00:06:15.260You know, on the topic of free speech, we have to do everything we can to defend it.
00:06:20.440And, you know, I spoke about Bill C-16. There's also social media banning. And I've been the only candidate, to my knowledge, that's spoken about taking on the shadow banning and the banning and the censorship that we're seeing.
00:06:34.500And whether that's during elections, we've seen examples of Facebook blocking statements critical of Jagmeet Singh or critical of open borders.
00:06:43.180We need to take these guys head on. If they're going to claim to be a neutral platform, then they need to act like a neutral platform.
00:06:49.440And this is where free speech is at right now.
00:06:53.400We're talking about university campuses.
00:06:55.780And I've been clear that universities need to be objectively in favor of free speech to receive federal funding.
00:07:02.580And we need to be sure that we're pushing for federal funding on the cutting edge.
00:07:08.960That means it's something simple we can do is to criminalize doxing.
00:07:14.940And I was speaking with a couple of young conservatives in Montreal just last week who I met with them at their apartment.
00:07:22.460And I said, hey, you guys want to have a picture together?
00:07:24.320And they said, well, we'd love to, but that might identify where we live.
00:07:27.420And one of them had already been doxxed by Antifa, believe it or not, who, again, I've said should be declared a terrorist organization.
00:07:35.020But they had been doxxed. And in this country, that's not a criminal offense.
00:07:38.820You can sue people civilly, but it's challenging.
00:07:41.600Other countries have made that a criminal offense.
00:07:43.660And I believe if you are trying to release details of where someone lives or details about where their kids go to school or go to daycare for the intent of having other people cause you trouble, that should be a criminal offense.
00:07:56.060So I think we need to hit this head on.
00:07:58.140When you talk about on one hand, though, wanting to push for more free speech on social media platforms, there are those that would and let's take people's children out of the equation.
00:08:07.100There are those that would say doxing is a logical extension of online free speech.
00:08:11.720well i think when again when the intent of uh when the intent of sharing your uh your your address
00:08:19.500and your location with a group of of people who the intent is to cause you problems the intent is
00:08:25.360hey andrew if you have this opinion i'm going to tell my my followers here where you live where
00:08:30.060your kids go to school this isn't about arguing political opinions this is with the intent of
00:08:35.000people with bad intent showing up at your home basically it's the intent is to shut you up the
00:08:40.020intent is to scare you into not sharing your opinion. But legislating intent, isn't that the
00:08:45.920backbone? A lot of these other areas of law like human rights code, speech laws, other things that
00:08:51.280conservatives are typically against when you start to get into the thought behind an act as
00:08:55.860fundamentally changing the nature of the act itself. Well, I mean, criminal law is filled
00:09:00.020with intent, right? You have mens rea and you have the most criminal laws have to do with intent,
00:09:05.360not all of them um so i believe it's perfectly fine to target a behavior which has basically
00:09:11.600malice as its intent so uh you know the typical attack on free speech is i don't like your opinion
00:09:17.200your opinion is violent but if you are for instance free speech doesn't cover me threatening
00:09:23.280you it doesn't cover me asking someone to assault you and doxing is basically in that category so
00:09:31.360So if you're doxing someone, if you're putting out someone's intimate details of what they
00:09:35.620do and where they go, this has nothing to do with furthering public discourse.
00:09:39.360This has to do with targeting you and trying to silence you.
00:09:42.720And so to me, I think that's a legitimate distinction.
00:09:45.240And on the regulation of social media companies, I guess there are two aspects of this.
00:09:49.260Number one is the effectiveness when these companies are such a size that they have the
00:09:56.840And most of them are not domiciled or headquartered in Canada.
00:10:00.180So how do you enforce a Canadian law on these companies without being like China, which is, you know, restricting access?
00:10:06.420And the other part is the fundamental nature of is it not challenging their right as a private company to operate the way they want,
00:10:15.080even if that means we don't think conservative speech is as valuable as liberal speech or something like that?
00:10:21.240Yeah, well, I mean, that's a good question. And I'm not here to tell you the answer is easy.
00:10:25.560There's obviously different parts of this that would play into provincial jurisdictions.
00:10:29.360So the point is, is that we need to identify that that it's a problem.
00:10:32.940And that's that's probably the most important thing.
00:10:35.900But listen, I believe that I believe that organizations need to follow the law in Canada.
00:10:40.460And there's all kinds of things that that businesses can and can't do.
00:10:43.860And I believe that that social media companies, which, again, enjoy the benefits of, you know, they are not subject to to being sued for, for example, libel or things of that nature.
00:10:56.720So at the same time, a publishing organization like a newspaper can be.
00:11:03.480So if they're claiming the benefit of sort of a neutral platform for everybody to use for whatever the reason,
00:11:12.300they can at the same time edit comments without any rationale.
00:11:16.920They can't be removing certain comments unless it accords with a very open standard of conduct.
00:11:24.280And we all know that the codes of conduct on these things are really, in many cases, unintelligible.
