Juno News - Canadian Culture War： The Rise of Young Conservatism

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juneau News. I'm joined here by Jeff Russ, National Post writer, writer at Without Diminishment.

00:00:11.060 Terrific young conservative talent. We're thankful to have him back on the show today.

00:00:14.360 I hope you're having a Merry Christmas. Jeff, how are you?

00:00:18.820 I'm great. Merry Christmas to you too. And thanks for having me back.

00:00:22.260 Yeah, of course. You're a regular. Jeff, you're, let's talk generational.

00:00:27.340 Oh, S-H-I-T. Let's, let's talk the, the, the, the modern conservative movement, which is, which continues to grow.

00:00:34.560 You're a figure on what is referred to as the new right. You're a young conservative thought leader, but you think Canada in a, in a poll from CTV news going into the holiday break here, they're the least happy generation in the country.

00:00:48.740 We see recent polling from abacus data that always seems to understand, David Coletto, credit to him, always seems to actually dig into this stuff and care about it.

00:00:58.080 Indicating that, you know, the surge in support for young conservatives continues, but the party, the federal party continues to struggle with older demographics.

00:01:07.360 What, what factors do you think are driving this divide right now?

00:01:11.480 Well, the most obvious one is Canada. If you're above a certain age, it's a fantastic country to live in. If you are of a certain age, you've worked your whole life, you've made a lot of money, you own your house, you've benefited from the healthcare system, and you have a nice fat pension on top of it, especially if you're a public servant.

00:01:28.520 If that is the case, this is, this is paradise. The worst thing is that it gets cold and you have enough money to fly down to Scottsdale or Palm Beach.

00:01:38.060 Yeah.

00:01:38.500 If you're under the age of 40, I mean, people say 35, I think it's under the age of 40 at this point. It's tough out there. If you're, if you've got a mortgage during COVID, for example, with those dirt cheap variable interest rates, you are getting screwed.

00:01:53.320 Um, and again, you know, maybe some people should have had some more due diligence when it comes to buying houses in such a unique economic climate, but just the promise of Canada.

00:02:03.640 I think Pierre Poly has alluded to this. The promise of Canada really is not there. And that only gets more evident year after year. And it's interesting when you look at the poll, uh, people like to cite, uh, 18 to 24 as a conservative demographic.

00:02:19.420 It's much more split. It's more or less 40, 40 between the liberals and the conservatives, but that older range, those under 40 from, I think it's 25 to 40. Those are the ones that really, um, like what Pierre Poly has to offer in the conservatives.

00:02:35.120 And I would be careful about describing too much of it to conservative ideology. I don't think these people picked up the conscience of a conservative. I don't think they read right here, right now by Stephen Harper.

00:02:45.200 I think there are people who are frustrated and they'll vote for the one who wants to effectively break this system. This one where all the wealth floats up to the top for people who already have more than enough.

00:02:54.920 Um, I'm not calling for, um, I'm not calling for, I'm not calling here for redistribution of wealth. This is simply making the system a little more loose so more can fall back down to young people. 0.78

00:03:04.800 If they can, because people are working hard to grab that, uh, they, or I should say that opportunity at wealth, that simply is not there for them to pick up, whether it be a job opportunity, whether it be a favorable rent situation.

00:03:17.600 Yeah. And I think one of the things to keep in mind was why I say, it's not so much an ideological thing. Canada is very unique in the English speaking world with young people voting conservative in Australia. It's all for labor in Britain. They're not voting for Nigel Farage and reform.

00:03:34.600 Um, it's whoever has suffered in the last decade and the government that oversaw that is going, has lost young people.

00:03:41.600 Yeah. It's funny when you look at the polling dynamics and you're right. Cause, cause some folks in our sphere, um, and it's great that they're interested in this stuff, but they, they go intellectual minded. They go, oh, all the kids must be reading like Roger Scruton or like they picked up lament for a nation. And it's, it's like, no, it's, it's, it, it, there are some sure.

00:04:01.980 But in the polling data, what you're actually seeing, it's like the, the tale of two countries here where it's, there's the people who got out of the economy. And then there are the people who are still in it.

