Juno News - Conservative Leadership Fireside Chat

00:00:00.000 Hi, and welcome to the Independent Press Gallery's inaugural event.

00:00:27.120 what was supposed to be the final conservative leadership debate featuring all four candidates.

00:00:32.860 I'm your host, Candice Malcolm, columnist with the Toronto Sun and Sun Newspapers,

00:00:36.740 founder and editor-in-chief of True North, and the president of this,

00:00:40.520 the newly created Independent Press Gallery of Canada.

00:00:44.100 Now, unfortunately, due to some very last-minute complications,

00:00:47.740 tonight's debate is no longer a debate.

00:00:51.080 A few hours ago, Dr. Leslie Lewis and her campaign team

00:00:54.900 informed us that she had to withdraw from tonight's event because a doctor has ordered

00:00:59.600 her to stay at home and get some rest. We've been in touch with her campaign and we wish her 0.91

00:01:05.500 a speedy recovery. Now, upon hearing the news of Lewis dropping out, Peter McKay's campaign

00:01:12.020 informed us that he too would no longer be participating. He lives in Toronto. He's here

00:01:17.800 in Toronto right now, but he chose to abandon tonight's debate and instead at 3 p.m. on the

00:01:23.600 of the event, he urged us to postpone the entire thing. Look, anyone who's ever organized an event

00:01:30.400 like this knows that postponing something like this is just not possible. The hotel ballroom had

00:01:35.760 already been rented, the technical crew was here and had already set up, and journalists had already

00:01:40.400 flown in from all over the country to cover this event. We're not the CBC. We don't have billions

00:01:46.400 of dollars to waste just to do this all again next week. And besides, Conservative Party members

00:01:52.480 already have their ballots with them at home and the deadline to mail those in is fast approaching

00:01:58.720 realistically tonight is the last opportunity to host a leadership event and so the show must go

00:02:04.880 on instead of a debate tonight's moderator andrew lawton will instead be hosting back-to-back

00:02:10.800 fireside chats with the remaining two candidates first with aaron o'toole and then with derek

00:02:16.480 Sloan. Afterwards, there will still be a media scrum with the journalists who are here in

00:02:21.920 attendance. Leadership is about resiliency, courage, and trust. And voters can judge for

00:02:28.560 themselves what they think of Peter McKay's last-minute decision to renege on his commitment

00:02:33.760 and abandon this event. Regardless, tonight is a special night where we hope to showcase the value

00:02:39.680 of independent journalism in providing a platform to get to the real issues at the heart of the

00:02:45.440 conservative leadership race we've consulted with dozens of journalists and we've heard from

00:02:50.400 hundreds of grassroots party members from every region across the country every demographic to

00:02:56.400 craft the most interesting and important questions possible well of course we would have preferred

00:03:02.240 to have a debate and there's no doubt that we're disappointed with the way things have gone

00:03:06.560 we had to adapt and we're still putting forth the tough questions that are important to

00:03:11.840 conservative members and not the irrelevant issues obsessed upon by the mainstream media.

00:03:18.800 I'd like to say thank you so much to the two remaining candidates, Mr. Aaron O'Toole and

00:03:24.000 Mr. Derek Sloan. Thank you so much for participating in our event, and a special thanks to you,

00:03:30.160 the viewers at home, for supporting independent journalism in this country.

00:03:35.360 And so without further delay, I will now turn it over to my True North colleague,

00:03:39.520 Andrew Lawton to begin the formal program tonight thank you so much thank you very much Candice and

00:03:47.680 thank you to all of you who are tuning in if you caught the pre-show for this debate you are no

00:03:52.720 doubt aware that we had a medical issue that arose with a very valued member of our team Sam

00:03:57.920 Eskenazi I want to let you all know that he is fine he's alert and actually himself was very

00:04:02.960 encouraging to continue on with the show thanks to all of you who have sent in messages of support

00:04:08.240 As Candace mentioned we aren't doing the event that we thought we were even a few hours ago

00:04:13.040 but it's still a very critical opportunity to hear from the people vying not only to lead

00:04:17.360 the Conservative Party of Canada but also the country. We did a coin toss for order and I'm

00:04:22.720 very grateful to have with us the first of our two fireside chat Conservative leadership candidates

00:04:28.400 Derek Sloan. Please welcome Derek Sloan out.

00:04:30.560 Derek thank you very much for being here thank you to see you so obviously the event that you

00:04:42.800 had anticipated being here tonight is a bit different so we thank you very much for still

00:04:47.940 being here in spite of all the changes one of the reasons that the independent press gallery

00:04:53.180 was formed was to advocate for independent journalists to have a voice in this country

00:04:59.120 And I wanted to start off right there with you.

00:05:01.180 Where do you see the big challenges being for press freedom and for freedom of speech?

00:05:06.600 Well, hey, that's a really good question.

00:05:07.840 And I've been a very strong candidate on those issues.

00:05:11.040 And I think that the Conservative Party has to lead from the federal level on free speech.

00:05:16.460 And I've been very clear that bills like Bill C-16, which can compel you to use certain gender pronouns, for example, should be repealed.

00:05:25.300 We can't have bills like that from the federal level when we claim to believe in free speech.

00:05:30.980 So we need to be very clear on issues like that.

00:05:33.600 When it comes to the press freedom and the inherent bias that's in certain media groups,

00:05:39.820 I think it's great that we're seeing, you know, groups that have started recently or not so recently

00:05:44.880 that are holding their own against organizations like the CBC that get tons of funding.

00:05:51.320 And I'm glad to be here.

00:05:53.000 I think that I've set a trend that says do not ignore conservative media.

00:05:59.500 And that has been, you know, some people in the Conservative Party don't speak to certain groups.

00:06:04.960 And I've been very clear to speak to all kinds of groups, whether it's Rebel News or groups like yourself.

00:06:10.440 And I've set a standard for other candidates as well.

00:06:13.280 So I'm pleased to be here.

00:06:15.260 You know, on the topic of free speech, we have to do everything we can to defend it.

00:06:20.440 And, 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.

00:06:34.500 And whether that's during elections, we've seen examples of Facebook blocking statements critical of Jagmeet Singh or critical of open borders.

00:06:43.180 We 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.

00:06:49.440 And this is where free speech is at right now.

00:06:53.400 We're talking about university campuses.

00:06:55.780 And I've been clear that universities need to be objectively in favor of free speech to receive federal funding.

00:07:02.580 And we need to be sure that we're pushing for federal funding on the cutting edge.

00:07:07.420 And that means social media.

00:07:08.960 That means it's something simple we can do is to criminalize doxing.

00:07:14.940 And I was speaking with a couple of young conservatives in Montreal just last week who I met with them at their apartment.

00:07:22.460 And I said, hey, you guys want to have a picture together?

00:07:24.320 And they said, well, we'd love to, but that might identify where we live.

00:07:27.420 And one of them had already been doxxed by Antifa, believe it or not, who, again, I've said should be declared a terrorist organization.

00:07:35.020 But they had been doxxed. And in this country, that's not a criminal offense.

00:07:38.820 You can sue people civilly, but it's challenging.

00:07:41.600 Other countries have made that a criminal offense.

00:07:43.660 And 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.

00:07:56.060 So I think we need to hit this head on.

00:07:58.140 When 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.

00:08:07.100 There are those that would say doxing is a logical extension of online free speech.

00:08:11.720 well i think when again when the intent of uh when the intent of sharing your uh your your address

00:08:19.500 and your location with a group of of people who the intent is to cause you problems the intent is

00:08:25.360 hey andrew if you have this opinion i'm going to tell my my followers here where you live where

00:08:30.060 your kids go to school this isn't about arguing political opinions this is with the intent of

00:08:35.000 people with bad intent showing up at your home basically it's the intent is to shut you up the

00:08:40.020 intent is to scare you into not sharing your opinion. But legislating intent, isn't that the

00:08:45.920 backbone? A lot of these other areas of law like human rights code, speech laws, other things that

00:08:51.280 conservatives are typically against when you start to get into the thought behind an act as

00:08:55.860 fundamentally changing the nature of the act itself. Well, I mean, criminal law is filled

00:09:00.020 with intent, right? You have mens rea and you have the most criminal laws have to do with intent,

00:09:05.360 not all of them um so i believe it's perfectly fine to target a behavior which has basically

00:09:11.600 malice as its intent so uh you know the typical attack on free speech is i don't like your opinion

00:09:17.200 your opinion is violent but if you are for instance free speech doesn't cover me threatening

00:09:23.280 you it doesn't cover me asking someone to assault you and doxing is basically in that category so

00:09:31.360 So if you're doxing someone, if you're putting out someone's intimate details of what they

00:09:35.620 do and where they go, this has nothing to do with furthering public discourse.

00:09:39.360 This has to do with targeting you and trying to silence you.

00:09:42.720 And so to me, I think that's a legitimate distinction.

00:09:45.240 And on the regulation of social media companies, I guess there are two aspects of this.

00:09:49.260 Number one is the effectiveness when these companies are such a size that they have the

00:09:55.320 GDP of many countries.

00:09:56.840 And most of them are not domiciled or headquartered in Canada.

00:10:00.180 So how do you enforce a Canadian law on these companies without being like China, which is, you know, restricting access? 0.98

00:10:06.420 And the other part is the fundamental nature of is it not challenging their right as a private company to operate the way they want,

00:10:15.080 even if that means we don't think conservative speech is as valuable as liberal speech or something like that?

