Juno News - British Columbia Conservatives are surging in the polls

00:00:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:00:08.880 north hello and welcome to you all happy thursday this is canada's most irreverent

00:00:18.120 talk show the andrew lawton show on true north good to have you with us as we do something we've

00:00:22.780 never done before on the history of the show a whole episode dedicated to british columbia

00:00:28.440 politics i know we've done alberta politics we've done ontario politics we've done new brunswick

00:00:33.640 politics i don't know if we've ever done a full show on quebec politics it's a i mean the show

00:00:38.660 would have to separate into two parts i know low blow anyway i want to talk about bc now i'll first

00:00:45.300 concede that the reason we have not has often been because for the issues that we talk about

00:00:50.500 on this show british columbia has historically not offered all that much it's especially in recent

00:00:56.220 years been the battle of the left-wing party versus the other left-wing party i know our good friend

00:01:01.160 aaron gunn tried to do a hostile takeover of the bc liberals and wasn't even allowed to seek the

00:01:07.520 leadership because they just didn't like that he was proud of canada that was patriotism in your

00:01:12.280 country is basically a disqualifying offense in that party i mean it's worked out all right for aaron

00:01:17.260 he's now running for a federal seat uh for the conservatives but the reality is british columbia

00:01:23.540 has seen a massive massive change in the last few months alone when the bc conservative party which

00:01:29.580 despite having a long history in the party but not all that rich in electoral history in recent decades

00:01:35.740 has started to surge neck and neck with the ndp uh pretty much guaranteed to be at very least the

00:01:42.760 second place party the official opposition and efforts for the bc conservatives to merge or collaborate

00:01:50.020 with the bc united which was formerly called the bc liberals have been very rocky to say the least and

00:01:56.360 as a result some bc united mlas have just in large enough numbers started crossing the floor to join

00:02:02.800 the bc conservatives instead with as recently as last week more people joining my guest today himself

00:02:09.340 crossed the floor he was once a bc united mla but joined the bc conservatives and subsequently became

00:02:16.240 their leader and he's done a bang-up job according to the polling in bringing that party into where it is

00:02:22.520 now john rustad he's been in mla for about 20 years the last 15 of which representing nechaco lakes

00:02:29.040 and he joins me now john rustad leader of the bc conservatives good to talk to you thanks so much for

00:02:34.560 coming on today andrew it's nice to see you now i was just saying to my audience a moment before we began

00:02:40.560 i i will admit that we have been negligent historically in covering british columbia politics

00:02:45.280 but uh much of that i i will pass a little bit of the blame to bc politics itself because for for

00:02:51.420 people that care about a lot of the issues you've been talking about there hasn't always been a voice

00:02:56.220 for them and i i don't want to go through the whole history of the bc liberal party here except to

00:03:01.460 say that it's a party that in recent years seems to have gone particularly away from the conservative

00:03:07.680 part that was always there and i wanted to ask why voters themselves you think at this point

00:03:13.820 are surging towards your party in the way they are well i think you know there's a couple of

00:03:20.060 things i mean first of all i mean the conservative party of bc is the oldest party in bc's history but

00:03:24.140 more than that i think you know people are tired of what's been happening it's been 33 years since

00:03:30.120 1991 we've had 16 years of bc liberal and we've had 17 years now of ndp and we've got a crisis

00:03:36.320 whether it's health care we've got a crisis in affordability we've got a crisis in housing we've

00:03:40.000 got a crisis in addictions we've got a crisis in crime we've got a crisis in our resource sector

00:03:44.540 we even have a crisis in our finances with our debt downgrades and i think people are just saying

00:03:49.420 enough is enough we need to get back to the basics we need to get back to common sense and i think

00:03:54.040 that's ultimately why the conservative party british columbia is gaining in the popularity and

00:03:59.120 the strength in british columbia there's a line in politics you often hear it federally but i think

00:04:04.840 it applies provincially that in this country we don't vote governments in as much as we vote them

00:04:09.400 out and i wanted to ask in your sense are people voting for the bc conservatives right now or signaling

00:04:15.300 their support for it or are you just the benefactor of a general momentum towards change of people that

00:04:21.520 just think the ndp has to go i think it's maybe a little of both um i would i would put it this way

00:04:28.020 i've joined the conservative party in february of 2023 i took on the leadership of the conservative

