Juno News - March 12, 2021


Conservative journalist Aaron Gunn mulling run for BC Liberal leadership

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A Tale of Two Pandemics Leave the kids alone

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

188.09

Word count

4,209

Sentence count

300

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Aaron Gunn is a conservative commentator and media personality who has been a long-time supporter of the BC Liberal Party. Now, he s considering a run for the party leadership, and I sat down with him to talk about why he thinks it s time for a change.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 As many of you know, I was in British Columbia last week doing filming and production on
00:00:14.280 Assaulted, Justin Trudeau's war on gun owners.
00:00:17.340 And while I was in BC, I had a down afternoon, not sad, but I mean, I didn't have anything
00:00:22.060 scheduled.
00:00:22.500 So I decided to catch up with an old friend of mine, Aaron Gunn, who has done tremendous
00:00:28.200 work around BC and I would say around the country, advocating first for taxpayer interests.
00:00:33.240 And he's since broadened that to a lot of other solid small C conservative ideas.
00:00:37.980 And he is looking to take the leap from independent media to politics, musing a run for the leadership
00:00:45.040 of the BC Liberal Party.
00:00:47.040 Now, as far as BC politics goes, the BC Liberals tend to be the more electable conservative-ish
00:00:54.380 party.
00:00:54.920 But the ish is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, as we'll talk about with Aaron.
00:00:58.920 There's a lot of overlap between the BC Liberals and the federal conservatives, but there's
00:01:03.420 also some overlap between the BC Liberals and the federal liberals.
00:01:07.080 So the question comes down to, can this be a conservative party?
00:01:10.520 And is that enough to get a conservative government in British Columbia?
00:01:14.960 Lots to chew on.
00:01:15.880 Here's my interview with potential BC Liberal leadership candidate, Aaron Gunn.
00:01:20.920 Aaron Gunn, he's been a friend of True North.
00:01:22.640 Good to talk to you.
00:01:23.580 It's great to be here.
00:01:24.420 So let's start right out of the gate.
00:01:26.460 Are you running for the leadership of the BC Liberals?
00:01:29.040 I am seriously considering it.
00:01:30.740 I'm doing my due diligence.
00:01:32.040 The rules just came out pretty recently.
00:01:34.840 And that's something that we're considering.
00:01:36.320 I've been inundated with messages and both on Facebook and emails and texts from friends
00:01:43.040 and supporters encouraging me to do something with the sad state of affairs of BC politics.
00:01:48.120 And it's something I'm taking really seriously.
00:01:49.700 Why would you want to?
00:01:51.960 I mean, this is, I think, a big question that you've yourself been on the forefront of criticizing
00:01:57.540 the state of BC politics, of politics in general, and of the BC Liberal Party.
00:02:02.520 You've got a great thing going for you right now talking about the issues.
00:02:05.580 Why decide to jump into this?
00:02:08.340 Well, that's a great question.
00:02:11.060 Already, I've seen in just the last couple of weeks since my name started being rumored,
00:02:15.400 there's the, you know, the attacks over social media, the character assassinations.
00:02:21.000 Press Progress did a big piece on me.
00:02:22.640 So that is a great question.
00:02:24.580 And I ask myself that sometimes.
00:02:27.300 But on the other hand, in the last provincial election, I was sitting back and watching it.
00:02:32.380 I'm a resident of British Columbia.
00:02:33.540 I was born here.
00:02:34.780 I was raised here. 0.99
00:02:35.800 And it was just frankly pathetic. 0.98
00:02:37.700 There were two choices, the NDP and the NDP light. 0.96
00:02:41.640 And the NDP light, of course, being the BC Liberal Party.
00:02:45.040 There was no vision articulated for the province.
00:02:48.420 Voters were not given a choice, a real choice.
00:02:51.040 And it's something that I think needs to change.
00:02:54.360 I know that for people that aren't in BC, they might be a little bit confused.
00:02:57.860 Andrew, you're supposed to be on the right.
00:02:59.180 Why are you talking to a guy who wants to run for the leadership of the BC Liberals?
00:03:02.580 You actually acknowledged that.
00:03:04.520 You had posted something on Facebook when there was a movement afoot to try to draft you into
00:03:08.640 politics in which you said that you think the name of the party is actually holding it back
00:03:13.140 from what you'd want to see it as.
00:03:15.080 Yeah, the name of the party needs to go.
