Juno News - Blink Twice If You Need Help, Minister Morneau

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.460 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:14.840 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:21.120 Hello and welcome everyone to the Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:27.660 I'm going to suspend my conversation with you, the audience, right now and address an audience of one.

00:00:35.640 If you're out there, Minister Morneau, blink twice if you need help.

00:00:39.440 Blink three times if you're okay.

00:00:41.800 I don't know, you clearly have to be somewhere in captivity right now.

00:00:45.900 With all the stories we've been seeing about your relationship with Justin Trudeau,

00:00:51.080 this is actually quite exceptional.

00:00:53.420 Last week we talked about Bill Morneau apparently falling out of favour with Justin Trudeau

00:00:58.800 and reports, namely one in Bloomberg, that Morneau no longer had the confidence of the Prime Minister, of Justin Trudeau.

00:01:06.600 And the great story there was when the media had asked Justin Trudeau's office,

00:01:11.960 hey, do you still have confidence in Morneau?

00:01:14.440 And they said, we'll have to get back to you on that.

00:01:16.800 And then hours later sent out this statement saying, yes, of course we have confidence in him.

00:01:22.320 He's done this and this and this and this.

00:01:24.260 But the interesting thing is that this relationship has only gotten more strained in the last week,

00:01:30.220 in the last however many days since that moment.

00:01:33.680 And now we have another report from Bloomberg that is suggesting the rift with Finance Minister Bill Morneau

00:01:41.780 is so bad that Morneau can't even get Justin Trudeau on the phone.

00:01:48.800 This is quite embarrassing.

00:01:51.100 The quote says,

00:01:51.860 Now the Carney in question is Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada

00:02:08.000 turned governor of the Bank of England, who's now an informal advisor,

00:02:13.540 whatever that means to Justin Trudeau on matters of finance.

00:02:16.280 So seemingly edging out, Bill Morneau, who's supposed to be the chief advisor,

00:02:21.860 on matters of finance to Justin Trudeau.

00:02:24.560 So now Carney has basically been brought in.

00:02:27.440 He is the Lou Gehrig and Bill Morneau is the Wally Pip.

00:02:31.460 And if you don't get that reference, it's okay.

00:02:33.380 It's the only sports reference I know.

00:02:35.460 So what I'm thinking here is that all of us are going to see Bill Morneau likely go down

00:02:43.080 the same road that Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould went down.

00:02:47.820 Because he is only useful as long as he's towing the party line.

00:02:51.660 He's only useful to Justin Trudeau when he is going to be another one of those cabinet

00:02:56.220 sycophants, because this seems to be the attitude here.

00:02:59.400 If you're in the cabinet, you don't just have to have caucus unity and cabinet unity,

00:03:03.540 which is understandable.

00:03:04.920 But you can't have any disagreement at all, it sounds like,

00:03:08.900 because Justin Trudeau is the guy in charge.

00:03:12.040 Now, it's not leadership when you aren't even having conversations

00:03:16.160 with the people on your team, as this report suggests, if you have these disagreements.

00:03:21.720 And that's where we are now.

00:03:23.380 So I'm thinking Bill Morneau is either now a great hostage to Justin Trudeau's prime minister's office,

00:03:30.180 or he's just completely out to lunch, floating out on his own, no idea what's going on.

00:03:36.180 He's out of the loop.

00:03:36.980 He has no power, no control whatsoever.

00:03:39.420 It's, I mean, look, both things are possible here.

00:03:41.600 What we do know is that it doesn't look like, if these reports can be taken at face value,

00:03:48.600 like Morneau has a strong, robust future in the prime minister's inner circle.

00:03:55.000 One source told CBC that the two of them were going to be meeting on Monday to sort out their differences.

00:04:00.920 Another story here from the same one, Trudeau-Morneau clash over Green Plan's soaring deficit.

00:04:08.260 And this one I find to be great.

00:04:09.900 It, again, uses that term of a deepening rift between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his finance minister

00:04:16.120 about coronavirus spending, but also disagreements, they say, about green initiatives.

00:04:21.560 And this was citing three sources.

00:04:24.300 But here's the part I find unique about this story.

00:04:27.120 Global News had its own version of it.

00:04:29.080 Everyone's leaking all over the place here.

00:04:30.780 And in that story, they say, a source says,

00:04:35.200 he was not very keen on a huge deficit.

00:04:38.440 That's not what he wanted as his legacy, unquote.

00:04:42.300 So Bill Morneau, after five years of continuously running up deficits and more deficits and more deficits,

00:04:49.160 has decided, you know, I don't think the deficit spending thing was exactly what we wanted.

00:04:54.420 Whereas I'm like, what on earth did you think your legacy was going to be at this point?

00:04:59.560 So I get the deficits may have been Justin Trudeau's bag, and that's what he wanted.

00:05:03.880 But I don't have a lot of sympathy for Morneau after five years of running up deficits saying,

00:05:10.900 well, okay, you know, I kind of would have wanted to balance at least one budget while I was here.

00:05:15.860 No, because none of the financial or fiscal decisions taken by the government under Morneau as finance minister

00:05:22.580 have been leading towards anything but deficits.

00:05:26.000 So again, we're talking about anonymous sources here.

00:05:28.920 You have to take things with a grain of salt.

00:05:31.120 But the fact that there's such a high volume of leaks in numerous media outlets from CBC to Global to Bloomberg,

00:05:38.400 all really saying the same thing about the so-called rift and about Morneau really cooling on the liberal government's financial track record.

00:05:49.640 All of this suggests that there is, in fact, fire here because we're certainly seeing the smoke.

00:05:54.940 So I don't have a lot of sympathy for Morneau, even though I think he is, on the surface, a capable and competent person.

00:06:02.520 Because of how he has done so far, you have to question, okay, why now?

00:06:08.940 I mean, the only thing I could think of, and this is, I admit, completely speculative,

00:06:13.460 is that he sees the ship as being one that is sinking now and realizes, okay, I've got to save myself.

00:06:19.280 So he's trying to clamber around for the life raft, and it doesn't matter if the ship is going down.

