Juno News - Caroline Elliott's plan to END the NDP in B.C. ｜ Caroline Elliott speaks with Harrison Faulkner

00:00:00.000 under david eby's leadership the british columbia economy is tanking homelessness and drug addiction

00:00:07.200 dominate british columbia's urban landscape woke ideology has infested itself into every facet of

00:00:14.960 british columbia life arguably one of canada's most beautiful provinces it is without a doubt

00:00:21.440 a jewel in canada so to watch british columbia's decline from afar has been painful but right now

00:00:28.560 amidst the decline of british columbia members of the conservative party of bc

00:00:33.600 are choosing who will be their next leader and potentially the next premier of the province

00:00:39.360 one of those candidates is political commentator caroline elliott and she joins me next on ratioed

00:00:46.160 the canadian government and big tech find new ways every day to shut down conservative voices

00:00:52.080 there's no longer this big moment when you get cancelled it is done quietly behind your back

00:00:58.320 by tweaking algorithms so you never see the content that you're supposed to the only way

00:01:03.120 to make sure that you see my next video is to create a free account at junonews.com that way

00:01:09.520 we can ensure that you get our content directly to your inbox without mark carney and mark

00:01:15.840 zuckerberg working together to get in the way now if you want early access to every new episode of

00:01:21.040 ratioed and exclusive juno news original journalism you can use my code junonews.com

00:01:27.920 slash harrison return to get a discount on a juno news subscription as always before we get into it

00:01:34.240 be sure to like this video subscribe to the juno news youtube channel and the common question for

00:01:39.360 the episode is this who do you want to see lead the bc conservative party let me know or answer

00:01:47.200 from the comments below and the interview with caroline elliott follows this caroline elliott

00:01:59.740 thank you for doing this i really appreciate it i'm happy to be here thanks for having me

00:02:03.560 so as an outsider bc politics has always seemed to me to be a bit of an enigma obviously there's

00:02:10.260 a different issue set in the province um but there's also a different flavor of conservatism

00:02:16.460 in British Columbia than there is, say, out east. Evidence mostly by the fact that for most of my

00:02:21.940 life, the B.C. Conservative Party has been dormant. So to start, how would you define

00:02:27.280 British Columbia conservatism? Well, look, like there's so much. What I would say is this is like

00:02:34.460 B.C. conservatism is, I think, a little bit different than the rest of Canada. As you say,

00:02:38.960 it is kind of, in my view, like Canada's new frontier of conservatism in many ways as well.

00:02:44.380 I think that's why there's a lot of people around the country who are quite interested in what's happening here right now, which is exciting.

00:02:49.800 So what does it all mean?

00:02:51.280 I mean, there's the general, you know, there's the general alignment things that you might see in any right of center party.

00:02:57.060 You're going to see, you know, smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation, all those kinds of things.

00:03:01.820 But I think that there's an appetite beyond that to get into sort of the more to understand the depth of the ideological problem in B.C. that's happening under the current NDP government and understanding how important it is that we actually fight back on those same terms as a party on the right.

00:03:17.720 so while a lot of people are you know might want to see sort of like plain old free enterprise

00:03:23.700 conservatism revive itself in BC I think there's an understanding it goes deeper it goes to like

00:03:28.800 who we are as a province who we are as people what's you know what's going on in our education

00:03:34.060 system some of the ideological stuff being pushed by this government to government into every aspect

00:03:39.300 of public life and certainly the public sector in terms of their approach to things so for me

00:03:46.020 least in terms of what i've been promoting is like let's understand the depth of the ideological

00:03:49.780 problem going on in this province let's understand the extent to which the ndps push that ideology

00:03:53.940 into everything and let's actually pick up our end of the tug of war and start pulling back

00:03:59.060 so obviously the end goal here is to become the premier of bc but if you were to win this

00:04:03.140 leadership race your first order of business would be to manage the bc conservative caucus

00:04:08.660 it's no secret that there that the party is somewhat divided there is there are different

00:04:13.700 factions uh there is a more liberal or to be fair to them a more centrist wing of the caucus and

00:04:20.340 then there's obviously a more right-wing faction of the caucus how do you plan to manage that

00:04:26.580 caucus divide and what role under your leadership would the more centrist or liberal faction of the

00:04:33.620 bc conservative caucus play yeah look like i do think politics is a game of addition not subtraction

00:04:40.180 And so we've got to make sure that we have a broad enough appeal to just mathematically improve our vote and actually form government.

