00:36:25.880The committee that you're co-chairing that's been really steering the race from the get-go,
00:36:30.660Leoc, has had to make some tough calls as a result of the pandemic as far as timing is concerned.
00:36:36.500This is a fair bit more delayed than the original plan was.
00:36:40.220Do you think that there is going to be enough time for the next leader to really hunker down
00:36:43.960and really get prepared and set up a team and get that machine in motion for when the fall comes around?
00:36:49.860I do. I do. I think all four candidates have already expressed the fact that they do believe unity is important, that they've expressed their vision very clearly.
00:37:00.000They've had great teams in all of their campaigns that have been ushering them along extremely well.
00:37:05.540So I'm not really concerned about transition. I'm not concerned about people getting their feet underneath them.
00:37:10.240And quite frankly, as you point out, Andrew, there's a very big conservative family out there who's willing to pitch in to help the new leader get off on the right foot and to continue to lead this party into being the next the next government.
00:37:23.800I know you've had to maintain neutrality throughout the race, but what do you think the real stories have been that have stood out to you about this campaign?
00:37:31.380it's a really good question i i do believe as i said that this was a very different campaign
00:37:37.140for somebody like a derek sloan or a leslin lewis because you didn't need to have name
00:37:42.580recognition in order to connect through zoom because people knew you were running
00:37:46.900and then you could just dial in of your of your own volition on anything that you wanted to dial
00:37:51.860in on and then make up your own mind without being in a room with all kinds of people and hearing
00:37:57.460other people chatter in your ear i i think it was a really great opportunity for those who may not
00:38:03.300have as big a name recognition in the party or in canada to equal the level playing field well i
00:38:09.540know you've got to get to it that's starting just at 6 p.m eastern so coming up very quickly lisa
00:38:14.100rate thank you so much for your time and for your work throughout the course of the race
00:38:18.260my pleasure andrew thank you for covering it all so very well that's very kind
00:38:22.660and so obviously a lot of work goes into these leadership races and you know andrew and i were
00:38:30.660talking before we went live about you know what were really the big moments of this campaign what
00:38:35.140were the defining moments what were the the times that changed people's minds and really defined
00:38:39.380who a candidate was to the conservative members and just because of the nature of this campaign
00:38:44.820run you know social distance through covet 19 it's just been a totally different kind of campaign
00:38:50.100And like Lisa said, sort of an equalizer for some of the lesser known candidates, for the candidates that don't have the big budget, because everyone had access to the same venues, which were, you know, Zoom meetings and the ability to meet with people all over the country without having to pay for flights and hotels and all of that expensive stuff that goes into campaigning.
00:39:10.680So it really has been an interesting campaign. Anything is possible. To me, the big moment,
00:39:17.220the big story from this campaign has been the emergence of Leslyn Lewis. She was a very unknown
0.55
00:39:23.640candidate, even among conservatives. Most people had never heard of her. But she had this really,
0.98
00:39:29.420really charismatic star power. And she maintained, she had this ability to last throughout the
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00:39:35.460campaign, even with mainstream media that frankly ignored her, didn't pay much attention to her.
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00:39:40.380she really shined, lasted all the way to the end of the campaign. Andrew, you caught up with
00:39:45.540someone from Leslyn Lewis's campaign, so let's hear that interview now.
00:39:51.360One of the undeniable success stories of the campaign, regardless of the result, has been
00:39:56.280Leslyn Lewis's rise from being a political unknown to a major player in this race. Her campaign
00:40:01.680manager, Steve Outhouse, joins me on the line now. Steve, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on
00:40:05.980today. Hey, great to be here. Thanks, Andrew. You know, there were better known people with
00:40:10.360in the party that couldn't even make it on the ballot as far as getting the money and signatures
00:40:14.620in. What do you attribute Lesley Lewis's rise through this race to? Well, she had the courage
00:40:21.420to get out there and she worked hard every step of the way. And I do believe she's just a special
00:40:27.220candidate that a lot of people connected with and resonated with her message and they got excited
00:40:32.060about it as she went. It was a faster pace of fundraising and support that I've ever seen on
00:40:37.640any campaign i've been a part of i still don't have a perfect answer is what you're attributed
00:40:41.820all to but i believe it starts with just the candidate and people connecting with her
00:40:45.200i know a lot of people early on were looking at her as being a social conservative contender but
00:40:52.120one of the more unique stories i've seen is how many people from across the spectrum even
00:40:56.700people that might be peter mckay supporters are saying they're putting her second or
00:41:00.840erin o'toole supporters that say they're putting her second and really a broad base of appeal that
00:41:05.540doesn't seem to be ideologically pigeonholed. Was that an intentional part of strategy for you,
00:41:11.180or is that just something that happened organically on the campaign?
00:41:14.840Well, it's a bit of both, but it is definitely, it's who Luslin is. And for people like myself,
00:41:21.440who often get branded as social conservatives, yes, we are, I guess, by that definition,
00:41:25.980a social conservative, but we're more than that. We're conservatives, we're fiscal conservatives,
00:41:30.460we're libertarians, we're people who want to see government generally having less involvement in
00:41:35.240the day-to-day lives of individuals and letting freedom reign. And so Dr. Lewis is someone who
00:41:42.740put herself forward as, yes, I am a social conservative. I'm going to be very open about
00:41:46.100those views, but I have a broader agenda than that. And I think that that gave people a lot
00:41:50.420of comfort and they were comfortable marking her second and in many cases marking her first,
00:41:55.380even if they wouldn't have seen themselves as supporting a social conservative candidate when
00:42:00.120this all began. I guess I would just put it she is a leadership candidate who is a social
00:42:05.980conservative as opposed to a social conservative who is a leadership candidate. This week we had
00:42:11.200that viral clip of an interview with Andrew Scheer on CBC in which the topic of the coverage and
00:42:17.060attention that the Lewis campaign has received was called into question and basically the point
00:42:22.500that Andrew Scheer has made is that you know CBC wasn't really following this story as much as it
00:42:26.820was focusing on kamala harris in the u.s for example do you think that the story of what
00:42:32.260leslund lewis's candidacy represents has been told uh i don't think fully no and and i'll say
00:42:38.860like so i i was certainly at the beginning of this race covid took over the media coverage on on
00:42:43.680everything and so i i know for dr lewis and myself and there were interview requests that came in for
00:42:49.480sure and so she did i don't want to come down and kind of be completely like say something to the
00:42:54.180effect, she's not had any coverage. She has had coverage. And we've had even interview requests
00:42:58.400that we haven't been able to do. So it's not like there's been no coverage of her. But I do think
00:43:03.940in the past, you know, whatever, it's been a week to 10 days since Kamala Harris has been named,
00:43:08.980you know, vice president or the vice presidential candidate on the Biden ticket.
00:43:14.620That has sort of put things into pretty sharp, you know, distinction, I guess, or we can see
00:43:21.720there really wasn't that same amount of buzz it was one thing to say well there hasn't been a lot
00:43:26.720of coverage on the cpc leadership race overall because of covid or there hasn't been a lot of
00:43:30.880coverage on her because perhaps she's you know not seen as one of the purported front runners
00:43:35.080but it was just very interesting to contrast that with what we've seen since kamala harris has come
00:43:39.220on the ticket i don't know if you can answer this question but i'll put it to you anyway
00:43:43.520if she's not successful is she around for the long haul in the party running again as a candidate
00:52:22.700think it's really going to be interesting to see who gets knocked off first and where that down
00:52:26.140ballot support goes. I know recent polling has said it seems to be neck and neck with O'Toole
00:52:31.780and McKay. And again, that's, you know, advanced polling. There's only one poll that matters. Of
00:52:36.260course, that's today. You know, I think back to 2016 when it was Hillary Clinton running against
00:52:40.520Donald Trump, polling had her out in the lead. I think there was a big shock on election night.
00:52:45.680We'll see if that's going to be the case today. I think regardless of the outcome,
00:52:50.080you know Derek should be very pleased with the campaign he ran and I think that we're going to
00:52:55.300see a lot of emerging voices from this this campaign it'll be I think it'll be a challenge
00:52:58.880for whomever emerges as leader to make sure that we unite everybody within the party.
00:53:03.020Yeah very wise words. Tanya Granik-Allen thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much.
00:53:11.060So this is one of the joys of doing a live podcast but while we were playing that interview
00:53:16.260you. We just saw that David Aiken, who is a reporter over at Global News, he tweeted the
00:53:21.860following. He said, well, we're off to a great start with the conservative leadership. And I
00:53:25.760just got word that they're running 90 minutes late right now. So our plan, Andrew, is to do a
00:53:32.18030-minute pre-show and then go to the conservative show at 6 p.m. Well, it doesn't look like that
00:53:38.540conservative show is going to start now until 7.30. So we are just trying to figure out what
00:53:44.340we're going to do on our end with the true north live podcast we're definitely going to continue
00:53:48.940to bring you content we might have to take a short break at some point in between just to
00:53:53.780make sure that we have everything lined up to to bring you all the information and bring you all
00:53:58.900the news uh from the evening so that was just a quick programming note we were no longer going
00:54:04.020yeah my dinner plans were predicated on throwing over to the party feed at six o'clock so i'm
00:54:07.800I'm going to be, like, losing weight in real time on this show now.
00:54:12.580Sneaking, sneaking a breakfast bar or something in between segments here.
00:54:17.980Yeah, so, I mean, look, this happens, this is live.
00:54:20.640And it's kind of interesting, Andrew, because, you know, you would sort of expect a delay.
00:54:24.540I do remember at the convention when they announced the leadership, I guess it was 2000, I'm trying to think, 2016 when Andrew Scheer became leader.
00:54:33.260Maybe it was 2017 in Toronto I was there.
00:54:35.900And there always are delays in this kind of thing.
00:54:38.460But given that the results, you know, the deadline for mail-in ballots was Friday and, you know, it's now Sunday.
00:54:46.120They just announced, what, 10 minutes before they were supposed to go live that they were running late.
00:55:31.860And ultimately, she was not fond of some parts of Lesley Lewis's campaign.
00:55:36.520Peter McKay, I think, gave her the same brush-off that he gave to us.
00:55:40.280And Erin O'Toole, I don't think she was thrilled with.
00:55:42.540So she ended up endorsing only one candidate.
00:55:46.140And because of that, she was able to join and help with some of the get-out-the-vote,
00:55:50.540So especially in Ontario, where Tanya Granik-Allen is very well regarded among social conservatives.
00:55:56.840So that was something that was very interesting.
00:55:59.240And I know that I touched on this with Tanya in the interview about who the type of people were that were coming out and saying, here's my ballot for Derek.
00:56:08.100And it sounds from her perspective anyway that he wasn't pigeonholed as just a social conservative to his supporters, which is very similar to, I think, the observation you made and Steve Outhouse made about Leslyn Lewis.
00:56:20.540Right. Well, the impression I got about Derek Sloan was that he was just willing to speak his
00:56:24.900mind and he was willing to say what he believed. He didn't feel like a rehearsed politician.
00:56:30.180You know, I'll give you an example. During the IPG, what was supposed to be the Independent
00:56:34.300Press Gallery's debate that turned into that fireside chat that you hosted, you know,
00:56:38.940when you guys were talking, it didn't really even at times feel like an interview. It just felt like,
00:56:43.060you know, two friends talking about public policy or whatever. And then during the Q&A at the end,
00:56:47.540he was asked, you know, would you recognize Taiwan as an independent country? He didn't even
00:56:51.820hesitate for a second. He just answered. And it's so refreshing to hear that because, Andrew,
00:56:56.820we live in a time where so many politicians are just so rehearsed, so robotic. They basically
00:57:03.460base their platform on polling, on the latest data. And you don't really feel like you're
00:57:08.940talking to an authentic person. You're just talking to a poll tested. And you see it in
00:57:15.080in politics all over particularly in the u.s you know with those democrats but you see you see it
00:57:19.800in canada too you saw it a little bit with andrew sheer it was just really refreshing to me to hear
00:57:24.840derek sloan just sort of speak his mind and say things not politically correct at all you know
00:57:30.120we know that the way that he was talking about the coronavirus and he wanted uh dr theresa tam to be
00:57:36.040fired that that would turn into a big storm it turned off a lot of sort of more centrists i
00:57:41.720I suppose. But from a conservative perspective, it was just sort of, again, refreshing to hear
00:57:46.980someone who wasn't too worried about what the media was saying about them, wasn't too worried
00:57:51.540about whether they were going to get slapped on the wrist or censured because of not being
00:57:57.160politically correct enough. He was really just an authentic guy. And I could definitely see how
00:58:01.080that would appeal beyond just the base of social conservatives there.
00:58:08.100If you're just tuning in, this is the True North Conservative Leadership Results Show.
00:58:13.380I'm Andrew Lawton, and hosting this is Candace Malcolm.
00:58:16.760If you are just tuning in, we'll tell you that the official results have been delayed a fair bit.
00:58:21.480Originally, the Conservative Party was to start its stream at 6 o'clock Eastern time,
00:58:26.060which is in about a minute and a half.
00:58:27.740And now they've done a little tiny, teeny, modest delay to 7.30 Eastern time,
00:58:33.040which is, I think, a significant one that actually is even larger a delay than the English language
00:58:38.920or rather the French language debate, which was delayed, I think, by close to half an hour as well.
01:09:02.880I mean, his first video was about cancel culture,
01:09:05.760which is an issue that you usually hear about from conservative commentators, not from conservative politicians,
01:09:11.600really waging into the battle about statues being taken down.
01:09:14.960And I mean, certainly something like that is very deliberate, same as when he went after CBC's bias in funding.
01:09:20.500I mean, that is a political issue, but I think it's really a conservative cultural discussion.
01:09:25.280And I think that that was certainly a calculation, but I think a very smart one,
01:09:29.140because that's the way you get people energized and excited about your campaign.
01:09:32.900If you're talking about the issues that people are actually talking about, which, let's face it, I mean, apart from a few policy wonks, and I count myself in that category, most conservative voters, I don't think, are spending all day, every day talking about this tax credit or that tax credit or even some of the other economic issues, which are important.
01:09:52.000The ones that excite people are the cultural battles.
01:09:56.220And I think that that is why, you know, Aaron O'Toole, we saw his videos going viral.
01:10:01.640we saw his tweets go viral. You know, he had a really funny tweet the other day that, again,
01:10:06.120you know, he really went heavy on this Jason Kenney endorsement. But, you know, it had had a
01:10:10.500sort of juxtaposition. Aaron O'Toole endorsed by Jason Kenney, who is, you know, one of the most
01:10:16.200foremost conservatives, the premier of Alberta. And then inside next to it, it had Peter McKay
01:10:22.140endorsed by the Toronto Star, which, you know, everyone's least favorite newspaper in the country.
01:10:26.660So that was clever, and the sort of viral-ness of that, you know, goes a lot further than just his own reach.
01:10:34.400But, you know, one of the things I just want to pick up on again that Lisa Raitt spoke about in that interview that we played that you did with her earlier
01:10:40.920was about how usually a convention, usually a leadership race, ends in a convention, and you have the whole conservative family coming together.
01:10:49.400And, you know, I've been to those events, and they're so fun.
01:10:52.060there's so much energy you see so many familiar faces you know people who have
01:10:56.200worked together you know different offices at different times and different
01:10:59.680parts of the country everyone's just kind of coming together so regardless of
01:11:03.940how you know not I won't say nasty but just how competitive these races are how
01:11:08.680the different campaign teams work so hard and pour their hearts and souls into
01:11:12.380these campaigns and you start to feel like other conservatives are like your
01:11:16.240enemy but then you know you have the convention you all come together and
01:11:19.820reunite and everyone unites around the candidate. But because we don't have that in-person event
01:11:25.440this year because of COVID, Andrew, do you think that's something that's really missing? Do you
01:11:30.180think that it could potentially lead to fractures in the Conservative Party just because you don't
01:11:34.820have that kind of coming together? I know this was a really vicious campaign. There were times
01:11:38.940where, you know, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay, I think there might have even been lawsuits filed
01:11:43.500against each other over something about someone watching someone else's Zoom clips or something.
01:11:49.720Anyway, it was a really hard-fought campaign.
01:11:53.280Do you think any of those divisions are going to be long-lasting in the party,
01:11:56.360or are they going to be something that we can get over quickly?
01:12:00.320I mean, when we saw the 2017 leadership race,
01:12:03.120there were 13, 14 candidates, depending on the particular point in the race.
01:12:07.140And in that, there isn't as much direct one-on-one animosity,
01:12:11.680although certainly there was between the Scheer and Bernier campaigns.
01:12:15.460But I think there's a cautionary tale in that,
01:12:17.420Because look at what happened with that dynamic between Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier after the race.
01:12:22.500Now, I'm not suggesting that the loser or one of the losing candidates of this race will split off and form their own party.
01:12:29.980But it's that the last time around, there wasn't that grand reuniting that everyone had become accustomed to and I think took for granted.
01:12:37.380So in this time, I think, yeah, people that know politics and are in politics are used to this fight.
01:12:42.880They know how it is to just be on opposing teams and then all come together because everyone wants the Conservative Party to win.
01:12:49.440But I do think that there is going to be a difficulty for some, especially in the grassroots memberships, if they feel like they are not respected by whomever wins.
01:12:58.860And that's, I think, the key here, because there was a lot of tension, not just about this is my guy, that's your guy, but tension over specifically whether certain factions of the party are going to be welcome.
01:13:11.140And specifically social conservatives, with a lot of the dynamic being where you take Peter McKay and Erin O'Toole, both of them are the same on social issues.
01:13:22.560But the difference was Erin O'Toole had said, yes, social conservatives have a place in my party.
01:13:27.820And Peter McKay said the opposite at various points in the campaign.
01:13:31.840And I do think that that's going to be where some of the issues will come and the fractures will come depending on the outcome tonight, if we get an outcome tonight.
01:13:40.100Yeah, if we get an outcome. Well, it's interesting. I do remember the sort of media, I guess, talking points or narrative out of the last campaign was, you know, they were worried about the potential leader of the Conservative Party creating new division or falling back on old fault lines so that you would have the sort of former alliance base and the former PC base that, you know, Stephen Harper did such a good job of melding the two together and keeping the party united.
01:14:08.600that under a new leader that those old fractions would become apparent and that didn't really
01:14:12.920happen at all. Maybe if it had been you know a Jason Kenney versus Peter McKay scenario which
01:14:18.700everyone kind of thought that that was what was going to happen back in 2015-2016 you know maybe
01:14:24.160if that had been what had happened it would have fractured it. But Andrew what we saw was a little
01:14:29.080bit of a different fraction with Andrew Scheer winning and then Maxime Bernier coming so close.
01:14:34.680I mean, Maxi Bernier was winning on most of those ballots throughout that evening.