00:04:33.300 party at the end of march of 2023 uh prior to that the conservative party was around three or four

00:04:38.900 percent in the polls and so it's if there is that sort of shift where people just want to get rid of

00:04:45.020 the ndp it's happened very quickly and so i think it's a combination i think people are very upset with

00:04:49.980 the ndp they're upset with the policies and and this radical sort of approach that david eby and the ndp

00:04:55.400 are taking of british columbia but they didn't really have an alternative and now they do have an

00:04:59.940 alternative and so i think it's a combination of having that option as well as you know people

00:05:05.260 wanting that sense of change and get rid of what's going on here with the government

00:05:08.900 you know you've made a lot of controversy among certain segments of the population when you've come

00:05:14.380 out and have said critical things about gender ideology when you've called out things that have

00:05:18.900 taken place in bc schools but some of the most controversial things you've said and done i think

00:05:24.680 have been supporting pipelines which is in the course of british columbia political history become

00:05:29.500 a bit of a heretical position you've also signaled that you want to scrap the carbon tax which federally

00:05:35.100 right now is proving to be a very popular position but people outside of bc might not remember that you

00:05:40.420 had it in your province before it was the norm federally but these two policies why have they

00:05:47.140 endured so long in bc this resistance to pipelines this support for a carbon tax and again why now

00:05:53.920 has that support fractured well when half the people in the province are struggling to put food

00:06:00.160 on the table um you know the the urgency of of things like climate sort of change and you know

00:06:07.520 what i always say taxing people into poverty is not going to change the weather and so i think people

00:06:12.400 are coming to the conclusion that you know climate change is real there's issues we need to deal with

00:06:17.120 but people also need to be able to put food on the table they need to be able to pay the rent they want

00:06:22.040 to be able to maybe dream one day of owning a home or putting some money away from the future maybe

00:06:26.300 even having a family and so people are looking for that change that'll say yes i can actually have

00:06:32.200 that dream that was once british columbia and same sort of thing with with the uh with the pipelines

00:06:38.320 particularly with the natural gas lines i think people have made can make that connection that

00:06:43.160 when next we have a strong economy we cannot be able to afford the things that we are doing we can't

00:06:48.600 afford the tax relief we can't afford um you know being able to address our health care changes we

00:06:54.260 need to be able to have the revenue and so it's a logical fit to say we have resources we have an

00:06:59.640 opportunity to be able to export those resources other countries certainly need it there's a billion

00:07:03.860 people in the world without electricity today let's step up to the plate and help those people

00:07:07.940 at the same time being able to improve the quality of life for people here in british columbia

00:07:11.860 there are a lot of british colombians who listen to the show of course but also it's a national

00:07:17.160 audience so there are some people that might not be as familiar with it and i i think there's a

00:07:21.300 tendency to extrapolate what vancouver's politics are to the province as a whole and anytime i've been

00:07:28.360 to bc and i talk to people outside of downtown vancouver or i guess victoria you get a remarkably

00:07:33.620 different perspective on things than what you do by these subsets and i suspect there's probably a

00:07:39.620 similar dynamic you're seeing here where you know sure downtown there are people that are still very

00:07:44.520 against you on this but but i would imagine that ordinary people outside of these urban centers and

00:07:49.500 even indigenous people that are often held up as being the opponents to energy development are

00:07:55.500 are overwhelmingly find themselves quite supportive of this you know i i always get this question about

00:08:01.620 the rule and the urban area and lower mainland versus the rest of the province and i always put it this

00:08:06.220 way they all have the same problems they're all the same issues they're all struggling with

00:08:10.880 affordability they're struggling with the health care system that's in collapse and they want change

00:08:15.260 and so i actually don't see it as being as much of a divide um from a position between where people are

00:08:21.740 for versus uh you know urban versus rural but i do see that the one thing that uh is is really critical

00:08:29.160 is a government quite frankly that just is going to get back to the basics and whether it's what's going

00:08:34.660 on our schools or what's going on in our economy what's going on with things like housing and

00:08:39.200 affordability people are just saying enough of this ideology enough of this this stuff that has

00:08:44.540 clearly created crises we just want to get back to being able to live our lives and so yes there is

00:08:50.100 some issues certainly between uh various areas of the province in terms of how to do things around

00:08:55.380 particularly around things like energy but british colombians they don't even realize that 84 percent of the