00:04:47.920 That to me, though, and I think this is a common mistake people make, and I'm not suggesting you're saying it, but I hear it out there when I'm in communities in B.C. and so on.

00:04:55.460 They say, well, you know, OK, so you have to kind of compromise on being on your conservative principles.

00:05:00.100 And it's like, no, I don't actually think we need to compromise on those principles.

00:05:03.420 I think we can stand actually very firm on our conservative principles and say, if you want to be part of this, jump on board.

00:05:09.320 We want your help.

00:05:09.940 We want your support. We want your vote. And what are those principles? It's things that I think

00:05:15.080 like everyday British Columbians really think, right? It's like, you know, do violent reoffenders

00:05:20.880 belong in jail or neighborhoods? Like everyday BCers know it's jail, right? You know, can

00:05:25.760 government just keep going and spending beyond its means without having a giant fiscal disaster at

00:05:30.360 the end of the day? No, people know that from their household budgets. Can you hand out free

00:05:34.060 drugs all day and expect that you're somehow solving an addictions crisis? No, people get that.

00:05:38.740 So I think that that's what it is for me. It's like stand firm on those conservative principles, but say, if you want to be part of this, come join us.

00:05:45.140 And I think that's the recipe for making sure that we're attracting and broadening our appeal, attracting more votes and broadening our appeal without having to give up on what we're actually here to do.

00:05:55.840 Many conservative provincial governments have been stymied by an entrenched public service that is just outright hostile to conservative values.

00:06:04.100 oftentimes this public service will try to deliberately slow down conservative legislation.

00:06:11.600 We've seen it in Ontario and other provinces. If you were to become premier, what is your plan

00:06:16.940 to navigate a public service apparatus that has proven to be a serious problem for conservative

00:06:23.880 premiers? I do think we are going to encounter problems. I totally agree with the premise of

00:06:29.740 your question in the sense that, yeah, we have a public service that has been, you know, steeped

00:06:36.120 in NDP ideology for the past almost 10 years under this government. And they have, as I said

00:06:42.040 right off the top, they have not hesitated to do that, right? Like, you know, in some health

00:06:46.460 authorities, there's like compulsory land acknowledgements, for example, you've got,

00:06:49.720 you know, like endless, like I think it's like, you know, millions of dollars being spent on like

00:06:54.520 DEI and so-called anti-racism managers in the bureaucracy. You've got, you know, a public health

00:06:59.380 office or that's supposed to be focused on like addictions and some of the big health issues. And

00:07:03.440 they're writing reports about unlearning white supremacy. Like these are the kinds of things

00:07:08.980 that are happening under this government. And I think that one thing I want to do is get in there,

00:07:12.780 do like a really like a serious fine tooth comb review of all the roles and all the dollars being

00:07:20.700 spent and making sure it's actually driving it outcomes for British Columbians. So, you know,

00:07:25.400 yes to dollars spent trying to figure out how to get out of this addictions crisis. No to dollars

00:07:29.300 spent being on things like unlearning white supremacy. And if there's roadblocks in terms

00:07:34.060 of the public service, in terms of doing that, then we're going to have to deal with those one

00:07:39.040 by one. You mentioned briefly the addiction crisis in British Columbia. I think all of the

00:07:45.880 candidates in the field have been pretty strong about their feelings on this issue, as is totally

00:07:51.100 understandable. There is an entire industry in the downtown east side that is making millions of

00:07:57.040 dollars in public funding off the backs of addiction, people who are suffering from

00:08:02.640 addiction. There's an entire industry that is basically involved in essentially prolonging