01:14:42.300Yeah, he was the person who the most people put first on their list, put second on their list, and so on.
01:14:48.620And yet, at the end of the day, there wasn't even room for him in the party.
01:14:52.060I think he left the party just a couple of months after that.
01:14:55.320And the fraction seemed to be sort of the difference between more establishment conservatives and more,
01:15:01.720I don't want to say Trump-y conservatives, but people who were just sick and tired of political correctness and wanted more authentic politics.
01:15:09.360And a lot of those people have left the party.
01:15:11.320Some are still there, but they're not completely happy.
01:15:13.900I know a lot of our True North audience, True North supporters, you know, they're not really excited about either Peter McKay or Erin O'Toole.
01:15:23.200And so it will be a juggling act if either of those two candidates win.
01:15:27.380I mean, same with Leslie Lewis or Derek Sloan. Whoever wins this thing tonight is going to have
01:15:31.600a difficult job on their hands, just keeping the party together, keeping them energized and excited.
01:15:36.880And, you know, you said that Peter McKay, you know, sort of brushed some people off and doesn't
01:15:43.000really connect very well with social conservatives. I think you could say that about a lot of
01:15:46.880conservatives. I have a hard time imagining him really exciting the base out in Western Canada
01:15:53.520or getting Albertans really excited about being, you know, voting for the Conservatives.
01:15:58.280A lot of Albertans, frankly, have had enough of the whole Canadian Confederation,
01:16:02.840and they're looking in another direction entirely.
01:16:05.620So I would worry about, again, party unity under any of these,
01:16:09.760but very specifically under Peter McKay.
01:38:19.260Is someone who is not on side with you, but is willing to allow people who are on side
01:38:26.000with you to have a voice in the party, is that enough in this day and age?
01:38:29.660Yeah, I mean, personally, I was very disappointed to see pro-life MPs endorse Peter McKay when
01:38:35.020he very vehemently says that if they are in cabinet they won't have that freedom to vote
01:38:40.540according to their conscience and that their views are that stinking albatross that has felt
01:38:44.780that has become his stinking albatross in this leadership race um so i'm very disappointed in
01:38:49.500mps who have endorsed him because even though you say you're pro-life what are you actually going to
01:38:53.820do about it and conversely even though aaron says he's pro-choice he has dif he has different pro-life
01:38:59.660policies that were outlined in our interview and he has a fairly good voting record so he has the
01:39:05.500actions to back it up um so these things are really important it's one thing to say something
01:39:10.620it's another thing to do it and so that's why i think it was important for us to rank our ballot
01:39:14.620fully and not be dropped out of the conversation if you know it doesn't go our way with the first
01:39:18.620two rounds alissa just one final question this is something that always really bothers me it seems
01:39:25.180like there's a really big disconnect between canadians and public opinion and what the
01:39:30.300mainstream media says is allowable opinion i'll give you an example when it comes to specific
01:39:35.740aspects of abortion obviously late-term abortions we've all kind of read and seen really gruesome
01:39:41.660imagery and pictures of sometimes how that goes uh sex selective abortion is a big issue now
01:39:46.620because people are coming from other parts of the world where they just don't want baby girls and
01:39:50.780And those are the kind of policies that most Canadians would just rightly instinctively say, like, no, no, no, that's not okay.
01:39:57.260You know, there are instances, you know, pro-choice people might say there are instances where an abortion might be something that they would want to do.
01:40:05.060But when it comes to the media, it's like you can't even have the very introduction of a conversation.
01:40:09.740You can't even have the beginning of a conversation.
01:40:11.640So, you know, I know this is a very deep and loaded question, but maybe you could just
01:40:17.000provide your kind of brief explanation as to why there is this huge disconnect between what the
01:40:22.440media says we can talk about and what most Canadians believe to be true.
01:40:27.960I mean, I think that the media has their narrative, but them, much like party establishments,
01:40:33.080are very much stuck in their own bubble and they're disconnected to what the opinions of
01:40:37.160Canadians actually are and I'm currently 35 weeks pregnant and just a few years ago thank you
01:40:44.360just a few years ago there was a Montreal woman who had an abortion at 35 weeks and even though
01:40:50.360the doctors didn't know what was wrong with the baby and it wasn't her life wasn't in danger and
01:40:56.200neither was the baby's life in danger so there was a big outcry about that yet when you say that the
01:41:02.840abortion debate is closed or we won't reopen the abortion debate you are supporting these late-term
01:41:07.960abortions that are actually happening and allowing them to continue and there were two polls recently
01:41:14.440an angus reed poll and i can't remember the other one but both said that the majority of canadians
01:41:19.240want restrictions on abortion in every single province they broke it down even in quebec
01:41:24.120and one-third of people in the liberal and ndp parties also want restrictions so this crosses
01:41:30.120party lines this crosses all different types of canadians it's a winning policy um and i think
01:41:36.040that it also follows the directives of the supreme court which actually told parliament
01:41:40.920to regulate abortion equally across the country so i'm not sure why parties let the media dictate
01:41:47.240what policies are going to put forward but if they actually looked at the numbers which is what our
01:41:51.800organization is ruled by they'll see that these types of policies will help them win in the gta
01:41:57.240and differentiate themselves from other parties
01:46:27.080Your perspective, I think, is a really interesting one in this race, coming from Atlantic Canada,
01:46:31.420where I think the prevailing narrative has been that Peter McKay has a lock on the Atlantic
01:46:36.000provinces. And I wanted to ask you, how strong is that grip that he has on Atlantic Canada as far
01:46:42.740as name recognition, organization, and really just the broader support? Well, I think Peter
01:46:50.120McKay has benefited a lot from having represented in Atlantic riding for a very long time,
01:46:56.060from also being the regional minister for Newfoundland and Labrador when we didn't have an
01:47:00.080MP here. So he definitely benefits from that. But it also comes with any scandals that were
01:47:05.520involved. So the helicopter incident is very, very well known in Newfoundland, for example. So
01:47:12.240it comes with both good and bad reputations. I think one of the areas that he benefits from is
01:47:16.760he did have a lot of support from the provincial parties who normally in this region are less or
01:47:22.940more hesitant to support federal conservatives. So for example, Chess Crosby, the leader of the
01:47:27.960provincial PC party here in Newfoundland and Labrador endorsed him. The leader of the Nova
01:47:32.440scotia pcs tim houston endorsed him he had a number of endorsements from m8 from mlas in both
01:47:38.040pi and new brunswick so he does benefit from that and he also has the endorsement of caucus
01:47:42.600even though it's a small caucus a lot of the caucus members endorse him for the region as well
01:47:47.860he has that kind of former or former colleagues that have come out and helped him a lot in the
01:47:54.700right in the region as well so devon does that translate into actual seats in atlantic canada
01:48:00.900because I know that the Conservatives were basically completely shut out, I believe, in 2015.
01:48:05.320I believe they did a little better. Maybe you can remind us of what the seat count looks out there.
01:48:09.080But do you think if Peter McKay were the leader of the Conservative Party going into a general election against Justin Trudeau,
01:48:14.900that he would actually be able to win a number of seats? How many seats? And maybe you can break that down for us a little.
01:48:21.000Well, I mean, if we look at just historically, Stephen Harper was not the most popular guy in Atlantic Canada when he was prime minister,
01:48:27.560but we still managed to win between 2004 the the 2004 election and the 2015 election we've won
01:48:35.240up to 19 of the 32 seats in the region never at the same time but of those 32 seats conservatives
01:48:40.440have been competitive then um i think we would have done a lot better last election if we were
01:48:45.240focused on different writings we the conservative party tended to support writings that were not
01:48:50.680um that were historically conservative leaning but no longer in 2015 or
01:48:55.400or uh 2019 were conservative writing so for example they put a lot of effort
01:48:59.640here in st john's in a seat that we came third in
01:49:02.440and then there was a seat that we had no campaign manager and no candidate until
0.99
01:49:06.200after the uh after the the campaign begun and she
01:49:10.040only lost by a few hundred votes so it just shows that the the conservatives
01:49:13.480aren't um organized on the ground here and
01:49:15.960they're not there seems to be a disconnect between the
01:49:18.600ottawa war room and actually what goes on in atlantic provinces but i do suspect with peter
01:49:23.560if peter is elected leader tonight he'll have room to grow uh here though i think that um
01:49:29.960those gaining 19 seats only matters if he can hold on to everything the conservative party
01:49:34.200actually has and i think that's probably where he he may struggle with is maintaining grassroots
01:49:39.480support when kind of expanding to what may be considered more moderate parts of the country
01:49:44.120including Atlantic Canada and parts of Ontario. And from a leadership perspective, I'll tell
01:49:49.720people a little bit more in depth about the rules and regulations of the race if that interests you
01:49:54.600later on, but I will note that each riding has an equal weighting in the overall results. Each
01:50:00.440riding is worth 100 points, whether it's a riding that has 7,000 Conservative members like Calgary
01:50:06.120West or Calgary Heritage, or if it has just a few dozen members like some of the Quebec ridings do.
01:50:11.400So in areas where the Conservatives are not as strong or don't have a huge or robust membership list, in a leadership race, it actually can be quite beneficial because you have to work a lot less hard to win the points that that riding has.
01:50:25.980And when you talk about some of these Atlantic Canada ridings that don't have a huge conservative presences, if they have like a membership list that has just 100 people or a couple of hundred people, if he could get a lot of those, that would be a very easy path to a really significant scoring in this leadership.
01:50:43.380And I mean, we've talked or you both have talked tonight about the impact of the Jason or the Jason Kenney endorsement of Aaron O'Toole.
01:50:50.020When that's really important, at the end of the day, you don't need Alberta to, despite a lot of the membership being located in Alberta, you don't need to win Alberta to win the leadership, which even Maxime Bernier demonstrated last time.
01:51:00.860He won Alberta and still managed to lose the race.
01:51:03.780So I think that regional breakdown does make a huge difference.
01:51:06.540whether or not, you know, Peter McKay has enough support between Atlantic Canada and Quebec to
01:51:13.300kind of counter any support he's losing in the West, that remains to be seen. I guess the other
01:51:17.360strength Peter McKay does have is despite the endorsement of Jason Kenney and a lot of the UCP
01:51:22.760backing McKay, you did see a lot of conservative MPs from Alberta support Peter McKay. So there
01:51:29.280is a bit of a divide there. And that's, that'll be interesting to see if the MP endorsements
01:51:34.000actually translate. In the last election, we saw that Scheer had a number of the caucus endorsements
01:51:40.500and then did end up pulling it off. So maybe those endorsements do matter, maybe they don't
01:51:46.300matter. I guess it'll be interesting to see how that works out tonight. It'll be one of the things
01:51:50.500I'm looking for. Well, Devin, enough about Peter McKay. Aside from him, I mean, you've been following
01:51:56.640this race really closely. You've been writing op-eds for True North and commentary. What do you think
01:52:02.100the big sort of moments are, what has the takeaway been? And are you confident in the sort of strength
01:52:08.220of the Conservative Party at this point to be a real contender to beat Justin Trudeau in the next
01:52:13.960election? Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway for me is just how disappointed I think the
01:52:21.080grassroots are in kind of the old candidates. And I'm going to say, I'm going to lump Aaron O'Toole
01:52:26.300and Peter McKay in that category together. And I think one of the big things I saw is how much
01:52:30.480momentum lesden lewis has been able to gain and she went from literally a universal unknown to
01:52:35.660raising millions of dollars and that's no easy feat when you looked at last during the last
01:52:40.300leadership race you had candidates who everyone thought or who mainstream media loved to talk
01:52:44.580about like uh um like um lisa wright for example who couldn't even hold her own seat in the last
01:52:50.040election but everyone was hyping lisa wright up as if she was going to be the next leader of the
01:52:53.500party or would have an important role and she couldn't even manage to win her seat
01:52:56.240because she just, at the end of the day, was not exciting for the grassroots of the party.
01:53:00.780We have someone like Lesley Lewis who is able to speak passionately about both social and fiscal
01:53:05.540conservative policies, and she's managed to do a great job. So I think that's kind of the big
01:53:10.200takeaway. I do think unity is a big problem for the Conservative Party after this leadership.
01:53:16.280If the party fails to unite behind the leader, whether or not it's any of those candidates I've
01:53:21.260mentioned or Derek Sloan, if they fail to do that, I think they're going to have a hard time
01:53:25.280uh, leading into the next election. And I do think we need, we need to ensure that both,
01:53:29.040that all, all four candidates have a significant role in the party moving forward. Um, I think
01:53:34.800that that was a fault of Maxime. I think he's, uh, he's went from somebody who had a lot of
01:53:39.360relevance to now he's kind of seen on the fringe and would have had a lot more influence if he was
01:53:44.000given a key role in, uh, Andrew Scheer's shadow cabinet. Um, we didn't see that. I I'd like to
01:53:49.040see that, um, no matter who wins tonight, all four leadership candidates have front bench roles or
01:53:54.160in the case of Leslin or Peter, are willing to seek nominations or at least be involved
01:53:59.640in a fundraising capacity and a local event capacity.
01:54:06.520You touch on an important point there.
01:54:08.540And I know it's very difficult to do the what if and the what about game because, you know,
01:54:12.820in a parallel universe in which Maxime Bernier stayed in the Conservative Party of Canada,
01:54:16.640I think there's a very high likelihood that he's the leader tonight.
01:54:20.440And I think that that shows the importance of, I think, hanging around, and if you are a conservative, of working to build a policy, of working to build a party, of building a base, of building all of these things, rather than just moving out and trying to start your own thing.
01:54:37.440Because quite frankly, Maxime Bernier was so close, and a lot of the criticisms he had put towards Andrew Scheer tended to come to pass.
01:54:45.360So I think we were looking at a very different race if Bernier were still in the conservative party.
01:54:50.240I mean, certainly he'd still be a member of Parliament right now.
02:05:10.680and they're big supporters of Canadian Armed Forces.
02:05:14.120So I wanna hear your take specifically
02:05:17.080from a national security perspective on these candidates
02:05:20.800and how this campaign has gone so far.
02:05:24.120Well, and I think these are some of the issues that really matter right now, Candace, because, yes, we're obviously in the pandemic, we've got the worst debt and deficit we've ever had, so those issues really matter, and we're going to have to learn to pivot, really, on a whole number of fronts with how we approach politics.
02:05:39.580But even prior to the pandemic, foreign affairs is really the big issue.
02:22:34.940There's been some attempt to have a deeper conversation on these important issues that are for British Columbians, Western Canadians, and then just the kind of the cultural and big economic issues for Canada.
02:22:45.480They feel at times haven't been discussed as forthrightly as they could have been, as, for example, Candace does on her show.
02:22:55.140So I would really like to see that level of discussion actually moved also in the into the Conservative Party
02:23:00.420But they seem to still be scared of the mainstream media of saying the wrong thing
02:23:06.580And not having an open and frank discussion with Canadians
02:23:10.200So that did concern me a little bit, but of course on the energy side there were some conversations
02:23:15.100But not as much that I would have liked to see for sure
02:23:18.740Well, Aaron, I know on your social media channels. You're really big critic of cancel culture
02:23:24.200you've come to the defense of people like Don Cherry when they've been unfairly sort of maligned
02:23:29.800by the mainstream media. Have you been impressed at all by any of the candidates, any of the
02:23:35.400campaigns? I know you just said that you feel like they're all, you know, too afraid, too timid of the
02:23:39.640mainstream media and what they might say, but have you seen any sort of glimmer of hope in terms of
02:23:45.000any of the policy about cancer culture? And then just a sort of follow-up question, you know, how
02:23:50.360come there wasn't any candidates from Western Canada? How come there weren't any MPs or anyone
02:23:54.760from British Columbia that threw their head? I know Andrew Saxton ran in 2015 and he was sort of,
02:24:00.120you know, the torchbearer for British Columbia for their issues. We didn't see anything like
02:24:04.760that this time around, so maybe you could quickly comment on why we didn't see anyone from BC or
02:24:10.040from Western Canada running. Well, that's a really good question, Candice, and I wish I had an answer
02:24:16.440for you. To me, Justin Trudeau is an incredibly vulnerable Prime Minister. I think for someone
02:24:22.360who is running for re-election, his first time for re-election, he got the lowest percentage of
02:24:28.500the popular vote. I think that's a correct statistic. So I think he's someone that's
02:24:31.920incredibly vulnerable. There's scandal after scandal. I would have hoped that there'd be
02:24:35.680people lining up to take over the Conservative Party to get that chance. But I think your two
02:24:43.940questions that were kind of related I think the ascent of cancel culture kind of the toxic
02:24:50.260environment of working in the eye of the media now and trying to placate all these different
02:24:55.460groups and the identity politics has really turned a lot of people off from politics in general
02:25:00.420so I think that's one of the reasons as far as people speaking on the cancel culture topic I
02:25:07.460I think there were, again, no one really excited me, but I would say Peter McKay disappointed
02:25:15.960me the most, for sure, in a couple different points that he made.
02:25:21.640So I think, you know, I think we'll see what happens and how, I'm sure this won't be decided
02:28:51.700It can be people that haven't voted before. It can be rural NDP voters as well. So I think there's a hunger in this country for for a bold vision that nobody's talking about to do away with the political correctness. And we're just waiting for somebody to take up that mantle. And while I'm not exactly optimistic, I am hopeful that whoever wins this leadership race will come into their own and really embrace that opportunity.
02:29:18.140I'm sorry to tell you, you mentioned John A. MacDonald, so you are effectively cancelled. Sorry, we have to cut you off there. We can't have any of that trash talking of anyone in this day and age.
02:29:30.680Let's talk about the media side of things here, because the one thing that all conservatives, I think, secretly crave for, or in some cases not so secretly crave for, is politicians really kind of challenging the mainstream media the way that it deserves to be challenged.
02:29:45.020And this is why I think there's a little id-like fascination that a lot of people who aren't even Trump supporters have with Donald Trump because he challenges, you know, the mainstream media.
02:29:55.100We saw Andrew Scheer do this the other day on CBC.
02:29:58.040We saw Aaron O'Toole do this a bit through the leadership.
02:30:01.460Do you think that this could be something that we get from whomever the leader is that they're going to stop doing that thing of really trying to kiss the mainstream media's ring instead of saying,
02:30:12.220listen, you aren't the best vessel for me to put my message forward.
02:43:11.540Look, I think there's always a divide of sorts, and it's the job of a leader to bridge that divide and bring people together.
02:43:18.540So I think that whoever wins will be given that opportunity, and then it's up to them to bring the different wings of the party, the social conservatives, the people that are more on the populist side, the fiscal conservatives, the foreign policy defense hawks, and bring kind of that traditional conservative coalition together.