00:09:02.140 energy we consume is hydrocarbons only 16 one six is is electricity and so we need to do a change and

00:09:11.040 yes it'd be great we want to move away away from using hydrocarbons but it's going to take enormous

00:09:16.140 effort in terms of how we're going to build out capacity to be able to do that and that's one thing

00:09:20.980 that we say is we need to be realistic about how we do these approaches hydrocarbon is going to be

00:09:26.220 here with us for many decades to come as we build that out and the two are not necessarily opposed

00:09:31.800 to one another since you mentioned health care i wanted to ask you about the the canby case brian

00:09:37.280 day has been a guest on this show your government uh not under your party but your province's government

00:09:42.340 fought tooth and nail against this idea of patients having choice of having for-profit

00:09:48.680 private uh health care services now now you've advocated for uh to use the terms on on your

00:09:54.260 website here choice and competition in the delivery of health care service as well retaining universal

00:09:59.940 access for british colombians what does that look like in practice you know it's interesting that uh

00:10:05.820 that case with brian day the provincial government essentially argued that the system was more important

00:10:11.860 than patient suffering it's hard to imagine and what's worse is the judge agreed with the province

00:10:17.320 and so to me that's just a real tragedy health care needs to be about the patient not the system

00:10:23.840 health care needs to be about making sure that you're doing everything you can to connect patients

00:10:28.180 with the services they need to be able to get healthy to be able to get treated to be able to

00:10:32.360 live the go on and you know live the best lives that they can and so you look at british colombia and

00:10:38.040 you look at canada you say who else in the world is following our model of health care there's only one

00:10:43.540 jurisdiction that comes close to that and that's north korea and i don't think that's a very good

00:10:47.960 model for us to be thinking about so you look at the models that are doing best that have the

00:10:52.780 shortest wait times that have much better access that have um you know much better the number of beds

00:10:58.960 or number of doctor capital these types things that have a much lower cost per capita than we do in

00:11:04.060 british colombia and those are more european models and they are universal health care models

00:11:08.540 single-payer but they're delivered by both public and private services and so why aren't we looking

00:11:13.140 to do the same thing and better utilize the professionals that we have to be able to provide

00:11:17.980 those services that people need and there's an inherent absurdity and i've talked to some of the

00:11:22.980 lawyers who have worked on on this in other cases where an albertan can you know go to british

00:11:27.800 columbia basically and pay out of pocket and a british colombian can go to alberta and pay out of

00:11:32.000 pocket and they're both seeing the same doctors but if someone goes to see one in their own province

00:11:36.460 they can't so what would you do to kind of give that patient choice that you're talking about

00:11:42.380 while also not uh fracturing what canadians do expect left or right right now which is a universal

00:11:48.280 access that doesn't discriminate based on how much money you have in your wallet basically well that's

00:11:53.460 exactly the model we're looking at is universal health care so that it's seamless to you you don't

00:11:58.260 know it doesn't matter to you whether it's coming from the public sector or somebody from the private

00:12:03.180 sector that's providing service you just need the service and it's paid for by a single user and

00:12:08.020 that's what we're looking at those are the models i think in europe that are very successful

00:12:11.340 but i think we got a for example a surgeon in in vancouver and he gets eight hours of surgery time a

00:12:20.480 week that's all he's allowed within the public system working at vancouver general and yet he could

00:12:24.920 very easily be doing 20 30 or 40 hours we need to better better utilize those people to be able to

00:12:30.160 provide the services that are needed as opposed to losing that expertise and ability because we've

00:12:35.480 got a system that is just it's too obstructive for being able to actually provide the services

00:12:41.180 and so and it doesn't matter in my opinion you know where you go whether it's a public clinic or

00:12:46.580 whether it's a private clinic to get it done you have a single payer you have government paying for it

00:12:50.960 it's universal health care it's the same for everybody and we can actually get this done under the

00:12:55.620 canadian health act we actually don't need to change the canadian health act to be able to do this

00:13:00.040 kind of delivery we've seen in british columbia over the last few years this profound failure of

00:13:07.400 permissive drug policy uh most recently even the government itself tended to concede that it's

00:13:12.540 a decriminalization pilot project hasn't worked but but even beyond that you have a safe supply which

00:13:18.020 is uh being abused we've had journalist adam zeeva one who's done a lot of work in in vancouver

00:13:23.000 specifically looking at this and then to contrast it with the province next door to you we have seen