00:06:23.960 He wants to be off of it.

00:06:25.180 And I think in a lot of cases, that's what distinguishes this.

00:06:28.640 If he is on his way out from Jody Wilson, Ray Bold, and Jane Philpott,

00:06:33.420 who actually sacrificed something when there was still a chance, and clearly a likely chance,

00:06:39.500 that Justin Trudeau would win re-election.

00:06:41.480 They could have, if they just shut up and went along with it, still been in cabinet today.

00:06:46.620 So that is where there's a bit of a difference here.

00:06:49.340 And I have to be a fair bit more cynical about Morneau than I am at the two women from cabinet 0.99

00:06:56.780 in the last session of parliament.

00:06:58.920 But I do think that at the end of the day, the buck stops with Trudeau.

00:07:02.220 There's a lot from this that we can take and look at Trudeau's governance and government style

00:07:07.980 and leadership style and say, if you're, if this is what's happening to your most senior

00:07:13.440 cabinet ministers, remember, we're talking about the health minister, the attorney general,

00:07:20.220 the finance minister.

00:07:21.680 This is not like the deputy under, this is not like the deputy parliamentary secretary.

00:07:26.700 That's not a real rule.

00:07:27.660 The parliamentary secretary to the minister for democratic institutions or something.

00:07:32.580 We're talking about the most central pivotal figures in a prime minister's cabinet.

00:07:37.340 And Justin Trudeau can't keep them in the cabinet.

00:07:40.800 He can't keep them loyal.

00:07:42.440 And there's a reason for that because he clearly is not in their view in control of things.

00:07:48.280 He's clearly not in their view knowing what is going on and making the right decisions.

00:07:53.940 And that's a very dangerous development here.

00:07:56.980 So right now, when you look at what Morneau is doing, I think he is actually being thrown under

00:08:03.140 the bus right now for speaking up.

00:08:05.840 And we can see this because all of these leaks are coordinated.

00:08:09.800 When you've got, again, a broad array of leaks through multiple media outlets, it means someone

00:08:14.500 wants this story to be told.

00:08:17.680 And the fact that Trudeau, again, had to just say, ah, you know, we'll think about whether

00:08:22.440 we can say we have confidence in him last week, suggests there is no confidence there.

00:08:27.400 And at this point, it's just a matter of controlling the damage.

00:08:29.700 Because if you lose your finance minister in the middle of a public health crisis that is

00:08:34.560 now a financial and economic crisis, it shows that Canadians shouldn't have confidence in the

00:08:40.840 job you've been doing either.

00:08:43.460 So if you have your finance minister gone, it's saying to every Canadian, well, that steady

00:08:49.880 hand you told us that you were is no longer steady.

00:08:52.980 That fiscal management that you said was there clearly wasn't.

00:08:56.360 If your finance minister isn't happy with all the stuff you're doing, why should we as

00:09:00.260 taxpaying Canadians be?

00:09:01.820 And these are very legitimate questions, very legitimate questions.

00:09:05.680 And there still are no answers.

00:09:07.840 We'll be back in a moment with more of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:09:10.440 Stay tuned.

00:09:12.940 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:09:15.780 Last week, I did a bit of a broad look at the conservative leadership race.

00:09:24.780 I took the 30,000-foot view from the sky of things, and I got a lot of really interesting

00:09:29.700 response from that, a lot of it very negative, because I kind of did it as though I was just

00:09:34.860 criticizing every single candidate by talking about what I see as the perceived weaknesses.

00:09:39.880 And some people who were fans of an individual candidate said they didn't like what I said

00:09:44.920 about theirs, but they liked what I said about all the others.

00:09:47.200 So that is the nature of leadership races, or any election, in that you get very hypersensitive

00:09:52.500 about your person.

00:09:54.360 And the fact is, I don't have a person.

00:09:56.120 I think that there, like I said, is a lot of good.

00:09:58.920 There are some drawbacks.

00:10:00.300 I think that ultimately the goal is that whoever is the leader of the party, after August 23rd,

00:10:06.460 has to be able to unite the party, yes, but also has to be able to be a solid conservative.

00:10:12.500 And I want to see someone who's prepared to really move the ball a little bit down the

00:10:17.220 line.

00:10:17.560 I don't even like sports, and I'm using sports analogies today.

00:10:20.520 I don't know what happened to me.

00:10:21.940 Maybe I got hit in the head with a football on the weekend, and I don't know about it,

00:10:25.540 and it's causing me to do sports stuff.

00:10:27.560 But I promise you I won't do it again.

00:10:29.500 But you need someone who's going to be able to do that.

00:10:32.360 Otherwise, you cease to have a conservative party.

00:10:35.120 And this is what I think the big problem with the so-called electability narrative is.

00:10:41.260 Electability is important, yes.

00:10:43.580 But if you are sacrificing integrity or sacrificing something else like ideological consistency

00:10:51.200 in the pursuit of electability, you being elected doesn't actually mean anything.

00:10:57.480 It doesn't actually amount to a hill of beans.

00:10:59.900 And this is where you have to be very careful.

00:11:02.420 When everyone talks in the race about so-and-so is the one who can beat Trudeau, yes, that's

00:11:08.580 valid.

00:11:09.060 Yes, the next conservative leader has to defeat Trudeau.

00:11:11.660 But they have to be beating Trudeau as a means to an end.

00:11:16.960 That cannot be the end in and of itself.

00:11:20.360 And this is, I think, a distinction that gets lost, is that you have to be willing to offer

00:11:24.680 something to conservatives if it has to be of value at all that you are defeating Trudeau

00:11:32.020 and that you can defeat Trudeau.

00:11:34.940 And this is just a general observation.

00:11:37.440 This is bigger than just this particular leadership race and bigger than conservative internal politics

00:11:42.680 in general, is that you have to be prepared to advance the cultural beliefs and the ideological

00:11:49.520 beliefs and the philosophical outlook that you have.

00:11:52.600 And this is where, when you talk about politics being downstream of culture, conservatives have

00:11:57.420 oftentimes fallen short of this requirement.