00:08:07.600 addiction in the downtown east side. If you were to become premier, what would be your plan to

00:08:13.520 smash that addictions industry in the downtown east side to make sure that we don't, we're not

00:08:19.400 going to be seeing people get rich off of this crisis? Yeah, and people should not be getting

00:08:24.660 rich off of this crisis. And you're right, there's countless dollars spent. It's hard to even

00:08:28.400 quantify how much is being spent in perpetuating this crisis. And it's frankly, just plain not

00:08:33.460 working. And you can send, you know, I talked about everyday British Columbians earlier, like

00:08:37.000 you can send an everyday British Columbian, a regular person down there to the downtown East

00:08:40.940 side or Pandora Street in Victoria, or whatever corner of the province it is, because it's in

00:08:44.340 every town. And, you know, ask them to look around, they will tell you this is not working.

00:08:49.580 and everyone can see it with their own eyes so why are we perpetuating it and it's true like there

00:08:55.040 is a whole lobby built around this that is um you know that that is an industry around it as you

00:09:01.140 called it uh that is going to push back hard against any initiative we have to start cleaning

00:09:05.180 things up my view is i want to take all of those dollars like all of them and spend it on recovery

00:09:10.500 treatment getting people well caring for people who have because people who've been revived from

00:09:15.080 overdoses countless times they're now they're now suffering from brain injuries and things so make

00:09:18.920 sure those folks are cared for in places where they're not preyed upon and you know just in a

00:09:22.680 in a cycle of overdose and revival all day like it is completely um it's actually morally wrong

00:09:29.040 how we're dealing with it right now it's it's it's it's quite sick uh and then uh so so we need

00:09:34.400 to I think my view is we need to put those dollars into treatment we need to replace like safe

00:09:38.620 injection sites with recovery hubs where that's the actual objective of what we're doing we need

00:09:43.100 to make sure that people with severe mental health challenges and also brain injuries from addiction

00:09:46.680 or cared for in their own facilities and i would way rather spend those resources

00:09:51.000 up front on those kinds of things than on the disaster and chaos that's happening right now

00:09:58.200 so this question is more to do with party management and and and leading the party and

00:10:04.840 it's a question we asked uh the the candidates at the juno debate and i wanted to get your opinion

00:10:10.120 on this do you believe that non-citizens should be allowed to be members of the bc conservative

00:10:16.040 party as they are right now? My view is that we should move to a place where we have citizens as

00:10:23.320 members of political parties. It's citizens who vote in general elections, and I've never really

00:10:28.060 understood why it's been expanded for within parties. Okay, great. Well, that's a simple answer

00:10:34.980 that clears up what we wanted to hear. This question is about immigration. Obviously,

00:10:43.180 immigration is a federal issue but in alberta daniel smith is asking albertans to vote in a

00:10:49.660 series of immigration restriction measures that are within the jurisdiction of the province such as

00:10:54.700 creating a provincial selection system charging non-permanent residents fees to access social

00:10:59.820 services and some other measures as well would you commit to doing the same thing if you became

00:11:05.660 leader of the bc conservative party and and were to eventually become premier yeah you know i

00:11:11.100 actually think they're doing some neat things in Alberta on a whole bunch of files, and they've

00:11:14.520 shown leadership on issues where others have been afraid to tread, and I like the direction that

00:11:20.660 they're going in on that. I think it drives me crazy when you hear the provincial government

00:11:25.340 say, oh, you know, immigration's federal, as if there's absolutely nothing they can do. There are

00:11:30.040 tools we have as a provincial government that we can exercise, and also even on immigration more

00:11:34.740 broadly, we have a role, I think, you know, if we're successful in forming government, we have

00:11:38.720 a role in standing up to the federal government and voicing, you know, putting our voice out there

00:11:44.780 in the provincial public interest. So like, for example, when we had those like insane, crazy,

00:11:49.500 reckless immigration numbers under the last federal administration, I look around all the

00:11:55.320 time. I'm like, where was the provincial government? Why weren't they saying this is straining our 1.00