00:10:21.240 Yeah, well, I mean, that's a good question. And I'm not here to tell you the answer is easy.

00:10:25.560 There's obviously different parts of this that would play into provincial jurisdictions.

00:10:29.360 So the point is, is that we need to identify that that it's a problem.

00:10:32.940 And that's that's probably the most important thing.

00:10:35.900 But listen, I believe that I believe that organizations need to follow the law in Canada.

00:10:40.460 And there's all kinds of things that that businesses can and can't do.

00:10:43.860 And 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.

00:10:56.720 So at the same time, a publishing organization like a newspaper can be.

00:11:03.480 So if they're claiming the benefit of sort of a neutral platform for everybody to use for whatever the reason,

00:11:12.300 they can at the same time edit comments without any rationale.

00:11:16.920 They can't be removing certain comments unless it accords with a very open standard of conduct.

00:11:24.280 And we all know that the codes of conduct on these things are really, in many cases, unintelligible.

00:11:31.200 Really 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.

00:11:43.260 And we see that in social media companies.

00:11:45.520 You see it in the mainstream media.

00:11:47.240 you've experienced yourself a fair bit of pushback from the mainstream media not just on

00:11:53.200 social conservative issues which I suspect we'll get to later on in this discussion but even your

00:11:58.480 approach to some issues that have been very pertinent throughout the coronavirus pandemic

00:12:02.900 such as wanting Teresa Tam the public health officer of Canada fired we know from the last

00:12:09.340 election from all of Stephen Harper's elections conservatives are not dealt a fair hand by the

00:12:14.920 mainstream media. And I think that on the cultural side, we can talk about media bias and all of

00:12:19.920 these things. But if you're within those parameters, you're operating as a figure in

00:12:24.140 Canadian politics, you know the treatments the media is going to give you is not going to be

00:12:28.500 good. How do you push back against that when you are, as you know, a conservative without apology,

00:12:33.340 a hardliner on a lot of social and economic issues? Well, I mean, the simple answer is you

00:12:38.980 don't jump through their hoops. And so there's been, I mean, we get a lot of requests from

00:12:43.340 mainstream media that we just ignore and it has it has nothing to do with you know it has nothing

00:12:48.700 to do with with with those organizations but it has to do with the the fight that we're in and

00:12:53.140 right now our fight is to win this leadership battle so I'm not there's some candidates who

00:12:58.120 who bask in the in the glory of you know sitting down with CBC and all this stuff if I don't think

00:13:03.480 that sitting down with a particular media outlet is going to help me reach conservative members

00:13:07.920 I don't even bother I don't even bother going on so part of it is just not jumping through the

00:13:13.320 hoops that the media has and in a general election obviously the strategy is is different but the

00:13:18.660 other thing too we have to remember is that we have access to social media and we can drive our

00:13:22.820 narrative uh through controversy or not using social media so I think that we you know my

00:13:29.440 experience anyways is that is that there's some conservatives who feel that they've done a good

00:13:33.260 day's work when the media isn't slamming them. And to me, I say, listen, you know, if the media

00:13:38.200 isn't slamming you, maybe you're not doing a good day's work. You know, if you're going to stand on

00:13:43.140 conservative principles in this day and age, you're going to get, you're going to get kicked

00:13:46.160 back. And sometimes we need to be able to stand there and take it and say, you know what, we've

00:13:50.320 said the right thing. We don't need to apologize. We don't need to rephrase what we're trying to say

00:13:54.820 and let the, let the media do what they want. I believe at the end of the day,

00:13:59.480 If we push our message, whether through controversy or not, the Canadian populace will see through it.

00:14:07.240 And I think that, especially with the use of social media, we can get our message through regardless of what the mainstream media says.

00:14:14.380 And I've seen that happen in my campaign.

00:14:16.240 I think the saying that there's a lot of truth to is that Twitter is not real life.

00:14:20.800 And 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.

00:14:29.320 They don't know what the Laurentian elite types, the mainstream media are talking about.

00:14:33.500 A lot of people still know what is on the front page of the paper, what's on their six o'clock newscast.

00:14:38.680 And 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?

00:14:49.020 Well, 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.

00:15:05.720 When it comes to Twitter,

00:15:06.840 you obviously don't look at your combination

00:15:08.620 of positives versus negatives

00:15:10.020 because it's only politically engaged people that are there.

00:15:13.900 But I believe that you stick to your narrative

00:15:17.460 and people will eventually come around.

00:15:19.520 And I saw that with some of the comments

00:15:21.020 I made about Dr. Tam.

00:15:23.140 Initially, some people thought it was the end of the world.

00:15:25.240 But even to this day,

00:15:26.160 I still get mail at my constituency office

00:15:28.980 from just random people who say,

00:15:30.240 you know what, thanks for speaking out on this issue.

00:15:32.220 you know you've proven yourself to be correct. So I think that we have to be okay with you know

00:15:37.820 maybe being a little bit early or stepping out on a limb and the truth will take care of itself

00:15:42.400 and I think that the media as biased as it is you know eventually the truth will come out and I

00:15:48.700 think that we have to count on it. You had MPs in your own caucus that after you had called for

00:15:55.320 Theresa Tam to be fired wanted you kicked out of caucus in the middle of a leadership race and you 0.99

00:16:00.200 can talk about people's motivations for that, whether they may have had an allegiance to

00:16:04.480 another leadership campaign. But still, there have been people that have spoken up that have said

00:16:08.480 they do not see themselves being able to serve under a Derek Sloan-led caucus. And you can say

00:16:14.520 they're wrong. You can say that they're perhaps having a narrow view of it. But even so, if you

00:16:19.560 are a leader, how do you unite that when you've got people that don't even want you to just not

00:16:24.480 win, but don't even want you in the caucus? How do you serve and unify a caucus like that?

00:16:30.200 some people think the party is about the caucus the party is about the members

00:16:34.440 we all serve at the leisure of the members if I am given the honor of

00:16:39.200 leading this party it will be because of the members and so the caucus it's up

00:16:42.820 to the caucus to recognize and respect the members who who put them there to

00:16:48.000 begin with and elected the leader that they want to lead the party so I believe

00:16:53.400 I firmly believe that the caucus will fall behind anyone who is elected but

00:16:57.140 at the end of the day there is this attitude that it's about the caucus and you know we're in

00:17:01.660 Ottawa and we're important. We're not important. It's the people that put us there and that's why

00:17:06.920 I'm here and I will never betray them. You can say that the members put the caucus there and if

00:17:12.380 you're successful the members will have put you there and that is accurate but even so leadership

00:17:17.480 is about unifying rather than dividing. So I'm not accusing you of dividing but you have divided

00:17:23.820 people against you, whether it's by your fault or not. So even if you say the caucus isn't the

00:17:28.840 be-all and end-all, what's your approach going to be as leader with these people? Because you still

00:17:33.880 will have to manage them. Caucus management is still a part of the role of leader of the

00:17:38.100 Conservative Party. Well, you know, it's interesting because I've been very clear that I believe that

00:17:43.100 votes should be free in caucus. So for people who don't agree with me on certain things, I'm not

00:17:48.380 sitting here saying, I want to twist their arm. Again, their mandate is to do what they feel

00:17:54.500 their constituents elected them to do. So I have no problem with a caucus member voting according

00:18:00.100 to their conscience, even if it's a different conscience than I have. But I do believe that

00:18:05.400 this leadership race is exposing certain fault lines in the party. And when you move from a place,

00:18:11.680 when you're moving from A to B or from a good place to a better place, it's never easy. I mean,

00:18:17.240 if it was easy then everybody would do it uh but improve but improving moving to a place where we

00:18:23.300 can become the dominant political force in this country uh takes certain risks it takes stepping

00:18:29.380 on certain toes and it's an inevitable outcome of being able to win and so um i'm not surprised that

00:18:35.800 this has happened but um i'm not i'm not concerned every everyone loves a winner and i'm i'm uh i've

00:18:42.680 experienced this before people say all kinds of things about you before you win and then when you

00:18:46.840 win they're your best friend so we'll uh we'll let that sort itself out conservative campaigns

00:18:51.420 have historically been about aversion to risk as you've seen and i think a focus on we heard the

00:18:57.940 term throughout the harper years of boutique tax credits and focus solely on pocketbook issues i

00:19:03.900 know that you've put forward a vision that deals with economic fiscal issues social issues foreign

00:19:09.100 policy do you fundamentally disagree with that idea that when you're asking canadians to vote

00:19:15.540 for you to vote for your party that the economics are where it's at well okay so let me put it so

00:19:23.320 yes i guess i disagree with all of it but in a more nuanced way than how you phrased it please

00:19:27.840 how do you phrase it well here so i definitely disagree with running on a platform of boutique

00:19:33.260 tax credits however you run it needs to be in big in a big bold vision and not you know hey

00:19:38.380 andrew if you put your kid in soccer i'll save you 200 bucks you know like in this last election

00:19:42.640 So we had people like literally like, okay, I'm going to save 25% of my cell phone.

00:19:47.000 If I vote liberal, I'm going to get a hundred bucks.

00:19:48.800 If I put in green lights or your, you know, environmentally efficient lights.

00:19:54.020 So it can't be about that.

00:19:55.260 It has to be about values.