00:12:01.160 So that's more of a general observation.

00:12:04.060 But when we are looking at these candidates, there is that idea that, yes, you have to be

00:12:08.860 able to go toe-to-toe with Trudeau or whoever his successor is.

00:12:12.500 Sure, but I want to see someone who's prepared to actually take on the fights that, for the

00:12:19.540 most part, conservatives have been too afraid to.

00:12:21.860 And it isn't just about social issues.

00:12:23.920 It isn't just about supply management.

00:12:25.980 It's not about these things.

00:12:27.360 Although a lot of these issues are litmus tests for the bigger issue.

00:12:31.700 If you're, I mean, supply management's a great one.

00:12:33.480 Not a single member of this leadership race I've heard speak out against supply management.

00:12:38.140 But for the most part, I bet that any one of them, if you were to talk to them one-on-one,

00:12:43.720 would privately tell you they have issues with it.

00:12:46.180 But politically, they can't.

00:12:47.800 And this is why Maxime Bernier, in 2017 and beyond, made such a big deal of supply management.

00:12:53.820 Not because it was the hill to die on because of dairy pricing being the top issue facing

00:12:59.560 Canadians, but because it was probably the greatest example of conservatives overlooking

00:13:05.760 what they know to be true based on their outlook because of what is politically advantageous

00:13:11.540 to believe.

00:13:12.180 And you can't piss off the dairy farmers.

00:13:14.800 That's the cardinal rule of conservative politics.

00:13:17.180 So they have to choose that axiom of political management over what they believe and what makes

00:13:25.220 sense and what is economically right, which, by the way, supply management isn't.

00:13:29.300 But this will be a topic for another episode.

00:13:32.220 So that's where we are.

00:13:33.260 And you may remember on Friday, I sat down, well, I sat down last Wednesday, but the episode

00:13:37.900 came out on Friday, an in-depth interview with Andrew Scheer, an outgoing leader of the

00:13:42.880 Conservative Party of Canada, who said in the interview, he's going to continue to serve

00:13:47.000 and seek re-election as a member of parliament.

00:13:49.160 So he's not going away.

00:13:51.020 And, you know, I had a lot of people email me.

00:13:53.980 So a lot of you, by the way, most of you were incredibly appreciative of the interview

00:13:57.500 and had very kind words to say.

00:13:59.060 And I'm grateful for that.

00:14:00.360 If you haven't been able to figure it out now, I really enjoy long form interviews.

00:14:04.720 But there were a lot of people who, because of their personal contempt for Andrew Scheer,

00:14:11.120 dislike for Andrew Scheer, didn't like that I was giving him a platform or they didn't

00:14:14.820 like that they just didn't want to hear from him.

00:14:17.040 And, you know, it takes a lot to step into politics.

00:14:20.000 And I'd say this as someone who was a failed candidate or, as I say, an attempted politician

00:14:24.880 a few years ago, a couple of years ago, it takes a lot.

00:14:28.920 And Andrew Scheer has a young family.

00:14:31.020 There's a tremendous sacrifice.

00:14:32.620 You get dragged through the ringer.

00:14:33.940 His family gets roped into it.

00:14:35.880 And it's not just Andrew Scheer.

00:14:38.520 I would say this about a Liberal leader, an NDP leader, even maybe not a Bloch-Quebec wall

00:14:43.020 leader.

00:14:43.300 But I'd say it about most politicians.

00:14:45.620 Anyone who's prepared to take on that sacrifice deserves to be commended.

00:14:50.640 And they deserve to be appreciated.

00:14:52.580 And I don't like this idea that because Andrew Scheer was not able to, I won't use a sports

00:14:58.440 analogy, was not able to win the election, that he is therefore a bad person.

00:15:02.780 I mean, you can be, I don't think he's necessarily a bad politician, but you can be a bad politician

00:15:07.320 and not be a bad person.

00:15:08.660 In fact, I think probably the best people don't necessarily make the best politicians and vice

00:15:15.000 versa.

00:15:15.320 So for Andrew Scheer, there was a lot that I think could have been done differently.

00:15:21.760 And it was really great to hear him admit that in many respects, because one of the

00:15:26.280 biggest criticisms that I've had is that Andrew Scheer was great in the 2017 leadership

00:15:31.040 race.

00:15:31.920 He was great in the lead up to the election.

00:15:34.160 And then in the election, he just became this safe, middle of the ground, middle of the

00:15:38.460 road, moderate, not even just in terms of the platform, although the platform was very

00:15:44.080 safe, but even just his own communication style.

00:15:47.720 He wasn't picking fights.

00:15:49.120 He wasn't scrapping.

00:15:50.760 And I was really disappointed to see it because I knew that he is on side on a lot of the things

00:15:56.360 that I care about.

00:15:57.700 And then after the election, we're getting clip after clip after clip of Andrew Scheer.

00:16:03.520 This one in particular, I have to share again.

00:16:05.740 Do you remember when he was busted, if I can use such a silly term, for not wearing a mask

00:16:10.840 in Pearson Airport when he was talking to a couple of his colleagues?

00:16:15.140 And this was what happened when CBC asked about it.

00:16:17.940 Hi, it's Annie Bergeron-Oliver with CTV National News.

00:16:22.040 Masks became mandatory yesterday in many cities across Canada.

00:16:25.420 Yet yesterday, you were photographed at the airport not wearing a mask.

00:16:29.100 Elizabeth May earlier today said she does not believe that you take this pandemic seriously.

00:16:33.600 So one, I'm wondering why you didn't wear a mask.

00:16:35.840 And two, what do you say to people like Elizabeth May who say you're not taking the pandemic seriously?

00:16:41.660 So I don't have anything to add based on the story yesterday.

00:16:45.740 Nothing?

00:16:47.240 I think it was pretty self-explanatory yesterday.

00:16:49.640 I know that in part of the statement, you said you took off the mask to make a call.

00:16:54.020 Pallister has since come out saying he apologized that, yes, he took it off for a call, but he

00:16:58.920 wanted to chat with some of his colleagues.

00:17:01.180 Should you not be setting an example for Canadians?