00:03:16.460 It's a really weird history.
00:03:17.580 But there's basically a two-party system here in British Columbia other than the Green Party.
00:03:23.300 You have the NDP and then you basically have the anti-NDP party.
00:03:26.720 That's a center-right coalition.
00:03:28.740 Now, why they called it the BC Liberals is a long story.
00:03:31.820 But what is true is that there's no reason for the BC Liberal name to exist now.
00:03:36.420 For example, if we wanted to enter a doubles tennis tournament and we're like, well, let's
00:03:40.960 come up with a name for our team.
00:03:42.520 We wouldn't say, OK, well, let's call it Team Andrew.
00:03:44.780 That wouldn't make a lot of sense.
00:03:47.480 Or Team Aaron.
00:03:48.260 So I think that it needs a new name, one that can be inclusive of everybody that's in the
00:03:52.740 coalition.
00:03:53.560 The majority of members and voters of the party are federal conservatives.
00:03:58.000 So that's kind of one of the tasks I look forward to potentially taking on.
00:04:03.680 That's actually an important point you raised, though, because I've never been completely
00:04:08.200 confident that it is the case.
00:04:09.620 But you think that the federal conservative DNA is really the majority of the BC Liberal
00:04:15.280 DNA?
00:04:17.460 Well, I would say the majority of voters for the BC of the BC Liberal Party are federal
00:04:23.080 conservatives.
00:04:23.820 They've done kind of those studies.
00:04:25.500 And I would say the membership as well.
00:04:28.360 Now, one of the problems is the party apparatus and the insiders behind the party.
00:04:33.240 I don't know if it matters if they're technically federal conservatives or federal liberals.
00:04:37.220 I don't even know if they know any more themselves.
00:04:39.500 But one thing is that they're consumed with power and kind of, you know, having their team
00:04:45.900 win as opposed to actually coming up with and implementing public policy that works for
00:04:51.760 British Columbians and works for taxpayers.
00:04:54.440 That's, I think, very key here because we saw in Alberta this happen where you had a party
00:04:59.720 in the PC party of Alberta that went unchallenged for years and years.
00:05:03.320 And by the end of its run, there was very little that was recognizably conservative about it
00:05:08.140 because it became a party about power.
00:05:10.160 And the BC Liberals have had that mantle for quite a while, up until just a couple of years
00:05:14.780 ago.
00:05:15.180 So there is, I think, an opportunity that that presents for a reset.
00:05:19.040 Yeah, that's right.
00:05:19.740 I think, you know, just like you mentioned with Alberta, this seems to happen, you know,
00:05:24.460 every couple of decades where parties get tired.
00:05:27.240 The establishment gets, I don't want to, corrupt might be a little bit too strong of a word,
00:05:33.060 but there's a certain malaise that hangs over it when it comes to public policy and new ideas.
00:05:38.300 And that needs to change.
00:05:39.460 It needs to be reinvigorated.
00:05:41.100 It needs to be rebranded.
00:05:43.000 And it needs to be re-energized.
00:05:44.340 So that's something that myself or at the very least an outsider should be coming into
00:05:49.880 the party to provide.
00:05:51.380 When we hear about that term outsider, I think it's become a bit romanticized in a way, this
00:05:57.840 notion of just someone swooping in who doesn't have experience in elected office.
00:06:02.700 And I don't want to downplay what you have done because you've certainly covered politics
00:06:05.840 and you've worked in the political system more broadly, but you're not an MLA.
00:06:10.300 You're not a member of parliament.
00:06:12.000 You are coming at this without having that conventional track towards seeking the leadership
00:06:17.060 and ultimately the premiership.
00:06:19.420 Why should people overlook that?
00:06:21.180 Why should people overlook what they would view as a lack of experience and say, yeah,
00:06:25.360 this guy could run the province?
00:06:27.200 Well, I think it's about experience is important, but even more importantly, it's having the
00:06:32.860 right kind of experience.
00:06:34.120 So you look at a lot of the people in the BC Liberal Party right now are people that are
00:06:38.200 rumored to also be running.
00:06:39.840 A lot of these people were involved in bringing in the first carbon tax in North America.
00:06:44.260 I don't think that's the kind of experience that we need.
00:06:46.760 A lot of them were involved with the money laundering and the housing bubble that
00:06:51.060 had affordability go completely out the window for British Columbians.