00:11:58.520 healthcare system? This is straining our transportation infrastructure, it's straining

00:12:01.420 our housing market and so on. They said nothing. And I think there is definitely a role for the

00:12:06.220 province and standing up to that and exercising our power provincially on certain aspects of

00:12:12.620 immigration wherever we can as well. I'm completely up for that and I have said already like I'd like

00:12:17.440 to see the province of BC get similar powers to Quebec in terms of how what they're able to

00:12:22.460 exercise over immigration as well. So Indigenous issues dominate BC politics. It has dominated

00:12:28.880 this leadership race. You have promised to scrap DRIPA and repeal laws that give First Nations 1.00

00:12:35.500 veto power over public land and resources courts have upheld drippa so would you be willing to use

00:12:41.680 the notwithstanding clause uh to follow through on that promise so that's a complicated one and

00:12:49.220 not because i'm shying away from the answer like i think we have to repeal drippa in full as an

00:12:53.860 absolute legislative priority and i will do that i'm completely committed to it and i've been saying

00:12:58.600 it long since long before um it was popular i was the only one out there saying it when some of my

00:13:04.120 fellow contestants were endorsing it and voting for it and thinking it was great uh so so um and

00:13:09.540 and what i would say on that front by the way is when it comes to actually repealing drippa it is

00:13:13.840 going to be politically difficult to do i don't deny that for a second uh but if you were only

00:13:18.540 speaking up about it now that it's politically easy and not back when it was politically hard

00:13:22.560 then i don't know if the political will is going to be there on the part of many of these candidates

00:13:26.360 to actually proceed with the change that we need to see um so so yeah indigenous issues are a huge

00:13:32.080 issue in BC. We need to repeal DRIPA as an absolute priority. The notwithstanding clause.

00:13:38.220 So the notwithstanding clause can't be used on aboriginal rights and title issues just

00:13:44.280 constitutionally. And I know I've heard some of my fellow leadership candidates talk about that,

00:13:48.700 but you cannot use section 33, which is the notwithstanding clause on section 35, which is

00:13:53.340 the aboriginal rights clause in the constitution. So I know that they've promised that, but I don't

00:14:00.320 think they can actually do that. So obviously we've seen provincial laws across the country

00:14:08.580 get challenged. Even, you know, bike lane laws get challenged in Ontario, for example,

00:14:14.500 and in Quebec now the notwithstanding clause is used in every piece of legislation.

00:14:19.320 Overall, what is your view on the notwithstanding clause? Do you feel like it is something you'd be

00:14:24.920 prepared to use in in all of bc legislation if it turns out that you just have a group of people

00:14:31.160 that are going to challenge every single law you attempt to pass if you become premier

00:14:34.520 yeah it's an interesting question um look like the notwithstanding clause we would not have our

00:14:39.560 charter in our constitution if we didn't have the notwithstanding clause and um and i spent some time

00:14:44.180 studying it myself and it's a tool that uh gives that it's a tool that places power it balances

00:14:50.340 out, there's always a balance in every system between the judiciary who's not elected and,

00:14:55.180 you know, the legislatures, essentially, that is elected. And there's a balance there where

00:15:00.500 the judiciary can come in and just overrule those elected members. What the Notwithstanding Clause

00:15:05.040 does is it allows those elected members to pull back that control on certain issues

00:15:09.140 and put that power back in the hands of the legislatures. So I think that it's actually

00:15:14.980 a really unique innovation. It's individual use, like when it's been used historically,

00:15:21.320 you can criticize or not, depending on your view of the policy. But I think that it is,

00:15:26.300 it's an important thing. And I don't like to see that it's under threat from certain federal

00:15:29.440 initiatives that they're doing right now. And I think that there are times and places for its

00:15:33.920 use. Absolutely. Like one good example is involuntary care. Some people have said like,

00:15:38.700 you shouldn't be able to put people who are suffering from severe, severe addictions or

00:15:41.860 severe mental health challenges into care against their will. And they say, oh, it infringes on

00:15:46.300 their freedoms. And I'm like, well, that's not freedom to be imprisoned by an addiction and not