02:43:38.780um and and for sure there could be pitfalls along that along that way because there are significant
02:43:45.320divides uh in the movement um but uh i think that the one the one thing that they have going for
02:43:52.540them is that justin trudeau is such a heavily disliked uh liberal prime minister right now
02:43:59.300that uh i imagine conservative and there's a large portion of canadians that would take
02:44:04.600pretty much anybody other than him. Let's talk about where a lot of those endorsements really
02:44:12.580came from, because I was quite, I'll say surprised to see early on in the leadership race, a lot of
02:44:17.780people that I consider really hardline blue Tories endorsing Peter McKay, including a number of
02:44:24.600people who had endorsed Aaron O'Toole in 2017 that actually flipped. And I had asked Aaron O'Toole
02:44:29.680about this and his theory was that a lot of people were basically just parking. They wanted to be
02:44:34.540on the winning team. And at the beginning, it looked like it was going to be a Peter McKay
02:44:37.800coronation. Do you guys think, though, that there is a sense of people perhaps wanting to be on the
02:44:45.280winning team? And that's why they endorsed McKay when everyone thought that was going to be the
02:44:48.920direction it was going. Or alternatively, do you think that a lot of people who may not even agree
02:44:53.380with McKay ideologically just think it's his turn? I mean, he's been involved. He's been waiting for
02:44:58.420this for a while. He's wanted this for a while. And do you think there's a lot of kind of honor?
02:45:02.160okay harper had his turn now it's the the turn of of peter mckay or something else entirely we'll
02:45:06.960start with you sam so there's a couple ways to look at it and i think it depends on how
02:45:12.400you're deciding to vote and it's are you looking at it what's the best candidate that will give us
02:45:17.440a chance to victory what is the candidate that aligns with my principles what is the candidate
02:45:22.160that i think will put up the best fight or there's any number of metrics which you can look at it and
02:45:27.040so there's probably a lot of truth to that i think a lot of people did think that peter mckay had
02:45:31.280the name recognition he probably still does have the best name recognition across the country
02:45:35.120but if you're simply going on that alone you're saying well who's got the best name recognition
02:45:38.720a lot of people go into the polling station and say okay well i don't really know who to vote for
02:45:42.960but i know this guy's name or i don't like this guy who's the only other guy that kind of sounds
02:45:46.640familiar or girl um and so they might vote for that person and so name recognition does have a
02:45:50.800lot of value and so people might have might have indeed parked their vote um it'd be interesting
02:45:54.960it would be really interesting to go back to some of those people now i mean you know probably
02:45:58.800probably a lot of people will not want to switch uh so close but it would be very interesting to
02:46:02.560see what a lot of those people say because again it does make a big difference and people do want
02:46:06.320to be on the winning uh on the winning team on the bandwagon i mean you know look at any sporting
02:46:10.240event that has nothing to do with canada or nothing to do with a local team who's jumping
02:46:13.520all these national teams etc etc you just want to be on the either the underdog or the winner
02:46:21.040oh sorry go ahead let's go to aaron on that question
02:46:23.280No, I think I agree. I don't think it should surprise anybody that you might have some
02:46:29.380politicians that are on the opportunist side of things. And I think that's what was going on here
02:46:35.420to an extent. People want to back the winning horse to get to spots in cabinet or whatnot.
02:46:41.580And I do think there is a legitimate argument that at least at the start of this race, Peter
02:46:47.000McKay certainly looked to be the most electable. So if that's the lens that you were viewing the
02:46:52.000race through, then that's probably a reason why you ended up parking your endorsement for McKay.
02:47:00.080I just find that line of thinking incorrect, though. I mean, the fact that he's supposedly
02:47:04.280the most electable, but yet, you know, we didn't see him anywhere. We didn't do anything. He didn't
02:47:09.320bother showing up to several of the debates, including the one that the IPG put on. You know,
02:47:14.620I really didn't get a very clear message from his campaign. He doesn't seem like he has a lot of
02:47:19.180energy, doesn't seem like he's very excited, he doesn't have an excitement around him. So,
02:47:23.420you know, even if his name is the most famous out of all of them, I don't think that that necessarily
02:47:27.920translates into, you know, being electable. Andrew, I wanted to ask you a question,
02:47:33.920because I've heard from party sources over here, that a lot of gun owners have voted,
02:47:41.480particularly in Quebec, a place that doesn't traditionally have a large conservative support.
02:47:46.800we were talking earlier about how the the voting system works how every single riding gets equal
02:47:52.000weight so even if it's in the riding quebec that never votes conservative at all and never
02:47:56.960elects a conservative mp um you know they potentially have the same weight as a riding
02:48:02.320in calgary that gets 80 of the vote but i'm hearing that there were a lot of gun owners who have been
02:48:06.960very motivated by justin trudeau's gun grab policies and that they showed up in droves uh
02:48:12.720mostly to support Erin O'Toole. I know you're a gun owner and you're probably the most knowledgeable
02:48:18.460person I know in Canada about gun issues. Have you heard anything like that? And are you surprised
02:48:24.000by this? No, not at all surprised. And, you know, gun ownership is really a low-hanging fruit for
02:48:30.640conservatives because pretty much every conservative MP is a supporter of gun rights.
02:48:37.120But right now, it's more than just the, yes, I support gun rights that you need to say, because there is an attack on gun ownership from the Liberals. There has been continuously since Justin Trudeau was elected, most recently with the so-called assault weapons ban.
02:48:52.220But what's interesting that I found is that a lot of single issue firearms voters are equally happy with Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay, because Peter McKay has always been very solid on firearms. He was, remember, Canada's attorney general at a time when there was a conservative government in power that, again, was very supportive of gun rights.
02:49:12.080So a lot of the gun owners that I know are happy with McKay and O'Toole and Derek Sloan.
02:49:18.240And Leslyn Lewis is not, I mean, she's a downtown Toronto lawyer.
02:49:21.820So she's not someone who's been around firearms by her own admission, but she's expressed a
02:49:27.160willingness to learn about the issue and has said the right things.
02:49:30.900So in that respect, if you're a gun owner, I don't think there's a candidate that is
02:49:37.280I think it just goes with familiarity and confidence.
02:49:40.060And people are, in some cases, putting, you know, O'Toole 1 and McKay 2, and in other cases, it's reversed. But you are very right, Candace, that in a lot of the areas of the country that conservatives do well, they're rural areas that have conservative elected MPs. Quebec is kind of the exception in that you've got a lot of rural Quebecers that are affected by guns, but those are not typically conservative strongholds.
02:50:05.540That's interesting because, yeah, I remember when we were putting together questions for
02:50:09.400the debate, you didn't even want to ask a question about gun rights because you thought
02:50:12.960that basically all the candidates had the same kinds of answers.
02:50:16.900Yeah, there wouldn't be much of a debate there.
02:50:19.020Yeah, so it wouldn't be that interesting.
02:50:20.920But maybe you can kind of fill in the gap a little more.
02:50:24.360What is it about Aaron O'Toole and his policy that would make him, it would push him over
02:50:28.980the edge for so many gun owners if this is the case?
02:50:31.980Well, they're both promising to roll back what the Liberals have done to gun ownership, which have been really in two different categories. One was the bill, I think it was C-72, I may be wrong about the exact number, early on, which really tried to roll back some of what Stephen Harper did to open up gun usage.
02:50:50.040And then the most recent one, which was the Bill Blair with the stroke of a pen banning
02:50:55.5001,500 variants of firearms, all because of an act in Nova Scotia that involved illegally
03:00:37.840But what does the conservative leader need to do, not just to unite the party, which is what we've been talking about, but also to actually have that narrative moving forward that is going to put the conservative party on the right footing.
03:01:20.180You've said very clearly that you are pro-choice, you're pro-gay rights.
03:01:25.060yet you are not going so far as to say that everyone in your party has to be pro-choice,
03:01:30.240that everyone in your caucus has to be.
03:01:32.360To a lot of people who criticize social conservatives,
03:01:36.300that is an indistinguishable position from being a social conservative yourself.
03:01:40.820And we saw this with Andrew Scheer, for example.
03:01:42.960He was personally pro-life but had fundamentally the same position as you
03:01:46.660on the sense that he wasn't going to introduce any legislation,
03:01:50.120he wasn't going to make any changes to Canadian law on abortion.
03:01:54.420So how do you fight back against really going down the exact same road that the Conservatives have been down?
03:02:00.920Because I've been clear in my political life since I was elected.
03:02:03.860I often say I'm not a career politician, so I don't have to go back to the 1990s or 15 years ago to put speeches or votes I gave into context.
03:02:12.580When I left the military, became a lawyer, and then ran for Parliament, I said I'm running to Parliament to defend Canadians' rights.
03:02:18.420I'm not here to take away any rights granted by the court under the Charter or rights that go back to the Magna Carta
03:02:24.400That's why I'm a strong proponent of free speech rights
03:02:28.260Conscience protections and I don't like the increasing view on the left that some rights are okay and other rights can be dismissed in a
03:03:20.680Conservatives are a great, passionate,
03:03:22.380intelligent bunch from coast to coast.
03:03:24.340We don't have to have the same view on all issues.
03:03:27.300We have to have respect for one another.
03:03:31.200And, you know, like, it's so good that finally
03:03:34.140we hear Conservatives talking about the media bias
03:03:36.240because it's such an elephant in the room every time.
03:03:38.780I mean, this has been an ongoing complaint of mine,
03:03:41.780as viewers of True North know very well,
03:03:44.240goes all the way back to 2015, when Justin Trudeau was running in the midst of the campaign,
03:03:48.660he pledged an additional $150 million to the CBC. How can you say that doesn't affect coverage when
03:03:55.080they're literally one of the parties is offering to massively, massively expand your business and
03:04:01.020that grant did end up going through the CBC grew by $150 million, created a whole online news
03:04:08.040division in English language. And then because of that, the newspapers couldn't compete. And so
03:04:12.860Trudeau gave them a bailout of 600 million dollars so you have this weird situation where
03:04:17.500you're the government and taxpayers are funding competing media entities and you know the more
03:04:23.020success one has the more you have to bail out the other how can you say that journalists don't have
03:04:28.380a conflict of interest you know they all they all have a conflict of interest Sam you're talking
03:04:32.620about how David Akin tweeted that he doesn't have any skin in the game well maybe global technically
03:04:37.820hasn't gotten any of the bailout money yet, but surely it's to come. And I think that that is one
03:04:42.900of the major problems that conservatives, small-state conservatives, which includes us at
03:04:47.360True North, face in this country. Well, we have an exciting guest that is joining us. You know,
03:04:53.540again, we have a live show that we're putting together. We thought that we were going to be
03:04:56.820going to the conservative convention at 6 p.m. It's now 8 p.m. We're here. It might not go till
03:05:01.540So we've got lots of friends joining us online. And here we have our friend MP, Michelle Rempel-Garner. Michelle, thank you so much for taking the time out to join us.
03:05:12.120You know what, thank you for doing this live feed tonight, Candice. You know, I just, it's so exciting to be commenting on what I think is the future of media. I'm just really excited you guys are doing this. I just gave you guys a big shout out on Twitter. And I think it's awesome. And congratulations for taking the initiative on it. It's great.
03:05:31.540Well, thank you so much. And, you know, we're doing what we can with our limited ability, you know, doing a live show and trying to put things together at the last minute.
03:05:39.540So hopefully, you know, the audience is bearing with us. But, Michelle, I'm going to put a question to you that we've been talking about throughout this program.
03:05:45.540You know, there seems to be a bit of a growing divide. All four of the leadership candidates in this race are from Ontario or live in Ontario.
03:05:52.540We didn't really see anyone jump in the race from Western Canada.
03:05:55.540in Western Canada, some worry that the issues that matter to Albertans
03:05:59.040haven't really been addressed in this campaign.
03:06:02.540You know, you're an Albertan, you're a representative of Calgary in Parliament.
03:06:07.540Do you feel like Alberta's been adequately represented,
03:06:10.540and are you happy with this batch of potential candidates here?
03:06:14.540No, I don't. I don't think that the issues Alberta were facing
03:06:18.540were adequately addressed in the leadership race.
03:06:23.540And I talked about this phenomenon in the Buffalo Declaration where our system of governance, both from a general election perspective, but also within the primary system of our major political parties, I really don't think allow or incent people who are seeking the leadership of parties to advocate for Western Canadian issues.
03:06:44.800So, you know, this isn't necessarily a slight on the leadership candidates. I think it's just an acknowledgement of reality
03:06:51.440The reality is is that my constituents are facing
03:06:58.480They're facing a downturn in the economy that has been precipitated by detrimental policies put in place by the current liberal government
03:07:06.400But this is a cyclical problem. This isn't the first time this has happened
03:07:09.920It's happened many times in in the history of our country
03:07:13.040and without structural change to enable Western Canada to be an equal
03:07:19.220participant in Confederation it will continue to happen again so for me it's
03:07:23.100not enough to say that you know we're gonna repeal some bills or defeat the
03:07:28.500current Liberal leader we need to be talking about how we're addressing
03:07:34.720structural change so that Albertans don't have to look at what political
03:07:39.600party is in power to ensure that their livelihoods are successful that that's not sustainable and I
03:07:45.500know that I might be you know frankly pissing people off within my own party by saying this
03:07:50.040but it needs to be said and that's why I was really proud to be behind the Buffalo Declaration
03:07:54.280because that was something that was designed to spur conversation about how we do this and this
03:07:59.660is frankly what I'm going to be working on no matter who wins tonight. What would your recommendation
03:08:05.840be michelle to the the next conservative leader on a way to uh loop in not just the alberta and
03:08:12.880broader western caucus but also a lot of the the western base that are feeling growing alienation
03:08:19.300in some cases uh a desire for separation or headed towards that how can the next leader
03:08:24.500really tell those people that yes you're heard yes you're part of the canadian uh conservative
03:08:30.080family and and yes i i'm here to represent you even if i'm not from the west well i think step
03:08:35.720one, Andrew, is acknowledging that there's a problem, right? I think that the next leader has
03:08:41.240to say, look, this is something this like history is repeating itself, right? So we need to have
03:08:46.600some sort of plan and be advocating for a plan that will not just fix the current situation,
03:08:52.700but ensure that it won't happen again. That's step number one is acknowledging that there's
03:08:56.640a problem. Step number two is acknowledging that advocating for one region of the country or
03:09:03.520another is normative in canadian politics right it's completely political politically acceptable
03:09:08.880for the leader of a party to say look here's a policy that's not working for atlantic canada
03:09:12.640we need to work for atlantic canada or you know what here's some issues with quebec language
03:09:17.360laws that we need to be advocating for or whatnot why is it all of a sudden not normative for
03:09:22.560western canadians to be standing up and saying we've got a big problem here and canadian leaders
03:09:28.000need to address that and i think that there's a propensity in any political party to be like oh
03:09:32.720well, you know, we don't want to piss off Ontario, we don't want to piss off Quebec,
03:09:36.580so, you know, we'll just, like, not talk about the Western Canadian stuff.
03:09:39.960I've experienced that, and that's not going to cut it anymore.
03:09:42.840And I think that, you know, so, again, just underscoring step number two,
03:09:46.740it's just acknowledging the Conservative Party of Canada was given a big mandate
03:09:51.480by Western Canada to be bold on these issues, right?
03:09:54.920And the next leader has to figure out how to do that
03:09:58.720while maintaining a national voter coalition.
03:10:00.940And anybody who is running for the leadership of the party needs to understand that that's what the job description is.
03:10:06.760And there are going to be caucus colleagues like myself and others who understand this and will be pushing them on the same.
03:10:13.320And I'm not afraid of that. And I know that others aren't either because it's why we were elected and it's why people pay our salary.
03:10:19.400Well, and conservatives do so well in Alberta because they trust the conservative party to speak up for them and to stand up for them.
03:10:26.280Michelle, I want to get your thoughts on just the very turbulent few weeks that you've had in Ottawa with the Trudeau government.
03:10:35.200I mean, it's just been one thing after the other.
03:10:37.260The We Scandal, you know, your MPs in the Finance Committee have done an excellent job just exposing how much the Liberals have misled Canadians about the timeline.
03:10:47.060Then all of a sudden you had Bill Morneau sort of bizarrely resigning, pretending it had nothing to do with this whole scandal.
03:12:45.920And I'm confident of the ability of our party to do this.
03:12:48.860So, yeah, I just think it's something that we all need to be aware of.
03:12:54.040Your name, Michelle, was one of the early ones that was put forward by a lot of people as a potential candidate in this race.
03:13:00.280And you obviously opted not to step forward.
03:13:03.280But I'm curious what your rationale was when you saw that there weren't candidates in the race that were really putting forward positions on the issues that, you know, we were all talking about earlier, specifically Western issues.
03:13:14.860why did you not feel or perhaps you did feel that you know it wasn't your time to step forward even
03:13:20.940if those issues weren't having a voice in the race um i guess i'll just be very blunt with you
03:13:28.860my first concern is to my constituents at this point in time like the the economic crisis that
03:13:33.660we're going through right now the number of people that are out of work is is something like that has
03:13:37.900to be my first and primary concern as an elected representative it's it's situation critical here
03:13:43.100and um i feel like yes i do have a voice yes i do have reach and um i felt in my heart that
03:13:52.060it was more important for me to use that reach to be an unapologetic advocate for western canadians
03:13:59.020and the reality is is that the way that the conservative party's primary system is set up
03:14:03.260is that i could not do both i could not run through the leadership of the party and do
03:14:07.500things like the buffalo declaration do things like saying i don't care who wins tonight i'm going to
03:14:12.540ensure that western canadian interests are put forward and you know that does make me sad um
03:14:18.700but there are moments in our history where you have to realize what your your role and your
03:14:24.140calling is and i can't look at the 70 mandate that i got from the people of my writing from people
03:14:29.900that even that typically don't vote conservative and they're like you have to vote for you have
03:14:33.660to fight for us and sometimes you have to put self and ego aside and and and do what you've been
03:14:42.900You know again, I I'm at the point in my political career and in my life is I you know
03:14:49.120I just turned 40 where I'm only doing this
03:14:52.380At this point in time to make sure that my constituents and the people that I represent get a fair shake
03:14:57.340And if that means putting pressure on my own party so be it, but it certainly means
03:15:02.040Pushing back against the agenda that we're seeing from the Liberal government as well
03:15:05.820I am optimistic that our party is going to get it right
03:15:08.720but they might need a shot in the right direction and that's what my job is going to be.