00:11:31.200Really what you're describing there cuts to what we've seen a lot of us of late, which is cancel culture and this idea that conservatives have espress, which is that their voices are not valued by the elites.
00:11:43.260And we see that in social media companies.
00:11:47.240you've experienced yourself a fair bit of pushback from the mainstream media not just on
00:11:53.200social conservative issues which I suspect we'll get to later on in this discussion but even your
00:11:58.480approach to some issues that have been very pertinent throughout the coronavirus pandemic
00:12:02.900such as wanting Teresa Tam the public health officer of Canada fired we know from the last
00:12:09.340election from all of Stephen Harper's elections conservatives are not dealt a fair hand by the
00:12:14.920mainstream media. And I think that on the cultural side, we can talk about media bias and all of
00:12:19.920these things. But if you're within those parameters, you're operating as a figure in
00:12:24.140Canadian politics, you know the treatments the media is going to give you is not going to be
00:12:28.500good. How do you push back against that when you are, as you know, a conservative without apology,
00:12:33.340a hardliner on a lot of social and economic issues? Well, I mean, the simple answer is you
00:12:38.980don't jump through their hoops. And so there's been, I mean, we get a lot of requests from
00:12:43.340mainstream media that we just ignore and it has it has nothing to do with you know it has nothing
00:12:48.700to do with with with those organizations but it has to do with the the fight that we're in and
00:12:53.140right now our fight is to win this leadership battle so I'm not there's some candidates who
00:12:58.120who bask in the in the glory of you know sitting down with CBC and all this stuff if I don't think
00:13:03.480that sitting down with a particular media outlet is going to help me reach conservative members
00:13:07.920I don't even bother I don't even bother going on so part of it is just not jumping through the
00:13:13.320hoops that the media has and in a general election obviously the strategy is is different but the
00:13:18.660other thing too we have to remember is that we have access to social media and we can drive our
00:13:22.820narrative uh through controversy or not using social media so I think that we you know my
00:13:29.440experience anyways is that is that there's some conservatives who feel that they've done a good
00:13:33.260day's work when the media isn't slamming them. And to me, I say, listen, you know, if the media
00:13:38.200isn't slamming you, maybe you're not doing a good day's work. You know, if you're going to stand on
00:13:43.140conservative principles in this day and age, you're going to get, you're going to get kicked
00:13:46.160back. And sometimes we need to be able to stand there and take it and say, you know what, we've
00:13:50.320said the right thing. We don't need to apologize. We don't need to rephrase what we're trying to say
00:13:54.820and let the, let the media do what they want. I believe at the end of the day,
00:13:59.480If we push our message, whether through controversy or not, the Canadian populace will see through it.
00:14:07.240And I think that, especially with the use of social media, we can get our message through regardless of what the mainstream media says.
00:14:14.380And I've seen that happen in my campaign.
00:14:16.240I think the saying that there's a lot of truth to is that Twitter is not real life.
00:14:20.800And when you go and knock on doors, most of the people that you encounter, regardless of where it is in Canada, aren't following hashtag CDN Polly on Twitter.
00:14:29.320They don't know what the Laurentian elite types, the mainstream media are talking about.
00:14:33.500A lot of people still know what is on the front page of the paper, what's on their six o'clock newscast.
00:14:38.680And if you've got the mainstream media throwing every name of the book at you, how are you going to expand the base of the conservative movement and the base of the conservative voters if you're the leader?
00:14:49.020Well, you know, the point you make about Twitter is correct, but it's not, but it's incorrect when it comes to Facebook. And we're seeing a massive use of Facebook. I forget the stats. It's 80, 90% of like everybody, even like grandmothers that are on Facebook. So I think that social media can be used to our advantage.
00:23:35.940Well, again, what we have to do when we're discussing regulations is we need to make sure.
00:23:43.080And I think that we're in a good place right now with the premiers of the provinces to offer them certain things from the federal government in exchange for compliance with reducing regulatory oversight.
00:23:56.580And I think that if we I think if the federal government champions a move like this, I think that we can get buy in.
00:24:02.860And I don't like to, you know, I'm a carrot type of guy as opposed to a stick type of guy.
00:24:08.240And I think that we can, I think it's in our best interest to have the best economy we can have.
00:24:13.420And I think that we can work with provinces and municipalities.
00:24:16.660I mean, you know, as someone who has 19 municipalities in his riding, along with a reserve as well, there is all kinds of infrastructure funding that comes from the feds.
00:24:27.280So, again, there's all kinds of ways that we can work with our municipalities, work with our provincial partners to encourage this type of streamlining.
00:24:37.180And you've pushed, I believe, for two in and one out on regulations, right?
00:24:41.420For every one that comes in, you're going to get rid of two.
00:24:45.100What are the specific regulations that you see as being disruptive to business, the specific ones that if you're in there as prime minister, theoretically, after winning the leadership, have to go?