00:13:28.120 in alberta premier danielle smith put a number of measures in place one of which is effectively

00:13:34.220 forced treatment or as the province calls it compassionate intervention is that something

00:13:38.860 you would put into british columbia uh that is something we're certainly looking at and you know

00:13:44.200 it's interesting that david eby and the ndp are talking about wanting to change decriminalization and

00:13:50.180 yet you have bonnie henry an agent of this ndp government out in ottawa last week saying

00:13:55.660 you know doubling down on both the criminalization and expansion of safe supply i mean these have been

00:14:01.520 absolutely horrendous policies the damage that's being done in those provinces is incredible but we

00:14:07.200 need to be able to move to that recovery model and we need to have everything in place from doctor

00:14:11.800 prescribed treatment to short-term voluntary recovery to longer-term voluntary recovery to

00:14:17.200 involuntary recovery to even long-term care for people what i mean by involuntary recovery take for

00:14:24.620 example if somebody has od'd and has been brought back to life clearly they are at risk of harming

00:14:31.180 themselves and under the mental health act they should be able to be treated and that's what we

00:14:37.040 need to be thinking about is even though they may not want to receive that treatment they're clearly at

00:14:41.520 risk of harming themselves they need to be able to go in and receive the treatment they can to try to

00:14:46.440 get them onto a healthy path in life and i just think it's compassionate to be able to do that i think

00:14:51.060 yes you know you're impacting on their rights but at the same time as a society we need to be looking

00:14:56.440 at this from perspective and saying they're not capable of being able to make that decision we

00:15:01.100 need to be able to step up and be able to help them help them in that circumstances to be able to

00:15:05.700 try to get back to some sort of you know normal life now do i take from that that you believe john

00:15:11.420 the existing laws already give you know the government a bit more authority than is perhaps being used

00:15:16.960 we have the we have the ability within the existing laws we may need to do some strengthening

00:15:21.560 of that but i'll also say this under section 7 i believe it is of the constitution we will likely

00:15:28.460 get a charter challenge because you're actually taking away somebody's rights when you when you

00:15:32.820 have mandatory recovery that you know people may end up having to be able to utilize and i think

00:15:40.160 on behalf of the society if we get to that place we really need to be thinking about this as we need

00:15:45.080 to do what's right for the province what's right for the people in the society and if the courts

00:15:49.140 aren't going to allow us to do that we might have to lose use something like the notwithstanding

00:15:52.520 clause to be able to implement it so so you would be prepared to to use the notwithstanding clause

00:15:58.040 just to understand this correctly to uh force uh drug users that are posing a risk of themselves

00:16:03.380 into treatment yeah i think we're in a situation where uh i would hope that we wouldn't get

00:16:08.620 challenged i would hope that people would see that this is about being compassionate this is about

00:16:12.280 doing the right thing for the individual as well as for the society as in whole but if we get to a

00:16:17.860 place where you get an activist judge or you get a group that wants to to fight this because they

00:16:22.000 disagree um it is something that i'd be prepared to look at doing because at the end of the day the

00:16:27.000 provincial government needs to be able to step up and do what's right for british columbia and that's

00:16:31.800 what i've been saying all along it's not about being conservative or liberal or ndp or green or any of that

00:16:36.140 kind of stuff it's just to stand for what's right and fight for the average everyday person and that's

00:16:40.660 what we have to be able to do in these policies and approaches the the rise of drug problems has

00:16:46.200 in pretty much every city in the country that has gone through this coincided with a rise in property

00:16:50.960 crime and other aspects of it and you know it's been quite horrifying to hear all of the families

00:16:56.160 especially in toronto and vancouver that are afraid to use public transit for example they are

00:17:02.560 afraid to go out for a walk around their streets their own neighborhoods and is it too late to fix

00:17:08.560 this and i i hate sounding so pessimistic but can this actually be addressed at this point

00:17:13.200 um it's never too late to hope to be able to be able to achieve better and i think quite frankly we

00:17:20.220 can but i don't believe there's a magic bullet it's not going to change overnight we need to put

00:17:25.580 systematic processes in place to be able to change this so you know for example my wife uh back a few

00:17:31.280 weeks ago she was at a gas station she was filling up and somebody came and asked her for money she felt

00:17:35.960 really uncomfortable she said no this individual walked into the gas station went to use the the