00:19:57.020 And I've said, listen, we need to, we need to run on a freedom platform in the BC debate.

00:20:02.420 We saw a poll that was done online from people all over BC.

00:20:06.880 And I feel that they reflect conservatives across Canada.

00:20:10.160 And they were asked, what's the most important issue to you?

00:20:12.640 And the economy was asked, debt was asked.

00:20:15.300 These are things that they are important.

00:20:16.960 I mean, we see a third of a trillion dollars in debt

00:20:20.140 and yet 60 some odd percent of people said free speech.

00:20:23.980 The economy was like 8%, 9%.

00:20:26.120 So does that mean that conservatives don't care

00:20:28.560 about the economy?

00:20:29.400 It does not.

00:20:30.240 But the point is, is that our metanary,

00:20:32.440 I mean, Justin Trudeau does not campaign on the economy.

00:20:37.440 He campaigns on his version of Canadian values,

00:20:41.200 of his version of bringing the country together.

00:20:43.820 He campaigns from the heart, or at least he tries to,

00:20:46.620 and we have to do the same because that's what Canadians,

00:20:49.280 at the end of the day,

00:20:50.120 Canadians are gonna follow someone

00:20:51.740 who campaigns from the heart.

00:20:53.160 And so when we campaign on freedom,

00:20:57.000 all of that impacts the free market,

00:20:58.680 it impacts the economy, it impacts all these things,

00:21:01.220 but we need to have a meta narrative

00:21:03.240 that drives our vision and freedom is what that needs to be.

00:21:07.820 On the economics,

00:21:08.940 because we can't get through a conservative leadership fireside chat without talking about

00:21:13.020 those. Anyone who inherits the premiership of Canada, if they win an election after winning

00:21:18.280 leadership, is going to have a very challenging economic situation to deal with, a deficit nearing

00:21:24.040 $350 billion debt that continues to go up. How do you deliver that conservative vision that you

00:21:30.580 want, which is tax cuts, lower regulations, less government spending, when that's the mess you'll

00:21:36.220 have? What's the budget that you'll put forward or the economic platform that you'll be putting

00:21:40.800 forward? Well, we have to do all that and we have to drive the narrative. So, you know, the idea

00:21:45.620 that I'm not asking about the narrative, though, I'm asking about the numbers. Well, so we have to

00:21:51.180 put forward a budget that cuts federal spending, like period, right? But when it comes to the

00:21:56.760 economy as well, we have to look at growth as much as we have to look at cutting. So getting our

00:22:02.240 energy sector back on track is is a major way of doing that i mean you know every job in the oil

00:22:07.340 field impacts many other jobs in ontario and elsewhere whether it be manufacturing or banking

00:22:11.980 or even legal work so the energy sector is a big thing we have to look at at real tax cuts we have

00:22:18.640 to look at promoting made in canada small business here in canada and i have some good ideas of how

00:22:24.400 to deal with that as well but you know to to do all these things we have to put canada sovereignty

00:22:29.680 first and I don't believe that we can get a recovery in the energy sector without getting

00:22:34.380 out of the Paris agreement and I think it's very clear that we recognize as conservatives we

00:22:38.660 shouldn't be in these agreements that don't do us any good and hurt our own industries. So we do

00:22:43.380 have to do that but there's also regulations that need to be cut. We need to do what we would we

00:22:47.800 would have liked to do anyways but now we have a real reason to do it with this with this debt

00:22:51.800 that we have and we need to be very focused and brave in how we do that. On regulations your

00:22:58.240 Your platform calls for a significant reduction in regulations.

00:23:02.200 You talk about not just looking at federal ones, but even using federal authority to

00:23:06.420 reduce provincial and municipal regulations.

00:23:09.740 Now I'm all for getting rid of regulations, but how on earth do you justify being a conservative

00:23:14.300 that respects other levels of government if you're wanting to start cutting their own

00:23:19.060 regulations of those other levels of government?

00:23:21.560 Well, again, I don't think we would literally be doing it for them.

00:23:26.380 But this is we need to get into a culture in Canada where we encourage.

00:23:29.540 Sorry to interrupt. Your platform says you would use federal authority to reduce regulations at all three levels of government.

00:23:34.780 What does that mean?

00:23:35.940 Well, again, what we have to do when we're discussing regulations is we need to make sure.

00:23:43.080 And 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.

00:23:56.580 And I think that if we I think if the federal government champions a move like this, I think that we can get buy in.

00:24:02.860 And I don't like to, you know, I'm a carrot type of guy as opposed to a stick type of guy.

00:24:08.240 And I think that we can, I think it's in our best interest to have the best economy we can have.

00:24:13.420 And I think that we can work with provinces and municipalities.

00:24:16.660 I 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.

00:24:27.280 So, 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.

00:24:37.180 And you've pushed, I believe, for two in and one out on regulations, right?

00:24:41.080 That's correct.

00:24:41.420 For every one that comes in, you're going to get rid of two.

00:24:45.100 What 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?

00:24:54.060 Well, listen, I'll give you a couple of examples, and maybe we'll just use those as examples.

00:25:00.580 So I think we can, when it comes to paperwork for small businesses, we can put all of that into one portal.

00:25:06.740 So, and hopefully we could even combine federal and provincial paperwork as well into one portal.

00:25:10.940 So that would be one example of something we can do.

00:25:13.800 I'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.

00:25:20.840 So 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.

00:25:33.000 And often the securities regulations that we have butt up against things like crowdfunding and things like that.

00:25:40.820 So we need to work with our provincial partners to make it easier to get funding to small business ideas.

00:25:47.600 because uh you know the business the business development bank of canada these things they're

00:25:51.760 not geared for the the the small the startup funding that we need and we lose a lot of these

00:25:56.960 ideas to the states where the capital markets are more developed so we need to be a little more

00:26:00.720 creative on these types of things and when you talk about funding you're not talking about

00:26:03.360 government funding you're talking about even accessing private sector so crowdfunding by

00:26:07.600 people who so crowdfunding is a great way to to um you know get quote-unquote investment for your

00:26:14.320 business but the way it's set up right now there's no way to really offer an equity stake in your

00:26:19.280 business unless you go through the rigmarole of securities laws which requires more money and

00:26:26.400 expertise than a lot of small people would want to do but it is a great way in a small town or

00:26:34.080 with the environment we have with the internet right now to find people online who like what

00:26:39.040 you're doing you know maybe you're starting some sort of a craft company they could they could

00:26:43.200 invest in your business and again this is something that would need to be done in conjunction with

00:26:47.200 the provinces but i'm saying there are ways to make for example crowdfunding more accessible

00:26:52.880 to canadians to allow them to get businesses off the ground you mentioned earlier about made in

00:26:58.640 canada which is a part of your platform as well pushing for labeling and identification of products

00:27:03.840 that are made here certainly throughout the pandemic i think we've seen the risks of having

00:27:08.720 such a reliance on other countries for supply and recent cases on personal protective equipment.

00:27:14.380 But even so, we are a country that is based on free trade. The Conservative government in

00:27:19.200 particular inked numerous trade agreements with countries all around the world. We had recently

00:27:24.260 the renegotiation of NAFTA, which is now the USMCA, I think, or the CMUSA. They changed the

00:27:30.040 letters around. But when you come out and say, we need to make a push for Made in Canada,

00:27:35.240 are you talking about protectionism or are you just talking about promoting that culture of

00:27:40.120 homegrown goods yeah so i think it's about promoting the culture and i mean there's there's

00:27:45.080 all kinds of ways in which free trade doesn't even happen within canada between the provinces

00:27:49.240 so so i mean there's a great place to start but i do believe that and a key to this of course is

00:27:55.560 is reasonable energy prices and we saw with the green energy act with kathleen win our electricity 0.97

00:28:00.200 prices increased by about 70 percent driving all kinds of manufacturing business out of the province

00:28:05.240 And they're trying to do that again, by the way.

00:28:07.200 Jerry Butts is in a new organization that's suggesting $50 billion for resilient recovery.

00:28:13.160 Well, God help us if that's the type of recovery that we have.

00:28:16.000 But 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.

00:28:31.820 Reducing regulatory overload, again, is another thing.