03:15:13.360Well that's a great initiative. Michelle, maybe for viewers that aren't too familiar with the
03:15:18.000Buffalo Declaration and what exactly it entails, you could sort of walk through, you know, you don't
03:15:23.120have to give a comprehensive presentation or anything, but maybe you can just point out some
03:15:27.360of the highlights and what what the goals and objectives of the Declaration are. Sure, so in
03:15:32.560In February, myself and three other colleagues released a comprehensive, very thorough document
03:15:40.480that outlined the systemic problems that Western Canada, specifically Alberta and Saskatchewan,
03:15:45.740have faced from confederation, that we've never been an equal participant, that we've
03:15:50.140always been a colony towards other parts of Canada, and that the problems that we're
03:15:56.080facing are cyclical in nature, that they're not, you know, this isn't the first time this
03:16:00.940is happening and we proposed a series of recommendations that could be used as a
03:16:09.780starting point to talk about how we fix these things how we fix confederation
03:16:13.980you know it was a very controversial document I knew it would be anytime that
03:16:18.980you talk about these things it's gonna piss everybody off I know it piss
03:16:23.260people off within my own party but I'm at the point where I just don't care
03:16:26.200because you have to we have to say things we have to if you're not if you
03:16:30.340can't fix a problem if you don't acknowledge that it exists so yeah you
03:16:34.540know I encourage people to read it buffalodeclaration.ca I stand by it and
03:16:39.400you know what I hope that it did I actually hope that it would inform some
03:16:43.840of the leadership conversations that it would allow some of our leadership
03:16:47.620candidates to talk about the things that were in there and say I agree with this
03:16:50.380I don't agree with this I acknowledge that here's some issues with Western
03:16:53.260Canada here's how I would fix it and frankly we didn't see I'm not saying
03:16:57.580that you know they have to talk about the buffalo declaration per se i don't have that type of an
03:17:01.340ego but i don't think that we address those issues and um what i'm hoping is that whoever wins tonight
03:17:07.500will um will start addressing that i do have to jump off candace i'm getting the uh the signal
03:17:13.100from the back here but um i just again i want i want to thank i want to thank you and andrew for
03:17:18.860for doing this and and if for those who are watching i do think that what you guys are doing
03:17:23.740here tonight will be considered the future of media and it's nice to see pundits and other
03:17:31.180media gaining prominence and different voices in our country so congratulations to you.
03:17:36.540Well Michelle thank you so much for taking the time and it was super last minute but
03:17:40.140one of the things we talked about was that there wasn't enough policy in this last
03:17:44.220leadership debate so hopefully you'll be at the forefront in leading policy discussions
03:17:48.780for the party and in the conservative movement for a long time to come.
03:17:51.500thank you have a good evening you too thanks very much Michelle you know one of the things I was
03:17:57.840actually hoping to chat with Michelle about we ran out of time was immigration which is an issue
03:18:02.860she's been doing a lot on and we actually haven't talked about immigration all that much tonight so
03:18:08.240let's start now because I would say that there wasn't a huge amount of immigration talk during
03:18:14.420the leadership there was some certainly everyone seemed to be united on wanting to close Roxham
03:18:19.580Road. We had a news story this week that True North actually broke. It was an exclusive story
03:18:24.220that the government has put out a call for a vendor to transport asylum seekers near the Quebec
03:18:31.060border up to 150 a day. So clearly the government's not making good on its whole closing Roxham Road
03:18:37.100promise as of late. So you've got Derek Sloan who wants to decrease immigration. You've got
03:18:43.140Aaron O'Toole that wants to do the steady increase, that very Harper and Kenny approach to immigration.
03:18:49.100But by and large, it wasn't, I would say, a central issue on the campaign. I'll go to our panelists as well. But first, Candace, would you say that's a fair assessment that, yeah, it was mentioned, but it wasn't really made a central part of anyone's plans?
03:19:02.960Yeah, I think that's right. And I think it's interesting. You know, talk about immigration around immigration does sort of ebb and flow whenever there's sort of a big something event in the media. You know, you end up talking about it a lot.
03:19:16.300So in 2015, with the refugee crisis flooding Europe and, you know, civil war in Syria and all of a sudden, Justin Trudeau pledging to bring in, you know, 50,000 Syrian refugees on an incredibly rushed timeline without any security checks and all that kind of stuff, it became a really big, urgent issue and a lot of people had a lot of things to say about it.
03:19:35.520Same thing with Rocks and Road when all of a sudden, you know, we went from having a couple of dozen people cross illegally from the United States per year to we were having five, six hundred a day for a while.
03:19:48.100Whereas right now, Andrew, I mean, we're sort of in an unprecedented situation in that we've almost had a full lockdown of our border for the past four months.
03:19:57.200I don't think that's happened at all in recent history.
03:20:00.120now of course we know that the numbers aren't exactly true that even though the trudeau
03:20:04.360government says the border is closed we've still had a million odd people come and and more people
03:20:09.000who've entered canada have not been citizens so we are still accepting immigrants uh some of the
03:20:14.040big uh covet outbreaks have happened with temporary foreign workers coming from uh mexico and other
03:20:20.200countries and so you know despite the fact that that they say the borders closed it is still open
03:20:25.400and it is causing some issues in terms of COVID and public safety. I would have liked to hear a
03:20:31.480little bit more about immigration from each of the candidates, but I think we're in an interesting
03:20:36.360time in Canada in our history right now. I've written about this in the past, and I'll just
03:20:41.560really quickly say it again. If you look at Canada's historic immigration figures dating back
03:20:45.800150 years, there have always been peaks and valleys in admittance. So we've always had
03:20:51.000time periods where we've just let in lots and lots of people pretty much open the floodgates
03:20:55.320and then a couple of years later we close them and allow a break of one to five to ten years
03:21:00.720where you essentially just like let everyone settle let the people who are here integrate
03:21:05.880and become Canadian and then you say okay let's open up again and have another wave
03:21:10.440we haven't had that you know we've had sustained high numbers of immigration getting higher and
03:21:15.300higher and higher every year for the past 25 years I don't think it's necessarily been good
1.00
03:21:20.160the country actually it's been bad for the country there's parts of vancouver where i grew up where
03:21:24.560you don't see any english speakers there's no english signs people have no incentive to learn
03:21:28.800english because no one around them speaks english um and and you're also seeing lots of tensions in
03:21:33.520and around toronto with so many new people coming and not being able to settle so i think it's good
03:21:38.160for the country to just take a pause on immigration altogether and the fact that's sort of what's
03:21:42.480happening because of the situation i i we don't know what the immigration levels will be for 2020
03:21:47.760the government hasn't announced them and i've been trying to dig into them and find them but i think
03:21:52.000once we do learn they'll be significantly lower than where they were i think the conservatives
03:21:56.400would be wise to just maintain that for a few years until covid gets under control until the
03:22:01.120economy recovers and then we can open up again but i i hope that all the conservative leadership
03:22:06.240candidates take this as as an opportunity um to really push that pause button on immigration and
03:22:11.760have some kind of a moratorium. Aaron, I know you and I have talked about the immigration issue
03:22:17.600before and you're not in Vancouver but you're on the west coast where there is a large population
1.00
03:22:23.280of people that come but don't necessarily bother to learn English and don't really integrate.
03:22:28.000I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this issue. Well I think the big point to be made with COVID
03:22:35.920and the unemployment as high as it is right now is the economic rationale for opening the flood
03:22:41.120gates on immigration simply isn't there anymore um i think in addition to all the the points that
03:22:46.880you made i think we also need to uh pump the brakes on immigration a bit to to allow more
03:22:53.240housing spots to open up in cities like vancouver victoria and toronto where there's a lot of stress
03:22:58.620on the market so i think that's another point to be made but my big thing with immigration
1.00
03:23:02.400that bugs me is with justin trudeau right now you have this arbitrarily high number of immigrants
03:23:09.720and refugees. And if you want one less than that, you're basically a racist. And I think
0.96
03:23:14.740all I want is a common sense, open debate about immigration and the economic effects and the
03:23:20.760cultural effects. And to be honest, I think a lot of Canadians have those conversations around the
03:23:25.600water coolers and the barbecues during summer. But it'd be nice to actually have those conversations
03:23:29.960at the forefront in forums like this. And one of the downsides is we didn't see that
03:23:36.800in the leadership race, which would have been nice.
03:44:10.640Good evening, everyone. What an incredible three years.
03:44:15.640I have been so honoured to serve as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
03:44:20.640and as leader of the official opposition in the House of Commons, leading our amazing team.
03:44:36.640Looking back on where we started in 2017,
03:44:39.640In 2017 and all that we have accomplished together, I am struck by the determination, strength and resilience of our party.
03:44:47.640In 2017, no one thought we could win the next election.
03:44:52.640The media establishment was predicting that Justin Trudeau would easily win two or maybe even three majority governments.
03:44:59.640He would be Prime Minister for as long as he wanted.
03:45:02.640But we rolled up our sleeves and reminded voters that Conservatives are the only party fighting for hard-working Canadians.
03:45:12.040The fact that anyone even considered the 2019 election winnable is because of the incredible success of our entire team.
03:45:20.440And while we didn't get the result we all would have liked, we did reduce the Trudeau government to a minority and formed the strongest opposition in Canadian history.
03:45:32.640There are so many people I would like to thank.
03:45:36.400First off, my House leadership, shadow cabinet and caucus teams.
03:45:40.880Merci pour vos conseils et votre soutien pendant mon mandat.
03:45:48.300One of the most frustrating parts of not forming government is stopping to think about what
03:45:53.340a great group of ministers we would have had if we had won.
03:45:57.880I know that Canadians would have been far better served during this pandemic had there
03:46:01.980been a conservative government in power and I look forward to the many great things that
03:46:07.020our next conservative team will accomplish.
03:47:45.340We have improved the government's response to the pandemic and have never backed down in our fight to keep our parliament open during this crisis.
03:48:15.340As we look forward to the recovery, Canadians will be faced with a fundamental choice.
03:48:21.900You see, the left is offering the same failed policies that they always do.
03:48:26.780Bigger government, more government intervention and less individual freedom.
03:48:31.980The lie of the left is that the very people they claim they want to help are hurt the
03:55:58.400Where they will use the pandemic as an excuse to reward their friends,
03:56:01.600Conservatives will clean up their corruption.
03:56:04.560Where they will play the politics of envy,
03:56:06.640will spread a message of hope and opportunity. Where they will attack our energy sector, we will
03:56:13.040champion it and celebrate the prosperity it creates for all Canadians. Where they will demonize people
03:56:18.880for having different views on issues facing Canadians, we will not attack people for their
03:56:23.440deeply held positions, but instead look to find the common ground.
03:56:27.680And when they let Canadians down, as they always do, we will be ready to offer them
03:56:45.720a conservative government that puts people first.
03:56:49.720And after tonight, let's all rally behind the new leader and do everything we can to
03:56:55.140make sure that the next leader of the Conservative Party becomes the next
03:56:59.760Prime Minister of this great country. Serving in this role has been the
03:57:04.920greatest honour of my professional life. I want to thank all the members, all the
03:57:09.420volunteers, the member of our fantastic team so much. This has been such an honour.
03:57:13.560Thank you very much. Thank you so much for all the support that you've given to
03:57:19.020me and my family and we will get them in the next election. Thank you very much.
03:57:24.580Thank you leader. Okay, so I know that you are all anxious to hear the ballot results
03:57:47.460and we are almost there. I am now pleased to turn things over to our co-chairs for this evening,
03:57:53.460the Honourable Lisa Raitt and Dan Nolan for the news that I know everyone is waiting for.
03:58:00.740Thank you, Jamie. We'll start with a short explanation of the process that brought us here today.
03:58:04.740At the limit of the election of May 15, our conservative party counted a record number of 269,469 members.
03:58:14.580Voting was by preferential ballot and members could rank one, two, three or all four candidates in order.
03:58:30.580Members were required to return their ballots along with a signed declaration form and a copy of their identification to the offices of Deloitte here in Ottawa prior to 5 p.m. on Friday, August 21st.
03:58:43.300starting back on july 20th we began processing ballots as they were received and over the last
03:58:48.180month we succeeded in processing a record number of ballots for a canadian leadership race
03:58:52.980174 849 ballots were verified once the validity of the memberships and the identification was
03:59:01.300confirmed the ballots which remained in their secrecy envelopes were set aside in sealed bins
03:59:07.700this morning these bins were opened and we counted the ballots using tabulators certified and
03:59:13.940supplied by dominion voting services from the tabulators dominion voting services will produce
03:59:20.260the first ballot results which are then verified by deloitte and then approved by the chief
03:59:25.460returning officer if subsequent balance are required the same process will be followed
03:59:30.900Each of the 338 electoral districts or ridings are worth 100 points, and these points are allocated to candidates based on the percentage of valid votes in that writing.
03:59:42.600To win, a leadership candidate must receive 16,901 points, which is 50% plus one of the 33,800 points available.
03:59:56.400At every step of the process, we have assured a total transparency to the candidates and to their team.
04:00:04.400The prosecutors have been present during the manipulation of voting documents,
04:00:09.400and everything is done under the attentive regard and with the useful advice of Deloitte.
04:00:15.400Speaking of watchful eyes, many members also turned into our live 24-hour webcams
04:00:21.400cams that monitored the ballots and processing centers from the moment it opened until this
04:00:26.040morning. This was all done to ensure a process that was accurate, transparent, efficient and
04:00:31.480fair for our leadership candidates and for the members of our party. We'd like to recognize
04:00:37.400the members of Leadership Election Organizing Committee and thank them for their service.
04:06:52.520James Moore is a senior business advisor at the multinational law firm Dentons
04:06:57.520and a public policy advisor at the global firm Edelman.
04:07:00.520He served as Member of Parliament for Port Moody, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam for 15 years
04:07:05.520and served as a member of Stephen Harper's Cabinet.
04:07:09.520James Moore is a chief chief chief of affairs in Denton's legal legal cabinet and a chief chief of public policy for the international firm Edelman.
04:07:19.520He was a deputy of Port Moody Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam at the Chambre des Communes for 15 years and a member of Stephen Harper's cabinet.
04:07:27.520Joining James today is Cathy McLeod. Cathy McLeod has served as the member of Parliament for the riding of Kamloops Thompson Caribou since 2008.
04:07:36.520She is the current Shadow Minister for Natural Resources, Forestry and Mining.
04:07:40.520Cathy McLeod is Deputy of Kamloops Thompson Caribou at the Chambre des Communes since 2008.
04:07:46.520She currently occupies the Minister of the Phantom Cabinet for Natural Resources.
04:07:52.520So let's check in with you there. James and Cathy, how are you?
04:07:56.520So Lisa, Dan, it's certainly a delight to join you here tonight.
04:08:00.520And of course, we're in beautiful BC where we still are also enjoying some sunshine.
04:08:05.520advantage to have pacific standard time today and typically in an election night for british
04:08:11.840colombians we turn on the tv when our ballots have closed and the results are already over
04:08:18.080i am so pleased tonight that british columbia is going to get to go first and so it won't be
04:08:22.720a fait accompli by the time we're announcing the results so again very pleased to join you tonight
04:08:28.240and looking forward to a great evening it's great to be with you kathy as well and dan
04:08:34.240And Lisa, thank you for your leadership on this, like everybody else, looking forward to the results.
04:08:38.420We are ready for the results of the first vote for our leadership course of the Conservative Party,
04:08:45.120because we are sure that the next leader will certainly be the Prime Minister of Canada.
04:08:49.420So we are going, we are waiting for the results, and I am very happy with our meeting today and tonight.
04:08:57.000Thank you very much, Dan. Thank you very much, James. Sorry, I was going to talk to Dan X.
04:09:00.800Now, it's good to mention to everybody that out there in British Columbia, we hold 17 out of 42 of those seats.
04:09:07.640In fact, we're the largest federal party in British Columbia.
04:09:10.720And we're about to go to Newfoundland, which is nine hours in the air away in four and a half time zones.
04:09:16.380And interestingly, flat Australia is only 15 hours, so it's a remarkably big country.
04:09:21.580Over in Newfoundland, we have Judy Manning.
04:09:24.340Judy Manning practices law in historic downtown St. John's, a founding partner of the Manning-Bradbury firm.
04:09:29.940She is a former Minister of Justice and Public Safety and the Attorney General for the province
04:10:02.920Sharon Vokey has been the General Director of the Conservative Party of Terre-Neuve-Labrador.
04:10:07.420She is the President of the Bonavista-Burin-Trinity Circonscription and is also the President of the Conservative Party of the Conservative Party.
04:10:17.920Welcome, Conservative friends, from Canada's youngest province, Newfoundland and Labrador,
04:10:22.920specifically St. John's, the far east of the western world. Judy Manning here and I am delighted
04:10:29.080to join you as we usher in our new conservative leader to right this ship that is our great nation.
04:10:36.920It's been a privilege to serve on the leadership election organizing committee. Now I'm very eager
04:10:43.000to shed this neutrality and get back into campaign mode with our new leader at the helm.
04:10:48.600I am joined tonight by another ardent campaigner, my friend Sharon Vokey, from the village of Trinity on Newfoundland's northeast coast.
04:10:59.240During our last federal campaign, Sharon hopped aboard her RV, combing every corner of the riding of Bonavista-Burin-Trinity,
04:11:08.600in excess of 16,800 square kilometers, rallying enough votes to double our share of the vote.
04:11:17.680How's that RV fueled up and ready to go, Sharon?
04:30:14.460and andrew i mentioned this a little earlier when we were doing our panel but one of the things i
04:30:20.540thought was so refreshing about derek so even though he's a sitting mp and two of the other
04:30:24.700leadership candidates are not he comes across not as a polished politician i say that in a very
04:30:31.340good way uh he's very authentic he sort of just says what he believes and doesn't worry too much
04:30:36.860about you know whether or not that's politically correct or whether or not that's been poll tested
04:30:40.940one of the things that that really irks me is how polished so many of these politicians are it's like
04:30:46.140when they answer a question it's not necessarily what they believe it's not based on their
04:30:49.580convictions it's not based on their worldview instead it's just based on you know whatever
04:30:54.380the latest poll is told them or whatever a campaign aid is whispering into their ear and
04:31:00.380it just doesn't feel authentic whereas derek sloan was not that way at all and and and i really
04:31:05.100appreciate him you know with with any other criticisms i might have about him just his
04:31:09.580frankness and his openness in discussing the issues. And immigration was certainly an example
04:31:14.880of that. I think he was really the only one who mentioned something different about immigration,
04:31:19.480who said he would do something different, even at a time like this, where it's so obvious that a lot
04:31:23.980of the economic justifications surrounding immigration, you know, the idea that we needed
04:31:28.660to boost our economy at a time when unemployment rate is at a record high as it is, it doesn't
04:31:33.420really make sense to be importing people from other parts of the world. So anyway, it was just
04:31:38.560a bit refreshing to hear that. And I was grateful to have Derek Sloan as one of the candidates in
04:31:43.860this race, because he was one of the ones that was really pushing for a more honest and robust
04:31:48.380debate on the issues. Yeah, for sure. And just to give you a heads up, everyone, on where we are
04:31:54.120right now, we are still watching the Conservative leadership stream right now. They're still going
04:31:58.480through the dignitaries and notable figures from the various provinces. So the second we have
04:32:03.720results or something else in the program, we will go back to it. But in the meantime,
04:32:06.920we're continuing our analysis commentary breaking everything down and we have another guest joining
04:32:12.640us candace why don't you uh introduce our next player in this great discussion yeah sure so as
04:32:17.420everyone watching knows we've just sort of thrown this show together we're now in our third hour of
04:32:21.500trim earth live and we're only expecting to do about 25 minutes sorry this is our fourth hour
04:32:26.980we started at 5 30 oh yeah you're right i can't even keep back the time now but uh yeah we were
04:32:33.300initially expecting to do a little bit of a show and now we've got a solid four hours of content
04:32:38.820and so we brought on another one of our friends, Vitor Marciano, who is out in Alberta. He's a
04:32:44.500longtime conservative activist and worked on many, many campaigns in many different
04:32:50.100roles. So, Vitor, thank you so much for joining us here tonight.