00:17:04.340 There are many people who do not believe that masks should be mandatory.

00:17:07.860 Should you not be setting an example for Canadians and nothing else to add?

00:17:11.780 As I said yesterday, I was wearing a mask while I was traveling.

00:17:14.400 So I don't have anything else to add to that story.

00:17:17.720 It's hard to believe that this is actually your question and your follow-up.

00:17:21.000 When we're dealing with a prime minister that is under an investigation for ethics violation

00:17:24.960 for the third time, we're dealing with $300 billion worth of deficit with no recovery

00:17:30.000 plan, with no budget this year.

00:17:31.980 And you want to know how long I had my mask off yesterday after making a phone call?

00:17:36.120 Come on, that's ridiculous.

00:17:37.060 I think the picture is pretty self-explanatory.

00:17:45.240 I think my answer yesterday was pretty self-explanatory as well.

00:17:49.260 And if you want to go analyze social media pictures, if you're looking for some kind of

00:17:55.520 Zapruder film to break down frame by frame, I think that's pretty ridiculous and kind of

00:17:59.800 a wasted opportunity today when we're talking about an economic snapshot today that's going

00:18:04.220 to tell Canadians how the next few months and years are going to roll out when we have the

00:18:10.140 highest unemployment rate in the G7.

00:18:12.060 We're the only G7 country to have experienced a credit downgrade.

00:18:15.420 And I remember saying, where on earth was that Andrew Scheer during the election?

00:18:20.420 Where on earth was that Andrew Scheer when we were trying to get, you know, Justin Trudeau

00:18:25.620 out of office?

00:18:26.660 I don't mean we as, you know, me at Trunor.

00:18:28.660 I mean, we as, you know, most taxpaying Canadians.

00:18:31.200 And that was that.

00:18:32.440 And I was so like, it kind of proved the point, which is that, yes, he has it in him.

00:18:38.080 So I asked him about that aspect of his personality and whether he felt that he was able to truly

00:18:44.380 be himself on the campaign trail.

00:18:47.060 And I thought he actually had a really good answer about it.

00:18:49.380 Here's that clip.

00:18:50.620 Did you feel like you were able to be the Andrew Scheer you wanted to be during the election?

00:18:56.180 Because it seems to me and to a lot of people that I've heard from that there was a marked 0.98

00:19:00.180 shift in pre-election Andrew Scheer to election Scheer and then also post-election Scheer.

00:19:06.460 And it seems like you were a lot more restrained.

00:19:08.880 And I don't mean that in a way that you're bombastic or radical or anything outside of

00:19:13.420 the election.

00:19:13.740 But you were a lot more restrained.

00:19:15.240 And a lot of people didn't feel like your personality, Sean.

00:19:17.940 Is that something that you would view as a fair assessment?

00:19:20.000 I think there's definitely something to that.

00:19:23.100 It's a normal human beings don't communicate the way politicians do.

00:19:28.180 Like, you know, normally you want to say something, pick up the phone, you help on your friend.

00:19:31.740 We have to communicate through different filters.

00:19:33.900 You know, we have to speak to journalists.

00:19:35.940 We have to do interviews.

00:19:37.080 We have to put content on social media.

00:19:38.860 And so I think over time, you know, you are trying to refine a message.

00:19:45.920 You are trying to simplify a message, stay focused on a message.

00:19:49.600 And sometimes over time, it suddenly becomes, well, this isn't really how you would put it

00:19:54.120 or this isn't what your actual take on something is.

00:19:57.760 And I do think, you know, in retrospect, if I look back, I think of some of the things

00:20:03.760 that I've said or done after I announced I was stepping down when the pressure's off a

00:20:08.120 little bit, you know, let Andrew be Andrew, you know, and sometimes I kind of feel,

00:20:13.440 yeah, geez, I wonder if we could have done more of that.

00:20:16.140 You know, you do want to, you know, polish a message and make sure that there's a

00:20:22.440 clear contrast between your party and the other guys.

00:20:25.060 So there's a need for that.

00:20:26.420 But sometimes I did think that, looking back, that maybe I wasn't always able to

00:20:31.200 connect in an authentic way and let my own personality come through.

00:20:36.040 Because I think that's what Canadians, I think all voters are looking for that.

00:20:39.480 And that's one of the things, you know, I've challenged myself and did I always, was I

00:20:43.180 always able to do that?

00:20:44.260 And, you know, I think there's something to be said for sometimes just throwing away

00:20:48.540 the notes and, and, and just, you know, saying, saying what comes to your head.

00:20:53.360 Yeah.

00:20:53.740 I appreciated his candor on that because I was worried that it would just be sort of this

00:20:58.700 general reflection retrospective of, you know, not really saying or committing to anything,

00:21:03.620 but, but he was very frank in that and I was very grateful for it.

00:21:07.280 And there was another point in the interview as well.

00:21:09.600 I would encourage you to go back and watch the whole thing.

00:21:11.720 It's about 30 minutes long.

00:21:13.100 And there was another point that I really appreciated where he was talking about what I mentioned

00:21:17.800 earlier on in the show, the importance of really moving conservatism and advancing conservatism.

00:21:23.460 And that's a huge, huge issue of concern.

00:21:26.420 And I hope that he's not done with that now that he is going to continue in public service,

00:21:31.260 albeit not as conservative leaders.

00:21:33.220 So we didn't, because we were doing the interview, we didn't get a chance to break it down or

00:21:36.920 analyze it in the post interview show.

00:21:40.100 So that's what we're doing now.

00:21:41.600 And I just want to say thank you to all of you who wrote out and had some really kind

00:21:45.220 things to say about that interview.

00:21:46.440 I like doing it and I got to do it in the fireside chat a couple of weeks ago with Derek

00:21:51.040 Sloan and Aaron O'Toole.

00:21:52.220 And I, someone else had said, you should do more interviews.

00:21:54.880 And I said, yeah, I'll do them.

00:21:55.980 I just want to make sure that there are people worth talking to.

00:21:58.060 So if you have ideas of people I should sit down with, let me know.