00:04:11.640 And if you are in it, if you are working aged or attempting to get off the launching pad, you are just stuck. It is this unvarnished truth that, you know, this works for the folks who were able to golden parachute out and, and 10 X their housing value and much respect to them.

00:04:28.880 And so the, the, the concern there is that, and I think the conservatives in some ways, this is getting away from them federally. Um, cause we talk about, or I make jokes about things like gerontocracy or you point out the, the obviousness of like, Hey, we're doing a young old thing. And it's like, that's all well and good. One, our, our, our boomers and our esteemed older conservatives.

00:04:51.880 It's not fair to, to just go like, it's all your fault. Cause it's not, but how do you, how do you bring them back? How do you, because I also understand the folks who view reform as threatening, who view reform as kind of spiritually NDP and revolutionary and problematic.

00:05:12.640 And so how do the federal conservatives maybe better thread a needle there? Like, how do you, how do you become more stately? How do you, you don't want to tone police because the, the moment calls for urgency, but I like, I haven't been able to figure out how the heck they better balance this, but they have to, because that over 60 vote, it is just going headlong into the wilderness, not to come back.

00:05:36.640 And all these working Canadians are looking around going like, guys, it still sucks here. Please don't leave us behind. We do need reform within a reasonable framework.

00:05:49.000 This is going to be, this pains me to say, I don't think there's an easy path to do it through policy or, or brushing up the image of the party.

00:05:57.940 I firmly believe the last election was a culture of war election in which, you know, this image of seventies and eighties, Canada, you look at the Mike Myers ad, it was very much a nostalgia election.

00:06:08.900 And it's nostalgia that people under a certain age, simply, this is a fantasy land to them.

00:06:13.620 And for our world, us of working age, our world is a dystopian fantasy land to them, but they seem content to vote for it all the same.

00:06:22.640 I think the, if you look at the conservative vote show in the last election, it was huge. It's the biggest since they've ever gone since Brian Mulvaney any other year. That's a majority government.

00:06:33.200 I do believe the battle lines are firmly drawn. I think the conservatives can appeal to them. I think perhaps if they want to not be as sharp, but people want to have someone, if you're struggling, you want to have a sharp leader.

00:06:45.560 I don't see any value in abandoning, if you want to call it a populist approach. I think that actually worsens it. I think this unravels the big coalition that conservatives have amassed under Pierre Polyev.

00:06:56.400 I think a lot of it comes up, I mean, a lot of it comes up just to, or it comes down rather to the collapsed NDP vote in the last election.

00:07:05.560 And much respect to Mark Carney's career, he very much presents exactly the type of person who older Canadians would love to vote for.

00:07:14.000 Older, managerial, doesn't involve himself in the culture war, very much presents himself as being part of that 15th fantasy land.

00:07:22.340 So I'm not sure if there's a policy solution, because people always say, where's the conservative policy? Where's Pierre Polyev's policy? He's all talk.

00:07:31.940 Well, they had a huge policy, but he actually proposed a lot of policies.

00:07:35.020 The liberals took half of them. Like, it's like, where do you think these came from?

00:07:40.440 Precisely. Subvering, low-information voters are a powerful bloc.

00:07:44.900 I think that that bloc that voted for Carney last election, by and large, have picked their guy, and I think they'll stick by him, barring a scandal.

00:07:53.620 So I think the conservatives just need to stay the course. I think it is on the NDP to recover and be a real party and not just be the bootluckers of the government as they were under Jagmeet Singh.

00:08:06.900 But I think if the conservatives wanted to tell us something, perhaps they could talk more about a national narrative, a cultural narrative.

00:08:13.840 It was a huge weak spot for them in the last election.

00:08:17.260 Elbows up is not the story of Canada. It's the story of a few Canadians.

00:08:21.780 The fortunate, well, I shouldn't say a few, there's millions of them, but it's the story of a very large bloc.

00:08:27.000 But I think if conservatives forged a greater cultural narrative about what Canada is and why it deserves to exist, because let's face it, on the left, there is a huge narrative that it doesn't deserve to exist.

00:08:38.160 I think most people don't like it.