04:32:54.580It's my pleasure to be part of, I guess, the chaos that this evening has become.
04:32:59.540Right. Well, and we sort of found ourselves sort of the center of the chaos, not just because we're
04:33:05.140putting together this live broadcast, but because Andrew Scheer gave us a little bit of a shout out
04:33:09.620during his speech and that made all the mainstream media journalists on Twitter very angry. So that's
04:33:14.980been fun too. There were heads exploding all over Canada. They now have another reason to hate Andrew
04:33:23.780Right and to hate True North if they didn't already. Well Vitor you've worked on a lot of
04:33:29.540campaigns and you've really been an insider and so I'm hoping you can give us some perspective
04:33:34.420on a campaign strategy. I know you know this has been a very different kind of campaign just because
04:33:40.740of COVID and the inability to travel and do live events so you know coming from that perspective
04:33:45.460of running a campaign you know what kind of insights can you give us about how this this
04:33:50.980campaign is my apologies i have a very yappy little dog that's having an issue we'll solve
04:33:57.300that they're upset the results aren't in yet too yeah totally totally he's uh he's whining a little
04:34:01.780bit about it too i have no idea what he's barking at i'll close the doors all right uh in the
04:34:08.340meantime we'll uh we'll just let you all know uh again that we are continuing uh we're joined by
04:34:12.740vitor marciano oh there we go he's back already all right i know it just took a second um these
04:34:18.500campaigns are really interesting because it ends up being 300 and some campaigns um you essentially
04:34:24.740have to organize provincially but then organize almost riding by riding and frankly because of
04:34:33.220the way the system is built the weaker writings become really really important um in in a writing
04:34:41.780that's only got 60 or 70 members you know impressing 20 people really matters and you can
04:34:49.220so this becomes an exercise in building really strong teams and working really hard to
04:34:58.900be good everywhere in the country so you know as an albertan sometimes i get frustrated with
04:35:04.740the fact that it's not one member one vote but for everybody who always made the argument that
04:35:09.860all writings being equal puts a premium on the winner having a good strong national organization
04:35:17.640well it's true um you everybody ends up chasing you know northern quebec writings with 23 members
04:35:25.160and uh writings in the north and it becomes important and you end up doing different types
04:35:30.020of campaigns so in you know rural ontario or rural alberta where you have thousands of members
04:35:36.180per riding it becomes a finding a way to do a mass conversation with the actual members but in
04:35:44.100yukon and nunavut and nunavik and you know uh mount royal in in montreal it becomes an exercise
04:35:54.980in finding those 65 people who are the the the members and really connecting with them at a
04:36:01.000personal lever so that you can maximize your points out of that writing. We spoke earlier in
04:36:06.940the show to Lisa Raid, and one of the points that she had made in this campaign is that because
04:36:11.500everything was moved for most of the campaign online, a lot of Zoom events, virtual campaigning,
04:36:18.160phone banking, not coffee houses, not travel, it almost served as a bit of an equalizer,
04:36:23.260whereas candidates that are lesser known that don't have the fundraising capacity as Aaron O'Toole
04:36:27.340and Peter McKay do, and in Leslie Lewis and Derek Sloan, they were almost able to run the same type
04:36:33.400of campaign, which was from a, you know, a hunkered down location. And I'm curious for you as a campaign
04:36:38.760guy, how would you feel if you had a lesser known candidate or a candidate that didn't have as much
04:36:44.760of a leg up on fundraising, and the pandemic hand was the one you were dealt? Well, I have to tell
04:36:50.440you that you know if if the candidate's attractive if the candidate has an ability to connect with
04:36:57.780the members it's an incredible opportunity and i think what that's what you've seen with leslin
04:37:02.280lewis she's got an interesting message she is a non-traditional delivery device for that message
04:37:11.320so she gets everybody's attention it's like you know a black immigrant woman from toronto okay
04:37:17.000I wanted members all across the country wanted to hear what you have to say. And then she impressed them. So COVID, by equalizing the dynamic and by removing the advantage of early money in a big way, allowed Lesley to get going and then allowed her to raise an awful lot of money.
04:37:40.060I mean, she's raised more money than the Democrats have nationally. That says something. And the fact that we are all talking about it, the fact that the mainstream media isn't doing five Lesley Lewis stories for every one Kamala Harris story tells you how disgraceful our media is in Canada.
04:38:00.260but um i you know this is one of the really neat things about uh about politics in canada and then
04:38:08.120this time one of the really neat things about running a campaign in the middle of a pandemic
04:38:12.500that equalized a whole bunch of things it's a really great point and i'm glad you raised it i
04:38:19.480was going to ask you who you were sort of most impressed by and who you thought ran the best
04:38:23.840campaign and you kind of alluded that less than lewis did did such a great job so i'll ask you
04:38:28.540that question you can answer Vitor but on top of that I also want to ask you
04:38:31.900you know you're you're as connected as it gets to the grassroots of the party
04:38:35.140and you know a lot of people in sort of what's the conservative heartland in
04:38:38.560Alberta but also around the country traveled a lot and campaigned a lot you
04:38:42.880know if conservative Canadians can't trust the mainstream media and
04:38:46.240increasingly they can't where are they getting their their news where are they
04:38:49.780getting their information is it straight from the candidates is it through
04:38:53.620mediums like like true north or where do you think Canadians are really going
04:38:58.520when grassroots conservative Canadians are going to get their news?
04:39:02.400Let me start with the second question first.
04:39:05.220More and more, they're getting their information from alternative media, the new media, True
04:43:39.960And we've had some discussions on this show
04:43:42.540and throughout the campaign of the fact
04:43:44.100that not a single leadership candidate hails from Alberta.
04:43:47.240You've got some that are still, I think,
04:43:49.360more aligned with the Alberta sensibility than others are.
04:43:52.600But do you think that someone like an Aaron O'Toole or a Peter McKay or a Lesley Lewis or a Derek Sloan can get a lot of those Alberta conservatives that are on that fence on separation back on board and feeling that, yeah, we might have a future in Confederation?
04:45:13.600So much of what happens in the Alberta energy market comes from other provinces, either with workers or with manufacturing that sustains the Canadian energy.
04:45:22.700And then we have a government that has signaled that they don't care about energy anymore and that they actually want to signal to the world that they're getting out of energy.
04:45:38.400Over and above that, Albertans feel like they're landlocked inside Canada.
04:45:46.300And so just this week, you had, you know, UCP MLA, Drew Barnes from Medicine Hat, writing a column that said, you know, Alberta would be less landlocked as an independent country than it is landlocked as a province.
04:46:01.720Because as a province, we can't do anything about the rest of Canada treating us badly.
04:46:05.240but as an independent country, we could be really nasty to the rest of Canada and put ourselves in
04:46:11.020a better negotiating position. That attitude is becoming very, very common in Alberta. I'm not
04:46:19.000saying that it's the majority attitude right now, but it's a very important attitude. I will say
04:46:25.560that you can poll Albertans on the question of, is Canada broken? And 80% of conservatives will
04:46:33.220tell you that Canada is broken in Alberta. But the part that blows my mind is 40 to 50% of new
04:46:40.020Democrats, Alberta new Democrats will tell you that Canada is broken. So when you get this
04:46:45.680perception that the country's in trouble, and it percolates at different levels of intensity
04:46:51.620across the political spectrum, that's a big deal. And, you know,
04:46:56.120i'm not sure it would make for great politics for peter mckay or erin o'till to talk about
04:47:04.820that on the national stage but should they script themselves and come up with a message
04:47:11.200that works for canada and form government that becomes probably the unspoken thing from the
04:47:18.440campaign that becomes the instant top priority of a new government.
04:47:22.460Because if we get a conservative national government and it doesn't do anything to
04:47:29.660waylay this sense of alienation in Alberta, that's going to be a huge problem.
04:47:35.900So there's, there are, this is not the immediate problem facing whoever wins
04:47:41.940tonight, but this is probably the biggest potential problem.
04:47:47.040and the one that will be attached to their name
04:47:50.36025 years from now when the history of the 2020s is written.
04:47:55.420You raised so many good points, Vitor,
04:47:57.020and unfortunately, these are the conversations
04:47:58.920that haven't really happened in the mainstream media,
04:48:01.500in the discussion around this conservative leadership race.
04:48:05.320One of the things I worry about when people say,
04:48:07.640you know, we've got Peter McKay, he's electable,
04:48:42.300And then all of a sudden, the country shuts down.
04:48:45.360Keep in mind that in the 2019 election, we had a huge resurgence of the bloc in Quebec and also the rise of Wexit, which, you know, there's nothing electorally to show for it, but you certainly hear a lot about it in, you know, on social media, online.
04:49:02.040Just looking at our live chat on our YouTube here, you know, you keep seeing Wexit every few posts.
04:49:08.040So certainly a lot of people are talking about it.
04:49:10.920And there certainly is that sense of fear around, you know, what will happen if we get an East Coast guy running the country and he doesn't really care about what's happening in Western Canada.
04:49:22.260It's right now, the liberals are the only truly national party.
04:49:28.780And by that, I mean that a B.C. liberal really has very few differences from a Saskatchewan liberal or a Manitoba liberal or an Ontario liberal or a maritime liberal.
04:49:45.320There is actually quite intense uniformity of opinion and worldview inside the liberal party as you cross the country.
04:49:54.260But the truth of the matter is, and this is going to be a big problem for whoever wins tonight, that there are multiple actual conservative parties in this country.
04:50:07.100And there are very intense, distinct worldviews amongst those parties.
04:50:14.860And whoever wins is going to have a really tough time dealing with the fact that the conservative voter base in the Maritimes is dramatically different than the available conservative voter universe in Quebec, and there is one.
04:50:29.900Or the conservative voter base in Ontario, which we already do well in rural Ontario, and we only have to turn it up a couple of notches to start moving back into the suburbs and doing okay, which is different than Manitoba, which is dramatically different than Alberta and Saskatchewan, which is different than BC.
04:50:46.200In some ways, the fact that we're all one big party and the leader has to say things, the same thing, to Alberta and to Quebec and to Ontario and to the Maritimes is actually a disadvantage for assembling a broad coalition of conservative voters to win federal elections.
04:51:13.360Now, I think that's a very key point. And I guess the one thing I'd ask you, Vitor, is,
04:51:19.900you know, is it possible to take on that national unity role and to win over the support of
04:51:27.320disenfranchised Albertans and Westerners without alienating people in other parts of the country?
04:51:33.960I believe so, but it's going to require incredible courage. I think the way you do it
04:51:41.980is to head back into the late 1980s early 1990s and reopen the constitution and i think it involves
04:51:51.500discussions about you know supply management which is going to offend a whole bunch of conservatives
04:51:58.380but that is a trade-off uh relative to protecting seasonal workers which offends a whole bunch of
04:52:05.900conservatives but drives political decisions in the maritimes relative to not landlocking alberta
04:52:14.300and saskatchewan which offends a whole bunch of conservatives in british columbia um there are some
04:52:22.460difficult complicated issues facing this and i think ultimately to hold the country together
04:52:29.340We either need to accidentally stumble into a global boom and then everybody
04:52:34.340is rich and maybe they stop complaining about things, but that's very,
04:52:38.340very unlikely post COVID or we need to reformulate the country,
04:52:45.340probably a little bit closer back to the model in the terms of union.
04:52:49.340Like you almost have to go back to pre-confederation, the, the, you know,
04:52:53.340the, the meetings in Charlottetown, the terms of union, the,
04:52:56.340Union, the agreement that got Upper Canada and Lower Canada together, that then got them
04:53:01.900together with the Maritimes in BC, which was the suggestion that Canada was a business
04:53:08.580arrangement. We were all going to go into business together and we all agreed that by
04:53:13.900being together, we'd be stronger than if we were apart and we weren't going to do anything
04:53:18.700together that damaged each of the parts singularly. Part of the terms of Union was, you know,
04:53:26.120By uniting, we weren't going to screw over any of the sub parts of Canada and
04:53:30.200close off their access to their markets.
04:53:33.500And right now what we have in Canada is that, you know, the federal government
04:53:39.260won't allow Western Canadian energy to go east.
04:53:43.980BC won't allow Western Canadian energy to get to, um, tidewater on the Pacific
04:53:50.840coast, which means we can't sell to Korea or Japan or China or India or
04:53:55.060Indonesia or Vietnam, all people who want to buy our heavy oil,
04:53:59.540which is incredibly useful in the world.
04:54:01.000Heavy oil is what everybody wants. We have it,
04:54:05.440but we can only sell it to the Americans.
04:54:07.780They're the only people who are allowed to buy our heavy oil. We,
04:54:10.660we sell our heavy oil to the Americans and we sell a little bit to Eastern
04:54:16.540Canada by shipping it through the United States.
04:54:19.540We are one crazy court decision in Michigan away from
04:54:26.540Ontario and Quebec having oil shortages because they can't get Alberta oil
04:54:33.540because a democratic politician or a crazy judge made a weird decision in
04:54:38.540Michigan and cut off line three or line six or line five.
04:56:07.640but that Sarnia is fed through the United States.
04:56:11.060and these were political decisions made in the 1950s you know we had the pipeline debates in
04:56:18.100the 1950s where we rushed through a natural gas pipeline uh north of the great lakes so that
04:56:24.980alberta natural gas could power and and heat the rest of canada and then because that pipe
04:56:32.580line debate was so painful the liberal government at the time said
04:56:36.660yeah we're not doing that again we'll just ship stuff through the states well
04:56:41.060It's nuts. We're a country that actually isn't attached to each other. And then because we're not attached to each other, we're not actually thinking about that we're all in this together. And the risk about that is, and this is going to be a huge issue for whoever wins tonight, is that if we're not holding together, we might come apart.
04:57:03.960well absolutely that's been a theme throughout our show tonight uh just wondering about what post uh
04:57:10.440you know post new leader will look like what the unity question will look like uh vitor we thank
04:57:15.320you so much for your time and your insight really it's great to talk to someone from alberta just
04:57:19.960just one final question do you have any uh any predictions for tonight
04:57:23.640i think it's going to be ridiculously close um i expect peter mckay to get between 43 and 45
04:57:36.260on the first ballot i think he has a maximum of eight percent growth so 43 45 eight percent growth
04:57:46.740he wins um if he's at 41 8 growth he doesn't win um i think if peter mckay doesn't win
04:57:56.300then it's erin o'toole's for sure to win unless something odd happens and that is that
04:58:02.500you know sloan outperforms and his people all go to leslin lewis and leslin lewis somehow manages
04:58:08.660to bump o'toole and then at that point that opens the door to possibly peter mckay doing something
04:58:16.420odd. Because I think that unlike the O'Toole activists, the O'Toole voters, probably an awful
04:58:24.000lot of them have Peter McKay as their second choice. I mean, realistically, for the non-activist
04:58:28.480members of the party, there's not too much difference between the two of them. So I think,
04:58:35.900you know, I think McKay is the odds-on leader to win tonight. But there's three or four models
04:58:42.100that could see him losing well interesting i have to say vitor we've asked like everyone else tonight
04:58:49.300about predictions and they all go oh i don't know it's going to be a good night you don't just give
04:58:53.140a prediction you give percentages which means you are the most precise tonight you might be the most
04:58:57.540wrong you might be the most right but i appreciate that you took a swing at it in a true political
04:59:01.860campaigner way so thank you i was neutral in this race so i could actually run the numbers and put
04:59:07.540out what i want thank you so much for having me on it's been a real pleasure keep up the great work
04:59:12.100Thanks very much. And I will just say we have a standing by or not standing by, but we're
04:59:18.540awaiting to dial in a couple of people that we've spoken to earlier in the show, but obviously things
04:59:23.880have changed a fair bit in the last five hours. We'll be speaking with someone from Leslie Lewis's
04:59:28.600campaign very shortly and also Aaron O'Toole's campaign. I think we are also going to have
04:59:33.600someone from Derek Sloan's campaign on as well. So we'll try to get as many of these voices on
04:59:40.580as we can uh just to give you a little bit of context here the official conservative party
04:59:47.620is uh not well the the party stream is still standing by and waiting for results apparently
04:59:54.180there are still a thousand or several thousands left to be counted so this is the the infamous
04:59:59.780ripped ballot problem that the party is dealing with here and just to give you a little bit of
05:00:05.300context and background in this, the party is still saying that we're going to have a result
05:00:10.340tonight. So with all the changes and delays, they're still saying we're going to have a result
05:00:14.900tonight. I'm looking at some of the latest details. They're now up to 98% of ballots counted
05:00:20.120and they're still going to go through the same announcing by province. So they're not deviating
05:00:25.460from that plan to do just one dump. And I should also tell people that the party is going to have
05:00:31.400a press conference after the leader is announced. They're going to be announced. They're going to
05:00:36.080give a speech. And then there's an optional press conference. And this is something that the
05:00:40.220Conservative Party of Canada, a communications person had said to me, is not a guarantee. They
05:00:45.540don't have to do it. They might not do it. So I don't know if that was just being cautious or if
05:00:50.160that was because one or more candidates said, we don't want to do a post-event presser. But now
05:00:54.820that we're already at 10 p.m. Eastern time, the idea that we could even have a leader, let alone
05:00:59.820an acceptance speech and a resulting press conference seems a little bit unlikely.
05:01:05.400Candace, I mean, just as this goes on more, do you think that there's anything to read
05:10:19.060You know, every day, our scrutineers will go into the room where the counting was happening. And what they do is they open up the first envelope and they see, okay, you know, Bob Smith from 123 Main Street in Calgary Centre. And then they match him up with the database and they see the ID is good. It has a name, a photo, you know, the attestation has been signed. Okay, that's all good.
