Juno News - October 27, 2021


Aaron Gunn speaks out after disqualification from BC Liberal leadership race


Episode Stats

Length

11 minutes

Words per Minute

188.19904

Word Count

2,137

Sentence Count

130

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:05.520 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:07.720 Let's talk about British Columbia politics for a couple of moments here.
00:00:11.540 Aaron Gunn, who has been on the show in the past,
00:00:14.140 was seeking for just a couple of weeks the leadership of the B.C. Liberals.
00:00:18.720 Now, this is where I have to put the obligatory disclaimer.
00:00:22.180 The B.C. Liberals are, for the most part,
00:00:25.480 for the most part, and not exclusively, the choice party for right-of-center British Columbians.
00:00:32.280 Now, there is a B.C. Conservative Party,
00:00:34.880 but it doesn't really have much of an operation to speak of.
00:00:38.540 It doesn't have electoral success.
00:00:40.320 The B.C. Liberals, that is the party for conservative British Columbians generally.
00:00:47.200 And that is a big source of the confusion.
00:00:50.340 And in fact, it was one of the things that Aaron Gunn wanted to rectify.
00:00:52.840 He thought the B.C. Liberals needed a new name.
00:00:55.140 He thought there was brand confusion there,
00:00:57.020 and he thought the party needed to establish itself on firm footing
00:01:00.300 as a conservative party for British Columbians,
00:01:03.540 as an alternative to the NDP, which is currently in government in B.C.
00:01:08.120 And Aaron Gunn was going to be a disruptor, clearly.
00:01:10.660 He was coming not from the political class,
00:01:12.820 but from his role as a commentator, as an activist.
00:01:15.600 He had a huge following,
00:01:17.140 which is why when he started saying he was mauling a leadership bid earlier this year,
00:01:21.460 we sat down with him and spent, I think it was like, you know, 20, 25 minutes or so
00:01:24.760 talking about a range of things.
00:01:26.360 You should go and check out that interview.
00:01:28.420 So a couple of weeks ago, Aaron Gunn launches his campaign.
00:01:31.180 A lot of excitement.
00:01:32.540 A couple of his colleagues saying,
00:01:33.980 oh, this guy's too controversial.
00:01:35.340 He shouldn't be allowed to run.
00:01:37.020 But nevertheless, he's going selling memberships, getting ready for it.
00:01:41.620 Well, last week, a cabal of individuals behind closed doors decided that he does not have the right
00:01:48.040 to seek the leadership of his party.
00:01:51.340 And they decided that he would be banned from running as a leadership candidate.
00:01:55.980 And here's what they say.
00:01:58.060 To approve Mr. Gunn's candidacy would be inconsistent
00:02:01.740 with the B.C. Liberal Party's commitment to reconciliation,
00:02:05.980 diversity, and acceptance of all British Columbians.
00:02:10.120 So it would not be sufficiently committed to reconciliation,
00:02:13.700 diversity, or acceptance to have him in there.
00:02:16.000 Now, again, there's no evidence given as to what he said or done
00:02:19.620 that is insufficiently committed to reconciliation, acceptance, and diversity.
00:02:25.060 But that's the cudgel they're using to keep Aaron Gunn out of the race.
00:02:29.120 And whether you like him or not, whether you would have voted for him or not,
00:02:31.880 whether you are in British Columbia or not,
00:02:34.660 surely these things can underscore the point
00:02:36.860 that it should be members in parties who make these decisions,
00:02:40.120 not backroom groups of individuals,
00:02:42.640 like happen in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race
00:02:46.260 with Jim Carahalios, to give a recent example,
00:02:49.340 like happens in nomination meetings that we take aim at all the time.
00:02:54.160 And I say I was a beneficiary once of an appointment
00:02:57.540 that took place behind closed doors.
00:02:59.940 When I ran in Ontario in 2018 for the Ontario PCs,