00:28:35.240 still at the end of the day we won't be competing directly on a cost basis but I believe we can

00:28:40.800 compete on it on a quality basis and we've seen that happen with success in places like Germany

00:28:45.500 and I believe a lot of Canadians just want to know I mean I hear all the time you know hey I

00:28:50.500 wanted to buy something made in Canada I couldn't even find it you know but I think if we do

00:28:53.740 in different provinces Alberta has their own their own system I don't care if it's a provincial or a

00:28:59.060 federal one but we need to let people know where products come from I think Canadians are primed

00:29:03.680 to buy made in canada just by virtue of wanting to and we need to give them the option to do that

00:29:08.560 so under your ideal scenario would there be a rollback of some of the agreements that have

00:29:14.400 made it possible to freely trade in goods from everywhere and imaginable around the world well

00:29:19.840 we need to we need to evaluate all the the agreements that we have i i'm certainly not

00:29:24.000 against free trade when we're trading with countries like china i don't call that free 0.98

00:29:28.160 trade i mean we we have we have a we have a country there that's devaluing their currency

00:29:32.560 they're using predatory pricing tactics they're often trying to steal intellectual property so

00:29:37.680 we have to be very careful that we're not opening ourselves up to theft so so i believe in trading

00:29:42.800 with countries that want to trade with us and want to play fair and i don't care where they are they

00:29:46.400 could be in any part of the world but we also have to be safe when we're dealing with countries that

00:29:51.440 are acting in a predatory danger let's talk about national unity here which is a big problem not

00:29:57.760 just from quebec which has always had its troubles with the canadian confederation experience also

00:30:04.560 alberta saskatchewan parts of british columbia people who feel that the west is not a part of

00:30:11.280 confederation anymore people who completely want to separate or at the very least people who feel

00:30:16.560 like they're getting a raw deal i know you have said you are a federalist you don't want to

00:30:21.840 entertain alberta separation but you will still as a conservative leader and if your

00:30:27.120 plan works according to how you want it to as prime minister the growing discontent and discord

00:30:32.400 with the west and with quebec as well so what's your vision to keep canada together well you and

00:30:38.140 i were at an event where a lot of people in the room this was in calgary uh are on the separatist

00:30:43.040 track and um you know i spoke to them and they seemed to like what i had to say i don't know if

00:30:48.000 everyone is is not a separatist now probably not but uh you know it starts with recognizing that

00:30:54.480 repealing Bill C-69 and C-48 is not enough to quell Western separatist sentiment. It's much

00:31:03.000 more than that. These are feelings and issues that go back decades, if not generations. And

00:31:09.700 I think recognizing that is a very important part. I hope Alberta, like other provinces,

00:31:17.220 bargains hard. I hope that the leadership of any province puts their own

00:31:24.020 province first, obviously with a mind to confederation. But I hope that Alberta stands for

00:31:29.940 their rights and I've encouraged them to do that. But I also think that we need to do more than

00:31:35.820 simply repeal a few bills that Justin Trudeau has bought in. We need to look seriously at the way

00:31:41.240 that equalization works. And I'm not here to tell you the exact way that that should be done, but we

00:31:45.560 have to make sure that we have something in place that Alberta feels is fair. We have to, on the very

00:31:51.460 base of it we have to make sure that uh the the representation in the house of commons is adjusted

00:31:57.060 quickly enough to accord to the changing population levels in bc and alberta and we know that bc and

00:32:03.060 alberta are underrepresented uh in relation to even ontario and certainly quebec when it comes

00:32:08.740 to numbers of representatives in the house of commons alberta should should have right now

00:32:13.540 probably about 39 or 40 if it was on the same ratio as ontario which is about four or five more

00:32:18.580 than they do now so these are things that we we must look at we have to put every option on the

00:32:23.420 table you i mean andrew i think you and i know that separatist sentiment is so serious right now

00:32:27.820 i don't think people in the rest of the country get it i get it i've i've been in rooms with

00:32:33.900 hundreds of people who are so serious about this and um and and people like me out there i mean i've

00:32:40.100 i've i've had uh there's many people who who say listen derrick if you don't win this i'm out of

00:32:45.720 here. And I think that the number one priority for a conservative leader, for a prime minister,

00:32:51.280 is making sure that every part of the country feels like an equal partner in confederation.

00:32:55.880 And I don't care what it takes, so I'll make sure that happens with Alberta.

00:32:58.980 One of the big issues that we heard in the 2017 conservative leadership race, which

00:33:04.040 was odd to become so central, was supply management. And this is an issue where I

00:33:09.380 think conservatives have often philosophically been at odds with some of the political realities.

00:33:15.180 and i know you have farmers in your riding i know a lot of farmers including dairy farmers

00:33:19.340 specifically make up the conservative base what's your stance well i think that uh i think that when

00:33:25.340 you look at uh so first i'll say i don't have any intentions to make any major changes to supply

00:33:31.340 management uh although we can always look at ways to to modify the system the when it comes to dairy

00:33:37.420 uh every country has heavy subsidies for their their dairy industry so and we have farmers right

00:33:44.780 now that have millions of dollars of property built up into the system so i don't think that

00:33:49.180 there's any easy way to to solve the system i think that when it comes to food security when

00:33:54.620 it comes to our farmers we need to make sure that they're getting the help that they need i mean

00:33:58.940 these are these are industries where um you know when when you have a bad season you may be wiped

00:34:04.700 out and it it's not it doesn't necessarily fit the the immediate constructs that you would see

00:34:10.300 and in an economics textbook that farmer is done now maybe i mean you know maybe someone else can

00:34:16.780 buy his stuff or whatever but we need to keep our farmers from from getting going there in the first

00:34:21.420 place so when it comes to food and when it comes to things like this i'm okay uh as conservatives

00:34:27.340 making sure that that doesn't happen so obviously we believe in free trade we believe in all this

00:34:31.660 type of stuff but you know when countries like china are are attacking our canola farmers and 1.00

00:34:36.860 things like that we have to step in and defend them and when it comes to supply management

00:34:41.980 listen it's not a perfect system but again we live in it we live in a marketplace where other

00:34:46.620 countries are basically subsidizing their industries to the same or greater degree at

00:34:51.500 least in this case and again it's not a perfect scenario the subsidy is not undertaken by the

00:34:58.140 government it's basically on the consumer so whoever is purchasing these things is the one

00:35:02.780 that's bearing the cost of it which again not perfect but it is better than a generic subsidy

00:35:08.060 that we all pay for how do we as a country then make ourselves competitive when we're

00:35:13.340 in many cases engaged in a race to the bottom with other countries that don't have the moral qualms

00:35:18.620 with subsidizing relentlessly flooding the market in many cases flooding the market with product

00:35:23.900 that is inadequate how do you make yourselves competitive in a global marketplace in those

00:35:28.220 circumstances well again i think you you just can't be afraid to say listen if that's what

00:35:33.580 you're going to do you're not having free access to our to our market so again i don't think like

00:35:39.580 i certainly have no qualms in saying listen we will trade with countries that play by the rules

00:35:45.100 and we're not going to be uh giving free access to our market to countries that are actively

00:35:49.660 undermining our own economy so again i i think it's fair and i'm i'm not afraid to say we can

00:35:54.700 make that distinction what would you say has been the most eye-opening experience of this campaign

00:36:01.900 and i ask that because it's been a very different campaign than everyone thought when they got into

00:36:06.300 the race more zoom calls and all of those sorts of things than actual debates when you came in

00:36:11.660 did you have a different vision for what you thought you were going to be hearing from people

00:36:16.220 than what you actually did well there's so much centered around covid which obviously no nobody

00:36:21.100 expected and that's and that's very interesting obviously i've seen firsthand the fault lines that

00:36:26.140 have been exposed in the party um you know really i i've been surprised you know it's so interesting

00:36:32.060 if we would focus on a few different issues i think we we could easily win in an election

00:36:36.620 and there's an there's a there's a big concern right now in canada with with certain values issues

00:36:41.420 and canadian sovereignty issues and civil liberties issues i don't know if i'm just a

00:36:46.300 unique candidate but one of the biggest questions i get right now or i used to get everyone knows

00:36:51.260 what i think now is are you in favor of like mandatory covid vaccines what do you think of

00:36:56.940 you know like mandatory mass and things like this you know i i would have assumed some people would

00:37:01.740 have been concerned about that but literally the most uh frequent question i get it's not about

00:37:06.620 abortion it's not about anything like that it's about mandatory vaccinations so i think this kind

00:37:11.340 of civil liberties issues uh canadian sovereignty issues when it comes to you know un agreements

00:37:16.460 that we've signed on to and even values issues these are these are such important issues and i

00:37:21.660 don't see many of the other candidates really focusing on that very much do you think there is

00:37:27.100 an opportunity in canada to push for a bit more of a political approach to appointing judges this

00:37:33.820 is something that we often hear about in the united states in canada we've seen conservatives be on

00:37:38.060 on the losing end of Supreme Court cases

00:37:39.960 on key issues of conscience.

00:37:41.620 Is that something as a lawyer,

00:37:43.480 as a leadership candidate that you've taken an eye to?

00:37:46.460 Well, we have to do everything we can

00:37:48.000 when we're in power to appoint good conservative judges.

00:37:51.820 And when I say conservative,

00:37:52.940 I don't mean that they vote conservative.

00:37:56.000 I mean that they use conservative principles

00:37:58.260 when they're interpreting the constitution,

00:38:00.620 when they're interpreting the law.

00:38:02.460 And what we see is judges that take an activist,

00:38:06.440 I want to impose my version of utopia or whatever it is.

00:38:10.860 They don't say this,

00:38:12.060 but they're very activist in terms of their approach.

00:38:14.960 Whereas the small C conservative approach 0.51

00:38:17.880 to judicial application is, well, what does the law say?

00:38:21.400 What has the court said before?

00:38:22.960 Whether I like it or not, how do we apply it?

00:38:25.220 And everyone here, even the average Canadian

00:38:27.260 thinks that that's how it's done anyways.

00:38:28.840 And you and I know that that's not how it works.

00:38:31.480 But we need to get people in there, originalists, 0.99

00:38:36.160 as it were, to borrow language that's used down south a lot,

00:38:39.840 that interpret the laws that we have as they're written

00:38:43.100 and stop trying to rewrite things

00:38:45.040 for the benefit of their own political agenda.

00:38:48.820 So really conservative judges apply the law

00:38:51.220 whether they like it or not.

00:38:52.420 And I think that that's really unpolitical,

00:38:54.840 but unfortunately not what we see typically.