00:17:41.360 washroom came out of the washroom grabbed the pop grabbed a couple bags of chips and walked out the

00:17:45.680 store the the the person working at the till had no recourse no ability to do anything and there's no

00:17:52.520 way law enforcement would respond and so people are just becoming emboldened because there is no

00:17:57.640 consequences for breaking laws and that's continually moving up the ladder just whether it's petty crime or

00:18:04.100 where there's larger crimes and when you talk to the police the challenge they have is they can arrest

00:18:09.560 people but there's not getting through prosecution and prosecution is frustrated because they don't

00:18:13.640 want to take it to the judge because there's going to be either no consequences or it's going to be

00:18:18.200 thrown out or whatever the case may be and so we there's a quite a big change that is needed

00:18:23.580 within the system freeing up time for police by trying to deal with the addictions issue so that

00:18:29.160 they're not having to do so many of the domestic issues like dealing with addictions dealing with

00:18:34.160 those types of things that frees them up a little bit but then also making sure that we support the

00:18:38.700 police in the in the implementation of the law making sure that we try to get back to as civil

00:18:44.100 a society as we can unfortunately we can't change the criminal code provincially that is something that

00:18:48.800 is federal but i'm hopeful that you know if we get a change in government federally we might get an

00:18:52.760 opportunity to be looking at that side of it as well to try to make sure that these these criminals or

00:18:58.100 these people that continually commit these crimes that are rotating through the system you know just

00:19:02.420 going back out on the street and repeating and repeating and repeating that we can find some

00:19:06.420 way to be able to actually hold them for the crimes that they do and break this cycle so that we

00:19:12.260 can get to a place where we have a more civil society and people can feel safer let me ask you

00:19:17.300 since you bring up your uh the possibility of a federal change in government about how you and

00:19:22.500 your party fit into the canadian conservative dialogue right now and the canadian political dialogue because

00:19:28.260 i can't recall the last time we seem to have as much harmony among provincial conservative leaders

00:19:35.380 we've seen this on resisting the carbon tax we've seen this on parental rights and i'd like to talk to

00:19:40.660 you about that in a couple of moments but i'm curious federally where you see things going because

00:19:45.620 the federal conservatives have oftentimes historically supported the bc liberals and i've met a number of

00:19:52.260 federal conservatives that have said bc conservative all the way but a lot of them are still

00:19:57.620 maybe fewer now than even a few weeks ago but but there are still a group there that for nostalgia

00:20:03.140 reasons alone for existing loyalties for personal relationships are are with bc united and has the

00:20:10.420 federal conservative party in your view pushed more towards you or towards kevin falcon and bc united

00:20:18.500 you know it's interesting to say that and because the conservative party governed for many years in bc but the

00:20:23.380 last time they formed a government was in 1927 the last time they elected anybody in this province was

00:20:28.740 the 1970s and so it's natural that the federal conservatives have supported you know a coalition

00:20:35.860 or a party in this province that opposed the ndp but that coalition has fallen apart and quite frankly

00:20:42.740 the bc liberal party itself is in the process of falling apart um and so we're on to what is the

00:20:48.820 next generation of the next iteration of of politics in bc and every generation or two we see this shift

00:20:54.180 it went from the conservatives to the liberals went from liberals to the social credit from the social

00:20:58.340 credit to the ndp then it returned to the liberals went to the ndp and now we're into this next potential

00:21:03.540 phase here that i hope ultimately will be the conservative party bc so we don't have any direct ties

00:21:09.300 with the federal conservatives although um you know we obviously have a lot of similarities in

00:21:14.340 terms of issues such as getting with the carbon tax and parental rights and many other things i think

00:21:19.620 that we have in similarities but even though we don't have those ties you know i'm looking really at

00:21:24.660 at my federal counterparts you know with within the conservative party um and saying to them obviously

00:21:30.500 help us to be able to achieve what we need to achieve in british columbia come on and join what we

00:21:34.660 are building here because you're going to need a partner in british columbia to be able to help with

00:21:39.140 with what you would like to do federally but more importantly we're going to need to be able to get

00:21:43.140 a lot of big things done in british columbia that are going to take both sides to be able to uh to be

00:21:48.660 to make part of it one of the things for example is i actually think british columbia needs to take

00:21:53.060 over its own immigration right now with what's going on in british columbia with what's going on

00:21:57.460 from the federal immigration it's just not working for this province we need to have a better say we need