00:24:54.060Well, listen, I'll give you a couple of examples, and maybe we'll just use those as examples.
00:25:00.580So I think we can, when it comes to paperwork for small businesses, we can put all of that into one portal.
00:25:06.740So, and hopefully we could even combine federal and provincial paperwork as well into one portal.
00:25:10.940So that would be one example of something we can do.
00:25:13.800I've also said, and this again would be to work in conjunction with provinces, we need to look at ways to be more innovative in our funding.
00:25:20.840So when it comes to entrepreneurship, which again is something that's very important and innovation to growing our economy, we need to look at more sophisticated ways of allowing small startups to get money.
00:25:33.000And often the securities regulations that we have butt up against things like crowdfunding and things like that.
00:25:40.820So we need to work with our provincial partners to make it easier to get funding to small business ideas.
00:25:47.600because uh you know the business the business development bank of canada these things they're
00:25:51.760not geared for the the the small the startup funding that we need and we lose a lot of these
00:25:56.960ideas to the states where the capital markets are more developed so we need to be a little more
00:26:00.720creative on these types of things and when you talk about funding you're not talking about
00:26:03.360government funding you're talking about even accessing private sector so crowdfunding by
00:26:07.600people who so crowdfunding is a great way to to um you know get quote-unquote investment for your
00:26:14.320business but the way it's set up right now there's no way to really offer an equity stake in your
00:26:19.280business unless you go through the rigmarole of securities laws which requires more money and
00:26:26.400expertise than a lot of small people would want to do but it is a great way in a small town or
00:26:34.080with the environment we have with the internet right now to find people online who like what
00:26:39.040you're doing you know maybe you're starting some sort of a craft company they could they could
00:26:43.200invest in your business and again this is something that would need to be done in conjunction with
00:26:47.200the provinces but i'm saying there are ways to make for example crowdfunding more accessible
00:26:52.880to canadians to allow them to get businesses off the ground you mentioned earlier about made in
00:26:58.640canada which is a part of your platform as well pushing for labeling and identification of products
00:27:03.840that are made here certainly throughout the pandemic i think we've seen the risks of having
00:27:08.720such a reliance on other countries for supply and recent cases on personal protective equipment.
00:27:14.380But even so, we are a country that is based on free trade. The Conservative government in
00:27:19.200particular inked numerous trade agreements with countries all around the world. We had recently
00:27:24.260the renegotiation of NAFTA, which is now the USMCA, I think, or the CMUSA. They changed the
00:27:30.040letters around. But when you come out and say, we need to make a push for Made in Canada,
00:27:35.240are you talking about protectionism or are you just talking about promoting that culture of
00:27:40.120homegrown goods yeah so i think it's about promoting the culture and i mean there's there's
00:27:45.080all kinds of ways in which free trade doesn't even happen within canada between the provinces
00:27:49.240so so i mean there's a great place to start but i do believe that and a key to this of course is
00:27:55.560is reasonable energy prices and we saw with the green energy act with kathleen win our electricity
00:28:00.200prices increased by about 70 percent driving all kinds of manufacturing business out of the province
00:28:05.240And they're trying to do that again, by the way.
00:28:07.200Jerry Butts is in a new organization that's suggesting $50 billion for resilient recovery.
00:28:13.160Well, God help us if that's the type of recovery that we have.
00:28:16.000But in any event, with affordable energy, which is fossil fuels and not subsidizing green energy, which is what we had done before, we can get to the place where we can reduce costs for manufacturing.
00:28:31.820Reducing regulatory overload, again, is another thing.