00:15:51.140 be able to exercise your own agency as an individual. So it's on us as a society to

00:15:55.520 exercise that if necessary and make sure they get into care. So there's certainly issues that I would

00:16:00.120 be quite happy to use it. Since the Kamloops residential school claim 13 churches have been

00:16:07.980 burned in British Columbia. A further 14 have been vandalized. If you win this leadership race and

00:16:14.360 do become premier, what will you do to protect British Columbia's churches and the Christian

00:16:20.320 population? Yeah, thank you. It's absolutely atrocious and unacceptable that churches have

00:16:27.920 been burned. Like, it's ridiculous. And I can't believe that there's not more of a public outcry 0.99

00:16:32.100 about it, to be honest. So yeah, I would investigate those kinds of incidents to the

00:16:39.720 fullest extent possible, hold the people accountable who are doing it, and certainly

00:16:43.780 not brush it aside as though it's nothing, which it seems to be what all levels of government have

00:16:48.400 been doing. It barely reaches the media. And so that's why I'm glad to see these instances covered

00:16:53.340 by independent media a lot more than they happen in the traditional media.

00:16:57.000 under your leadership of the bc uh conservative party if you were to win will caucus members be

00:17:04.800 allowed to post on social media that there have been no confirmed child burials at the site of

00:17:11.380 the former kamloops residential school god i mean that's a that's a very specific question about uh

00:17:17.600 what the what the elected members will be allowed to post um look i think that members being able

00:17:22.940 to express themselves authentically is important. And I think it's important that they can express

00:17:28.380 themselves on issues that they see as really crucial. So I think like, look, like facts and

00:17:35.000 evidence do matter. And this isn't to under, you know, this isn't to, you know, be accused of

00:17:41.180 denialism of anything happening in the past and so on. I think that it's quite fair to say

00:17:46.120 if $12 million or whatever it is has been allocated to these various investigative

00:17:52.460 initiatives on that issue and nothing has been done with those dollars, then I think it's a fair

00:17:58.940 thing, as an example, for people to raise and say, okay, this is tax dollars. Taxpayers deserve

00:18:05.840 transparency. Where is this going and what is it found? So those are the kinds of things I think

00:18:10.120 are within the purview of elected members to question publicly. Yeah, I bring it up specifically

00:18:16.180 because that was a controversy that John Rustad was faced when MLA Dallas Brody caucus member at

00:18:23.360 the time made that post. It brought a lot of attention to the party and the debate was about

00:18:29.220 whether or not, you know, you could even post that. So I appreciate your, your answer on that

00:18:34.380 switching gears now to the environmental side, because obviously that's another part of British

00:18:40.080 Columbia politics that gets a lot of play more so than I would say in Ontario and other provinces,

00:18:45.620 obviously environmental so the environmental debates obviously are dominating bc politics

00:18:51.540 net zero ideology in particular however is now backed by federal law and provincial legislation

00:18:57.940 do you believe that net zero is possible by 2050 no i think net zero is a essentially a a a plan

00:19:08.560 to kill our economy in order to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reductions and

00:19:14.700 And a really good example of that is the NDP's, what I think is a very radical Clean BC plan.

00:19:20.620 They call it Clean BC.

00:19:21.560 It sounds really nice.

00:19:22.500 But when you actually dig into it, the government's own numbers show, and this has been backed

00:19:27.420 up by numerous business associations, they do show it's a plan to achieve greenhouse

00:19:31.680 gas emissions reductions by killing our economy.

00:19:34.860 And if you just to give like a sense of what I'm talking about, the NDP blames like every

00:19:39.220 economic issue in BC on Donald Trump, right, and his tariffs.

00:19:42.580 Well, a study done, I think it was last year, shows that the sum total impact of Trump's

00:19:49.200 tariffs on GDP is $43 billion over four years in BC.

00:19:52.160 The total impact of clean BC over that same four-year period is $110 billion.

00:19:56.880 So they are doing way more damage to our economy by pursuing this plan than Trump's tariffs

00:20:03.620 are even doing.