00:06:54.600 There's the ICBC insurance monopoly that was running to the ground.
00:06:57.740 So it's important to have experience.
00:06:59.520 Obviously, I've been talking about and communicating issues that are important for British Columbians
00:07:04.340 and Canadians since I left university going to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:07:08.740 But I think even more importantly, it's having the right kind of experience and not having
00:07:14.660 that baggage because I guess that's the other side of that coin.
00:07:18.680 Yeah, it is.
00:07:19.480 And I think you're bang on there.
00:07:21.400 And I would also say just for people outside BC, there tends to be this caricature of British
00:07:26.520 Columbia where I think we define it, those of us who aren't from BC, as what downtown
00:07:31.260 Vancouverites think.
00:07:32.340 And you've heard this all before, the left coast and, you know, the image of the BC hippie.
00:07:36.800 But in BC, there is, first off, a lot more of a diverse province than I think a lot of
00:07:41.120 people outside realize.
00:07:42.800 But a lot of people that are similarly frustrated at all those things you just mentioned, the
00:07:46.880 carbon tax, the housing situations, even if they don't identify as conservative politically,
00:07:52.040 would probably align with someone that's bringing a small C conservative vision to the
00:07:56.320 province's politics.
00:07:57.660 Yeah, it's not about conservative or liberal.
00:08:00.020 I get asked this question a lot.
00:08:01.420 It's about common sense.
00:08:02.940 It's about public policy that works for people.
00:08:05.700 It's about, you know, realism in public policy.
00:08:09.960 So, and you're exactly right about the Vancouver disconnect from downtown Vancouver, either with
00:08:15.480 the suburbs around Vancouver, whether that's Surrey, whether that's Langley, the interior,
00:08:19.580 Kelowna, Kamloops, the north and Prince George, where most of the mineral and oil and natural
00:08:24.440 gas wealth comes from, or on Vancouver Island, where people feel completely ignored.
00:08:29.440 So I do think that what you say is exactly correct.
00:08:33.420 And there's that disconnect in downtown Vancouver with the rest of the province, which I'm sure
00:08:38.460 is similar to Toronto and much of that province and Montreal and much of Quebec, etc.
00:08:44.140 Yes, and I don't know if every province has that.
00:08:47.240 Certainly in Ontario, you see that dynamic where people feel that the decisions are made by a few
00:08:53.440 square kilometers in the Toronto area, and that's where the population is.
00:08:57.140 And I'm assuming BC is very much like that as well.
00:08:59.860 So how do you break through that with a vision that, and I'm looking beyond the leadership right
00:09:04.420 now.
00:09:04.660 Assume you were the leader of the Liberals.
00:09:06.600 You're running province wide.
00:09:08.140 How do you break beyond that regional imbalance and put a vision forward that is not going
00:09:13.140 to scare people away, but at the same time is going to be solid to these principles that
00:09:17.300 you've espoused for years?
00:09:19.240 Well, I think a couple of things.
00:09:21.740 I think one thing is in the cities, and we talk about Vancouver, people that are living
00:09:25.900 outside the downtown core are equally frustrated with the decisions coming from those downtown
00:09:31.860 as people that are living in the rural areas.
00:09:33.620 So in Vancouver, for example, you have these tent cities that have been completely out of
00:09:37.900 control.
00:09:38.360 You have city councils in Victoria that have tore down statues of Sir John A. MacDonald,
00:09:42.760 for example, that have instituted insane policies towards harm reduction, quote-unquote harm reduction
00:09:51.580 that have failed spectacularly.
00:09:53.500 They pretty much have taxpayer-funded heroin injection sites.
00:09:57.640 So these kind of policies, I think, have failed, and people inside the cities and outside
00:10:02.220 are equally frustrated.
00:10:04.140 So that's, I think, how you connect with them, and you try to provide a pan-British-Columbian
00:10:08.920 vision that everybody can get behind.
00:10:12.060 What is your vision for the party?
00:10:15.900 Well, first of all is to change the name.
00:10:18.540 I think that has to happen, because you need a new name, you need a new leader, but you need
00:10:23.500 a new name to really turn the page on this, you know, the history of the party.
00:10:28.420 And to tell Conservatives, some of whom stayed home last election and broke off and voted
00:10:33.960 for the B.C. Conservative Party, that they are welcome back into the tent.
00:10:37.380 So that's number one.
00:10:38.820 Number two, you have to get cost of living under control.
