00:01:20.100Let the private sector move to bring people in and facilitate them being able to do that. And, you know, a lot of the screening and other stuff that we do, frankly, is just bureaucracy. It's a waste of time. Let's let people in, by and large. And if we have to do the screening ex post, that's fine. I can tell you, bad guys and bad women probably find their way into this country through means other than applying through permanent residency. A Canadian firm wants to
00:01:50.080help to hire somebody from outside the country. They've identified them, they've interviewed them, they want to pay them, and that individual is going to be taxed as in Canada. Approved. What's that? What's that mortgage ad? Approved. Right? Like, we've got to, we should get those guys to be running our immigration system.
00:02:05.080On the trade front, President Trump has mused about ending the trilateral free trade deal between the United States, Canada and Mexico. But Canada's minister in charge of trade says he has no reason to believe the Trump administration will drop the agreement.
00:02:19.080This headline on National News Watch, LeBlanc believes the U.S. will keep Kuzma trade deal with Canada and Mexico. 85% of Canada's exports to the U.S. are currently exempt of taxes because of this agreement.
00:02:34.080Well, could British Columbians soon be headed to the polls?
00:02:39.080This Juneau News exclusive, BC snap election worries surge after NDP office rental hunt exposed.
00:02:47.080An NDP organizer has approached a Vancouver landlord about a two month commercial office lease rental beginning at the end of January, raising concerns that Premier David Eby may be planning a snap election.
00:03:00.080The move would leave the B.C. Conservative Party scrambling to find a permanent leader.
00:03:06.080The party is in disarray since John Rustad was forced to resign in a caucus revolt last week.
00:03:13.080An exclusive poll for Juneau News by One Persuasion finds the majority of British Columbians are worried that indigenous land claims could affect their own property.
00:03:25.08057% of British Columbians say they are concerned that recent indigenous land claims could affect their own private property.
00:03:34.080This follows the Cowichan court ruling in favor of an indigenous land claim in Richmond.
00:04:08.080Well, let's start off with polling, exclusive polling, that shows that the majority of British Columbians are worried after the court ruling that awarded land claims decision to the Cowichan Group since then.
00:04:41.080Juno News polled, commissioned a poll that asked British Columbians how concerned they were about current or future indigenous land claims and their effects on private property.
00:04:55.080And the poll turned out that 57%, which is a good majority of British Columbians, are worried about this.
00:05:04.080Now 45%, this includes 45% of BC NDP voters.
00:05:10.080So this is an issue that is crossing partisan lines.
00:05:16.080People have been awakened to this in the past few months.
00:05:20.080I think for a while it was flying under the radar until we saw the ramifications of the Cowichan decision, which is essentially a decision by the BC Supreme Court, which gave the Cowichan First Nations a recognized Aboriginal land claim.
00:05:39.080Which is kind of this disputed sort of quasi legal claim on land and it's interferes with traditional land claims, which, you know, Western societies are accustomed to.
00:05:56.080And it has blown this up entirely blown up the prospect of actually owning property in British Columbia.
00:06:05.080And a lot of people are worried that where they live, the house they own, the property that they have is at risk.
00:06:14.080Yeah, I would be worried too if I owned land in British Columbia.
00:06:19.080I mean, you've got 31% saying they are very concerned, the 26% moderately concerned.
00:06:26.080And to your point, it's not just Conservatives because a good number of New Democrat voters are also worried.
00:06:32.080Could this end up being an election issue?
00:06:35.080Because there is talk of a possible snap election called.
00:06:39.080Juneau News has an exclusive that suggests that an NDP staffer was looking for property to rent.
00:06:46.080And that usually is a sign that the party is ready to go to the polls.
00:06:51.080I mean, it wasn't long ago since the last election though, was it in British Columbia?
00:07:02.080But this has really caused problems for Premier David Eby.
00:07:07.080And particularly because he's been a advocate of adopting UNDRIP, for example, the United Nation Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People into law in British Columbia.
00:07:20.080His government has pushed for these sorts of land back movements.
00:07:26.080We also have to remember that David Eby himself comes from a background as an activist lawyer.