00:28:35.240still at the end of the day we won't be competing directly on a cost basis but I believe we can
00:28:40.800compete on it on a quality basis and we've seen that happen with success in places like Germany
00:28:45.500and I believe a lot of Canadians just want to know I mean I hear all the time you know hey I
00:28:50.500wanted to buy something made in Canada I couldn't even find it you know but I think if we do
00:28:53.740in different provinces Alberta has their own their own system I don't care if it's a provincial or a
00:28:59.060federal one but we need to let people know where products come from I think Canadians are primed
00:29:03.680to buy made in canada just by virtue of wanting to and we need to give them the option to do that
00:29:08.560so under your ideal scenario would there be a rollback of some of the agreements that have
00:29:14.400made it possible to freely trade in goods from everywhere and imaginable around the world well
00:29:19.840we need to we need to evaluate all the the agreements that we have i i'm certainly not
00:29:24.000against free trade when we're trading with countries like china i don't call that free
00:29:28.160trade i mean we we have we have a we have a country there that's devaluing their currency
00:29:32.560they're using predatory pricing tactics they're often trying to steal intellectual property so
00:29:37.680we have to be very careful that we're not opening ourselves up to theft so so i believe in trading
00:29:42.800with countries that want to trade with us and want to play fair and i don't care where they are they
00:29:46.400could be in any part of the world but we also have to be safe when we're dealing with countries that
00:29:51.440are acting in a predatory danger let's talk about national unity here which is a big problem not
00:29:57.760just from quebec which has always had its troubles with the canadian confederation experience also
00:30:04.560alberta saskatchewan parts of british columbia people who feel that the west is not a part of
00:30:11.280confederation anymore people who completely want to separate or at the very least people who feel
00:30:16.560like they're getting a raw deal i know you have said you are a federalist you don't want to
00:30:21.840entertain alberta separation but you will still as a conservative leader and if your
00:30:27.120plan works according to how you want it to as prime minister the growing discontent and discord
00:30:32.400with the west and with quebec as well so what's your vision to keep canada together well you and
00:30:38.140i were at an event where a lot of people in the room this was in calgary uh are on the separatist
00:30:43.040track and um you know i spoke to them and they seemed to like what i had to say i don't know if
00:30:48.000everyone is is not a separatist now probably not but uh you know it starts with recognizing that
00:30:54.480repealing Bill C-69 and C-48 is not enough to quell Western separatist sentiment. It's much
00:31:03.000more than that. These are feelings and issues that go back decades, if not generations. And
00:31:09.700I think recognizing that is a very important part. I hope Alberta, like other provinces,
00:31:17.220bargains hard. I hope that the leadership of any province puts their own
00:31:24.020province first, obviously with a mind to confederation. But I hope that Alberta stands for
00:31:29.940their rights and I've encouraged them to do that. But I also think that we need to do more than
00:31:35.820simply repeal a few bills that Justin Trudeau has bought in. We need to look seriously at the way
00:31:41.240that equalization works. And I'm not here to tell you the exact way that that should be done, but we
00:31:45.560have to make sure that we have something in place that Alberta feels is fair. We have to, on the very
00:31:51.460base of it we have to make sure that uh the the representation in the house of commons is adjusted
00:31:57.060quickly enough to accord to the changing population levels in bc and alberta and we know that bc and
00:32:03.060alberta are underrepresented uh in relation to even ontario and certainly quebec when it comes
00:32:08.740to numbers of representatives in the house of commons alberta should should have right now
00:32:13.540probably about 39 or 40 if it was on the same ratio as ontario which is about four or five more
00:32:18.580than they do now so these are things that we we must look at we have to put every option on the
00:32:23.420table you i mean andrew i think you and i know that separatist sentiment is so serious right now
00:32:27.820i don't think people in the rest of the country get it i get it i've i've been in rooms with
00:32:33.900hundreds of people who are so serious about this and um and and people like me out there i mean i've
00:32:40.100i've i've had uh there's many people who who say listen derrick if you don't win this i'm out of
00:32:45.720here. And I think that the number one priority for a conservative leader, for a prime minister,
00:32:51.280is making sure that every part of the country feels like an equal partner in confederation.
00:32:55.880And I don't care what it takes, so I'll make sure that happens with Alberta.
00:32:58.980One of the big issues that we heard in the 2017 conservative leadership race, which
00:33:04.040was odd to become so central, was supply management. And this is an issue where I
00:33:09.380think conservatives have often philosophically been at odds with some of the political realities.
00:33:15.180and i know you have farmers in your riding i know a lot of farmers including dairy farmers
00:33:19.340specifically make up the conservative base what's your stance well i think that uh i think that when
00:33:25.340you look at uh so first i'll say i don't have any intentions to make any major changes to supply
00:33:31.340management uh although we can always look at ways to to modify the system the when it comes to dairy
00:33:37.420uh every country has heavy subsidies for their their dairy industry so and we have farmers right
00:33:44.780now that have millions of dollars of property built up into the system so i don't think that
00:33:49.180there's any easy way to to solve the system i think that when it comes to food security when
00:33:54.620it comes to our farmers we need to make sure that they're getting the help that they need i mean
00:33:58.940these are these are industries where um you know when when you have a bad season you may be wiped
00:34:04.700out and it it's not it doesn't necessarily fit the the immediate constructs that you would see
00:34:10.300and in an economics textbook that farmer is done now maybe i mean you know maybe someone else can
00:34:16.780buy his stuff or whatever but we need to keep our farmers from from getting going there in the first
00:34:21.420place so when it comes to food and when it comes to things like this i'm okay uh as conservatives
00:34:27.340making sure that that doesn't happen so obviously we believe in free trade we believe in all this
