Juno News - June 02, 2022


Canada advocate Faytene Grasseschi on tour to get more people involved with internal politics


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

200.53824

Word Count

1,540

Sentence Count

102


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 So I'm here at the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference,
00:00:03.960 which was formerly known as the Manning Networking Conference with Faitin Grzeski.
00:00:08.420 She is a Christian talk show host and the director of the For My Canada Foundation, a political group.
00:00:15.540 So first of all, Faitin, I guess maybe we can elaborate on that.
00:00:18.880 For those who maybe don't know you, can you just explain a bit more in detail the work that you do?
00:00:23.000 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I am a patriot, Eli.
00:00:25.780 I just I love this nation. I love Canada.
00:00:28.060 I love what has made Canada great, which is our freedoms and just good people getting involved in the making and shaping of it.
00:00:34.700 So it was actually when I was about your age or maybe even a bit younger,
00:00:38.340 I started to lead teams of young people to the Parliament of Canada to meet with members of Parliament and senators.
00:00:43.720 That was 2006, right when the Harper era kind of started.
00:00:47.340 And so we've led 17 delegations to Parliament over the years
00:00:51.220 and have had over a thousand sit down meetings with members of Parliament and senators.
00:00:54.560 So you kind of catch the political bug, you know, when you're talking politics all the time.
00:00:59.200 And three years ago, ironically, right before everything got shut down with COVID,
00:01:04.320 I just felt this leading to get involved into broadcast.
00:01:07.400 So we have a weekly show speaking to the issue, shaping the nation and primarily on broadcast on eight networks.
00:01:14.280 And every week we tackle something else. And it's an honour to be sitting here chatting with you right now.
00:01:19.920 Absolutely. And your show is amazing. I mean, I've had the opportunity to be on it.
00:01:23.700 And it's really gives us a different perspective from what the legacy media has to offer, I find.
00:01:29.100 So I was going to ask you, why did you decide to come out to the Canada Strong and Free Conference this weekend?
00:01:35.220 Oh, well, I think it's important to get in a room with, number one, people that have a love for Canada,
00:01:40.980 where ideas are being thrown out, where you can hear different perspectives, different angles,
00:01:46.140 different innovative thought patterns, you know.
00:01:48.960 And obviously I wanted to be here for the debate, you know, last night.
00:01:52.100 So we're filming this on Friday morning.
00:01:54.640 And the debate was pretty eye-opening, pretty electric, pretty feisty.
00:01:58.640 But I'm actually in the midst of a national tour right now.
00:02:02.960 So we just kind of coordinated things so that I could be here this weekend.
00:02:06.280 We're going to do one of our tour stops tonight in Ottawa.
00:02:08.800 That's awesome. Well, how about we talk about your tour?
00:02:10.620 So I know you've been wanting to engage more people in the political process.
00:02:14.600 And you said so far you've been successful at that.
00:02:16.620 So can you just explain to me what exactly you're trying to accomplish in your tour
00:02:21.720 and some of the statistics that we talked about off camera?
00:02:24.120 Yeah, absolutely.
00:02:24.940 Well, you know, Eli, this presentation that I put together, it's called the Engage National Transformation Presentation.
00:02:32.200 And basically what I've done is I dove into what happened statistically in the last two major leadership races
00:02:37.360 with the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party.
00:02:39.200 So that would be 2013 and 2020 for the Conservatives.
00:02:43.280 And what happened in the last federal election that enabled Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
00:02:49.540 to have the authority to form a coalition that would effectively give them a majority right up until 2025.
00:02:55.600 And what I found, Eli, was actually stunning, even to myself.
00:02:59.220 I've been at this for two decades now.
00:03:01.500 But when I realized after crunching the numbers at 0.2 percent in both the Liberal leadership race in 2013
00:03:08.580 and the Conservative race in 2020, it was 0.2 percent of Canadians engaging by buying a membership,
00:03:16.320 getting involved in the leadership election process.
00:03:18.500 0.2 percent of Canadians determined the choices that Canadians would have on the ballot for Prime Minister.
00:03:25.820 I was actually shocked.
00:03:27.820 I was really shocked.
00:03:29.000 And then when I did the same number crunching about the 2021 election,
00:03:32.180 I found that 0.05 percent of Canadians, which equates 21,900 votes,
00:03:38.520 really are the votes that determined that Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau would have the power to do what they're currently doing.
00:03:45.320 So these are shockingly small numbers.
00:03:48.960 And when I put it together in a presentation, Eli, and I'm bringing this to Canadians who, you know,