00:08:40.600 I do believe that it can be easy to pin the anti-Canadian label on the conservatives because they talk about the problems as they should.

00:08:47.820 But if you don't talk about this country being as great as it is, then I think that could fall short.

00:08:52.760 And I think conservatives could use some reinforcing on that.

00:08:55.140 Yeah, and it was such a shame and a flat foot of them so, so profoundly where all of a sudden all these these understandable reforms that needed to be enacted and like fighting for being fighters for a working class, working poor, young people who are just getting absolutely screwed.

00:09:12.620 It was viewed as disloyal. It was viewed as traitorous.

00:09:15.880 Daniel Smith repeatedly, you know, over the past few months, while she's been sort of the one sane head during tariff negotiations, has been branded as a traitor by these by these sort of the Thomas Lukacic crowd and these sort of some of these carny boomers. 0.84

00:09:29.840 And so drawing off that cultural piece, you have a piece in the National Post going into the holidays talking about how Canada's purpose must be deeper than diverse takeout menus.

00:09:41.040 You referenced sociologists on the importance of shared rituals for building solidarity.

00:09:47.820 How do traditions like Christmas lights and concerts contribute to this collective effervescence, as you describe it, in Canadian society?

00:09:57.280 Well, I certainly would never use the word effervescence.

00:10:00.420 That was Durkheim, the sociologist, and I was quoting him.

00:10:03.720 I would ban the use of that word in any publication.

00:10:06.320 Sorry to wreck your bona fides there.

00:10:10.340 No, no, no, no.

00:10:11.420 Like, Canada's a Christmas country.

00:10:14.420 Christmas is a great, great tradition.

00:10:16.400 It's a great ritual to see all your neighbors put up Christmas lights and beautify your neighborhood for December and maybe a little bit of January, too.

00:10:22.640 It builds that solidarity and familiarity.

00:10:24.240 And from there, you get confidence from the shared rituals that you have in community.

00:10:27.940 I think we should be, a lot of people who come to Canada don't come from countries where Christmas is big.

00:10:33.060 And I think it's important to emphasize that Christmas is huge in Canada.

00:10:37.540 It's a great, beautiful thing where people can come together and share in this great tradition that we have.

00:10:43.380 It doesn't matter if you're Christian, secular, non-Christian. 0.75

00:10:48.020 It's just partake in beauty.

00:10:51.580 It's not very difficult.

00:10:53.340 And I think you'll find a lot more community amongst Canadians if we are all celebrating this holiday together.

00:10:59.300 And that is a part of being Canadian, especially during the winter.

00:11:02.140 This is a winter country.

00:11:03.200 It's not always obvious on the West Coast, but for 90% of the country, it is.

00:11:08.380 Yeah, and we're diluting those traditions.

00:11:10.800 We certainly feel it.

00:11:11.720 We see it in the schools.

00:11:14.320 Victoria, the city of Victoria and British Columbia, pushed to secularize its seasonal decorations.

00:11:21.540 Ontario replaced a Christmas concert with a February fest.

00:11:25.000 I mean, what problems do you see in these kinds of changes?

00:11:29.120 Like, are we, is that just more of a chipping away at our identity?

00:11:33.320 Absolutely.

00:11:33.880 I mean, like, hardly anything good ever happens in February.

00:11:36.520 I don't know why I would make a festival out of it.

00:11:38.560 There's no...

00:11:39.760 Yeah, my least favorite month of the year.

00:11:41.740 Yeah.

00:11:42.140 Likewise.

00:11:42.640 And it just makes it, it just feels so forced and arbitrary.

00:11:46.440 There's no great tradition in February.

00:11:48.580 There's no...

00:11:49.000 Who's going to be excited about the one-day Christmas concert in the middle of the worst month of the year?

00:11:56.080 There's no holiday to look forward to.

00:11:58.280 There's nothing.

00:11:59.000 And you talk about the dilution.

00:12:00.660 I will mention the city councilor who tried to secularize Victoria's Christmas decorations lost his seat in the last municipal election.

00:12:08.360 So, good on the voters of Victoria.

00:12:10.500 They can, they are capable of making good decisions.