00:20:04.540 So that's why I've been actually pretty outspoken about the need to scrap clean BC and scrap

00:20:08.280 all the associated policies that have come from it.

00:20:12.000 I bring it up because in the MOU signed between Alberta and the federal government to try to

00:20:18.720 get projects built, or at least to say that, the Alberta government has signed on to net zero by

00:20:24.820 2050. Most provinces have agreed to saying we're going to reach net zero by 2050. It seems to be

00:20:31.920 a requirement from provinces, if they want to do business with the federal government,

00:20:36.680 to accept the premise that not only is this possible, but that provinces are going to work

00:20:42.340 toward it. So if you were to become premier, would you be willing to tell the prime minister

00:20:47.500 that net zero by 2050 is just not on the cards? Again, it's backed up by provincial legislation.

00:20:55.260 Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think that we have to have honest conversations about these things

00:21:00.520 and be straight up, including with the federal government. And, you know, if, you know, we have

00:21:05.060 a prime minister right now who is saying he really cares about the economy. He wants, you know, he's

00:21:10.100 saying he wants pipelines. He's saying he wants economic development. That's great. Sure. Like we

00:21:14.440 all want that. But if you're going to have economy killing policies in place, then that's not actual,

00:21:20.540 you know, you're not actually standing by what you're promising Canadians. And I think pointing

00:21:23.840 that out in the case of net zero and saying like, look, like if you're saying you want to build the

00:21:27.320 economy, but you're also chasing net zero, you can't have both of those things. And I don't mind

00:21:31.920 saying that to the federal government. I think it's actually an important case to make.

00:21:36.900 So the last provincial election was extremely close. A handful of votes could have swung the

00:21:41.940 race in a different direction. This can be interpreted in two ways, obviously, and it's

00:21:47.740 a debate facing conservatives across the country right now. One way to interpret that election

00:21:52.560 result would be that a more energizing and conservative platform could have tapped into

00:21:57.920 voters who decided to stay home the other way to view it is that a more broadly appealing

00:22:04.240 centrist appealing campaign could have swung ndp voters to the conservative side

00:22:08.960 which camp do you put yourself in i think that we need to my approach going into the next election

00:22:16.880 is i think that we can win and win big on conservative principles we don't have to water

00:22:21.840 them down we have to show our job is to show the alignment between what we stand for and what the

00:22:27.120 general public thinks and bring them along that way and that's how i think we'll win and i think

00:22:31.360 that we actually can win big i think we can bring it win a big strong majority government here in bc

00:22:36.480 um by doing exactly that and also by like not just showing that alignment but reaching people

00:22:41.600 people where they're at running a 2026 campaign in 2026 or whenever whenever the campaign actually

00:22:46.560 happens like doing a very heavy social media push like these are things that the ndp does uh that the

00:22:52.080 the the conservative party of bc and in fairness they were building the plane while they were

00:22:56.080 flying it it was new it was hard and they didn't have quite the organization and funding that they

00:23:00.640 you know might have otherwise had if they were a more established party at the at the time i think

00:23:04.880 that we can build that organization out i think we can raise the money i think we can run a 2026

00:23:08.960 campaign like recruit some all-star candidates uh in ridings where we don't have people already and

00:23:13.840 we can like win this thing big and in fact like we have to we can't win just by a seat or two because

00:23:19.280 if we're if we're like we're not going to be able to reply rely on the green party when we're trying

00:23:23.840 to like repeal clean bc for example we're not going to be able to reply or rely on the ndp when

00:23:28.320 we're dropping drippa like we are going to need votes in our own caucus to drive through all of

00:23:33.200 those big things and especially by the way like in terms of taking the activism out of schools

00:23:37.040 too like these are some things that they're conservative principles conservative policies 1.00

00:23:41.040 and we need conservatives voting for them on education you obviously plan to get rid of soji 0.99

00:23:47.280 from the curriculum we've seen conservative governments at provincial governments campaign 0.99

00:23:53.200 on curriculum reform and it has proven to be harder to actually implement i think for a number

00:23:59.280 of reasons these school boards are quite entrenched the public service around education

00:24:03.920 prevents a lot of this stuff from happening um so what what are you willing to do it kind of goes

00:24:09.600 back to that public service question but how quickly do you think you can make serious reforms

00:24:14.800 to curriculum in british columbia education if you were to form a government it's a it's like

00:24:20.000 Like, this is like a huge driving factor for me.