00:22:01.500 And we'll, as we plan the show in the weeks and months ahead, we'll try to incorporate

00:22:05.620 some of those.

00:22:06.580 Now that like we're allowed to sit in the same rooms as people, because I don't like Skype

00:22:10.320 interviews as much.

00:22:11.500 They have a role, but I digress.

00:22:14.140 So all of this, I think sets the stage for where we are right now in the conservative leadership

00:22:20.060 race.

00:22:20.580 As I mentioned, August 23rd, so less than a week until the ballots are counted and the winner

00:22:27.020 is announced.

00:22:28.300 And then from there, the next leader has to hit the ground running, potentially heading

00:22:32.440 in to an election.

00:22:33.900 If Yves-Francois Blanchet and the bloc continue to put the pressure on the government and say

00:22:39.940 they want to defeat the government.

00:22:41.860 And, you know, if the NDP finally wake up from their slumber and decide they want to

00:22:46.980 as well.

00:22:47.720 So I find it interesting though, in the homestretch, you have leadership candidates going all over

00:22:52.460 the country doing these ballot drop-off sites where they'll go to a house in a community

00:22:57.500 and they'll just tell people, listen, for an hour, come and drop your ballots off.

00:23:01.580 And if you see on Twitter, the campaigns all have like pictures of like boxes and boxes

00:23:06.660 and boxes of envelopes, which normally would look a bit sketchy, but in a leadership race

00:23:10.820 is par for the course.

00:23:12.240 And what they're doing is trying to get every last member vote in before the deadline for

00:23:20.480 ballots to be received, which is on Friday, the 21st.

00:23:23.540 So when you're going after Conservative members, Conservative Party of Canada members, those are

00:23:30.540 the only people that can vote in the race.

00:23:32.240 There are certain places that I don't think you're likely to find them.

00:23:35.520 Like, for example, the Toronto Star.

00:23:37.980 Remember how last week I was talking about Peter McKay seeming to fear or just simply

00:23:44.200 dislike independent media?

00:23:46.220 Well, after months of McKay turning down requests for independent media and many other interview

00:23:52.020 requests, by the way, from what I've heard, he does a full interview with the Toronto Star

00:23:56.620 in which he not only...

00:24:00.500 This is great.

00:24:02.260 He basically threatens to fire a lot of the people on his team in this interview.

00:24:08.560 Let me read the exact quote on this because it's just too great.

00:24:12.980 The article says,

00:24:14.340 McKay is still widely seen as the frontrunner, but he recognizes that he needs to change and

00:24:19.260 the people around him need to change should he assume the party leadership.

00:24:23.620 Quote,

00:24:23.900 Now, what he's saying, by the way, is not necessarily untrue.

00:24:41.480 Yes, your team is going to change.

00:24:43.160 You're going to expand it, potentially bring people in from other teams.

00:24:46.420 But when you want people to drive hard in the final few days, basically saying, oh, yeah,

00:24:51.980 some of them aren't going to make the cut and some of our team's got to change, probably

00:24:55.880 not the best way to motivate the people on your team to, you know, give it everything

00:25:00.880 they've got in the home stretch if they think that there's not going to be a job on the other

00:25:05.300 end of it for them or something like that.

00:25:07.740 And the reason this is so important is because Peter McKay has always been throughout this race,

00:25:13.080 it seems, in conflict with his team where he'll say something, then they'll say something else

00:25:19.180 or they'll send out a tweet and then he'll apologize for it or he'll sit down for an interview

00:25:23.820 and then they'll end it and then he'll apologize for ending it.

00:25:26.840 And I mean, there's been this conflict there.

00:25:28.980 And one of the big problems from everything I've heard is that there are way too many cooks in that

00:25:34.200 kitchen where just so many people, it becomes impossible to have a clear, concise message

00:25:39.760 when you've got so many different voices and advisors and people.

00:25:43.400 So it ends up being where you have what is a pretty disproportionately large team of paid staff

00:25:50.060 for a leadership race.

00:25:51.860 And at the end of it, you just have like too many people that are contributing

00:25:55.680 to what's supposed to be a unified and singular message strategy and approach.

00:26:00.940 But when McKay is basically saying, oh yeah, some of my team's got to go,

00:26:05.140 it would make anyone on that team, I think, a little bit wary of whether they have a future.

00:26:12.020 And if the question was, hey, are you happy with the team you have now or something like that?

00:26:17.240 And by the way, I don't know what the question was.

00:26:19.360 But if that was what the reporter asked, it's kind of a trap because you don't want to say yes

00:26:24.280 because then that says you think your campaign's been perfect when it clearly hasn't.

00:26:28.220 You don't want to say no, which McKay did, because then you're throwing your team under the bus,

00:26:31.960 which is not what leadership is about at all.

00:26:34.640 What you say is, listen, that's a discussion for after the leadership.

00:26:38.560 What we're focused on right now is getting to that home stretch.

00:26:41.800 We've got a great team of people that are working around the clock, yada, yada, yada.

00:26:45.700 That's the answer.

00:26:47.040 And the fact that I'm not one of these official, you know, high paid conservative consultant types,

00:26:51.460 and I know the right answer to that question,

00:26:53.720 is I think indicative of why this has been such a rocky, rocky campaign.

00:26:59.000 And so needlessly so.

00:27:00.460 So all of the McKay defenders on Twitter were saying, you know, they're defending this,

00:27:07.340 saying one of them pointed out, oh, that's not what he said at all when I shared the quote,

00:27:11.560 and that was exactly what he said.

00:27:13.360 Someone else was saying that, no, no, no, what he's doing is he's trying to motivate them to work harder

00:27:18.260 so that they, so he's basically like using the carrot and a stick is what one of the defenses was,

00:27:23.320 which again, I would argue is not at all leadership.

00:27:26.260 And, you know, this is kind of an inside fight, I realize,

00:27:31.280 but the bigger issue is that a conservative doing an interview with the Toronto Star

00:27:36.580 after shirking independent media requests and most conservative-friendly outlets

00:27:43.160 for the better part of the campaign,

00:27:45.720 then throwing their team under the bus to the Toronto Star

00:27:48.960 is not moving small-c conservatism and advancing it.