00:03:03.340 I was seeking the nomination.
00:03:04.840 There were actually two other candidates that were seeking the nomination.
00:03:08.320 One of them had been doing it for quite a while.
00:03:10.060 And then the party decided just a few weeks out from the election,
00:03:13.440 they were going to scrap the nomination race and appoint me.
00:03:16.380 Now this was something, so people may say,
00:03:18.080 well, who are you to talk about appointments?
00:03:19.880 It's, that's the reason.
00:03:21.900 It's unfair to people who are in the race.
00:03:24.020 Even if they're the appointed ones, it's unfair
00:03:26.160 because it is the members who are supposed to be the ones
00:03:29.660 to make these decisions.
00:03:31.320 It's the members in parties who get to decide their leadership.
00:03:35.720 So let's talk about this and what it means
00:03:38.000 and also what comes next.
00:03:39.220 Aaron Gunn joins me on the line now.
00:03:41.620 Aaron, it is good to talk to you.
00:03:43.380 Thank you for having me, Andrew.
00:03:45.160 Aaron, it's good to talk to you.
00:03:46.540 Tell me, first off, since you've been disqualified,
00:03:48.600 how's the response been from people,
00:03:51.280 either your supporters or just in general?
00:03:53.740 I've been completely overwhelmed by the response.
00:03:55.900 You have hundreds of people tearing up their memberships,
00:03:59.800 calling in to get refunded.
00:04:03.340 You have up to and including former MLAs of the party
00:04:07.300 who have done that,
00:04:08.720 and people saying this is kind of the last straw.
00:04:11.580 There's a lot of people that were already frustrated
00:04:13.160 with the BC Liberals after the last election.
00:04:15.640 I think there were a lot who were ready to walk away from the party
00:04:18.420 and saw this leadership race as an opportunity
00:04:21.780 to give it one more chance,
00:04:23.020 and now they're just throwing their hands up in the air
00:04:25.480 and walking away.
00:04:26.900 And it's hard to obviously blame them
00:04:28.720 when you have this kind of a situation
00:04:30.500 where they use fabricated reasons and narratives
00:04:33.860 and basically go along with exactly what the NDP was saying
00:04:36.900 to try to allow their preferred candidate to win the race.
00:04:42.540 Yeah, let's talk about those fabricated reasons.
00:04:45.620 The release that the BC Liberals put out on the weekend
00:04:48.000 when they disqualified you
00:04:49.320 was that they felt your candidacy would, quote,
00:04:52.180 be inconsistent with the BC Liberal Party's commitment
00:04:55.560 to reconciliation, diversity, and acceptance
00:04:59.080 of all British Columbians.
00:05:00.720 So setting aside for a moment
00:05:02.520 that it's the members that get to decide
00:05:04.140 whether your views are consistent or inconsistent
00:05:06.040 with those of the party,
00:05:07.440 what was the evidence that they were holding up
00:05:09.780 that you were not sufficiently committed
00:05:12.420 to reconciliation, diversity, and acceptance?
00:05:16.080 Well, first of all, let me say
00:05:17.580 that this seven-person unelected board
00:05:19.800 that made this decision, none of the people on it
00:05:21.780 were Indigenous, and in fact,
00:05:23.260 the main Indigenous representative of the party
00:05:25.760 is one of the candidates who's actually running
00:05:28.140 in the race, Ellis Ross,
00:05:29.400 and he publicly stated both before and after this decision
00:05:32.300 that I should be allowed to run
00:05:33.840 and that none of these kind of accusations
00:05:35.820 were true or based in reality.
00:05:38.060 They showed me, I can actually tell you,
00:05:40.140 what the four tweets they highlighted
00:05:41.940 going through my years and thousands of posts
00:05:44.480 on social media, one was a complete nothing burger
00:05:48.060 and the other three were all derivative of each other
00:05:51.500 where I basically pushed back against the notion