00:12:13.100 And, you look at other holidays like Remembrance Day.

00:12:16.060 We talked about that on the last show.

00:12:17.440 Just the dilution of that, too.

00:12:18.920 These are all, whether it be Christmas celebration, the gratefulness of Christmas, or it be the remembrance of Remembrance Day.

00:12:25.620 These all matter to building a people, or I should say maintaining a people.

00:12:30.220 And if we knock these all down to just another occasion to warm up the inclusivity jargon, then we have nothing.

00:12:39.100 Because, let's face it, inclusivity just means flattening everything down to be as inoffensive and unremarkable as possible.

00:12:45.480 And it is a shame that it's happened on so many occasions.

00:12:48.680 Look, I was at the time of taping.

00:12:51.920 My wife and I were at the Nutcracker last night.

00:12:53.880 It was a beautiful performance.

00:12:55.100 Royal Winnipeg Ballet, you know, were fantastic.

00:12:58.300 They were on tour here out in Vancouver.

00:13:01.600 But this is a deeply Christmas-oriented tale, obviously.

00:13:07.220 And it opened with a land acknowledgement.

00:13:10.240 And then you get a land acknowledgement and a happy holidays.

00:13:14.000 And go.

00:13:14.920 And you're just sitting there going, like, what the heck?

00:13:17.060 Like, that doesn't...

00:13:18.220 Like, we're monkeying with, obviously, culture and meaning.

00:13:23.640 But we continue to play around with domestic harmony.

00:13:26.680 I mean, you've discussed often how things like rapid immigration from volatile regions can import external conflicts.

00:13:35.360 Like, the Toronto mezuzah vandalism parliamentary debates over matters in India that are not freaking Canada.

00:13:44.380 Like, how should Canada better address focusing on Canada rather than sort of these imported hatreds and diaspora issues?

00:13:56.680 I don't think we should be afraid to push for this stuff from the top down.

00:13:59.900 I don't think there's many policies.

00:14:01.220 I don't think you can force people to put up Christmas lights.

00:14:03.740 I wouldn't want to live in a country where people are forced to put up Christmas lights.

00:14:06.860 I don't want to force, you know, private...

00:14:09.840 Well, it's not a private sector.

00:14:10.800 It's government-funded.

00:14:11.300 But even so, when you start to meddle in politics and the arts, or at least imposing them, it can be an issue.

00:14:17.520 But if we start having politicians talking about why it's great to have Christmas lights,

00:14:22.340 and if you had other ones who just talked about why land acknowledgments have gotten so silly and ridiculous at this point,

00:14:28.300 I think that would have a huge impact. 0.55

00:14:29.540 If you start to create more of a culture where people felt more shy and ashamed about doing such ridiculous things,

00:14:35.580 I think it would go a long way.

00:14:36.600 I think we must underestimate, especially in the use of social media, the power of that kind of rhetoric from the top.

00:14:41.500 I mean, we know this is the case, that governments can have an impact on culture.

00:14:47.240 And if we can hopefully...

00:14:48.440 I don't think it'll happen on the list of liberal government, but if we can get a center-right government,

00:14:51.780 or maybe just a straight-up conservative one who will talk about these things,

00:14:55.740 maybe you'll start to see more of the needle being moved towards more of a shared community culture in Canada

00:15:02.560 around holidays like Christmas and performances like The Nutcracker, which can be free of those performative, shameful,

00:15:09.280 or shaming land acknowledgments, I should say.

00:15:12.100 Yeah, I plug my ears.

00:15:13.540 My wife laughed.

00:15:14.360 I think a few people looked at me funny.

00:15:17.360 But it was just...

00:15:18.600 And that performance was happening in a part of British Columbia now,

00:15:23.200 which is effectively going to be all of British Columbia soon,

00:15:25.980 where people are seeing that those land acknowledgments have led to their very fee simple,

00:15:31.360 their property rights being called into question.

00:15:35.580 And so it just struck me as it didn't fit, wasn't appropriate.

00:15:40.820 Drawing on some of these shifting tides here,

00:15:44.000 maybe people slowly getting it together on understanding that we need a better cohesion,

00:15:48.840 we need a public square that is a bit more united.