00:22:02.340 to be able to make sure we're bringing the skill sets that we need to meet our labor shortages that we have

00:22:06.180 in this in this province and that's something i'm prepared to take the federal government on and

00:22:09.780 hopefully i'd be able to have a partner in uh in a federal conservative party would your ideal model

00:22:15.380 for that be following what quebec is doing or did you have something else in mind very similar to what

00:22:20.020 quebec is doing uh with with that obviously there's some some details that need to be worked through

00:22:24.500 quebec is you know more limited you know just from a does that uh a perspective of the language that

00:22:29.620 they're bringing in or associated we're not going to have it we don't sort of have those concerns but

00:22:34.580 we need to be able to make sure that we're looking after what we're doing in british columbia i mean

00:22:38.980 we've got a shortage of everything from truck drivers to doctors from nurses to teachers

00:22:43.140 right across the spectrum and so we need to make sure that as people come into british columbia

00:22:47.460 they can engage and get involved immediately in our workforce and to be able to help fill some

00:22:51.860 of those needs that we have in our society we we have also seen in your province some of the most

00:22:57.860 expensive real estate in the world and and i know conservative leader pierre pauliev at the federal level has

00:23:03.300 talked about the need to tie immigration numbers to job markets to housing and basically try to make

00:23:09.620 it that we aren't having immigration drive up the cost of living for everyone themselves included

00:23:15.540 is that a problem you foresee in in british columbia as well where you really need to start looking at

00:23:20.340 hey what can we economically withstand it certainly is i mean we're in a situation in british columbia where

00:23:26.740 we have a major shortfall of housing i mean i think next year we're projected to build something

00:23:31.540 like 27 000 houses in british columbia we need to be tripling that number and sustaining that for at

00:23:38.020 least a decade in order to stabilize housing prices to meet the demand and the projected growth going

00:23:43.780 forward and the challenge when i talk to developers about doing that is they say we don't have the

00:23:48.900 skilled labor they don't have the truck drivers they don't have the electricians they don't have the

00:23:53.220 carpenters they don't have the skills that are needed to be able to actually meet those kind of 0.94

00:23:57.140 targets and so part of what we need to do with immigration is to make sure as we bring people in

00:24:01.860 that they can help to fill those needs as well so that we can build out what we're needing and try

00:24:06.180 to stabilize housing prices in this province you've had in recent weeks in particular a number of floor

00:24:13.060 crossings people joining the bc conservatives having been bc united or bc liberal mlas and and on one

00:24:20.260 hand i think this looks great for you and for your party and i i can see that point but does it not

00:24:25.220 look a little opportunistic as well that people who in the past have been very critical of your party

00:24:30.020 or people that your party has been very critical of a notable example of this would be eleanor sterko

00:24:35.220 from last week joining now just because you are doing so well in the polls well i wouldn't say it's

00:24:41.140 just because um you know think about this um a year and a bit ago before i joined the conservative

00:24:47.220 party we were polling at three or four percent so most people wouldn't take us seriously and

00:24:51.860 as we grew you know going into the spring of 2023 we had a by-election where we came second we took

00:24:58.020 20 and that you know that was in a very solid ndp riding and we continue to grow throughout the year

00:25:03.460 and people have been watching this progress and they said is this real or is there something going

00:25:07.780 on and i think people are coming to the conclusion that this is real and really as as the conservative

00:25:12.500 party british columbia we have reached out to say you know we are open to anybody who's

00:25:16.980 interested in joining that's going to want to be coming and come in and be part of this common

00:25:21.540 sense change we need to bring for british columbia that's like i say just standing for what's right

00:25:25.940 so for example we've got a former ndp mla who's running for us up in nanaimo um we've got people

00:25:32.100 you know from the green party or in our in our group that are working helping out with our campaign

00:25:36.180 we've got federal liberal we've got federal conservative and so people are from across the

00:25:40.420 spectrum of being able to find a home in who we are as the conservative party because we're trying not

00:25:45.460 to have it just about an ideology we're trying to have it just about that grassroots movement

00:25:50.020 to be able to bring back british come bring back prosperity to this great province but but i think

00:25:55.060 you raise an important dilemma there which is that you can't be everything to everyone so are all the

00:26:00.260 people that are coming to your party committed to the same set of principles and what are the non