00:05:54.380 that Canada was a genocidal state
00:05:56.740 that committed genocide in an attempt
00:05:58.900 to exterminate Indigenous people.
00:06:00.900 That was, that's literally the only thing.
00:06:03.820 You'd think that there'd be some, you know,
00:06:06.700 super nefarious or politically incorrect thing
00:06:10.260 that I had said, but it literally was just saying
00:06:12.780 Canada did not commit genocide.
00:06:14.740 We did not do something on par with the Holocaust
00:06:17.300 or what happened in Rwanda
00:06:18.820 and that we shouldn't be throwing that word around
00:06:21.460 willy-nilly and, you know, slandering our own country.
00:06:26.000 So that's what it was all about.
00:06:28.000 That's the excuse they decided to go with.
00:06:30.900 But look, I think it's clear they made up their mind
00:06:32.720 before I entered their race
00:06:34.060 that they were going to reject my candidacy.
00:06:36.120 I think as we signed up hundreds and thousands
00:06:38.600 of new people, they became very determined
00:06:41.640 and panicked to stop the candidacy.
00:06:43.720 And this is the rationale they thought
00:06:47.040 would be most politically palatable
00:06:48.520 to the mainstream media.
00:06:50.600 So you've been active on social media.
00:06:53.620 You've done a lot of commentary.
00:06:55.360 You've engaged in vigorous debate.
00:06:57.660 You've made videos, documentaries,
00:06:59.580 and all that they found that they felt
00:07:02.440 was disqualifying for you to be the leader
00:07:04.900 of the BC Liberals or a contender for the leader
00:07:06.900 was believing that Canada is not a genocidal nation.
00:07:10.560 That's your controversial,
00:07:12.400 that's their silver bullet to end your political campaign.
00:07:16.240 Yeah, that's exactly.
00:07:17.400 I've been referring to different people
00:07:19.640 as it's, you know, the worst attempted
00:07:21.900 kind of character assassination
00:07:23.580 that I've ever seen in Canadian politics.
00:07:25.920 I mean, this is not a,
00:07:27.980 the fact that despite Canada's many mistakes
00:07:31.800 in its past as every country
00:07:33.040 and the fact that we lived in a much different world
00:07:35.740 back in the 19th century,
00:07:37.060 the accusation that we actually committed genocide,
00:07:41.340 that we attempted to exterminate,
00:07:43.500 in essence, Indigenous people,
00:07:44.840 is not a view that is widely held by Canadians,
00:07:48.120 certainly not by party members or Conservatives,
00:07:51.220 and nor by most historians.
00:07:53.040 So it's a, it's a, it's, it's bizarre.
00:07:56.860 It shows how desperate they were, I think.
00:07:59.180 And I think they're disappointed
00:08:00.180 that they couldn't find some kind of smoking gun.
00:08:03.120 But this just shows that, that they're shameless.
00:08:05.360 They don't, they don't care
00:08:06.000 that they didn't find anything.
00:08:06.920 They'd manufacture a reason.
00:08:08.740 I know that the, the danger here
00:08:10.920 is that you may or may not have won.
00:08:12.500 No one knows.
00:08:13.220 You would have worked hard, of course,
00:08:14.540 and put together a good campaign.
00:08:15.740 But you've been denied the opportunity to see
00:08:18.620 if you could even win.
00:08:20.060 And I have to ask what you think,
00:08:22.260 and you may not know one way or another,
00:08:23.780 but what you think was the motivating factor?
00:08:25.620 Do you think it was that these people in that room
00:08:27.940 thought that you might actually win
00:08:29.400 and they didn't want that?
00:08:30.440 Or do you think they were inherently resistant
00:08:32.780 to what you were trying to do?
00:08:34.480 And they don't want to reconcile with the fact
00:08:36.420 that perhaps the BC Liberal Party's future
00:08:38.800 is in appealing more
00:08:40.560 to being a traditional conservative party.
00:08:43.020 So I think there were two things, Andrew.
00:08:45.140 I think the first is that they knew