05:10:43.520so now bob's and bob's ballot who we don't know who bob voted for because it's still in the secrecy
05:10:49.200envelope goes into this pile here uh and any any ballots that they couldn't tell like sometimes
05:10:55.120people would stuff all of their id and everything into the secrecy ballot so they would have to then
05:11:00.160escalate those open them up with scrutineers watching to see if um in fact the id was in
05:11:06.800there and the attestation was signed and if they're if they were then it would go in for
05:11:11.440counting if it wasn't then it would have to be shredded and their ballot would be would be spoiled
05:11:16.720so as a friday night all of the ballots the 174 000 plus or whatever the number was uh were
05:11:24.960opened like from the the outside envelope the id was checked and all of the ballots that were to
05:11:30.640be counted on sunday were all put in the vault and ready to go and so then what the issue happened
05:11:37.040today was the first process when you go to count these ballots is you have to physically remove
05:11:42.240them from the secrecy envelope so they're slicing there's a machine that's there to slice the the
05:11:46.800envelope open and for whatever reason and we've heard things from like oh the paper was too thin
05:11:52.400or they're trying to make it a little bit lighter so it'd meet all the canada posts you know
05:11:56.240guidelines and it wouldn't have to pay extra postage um when they were slicing them it sliced
05:12:02.080it appears to be and i've only heard this number in the media i haven't heard it directly from the
05:12:05.760party of three to four thousand ballots and so that only would have happened today which is why
05:12:11.920they would only have had that information today so maybe that answers a little bit about that
05:12:16.320question no thank you i appreciate the insight just because we haven't had anyone uh explain
05:12:20.960that thoroughly to us so uh we appreciate it although it was a little technical but that does
05:12:25.600help kind of clarify what why it is that we're going so late so one of the things that we've
05:12:30.480talked about one of the stories a big stories of this campaign has really been the ascent
05:12:34.560of Leslyn Lewis. She was relatively unknown or completely unknown to most Canadians just a few
05:12:39.440months ago. And now she's got this huge star power, lots of momentum. You know, even if she doesn't
05:12:44.000win tonight, she's still one of the big, big stories of the campaign and could potentially
0.97
05:12:48.560finish a lot higher than people expect. So I just want to ask you, what initially connected you to
05:12:53.680her? What did you see about her campaign that excited you and got you involved in the first
05:12:58.080place? Yeah, so I had originally, my wife and I had talked it over and we've had enough, you know,
05:13:03.680we've been involved with a lot of campaigns and she'd said you know maybe we could sit this one
05:13:07.840out and i i agreed to do that for uh well i agreed to do it uh agreed to sit it out and then i had a
05:13:14.960good friend it was a few months later and i was still on the sidelines as a political person you
05:13:19.440get a little bit twitchy you kind of want to want to be engaged and uh i had a friend of mine say
05:13:24.480that uh you know it was um sorry the uh you know you should really talk to talk to dr lewis like
05:13:31.760she's the real deal and i think you would you would connect with her well and i had some
05:13:36.960conversations with her and i have to say it was it was she was very impressive for myself i am a
05:13:42.560pro-life individual i guess i fall into the social conservative camp and i i have a real drive to
05:13:51.680help social conservatives put forward positions in particular on the pro-life issue that are
05:13:57.440respectful and and reasonable and you know I believe that it's important that we continue
05:14:03.540to have this debate in our country and whether whether people agree with me or not I think it's
05:14:08.840an important debate to have and so that was primarily kind of the first thing that that
05:14:14.360drew me to to her was just that this is something that's important to her but it wasn't something
05:14:19.680that she was looking to kind of you know drive a hidden agenda or force people to believe what she
05:14:24.360believed and I really resonated with her approach and so when she kind of put out the no hidden
05:14:28.620agenda approach of here's the four things I would do you know I really was glad to have the chance
05:14:34.180to work with her on that so that was kind of at the core what drew me to her but overall I mean
05:14:39.840just her I found her to be a very very strong candidate who I thought could do a good job
05:14:46.640leading both the party and the country and that I wanted to help out. You and I spoke earlier in
05:14:52.000day, Steve, when we were both so young and full of hope that we'd all be in bed right now.
05:14:56.400But the one thing I have to ask you about, because you and I spoke a little while back,
05:15:03.760of course, with the independent press gallery debate in which Lesley Lewis was ill and couldn't
05:15:09.280make it. And you were very gracious and trying to make it work. And you were there. And we heard
05:15:13.920tonight from Andrew Shearer, a real support for independent media. We've heard talk from
05:15:18.720a number of the candidates about the importance of independent media and i guess no matter what
05:15:23.040happens to you do you think there's a hope that the conservatives can really turn a page and and
05:15:27.120start pushing back a bit against the mainstream media after tonight i i hope so i mean i hope
05:15:33.120like i i think and i i've shared this i think with both of you you know just in personal
05:15:37.280conversations like i think there's a whole new media landscape forming in canada and i think
05:15:41.520it's a good thing i think more competition and more ideas uh and people being able to kind of
05:15:46.880have access to different platforms that want to you know provide conservative ideals and also I
05:15:53.920think on the left like you know with press progress and others I think there's room for all of this
05:15:58.560out there and that we shouldn't be boxed in to sort of kind of what's been the more traditional
05:16:02.320media and so I think you know I'm working with Dr. Lewis I mean I know she's very much into
05:16:07.760both you know free speech and debate and I do think that we need to be more comfortable just
05:16:13.040when people sort of, you know, try to put us on our heels on these things and say, no, like
05:16:17.480conservative principles are solid. They're, they're sensible and they make sense. And yeah,
05:16:22.700let's have this discussion about it instead of just seeing someone being able to just, uh, you
05:16:26.580know, point at you and call you a name and everyone kind of back away in fear that you're going to get
05:16:33.080called another mean name. It's like, so yeah, I hope that that's sort of where we're getting to
05:16:37.740this place. I think, I think some of that movement in particular on the left, um, it's starting to
05:16:43.020go too far. And even people who might even naturally sympathize towards, you know, kind of
05:16:48.700leftist views, even, you know, some of my friends who are on the far more left side of the spectrum
05:16:54.520are starting to really kind of question it and say, whoa, you know, where does this make sense?
05:17:00.560So I think that they're probably kind of overshooting and it's starting to kind of create
05:17:04.320a, I think there's a bit more of an appetiting candidate to just respectfully push back on some
05:17:09.680these things well there certainly is a credibility issue uh you know i have critiques of the cbc that
05:17:15.280go at so many different levels it's not just about their editorial position being left-wing i mean
05:17:19.760one of the stories that we broke at true north last week was the fact that kamala harris who's
05:17:24.800running to be the second place you know the deputy the vice president uh for a party in another
05:17:29.440country got 500 more headlines than leslie lewis did who's running to essentially be prime minister
05:17:36.240in canada and so it's such a disconnect that you see it so much where the cbc is supposed to be
05:17:40.880covering canadian news and telling canadian stories but instead you know they're they're
05:17:45.840obsessing over what's happening in the united states or tonight we're told that they're playing
05:17:50.560uh hockey games instead of covering the conservative convention here so it's it's like
05:17:55.840you know they're not even doing what their mandate is is to do steve we really appreciate your time
05:18:01.120and thank you for joining us i don't know if andrew asked you this uh before in your interview
05:18:05.040i can't remember but i'll just ask you quickly do you have any predictions for the rest of the
05:18:08.560night or how do you think this is all going to play out no i have zero predictions i i uh anything
05:18:14.320i felt i knew at the beginning of the day as we've gone on and played this waiting game i
05:18:18.400i have no confidence in anything no i just think he hasn't changed his non-prediction from earlier
05:18:26.240fair enough fair enough well thank you so much steven hopefully uh hopefully eventually this uh
05:18:30.960we learned some news and we can all get to bed at something like a reasonable
05:18:34.800hour. So thanks so much for joining us. Great.
05:18:36.800Thanks to you both for the job you're doing. Take care.
05:18:39.120Thank you. That was Steve Outhouse, campaign manager for Leslyn Lewis.
05:18:42.960And since we're revisiting the highlights from earlier in the show, some,
05:47:34.240um so we we have a we have a good sense from that when you say 51 000 that is uh you know
05:47:41.580basically out of i think 172 000 ballots cast you've got a little over a third of the entire
05:47:49.080uh sample then that's right that's right so usually when you pull a riding if you're trying
05:47:53.360to get a sense you want one to three percent we are around 30 percent uh so it's a massive massive
05:47:59.420sample and that's where a lot of our confidence is based in um and uh so you know we we feel very
05:48:04.940good uh of course you never know we're we're sitting here we're waiting like everyone else
05:48:10.380uh we'll see what the results are but we we do feel we're in a good spot
05:48:15.660well that's great so what do you think it was fred uh that that if if if you're polling is
05:48:20.540accurate and you think you're confident that your candidates can win tonight what what was it uh
05:48:25.340tell us a little bit about the campaign that you ran and what you felt like your candidates
05:48:28.940real strengths were well look aaron's a tremendous communicator he was able to talk to our membership
05:48:35.340it was interesting one thing we noticed um when the the main party debates that we had the english
05:48:41.020and french one uh which feels like a lifetime ago uh when those debates happened all the media and
05:48:46.940all the pundits said peter mckay won and i watched those and i felt okay shoot everyone's saying he
05:48:52.060He won. That wasn't good for us. But then we saw a spike in our polling, because we've been pulling
05:48:56.280not just exit polling. We've been pulling our membership list every week, constantly, aggressively.
05:49:00.340So we saw a spike in our polling. So I actually went back and watched the French debate in
05:49:04.660particular. And I noticed Aaron was the only one actually speaking to our members. Peter was
05:49:10.740speaking to media. He was speaking to pundits. He wasn't speaking to Conservative Party members
05:49:16.600in his tone and his direction Aaron was and I think though you know people said Peter won the
05:49:23.420debates I think we'll see it was actually Aaron who won those debates that I think is an interesting
05:49:32.160dynamic because I know that oftentimes you get candidates in campaigns that think there's a lot
05:49:37.860of emphasis on the debates and the advertising and stuff like that and you have other campaigns
05:49:43.260that are in the school of thought of it's just, you know, simply a membership drive and a voter
05:49:47.520drive. With the high numbers in this race for how many ballots cast, as I said earlier, over 170,000,
05:49:54.840do you think that the high turnout is an overall reflection of engagement? Or do you think that's
05:49:59.900really coming down to specific campaigns that brought in members for that campaign rather than
05:50:05.400people that just joined up on the party and said, you know, I think this is a good race to get
05:50:09.740involved in i'm going to join and listen and then cast a ballot for someone eventually
05:50:13.340so based on our tracking and based what we can uh you know gather from the other campaigns and
05:50:18.880our conversations with them the biggest when the membership sale period was going on the number one
05:50:23.840you know there's four campaigns selling memberships it was the conservative party of canada who crushed
05:50:29.140us all in membership sales just people generally getting involved in the party and buying a
05:50:33.700membership and taking an interest i know other campaigns about spinning that they sold an insane
05:50:38.500amount. It wasn't them. It was the party who sold on its own organically a tremendous amount.
05:50:45.540I got to say, we crushed records this summer, fundraising records, donor records,
05:50:50.720membership sales, and voters. No political party in the history of this country has had more people
05:50:56.320vote in a leadership race than what we have seen this conservative party race. We're doing it in
05:51:02.860the middle of a pandemic in the middle of summer. I think it's very real. I think our party is
05:51:07.580incredibly strong and i do believe uh the next the leader of our party is going to be prime minister
05:51:13.100and will be prime minister soon well i think that's definitely fred a reflection of the times
05:51:18.220that we're living in i mean just look at what's going on in ottawa over the last few weeks just a
05:51:22.700total storm of calamity for the trudeau liberals and just learning the extent to which not only
05:51:30.060the ethical scandals with regards to we but just how much money they're handing out left right and
05:51:34.380center you know their own bureaucrats are saying they use loosey-goosey logic and meh it's just
05:51:39.420money no problem winky face like just seeing the extent of of chaos in in ottawa uh i'm sure
05:51:46.060motivated a lot of people uh who might be on the conservative spectrum to to join and get a
05:51:51.420membership to to get a new uh leader i just i want to hear your thoughts on what you think about the
05:51:58.460idea of a general election do you think that's something that is coming down soon uh do you care
05:52:03.660to speculate on what might happen after the throne speech in september look i i believe uh trudeau is
05:52:10.940going to um take every opportunity he can to seize more power he's going to look at this
05:52:17.420and he's going to come in with some kind of speech on the throne and budget with
05:52:22.060measures that he think will get him re-elected i i think trudeau is going to try to orchestrate his
05:52:27.420own defeat or call an election himself i think that's very real that's very possible so we as
05:52:32.620conservatives need to prepare for that regardless of who wins this leadership race we all need to
05:52:36.860get behind that person and start preparing for that for for that potential scenario i know one
05:52:43.340of the the big i'll say talking points and i don't mean it in a negative or judgmental way but it was
05:52:47.900in fact deployed by the campaign and by erin o'toole is that erin o'toole was ready to hit the ground
05:52:53.020running with a seat in parliament if he's successful what does the role of official
05:52:58.540opposition leader look like for Aaron O'Toole if he is successful tonight, given that Parliament
05:53:03.540has been prorogued? What's the priority for him if he's successful starting tomorrow over the next
05:53:08.740month? Well, we need to build our campaign team. We need to build the party. We need to build the
05:53:13.800leader's office. There's so much work that needs to be done. And if Aaron wins, and I do believe
05:53:17.520he will, we go to work tomorrow morning. There's no day off. There's no time. There's no vacation.
05:53:22.540We go to work tomorrow. I've been working eight days, or sorry, eight months straight on this,
05:53:27.660seven days a week i took yesterday off because the polls closed friday night uh and uh we've been uh
05:53:33.420you know this was our break and we go right back to work uh we you know taking a leadership of a
05:53:38.700political party is a responsibility uh to our country and we have a lot of work to do and we
05:53:43.100we need to take it serious and we're going to go right at it well one of the questions that i had
05:53:48.460for fred was uh we heard earlier lisa wright talk about how usually you know campaigns are hard
05:53:54.460fought usually you're fighting them against ideological opponents when it comes to leadership
05:53:58.380race you're fighting against fellow conservatives and usually a convention is a time where everyone
05:54:02.940can come together and feel united and and and reminded of of how we're all sort of you know
05:54:08.700in it for the same thing and and that ultimately you're all on the same team but because this year
05:54:14.300it's all done digitally that that might not happen and that bridging those divides might be tough
05:54:20.380I know it has been a pretty vicious campaign at times, particularly between your campaign and
05:54:26.540Peter McKay. So I wonder if you could speak a little bit about how that divide has happened
05:54:32.860and what you think the path forward for unity of this party is. Well, look, I mean, political
05:54:39.100campaigns or leadership campaigns are the political equivalent of a civil war. It's friend versus
05:54:43.500friend, brother versus sister. I have very close friends on the McKay campaign that I have not
05:54:50.140spoken to in many many months um you know we are you know we're fighting for what we believe in we
05:54:55.100go full tilt at the end of the day after tonight four leadership campaigns become one we unite we
05:55:01.980we join together and uh it you know it takes time we'll have to sit down over the next few weeks
05:55:08.060but look when we win this campaign uh this leadership race we we will absolutely reach
05:55:13.260out to the other camps we want the best and the brightest we owe that to canada that's our
05:55:16.620our responsibility we're not just it's not just about it's our team takes over it's we unite and
05:55:21.580make a new team of all of us together to take on uh the true to liberals and that's how we're going
05:55:26.780to win the next election we we can't be we can't divide ourselves we can't act like it's you know
05:55:31.620it's just us who won it's uh we all have to come together one question i want to put with you put
05:55:38.100to you just before we uh we let you go here uh fred uh this is from a tweet from steve pakin he
05:55:43.620He says that an Aaron O'Toole campaign official is saying that the Peter McKay campaign is challenging virtually every single outstanding ballot, which is significantly adding to the delay.
05:55:55.020He followed up with a tweet that says the Peter McKay campaign says they're not protesting.
06:12:11.780and potentially political life as well.
06:12:13.980And a lot of the times when you think about
06:12:15.940politicians that have stepped down. They're at a point where they can kind of transition into being
06:12:21.680more ex-officio members of the Canadian political class. Whereas Andrew Scheer, I mean, could easily
06:12:27.380do a lot of other things. And I don't know what those things will be. I did when I was speaking
06:12:32.000with him a couple of weeks ago on earth that he plans to stick around as a member of parliament.
06:12:36.360He wants to run again in 2021 or 2020 or whenever the next election is. So he wants to continue
06:12:43.320serving. So he could be a cabinet minister conceivably. But I also wouldn't be surprised
06:12:49.120to see him go as, you know, Premier of Saskatchewan in the future to take on another role somewhere
06:12:55.180else. And again, I mean, it's purely theoretical at this point. We don't know what the future is
06:12:59.860going to hold for the Conservatives or for Andrew Scheer. But it is important to note that this is
06:13:04.560not necessarily the goodbye that it is for some other politicians who are a lot older.
06:13:10.960Well, I'm sure that many in the media are wishing it's a good buy. And, you know, it's actually kind of funny because Andrew Scheer is just kind of trolling the media right now on social media, which to me is just so enjoyable. Usually it's me that's making fun of all these idiotic, self-important journalists. But right now it's Andrew Scheer.
06:13:31.200So just a few examples of the tweet that I mentioned from the McLean's reporter, a guy named Jason Markusoff, who was saying that I was that I came up through the party's comm shop, which is false, fake news, not true.
06:13:48.120Andrew Scheer replied to that saying yes, and they and they are ashen faces when their organizations cash in checks they receive from a liberal bailout fund.