00:07:33.080He wrote, you know, books on how to how to encourage criminals to sue police officers.
00:07:41.080He has been solidly a part of this left wing activist movement, and it all overlaps with, you know, land back, etc.
00:07:51.080But when we look at how his government has actually handled this file, it's been shrouded in secrecy, keeping people in the dark.
00:08:01.080Richmond landowners had no idea that their property was up for was being questioned, whether their land claims and titles were actually being questioned in this land ruling.
00:08:13.080And it wasn't until the city informed them and brought them all into this recent town hall that they woke up to the fact that perhaps they might not own their home or land anymore.
00:08:26.080That is absolutely wild. To what degree will Eby bear the brunt of the blame for this mess as far as land claims go?
00:08:37.080I mean, I understand he's also been critical of the of the court decision, which, by the way, is still subject to appeal, if I'm not mistaken.
00:08:45.080But I mean, will British Columbians of all parties, maybe at least some of them look at Eby as the guy who kind of created the mess to begin with?
00:08:56.080Yeah, absolutely. And I think just looking at it from the insular perspective that, OK, the government is going to appeal this and then fight this particular issue ignores the fact that there is a whole groundwork of legal arguments made by First Nations that apply not only to the Cowichan ruling, but to other rulings as well.
00:09:24.960Well, there are other First Nations within B.C. that have disputed land claims.
00:09:29.960They claim, you know, unseated territory. And when you look at left wing politicians and how much they've adopted making land acknowledgements, how much they've advocated for, you know, UNDRIP and all of these globalist international so-called laws that have been introduced and trying to make them legislation within their jurisdiction.
00:09:56.240It totally affects so many different things. And they're not actually addressing those root causes and their advocacy of the this ideology that has promoted.
00:10:10.240And this this particular ruling is just a single a single instance of that.
00:10:16.100I mean, this could be an explosive, an explosive issue for the NDP.
00:10:19.400I mean, I mean, I understand that they want to capitalize on the disarray and the conservatives right now because they just ousted their leader and they're having chosen a permanent leader.
00:10:30.080But this issue is percolating. And I suspect a lot of British Columbians, we know that based on the exclusive poll that was done for Juneau News.
00:10:40.700They are looking at this and worried about it.
00:10:43.860And so you go to the polls now and the conservatives could certainly make hay on this and say, look, this is the guy who caused the problem.
00:10:52.740You know, it's his support of UNDRIP and these other globalist policies that have encouraged these land claims.
00:10:59.140And now we have this, you know, the court decisions that could end up undermining your private property, your rights to your own property, which you thought you owned maybe for decades.
00:11:08.800So this is it's going to be really interesting going forward.
00:11:12.480But in the meantime, I guess we're still looking at a level of disarray in the conservative camp.
00:11:17.420Correct. I know you've been following this.
00:12:00.880And I will just say that the conservatives, including John Rustad himself, the former leader, supported adopting UNDRIP in the B.C. legislature.
00:12:11.500Now that position immediately changed when Trevor Halford took over as interim leader.
00:12:19.260One of the first things he announced just a few days ago was an attempt to call back the legislature to repeal UNDRIP from law.
00:12:32.480So that was adopted as a bill by the British Columbia government.
00:12:39.000The B.C. conservatives are attempting to transition away from certain things that tied them, because we also have to remember John Rustad was the Minister of Indigenous Relations.
00:12:53.480He oversaw certain files that included aboriginal land claims back in the day around 2017, I believe, or prior to that.
00:13:05.800You also mentioned earlier that the B.C. NDP is attempting to capitalize on that.
00:13:10.380And I wanted to talk about the story we put out last night.
00:13:14.800And essentially, we got a tip that there were B.C. NDP activists and volunteers out looking for rental space.
00:13:25.040I've heard of multiple spaces in Richmond, British Columbia, but we were able to verify one space in downtown Vancouver where a B.C. NDP volunteer, and not just a volunteer, it was actually a field organizer.
00:13:41.360So the type of person a party will put out there when they're preparing to assemble all their resources to get into campaign mode, was out looking for a two-month rental beginning at the end of January.