00:15:53.980 We're seeing more and more Canadians want lower immigration and greater assimilation.

00:15:58.120 It's showing up in all our polling now.

00:15:59.800 There's recent work from Leisure, Abacus, etc.

00:16:02.500 What does this reveal about a shifting public sentiment on what is multiculturalism?

00:16:08.620 Like, is this changing?

00:16:11.700 Are we seeing people realizing that this needs to be something more cohesive?

00:16:16.520 Yeah, people are fatigued by it all.

00:16:17.780 They can see it fraying at the seams.

00:16:19.620 They can see the violence, like you said, with the mezuzahs being ripped up in Toronto. 1.00

00:16:23.520 They look at a massacre in Bondi Beach.

00:16:25.820 They realize this is not the country that we grew up with.

00:16:29.960 And I am not an old person.

00:16:32.100 I'm only 29.

00:16:32.980 I recognize Canada from...

00:16:34.200 I remember Canada from 10 years ago. 0.90

00:16:35.660 It was not like that at all.

00:16:38.280 And I think when people are starting to see the real-life consequences of rhetoric shifted into action,

00:16:43.600 and in this case, very negative actions,

00:16:45.400 whether it be terrorizing religious minorities like the Jewish community,

00:16:49.000 or whether it be Canada being completely delegitimized.

00:16:53.660 I mean, there's videos of international students talking about how Canada is an illegitimate colonial country now.

00:16:59.000 And who knows?

00:16:59.780 Many of these people go to law school and become politicians.

00:17:01.580 Yeah, I would hate for that to become even more institutionalized.

00:17:06.580 And so I think it goes to show you that when you have, you know, quote-unquote elite discourse,

00:17:10.980 it can actually move the needle.

00:17:13.240 And if we can get people in government who will push back against that,

00:17:16.740 and I don't just mean put up a road, but actively push it back,

00:17:19.440 then I think that will have a huge downstream effect on culture.

00:17:22.580 I think that's important.

00:17:23.500 Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, when I see those videos of those students,

00:17:27.480 it's like, you can just go right now.

00:17:29.800 Like, you're, especially like a foreign education is supposed to be a luxury,

00:17:34.080 which is part of the lie that was sold during diploma mills,

00:17:36.820 which is like, no, it's a necessity.

00:17:38.200 It's like, no, foreign education is a luxury.

00:17:41.280 Like, you're just setting up a shoddy work stream here.

00:17:43.920 And if they're not going to be respectful of where they are,

00:17:47.060 if they're not even going to acknowledge it is a country,

00:17:48.960 if they're going to do the Turtle Island thing, like, you can go right away.

00:17:51.480 Like, I have a very short leash for tolerance there.

00:17:55.900 Jeff, you have another feature out in Without Diminishment right now

00:17:59.960 that argues that the entire presentation of this kind of settler colonial argument,

00:18:06.960 art, narrative, it isn't just unhealthy, it's grown stale.

00:18:12.620 I wanted to end on this.

00:18:13.660 I'm curious about what you mean by that.

00:18:16.700 And, you know, how do we tell better stories?

00:18:21.000 How do we get out of some of this guilt-ridden narrative that hasn't served the country well?

00:18:29.700 Yeah, I was going to say, any film that involves, you know, Settlers, colonialism, whatever you want to call it,

00:18:33.960 it's just boring.

00:18:35.420 It's completely predictable at this point.

00:18:37.040 You know there's going to be the unambiguous villain settler, 0.97

00:18:40.720 there's going to be the slightly ambiguous villain settler,

00:18:42.720 and there'll be the nice one who, tragically, is killed halfway through and becomes a martyr.

00:18:47.700 And it's just becoming the same story.

00:18:51.840 You look at Chief of War, Jason Momoa, sure, it's enjoyable, but it has the same trope.

00:18:55.300 It's all, what's the, I'm trying to think of the word I'm looking for here.

00:19:01.280 It's all Star Wars.