06:13:57.200know the one that this guy with this guy on the board so then you post an article from mcclain's
06:14:02.800of jerry diaz kind of embracing justin schrudo so andrew shear is there replying to these uh
06:14:09.200these journalists who are making fun of him and true north same thing paul vieira from the wall
06:14:14.560street journal said uh shear suggests tories uh should read post-millennial and true north instead
06:14:20.640of the mainstream media andrew she replied not just tories all canadian so uh good to see andrew
06:14:27.120sheer punching back in real time trolling uh all the mainstream media who are mocking them and
06:14:33.760mocking true north it's kind of funny andrew because obviously we weren't expecting uh andrew
06:14:40.080sheer to give us a shout out like that and it just seemed really seemed to hit a nerve with
06:14:44.080the media you know there he gave a long speech it was very detailed it was full of interesting
06:14:48.480things he made one comment about how you know you shouldn't just take the fact of the of the
06:14:53.520mainstream media you should do research you should look into other areas you should look to new
06:14:58.240independent outlets like uh post-millennial and true north for your news and all of a sudden you
06:15:02.800have all these mainstream media journalists like you know the the media party or the mean girls in
06:15:07.440the media as our friend ezra levant likes to call them um and these journalists all start freaking
06:15:12.160out and so here again you have uh andrew shared trolling these journalists this is someone from
06:15:18.800the toronto star um saying partisan endorsements clearly okay with the post-millennial and they
06:15:25.120post the same image of of sheer making that comment and then andrew sheer replied back
06:15:32.160with a toronto star article saying liberals are the best choice for canada so you know
06:15:36.880and his captions so weird eh so weird okay so good to see andrew uh sheer having a good time
06:15:43.760with these journalists who probably are not used to a politician pushing back and again i guess
06:15:49.680this brings me to an earlier point i made andrew which is that you know it's too bad that that
06:15:55.200that industry got pushed out after one election because he did have a good showing you know it
06:15:59.280was a tough it was an uphill battle he didn't do as well communicating some of the social
06:16:03.440conservative issues as we wish he had he he stumbled a little bit in his explanations and
06:16:08.640pushing back to the media he was a little bit too polite and too cute and you know tried to be funny
06:16:12.800at times when he should have been firmer in some ways i just wish that maybe he would have had a
06:16:18.240second opportunity because he's becoming more known he's becoming more comfortable you know
06:16:22.800in some ways he would be a great leader now although that's that's not what's happening but
06:16:28.080you know the idea that you lose one election and you have to go i think that that's that's tough
06:16:32.720precedent going forward yeah so we have a couple of updates from ottawa apparently they have 100
06:16:38.560ballots left and the party has given campaigns a 20-minute warning. Now we are with you for the
06:16:45.080long haul. The Andrew Scheer resignation speech or farewell speech is just under 14 minutes so
06:16:50.900we're going to share that speech with you again because it was very popular. The media is not
06:16:55.580happy with it although as Candace just mentioned Andrew Scheer is not backtracking at all from
06:17:01.140that so we're going to play that. We are still with you. We are not you know throwing in the
06:17:05.580towel on this. If the party starts its broadcast before the speech ends, we'll cut away and we'll
06:17:11.460come back. But the results may be happening within 20 minutes. But let's go to Andrew Scheer's
06:17:16.120farewell speech delivered earlier this evening. Folks, the Honourable Andrew Scheer.
06:17:22.220Well, thank you very much Scott, thanks Lisa, thanks Dan, bonsoir tout le monde.
06:32:26.180We've done live shows with our weekly True North update,
06:32:29.000but this sort of a anchored live show around an event was a bit of a new one for us. So I don't
06:32:34.080know if, I mean, obviously we want them to be a bit shorter next time, but I am so far actually
06:32:38.240happy all things considered about how it's gone. Well, we've learned a lot together, haven't we,
06:32:43.040Andrew? Uh, you know, initially we were going to have a 30 minute broadcast prior to the results
06:32:48.540coming in. About half of that was interviews that Andrew had done. So, so, you know, we've been live
06:32:53.240here for seven hours. We did a pre-show for an hour before Andrew was doing interviews all day.
06:32:58.020so we've really been non-stop and you know unlike our friends at the mainstream media we don't have
06:33:02.580a huge budget we don't have a huge production team it's basically just us with uh oliver our
06:33:07.620producer and phil our producer executive producer behind the scenes putting this all together and so
06:33:13.860you know huge uh thank you to you guys uh behind the scenes uh for that you know if we're over at
06:33:18.900the cbc we would have people interns bringing us coffee and and people bringing us different uh
06:33:24.980interesting tidbits to talk about and we'd have all kinds of clips that we could throw to and
06:33:30.020you know life would be a lot easier but you know the life of an independent journalist isn't quite
06:33:35.220as glamorous as the life of a cbc journalist i guess andrew but i all things considered i'm
06:33:40.980you know pretty happy with our broadcast i think we still have a couple thousand people watching
06:33:44.900across the mediums between facebook and and youtube which which is great for a very small
06:33:50.420outlet like us and i think the numbers have been higher at other points in the night so we're very
06:33:54.340happy with it and we thank you you know to each and every one of you who's who's stuck with us
06:33:58.580and and watched all of our interviews and this entire show really really appreciate it you know
06:34:03.380we are still growing and and and learning and trying to get our message out there and trying
06:34:08.020to provide the kind of coverage that canadians are looking for i'll just say it again you know
06:34:13.460we replay this uh the the speech from andrew sheer it was great to hear uh to have him you know push
06:34:18.660back against the mainstream media in his speech tell canadians specifically to you know question
06:34:23.860the the the facts that are coming from mainstream media because they're not always true and to look
06:34:28.180to alternative sources of news and media and he he said specifically post-millennial and true north
06:34:33.700which obviously is a huge compliment for us i'm not going to pretend uh that it isn't but apparently
06:34:39.540to some of the journalists watching and and commenting on twitter um it was very unbecoming
06:34:46.100of us to share that clip andrew because we we should have been uh embarrassed and humiliated
06:34:51.300by the fact that a partisan politician mentioned us instead of actually, you know, sharing that
06:34:56.360message and supporting it. So I guess that's part of the reason why they just don't consider us
06:35:01.740real journalists over here at True North. Yeah, and one of them was from a member of the
06:35:06.100Parliamentary Press Gallery, who many of our viewers and supporters know we've had a bit of a
06:35:11.520battle of sorts with because it was the Parliamentary Press Gallery that was instrumental
06:35:15.680in barring True North from covering the election debate. So when people in this exclusive club that
06:35:21.180has, by government mandate, a greater access to practice journalism than other people is
06:35:27.180kind of snarking at the recognition of independent media, there's a big problem. And that's why it's
06:35:32.520important to fight for it. So this is, I guess, proving that no timeline can be taken for granted
06:35:38.340or taken at face value. About 15 minutes ago, we were given the 20 minute warning. And as per our
06:35:44.400friend Brian Lilly, he just tweeted a moment ago that the 15 minute warning didn't apparently start
06:35:50.580right away. The 15 minute warning had a delayed start time. So there was actually a 15 minute
06:35:56.080warning for the 15 minute warning. So according to Brian Lilly, the 15 minute warning went into
06:36:01.260effect at 1130 Eastern, which means at 1135 Eastern, which is what the time is now, we are
06:36:07.760supposedly 10 minutes away. So at this point, I don't even know why we're bothering with the times,
06:36:11.680but we are giving you the information as we get it. That's the fun of a live show. And we are,
06:36:17.100as I said, at this point, we're committed to it. We've had a lot of support from people on
06:36:22.720social media. And while we are waiting, I guess let's actually put an invitation. I mean,
06:36:28.000I'm watching Twitter right now more than anything else. So if you want to tweet me
06:36:30.940at Andrew Lawton, your thoughts on the race predictions, questions, we can turn this into
06:36:35.840a bit more of a, not necessarily casual, but a bit more of an informal conversation now just as
06:36:41.740we wait for the results to start. So if you have any questions, you can tweet me at Andrew Lawton
06:36:46.240And we'll we'll get to a few of those. But I do think as far as the takeaways from the race and from the evening are concerned, the one thing that I would very much say everyone seems to be on board with, regardless of what side of the Conservative Party they're from, is that Leslie Lewis has become a real star of the race.
06:37:05.020And to go, even if you're not a fan of hers or if you didn't vote for her, to go from being a political unknown who has no elected experience and not much political experience in general, to being the potential, I mean, under some scenarios, winner of the race or at the very least the kingmaker of the race, that is a real achievement.
06:37:23.420And Candace mentioned those fundraising numbers earlier, to raise $2 million when a few months ago people were thinking you wouldn't be able to raise even the $300,000 entry fee is quite substantive. And it still is a bit odd in a way, and not at all as a knock against Lesley Lewis, but oftentimes politics is very closed off to newcomers.
06:37:46.520And there are a few exceptions to this.
06:37:48.440Obviously, we had Kevin O'Leary last time, but he came in with some celebrity.
06:42:05.620I mean, do you think the Conservatives need to be abandoning the strategy that seems to
06:42:09.100have been there since 2015 of just running against Justin Trudeau?
06:42:14.060Well, I think that was certainly part of the problem for Andrew Scheer.
06:42:17.700you know, during this last campaign, the SNC-Lavalin scandal was so devastating. And for
06:42:22.740folks that were really tuned in and paying attention to sort of, you know, political
06:42:26.220insiders like you and I, Andrew, it seemed like it was, you know, that was going to be the end of
06:42:31.180the liberal government, the end of Justin Trudeau. I remember there was a really devastating
06:42:37.080cover on Maclean's magazine, calling him the imposter, and just seemed like, okay,
06:42:42.000the mask has fallen off, you know, the emperor has no clothes. Once the mainstream media turns on you,
06:42:46.820there's not really anything there there with Justin Trudeau there's a substance and so if he
06:42:51.320doesn't have the loving admiration of his friends in the mainstream media what does he have but
06:42:56.680clearly that wasn't enough you know Canadians weren't as tuned into the SNC level scandal
06:43:01.200maybe it was more complex obviously Trudeau got downgraded to a minority government he didn't win
06:43:07.460the popular vote Andrew Schur got more individual votes cast for him and so I thought the conservatives
06:43:12.100actually did a pretty good job last time around but they didn't get the coveted uh government you
06:43:17.240know obviously Andrew Scheer wanted to become prime minister so I think that there is a lesson
06:43:21.660learned there which is that you have to offer something different you can't just say you know
06:43:26.620we're not them um Canadians want to have a strong alternative they want to understand what it is
06:43:31.980that that is going to be the next government what what the platform is what the values are
06:43:36.460and instead of just running about what we're not you know you have to really put forth uh something
06:43:41.820and I think we've talked about it a little bit throughout the podcast, Andrew, which is that,
06:43:46.060you know, there is a really tremendous story to be told. The conservative worldview needs to be
06:43:52.220emphasized and it's such an easy story to tell that you need someone who's really unabashed,
06:43:57.900unafraid, willing to tell that story and just culturally at this moment in time, you know,
06:44:03.260we're living through some really strange times, not just with COVID and not just with all these
06:44:07.820scandals in government but just more broadly speaking where we we see this the rise of cancel
06:44:13.180culture these woke social justice warriors who are trying to say that you know if you don't believe
06:44:18.860exactly the same things that they believe in and you don't agree with their extreme ideology on
06:44:22.940every point uh you shouldn't have a platform you shouldn't exist that you know they go out of their
06:44:26.860way to try to uh cancel and remove platforms from any conservative in canada that has a platform
06:44:32.860they've done it to rex murphy they did it to barbara k to conrad black uh you know we saw
06:44:37.980stock all day get kicked off the show uh at uh cbc just for saying something really mild um that
06:44:44.140wasn't ill-intended at all and so i think more and more canadians are looking at this trend
06:44:49.340with with concern and they want someone who's going to push back and provide sort of a common
06:44:53.740sense appeal and that's really where conservatives can can step in and be the counter voice to to
06:44:59.420this sort of woke out of control left leftist madness um that has really captured the imagination
06:45:05.740not just of the liberal party but also the mainstream media and so many other mainstream
06:45:10.780institutions in canada it's time that someone pushed back against it i think conservatives are
06:45:14.780well positioned to do that so i think that all this is just to say the conservatives have a lot
06:45:18.380going for them they should really try to communicate that more to canadians what they do stand for
06:45:23.260what they believe in and not just uh hey look you know true liberals are corrupt yeah we all know
06:45:28.380that but we've got to do something more i think in order to replace the government so i'm hearing
06:45:34.300from a source in one of the campaigns right now just so you all know that 35 000 ballots were
06:45:42.140sliced by the machine and had to be fixed so earlier we were told that it was somewhere in
06:45:46.940the range of four or five thousand now we're being told 35 000 ballots now again this is coming from
06:45:53.180a campaign so so take that with a grain of salt although this doesn't seem to be anything that is
06:45:57.580is particularly biased or partisan. This is just a statement of fact. So again, it puts things into
06:46:03.340perspective. And what was interesting, I mean, a lot of people, yes, of course, were complaining
06:46:07.960about the delays. And, you know, I count myself in that category, not as complaining necessarily,
06:46:13.160but certainly pointing it out. But ultimately, even the people on the campaigns that I were
06:46:17.240speaking to were saying, we've got to get it right. I mean, a rushed result would be worse
06:46:21.860than a delayed result when it comes into questioning the integrity of some of the
06:46:26.560information. So that is one of the details and all the more impressive that they seem to be down to
06:46:32.500at least the final few ballots, if not completely done right now. The latest estimated start time
06:46:39.620for results was 11.45pm Eastern. It is now 11.46pm Eastern. So perhaps it's going to be bumped back
06:46:46.060again, or perhaps we'll actually be looking at a result that's coming in the mere moment. So we
06:46:52.340are monitoring that and we'll throw to it the second that we have that available. I mentioned
06:46:57.320earlier in the show that I think one of the challenges here is the Conservative Party's
06:47:01.980required usage of mail-in ballots. And I think I'd suggest it offhandedly, online ballots. I
06:47:08.380actually got a lot of pushback from that. People saying that online voting only makes the integrity
06:47:13.880question more of an issue rather than less of one. I would love to find a secure way to do
06:47:21.140a vote that's a little bit more modernized. I don't know what that would look like without
06:47:25.200compromising security, though. Do you have any ideas, Candace? Well, I remember looking into this
06:47:30.000some time ago, back when I was a political science student, and, you know, reading what the sort of
06:47:36.080leading people in the field at the time were saying was that basically, there was just no way
06:47:40.700to do these kind of elections, you know, either digitally or through mail-in ballots. There's all
06:47:46.820kinds of security and fraud issues. I mean, you know, it's already difficult as it is just given
06:47:52.440that you, well, Andrew, you've broken stories in the past of people showing up to vote without any
06:47:57.940ID, people who may or may not even be Canadian citizens trying to vote in general elections,
06:48:03.200people who are, you know, in Canada as permanent residents or refugees even that haven't even had
06:48:09.480their paperwork process that are being invited to vote. There are all kinds of issues with
06:48:14.520integrity and so when you move it away from in person and you put it online and into mailing
06:48:20.140ballots even uh there's just so many security concerns so i i at this point i wouldn't be too
06:48:25.820confident i haven't read the the recent literature maybe they've found ways to make it more secure
06:48:30.100but i would i would certainly be be skeptical of that i think that the best way to vote is still
06:48:35.300good old-fashioned in-person voting uh obviously you know given the the situation with covid and
06:48:41.160everything that wasn't possible and you know this is the reality with with something like
06:48:46.040a mail-in ballot i'm a little disappointed with the conservatives for not being more forthright
06:48:49.960i mean how many times have we heard a new time tonight it just hasn't come true it's like hey
06:48:55.320guys you know politicians already have a reputation of not being trustworthy and you know when they
06:49:00.840say things that they're not really telling the truth uh you know this is exactly an example of
06:49:05.640that here where we're you know we're told it's going to be six o'clock then we're told it's
06:49:09.400to be eight o'clock now we're told 11 30 actually we're told very precisely 11 42 um and then that
06:49:15.400was clearly not the case so the the campaigns are being told that they are given 15 minute notice
06:49:21.400before the results are supposed to come in we've been given that 15 minute notice a couple of times
06:49:26.200now and uh we still don't have the results and the fact that they're now saying that it was 35 000 or
06:49:31.800we're now hearing that it was 30 000 ripped ballots and not the 2 000 that we were initially
06:49:36.760told us like, what's the story here? Just tell us it straight. Tell us the truth. Don't give us
06:49:43.780these half answers that turn out to be not true. That's exactly why people don't really trust
06:49:48.360politicians and political parties in the first place. Yeah, at this point, I think it's gone on
06:49:53.140long enough. Stacey Abrams thinks she's the winner of the conservative leadership race, which
1.00
06:49:57.180is eventually what happens with any delayed election. So we have to be very mindful of that.
06:50:01.700she might show up for question period when parliament resumes. I do think that, you know,
06:50:06.860it's so interesting because obviously candidates and campaigns have to be optimistic and they have
06:50:12.280to be confident. But I go back to the point that I raised earlier, which is the level of confidence
06:50:17.720from the O'Toole campaign. I mean, I don't know if it's bravado or ignorance or genuine reliance
06:50:24.540on their data. I mean, we heard the numbers from Aaron O'Toole campaign manager, Fred DeLaurie
06:50:29.420earlier, saying that they did exit polls of 51,000 people, of 51,000 voters out of 172,000.
06:50:37.840If those polling results are accurate, and this is not predictive polling, but exit polling,
06:50:43.740as in how did you vote? If that's accurate, yeah, I'd be inclined to trust the O'Toole campaign,
06:50:49.100but we all know campaigns seem to have a blind spot for their own data and for their own results.
06:50:54.420Absolutely. I mean, every campaign that I've spoken to says that they think their candidate
06:50:58.180is going to win uh obviously you know when we had uh steve outhouse from less than lewis campaign he
06:51:04.500didn't want to make any predictions but definitely you know when you when you speak to them off the
06:51:09.380record and on background and stuff they all think their their people are going to win so i don't
06:51:13.860know if it's just uh optimism of a campaign or or selective uh information that they choose to
06:51:19.860consume but yeah at this point you kind of wonder like what's what's the benefit in saying that your
06:51:24.660campaign is going to win. You're going to turn around if that's not actually the case.
06:51:29.060Because you look really bad if you're wrong and you look really good if you were humble and,
06:51:33.300well, I don't know, we hope to win. So it's a high stakes game when you act this confident
06:51:38.660even after the votes are in. Yeah, exactly. And again, there's nothing really to gain other than
06:51:44.100just to say that you believe that your campaign did a good job or whatever. But yeah, no, I think
06:51:50.660that there probably is something to their polling and i wouldn't be surprised if that is how the
06:51:54.660results come out even some of the things that we're sort of hearing about how the mckay team
06:51:59.620is challenging each and every ballot well that would sort of indicate that they're behind they're
06:52:03.780trailing and they're trying to catch up and make up for votes you know which is why again we're
06:52:09.220told that perhaps you know the speculation that that's why we're so delayed is because
06:52:13.540the sorry the mccade uh campaign is questioning a lot of the results and and and you know wanting
06:52:20.820to double check everything and again that would that would indicate that they were behind but
06:52:25.620again you don't you don't want to speculate based on half half uh true information or based on
06:52:32.180things that you're hearing and that kind of thing so it doesn't really benefit you uh in the end
06:52:37.300well andrew i know this wasn't really the the night that we expected at all um you know we still have
06:52:43.380our staff meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning yeah we do uh we do a true north scrum every
06:52:48.580monday morning bright and early and so andrew and i might be a little burnt out for that call
06:52:53.540uh just to any uh true north staff uh paying attention right now you know you might have to
06:52:58.500carry the call tomorrow but um yeah we did we did a a pool inside of true north where we predicted
06:53:05.540the outcome uh just a little friendly internal poll among true north uh staff and i i was pretty
06:53:13.540surprised i think that most people who work for true north predicted that erin o'toole would win
06:53:19.140uh most people predicted that that uh that peter mckay would come in second uh given that you know
06:53:24.820mckay is supposedly the front runner he's the one that had the most name recognition he he's got the
06:53:29.700you know the thickest resume and he was one of the founders essentially of this party
06:53:34.340Andrew, why do you think that so many people on our team were leaning more towards thinking that
06:53:40.340Erin O'Toole was going to win? It's tough to say. I think a lot of the discussions that I had with
06:53:45.700some of our friends and colleagues were really coming down to the ranking. I think people seeing
06:53:49.860a lot of support for Sloan and Lewis and just not seeing Peter McKay as having that 50% threshold
06:53:55.780that he would need to win without down ballot support. And I think that's what it came down to.