00:34:31.660type of stuff but you know when countries like china are are attacking our canola farmers and
00:34:36.860things like that we have to step in and defend them and when it comes to supply management
00:34:41.980listen it's not a perfect system but again we live in it we live in a marketplace where other
00:34:46.620countries are basically subsidizing their industries to the same or greater degree at
00:34:51.500least in this case and again it's not a perfect scenario the subsidy is not undertaken by the
00:34:58.140government it's basically on the consumer so whoever is purchasing these things is the one
00:35:02.780that's bearing the cost of it which again not perfect but it is better than a generic subsidy
00:35:08.060that we all pay for how do we as a country then make ourselves competitive when we're
00:35:13.340in many cases engaged in a race to the bottom with other countries that don't have the moral qualms
00:35:18.620with subsidizing relentlessly flooding the market in many cases flooding the market with product
00:35:23.900that is inadequate how do you make yourselves competitive in a global marketplace in those
00:35:28.220circumstances well again i think you you just can't be afraid to say listen if that's what
00:35:33.580you're going to do you're not having free access to our to our market so again i don't think like
00:35:39.580i certainly have no qualms in saying listen we will trade with countries that play by the rules
00:35:45.100and we're not going to be uh giving free access to our market to countries that are actively
00:35:49.660undermining our own economy so again i i think it's fair and i'm i'm not afraid to say we can
00:35:54.700make that distinction what would you say has been the most eye-opening experience of this campaign
00:36:01.900and i ask that because it's been a very different campaign than everyone thought when they got into
00:36:06.300the race more zoom calls and all of those sorts of things than actual debates when you came in
00:36:11.660did you have a different vision for what you thought you were going to be hearing from people
00:36:16.220than what you actually did well there's so much centered around covid which obviously no nobody
00:36:21.100expected and that's and that's very interesting obviously i've seen firsthand the fault lines that
00:36:26.140have been exposed in the party um you know really i i've been surprised you know it's so interesting
00:36:32.060if we would focus on a few different issues i think we we could easily win in an election
00:36:36.620and there's an there's a there's a big concern right now in canada with with certain values issues
00:36:41.420and canadian sovereignty issues and civil liberties issues i don't know if i'm just a
00:36:46.300unique candidate but one of the biggest questions i get right now or i used to get everyone knows
00:36:51.260what i think now is are you in favor of like mandatory covid vaccines what do you think of
00:36:56.940you know like mandatory mass and things like this you know i i would have assumed some people would
00:37:01.740have been concerned about that but literally the most uh frequent question i get it's not about
00:37:06.620abortion it's not about anything like that it's about mandatory vaccinations so i think this kind
00:37:11.340of civil liberties issues uh canadian sovereignty issues when it comes to you know un agreements
00:37:16.460that we've signed on to and even values issues these are these are such important issues and i
00:37:21.660don't see many of the other candidates really focusing on that very much do you think there is
00:37:27.100an opportunity in canada to push for a bit more of a political approach to appointing judges this
00:37:33.820is something that we often hear about in the united states in canada we've seen conservatives be on
00:37:38.060on the losing end of Supreme Court cases
00:51:42.720whether it's property rights of Canadians that have seen that right removed with an order of
00:51:48.240council, no debate in the middle of a pandemic for firearms owners, or whether it's a conservative
00:51:53.100who wants to express a point of view based on their faith. When did religious freedom become
00:51:57.840a right we're not willing to stand up for in this country? I have concerns about what Justin Trudeau
00:52:03.100is doing to democratic debates, political party organization, and really parliament in general,
00:52:08.980and it fuels me. And what's great, Andrew, conservatives are a great, passionate, intelligent
00:52:14.360bunch from coast to coast. We don't have to have the same view on all issues. We have to have
00:52:19.240respect for one another. And that's why in my launch video, I said unity of the party is key
00:52:24.440to me. It's why I launched in Alberta to speak to people that are giving up on our country
00:52:30.260because they're so frustrated with Justin Trudeau. I said, let's make sure that Justin Trudeau does
00:52:35.820not define canada our democracy defines canada let's defeat him and get our country back on track
00:52:42.540but i'm not sure you really answered the fundamental crux of that question which is
00:52:46.460that if your vision of the conservative party allows for people who do want to advance on
00:52:51.420these issues or other issues that come up how will you as leader deflect against the campaign being
00:52:57.820sidelined by that which to a lot of critics was what sidelined the conservative campaign in 2019
00:53:03.740they say. And it may be that you dispute that premise, but you're going to be faced with those
00:53:07.340same questions. So how will you deal with them? Well, look, Andrew Scheer is my good friend.
00:53:11.740I think he realized he had some challenges in the last campaign, squaring off his personal
00:53:16.660position and his personal views with how he would act as prime minister and leader of the party. I
00:53:21.660do not. People know that I, you know, I'm a person of faith. I'm Catholic. My family, you know, we
00:53:28.580believe in faith, and it's an important part of who we are. And as a parliamentarian, I've had
00:53:35.000to square off the fact that my position on rights and my position as a conservative doesn't always
00:53:40.740square with my faith tradition. I have voted consistently in favor of rights, even when I'm
00:53:47.520just one of 18 conservatives that voted on an LGBT bill, for example. What was great? Stephen
00:53:53.700Harper allowed a free vote on that. That's a principle of our party. And I wasn't hurt for
00:53:58.840being in the minority position. I was promoted twice. Here's the kicker, Andrew. Justin Trudeau
00:54:04.260skipped that vote to go to a Cash for Access fundraiser with his friends Dalton McGinty and
00:54:09.160Kathleen Wynne. So they're not going to be able to trot out the age-old hidden agenda campaign with
00:54:14.460me because I've been clear. And you know what? I'm going to defend free votes, defend free speech
00:54:21.340as a principle of our party at a time that I think Canadians want to see that.