00:38:57.360 Now, of course, we invited you to participate in a debate,

00:39:00.160 which we didn't get to give you,

00:39:01.240 but we will give you a closing statement if you'd like,

00:39:03.680 we wind things down and give people that final pitch for why they should vote for you as the

00:39:08.160 ballot deadline nears. Sure. Well, I'm the only candidate that has been so clear on some of those

00:39:13.840 three points that I mentioned earlier. I'm dead set against mandatory vaccinations for COVID or

00:39:19.140 anything. I'm against mandatory masks. I'm against the Paris Agreement. I'm the only candidate who's

00:39:24.580 been talking about this. I'm against these other UN agreements that we've signed on to. I've been

00:39:30.080 only candidate that says we need to defund the world health organization i've been the only

00:39:34.000 candidate that says we need to defund these radical green uh energy organizations i've been dead set

00:39:40.320 on being against green energy subsidies and i will always put canada first everybody knows

00:39:45.600 that i'm up front and what you see is what you get and i will never compromise on our conservative

00:39:50.160 values thank you god bless and god bless canada well thank you very much derek sloan for coming

00:39:56.800 i know that uh 50 of the field didn't so we appreciate that you did and we thank you to

00:40:01.520 your team as well for making this happen we have got to take a quick break here we'll be back with

00:40:06.400 a little message about the independent press gallery after a short video break and also

00:40:11.280 with our fireside chat with aaron o'toole that's coming up i'm andrew lutton

00:40:24.160 much

00:40:26.800 .

00:40:56.800 .

00:41:26.800 Welcome back.

00:41:39.780 So if you were following the federal election campaign in 2019,

00:41:44.500 my view of that was the back of the liberal campaign bus.

00:41:48.120 It was quite an ordeal, as many of you who have followed my work with True North may have seen.

00:41:52.660 We were denied access to Justin Trudeau's liberal campaign events,

00:41:56.180 and then eventually denied access to covering the Leaders Debates Commission's official

00:42:01.860 government-sanctioned, government-hosted English and French-language debates with all of the leaders

00:42:06.740 of the major political parties. True North and Rebel News were denied access and had to file

00:42:13.160 an emergency court injunction to have permission to be journalists, permission to cover a government

00:42:19.360 event. Now, if you're familiar enough with the story, you know that we emerged victorious from

00:42:23.560 We were granted a court order that required the Leaders Debates Commission to credit us.

00:42:28.740 But even then, the battle has not ended.

00:42:31.020 The Leaders Debates Commission and the federal government have continued to block our attempts

00:42:35.180 for more transparency as the case continues.

00:42:38.220 They continue to say that there was no press freedom case that was at stake.

00:42:42.160 They continue to say that our case is moot because the debate's over, even though there

00:42:46.780 are broader press freedom issues that I think matter, constitutional freedoms.

00:42:51.460 That was in part the spirit that led to the creation of the Independent Press Gallery,

00:42:55.840 a gallery that is not closed off like the Parliamentary Press Gallery, is not limited

00:43:00.720 to people who live in Ottawa and work for mainstream media outlets, but is actually

00:43:04.760 a voice, a vessel, and a vehicle for independent journalists that aren't beholden to the government

00:43:10.420 to do their work.

00:43:11.520 And we were astonished at how controversial this idea seemed when we were going through

00:43:16.460 our ordeal throughout the election, but very grateful as the Independent Press Gallery

00:43:20.260 has launched to see all of the support from established journalists, freelance journalists,

00:43:24.820 from all varieties of publications around the country that have stepped forward, and many of

00:43:29.700 whom have actually come from around the country to be in attendance here at this media event,

00:43:35.160 which, as you know, will be followed by scrums with the candidates after. So you can find more

00:43:39.600 information about the organization at independentpressgallery.ca. I hope many of you are on

00:43:44.660 there watching the events we're doing right now, and I thank you very much for that. Now, as I

00:43:49.960 mentioned earlier, we've had to change things up a little bit. Instead of the debate that we had

00:43:54.140 initially planned, we're doing sit-down fireside chats with the two leadership candidates that

00:43:58.860 are here. And it's my great pleasure to welcome Conservative leadership candidate Aaron O'Toole

00:44:03.300 for a fireside chat here brought to you by the Independent Press Gallery.

00:44:09.220 Aaron, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Yes, we'll do the elbow bump from

00:44:14.080 afar there. Thank you very much for being here. It's truly appreciated. Well, thanks for doing

00:44:18.740 This is a great setup and looking forward to a great chat.

00:44:21.920 I thought you had a good chat with Derek, so ready to go.

00:44:24.800 When we launched the Independent Press Gallery, one of the things that we saw was a platform item from your campaign

00:44:31.240 that had pushed for not just recognition of the Independent Press Gallery in relation to the Parliamentary Press Gallery,

00:44:38.860 but broadly speaking, increased access to independent journalists at government events.

00:44:44.140 this isn't something that in 2020 you'd think would have to be in a leadership candidates

00:44:49.380 platform but it is so why was it important for you to include that and why do you think

00:44:53.640 we got to the place where something like that was needed well for a few years I've been talking

00:44:59.680 about the decline of free speech rights in Canada and cancel culture and taking down a statues and

00:45:06.040 a range of things and it's sad to see in a democracy that we would have to have the leadership

00:45:11.580 you guys have shown with the independent press gallery because parliament itself means to speak

00:45:16.780 parlement it hansard was published in the original parliament so that the constituents across canada

00:45:23.660 could see what was being debated in parliament so why would there be sort of a club-like mentality

00:45:30.460 for the press gallery if you actually look at their sort of guidelines and rules they don't

00:45:34.780 even seem to anticipate bloggers podcasters obviously not many canadians read hansard

00:45:40.780 anymore but a lot of them listen to podcasts read online blogs some of the great insightful

00:45:45.820 investigative reporting is now done by people who are primarily online and writing for alternative

00:45:52.900 outlets so we should in a democracy welcome as much coverage of the debates of the nation as

00:45:58.320 possible which is why in my platform I'm going to give full recognition to the independent press

00:46:03.520 gallery and really it's time to shake up a sort of out-of-date club in Ottawa and that's that's

00:46:10.640 what I'm going to do as prime minister. You've taken aim throughout your campaign at cancel

00:46:15.060 culture. You've spoken up about free speech. You've been criticized for only really recently

00:46:20.920 adopting this. See, people have said that you're just doing it because that's your niche in the

00:46:25.560 conservative leadership race. When was it that you first started to actually speak out and pay

00:46:30.620 attention to these issues? I had watched the decline of debates on university campuses for

00:46:36.660 some time and even when i would appear on a university campus um you know there would be

00:46:41.380 criticism from activist groups and almost wanting to suppress other opinions other than their own

00:46:47.140 cancel culture when i became very active andrew was when justin trudeau took the name of a father

00:46:53.140 of confederation off a building as a big symbolic act without any debate in parliament without any

00:47:00.020 discussion of who hector langevin was one of only two french canadian fathers of confederation who

00:47:06.420 attended all the conferences that led to Canada. He was removed, primarily because he was conservative,

00:47:11.440 by the way, with Sir George Etienne Cartier. And I challenged Trudeau on that. I didn't just

00:47:16.480 complain about it. I also said, you know what? Who opened more residential schools than Mr.

00:47:21.420 Langevin? Your father, Justin. A hundred years later, when the program was known to be problematic

00:47:27.940 and to really be destructive. So when I challenge cancel culture and this limitation of free speech,

00:47:35.160 I make sure I go in to win the debates.

00:47:37.920 I make sure I stand up for the things I believe in.

00:47:40.640 And I think Canadians are looking to this.

00:47:43.080 When I had cancel culture and the removal of statues in my launch video in January,

00:47:48.580 many members of the media and some conservatives in other camps mocked me for it.

00:47:54.020 A couple of weeks ago, Andrew, J.K. Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell, 150 authors from around the world,

00:48:00.100 said the same thing.

00:48:01.300 this online cancel culture driven by the left is impacting free speech, impacting the principles

00:48:09.060 that basically underscore our democracy. And it's time to stand up for them. I've been doing that

00:48:13.020 and as leader and prime minister, I will make that a key centerpiece of my leadership.

00:48:18.340 How do you defend against that when a lot of the things that you might speak out about are the very

00:48:23.820 things that get people canceled as the term goes? How do you then face the media in an election

00:48:29.140 campaign. How do you avoid getting sucked into that vortex that so many people on the right do

00:48:34.380 and actually get your message out if those are, by your own admission, the stakes of discourse in

00:48:39.220 2020? Well, you make sure you know what you're talking about and you make sure you plan. I don't

00:48:45.360 go into debates to lose them. I go in to win. In fact, I joke that my staff didn't want me. I went

00:48:52.280 on to campus two and a half years ago to debate Sir John A. MacDonald statues, an Indigenous

00:48:58.140 studies class, and my staff said, we may never see you alive again. But I went. And you know what?

00:49:05.640 I didn't win everyone over, but people heard the other side. You know, that principle of

00:49:10.300 Audi alder and partum I learned in law school, hear the other side. What's happening to that

00:49:14.360 in our society? Universities is where that used to be encouraged. Now it's being discouraged. And

00:49:20.300 there were people yelling at me for being there on unceded land and things like this.

00:49:24.520 but there were a group of people that listened

00:49:27.060 and I actually got positive feedback

00:49:29.040 from the professor who facilitated

00:49:30.800 the debate who I can tell you from his

00:49:32.980 Twitter feed is not a conservative

00:49:34.400 but he respected me

00:49:36.120 we need to bring respect

00:49:38.420 freedom of speech and the ability

00:49:41.100 for a conservative principle

00:49:42.880 to be articulated without fear

00:49:44.920 of cancel culture, without feel of

00:49:46.720 ridicule because that

00:49:48.940 makes our democracy better. Justin Trudeau

00:49:51.180 you have to have the same view

00:49:53.040 as him on all issues to be a part of his caucus. That's undemocratic. I think our diverse and

00:49:59.560 vibrant conservative movement with free votes, with freedom of speech, that makes our party

00:50:04.300 better because we're truly representative of many views across our country. And that's what a

00:50:10.020 parliamentary democracy should be. You've said very clearly that you are pro-choice, you're pro-gay 1.00

00:50:16.180 rights, yet you are not going so far as to say that everyone in your party has to be pro-choice,

00:50:21.740 that everyone in your caucus has to be.

00:50:23.960 To a lot of people who criticize social conservatives,

00:50:27.620 that is an indistinguishable position

00:50:29.600 from being a social conservative yourself.

00:50:32.400 And we saw this with Andrew Scheer, for example.

00:50:34.380 He was personally pro-life,

00:50:36.100 but had fundamentally the same position as you

00:50:38.240 on the sense that he wasn't going

00:50:39.980 to introduce any legislation.

00:50:41.700 He wasn't going to make any changes

00:50:43.920 to Canadian law on abortion.

00:50:46.200 So how do you fight back against really going down

00:50:49.420 the exact same road that the Conservatives have been down? Because I've been clear in my political

00:50:54.220 life since I was elected. I often say I'm not a career politician, so I don't have to go back to

00:50:58.720 the 1990s or 15 years ago to put speeches or votes I gave into context. When I left the military,

00:51:05.200 became a lawyer, and then ran for Parliament, I said I'm running to Parliament to defend Canadians'

00:51:09.480 rights. I'm not here to take away any rights granted by the court under the Charter or rights

00:51:14.780 that go back to the Magna Carta.

00:51:16.320 That's why I'm a strong proponent of free speech rights,

00:51:19.880 conscience protections,

00:51:21.120 and I don't like the increasing view on the left

00:51:23.580 that some rights are okay and other rights can be dismissed.

00:51:27.200 In a democracy like us, you have to respect all points of view

00:51:31.340 and be willing to defend all rights.

00:51:33.920 You know, that's what our soldiers have done throughout our history.

00:51:36.860 That's what our parliament is meant to do.

00:51:38.540 That's what Diefenbaker did with the Bill of Rights.

00:51:41.240 We have to defend those rights,

00:51:42.720 whether it's property rights of Canadians that have seen that right removed with an order of

00:51:48.240 council, no debate in the middle of a pandemic for firearms owners, or whether it's a conservative

00:51:53.100 who wants to express a point of view based on their faith. When did religious freedom become

00:51:57.840 a right we're not willing to stand up for in this country? I have concerns about what Justin Trudeau

00:52:03.100 is doing to democratic debates, political party organization, and really parliament in general,

00:52:08.980 and it fuels me. And what's great, Andrew, conservatives are a great, passionate, intelligent

00:52:14.360 bunch from coast to coast. We don't have to have the same view on all issues. We have to have

00:52:19.240 respect for one another. And that's why in my launch video, I said unity of the party is key

00:52:24.440 to me. It's why I launched in Alberta to speak to people that are giving up on our country

00:52:30.260 because they're so frustrated with Justin Trudeau. I said, let's make sure that Justin Trudeau does

00:52:35.820 not define canada our democracy defines canada let's defeat him and get our country back on track

00:52:42.540 but i'm not sure you really answered the fundamental crux of that question which is

00:52:46.460 that if your vision of the conservative party allows for people who do want to advance on

00:52:51.420 these issues or other issues that come up how will you as leader deflect against the campaign being

00:52:57.820 sidelined by that which to a lot of critics was what sidelined the conservative campaign in 2019

00:53:03.740 they say. And it may be that you dispute that premise, but you're going to be faced with those

00:53:07.340 same questions. So how will you deal with them? Well, look, Andrew Scheer is my good friend.

00:53:11.740 I think he realized he had some challenges in the last campaign, squaring off his personal

00:53:16.660 position and his personal views with how he would act as prime minister and leader of the party. I

00:53:21.660 do not. People know that I, you know, I'm a person of faith. I'm Catholic. My family, you know, we

00:53:28.580 believe in faith, and it's an important part of who we are. And as a parliamentarian, I've had

00:53:35.000 to square off the fact that my position on rights and my position as a conservative doesn't always

00:53:40.740 square with my faith tradition. I have voted consistently in favor of rights, even when I'm

00:53:47.520 just one of 18 conservatives that voted on an LGBT bill, for example. What was great? Stephen

00:53:53.700 Harper allowed a free vote on that. That's a principle of our party. And I wasn't hurt for

00:53:58.840 being in the minority position. I was promoted twice. Here's the kicker, Andrew. Justin Trudeau

00:54:04.260 skipped that vote to go to a Cash for Access fundraiser with his friends Dalton McGinty and

00:54:09.160 Kathleen Wynne. So they're not going to be able to trot out the age-old hidden agenda campaign with

00:54:14.460 me because I've been clear. And you know what? I'm going to defend free votes, defend free speech

00:54:21.340 as a principle of our party at a time that I think Canadians want to see that.

00:54:25.520 They don't want a cookie-cutter politician who has been a member of the We Board and the Liberal Party.

00:54:31.680 They want real debate. They want accountability. They want ethics. They want leadership.

00:54:36.140 And that's what they will have with Erin O'Toole as Prime Minister.

00:54:39.240 Throughout the Conservative leadership race, there have been two candidates disqualified.

00:54:43.340 One of them, Richard Desquerie. Another one, Jim Carahalios.

00:54:46.840 And the reason I bring those up is because your campaign had actually complained about Jim Carahalios' campaign in the race.

00:54:54.300 A lot of members have reached out to us wondering how you square on one hand being against cancel culture and being for free votes.

00:55:02.420 But 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.

00:55:10.960 Well, we have a leadership election committee, the LEOC committee that decides.

00:55:14.700 We complained because Mr. Karajalios was lying, lying to thousands of Canadians about me and on issues that I'm very passionate about.

00:55:24.340 You know, when he's sending letters to people in our party suggesting I'm bringing Sharia law to Canada, Andrew, that's a lie.

00:55:31.820 And it's divisive. And more than that, I served in the military.

00:55:36.580 I know people that have died fighting the Taliban.

00:55:38.880 I will do whatever it takes to make sure that law or those cultural practices never come to Canada.

00:55:46.300 They're 180 degrees removed from what we are as a society.

00:55:52.100 So if you want to come and debate tax issues, economic issues, foreign policy, I love that.

00:56:00.340 When you just start sending out stuff that's completely fabricated, I think you have to be held to account.

00:56:06.400 so we have within the rules the ability to file that complaint it was the party that made the

00:56:11.280 decision and it's disappointing because i do think he probably has some perspective to contribute

00:56:18.400 but now we've seen this with the ontario pc party we've now seen with this with the federal party

00:56:23.440 uh let's have a good debate um i win debates i don't lose them but you can't lie you can't divide

00:56:29.440 canadians you can't mislead particularly on something like that um and so we had to connect

00:56:35.120 correct the record because once people get lists of thousands of peoples they they can send out

00:56:40.640 whatever they want reminds me of the old churchill quote a lie gets around the world before truth

00:56:46.260 gets its pants on so i had to make sure for the record my values as a strong conservative

00:56:53.440 particularly on law and order issues is fundamentally opposed to the the elements of

00:56:59.460 sharia law and people deserve to know that when you mentioned in that response canadian values

00:57:05.100 This has become a pivotal part of the discussion about immigration.

00:57:08.500 We know Stephen Harper had a great deal of backlash from the media, to go back to how

00:57:13.400 we started on media bias, for really suggesting that values should be a consideration in immigration.

00:57:19.920 We've seen under Justin Trudeau the problem of illegal immigration balloon.

00:57:24.060 How do you put forward your vision?

00:57:26.620 What is your vision if you're the conservative leader, if you're the prime minister on immigration?

00:57:31.400 Well, we have to fix the system.

00:57:33.380 Justin Trudeau allowed the system to become broken.

00:57:36.300 And even worse than that, Andrew,

00:57:38.900 now Canadians' confidence in our system has been undermined.

00:57:43.000 If I go into a Tim Hortons in my riding now,

00:57:45.480 I have people that have serious concerns about our system,

00:57:48.620 about our levels, all these sorts of things that didn't exist

00:57:51.320 seven years ago when I was elected and Jason Kenney was our minister.

00:57:54.820 We need a fair, compassionate, rules-based system.

00:57:59.780 So 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.

00:58:26.760 that's what he was doing he's done it many times because they were saying people feel this is a

00:58:33.080 change in our rules in canada and so in my riding i represent a riding in the greater toronto area

00:58:39.880 the most frustrated people from the whole rocks and road situation andrew were families waiting

00:58:45.960 longer and longer to sponsor a family member according to the rules they feel and i had

00:58:53.080 someone say this to me should i tell my relative to just go to new york state and walk across the

00:58:57.320 border what do i say to them no of course not that's not the way it's supposed to work but

00:59:02.360 justin trudeau's incompetence on this file now has some canadians questioning immigration we

00:59:08.040 need immigration in this country in fact we have a less than replacement birth rate so if people 1.00

00:59:13.320 like cpp and all of our our programs we need to have immigration it's good for canada but it's

00:59:19.960 good when it's fair, compassionate, rules-based. Same with refugees. The private sponsorship route 1.00

00:59:25.380 have better outcomes for families on housing, on jobs, on opportunity a year after they're here.

00:59:33.680 The government route has less successful outcomes, so it's unfair to the people that are coming. 1.00

00:59:40.420 So let's fix it. I've talked to Jason Kenney, who you know is supporting me quite a bit on these

00:59:45.260 issues i think we can show canadians we're going to get back on track and you know what defending

00:59:50.540 your border and actually having people respect the border is a fundamental element of our

00:59:55.900 sovereignty and it's okay to criticize trudeau's inaction we had a federal court decision just

01:00:02.020 recently that really called into question that safe third country agreement which has been used

01:00:07.360 to basically justify accepting or denying refugees or people that claim asylum at official ports of

01:00:14.640 entry and thus creating the rocks and road problem. With a federal court saying that this

01:00:20.000 agreement is no longer valid, that it violates the charter, how do you secure the border? How do you

01:00:25.960 protect people from gaming the system, taking advantage of the compassionate part and ignoring

01:00:31.040 the rules-based part? Because I agree when you say fix it, but I haven't heard what that fix is.

01:00:35.560 Well, first, I've read the decision. It's actually easy to fix what the judge called out. I don't

01:00:40.700 think it was a great decision to be honest with you but her concern was actually the incarceration

01:00:45.480 of the people once they went back to the United States. So Andrew I think I can actually fix that

01:00:50.560 as we renegotiate closing off the loophole in the safe third country agreement. So until we do that

01:00:57.200 she delayed the decision by six months anyway so it's not in effect. We may even be in government

01:01:02.460 within six months. We need to turn Roxham Road into a border stop and even temporarily

01:01:10.140 Once that's done, the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement is addressed.

01:01:15.460 You can then say, did you claim asylum in the first country you were in?

01:01:19.340 Yes.

01:01:20.040 You then cannot claim, you can't forum shop in claiming asylum.

01:01:25.520 So the temporary creation of a border stop there would fix this entirely.

01:01:31.900 I've been advocating for this for three years, Andrew.

01:01:34.860 And 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.

01:01:51.860 I think the U.S. want that treaty to be in place.

01:01:55.220 So if we can have a new approach for them to be returned under, that would fit within the spirit of the decision.

01:02:02.500 Right 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?

01:02:28.200 Well, 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?

01:02:41.520 Because 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.

01:02:51.280 But here's a catch.

01:02:53.040 We know that one thing that was hurting families during COVID with the closure of daycares

01:02:57.560 and schools was childcare.

01:02:59.100 So can for a while we pivot to more family reunification, particularly if it helps solve

01:03:04.260 the care needs of a family or sometimes elderly care in the home, can we pivot while the economic

01:03:11.400 situation is sorting itself out in terms of employment levels, those sorts of things,

01:03:17.600 to make sure that the system adapts to the needs of the country?

01:03:21.000 That's what we should be doing.

01:03:22.940 We should not do things the way they were done 50 years ago just for the sake of doing it the same way.

01:03:29.520 We need to make sure that our system addresses the needs of Canada today, particularly post-COVID.

01:03:35.680 So 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.

01:03:45.260 And 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?

01:04:01.440 We should make sure the system is nimble enough to pivot to address those.

01:04:05.780 One of the things that most conservatives, I think, can agree on is that the carbon tax is a job killer.

01:04:10.640 I think this is something that everyone on the right tends to get, even many people not on the right.

01:04:15.260 you say in your platform that the carbon tax is gone you also say you want a national regulatory

01:04:21.580 and pricing scheme on industrial emitters and your rationale for this has been that you don't

01:04:26.700 want to target individual canadian families but rather target the companies themselves we all know

01:04:33.820 that any cost that a company has to bear gets filtered down so any tax that's put on a

01:04:38.620 manufacturer or distributor is something that canadians are paying so how can you say you're

01:04:42.780 against the carbon tax when your plan seems to just move the tax to another payer no there is

01:04:48.460 no tax there's no federal carbon tax i will eliminate the carbon tax completely andrew

01:04:54.460 what i've said in terms of the national framework we have to respect what the provinces are doing

01:05:00.700 now in bc there's been the their provincial carbon tax started by gordon campbell i've talked to him

01:05:07.260 about some of the challenges and problems that were caused but he explained to me his rationale

01:05:12.380 there quebec has a version of a cap and trade system alberta ontario my own province has a

01:05:17.500 large emitter strategy just working with emissions of the larger emitters we need to follow the

01:05:23.260 provinces here because guess what they have shared jurisdiction on the economy i've been saying this

01:05:28.700 for years the court of appeal in alberta in february just supported my view when they said

01:05:33.100 trudeau's carbon tax is unconstitutional we actually have to say on the federal government

01:05:39.100 How can we make sure we respect the different approach within a national framework

01:05:44.640 and say this is how we're going to reduce emissions?

01:05:47.580 Not with a tax, but with partnering with the provinces to get their emissions down.

01:05:52.280 But does your platform or does it not say pricing?

01:05:56.320 Because the provinces are pricing.

01:05:58.180 But you say national pricing.

01:05:59.920 So can you say that there is not going to be any federal price on carbon at a federal level for anyone,

01:06:06.500 whether it's a family or an industrial emitter the provinces will be in the driver's seat

01:06:11.540 so i will respect what they do look two great conservatives my friends jason kenny and doug

01:06:17.780 ford have large emitter approaches where they're stepping down through a price on carbon for

01:06:23.460 emitters what the provinces decide to do often with the cooperation of industry i will respect

01:06:31.620 and the national framework is because we are reporting a canadian response and we have to

01:06:38.020 recognize we have a confederation we have a national unity crisis because justin trudeau

01:06:43.780 doesn't understand that that's why the wexit movement is gaining steam because he has attacked

01:06:49.860 the ability for certain provinces to live to their economic potential i will respect that in

01:06:55.620 In fact, I will empower it.

01:06:57.300 My first 100 days is all natural resources.

01:06:59.640 But if they want to work on reducing emissions

01:07:03.120 and target working with and partnering with large emitters,

01:07:07.320 why should Ottawa get involved, Andrew?

01:07:09.100 We should say we are going to incorporate Alberta's approach

01:07:13.100 alongside Quebec's approach.

01:07:14.920 And we're not going to say this approach is bad

01:07:17.100 and this one is good.

01:07:18.080 We're going to say Canada's diverse economy.

01:07:20.980 We've got an offshore in Newfoundland and Labrador as well

01:07:23.900 that's in trouble now because of Trudeau.

01:07:25.880 We are going to try and make sure

01:07:27.180 that we have a national respected approach

01:07:29.700 that allows the provinces to lead.

01:07:32.440 But what if a province says

01:07:33.620 they don't want any part of it?

01:07:34.720 A provincial government in some provinces

01:07:36.660 we don't believe that we need to deal with emissions,

01:07:39.220 we don't believe in a carbon tax.

01:07:40.760 Does inaction fit into that national framework

01:07:43.180 if that's what a province chooses?

01:07:44.700 If that's what the province chooses, yes.

01:07:47.380 Look, we have to have a real climate change policy,

01:07:51.280 a real environmental policy in the next election.

01:07:53.180 If we don't, we lose. So the other candidates in the race aren't ready to run in an election this

01:07:59.160 fall anyway, but I don't think they realize I've knocked on doors in southern Ontario for two

01:08:04.280 elections now where this was an issue. We were seen as not having real policy. I'm going to make

01:08:10.420 sure we have real conservative approach so that when I say I'm killing the carbon tax, I'm going

01:08:16.000 to say here's what we're going to do. A lot of it will be partnering with the provinces, but can we

01:08:21.040 invest in carbon capture and sequestration as part of our solution particularly with some of

01:08:25.920 the provinces that still use coal for generating electricity uh nuclear energy i'm a big advocate of

01:08:32.320 greenhouse gas emission free you know the left they hate it because it's actually technology

01:08:37.280 that will allow us to have a productive economy the activists on the left they want to shut down

01:08:42.160 our economy i want to grow our economy particularly the resource economy that has given us this rich

01:08:48.720 wealthy and respected nation we're actually the best producer of all the goods we produce because

01:08:54.560 of our human rights record our rule of law our indigenous engagement we don't need anyone 1.00

01:08:59.360 including the un telling us what to do we are the world leader in environmental social governance

01:09:06.080 i will i will empower that and at the same time i will show canadians i am very pro development

01:09:13.760 and resource oil and gas you know forestry agriculture and we're going to have substantive

01:09:20.880 policies that will reduce emissions without disrupting the economy it's difficult 0.90

01:09:27.360 but attacks is what the liberals do because it's easy and dumb we are going to do smart policy

01:09:33.520 and canadians that care about the environment will know the conservatives will have a plan that

01:09:37.760 that will reduce emissions without them losing their job.