00:24:23.060 This is one of my most motivating issues for me personally.

00:24:25.540 I'm a parent.

00:24:26.540 My kids are young.

00:24:27.300 They're in the school system. 1.00

00:24:28.240 And I look at this as like that whole generation, like people like without kids and things,

00:24:32.520 they sometimes think we don't have to care about education.

00:24:34.320 We don't have kids.

00:24:34.900 Or maybe their kids are too old and they're out of school now.

00:24:37.400 We are educating an entire generation of young people right now under the NDP with NDP activist ideology.

00:24:46.340 They're being taught to denigrate our past, to hear only about the worst of our past,

00:24:51.160 never about our collective successes.

00:24:52.780 They're being taught that the land that they stand on isn't theirs.

00:24:56.620 They've got, you know, Soji, you mentioned, you've got like conversations happening between

00:25:00.060 kids in the school system that should rightly be happening between parents in their school

00:25:04.040 system.

00:25:04.360 And then even worse, parents are being shut out of those conversations.

00:25:08.660 There's a reason why I'm so firm that we need to scrap Soji.

00:25:11.780 We need to pull the activism out completely of the education system.

00:25:15.960 we need to put parents back in the driver's seat. We need to offer more school choice. Like I want

00:25:19.520 to do all of these things. I agree with you. It's not going to be easy though. Like there's,

00:25:23.120 it's a, it's a tricky thing, but I do think we need to, to get into the curriculum. We need to,

00:25:27.160 and I'm not advocating for partisanship in the curriculum, just to be clear. I'm advocating

00:25:30.820 for taking the NDP activism out. So identifying that, pulling that out of the curriculum,

00:25:36.300 empowering teachers too. Like I know there's a lot of teachers I talked to who are super

00:25:40.660 uncomfortable with the way they're being asked to teach right now. They don't want to be teaching

00:25:44.360 like that. And I think, and they're bullied kind of into staying quiet and just acquiescing and

00:25:49.320 doing what the system's telling them to do. So for me, it's about like, it's not, it's about

00:25:54.240 focusing on core basics. It's about getting back to things like literacy and numeracy,

00:25:58.100 you know, those kinds of subjects where outcomes are actually declining quite rapidly in BC,

00:26:03.580 bringing back measurability, like letter grades, we can do that, bringing back standardized testing

00:26:08.040 so we can know how kids are doing year to year. Like there's a lot that we actually can do. I

00:26:11.640 don't deny that we'll be up against all kinds of issues with like the bctf is our teachers union

00:26:15.800 here um they're going to push back hard but i also don't mind i don't mind taking that fight

00:26:20.960 to the public and saying look the bctf is proposing like pronoun switching games for

00:26:25.880 kids in kindergarten and grade one that's completely inappropriate the public knows

00:26:30.720 that and i think that the more that we talk about these things instead of being shy about it the

00:26:34.160 more progress we're going to be able to make all right i want to uh throw you some rapid fire

00:26:39.460 questions here and some of them are quite specific but uh they were asked to your fellow candidates

00:26:44.660 so i want to get your thoughts on them the first is this would you fire provincial health officer

00:26:49.700 bonnie henry if you were to become premier yeah and i've said i would uh publicly and and the

00:26:55.460 reason is i mean like there's so there's a lot of reasons but you know people go straight to the

00:26:59.400 vaccine mandates the reality is she's been doing all kinds of activist things she's been doing the

00:27:04.320 unlearning white supremacy project she's been doing she was denying that safe supply so-called 1.00

00:27:08.560 safe supply was getting into the hands of kids when in fact it was. She's advocated for a far 1.00