00:13:57.800Now, that would be pretty unprecedented for David Eby to call an election while the opposition are on their back foot without a permanent leader or an elected leader.
00:14:10.540I don't believe the B.C. Conservatives have yet announced the rules for the leadership race, but it wouldn't be entirely unprecedented because we saw John Horgan, the former NDP premier, actually call an election at the height of the pandemic just a week after he told the media he would never do such a thing.
00:14:36.520So I really wouldn't put it past them.
00:14:44.500It'll be interesting to see what happens because there could be a level of backlash against the NDP if they do call a snap an election because people might say,
00:14:54.800well, we just had an election in 2024.
00:14:57.260Why would we want to go to the polls again just because you happen to be able to maybe catch the Conservatives flat-footed?
00:15:04.040How do you see the party now, once they get a new leader, moving forward and shaking off what took place with Rustad and that long period of uncertainty with the party?
00:15:17.360I mean, will they be able to find themselves, find their foot again, and galvanize enough support in preparation for a possible election?
00:15:28.420Yeah, I think it's an exciting opportunity for the party because essentially it very much is a soul-searching mission.
00:15:39.360You have to understand that the BC Conservatives were assembled from a upstart sort of conservative grassroots movement within British Columbia
00:15:51.880that then adopted and swallowed some of the former BC United candidates in the last election when former BCU, BC United,
00:16:04.200and before that they were the BC Liberals' leader, Kevin Falcon, struck a deal to step out of the race with John Rustad and removed some candidates.
00:16:15.860But a lot of those candidates were folded over into the BC Conservative umbrella.
00:16:19.960So you essentially have two factions in this party, one that you could call the common sense, you know, modern-day conservative
00:16:29.580with some, like, streaks of populist conservative, social conservative even, elements within it.
00:16:37.940And then you also have the BC Liberal faction.
00:16:41.940And from what I've heard, some of the candidates that will represent the BC Liberals are actually even leaning on federal liberal resources and support
00:16:53.420to attempt to, you know, win this leadership.
00:16:57.600So I think ultimately a leadership race will come down to two candidates, two solid candidates from both of those camps.
00:17:05.340And there's quite a few names being put forward.
00:17:09.680Now, nobody has officially announced, but we've seen Juno put out an article about Aaron Gunn strongly considering this.
00:17:17.560I saw a tweet by him yesterday where he admitted that it was on his mind and he was really weighing his options
00:17:24.080and he would make an announcement by the end of the year or near the Christmas break.
00:17:31.240And we've also seen attempts to draft Caroline Elliott, who is an outspoken advocate against this UNDRIP nonsense
00:17:41.240And then we've also seen rumors of other candidates also entering into the fray.
00:17:48.400So this will be a battle for the soul of the party, really, and the direction of this party going forward.
00:17:54.080I mean, if Aaron were to win, for instance, then that would sort of lay the groundwork for, you know, a solidly conservative, you know, platform for the party.
00:18:05.620And if a Liberal wins, well, a very different story.
00:18:10.920But it is interesting that they've held firm in terms of their numbers, despite the uncertainty around this.
00:18:16.580So I understand there hasn't been any polls since Rustad resigned.
00:18:22.620Yeah, no polls yet, particularly on Trevor Halford or his leadership, him as interim leader.
00:18:30.580But usually with BC polls come out once a month, they're not really that frequent.
00:18:38.140And I would expect one to come out soon.
00:18:41.560And I'm sure people are out in the field trying to get a gauge on where the party sits, what the leadership change has done for the party.
00:18:51.020We know, at least with regards to fundraising, the party is claiming that they've done a really good job, broken records fundraising, immediately after Rustad had stepped down.
00:19:03.520And that was one of the reasons that Rustad was forced out, that fundraising dried up.
00:19:08.740Donors were saying, I'm not going to donate to this party as long as he is a leader.
00:19:14.480And when you look at fundraising, that is a good indication of how much support your leader can actually curry and bring to the table when an election is called.
00:19:26.900So it does seem their prospects have changed on that field, but we have yet to see any polling, as you said.