00:54:25.520They don't want a cookie-cutter politician who has been a member of the We Board and the Liberal Party.
00:54:31.680They want real debate. They want accountability. They want ethics. They want leadership.
00:54:36.140And that's what they will have with Erin O'Toole as Prime Minister.
00:54:39.240Throughout the Conservative leadership race, there have been two candidates disqualified.
00:54:43.340One of them, Richard Desquerie. Another one, Jim Carahalios.
00:54:46.840And the reason I bring those up is because your campaign had actually complained about Jim Carahalios' campaign in the race.
00:54:54.300A lot of members have reached out to us wondering how you square on one hand being against cancel culture and being for free votes.
00:55:02.420But on the other hand, seemingly supporting a position that denied the members the ultimate right to determine who their leader should be or who their candidates should be.
00:55:10.960Well, we have a leadership election committee, the LEOC committee that decides.
00:55:14.700We complained because Mr. Karajalios was lying, lying to thousands of Canadians about me and on issues that I'm very passionate about.
00:55:24.340You know, when he's sending letters to people in our party suggesting I'm bringing Sharia law to Canada, Andrew, that's a lie.
00:55:31.820And it's divisive. And more than that, I served in the military.
00:55:36.580I know people that have died fighting the Taliban.
00:55:38.880I will do whatever it takes to make sure that law or those cultural practices never come to Canada.
00:55:46.300They're 180 degrees removed from what we are as a society.
00:55:52.100So if you want to come and debate tax issues, economic issues, foreign policy, I love that.
00:56:00.340When you just start sending out stuff that's completely fabricated, I think you have to be held to account.
00:56:06.400so we have within the rules the ability to file that complaint it was the party that made the
00:56:11.280decision and it's disappointing because i do think he probably has some perspective to contribute
00:56:18.400but now we've seen this with the ontario pc party we've now seen with this with the federal party
00:56:23.440uh let's have a good debate um i win debates i don't lose them but you can't lie you can't divide
00:56:29.440canadians you can't mislead particularly on something like that um and so we had to connect
00:56:35.120correct the record because once people get lists of thousands of peoples they they can send out
00:56:40.640whatever they want reminds me of the old churchill quote a lie gets around the world before truth
00:56:46.260gets its pants on so i had to make sure for the record my values as a strong conservative
00:56:53.440particularly on law and order issues is fundamentally opposed to the the elements of
00:56:59.460sharia law and people deserve to know that when you mentioned in that response canadian values
00:57:05.100This has become a pivotal part of the discussion about immigration.
00:57:08.500We know Stephen Harper had a great deal of backlash from the media, to go back to how
00:57:13.400we started on media bias, for really suggesting that values should be a consideration in immigration.
00:57:19.920We've seen under Justin Trudeau the problem of illegal immigration balloon.
00:57:38.900now Canadians' confidence in our system has been undermined.
00:57:43.000If I go into a Tim Hortons in my riding now,
00:57:45.480I have people that have serious concerns about our system,
00:57:48.620about our levels, all these sorts of things that didn't exist
00:57:51.320seven years ago when I was elected and Jason Kenney was our minister.
00:57:54.820We need a fair, compassionate, rules-based system.
00:57:59.780So when people see 60,000 people walk across the road at Roxham Road, breaking the law, doing that, claiming asylum in an improper way, and nothing being done, and that surge starting after Trudeau's welcome to Canada tweet, within days, some of our consulates around the world sent notes back to Ottawa saying, look, the Prime Minister's got to clarify this ridiculous example of virtue signaling.
00:58:26.760that's what he was doing he's done it many times because they were saying people feel this is a
00:58:33.080change in our rules in canada and so in my riding i represent a riding in the greater toronto area
00:58:39.880the most frustrated people from the whole rocks and road situation andrew were families waiting
00:58:45.960longer and longer to sponsor a family member according to the rules they feel and i had
00:58:53.080someone say this to me should i tell my relative to just go to new york state and walk across the
00:58:57.320border what do i say to them no of course not that's not the way it's supposed to work but
00:59:02.360justin trudeau's incompetence on this file now has some canadians questioning immigration we
00:59:08.040need immigration in this country in fact we have a less than replacement birth rate so if people
00:59:13.320like cpp and all of our our programs we need to have immigration it's good for canada but it's
00:59:19.960good when it's fair, compassionate, rules-based. Same with refugees. The private sponsorship route
00:59:25.380have better outcomes for families on housing, on jobs, on opportunity a year after they're here.
00:59:33.680The government route has less successful outcomes, so it's unfair to the people that are coming.