00:27:54.340 It's not that at all.

00:27:55.180 It's doing the opposite.

00:27:56.700 And Aaron O'Toole also did the Toronto Star interview.

00:27:59.500 Leslyn Lewis did as well.

00:28:00.780 I don't think Derek Sloan did.

00:28:02.380 I have less of an issue with that

00:28:04.340 because they have made themselves available to True North,

00:28:07.700 to other conservative-leaning media outlets.

00:28:10.240 So it's not like they're doing one or the other like McKay did,

00:28:14.140 who's saying, you know, no to Post-Millennial,

00:28:16.520 no to True North, no to Rabble,

00:28:18.140 no to, I think, the Toronto Sun even, if memory serves,

00:28:20.940 and saying yes, yes to the Toronto Star.

00:28:23.500 And, you know, I'll give you a little bit of a goodie.

00:28:24.800 I'm going to throw my team under the bus in this interview.

00:28:28.100 And I made a swipe at this on Twitter the other day,

00:28:31.540 and I pointed out this fact.

00:28:33.520 And what was interesting is the author of the article,

00:28:37.120 the author of the series, Alex Boutillier from the Toronto Star,

00:28:40.600 had kind of responded and said he agreed with me

00:28:44.160 that this series was not going to move leadership votes.

00:28:47.900 It's not going to get anyone any votes in the leadership race.

00:28:50.720 So even the author of the series is admitting

00:28:53.140 that this isn't going to get anyone any votes,

00:28:54.980 to which I say, okay, why are you doing it

00:28:57.120 when the ballots are not even counted yet?

00:28:59.760 And there are still conservative members out there

00:29:02.800 who you should be reaching

00:29:04.220 if you're serious about actually getting conservative support.

00:29:08.280 And this is a dynamic in the leadership race

00:29:10.600 that is very important.

00:29:12.160 If they're not prepared to give anything to the base

00:29:15.900 in a leadership race,

00:29:17.140 when the base is the only group that matters,

00:29:19.960 they're certainly not going to give you anything

00:29:22.420 in a general election.

00:29:25.120 And if you take nothing else from this episode,

00:29:28.320 make it that,

00:29:29.740 that typically the song and dance

00:29:31.560 is that in a leadership race,

00:29:33.540 leadership candidates will be

00:29:34.820 the most conservative versions of themselves.

00:29:38.580 You're never going to get more conservative

00:29:40.480 than how you are in a leadership race.

00:29:42.240 If you're really lucky,

00:29:43.260 someone might be as conservative in a general

00:29:45.620 as they are in a leadership.

00:29:46.920 But for the most part,

00:29:47.940 they all become more moderate in the general.

00:29:50.800 It happened with Andrew Scheer.

00:29:52.260 It happened with Stephen Harper.

00:29:53.980 It's happened with leadership races

00:29:56.160 across the country in provinces like Ontario.

00:29:58.720 It happened with Doug Ford.

00:29:59.740 This is what you do

00:30:00.980 because you need to get your base on board,

00:30:03.520 your members on board,

00:30:04.620 and then you have to pivot

00:30:06.020 to a more palatable vision for the electorate.

00:30:09.740 And I can say that I'm frustrated with this.

00:30:12.080 And I can say that I don't think

00:30:13.180 the moderation is necessary in all of that.

00:30:15.700 But the fact remains

00:30:16.800 that you're never going to find more conservatism

00:30:20.640 than you will in someone's leadership platform from them.

00:30:24.620 So if McKay is uninterested in talking right now

00:30:28.720 to conservatives

00:30:30.280 and uninterested in actually putting forward

00:30:32.660 a red meat conservative platform,

00:30:35.080 then he sure as heck isn't going to do anything

00:30:38.120 for conservatives

00:30:39.240 when he's going after the votes of all Canadians.

00:30:44.400 Now, you may look at this and say

00:30:46.120 that he's a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of candidate,

00:30:48.840 which is fine.

00:30:49.620 If that's what you want,

00:30:50.700 that is absolutely fine.

00:30:52.180 But the problem with that

00:30:54.640 is that if you want someone to put forward

00:30:57.320 a solid, cohesive, and coherent conservative vision,

00:31:01.180 if you're not getting that in a leadership,

00:31:03.620 you never will.

00:31:05.280 You absolutely never will.

00:31:07.460 And this is where the idea of defeating Trudeau

00:31:10.480 as the goal

00:31:11.480 negates that the whole point of defeating Trudeau,

00:31:15.780 the whole reason why people want Trudeau gone,

00:31:18.060 is because they don't like what he's doing.

00:31:20.860 They don't like the liberal, big government,

00:31:22.980 capital P, progressive vision

00:31:24.480 that he's putting forward.

00:31:25.720 Someone has to be prepared

00:31:27.360 to replace that with something.

00:31:29.800 Otherwise, it doesn't matter.

00:31:32.100 And I'm not getting into this whole Trudeau-lite,

00:31:34.240 liberal-lite sort of thing.

00:31:35.520 It's not about name-calling.

00:31:37.240 It's just about how politics works.

00:31:40.020 If you are trying to get rid of someone,

00:31:42.440 you have to be able to put something forward

00:31:44.200 that is better than what they were doing.

00:31:46.620 And if you're not prepared to do that,

00:31:49.480 you're not offering any contrast

00:31:51.340 or any difference at all.

00:31:53.020 So my caution to conservatives,

00:31:55.580 I'm not going to tell you how to vote.

00:31:57.400 I trust people to be able to do that themselves.

00:31:59.620 It is not my place as a broadcaster.

00:32:01.620 It's certainly not True North's place

00:32:02.980 to tell you how to vote.

00:32:04.520 My advice is this.

00:32:06.860 Look at what someone is offering.

00:32:09.100 Look beyond the name.

00:32:10.180 Look beyond the logo.

00:32:11.180 Look beyond all of that.

00:32:12.460 Look at what someone is offering

00:32:13.860 and understand that you're never going to get

00:32:16.000 100% of what they're offering now.