00:26:05.060 the non-negotiables for you well i think we're not going to compromise on the principles the things

00:26:10.180 that we're standing for the values that we have in the room we're trying to fight for for british

00:26:14.500 columbia but it's okay for candidates to have a varying opinion i mean obviously you know we have

00:26:20.100 an agenda in terms of our platform that we're going to be rolling out and i'm really looking forward to

00:26:24.820 having that out in the public realm here as we get into the election but i've said for many times for

00:26:30.340 many years now mlas should be the first priority of mla should be to fight for their riding to be able to 0.99

00:26:36.420 speak on behalf of the riding and to be able to vote on behalf of the riding and that means you're

00:26:40.900 going to have differences and i think people are for too many years have been electing people to

00:26:46.180 represent a party to them where their look where their expectation is that everybody that's in the

00:26:51.460 party will be saying the same things we have 93 different writings around the province it's not

00:26:56.420 possible that all of them would be the same and saying the same things it is normal that there would

00:27:01.380 be differences and so i accept that as as a leader it's going to create some challenges as we work

00:27:06.340 through you know should we have that honor forming government but those are challenges i think that

00:27:10.580 are a good problem to have but but would you for example accept an mla that says actually i don't

00:27:16.500 want to get rid of the carbon tax well that could be possible to have an mla that might say that i think

00:27:22.340 they would probably not be interested in joining us as a party uh so we're voting against your parental

00:27:31.460 rights approach yeah i i mean it's it's fine to be able to have that but obviously these those these

00:27:36.740 are things that are defining who we have been as a party and who we will be going forward and many

00:27:42.260 political parties what they do is they put their finger up in the air and they try to figure out where

00:27:46.260 the population is and then try to get in front of it and that's not our approach what we're doing

00:27:50.740 is coming forward and saying this is who we are these are the things that we're going to stand for

00:27:54.740 if you want to come in and be part of that that's great we have an open door you're welcome to come in and be

00:27:58.900 part of how we help to build and shape that so for example both eleanor as well as some of her other

00:28:03.540 candidates and said okay i support parental rights i support you know getting rid of the sexualization

00:28:08.740 of children in our schools but we need to make sure also that we have a good anti-bullying program

00:28:14.180 in place and that we have support in place for students i said yeah okay i can accept that those

00:28:18.180 are good things that we need to be able to have within our school systems to make sure that all

00:28:22.260 students can find their way and to be able to be successful in our education system you mentioned

00:28:28.420 earlier on bonnie henry i mean this has obviously been among the the most divisive period in canadian

00:28:34.100 politics the last four years is bonnie henry gone if you're elected we are going to drop the mandates 1.00

00:28:42.020 from covid we're going to be hiring back our health care workers we need to actually be looking at at

00:28:47.140 putting together a group to look at potential compensation for those that have been impacted

00:28:50.580 that were let go but what i'll say is this bonnie henry has made it very very clear that she is not

00:28:56.420 interested in dropping the mandates even though every other jurisdiction in the world has dropped

00:29:00.500 the mandates she's not interested in hiring back our health care workers because she doesn't believe 1.00

00:29:04.900 they should be in our system i cannot see a person like that being able to continue in a conservative

00:29:09.620 government because obviously we need to be able to make those changes and we're going to make those

00:29:13.700 changes moving forward a bit i i know you're obviously going for victory here which a few years ago

00:29:20.580 would have seemed just like an absolute pipe dream and here you are so you should be commended should your team

00:29:25.940 for bringing the party where you have but many polls suggest a path in which you end up as the

00:29:30.820 leader of the official opposition and well that is i think a tremendous success it can also be very

00:29:35.860 frustrating to be opposition as i'm sure pierre pauliev could tell you at the federal level how much

00:29:41.300 change can you affect from that role uh i mean in opposition obviously um you know the government

00:29:48.580 when it when it comes in should we have the tragedy in this province of re-electing an ndp government

00:29:53.700 uh we'll do everything we can to try to stymie their agenda uh so obviously uh that will be a

00:29:59.860 very challenging process but that's what we would do they have an agenda quite frankly that is is

00:30:05.300 just scary um what they're planning to do in the lands act that they have decided to not talk about

00:30:11.060 before the election uh their 2030 agenda that they have british columbia will not recognize this

00:30:16.900 province british columbians will not recognize the problems we actually have a government today that is