06:54:00.500And by the way, predictions are not endorsements. I mean, a lot of people on our team were somewhat agnostic or certainly aren't members or voting members.
06:54:09.140And they still were just kind of looking at where they thought things were going with it.
06:54:13.760And a lot of us had the same results, but very different paths to get there.
06:54:19.260Yeah, that's right. And different people who they thought would, you know, come in second or come in third, different percentages and all that.
06:54:26.400And certainly not endorsing any candidate or anything, just predicting it.
06:54:31.820It's kind of always fun to see these office pools.
06:54:35.120I think only one person on our entire team had Peter McKay winning.
06:54:39.280So if McKay does pull it off, that one person will walk away with a lot of bragging rights
06:54:51.560Yes, it is 1154 p.m. Eastern Time. And I will point out not to gloat, but the Conservative Party of Canada did say earlier that it would have a leader tonight. Now, if I'm getting technical here, I don't know if they said tonight, Eastern Time or just tonight. I mean, it's still going to be for a little while. I think in the in Guam, I think it's still going to be tonight for, you know, a good, you know, 10 hours or so.
06:55:18.700But ultimately speaking, this is, you know, five minutes away from it no longer being tonight. And we don't have a result just yet. Although I'm seeing a couple of things here. Steve Pakin has tweeted that the lawyers for Peter McKay have left the counting room where they've been locked up for 18 hours.
06:55:37.940We have another tweet here saying that this is from someone else, Western Standard, saying
06:55:44.680that Aaron O'Toole has been told that he has won.
06:55:47.380Now, the reason I share that with you is because we were told by the party that when the results
06:55:52.960are broadcast live, the candidates will be hearing them for the first time.
06:55:56.360So if he has been, as they say, told he has won, it might not mean by any official source,
06:56:01.700but rather by scrutineers in the room that are just saying, yeah, we think you've won.
06:56:05.760So I take that with a grain of salt if you see it circulating, but I share that just to give the
06:56:10.160context that the party has said unequivocally that candidates will not be given advanced knowledge
06:56:16.400of a win. Interesting. And yet we were told that they were going to go to a press conference. So
06:56:23.360I guess the winner would just find out spontaneously, which I guess is pretty much what happens
06:56:29.040when these results are delivered live at a convention. But again, I don't even really
06:56:34.800know at this point, Andrew, if they're going to just announce the first ballot and then we're
06:56:38.720going to have to wait for the second ballot, are they still going province by province? Have they
06:56:42.320just scrapped that? Do we know anything about what the ceremony is going to look like once they
06:56:45.920finally do come back? The last I heard was that they're still going to province by province. Now,
06:56:51.420I mean, we heard how long it took to do the introductions of the people from the various
06:56:55.720provinces that were going to be doing their announcements. So I don't know if they have
06:57:02.600those people on retainer and they have to stick with the province by province analysis. But I do
06:57:07.960think that at this point, that has not changed officially, though once the parties come back,
06:57:12.540we may see a little bit of a change. So just if you're tuning in, again, I'm getting a bunch of
06:57:17.080people asking about this tweet that said Erin O'Toole has been told he won. The party has said
06:57:21.960that candidates are not being told in advance. So if a candidate has been told that they are
06:57:27.680victorious, it would have to have been from a scrutineer. And I don't actually know if
06:57:32.000scrutineers have the full numbers. I like they could be keeping their own ballot counts, of
06:57:37.380course. But as I understand it, they'd be just looking at individual ballots. I don't think
06:57:42.000they're getting a final tally that they're leaving the room with. So so take this all with with a
06:57:47.020grain of salt. I know I've used that expression a few times tonight. But I think we need that much
06:57:50.720salt with a lot of the information that's coming out because the longer it goes, the higher the
06:57:55.200stakes are. And I think the easier it is for for things that are in some cases, rumors, maybe it's
06:57:59.940a half truth or just something that's entirely untrue to be able to get around. So that's my
06:58:06.060TED talk on this, if you will. Well, it is good to know. And again, yeah,
06:58:10.580there's lots of circulation. And with anything, social media, you know, you hear rumors and you
06:58:15.120don't know how true they are, where they're coming from. Andrew, I'll ask you a bit of a more,
06:58:19.780not a personal question, but a professional question about this race. You've gotten to sit
06:58:23.560down and interview all of the candidates except for Peter McKay, who for some reason didn't want
06:58:28.480to. You interviewed them at the start of the race. And then again, near the end, when we did the
06:58:32.380fireside chats, was there anything that sort of surprised you from what the candidates had to say
06:58:38.040in your interviews? What was the sort of biggest thing that you learned from sitting down with
06:58:42.900them? It's actually an interesting question. I would say that nothing surprised me really about
06:58:51.260the interviews that I did. I think in some cases I was really in, what's a good way of putting it?
06:58:57.840I was very pleased with how the candidates carried themselves in the face of criticism.
06:59:04.680And to look at the most recent interviews, the Independent Press Gallery fireside chats,
06:59:09.100both Aaron O'Toole and Derek Sloan were in the hot seat.
06:59:12.940And it was a bit of a distinct experience for us because we were planning on doing a
06:59:24.980And we did that in a different format.
06:59:26.460And in a one-on-one interview, there's nowhere to hide. Your talking points won't save you.
06:59:31.120Soundbites won't save you. If you don't answer the question, I was pressing them on it. And both of
06:59:35.800them said things that I might not like or whatnot, but they both, I'd say, composed themselves very
06:59:41.680well. And when they were pushed, when they did have pushback from me, I thought they did very
06:59:46.420well. Now, I don't think it's fair to compare interviews later on in the race with at the
06:59:51.020beginning of the race because candidates, especially newer candidates, grow. Lesley Lewis,
06:59:56.020I sat down with once very early on, and I didn't think she was exceptional. I thought she was good,
07:00:01.140but I've also seen her improve throughout the race. I mean, even from some of the earlier
0.83
07:00:07.220interviews she did to the English language debate to some of the later interviews,
07:00:11.520she really rose to it. And Derek Sloan as well. I saw him do a couple of speeches actually
07:00:16.920a few weeks from one another. And even between the first and the second, he had improved a fair
07:00:22.020bit. So for Peter McKay and Erin O'Toole, I mean, they've been in politics for a while. What you see
07:00:26.800is what you get. But I was really interested to see how Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan really
07:00:33.060continued to improve throughout the race, even though it was a challenging race. And for Leslyn
07:00:37.840Lewis, especially, who's not a member of parliament, a relatively new experience.
07:00:42.920Absolutely. And so unfortunately, you did not get the opportunity to sit down with Peter McKay. He's
07:00:47.560the only one who declined to take up our invitation to come and do a one-on-one interview. And
07:00:53.000unfortunately, again, he didn't show up to the Independent Press Gallery's debate that we held.
07:00:59.040But Andrew, you did get a chance to ask him a question, which was after, I believe it was the
07:01:04.120English leader debate that was held through the official Conservative Party. So we have that clip
07:01:11.020of you asking a question to peter mckay on his position on hate speech let's go to that clip now
07:01:17.900good evening mr mckay in the previous parliament the justice committee had done studies on on
07:01:23.820potentially reviving a new version of the old section 13 which was the part of the canadian
07:01:29.340human rights act that went after online speech and the new version that ended up being recommended
07:01:34.940was something that would look at putting liability on social social media companies that have what
07:01:40.460What the government determines is hate speech and also bringing back some of those mechanisms that allow the government to use human rights legislation to go after online hate speech.
07:01:51.340What I support, Andrew, frankly, is greater emphasis on protecting children from online abuse, from luring.
07:01:58.220And we tried to do that when I was in government.
07:02:00.480When I was Justice Minister, one of the bills that we brought forward that is now part of the Canadian Criminal Code that I'm very proud of was designed to protect children from online bullying.
07:02:10.460and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images that type of legislation when it's used
07:02:17.180to protect rather than to be pernicious or to limit free speech I do support that type of
07:02:23.400legislation this bill that you're talking about I have not seen the details of it but in in general
07:02:28.340terms I'm not for punishing people's thoughts or expressions or putting limitations on their speech
07:02:34.160I am in very much in in favor of protecting children in particular from some of the online
07:02:39.920activities that are going out that I find to be very pernicious very evil
07:02:43.940quite frankly and and they go after vulnerable people children who are
07:02:47.540highly impressionable I also do believe on the same subject that we should be
07:02:52.220doing more to ensure that those big internet service providers have
07:02:58.520requirements to operate in Canada to provide Canadian jobs and to not be
07:03:02.900exempt from the the taxation quite frankly that they are exempt from
07:04:14.300What would Canada's role be on the world stage?
07:04:16.500What would our fiscal situation look like?
07:04:18.820You know, we hear a lot that he's a red Tory.
07:04:21.780What does that even really mean in the context of today's politics?
07:04:24.660Because Justin Trudeau is so far to the left.
07:04:27.380His government is basically a socialist government.
07:04:29.460we've seen spending never before seen before i think that the current deficit is seven times
07:04:34.660larger than any other deficit in canadian history well typically a red tory would be someone who's
07:04:40.260more social more more fiscally liberal more more open to big government programs uh but without
07:04:46.900that means smaller government compared to justin trudeau so then wouldn't he sort of become more of
07:04:50.900a fiscal conservative in today's environment there's so much that we didn't get to hear from
07:04:55.780peter mckay that we didn't learn about him and i think that that's ultimately to his detriment that
07:05:00.420he's the one that loses out because you know conservatives want to get to know someone before
07:05:04.660they consider putting their name on the ballot whether it's in the first place second or third
07:05:09.380and it is really too bad that peter mckay failed to do that you know you did get that opportunity
07:05:14.660to put the question to him after that leadership debate but do you feel like there's something
07:05:19.380missing uh from peter mckay that you would have liked to learn more about him uh any specific
07:05:23.700policies or anything like that, Andrew? To be honest, I think national unity was the key thing
07:05:28.800I wanted from him. How do you reconcile your identity as an Atlantic Canadian, as a Torontonian
07:05:34.540with the Westerners and a lot of those old reform alliance types that are very uneasy about a PC
07:05:40.760leader? I would have asked about how you bring social conservatives and other conservatives that
07:05:45.800feel they're alienated from his vision of the party in. And I have to say, I've had some criticism,
07:05:50.760especially in the last few days from Peter McKay loyalists and supporters that think I have a
07:05:55.800vendetta against Peter McKay because I've been critical of him. And I would defend that by saying
07:06:00.320two things. Number one, I've had to be critical in the absence of any opportunity to ask a question
07:06:05.500beyond that one question at a press conference after the debate. And the fact that we've offered
07:06:11.220numerous opportunities to interview, to debate, to do more interviews, we couldn't even get a
07:06:16.060campaign official from McKay on the show today, which would have been a very light, easygoing,
07:06:22.180friendly interview just about the campaign. So I've had to be very critical because of the
07:06:26.820disdain that McKay has had towards us and other independent journalists that are trying
07:06:31.900to cover the race. And I mean, the dirty little secret I'll let you all in on is that I've had
07:06:36.920nothing against McKay. In fact, I had a lot of respect for him when he was in cabinet and I've
07:06:42.220had pleasant interactions with him in the past years ago. And when the race started, I, despite
07:06:47.340thinking, you know, maybe I'm not a fan of the red Tory thing. There are lots of red Tories that I
07:06:52.080sat down with and had great chats with like Rudy Husney, like Marilyn Gladue. And I would have
07:06:56.600happily done the same thing with Peter McKay. And as we've said, given everyone and every candidate
07:07:01.400a fair shake. So my frustrations with McKay have had more to do with how he's treated media during
07:07:08.160the campaign than any of his policies. And as I believe you mentioned earlier, when I was prepping
07:07:14.120for the debate and when we were prepping for the debate and the fireside chats and looking at the
07:07:18.560platform, there wasn't anything really objectionable in Peter McKay's platform. It really just comes
07:07:24.140down to his conduct. And I think there is a cautionary tale there for McKay and for other
07:07:29.020candidates that it isn't just about your values, your beliefs, your platform, but the way that you
07:07:34.660engage with people and the way that you don't engage with people. And that remains to this day
07:07:40.260my only issue with the McKay campaign and with McKay. Those are really good points. I've said
07:07:45.400it several times. I try to keep an open mind with Peter McKay. And if he does win tonight, I think
07:07:49.760that I'll have to take another opportunity to try to get to know him and to keep an open mind
07:07:54.600about what he could stand for. But what you talk about is his sort of reluctancy to go into rooms
07:08:01.680where he's unfamiliar and to go in and engage with different kinds of conservatives, that
07:08:06.500does seem like a big red flag, especially given in light of some of the conversations
07:08:11.360that we've had tonight with guests and just among ourselves about this issue of not just
07:08:16.740unity within the party, but national unity.
07:08:19.040And there are some really, really big questions and problems on the horizon that the leader
07:08:24.140will have to really, really, you know, invest themselves into addressing and understanding
07:08:30.100and trying to solve and what we've seen from mckay is sort of a reluctancy to engage with the
07:08:35.460grassroots of the conservative party be it independent media like us or you know going
07:08:40.180into other rooms where people might not be as receptive to him and trying to win people over
07:08:45.060and it doesn't really seem like that's something that peter mckay has been all that willing or
07:08:49.460interesting to do now maybe if he wins tonight becomes leader of the party he'll be forced to
07:08:54.580do that and to to branch out and to broaden his appeal not just you know to the more
07:09:00.820establishmenty kind of mainstream uh laurentian elites in ontario and quebec but also really you
07:09:08.180know doing things that resonate uh with with the grassroots trying to connect with people
07:09:14.180in other parts of the country and and really trying to understand a little bit more you know
07:09:18.420what's what's going on in western canada what's going on in alberta how can we uh create policies
07:09:23.460that bring this whole country together and, you know, not just conservative voters, but all
07:09:28.080Canadians. Very much so. And I would point out as well that with Peter McKay and Aaron O'Toole and
07:09:34.620all of the candidates in the race, I said something on my show that I think bears repeating
07:09:39.360to this audience as well. A candidate is never going to be more conservative than when they are
07:09:44.660seeking the conservative leadership. They're never going to be more accessible to conservative
07:09:49.200media than when they're seeking the conservative leadership. They might maintain, they might get a
07:09:53.840little bit less so, but they're never going to be more so. And I think that's hugely important for
07:09:58.120a few reasons. Number one, if someone isn't going to do an interview with conservative media
07:10:02.440when they are only seeking conservative votes, it's very difficult to imagine circumstances
07:10:09.180under which in a general election, they would take the time to speak to conservative media. So
07:10:13.080that's a big issue with Peter McKay. And by the way, I mean, if he is the winner tonight,
07:10:17.980We're going to send an invitation to his campaign for a sit-down interview at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
07:10:23.480And that invitation will be genuine and it will be a frank, candid, open discussion.
07:10:28.560But I'm just not optimistic that they would accept given that they haven't up until this point.
07:10:34.100And I think there is something in that to learn when it comes to policies.
07:10:38.380When leadership campaigns are giving you red meat policies, you're probably not going to get everything in a general election platform, but you're going to get some things.
07:10:47.180If a campaign is not giving you any of those things, they're never going to get more conservative and more bold. So you have to understand that. And the idea of the safe, cautious route, if they're doing that this early, it's not going to get any better after the leadership is over.
07:27:43.880We are, and there are 400 points available
07:27:46.760in the province of Prince Edward Island,
07:27:49.280in alphabetical order each candidate has earned the following leslin lewis has earned 96 points
07:27:59.040peter mckay has earned 206 points erin o'toole has earned 55 points and derek sloan has earned 43 points
07:28:11.600Thank you very much and in French, Leslyn Lewis had 96 points, Peter McKay had 206 points, Erin O'Toole had 55 points and Derek Sloan had 43 points. Thank you very much.
07:28:26.600Thank you very much. Our next province is we're going to the province of Saskatchewan where we're going to be hearing from Kelly Block and Randy Hoback. So Kelly and Randy, do we have you on the line yet?
07:28:37.320Thank you Lisa. In Saskatchewan we have 1400 points in play and the results in alphabetical
07:28:45.080order are Leslie Lewis 554 points, Peter McKay 224 points, Erin O'Toole 369 points,
07:28:56.760and Derek Sloan 252 points. Over to you Kelly.
07:29:06.600de 1400 points. Leslie Lewis a obtenu 554 points. Peter McKay a obtenu 124 points. Erin
07:29:25.040The keynote tour has obtained 369 points.
07:34:38.600Erin O'Toole, 3414, Leslie Lewis, 2557, and Derek Sloan, 2073, and we are going to be able to see a live shot from the candidates' suites, and we're going to pull that up for you as we announce the results for the national vote.
08:14:43.500In the coronavirus era, the COVID-19 era, this wasn't possible.
08:14:48.060So every candidate had their own viewing party.
08:14:50.680The footage that we saw after the results were announced was actually a live feed of the O'Toole viewing party where he had his family and team there.
08:14:58.380So what happens now, according to Conservative Party of Canada spokesperson, Corey Hahn, is all of the people that are in the O'Toole campaign now make their way to the Conservative studio, which I believe is at the next door Shaw Centre, if memory serves.
08:15:14.820And that part, I don't know for sure. And then Aaron O'Toole will speak from where the party is set up.
08:15:20.440So it's not a long walk, but it is a bit of a walk.
08:15:23.460And if everyone's wanting to celebrate him and pop champagne corks and shake his hands,
08:15:27.620this migration might take a bit of time.
08:15:30.140I think we are, you know, some 10 to 12 minutes after announcing the results.