00:32:18.320 So think of if someone is offering you

00:32:20.260 X, Y, and Z now,

00:32:21.940 can you live with just X and Y?

00:32:24.500 Can you live with just X?

00:32:25.640 Because that might be all you get.

00:32:28.040 And if they're offering you X, Y, Z,

00:32:30.420 and even that isn't enough for you,

00:32:32.600 vote for someone else. 0.93

00:32:34.300 We've got to take a break.

00:32:35.480 When we come back,

00:32:36.360 more of The Andrew Lawton Show

00:32:37.680 here on True North.

00:32:39.780 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:32:43.860 One of the things I hope you know about me by now

00:32:51.600 is that I really value and cherish consistency.

00:32:55.400 And this is something that's very difficult to find

00:32:57.580 from a lot of politicians

00:32:59.060 and certainly a lot of commentators.

00:33:01.360 So I have to point out the absurdity of right now,

00:33:04.900 everyone going after Donald Trump

00:33:06.720 for musing about whether the election

00:33:09.440 needs to be postponed

00:33:10.420 and, you know, all of the politicking

00:33:12.660 about mail-in ballots and stuff like that.

00:33:14.880 And I'm not going to get into that in full this show

00:33:17.220 because I think I'm going to look at that

00:33:18.400 in a bit more depth later on.

00:33:21.080 But then you have right now

00:33:23.060 Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand

00:33:26.920 who's being heralded as like this great brave woman

00:33:30.220 for delaying the New Zealand election by four weeks.

00:33:34.100 So Prime Minister Ardern has pushed the election back

00:33:37.880 to October 17th for now.

00:33:40.340 Now, obviously, as a Commonwealth country,

00:33:43.000 as a Westminster parliamentary system,

00:33:45.240 there's a bit more flexibility than there is

00:33:47.760 in the rigid American electoral system.

00:33:50.160 But New Zealand, which for the most part

00:33:52.400 has a minimal, minimal caseload right now

00:33:55.740 and had actually eradicated the virus

00:33:57.580 and is only now just looking at tiny, tiny numbers,

00:34:01.280 is saying, you know what, we had a cluster,

00:34:03.980 so we're going to, just to be safe,

00:34:05.460 postpone the election.

00:34:06.940 Whereas, and I don't think that

00:34:08.680 this is necessarily the wrong call

00:34:10.800 and it doesn't sound like

00:34:11.620 there's a huge amount of pushback.

00:34:14.280 But when Prime Minister Ardern does this

00:34:16.860 and it's heralded as being, you know,

00:34:19.240 putting your people first, 0.96

00:34:20.980 would be dictatorial in the United States.

00:34:24.180 It shows that there is perhaps

00:34:25.460 a bit of inconsistency

00:34:26.940 among most political onlookers,

00:34:29.340 which is always important to expose.

00:34:31.280 In stories that I never would have predicted

00:34:34.340 for 2020, if you had asked me in,

00:34:36.840 you know, the year 2000,

00:34:38.700 Ed the Sock, which, as the name suggests,

00:34:42.280 is a sock, a crusty,

00:34:45.060 in a most literal and figurative sense

00:34:46.960 as possible, commentator,

00:34:49.100 has become, you know, at one point,

00:34:51.260 a much music personality, beloved in Canada,

00:34:53.840 and now this pathetic, groveling, liberal shill.

00:34:58.620 But now Ed the Sock,

00:34:59.820 who has been pretty much a jerk 0.55

00:35:01.700 to anyone and everyone

00:35:02.880 who dares criticize the dear leader,

00:35:04.580 Justin Trudeau,

00:35:05.540 is now facing his own cancellation

00:35:07.620 as liberals are denouncing Ed the Sock

00:35:09.740 for calling Jagmeet Singh Jughead.

00:35:13.620 Now, this is probably not meant to be racist.

00:35:17.500 I think it was meant to make fun of his name,

00:35:19.520 which, at the very least,

00:35:21.000 is immature and bad comedy,

00:35:22.580 and, at the very worst,

00:35:24.160 is tone-deaf and insensitive. 0.52

00:35:26.700 But now Press Progress,

00:35:28.200 the full-on NDP front organization,

00:35:31.640 has done the denunciation of Ed the Sock,

00:35:34.800 talking about how several liberal MPs,

00:35:36.760 which are supposed to be

00:35:37.640 Ed the Sock's bread and butter,

00:35:38.820 given that I don't think the Sock

00:35:40.780 is actually working beyond being

00:35:43.040 just an armchair liberal strategist,

00:35:45.660 are distancing themselves from him,

00:35:48.460 if you look on Twitter.

00:35:50.040 So this is what's happening right now.

00:35:51.780 So, and again,

00:35:53.120 I don't like anyone going through

00:35:55.000 the cancel mill.

00:35:56.420 I don't know if Socks can be canceled

00:35:59.560 or if they just get, like, you know,

00:36:00.840 thrown in the wash

00:36:01.520 and he can go through the Sock vortex.

00:36:03.160 But most people's Socks go through

00:36:05.120 when they get washed.

00:36:06.540 My whole thing is that I didn't know

00:36:08.860 Ed the Sock was still around

00:36:10.560 until he just started, like,

00:36:11.940 tweeting nasty things on Twitter.

00:36:13.580 Sometimes to me,

00:36:14.800 especially during the election,

00:36:16.060 he wasn't a fan of us trying to

00:36:18.340 get allowed to cover

00:36:20.200 liberal campaign events.

00:36:21.780 because I guess he thought

00:36:22.720 we were taking up a spot on the bus

00:36:24.200 that his royal Sockness 0.70

00:36:26.460 could be taking up.

00:36:28.240 And in any case,

00:36:29.160 this one I'm going to end on here

00:36:30.860 because I find this to be

00:36:32.000 just completely devastating.

00:36:33.960 A study called

00:36:34.980 Human Trafficking Public Awareness Research

00:36:37.220 that was done by

00:36:39.320 Environic's research group

00:36:40.740 for the government

00:36:41.560 has pulled a number of youth

00:36:43.700 across the country

00:36:45.100 on what they fear.