00:30:21.540 telling the public sector you're not even allowed to call people british columbians because it could

00:30:25.940 offend some people i'm a proud canadian i'm a proud british columbian i actually think it's okay to say

00:30:31.620 i'm a you're a british columbian it's okay to have pride in our country in our province and like i say if

00:30:37.380 these guys get in again i'm not sure where it goes but it's certainly from the indications of what

00:30:42.100 they're what they're talking about i don't think people even recognize this province in the next uh

00:30:46.580 in the next four years after an election it's interesting you mentioned that because obviously

00:30:51.460 in well victoria a couple of years ago you had an effort underway to uh get rid of statues that

00:30:56.660 honor canada's past you have the name victoria periodically subject to scrutiny the name british

00:31:01.860 columbia and you've been very firm in a way that i would hope more politicians would because it

00:31:06.740 shouldn't be a left or right and saying hey let's embrace our history yeah precisely i mean our history

00:31:12.340 includes some pretty tragic things our history includes some pretty great things but that's our

00:31:16.900 history that's what has made us who we are canada is a melding plot of of different peoples and

00:31:23.300 cultures and religions from around the world people come here because they want to get away from all 1.00

00:31:28.420 these things they want to be able to have a safe place to be able to raise their family want to have

00:31:32.020 a place that is that is they can have hope for a better place for their for the kids and for their

00:31:36.580 grandkids we've lost that we need to get back to that and we have all the potential that we could

00:31:42.260 ever want we just need to get back to the basics in this province and making sure that we're focused

00:31:47.060 on providing the best services we can for the people in this province so that they can get on

00:31:51.140 with having a quality of life so what you're doing right now john is clearly working and as we have you

00:31:58.260 know a few months left until the election what can people expect to see what do you still have left in

00:32:02.900 the tank that we're we're going to get a glimpse of well we have a few surprises yet to bring out

00:32:07.620 obviously uh both the nomination processes as well as uh uh in policies i think you know over

00:32:14.180 the course of the summer we're going to be out engaging with people right across the province

00:32:17.620 we're going to continue with building this grassroots movement uh we're going to you know have our team

00:32:22.740 completely set up and in place and then we'll start rolling out a little bit of policy and start

00:32:27.140 wrapping that up a little bit as we get into the fall just to show people how we're going to be

00:32:31.700 able to develop that opportunity and that hope for people to be able to have that quality of life

00:32:35.860 and i think i think people will be surprised uh at the policies and approaches that we're going

00:32:40.260 to be bringing forward i'm fully expecting that the ndp and you know if the bc united if they're

00:32:45.140 still around we're going to do nothing but attack us and be vicious and mean and that's you know

00:32:49.460 that's their style that's where they want to be and they're afraid of of change they're afraid of

00:32:54.100 actually supporting people and supporting parents i i don't get it but that seems to be who they are

00:33:00.340 we're going to make sure that we continue to attack their faults and the issues and their approach

00:33:04.580 but at the same time we're going to be offering that optimistic hope for people in our policies

00:33:09.060 and approaches towards how british columbia could be governed for the better well yeah i look forward

00:33:14.100 to a full platform but i i will say you you've given me a lot more to work with than opposition parties

00:33:19.300 normally do this far out with what you have put on the record and what you have said that you'll do

00:33:23.780 and i mean obviously the specifics will uh stand to be seen but as far as the broad visions you're

00:33:28.340 talking about freedom lower taxes choice and health care i think these are very difficult things for a

00:33:33.060 lot of people certainly in this audience to uh to criticize well uh john rustad uh all the best to

00:33:38.260 you thank you so much for coming on today really good to talk to you thanks thanks for having me

00:33:42.260 on i look forward to chatting again all right thanks very much that was john rustad leader of the

00:33:47.460 british columbia conservatives continuing to surge in the polls and we will of course keep an eye on

00:33:53.380 that as i said at the beginning i it's not that i don't like bc i've i've loved any time i've gone

00:33:57.700 there i always love uh british colombian people but the politics have typically not offered as much

00:34:02.660 as they are in this department anyway as they are now so my my thanks again to john rustad for coming

00:34:08.020 on the show and that does it for us for today and for the week we'll be back next week with more of

00:34:13.380 canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show here on true north thank you god

00:34:18.820 bless and good day to you all thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by

00:34:24.260 donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - June 13, 2024

British Columbia Conservatives are surging in the polls

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