00:08:47.820 that we were going to win.
00:08:49.320 They saw the memberships rolling in.
00:08:51.060 We had basically been on the campaign trail
00:08:52.580 for two weeks.
00:08:53.280 We were outselling any of the other campaigns.
00:08:55.580 So I think it may have been a different decision
00:08:57.580 if they thought, you know, we'll let this guy into the race
00:09:00.840 and he's not going to win anyways.
00:09:02.520 So there's no need in stirring up all this controversy
00:09:04.980 and dealing with the blowback.
00:09:06.400 So I think the first thing is that
00:09:07.660 they thought that we were going to win.
00:09:10.860 And they knew that this was their only move left.
00:09:13.420 And, you know, these party insiders
00:09:14.680 need to protect their little enclaves of power
00:09:18.000 they've carved out for themselves.
00:09:19.780 I do think there was a second reason.
00:09:21.280 And that's because people within the party
00:09:24.020 and the party elites,
00:09:25.200 despite what they say publicly,
00:09:27.320 didn't want to have a real debate
00:09:28.980 and discussion about policy
00:09:31.160 and about some of the past policy decisions
00:09:33.840 of this party.
00:09:34.800 Whether that's the carbon tax,
00:09:36.820 whether that's money laundering
00:09:38.480 and how it's contributed to the rise in housing prices,
00:09:41.360 or whether that is the opioid epidemic
00:09:44.080 that got, although it keeps getting worse
00:09:45.900 under the NDP,
00:09:47.180 it really escalated while the BC Liberals
00:09:49.140 were still in power
00:09:49.980 and some of their failed policies on that front.
00:09:52.560 So I think it's a combination
00:09:53.600 of they didn't want to have
00:09:54.520 these difficult conversations
00:09:55.980 and the fact that they thought
00:09:57.800 that we were going to win
00:09:59.060 or we have a real chance of winning.
00:10:02.380 You've got a number of options ahead of you.
00:10:04.540 You can just, you know,
00:10:05.580 exit politics altogether
00:10:06.900 and go back to doing what you were doing.
00:10:08.640 You could fight this through some,
00:10:10.780 you know, perhaps internal or external means.
00:10:12.760 You could join another party,
00:10:13.960 run as an independent.
00:10:15.060 I know that it's still very early days,
00:10:17.260 but what are you planning in the future?
00:10:19.980 Well, in the days ahead,
00:10:21.420 we're definitely going to have an announcement.
00:10:23.040 There's a couple of things
00:10:23.820 that we're working through
00:10:24.800 with regard to my future plans
00:10:26.400 and how we can still bring common sense
00:10:28.640 back to British Columbia
00:10:29.740 and back to Canada.
00:10:31.460 But I will tell you this,
00:10:32.700 if you think this is the end of our fight
00:10:35.520 or the end of the road,
00:10:36.760 you couldn't be more wrong.
00:10:38.160 This fight is really just beginning.
00:10:40.580 All options are on the table.
00:10:42.660 We're looking at recall campaigns.
00:10:44.520 We're talking about the potential
00:10:45.900 of forming new parties
00:10:47.460 or reviving the BC Conservatives.
00:10:50.520 And I also haven't taken
00:10:51.620 certain legal options
00:10:52.600 off the table as well,
00:10:54.520 given some of the lies
00:10:56.060 and misrepresentations
00:10:57.440 that have been made
00:10:58.100 in public statements.
00:10:59.460 So we'll see, Andrew,
00:11:00.740 but it's going to be,
00:11:03.180 I'm sure,
00:11:04.400 an interesting announcement
00:11:05.260 in the days and weeks ahead.
00:11:07.940 All right.
00:11:08.560 Well, we'll make sure
00:11:09.060 to keep an eye out for that.
00:11:10.060 Aaron Gunn,
00:11:10.620 thanks very much for coming on.
00:11:12.400 Thanks for having me, Andrew.
00:11:13.260 Thanks for listening
00:11:14.640 to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:11:16.180 Support the program
00:11:16.900 by donating to True North
00:11:18.140 at www.tnc.news.