00:27:13.060 more radical decriminalization experiment than we're already on. Like these are problematic

00:27:17.640 positions and she shouldn't be in that role with that kind of mindset. All right. The next one is

00:27:23.100 this. Would you abolish the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal? Yes. And I've also been public

00:27:28.340 about that too. The tribunal and the commission, in my view, like this isn't about do you believe

00:27:31.980 in human rights or not? This is about do human rights deserve to be heard in a real court or in

00:27:37.480 kangaroo court meetup of ndp activists because that's what the tribunal is right now all right

00:27:42.440 as premier would you continue to permit drug injection sites or safe injection sites throughout

00:27:49.160 bc no and i want to replace them with recovery hubs as i mentioned earlier where we're actually

00:27:54.920 focusing on treatment and and recovery not not continued um cycles of addiction all right uh in

00:28:01.880 2018 the city of victoria tore down the statue of john a mcdonald the first of many to be torn

00:28:07.080 down across the country would you uh would you follow uh on ontario premier doug ford's lead here

00:28:14.680 and restore public access to the johnny mcdonald statue and all other torn down statues in british

00:28:20.920 columbia yes an enthusiastic yes like we should be celebrating the people who built this country

00:28:26.760 and johnny mcdonald is one of them i would also resurrect or build anew the statue of captain

00:28:32.200 james cook that was pushed into the harbor by a by an angry mob uh back in i can't remember when

00:28:37.320 during the during those big protests that we were having maybe it was around black lives matter or

00:28:41.400 one of those other issues um yeah restore the statues and in fact let's think about other

00:28:45.440 founding figures we can celebrate while we're at it

00:28:47.760 i want to give you the the floor here to make your case and and frame it this way

00:28:55.160 uh what would british colombians be missing if you are not chosen as the leader of the bc party

00:29:02.040 and the next premier? I think they would be missing. One is a willingness to actually get

00:29:11.020 in there and pull that ideology that the NDP has instilled out by its roots from every corner of

00:29:16.540 governance. There's those out there who want to do tax cuts, they want to do deregulation,

00:29:22.100 all that stuff. That's all good. We have to actually do that. Don't get me wrong. Those

00:29:25.540 are crucially important things. But understanding that we need to pull the activism out of the

00:29:29.120 education system, understanding that we need to actually have pride in who we are as British

00:29:33.760 Colombians. And maybe that's my second answer. What would they be missing? It would be the

00:29:38.080 restoration of a sense of pride in our province, in our country, what our predecessors have

00:29:43.620 achieved and left us, and a commitment to not squandering that incredible legacy that they've

00:29:48.100 left us. Like making the most of it, leaving our kids better off than we found this province.

00:29:54.080 And that's a commitment that our forefathers had, whether it's premiers like WAC Bennett and Bill

00:29:59.060 Bennett, who built out the infrastructure that made this province what it is today, whether it's

00:30:02.860 founding fathers like Johnny MacDonald of our country as a whole, like these are people that

00:30:08.700 we should be celebrating. That's a pride that we should be instilling in our kids through education

00:30:12.160 and just through our common discourse. And it's just sort of ending that culture of shame and

00:30:17.800 the culture of shame that the NDP has pushed into to not only the education system, but our sense

00:30:24.080 of cells as British Columbians. Caroline Elliott, thank you so much for doing this,

00:30:28.680 taking the time out of the, off the campaign trail. Yeah, I was happy to. Thank you for

00:30:32.380 having me. A reminder that if you want to get early access to every episode of ratioed and

00:30:37.840 exclusive access to Juno news, original journalism, you can use my code junonews.com

00:30:43.920 slash Harrison return to get a discount on a Juno news subscription. Reminder that the common

00:30:49.980 question for the episode is this who do you want to see be the next leader of the bc conservative

00:30:57.420 party. My name is Harrison Faulkner, and this is Ratio.

Juno News - May 05, 2026

Caroline Elliott's plan to END the NDP in B.C. ｜ Caroline Elliott speaks with Harrison Faulkner

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript