with

00:13:33.080 the government and make sure they follow the process. And even then it takes months and months

00:13:37.240 and months. We need to downsize that badly. So that those are our three examples of where we could

00:13:43.560 solve in part the problem with the lack of employees right now.

00:13:48.920 Right. I do want to talk about children and education. We've seen this summer in Quebec and

00:13:56.520 also the rest of Canada, drag queens going into libraries to read stories to very small children

00:14:01.960 in the name of inclusivity. While in North America, some activists are also pushing for something

00:14:06.280 called critical race theory to be taught in school. So where does the Conservative Party of

00:14:13.880 Quebec stand on things like progressive sexual education for primary students, as well as

00:14:19.480 teaching the students about concepts such as systemic racism and white privilege?

00:14:24.840 To be very honest, we didn't talk about it in our convention when we adopted our program. It was not,

00:14:30.840 there was no, it was not part of the discussion or the debates. That being said, we did adopt positions

00:14:36.760 that are very clearly against those woke pushes. The Conservative Party, for example, wants also to

00:14:44.760 reinstall, especially among campuses of colleges and universities, the freedom of speech, because as you

00:14:50.520 know, the cancel culture is very present here. Unfortunately, we inherited that from English Canada 1.00

00:14:56.440 and even from the States. And that's a huge problem right now. A lot of people can't express themselves

00:15:02.200 if they're not on the radical left. And that's totally unacceptable in public institutions.

00:15:07.720 Yeah, for sure. And we see it, this importation from the US into Quebec and other non-anglophone 0.74

00:15:15.080 cultures in it to tackle. And it's so important, I think, to push back against that. So you've accused

00:15:22.520 Premier François Legault of dividing Quebecers amongst essential and non-essential, vaccinated and

00:15:27.720 non-vaccinated and francophone and anglophone. It is true that Canadian society as a whole is getting 0.97

00:15:33.160 more polarized and divided. So what would you do to heal some of these divides in Quebec? Because

00:15:38.840 there are today noticeable differences between your typical Montreal anglophone and French-speaking,

00:15:44.760 rural and suburban Quebecers. Well, we have to stop looking at anglophones as enemies.

00:15:50.680 François Legault has a negative nationalism. I think we have, we should have an inclusive,

00:15:54.760 a positive nationalism. Anglophones have changed tremendously in Quebec. 75% of anglophone

00:16:01.320 parents right now in Quebec send their kids to French schools, bilingual schools or French immersion

00:16:06.920 program schools. You know, we're far away from people who want to impose their language and refuse

00:16:13.240 to speak French here. And so we should command that. And yes, there is a decline of French and we should

00:16:19.640 be very cautious about that. Statistics Canada showed us some data lately that was scary. But why is it?

00:16:27.560 It's not because anglophones, it's not the fault of anglophones and it's not even the fault of

00:16:32.360 francophones because francophones are not assimilating to French. It's the fact that our immigration is more 0.97

00:16:37.240 and more, you know, English and that's something we need to control better. I think we should give some 1.00

00:16:42.600 incentives to new immigrants to make sure that they could learn French faster and better. So that's

00:16:49.640 our job as Quebecers and anglophones are not going to be against us. They're with us. We have to see

00:16:55.240 them as allies. Montreal is the most bilingual city in North America. It shouldn't be a source of discord.

00:17:01.960 It should be a source of pride. It should be a source of richness and to attract businesses, to attract

00:17:08.440 people. Unfortunately, it's not been like that over the last few years. And Mr. Legault adopted a bill,

00:17:14.040 Bill 96, to poke anglophones and to try to wedge because he wants the Parti Quebecois voters to vote

00:17:20.760 for him because we know that the Parti Quebecois is very, very low in the polls and it seems that Mr.

00:17:25.000 Legault won't have finished them off. And it's all a political, it's a political purpose because when

00:17:30.440 you look at the bill, it's not going to change that much. You know, Quebec, the French in Quebec is not 0.99

00:17:35.000 better protected today because he adopted Bill 96. The only thing that changed is that anglophones

00:17:40.120 are furious right now for good reasons. We're depriving them from their basic rights, from 38

00:17:46.120 articles of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Quebec. And that for us is unacceptable. And

00:17:51.160 talking about that, we have to also underline the Liberals, or even worse, they proposed amendments to

00:17:57.400 the bill that would have made it even worse. And before they realized that the anglophones saw what

00:18:02.600 they were doing and they had to flip flop badly and lose face. So the Liberals, we can't trust

00:18:07.400 that the Liberals, they betrayed the Anglophone community on that bill, especially. And only

00:18:11.640 the Conservative Party stood up and have always the same position on it. And we're going to protect

00:18:16.200 all Quebecers. And that being said, I also have to underline the debate. As you know, four years ago,

00:18:21.160 there was a debate in English in Quebec. Unfortunately, this year, it seems that there's going to be no

00:18:25.640 debate because Mr. Legault, who was at the debate four years ago, decided that he didn't have time this

00:18:31.080 year to talk to Anglophones. There's 1 million people. And Mr. Legault thinks it's not important

00:18:36.360 to talk to those people. That's another example of how polarizing he is, how divisive he is.

00:18:41.800 Why did he change his mind? Why did he flip flop from four years ago? It's questions that,

00:18:47.240 unfortunately, we don't have an answer right now. For sure. And talking about Anglophone leads

00:18:52.600 perfectly into my next question. So a lot of Anglophones in Quebec, including those with Conservative

00:18:57.880 values, those who vote for the Federal Conservative Party, vote for the Quebec Liberal Party

00:19:03.160 provincially, because that's been the typical home for the Anglophones. There was a time where the QLP

00:19:09.000 had 80% of Anglophone support. And while that figure has dropped significantly, it's still the

00:19:14.440 favourite party amongst that group. What is your message to Anglophone voters who are feeling

00:19:21.800 blindsided by the CAC, who are dissatisfied with the current direction of the provincial Liberals,

00:19:27.400 with Dominique Anglade, but are also maybe hesitant about supporting a relatively new party?

00:19:33.480 Well, I tell them a few things. First off, you're not hostages as Anglophones of the Liberal Party

00:19:39.640 anymore in Quebec. Why so? Because the debate has changed and shifted. This is not a referendum. The BQ is

00:19:46.440 even lower than the Liberals right now. The two parties are melting down. We have a new reality.

00:19:51.880 If you're centre-right or if you like our idea, our openness vis-à-vis the Anglophone community,

00:19:57.000 why don't you vote Conservative? It's a brand that you know. You've been voting Conservative

00:20:00.920 at the federal level a few times in your lifetime. And it's something you can trust. We're growing

00:20:07.400 among Francophones also. By voting Liberal, you're wasting your vote. They're fifth, distant fifth.

00:20:13.880 They're lower than 10% among Francophones right now. Other than the Anglophones, the Liberals are

00:20:20.440 going nowhere. And I don't think that the Anglophone community should vote for a French party. And

00:20:26.040 I'm not just talking about the Canadian party or rather Ramos party. I'm talking about the Liberal 0.97

00:20:31.640 party. The Liberal party is becoming a French party in French Quebec. So they might not win one single

00:20:36.600 seat where a strong French majority on October 3rd. So if you want to join a party that is doing as

00:20:42.520 good. And that's very unique in Quebec's recent history. We are a party, the Conservative party,

00:20:47.480 that is doing as good among Francophones and Anglophones. And where our scores are probably are

00:20:54.040 almost identical. And that's very, very good because it means that we're not splitting on

00:20:58.360 language anymore. We're uniting together for other issues to lower your taxes, to exploit our natural

00:21:03.880 resources, to give $200 per kid, for their kindergarten per week to every parent, to add

00:21:12.520 the contribution of the private sector to healthcare and so on and so forth. These are the kind of

00:21:17.240 propositions that resonate both in English and in French right now in Quebec.

00:21:22.040 For sure. To finish off, let's talk about your growth and your anticipation for this election.

00:21:27.880 As you said, the Conservative party of Quebec got 1.46% in the last election. You're pulled as high

00:21:35.480 as 24% in second place in a lot of polls now. So what do you consider a win at this point? Is it just

00:21:43.800 getting yourself elected? Would it be to have a small caucus, maybe opposition? Or would a win be

00:21:49.480 forming government? What will you be satisfied with on October 3rd when the results come out?

00:21:56.280 There's different answers to that question. First off, if you asked me that question a year ago,

00:22:00.920 I would have to tell you that it was just to get our names on ballots and find 125 candidates

00:22:06.120 because we wanted to make sure that people who disagreed with the government and the Liberals

00:22:09.960 had a true option. That's been done. The next step now, we can be a little bit more optimistic because

00:22:17.080 the polls are very good. It resonates very well on the ground. As I said, we're the party that

00:22:21.560 increased the most on every single front for the party with the biggest amount of donors right now

00:22:26.760 in Quebec in 2022. And we're still going up. So our purpose is to get more well known over the next 28

00:22:35.720 days because that's what's left for this election campaign. And everything is possible at this point

00:22:40.600 of time, honestly. But I'm not in politics just for an election. As I said when I announced that I was

00:22:46.040 running for the leadership of the Conservative Party almost two years ago, my purpose is I'm

00:22:50.280 going there for a decade. I think that there's a lot of reforms that we need to do. And this time,

00:22:55.480 you know, whatever we're going to get is going to be a huge increase. I can guarantee you one thing

00:23:00.360 on October 3rd when we're going to count the ballots, the party that is going to be the biggest

00:23:06.040 winner of them all, no matter what the results are, we already know that it's going to be the

00:23:09.560 Conservative Party. Actually, we already won. Just the fact that we're talking together, that we're getting a lot of

00:23:14.760 media coverage, the fact that I will be at the leaders debate, the two leaders debate in French is a proof

00:23:20.200 that, you know, we went from a third party to a big national party. And, and that for me is important. And

00:23:27.400 it's, it shows that we're on the right path. And we have to look, yes, it's important in election, and I hope

00:23:33.480 we're going to win. But I'm not thinking of the next election, I'm thinking of the next generation. And I want

00:23:38.440 Quebecers to be like many other Canadian provinces, and have a Conservative Provincial Party,

00:23:44.600 also to be part of their reality, because that's, you know, there's a link that we can establish with

00:23:49.480 English Canada, there's a, you know, the Conservatives federally, and even in other provinces, I've always

00:23:55.160 been more decentralist, much more, much closer to the average Quebec nationalist. And we didn't have

00:24:01.880 anyone to talk to in Quebec, those people couldn't talk to anyone in Quebec, because on one side,

00:24:06.120 there was the Liberals, who are centralists, who are Trudeau lovers. And on the other hand, you have the

00:24:10.840 separatists who don't want Canada to work. So the last thing they want is to unite with people who

00:24:15.240 want to decentralize to prove that Canada could work. So now we need a Conservative alternative

00:24:20.840 that's in between, that wants to decentralize, and it's going to build bridges with other

00:24:24.840 Conservative parties in Ottawa, and in other provinces.

00:24:28.040 Yeah, for sure. Well, Éric, thank you so much for joining me today and for having this conversation,

00:24:34.920 and I wish you the best of luck as you go around in your bus meeting with Quebecers across the province.

00:24:40.760 Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup. À bientôt.

00:24:43.800 To see more of my interviews with Éric Duhaime, please see the description below.

00:24:49.480 Unlike the legacy media, True North does not receive the federal government's media bailout. Hence,

00:24:54.920 we rely on donations from people like you to keep our operations running. To make a donation,

00:24:59.960 please visit donate.tnc.news. For True North, I'm Élie Cantén-Antel.

00:25:10.760 Thank you very much.

Juno News - September 14, 2022

A rising conservative movement in Quebec (Ft. Eric Duhaime)

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