00:10:41.440 You have to realize that's, you know, a number one priority for many British Columbians and
00:10:45.040 their families that don't necessarily have all the time to chat about all the nuances
00:10:49.160 of politics.
00:10:50.080 But, you know, they're trying to feed their families and afford their mortgage payments.
00:10:53.440 And that means the housing bubble and the housing crisis, that means repealing the carbon tax,
00:10:59.580 that means reining in the ICBC auto insurance monopoly, et cetera, et cetera.
00:11:04.640 I think you've got to stand up to city councils that have gone completely out of control.
00:11:09.100 I think you need to get the pipelines built to power this economy, whether it's TMX or Coastal
00:11:13.400 Gas Link or putting Northern Gateway back on the table.
00:11:16.920 I think you need to support forestry, resources.
00:11:19.640 You have to protect our constitutional rights and you have to rein in as well some of these
00:11:25.760 universities like the University of British Columbia that does not respect free speech
00:11:29.980 and freedom of assembly in this province.
00:11:31.980 I think as a taxpayer funded institution, that's completely unacceptable.
00:11:35.900 The resource issue is huge because whenever we have these discussions in Canada, even when
00:11:42.820 the liberals are on board, the federal liberals in Canada are on board, B.C. is the sticking
00:11:47.960 point.
00:11:48.300 And I refuse to believe that the average British Columbian is against the jobs, the reduction
00:11:55.300 in dependence on foreign oil that are all inherently byproducts of the attacks on Canada's
00:12:01.660 oil sector.
00:12:02.760 Why has there not been a voice in B.C.
00:12:05.020 politics that has been able to be pro-energy really in a bold way?
00:12:11.460 Well, you're 100 percent right in that if you look at every poll, the majority of British
00:12:15.620 Columbians support the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
00:12:19.400 A huge majority of British Columbians support the Coastal Gas Link Natural Gas Pipeline.
00:12:24.360 By the way, all 20 elected First Nation bands along the pipeline route also support that
00:12:28.700 project.
00:12:30.100 I think what you're missing is you're missing a politician with backbone who isn't afraid
00:12:35.740 to champion Canadian oil and natural gas and say, you know what?
00:12:39.040 This actually makes the world a better place as long as we need oil in the world.
00:12:43.500 As much of that oil as possible should be coming from Canada.
00:12:45.980 When it comes to natural gas, that's good for the environment in every way imaginable because
00:12:51.080 you're sending it off to China to help displace coal.
00:12:54.480 So I think you need a champion who isn't afraid to stand up for his principles, isn't going to
00:13:00.320 back down because they're scared of a bad headline with the CBC and really sticks to his guns.
00:13:06.200 So that's what I think has been missing is a champion for those issues.
00:13:11.040 And as you mentioned, energy.
00:13:12.960 What are the factors weighing on your mind as you decide whether to go through with this?
00:13:18.800 Well, right now, as I mentioned, we're doing our due diligence, looking at the rules, looking
00:13:25.000 at election BC rules.
00:13:27.000 And for me, a lot of it's timing.
00:13:29.040 As you mentioned, I've got just started a new show, Politics Explained.
00:13:33.340 I have my online branding and I've been expanding really rapidly.
00:13:38.400 And this isn't my first choice of time to get involved into politics.
00:13:43.660 I've chatted openly with individuals like yourself, other people in the movement.
00:13:48.500 As you know, I'm a movement guy about how one day, you know, down the road, I might get
00:13:53.820 involved into politics.
00:13:55.240 But why I might be getting involved now is just the genuine frustration with lack of choices.
00:13:59.600 There's just, there's no choices articulating these values, articulating an actual vision
00:14:05.080 for this province.
00:14:06.340 And if somebody stepped up to the plate that I thought, you know, checked all those boxes,
00:14:09.800 I'd be more than happy to support them from the sidelines and continue doing my thing.
00:14:14.180 So it's a long runway.
00:14:15.780 The vote's not till February 2022.
00:14:18.360 And so one of the reasons why is I'm waiting to see if somebody actually gets in and starts
00:14:23.320 articulating, you know, those things in which I believe and which I think, you know, a large
00:14:28.480 number of British Columbians believe as well.
00:14:30.440 When you look at the landscape of BC politics, is the issue that the people that you've just
00:14:34.400 described don't exist?
00:14:35.600 Or is it that they exist but are just not wanting to seek a leadership role at this point?