00:59:40.420So let's fix it. I've talked to Jason Kenney, who you know is supporting me quite a bit on these
00:59:45.260issues i think we can show canadians we're going to get back on track and you know what defending
00:59:50.540your border and actually having people respect the border is a fundamental element of our
00:59:55.900sovereignty and it's okay to criticize trudeau's inaction we had a federal court decision just
01:00:02.020recently that really called into question that safe third country agreement which has been used
01:00:07.360to basically justify accepting or denying refugees or people that claim asylum at official ports of
01:00:14.640entry and thus creating the rocks and road problem. With a federal court saying that this
01:00:20.000agreement is no longer valid, that it violates the charter, how do you secure the border? How do you
01:00:25.960protect people from gaming the system, taking advantage of the compassionate part and ignoring
01:00:31.040the rules-based part? Because I agree when you say fix it, but I haven't heard what that fix is.
01:00:35.560Well, first, I've read the decision. It's actually easy to fix what the judge called out. I don't
01:00:40.700think it was a great decision to be honest with you but her concern was actually the incarceration
01:00:45.480of the people once they went back to the United States. So Andrew I think I can actually fix that
01:00:50.560as we renegotiate closing off the loophole in the safe third country agreement. So until we do that
01:00:57.200she delayed the decision by six months anyway so it's not in effect. We may even be in government
01:01:02.460within six months. We need to turn Roxham Road into a border stop and even temporarily
01:01:10.140Once that's done, the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement is addressed.
01:01:15.460You can then say, did you claim asylum in the first country you were in?
01:01:20.040You then cannot claim, you can't forum shop in claiming asylum.
01:01:25.520So the temporary creation of a border stop there would fix this entirely.
01:01:31.900I've been advocating for this for three years, Andrew.
01:01:34.860And I do think we could, as part of our negotiations with the United States, to say, look, when we're returning people that cross illegally, we do not want them to go into this incarceration element for the offence because our court has questioned the safe third country agreement.
01:01:51.860I think the U.S. want that treaty to be in place.
01:01:55.220So if we can have a new approach for them to be returned under, that would fit within the spirit of the decision.
01:02:02.500Right now, we're facing a major employment crisis in Canada. We have, in many cases, CBSA no longer doing removals, deportations. We know the list of people waiting for a hearing for their asylum claim is ballooning. Do you think we need a wholesale re-evaluation, whether it's a pause or a reduction or even just a back to basics, back to square one redrafting of our approach to immigration right now?
01:02:28.200Well, I think as we're fixing the failures of the Trudeau government on this and addressing the Rocks and Road issue, which I've been talking about for several years, I think we can do a refresh to the system post-COVID, right?
01:02:41.520Because some of the skills, the express entry program, the great approach that Jason Kenney had to fill productivity gaps in our economy, that's going to be slowed because of unemployment.
01:03:22.940We should not do things the way they were done 50 years ago just for the sake of doing it the same way.
01:03:29.520We need to make sure that our system addresses the needs of Canada today, particularly post-COVID.
01:03:35.680So I think there's actually a pivot we can do to more family reunification to help families get to work if there's prolonged school closures or something like that.
01:03:45.260And then as we see the private sector recover, we should almost on an annual basis say, where are the gaps in our productivity in skilled trades in Ontario or, you know, when the resource sector comes back after we win, are there some gaps in Western Canada?
01:04:01.440We should make sure the system is nimble enough to pivot to address those.
01:04:05.780One of the things that most conservatives, I think, can agree on is that the carbon tax is a job killer.
01:04:10.640I think this is something that everyone on the right tends to get, even many people not on the right.
01:04:15.260you say in your platform that the carbon tax is gone you also say you want a national regulatory
01:04:21.580and pricing scheme on industrial emitters and your rationale for this has been that you don't
01:04:26.700want to target individual canadian families but rather target the companies themselves we all know
01:04:33.820that any cost that a company has to bear gets filtered down so any tax that's put on a
01:04:38.620manufacturer or distributor is something that canadians are paying so how can you say you're
01:04:42.780against the carbon tax when your plan seems to just move the tax to another payer no there is
01:04:48.460no tax there's no federal carbon tax i will eliminate the carbon tax completely andrew
01:04:54.460what i've said in terms of the national framework we have to respect what the provinces are doing
01:05:00.700now in bc there's been the their provincial carbon tax started by gordon campbell i've talked to him
01:05:07.260about some of the challenges and problems that were caused but he explained to me his rationale
01:05:12.380there quebec has a version of a cap and trade system alberta ontario my own province has a
01:05:17.500large emitter strategy just working with emissions of the larger emitters we need to follow the
01:05:23.260provinces here because guess what they have shared jurisdiction on the economy i've been saying this
01:05:28.700for years the court of appeal in alberta in february just supported my view when they said
01:05:33.100trudeau's carbon tax is unconstitutional we actually have to say on the federal government
01:05:39.100How can we make sure we respect the different approach within a national framework
01:05:44.640and say this is how we're going to reduce emissions?