01:09:41.660 Fiscal management is going to be a huge problem in Canada

01:09:44.860 as we look at what the next government is going to have inherited.

01:09:49.040 We have deficits that are rising even beyond what they were before.

01:09:53.080 The Justin Trudeau approach was that when the economy is great,

01:09:55.600 it's time to spend, and when the economy is bad, it's time to spend.

01:09:58.860 How do you balance the budget?

01:10:00.580 How do you get the books in check without having to raise taxes

01:10:05.220 or without having to cut spending or how do you accomplish all of those things that

01:10:09.540 conservatives want to do financially well you're right world did change i thought we were dealing

01:10:14.500 with a 25 billion dollar deficit when we launched uh our campaign in alberta in january which was

01:10:20.580 terrible enough because we had good economic times strong employment numbers trudeau was raising

01:10:25.380 taxes and still running huge deficits so is this the guy that's going to dig us out of this hole

01:10:31.140 he got us in the hole so our approach has to learn the lessons from jim flaherty and and

01:10:36.980 stephen harper have a plan to get the balance keeping taxes low over a timeline and be disciplined

01:10:44.020 and stick to it now do you mean personal corporate or both both in fact andrew small businesses

01:10:50.340 we're probably going to have to provide more tax relief i want to bring back the elements

01:10:55.380 for small businesses that justin trudeau took away with his war on small business 70 roughly

01:11:01.540 of canadians work for small and medium-sized enterprise 70 why do we have high unemployment

01:11:07.860 and we'll likely have it coming out of covet trudeau didn't save many jobs he put everyone

01:11:12.500 on the serve so i'm actually going to work with small businesses and over the next few years

01:11:18.180 we actually may have to provide some tax relief to small businesses and maybe seniors on pension

01:11:24.340 income because of tight circumstances for many of them but we can do that stephen harper did it he

01:11:30.340 took a five-year program to to do it after the 2009 recession ours will likely be longer but i

01:11:36.740 think if canadians know that we are doing it for the long-term prosperity of the country they will

01:11:41.780 be with us but the key part of my plan andrew is taxes low a plan to balance over a period of time

01:11:49.860 but a private sector renaissance we need to eliminate the anti-development programs of

01:11:54.980 justin trudeau we need to renegotiate uh trade arrangements with the united states we need a

01:12:00.660 softwood lumber agreement we need fair trade amongst free countries free trade with democracies

01:12:06.420 and start taxing or tariffing the bad actors like the chinas of the world and canada needs to help 0.98

01:12:12.980 lead that process. We're not even at the table with Trudeau. Every country he's interacted with

01:12:19.360 as Prime Minister, our relationship with that country is worse. Every single one. As foreign 1.00

01:12:25.800 affairs critic for the Conservatives, I meet with them. They would often say to me behind closed

01:12:30.600 doors, Andrew, what has happened to Canada? Right now, after five years of Trudeau, we are poorer

01:12:37.160 and weaker at home and less respected around the world.

01:12:40.900 That is why I'm ready to go in September to hold them to account

01:12:44.560 and win an election that could come in the next few months.

01:12:47.740 We need to get our country back on track.

01:12:49.940 We need to take it back from an ideological, out-of-touch government

01:12:54.420 that has our future prosperity at risk.

01:12:57.720 You've been a big proponent of CANZUK,

01:13:00.320 which is an agreement for those that can't decipher it from the letters

01:13:03.060 that would really put Canada in a special partnership with Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom.

01:13:08.840 Is that really where you think the future of trade needs to be,

01:13:11.980 which is to trade with the countries most like you,

01:13:15.280 which really seems to be putting a values assessment onto trade agreements?

01:13:20.580 Or do you think that's a unique relationship outside of broader free trade policies

01:13:24.740 with countries around the world, like we saw from the Harper government in which you were a minister?

01:13:29.220 The answer is a bit of both.

01:13:30.760 Kanzuk is very special.

01:13:33.040 Look, you know, my sister married an Australian fighter pilot.

01:13:36.560 She met when I was in the military, and he was on exchange with Canada.

01:13:39.720 We have fought and died together with these countries.

01:13:42.660 We're in the Five Eyes security partnership with them already,

01:13:45.340 our closest relationship.

01:13:47.820 So we should be doing more.

01:13:49.300 In fact, Prime Minister Johnson is talking to Australia and New Zealand now

01:13:52.680 about more trade, more capital sharing,

01:13:55.420 more exchange of people and ideas between some of the closest countries.

01:13:59.820 Where's Canada?

01:14:00.500 Of course, Trudeau and Morneau, I think, was in Kenya on a we trip.

01:14:05.120 He wasn't actually at the meetings with some of our closest partners.

01:14:09.080 So we have to be there.

01:14:11.520 Beyond that, I do think when you say free and fair trade amongst free countries, it's not just Commonwealth or our traditional close allies.

01:14:20.660 Japan, our relationship with Japan, an important trade partner, is in the doldrums after Trudeau.

01:14:25.760 He skipped a leaders' meeting for the Trans-Pacific Partnership meetings to meet with Facebook rather than to meet with other world leaders.

01:14:34.740 All of our relationships have deteriorated.

01:14:37.220 India, the world's largest democracy, a commonwealth partner, many of the same systems in terms of parliament and rule of law.

01:14:44.440 There's more we can be doing there.

01:14:46.100 We literally doubled trade with India under Harper.

01:14:49.740 We all remember the state visit Justin Trudeau paid there.

01:14:52.300 You know, could flash a few photos on the screen to remind people of his trip.

01:14:56.800 They slapped tariffs on Canadian lentils right after that.

01:15:00.780 We've had Italy tariff Durham wheat after ridiculous comments Trudeau made about Italian and Greek immigrants to Canada.

01:15:08.760 So we have to repair a lot of these relationships.

01:15:11.320 And while Kanzuk will be a very unique one, I see doing more with Japan, India especially, a growing and important partner.

01:15:19.460 France, a lot of our partners in Europe.

01:15:21.340 I 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.

01:15:35.320 We see the results.

01:15:37.220 The countries that play by the rules lose.

01:15:39.840 So the democracies have to start standing up.

01:15:42.420 I've been talking about this for several years.

01:15:43.960 I ran on UN reform and holding back our dues when I ran in the 2017 leadership.

01:15:49.960 leadership. Now, I think we're ready to win and implement these as prime minister.

01:15:56.360 Just as we wind down here, do you feel that you have pivoted in some way from your 2017 run? Or

01:16:02.520 do you think that you're talking about a lot of the same issues? And if it is the latter,

01:16:06.340 what makes you think that they're going to resonate this time?

01:16:09.580 I have not pivoted. You know, the media loves to say, you know, O'Toole's very different. Almost

01:16:14.500 all my policy is the same. What has changed? Justin Trudeau has divided this country to the

01:16:20.900 point that people are giving up on it. My first rally in Nisku, Alberta, back when we could have

01:16:25.980 rallies, the first question, I always take Q&A from my audience, was a veteran who stood up and

01:16:32.000 said, thank you for your service, Aaron. I served almost 30 years from my country, and I want to

01:16:36.980 leave it now after what Trudeau's done to my province. Wow. I agree with what Derek said.

01:16:42.640 most canadians don't know how tenuous our national unity is a reporter in the press gallery when i

01:16:49.040 said my main priority will be unity he kind of said well some of the issues they have out west

01:16:54.960 aren't valid that's part of the problem we've got a laurentian elite ottawa bubble and they don't

01:17:02.000 realize that our country is at risk after an ideological trudeau government that fuels me

01:17:08.560 am i more passionate and and frustrated this time than in 2017 absolutely because of what

01:17:14.080 justin trudeau done to a country that i believe in that i'm proud of i'm a patriot some campuses

01:17:21.360 that would be a bad word these days i think a lot of canadians want someone that's going to put

01:17:26.960 our interest at the front of the agenda make it make people proud of our history and our country

01:17:33.040 um i'm hearing that everywhere i go years ago when i was talking about sir johnny mcdonald's

01:17:38.560 statues i would get notes from people saying thank goodness someone is standing up to this

01:17:44.240 cancel culture type approach that's what i will do as leader and i can't stress it enough if we

01:17:50.240 allow the we scandal the out of control situation with our economy all of this if we don't have a

01:17:56.720 leader in the house this fall we miss the opportunity to replace a corrupt and incompetent

01:18:02.480 government. I'm ready to go and I'm ready to unite the party and win. We promised you a debate and we

01:18:08.680 told you and your team that there would be an opportunity for a closing statement in that and

01:18:12.640 with all the changes I think we can keep the closing statement. So if you want to give us

01:18:16.140 people are putting their ballots forward in the next couple of weeks that final pitch please.

01:18:21.280 Well thanks. I love a good debate so I regret that but I respect my colleagues in this race.

01:18:26.560 I 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.

01:18:37.420 I'm ready to win.

01:18:38.920 And 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.

01:18:49.080 If we win just most of what Doug Ford won two years ago in Ontario, we will form a strong, stable, majority Conservative government.

01:18:57.860 I'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.

01:19:10.700 I'm a leader that's ready, in the House now, and I bring experience from outside of Ottawa at a time we need it.

01:19:16.840 12 years in the Canadian Armed Forces.

01:19:19.060 I lived across the country.

Juno News - July 30, 2020

Conservative Leadership Fireside Chat

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