00:19:03.160 It's all the Empire versus the Jedi. 0.81

00:19:05.360 And you know who the Jedi are, and the Ewoks, and all the cute cuddlies. 0.98

00:19:09.100 And it's all just Return of the Jedi rehashed, but in this colonial setting.

00:19:12.840 There's no talk of the deeper questions.

00:19:14.740 There's no examinations of, or general questions of, say, like, power, will, civilizational decline.

00:19:20.540 Look at a film like Apocalypto.

00:19:21.580 It tackles all those beautifully.

00:19:22.940 Look at the movie Aguirre, The Wrath of God.

00:19:25.600 It traffics in these ideas, and they're fantastic films.

00:19:29.180 Incredible.

00:19:30.400 Herzog, peak Herzog for our audience. 0.62

00:19:32.460 Incredibly nihilistic, but, like, there's nobody like him.

00:19:35.860 Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:36.940 And these, I guarantee you, these films will be remembered long after Chief of War, 0.66

00:19:41.720 or any other one of the silly films that have come out.

00:19:44.360 Yeah, anyone just doing Avatar, or some lousy pastiche of Dances with Wolves,

00:19:49.660 which, to be fair, to Dances with Wolves is a good movie.

00:19:51.900 But, no, it's the same playbook.

00:19:54.080 It's the colonialists' bad, settler bad. 1.00

00:19:57.500 It's like, can't we move past that?

00:19:59.280 Can't we add?

00:19:59.820 We have a fascinating history.

00:20:01.440 I think about, you know, that argument that, like, Canadian history is boring.

00:20:05.740 Like, you know, you're more of a history buff than I am.

00:20:08.260 Like, is it boring?

00:20:11.000 No, not the slightest.

00:20:13.200 I would point out, too, that there was one film.

00:20:15.520 It was called Edge of the Knife.

00:20:16.920 It was entirely in the Haida language.

00:20:19.340 It was an okay film.

00:20:20.940 But, to me, what I liked about it is that it just avoided the whole colonialism trap entirely.

00:20:25.360 It just told the story in Haida society.

00:20:27.740 And that's so refreshing compared to, I mean, imagine if they tried to make a film about Samuel de Champlain today.

00:20:35.040 It would be horrific.

00:20:37.280 It would just be a complete caricature.

00:20:39.180 There would be no nuance.

00:20:40.100 There'd be no portraying them as humans.

00:20:42.680 It would all just be plot devices.

00:20:44.440 Now, if you're on the right and you're frustrated by this, I would tell donors, can we fund good films?

00:20:50.460 I know the Daily Wire in the States has tried to do that.

00:20:53.080 And the films are okay.

00:20:54.380 They're not great.

00:20:55.300 But they're okay.

00:20:56.200 Yeah.

00:20:56.320 But at least that's something.

00:20:58.000 Can we do something like that in Canada?

00:20:59.280 Or maybe if the Conservatives return to power in Ottawa, maybe they can use...

00:21:02.940 I was having a bit of a go about it with another...

00:21:06.900 Let's call him a Conservative thinker who lives in America.

00:21:10.400 And we were talking about, oh, what about a right-wing National Film Board?

00:21:14.000 What's wrong with that?

00:21:15.080 And they were saying, I don't want to see a right-wing offer about Queen Elizabeth II.

00:21:18.220 I'm like, I want to see a right-wing offer about Queen Elizabeth II.

00:21:21.240 Why not?

00:21:22.540 Yeah.

00:21:22.760 The National Film Board would be terrific, right?

00:21:24.860 Let's tell our stories without guilt and without diminishment.

00:21:30.740 I mean, there's such opportunity for great art.

00:21:32.720 Our friend, Kate Marland, who's a guest on this show as well.

00:21:37.200 Yeah.

00:21:38.900 We could do a horror movie about the economic situation and political situation today for young people.

00:21:44.520 Jeff Ross, you've been great.

00:21:45.800 Thanks for joining us to talk young conservatism and culture.

00:21:48.880 And Merry Christmas, pal.

00:21:49.660 Thanks, Alex.

00:21:50.020 Appreciate it.

00:21:51.240 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - January 01, 2026

Canadian Culture War： The Rise of Young Conservatism

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