00:14:40.440 Or don't think it's viable for them to do so?
00:14:42.400 Well, I think there's a lot of apathy in British Columbia.
00:14:46.340 I think the British Columbia Liberal Party has just, as I mentioned earlier, there's kind
00:14:51.900 of a malaise has been beset on top of them.
00:14:55.200 There's been no kind of new ideas.
00:14:57.780 And then I think also, you know, who would want to get involved in politics?
00:15:01.780 Now, if you...
00:15:02.680 Yeah, it goes back to the first question of why on earth do you want this?
00:15:05.520 If you had a successful career in the private sector, why would you possibly want to get
00:15:09.960 involved in politics and take the torrent of abuse that you're inevitably going to receive?
00:15:16.760 So I think that's, you know, I think that deters a lot of people.
00:15:21.060 For whatever reason, my brain has been wired in such a way where, you know, that's something
00:15:27.320 that I can deal with or my skin is thick enough.
00:15:31.540 But for me, honestly, it's not really that I want to do it or it seems like a great opportunity.
00:15:37.160 It's that I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines.
00:15:40.160 I remember sitting there during the last provincial election watching the debate and just being
00:15:44.340 like, is this the best we can do?
00:15:46.440 I really think, you know, British Columbia, third biggest province in confederation, plays
00:15:51.720 a very important role in these, you know, constitutional debates regarding infrastructure
00:15:55.420 like pipelines.
00:15:56.620 And I really think it needs better leadership.
00:15:59.100 And this is not a publicity stunt.
00:16:01.100 If you do this, you're a serious candidate.
00:16:02.920 Wait, 100 percent.
00:16:04.520 I'm only going into this to win if I go into it and make the final call.
00:16:09.400 We've already got, you know, a team together that's discussing the possibilities.
00:16:14.580 And, you know, like I said, we have to do our due diligence.
00:16:17.660 But there's no publicity stunt.
00:16:19.160 Trust me, we did the cost-benefit analysis.
00:16:23.420 And this would be much too of a—there's much too much incoming that I would receive
00:16:28.820 specifically, as you've seen with the Press Progress report, where I would be doing this
00:16:32.600 for mere publicity.
00:16:34.480 I try not to put too much faith in anything Press Progress writes.
00:16:38.580 But in that story, they talk about a few of the so-called expert brigade that, you know,
00:16:43.860 tends to think that the rules might be stacked against you and you might not even be allowed
00:16:48.080 to run.
00:16:48.460 Is that a serious risk or is that just Press Progress being Press Progress?
00:16:52.980 Well, look, there's lots of rumors flying around.
00:16:56.180 There are people within the party that don't want me to run because, you know, they found
00:17:00.620 their candidate they want and they don't want to have an actual exchange of ideas.
00:17:04.400 They don't want to have an actual debate about policy.
00:17:07.240 They don't want the carbon tax to come up again.
00:17:09.340 They think that's, you know, you know, a settled issue.
00:17:12.120 To have someone like you on a debate stage in a party leadership forcing candidates to defend
00:17:17.920 the indefensible if they are pro-carbon tax or don't want to have the discussion is dangerous
00:17:21.780 for them.
00:17:22.360 Exactly.
00:17:23.360 And I really, not only do I think that that's not true, I actually think that's harmful
00:17:29.220 to the party.
00:17:29.920 I think the party needs to have a robust discussion.
00:17:33.000 It needs to have a robust debate.
00:17:34.980 And look, I'm not looking to go personal after everybody.
00:17:37.820 But when it comes to policy, we should be able to have frank conversations.
00:17:40.580 And I was just meeting with someone the other day who said, no, we need this to be like they
00:17:45.980 referenced an old NDP leadership race where it's like a family affair and everyone's just
00:17:49.700 kind of patting each other on the back.
00:17:50.900 And that's not what I think you need to do after you suffer a humiliating election defeat.
00:17:56.100 I think you really need to take a look in the mirror and hash it out about a path forward
00:17:59.940 for this party.
00:18:01.880 And that's what I think is needed.
00:18:03.500 And some people don't like that fact because they're probably cozy with their little enclaves
00:18:07.580 on enclaves of power that they've carved out for themselves in the existing party.
00:18:11.960 And that's fine.
00:18:12.560 I understand that.
00:18:13.240 I represent change and change is a threat to some people.