01:05:47.580Not with a tax, but with partnering with the provinces to get their emissions down.
01:05:52.280But does your platform or does it not say pricing?
01:14:11.520Beyond that, I do think when you say free and fair trade amongst free countries, it's not just Commonwealth or our traditional close allies.
01:14:20.660Japan, our relationship with Japan, an important trade partner, is in the doldrums after Trudeau.
01:14:25.760He skipped a leaders' meeting for the Trans-Pacific Partnership meetings to meet with Facebook rather than to meet with other world leaders.
01:14:34.740All of our relationships have deteriorated.
01:14:37.220India, the world's largest democracy, a commonwealth partner, many of the same systems in terms of parliament and rule of law.
01:14:46.100We literally doubled trade with India under Harper.
01:14:49.740We all remember the state visit Justin Trudeau paid there.
01:14:52.300You know, could flash a few photos on the screen to remind people of his trip.
01:14:56.800They slapped tariffs on Canadian lentils right after that.
01:15:00.780We've had Italy tariff Durham wheat after ridiculous comments Trudeau made about Italian and Greek immigrants to Canada.
01:15:08.760So we have to repair a lot of these relationships.
01:15:11.320And while Kanzuk will be a very unique one, I see doing more with Japan, India especially, a growing and important partner.
01:15:19.460France, a lot of our partners in Europe.
01:15:21.340I think we need the democratic world to stop allowing the bad actors of the world, the China, the Russia, the Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, to game the UN, to game the WTO.
01:15:37.220The countries that play by the rules lose.
01:15:39.840So the democracies have to start standing up.
01:15:42.420I've been talking about this for several years.
01:15:43.960I ran on UN reform and holding back our dues when I ran in the 2017 leadership.
01:15:49.960leadership. Now, I think we're ready to win and implement these as prime minister.
01:15:56.360Just as we wind down here, do you feel that you have pivoted in some way from your 2017 run? Or
01:16:02.520do you think that you're talking about a lot of the same issues? And if it is the latter,
01:16:06.340what makes you think that they're going to resonate this time?
01:16:09.580I have not pivoted. You know, the media loves to say, you know, O'Toole's very different. Almost
01:16:14.500all my policy is the same. What has changed? Justin Trudeau has divided this country to the
01:16:20.900point that people are giving up on it. My first rally in Nisku, Alberta, back when we could have
01:16:25.980rallies, the first question, I always take Q&A from my audience, was a veteran who stood up and
01:16:32.000said, thank you for your service, Aaron. I served almost 30 years from my country, and I want to
01:16:36.980leave it now after what Trudeau's done to my province. Wow. I agree with what Derek said.
01:16:42.640most canadians don't know how tenuous our national unity is a reporter in the press gallery when i
01:16:49.040said my main priority will be unity he kind of said well some of the issues they have out west
01:16:54.960aren't valid that's part of the problem we've got a laurentian elite ottawa bubble and they don't
01:17:02.000realize that our country is at risk after an ideological trudeau government that fuels me
01:17:08.560am i more passionate and and frustrated this time than in 2017 absolutely because of what
01:17:14.080justin trudeau done to a country that i believe in that i'm proud of i'm a patriot some campuses
01:17:21.360that would be a bad word these days i think a lot of canadians want someone that's going to put
01:17:26.960our interest at the front of the agenda make it make people proud of our history and our country
01:17:33.040um i'm hearing that everywhere i go years ago when i was talking about sir johnny mcdonald's
01:17:38.560statues i would get notes from people saying thank goodness someone is standing up to this
01:17:44.240cancel culture type approach that's what i will do as leader and i can't stress it enough if we
01:17:50.240allow the we scandal the out of control situation with our economy all of this if we don't have a
01:17:56.720leader in the house this fall we miss the opportunity to replace a corrupt and incompetent
01:18:02.480government. I'm ready to go and I'm ready to unite the party and win. We promised you a debate and we
01:18:08.680told you and your team that there would be an opportunity for a closing statement in that and
01:18:12.640with all the changes I think we can keep the closing statement. So if you want to give us
01:18:16.140people are putting their ballots forward in the next couple of weeks that final pitch please.
01:18:21.280Well thanks. I love a good debate so I regret that but I respect my colleagues in this race.
01:18:26.560I want their help as we rebuild and take back Canada from a government with Justin Trudeau that has their own personal interests ahead of the national interests.
01:18:38.920And Conservatives across the country need to know that there's a true blue Conservative that has won three times in the GTA where we need to win seats here in southern Ontario.
01:18:49.080If we win just most of what Doug Ford won two years ago in Ontario, we will form a strong, stable, majority Conservative government.
01:18:57.860I'm asking for the trust of members of our party to make sure we keep our movement united, grow it where we need to, and win the next election by standing up for the things we believe in.
01:19:10.700I'm a leader that's ready, in the House now, and I bring experience from outside of Ottawa at a time we need it.
01:19:16.84012 years in the Canadian Armed Forces.