00:03:54.200 who love our nation, who care about our nation and who are concerned about our nation
00:03:58.740 and are asking the question, like, what can we possibly do?
00:04:02.600 You know, when we're seeing the malfunction of our democracy on a regular basis,
00:04:06.000 it feels like people are losing hope that they actually have the power to affect change.
00:04:10.960 So what I'm seeing, Eli, is that this presentation is actually just showing the data through the data,
00:04:17.400 inspiring hope, and then obviously the current action point, you know,
00:04:20.620 is that we're in the midst of a leadership race right now.
00:04:22.540 So people have a tangible way that they can respond to this information by getting involved,
00:04:27.640 buying a membership, getting ready to vote for the September 10th election.
00:04:32.360 So you said 0.2 percent.
00:04:34.420 That is, indeed, when I first saw that, I was astounded.
00:04:38.440 Yeah.
00:04:39.600 So how do you think we can increase that?
00:04:42.260 Because, for example, in the United States, they have primaries,
00:04:44.540 and a lot of Americans will vote in their primaries.
00:04:47.680 So do you think maybe that part of that work would be to maybe make memberships free,
00:04:52.900 or do you think that in the way you're doing it could be a way to increase that
00:04:56.060 to a number that's, you know, more than 0.2 percent?
00:04:59.540 Yeah, I think it's all about education, just civic education.
00:05:03.060 Like, I know for myself, I am pretty much completely self-taught in this domain.
00:05:07.240 You know, my dad was an NHL hockey player.
00:05:08.840 I was raised by farmers.
00:05:10.280 I was raised by upstanding community builders and Canadian citizens.
00:05:13.700 But I personally can never remember anyone kind of sitting down and really saying,
00:05:18.620 okay, this is the process of how you get involved with shaping the future of your nation
00:05:23.040 just through grassroots civic involvement right at the local level.
00:05:26.400 I think a lot of people just don't know.
00:05:27.960 Like, when I ran for office spontaneously the fall of 2020,
00:05:31.700 they opened up the nominations.
00:05:33.040 I put my name forward because there was only one other person on the ballot,
00:05:36.620 and that person didn't really represent my views or values.
00:05:39.320 I thought, what the heck?
00:05:40.080 Ready, fire, aim.
00:05:40.700 I'll throw my name forward.
00:05:41.420 But what I found, Eli, is that most of the people even in my sphere,
00:05:46.200 the people that I was just meeting in the community at that time,
00:05:48.920 didn't even know that they could have a voice in the nomination process.
00:05:52.700 I think a lot of times people don't get involved.
00:05:54.220 That number's so low just because they don't know.
00:05:57.540 They don't understand the semantics of the process.
00:06:00.720 They understand general election, but they don't necessarily understand leadership race.
00:06:04.680 The average Canadian, not people like you who this is your passion, you know?
00:06:09.000 For sure.
00:06:09.660 And I get what you mean.
00:06:10.540 I mean, before getting this job, I used to work as a campaign manager,
00:06:13.860 and we had to sell memberships.
00:06:15.540 And yeah, like, in what's considered a strong riding,
00:06:19.720 if you sell 1,000 membership, it's considered a lot.
00:06:22.160 But there are tens and tens of thousands of electorates in each riding.
00:06:25.340 Oh, yeah.
00:06:25.920 Right?
00:06:26.460 It's 1,000.
00:06:26.980 So I get what you mean there.
00:06:28.600 Well, even in the riding that I ran in, the population was 80,000.
00:06:32.140 And when I got in the race, there were only 300 members.
00:06:36.380 And I was like, there's only 300 people that are going to potentially decide for 80,000 people
00:06:41.060 the names that are going to be on the ballot.
00:06:42.700 And so I'm really hoping that with this tour, number one,
00:06:46.220 that the data, the information, it's pure gold.
00:06:50.260 It's just good data.
00:06:52.180 But secondly, that it will help open people's eyes,
00:06:54.400 put a desire in people's hearts to kind of get in the game and be a part.
00:06:58.140 Because this room here, this room is full of great people, of good people.
00:07:01.860 But there are so many good people in Canada that aren't in this room
00:07:05.500 and don't even know that this room exists.
00:07:07.040 Right.
00:07:07.440 You're right about that.
00:07:08.340 Well, Fetine, thank you so much for sitting down with me today.
00:07:11.920 We've always appreciated the work that you do.
00:07:14.400 And I wish you the best of luck with your newest initiative and your tour and your activism.
00:07:19.120 Thanks, Eli.
00:07:20.260 I hope you'll check it out.
00:07:21.220 If I can say the website for the tour.
00:07:23.340 Absolutely, go ahead.
00:07:23.680 Yeah, so if people want to check us out in terms of what we're doing across Canada,
00:07:27.100 we're going to be going right through to Victoria Island,
00:07:30.000 back to Newfoundland, Labrador as well, and kind of everywhere in between.
00:07:33.040 The website is messageforcanada.ca, all spelled out messageforcanada.ca.
00:07:39.060 Thank you so much, True North, for having me.