00:18:16.500 And the problem, if you are approaching this from a grassroots perspective, which you are,
00:18:20.780 is that the people that set out the rules for these things are not representative always
00:18:24.760 of the grassroots.
00:18:25.560 They're a committee of party faithful.
00:18:27.240 And this is not a swipe at this particular committee.
00:18:30.620 It's just in general, this is how these things work.
00:18:32.860 So I would be very leery of anyone who ever said that it's not the party members who get
00:18:37.940 to decide whether you deserve to be standing in this race.
00:18:41.380 I agree 100%.
00:18:42.840 And look, I don't know the members on that committee.
00:18:46.760 I try to follow practice in life where I assume the best until, you know, provided with evidence
00:18:53.180 that...
00:18:53.400 Well, you're not going to fly in politics if that's your attitude, but carry on.
00:18:57.180 Until provided with evidence of the contrary.
00:19:00.120 And right now, it's just rumors and speculation.
00:19:01.920 I know that they're trying to...
00:19:04.040 I think the other campaigns are trying to push that narrative forward because it makes
00:19:09.080 me seem like some kind of extreme candidate or something like that, which I don't think
00:19:12.860 is obviously not true at all.
00:19:15.620 So yeah, I mean, and look, here's the other thing.
00:19:18.060 This is why I really don't think it's going to happen.
00:19:20.500 If you say that I can't be part of this party, if you say someone like me cannot be part of
00:19:26.560 this leadership race, you're saying hundreds of thousands of British Columbians who support
00:19:30.900 me or support the policies that I espouse have no place in this party.
00:19:34.740 And if you're doing that, you're signing your own death warrant as far as I'm concerned. 0.98
00:19:39.220 So I don't think that they would be that dumb to do that. 0.97
00:19:44.520 But I mean, you never know. 0.98
00:19:46.600 But as far as I'm concerned, I haven't heard anything, you know, directly from them or anything
00:19:51.620 like that.
00:19:52.580 So I'm looking at the glass half full for now.
00:19:56.120 But again, there's this party, they say it's a coalition party and they want to have rejuvenation.
00:20:03.340 Well, let's, you know, put your money where their mouth is, hopefully.
00:20:06.840 I guess that would be the last thing I'd want to ask you about then, Aaron, because it is
00:20:10.040 a coalition party.
00:20:11.300 And in these sorts of arrangements, there's a risk that one just consumes the other rather
00:20:17.600 than the two coexisting.
00:20:19.220 In your view, is the BC Liberals' future going to be about the battle between the right
00:20:24.040 flank and the left flank?
00:20:25.120 Or do you think there is a unified vision that you or in general someone could put forward
00:20:29.980 that keeps both sides happy?
00:20:32.340 So right now, that unified vision doesn't exist.
00:20:35.140 So right now, the party's foundation is built on a concept of just a coalition between federal
00:20:41.640 liberals and federal conservatives to keep out the NDP.
00:20:43.820 I think that is a tired call.
00:20:48.140 And there's not a philosophical basis for that.
00:20:50.520 There's no philosophical core.
00:20:52.260 And I think that's, you know, that's an alliance that was made in the late, or in the 1990s that
00:20:56.600 no longer has any relevance.
00:20:57.920 Look, let's be honest.
00:20:59.320 Justin Trudeau's federal liberal government is to the left of the provincial NDP on a number
00:21:04.800 of issues.
00:21:05.460 So that makes, like deficit financing, for example.
00:21:08.620 So that makes this alliance really quite awkward.
00:21:11.500 What I think you need to do is, on the center right of the political spectrum, create a
00:21:17.420 new party or reform this existing party with its own independent vision that, yes, is a
00:21:22.980 home for federal conservatives, that, yes, is a home for many federal liberals, but it
00:21:26.960 can also get, you know, people that might have not traditionally voted before.
00:21:29.880 Maybe people that had voted NDP before or voted Green before, similar to the old Social
00:21:34.740 Credit Party, which dominated B.C. politics for decades.
00:21:38.020 Aaron Gunn, independent journalist, potential contender for the B.C.
00:21:42.180 Liberal leadership.
00:21:43.120 Thanks very much for sitting down.
00:21:44.520 Thank you for having me, Andrew.
00:21:46.000 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:21:48.240 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:21:53.360 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:22:00.700 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:22:01.840 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:22:03.240 Bye.
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00:22:17.620 Come.
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00:22:21.760 Joh. 0.57
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