00:36:47.300 And what they found in this study

00:36:49.800 was that climate change

00:36:51.120 is feared by youth

00:36:52.840 more than drugs, guns, gangs,

00:36:55.140 or traffic accidents.

00:36:56.420 This is, again,

00:36:57.680 the Department of Public Safety's findings.

00:36:59.980 And they asked people

00:37:01.300 how they thought these issues,

00:37:03.560 and they listed them,

00:37:04.940 fared in terms of seriousness.

00:37:06.980 57% said climate change

00:37:09.240 is an extremely serious threat,

00:37:11.420 ranking greenhouse gas emissions

00:37:13.100 at a higher level of peril

00:37:16.300 than guns, gangs, hate crimes,

00:37:18.140 cyberbullying, and illegal drugs.

00:37:20.800 A quarter of them said

00:37:21.960 it's the most serious issue

00:37:23.440 facing children,

00:37:24.660 and only 13% said so

00:37:26.680 about other issues.

00:37:27.920 And this is a story

00:37:29.000 that comes courtesy

00:37:29.720 of Blacklock's reporter,

00:37:31.860 which does some tremendously

00:37:33.000 great work on

00:37:33.980 finding all of these

00:37:35.180 different reports and studies.

00:37:37.020 This is the product

00:37:38.280 of when you completely

00:37:39.720 and abjectly fear-monger

00:37:41.800 to kids about global warming

00:37:44.500 when something that poses

00:37:46.240 no existential threat to them,

00:37:47.820 that poses no threat

00:37:48.720 to them at all,

00:37:49.620 is feared more than issues

00:37:51.740 that we know are actually

00:37:53.500 causing lives to be lost.

00:37:55.740 The opioid crisis

00:37:56.920 is one of the greatest

00:37:58.080 public health crises

00:37:59.160 the country has ever faced,

00:38:00.880 killing people at a rate

00:38:02.240 that is completely preventable

00:38:04.520 and avoidable,

00:38:06.060 and all of a sudden

00:38:07.240 kids are more concerned

00:38:08.740 because, you know,

00:38:09.760 AOC is warning about cow farts,

00:38:11.800 than they are about something

00:38:13.140 that exists in their schools.

00:38:14.800 You look at human trafficking,

00:38:16.180 a growing issue,

00:38:17.100 something we absolutely

00:38:18.080 need to deal with,

00:38:19.200 and they're more concerned

00:38:20.220 about what David Suzuki

00:38:21.420 is saying than what

00:38:22.660 the traffickers in the next

00:38:23.800 classroom over are

00:38:24.940 talking about and doing.

00:38:26.780 So, this is not to say

00:38:28.300 that it's a zero-sum game.

00:38:29.580 Yes, if multiple things

00:38:30.640 are causing a risk,

00:38:31.800 it's great to be aware of them.

00:38:33.400 I don't like the idea

00:38:34.340 of kids living in fear anyway,

00:38:36.340 when by and large,

00:38:37.320 it's safer to be a kid

00:38:38.420 in 2020

00:38:39.140 than it was in 1960,

00:38:40.920 1970, 1980.

00:38:42.580 It's safer now,

00:38:43.880 and we should be happy

00:38:44.800 about that.

00:38:45.660 But my goodness,

00:38:46.560 the fact that we have people

00:38:48.020 fear-mongering to children,

00:38:50.260 telling them that

00:38:50.920 they're going to die,

00:38:51.620 that the world is going to end.

00:38:53.060 When I was at,

00:38:54.040 in the election campaign,

00:38:55.380 the climate march

00:38:56.200 in Montreal,

00:38:57.420 not marching in it,

00:38:58.660 I was covering Justin Trudeau,

00:39:00.040 who was there.

00:39:00.720 This is when Greta Thunberg

00:39:01.900 was there.

00:39:02.900 And I was actually astonished

00:39:04.980 at how many kids

00:39:06.380 were brought out there

00:39:07.460 whose only frame of reference

00:39:09.640 for these issues

00:39:10.480 is what their parents tell them.

00:39:13.320 And kids,

00:39:14.100 some of them,

00:39:14.740 didn't want to be there.

00:39:15.780 There was one in particular,

00:39:16.760 I remember,

00:39:17.080 that was crying,

00:39:17.700 saying,

00:39:17.920 I want to leave,

00:39:18.340 and the parents were saying,

00:39:19.060 no, we have to stay.

00:39:20.700 And kids that,

00:39:21.780 again,

00:39:22.180 were carrying around signs

00:39:23.680 about how their world is dying,

00:39:25.400 their world is ending,

00:39:26.180 and they're going to die. 0.76

00:39:27.240 And I'm seeing this,

00:39:28.420 thinking,

00:39:28.880 this is absolutely child abuse

00:39:31.260 for parents to be imposing

00:39:33.080 this much made-up fear

00:39:35.220 on their children.

00:39:36.960 And now the government's own study

00:39:38.580 is proving that this fear-mongering

00:39:40.120 is working.

00:39:41.800 We've got to wrap things up.

00:39:43.160 My thanks to all of you

00:39:44.160 for tuning into the show today.

00:39:45.620 We'll be back in a couple of days

00:39:46.920 with more of Canada's

00:39:48.420 most irreverent talk show.

00:39:50.140 Thank you.

00:39:50.640 God bless.

00:39:51.300 Good day, Canada.

00:39:52.300 Thanks for listening

00:39:53.020 to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:39:54.200 Support the program

00:39:55.280 by donating to True North

00:39:56.520 at www.tnc.news.

00:40:01.260 The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:40:03.080 See you next time.

00:40:04.380 Bye.

00:40:05.220 Bye.

00:40:05.320 Bye.

00:40:06.100 Bye.

00:40:06.940 Bye.

00:40:09.300 Bye.

00:40:09.540 Bye.

00:40:11.900 Bye.

00:40:14.600 Bye.

00:40:17.300 Bye.

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Juno News - August 17, 2020

Blink Twice If You Need Help, Minister Morneau

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